Today, Sugarcoat were heading outside once again, fully determined to complete the task her mother had given her.
It wasn’t unusually for her to run errands for her parents. At least not since a few weeks ago. But this was not another run to buy milk from the nearby convenience store.
Her destination was her neighbours’ house. She stopped and pondered for a minute when she got to the door.
Her mom always said to knock at a door. ‘Always, always knock!’ she had said. She hadn’t specified how many, though.
After some more pondering, she settled on three knocks. Three was a good number. She extended her arm towards the door when she noticed the doorbell and stopped.
Should she ring the doorbell instead? Doorbells were better than knocks, weren’t they? If you have a doorbell you’d wish for people to ring it, wouldn’t you?
But her mother had insisted that she knock…
Why would she do that when there was a doorbell, though? Surely the doorbell was the superior way to announce your presence at the door.
Could you knock and ring the doorbell…?
After a final ponder, she decided you could.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Pling-plong!
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Pling-plong!
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Pling-plong!
The door swung open just as she pressed the bell for the final time. Inside was an older woman, about her mother’s age, with turquoise skin and a blonde mane of a hairdo.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing you stupid id…” she trailed off when she noticed the little girl in front of her. “Oh… Sorry, kiddo. I thought it was some mor- I mean - weirdo at the door.”
“Hello,” Sugarcoat greeted. “Are you Indigo Zap’s mother?”
“Indeed I am!” she said and struck a pose eerily similar to the one Indigo had made before. “The one and only Lightning Dust! Who are you?”
“My name is Sugarcoat. I am your neighbour. I live in that house.” She pointed towards it. “My mother gave me money for ice cream, but she gave me much more than I needed and when I pointed it out she said to ‘invite the girl next door’. Since I only know of Indigo Zap, I would like to invite her. Is she home?”
Lightning Dust stared at her with an incredulous expression before giving her a strained smile. “Oh, you’re the girl my little Zappy talked about yesterday! Yeah, come on in!” She opened the door to let the girl in. “Indigo is in her room. It’s up the stairs, first room to the right.”
Sugarcoat thanked her and made her way up the stairs.
“Well what do you know?” Lightning Dust mumbled. “There really was a weirdo at the door…”
...
Indigo’s door was wide open, allowing Sugarcoat to enter without thinking about knocking.
Indigo laid on the floor in front of her TV, playing some videogame Sugarcoat didn’t recognise. She paused the game and smiled at her. “Hey, Sugarcoat! What’s up?”
“My mother gave me money for ice cream, but she gave me much more than I needed and when I pointed it out she said to ‘invite the girl next door’. So, given my options, I would like to invite you.”
“Wow, cool!” She bounced up and put on a cap with a pair of goggles on them. “Let’s go then!”
Sugarcoat looked at the goggles. “Those are swimming goggles,” she noted.
“Yea, but then I’m wearing them, they’re running goggles! That way I can run as fast as I can without having my eyes watering.”
“Why would you need them if we’re going to get ice cream?”
“Because I’ll race ya!” And with that she took off running, leaving a stunned Sugarcoat. When she finally got down the stairs, Indigo was already far down the street.
As she was struggling to put her shoes back on, Sugarcoat noticed that Indigo had left hers behind.
The closest place to buy ice cream was a kiosk in the nearby park. So that’s where they headed.
Thankfully, Indigo had lost interest in the race after a few hundred meters, allowing a winded Sugarcoat to catch up with her and give her the shoes.
“Which flavours are you getting?” Indigo asked as they walked.
“I like vanilla,” Sugarcoat replied.
“I like that flavour too!” Indigo beamed. “What else?”
“Just vanilla.”
Indigo frowned. “But we got enough money to get two scoops each.”
“I’ll get two scoops of vanilla.”
“Boooring!” Indigo exclaimed. “I think I’m going to take raspberry ripple and rocky road! Or maybe rum raisin. But I haven’t had chocolate in a while…”
“I don’t like mixing flavours,” Sugarcoat stated.
“But that’s the best part! Especially when you’ve eaten half of it and it has melted and you just mix it up into a new flavour! It’s like getting an extra scoop!”
“I think that spoils the ice cream.”
They kept on the conversation up until they entered the park.
Poulenet Park sat at the very outskirts of Canterlot City. It was a huge, open area covered with emerald green grass and outlined by a sparse forest.
It had a large playground for children to play in, a currently empty football court and an outdoor cafeteria with an ice cream stand right beside it.
They quickly veered off the pathway and onto the grass, heading straight for their goal. They got about halfway there when Indigo spotted two other girls sitting next to a nearby tree and pointed towards the one with rainbow coloured hair.
“Hey! That’s the girl that knocked my tooth out!” she exclaimed and ran towards her.
The girl also spotted Indigo and within seconds they were at each other’s throats.
“I had to go to the emergency room thanks to you!” Indigo growled.
“Hey, I couldn’t help that your stupid face was in the way!” the girl sneered back
“You did it on purpose because I scored a goal and you didn’t!”
“I would have scored if you hadn’t swiped the ball from me!” The girl gave Indigo a shove.
Indigo shoved her back. “Because you were being a total ball hog!”
“Snot brain!”
“Frog face!”
“Skid mark!”
“Grid iron!”
“I think you should apologise,” Sugarcoat said, causing both of them to look at her.
“Nobody asked you, four eyes!” the rainbow-haired girl glared.
Sugarcoat raised an eyebrow at that. “That doesn’t even make any sense. I obviously only have two eyes.”
…
For some reason, both of them stared at her like she’d said something really stupid.
“I-I think you should apologise too, Rainbow…” the pink-haired one piped up.
“But Fluttershy! I--”
“Even if you didn’t mean to, she still had to go to the doctor to make sure she was alright. You should apologise…”
Rainbow frowned and folded her arms. Eventually, she mumbled something unintelligible and moved to leave, but was stopped by the pink-haired girl.
“Rainbow…!”
“Okay, fine!” Rainbow sighed. “I’m sorry I knocked your tooth out.”
“I forgive you,” Indigo replied with a satisfied smirk.
For a second, it looked like Rainbow was about to start arguing again, but Fluttershy grabbed her hand and lead her away.
After all that, they finally reached the stand. Sugarcoat ordered two scoops of vanilla while Indigo settled on raspberry ripple and pistachio after brooding at the list of flavours for several minutes.
On the way back, they opted to take the scenic route, following the path that snaked through the forest.
“Hey, Sugarcoat,” Indigo said as they walked. “You really don’t know what four eyes mean?”
“It means person with four eyes,” Sugarcoat replied. “But I only have two eyes. All humans only have two eyes. Unless they lose one, but they still won’t have--”
“Y’know, let’s just forget about it…”
Sugarcoat frowned.
She really didn’t like it when other people knew something and refused to tell her. She was about to protest when she saw something out of the corner of her eye. A pinecone flying towards her head!
She brought up her hand to block it by reflex. The rim of the ice cream cup in her hand caught her glasses and it slipped out of her hand. It landed in the grass with a wet splat.
Indigo turned her head just in time to see a streak of rainbow disappearing through the trees.
“That little…!”
She was about to run after her when she saw Sugarcoat’s expression. The poor girl's thoughts were stuck in an endless loop.
Should she ask the ice cream woman for a replacement?
But she doubted she would give her one. It wasn’t her fault she had dropped it, after all.
Should she try and salvage what was left of it?
But she didn’t want to eat something that had been on the ground.
She grew more and more frustrated until tears threatened to bubble out of her eyes.
Caught between chasing after the girl and comforting her friend, Indigo chose the latter. “Here,” she said and held out her ice cream. “Have some of mine.”
“That’s your ice cream,” Sugarcoat said.
“And I’m sharing it with you,” Indigo replied. ”It was your mom’s money so it’s not fair if I’m the only one who gets some.”
Tentatively, she reached out and took a spoonful of the raspberry ripple. Some pistachio had already mixed with it, but she didn’t mind it so much.
In fact, it tasted better than any ice cream she’d ever had!