The following afternoon, Mr. Crimson asked Lemon Zest to help him clean the auditorium. While he swept the seating area, she was to sweep the front- and backstage areas. With her pop playlist blaring in her headphones, she sang and danced as she pushed her broom up and down the stage. At one point, she even imagined herself as one of her favorite rock stars, performing before a cheering audience. Once she was finished, she went behind the curtain.
As she swept the stage left wing, she came upon a plastic bin with its lid off. She walked over to replace the lid but stopped when she glimpsed the contents of the bin. There, atop a jumble of clothes was a neon yellow sweatshirt. Curious, she held it over her torso and found it to be just her size. Then an idea took shape in her head.
Lemon rummaged deeper into the bin. A minute of searching yielded an identical sweatshirt, as well as a plastic bag containing two pairs of bright orange legwarmers. The clothes in these bins were no doubt leftover costumes from the drama department's latest production: their adaptation of an iconic dance movie from the 1980s.
She rolled up the sweatshirts and stuffed them along with the legwarmers into her book bag. I'm just going to borrow these items, she thought to herself. They would find their way back into the drama department's hands after she was done with them. Once she had finished cleaning the backstage area, she returned her broom and dustpan to Mr. Crimson.
With her volunteer custodial assignment complete, she strode over to the girls' restroom near the auditorium. As luck would have it, nobody else was present, evidenced by all of the stall doors being open. She walked over to the stall at the far end and pulled its door shut. Even without the deadbolt in place, the door held tight against the partition, requiring just a tiny bit of effort to push open once more.
Lemon grinned. She had used this very stall a week ago and was aware of its quirk. It was a good thing that nobody had fixed it yet. This stall would make a perfect "launch point" for what she was planning. As she reached out to grab the exit door handle, it suddenly swung open. She halted in her tracks as Upper Crust entered the restroom.
"Lemon Zest," the other girl said curtly. As usual, she regarded Lemon as though her classmate were a bum on the street.
Lemon nevertheless did not miss a beat. "Hey, Upper Crust! How goes it?"
"Well enough, thank you for asking."
As Upper Crust brushed past her, Lemon noticed something dangling from her classmate's neck - a metallic downward facing hand with an eye in the middle of its palm.
"What's that?" Lemon asked, pointing at the trinket.
"Insurance," Upper Crust said as she pulled a compact from her bookbag. "Against evil spirits."
Lemon snickered. "You're not serious, are you?"
Upper Crust scowled at her. "If you saw what came after me and Jet Set in the library, you'd wear one too. Now, if you'll excuse me..."
With that, Upper Crust proceeded to touch up her eyeshadow. Lemon stifled her laughter as she exited the restroom. Once she had gotten a good distance down the hall, she burst out laughing. Several students gave her puzzled looks, wondering what she found so amusing. She chortled all the way back to the residence hall.
Upon returning to her room, Lemon shed her Academy uniform. She then tried on each of the sweatshirts and legwarmers to make sure that they fit, and they did. If a shirt fit on her, it would definitely fit Indigo Zap as well. She texted Indigo to come to her room as soon as possible.
When Indigo arrived half an hour later, she did not quite know what to make of seeing her friend clad in what appeared to be retro exercise wear.
"Whatcha doing, making a workout video?"
"I'll explain in a moment. But first I gotta ask, did you ever take ballet?"
Indigo twisted her mouth. "My parents put me in a class when I was six. They pulled me out a week later after I decked a girl who said I moved like a pregnant yak. Why do you ask?"
"I've got an idea. Empty your bookbag."
At six o'clock, Lemon and Indigo emerged from the former's room. As with their previous outing, they left their accessories behind. Bookbags in hand, they descended the central staircase all the way to the first floor. As they walked past the cafeteria's open doors they casually glanced inside. At least two dozen of their classmates sat scattered throughout the tables chatting and eating dinner - among them, Suri Polomare and Upper Crust.
"A decent-sized crowd," whispered Lemon.
Indigo grinned. "Including our favorite customers."
They rounded a corner and Lemon stashed the sweatshirts and legwarmers atop a hallway locker, out of view to casual observers. They then continued over to the restrooms near the auditorium. At this hour, almost nobody walked this part of the Academy, so the chances of somebody discovering them were very slim. Once they were inside the girls' restroom, they walked all the way to the last stall and entered it.
Inside, they disrobed. The tile floor was chilly on their bare feet, even more than that of the locker room. Lemon positioned her shoes in front of the toilet. Just the mere sight of shoes below the stall partition was enough to deter most folks from entering. As an extra measure, she removed the toilet paper roll and tied one sleeve her blazer around the holder and the other sleeve to the safety rail. She then removed her skirt and draped it from her blazer, hovering over her shoes just enough to conceal the absence of legs.
They tucked their remaining clothes into their book bags, which they then hung from the safety rail. After one last glance at their smartphones' clocks, they took their synchronized dose of the invisibility powder. They stepped out of the stall and Lemon secured the door just as she had earlier. Back in the hall, they retraced their steps to where they had stashed the sweatshirts and legwarmers.
Indigo snickered as she pulled on her sweatshirt. "I feel like a cartoon pig."
"Think of this as the ballet recital you never had."
Once they had donned the garish dance clothes, they strode over to the cafeteria.
Inside the cafeteria, Sunny Flare, Sour Sweet, and Sugarcoat sat at a table eating their dinner. The evening's menu consisted of macaroni and cheese, sauteed string beans, and snickerdoodles. As usual, Sunny, traded her snickerdoodle to Sugarcoat for extra spoonfuls of the other items.
Like the rest of their classmates, they had heard about the incident in the library two nights ago. Despite all the hoopla, they had remained skeptical of Upper Crust's claim that she and Jet Set were attacked by a poltergeist, as well as all the rumor now circulating of the Academy being haunted by the restless ghost of Doctor Sombra. When Upper Crust walked by wearing her new amulet, Sunny scoffed.
"I can't believe she sank two hundred dollars on that silly trinket."
"Hardly a surprise," said Sour through a mouthful of macaroni. "I hear her family keeps an astrologer on retainer."
"Probably the same quack who sold her that thing."
Sugarcoat's eyes widened as they locked onto something across the room. "Well, I hope it came with a moneyback guarantee."
"Why's that?" asked Sunny.
Without a word, Sugarcoat pointed toward the cafeteria entrance. Sunny and Sour both looked up and their eyes widened at what they saw.
A pair of neon yellow sweatshirts whirled in midair over two dancing pairs of bright orange legwarmers. Within seconds, the entire cafeteria fell silent as the disembodied dance clothes bounded and twirled across the floor, weaving between the tables. Jaws dropped. Trays hit the floor. Upper Crust clutched her amulet as she shrieked. Suri clutched onto her classmate Coco Pommel. Sunny and Sour turned on their smartphones' cameras as the clothes did a double cartwheel past them. Nobody could believe what they were seeing!
The dancing ghosts moved to the center of the cafeteria where they glided and pirouetted in a circle. As they did this, a handful of students ventured near for a closer look. Then suddenly the sweatshirts turned inside out and flopped onto the floor, followed by the legwarmers. Everyone in the cafeteria stared in awe at the now lifeless clothes. It was only a moment before the room erupted into a cacophony of whispers.
"The Academy really is haunted!"
"It's the ghost of Sombra!"
"No, the ghosts of his victims!"
"See? I told you!" cried Upper Crust.
A few brave souls warily approached the pile of clothes on the floor. One student nervously poked at it with his shoe, as though expecting its components to suddenly spring back to life.
Sunny and Sour replayed the videos they had taken on their smartphones, comparing each other's recordings of the bizarre spectacle they had just witnessed. They had seen plenty of weird things at Canterlot High School during the Friendship Games, but they never imagined that they would see such things here at Crystal Prep! They then noticed that Sugarcoat had left their table. They glanced up to find their classmate kneeling over the pile of clothes, picking up one of the sweatshirts.
Sour gasped. "What are you doing?"
"That thing might be cursed!" Sunny exclaimed.
Sugarcoat calmly examined the sweatshirt, running her fingers over the fabric. "I'm no occult expert," she said impassively. "But I'm pretty sure that ghosts do not wear antiperspirant."