Rarity's wrong about everything!!!
Hey, where'd ya go?
Plates rattled and wooden spoons clacked to the floor as the dust settled in the kitchen of Sugarcube Corner. The cacophony of startled birds died off in the distance. If someone looked out the window, they may see Fluttershy vainly fly back and forth over the rooftops, unsure which individual to attempt to chase down and aggressively console first, before hanging limp in the air like a puppet and shaking her head with a frustrated pout.
"Pinkie," Twilight softly objected from under the counter. "We haven't even said anything yet." She and Spike crawled back out.
"Oh," Pinkie blushed with a smile. "Sowwy~..."
They stared at one another for several seconds. Pinkie cleared her throat and continued mixing eggs and flour, more rapidly and more "more" than was strictly needed.
"A-hrm-hrm to you too," Twilight awkwardly cleared her throat. "So, um, we're here about the boat trip..."
"Mm-hmm," Pinkie glared suspiciously with her chin up, still whisking.
"And we'd like to hear your story of what happened. And um, please don't shout."
"I bet you would," Pinkie sniffed haughtily. She double-took her mixing bowl and blinked, her whisking slowing to a confused halt. "Uuuuuh... Lemme check the recipe and I'll be right witcha."
I felt really down that morning. Tail down, ears down, and what really got my attention: hair down! Oh yeah, you heard me.
That told me I was gonna have a fight with my friends. And I didn't like that, because for one I don't like fighting my friends 'cause I like my friends and fighting isn't fun and it's really pretty lousy and a waste of time you could spend partying and laughing and being friends instead of being jerks, and the other reason is that even a dummy like me knew this meant the boat trip was gonna be a bust and I really wanted to go on a super fun party boat trip, and the other other reason is now that I knew I was gonna fight with my friends I was already in a bad mood and was probably gonna fight with my friends just because I knew I was gonna fight with my friends. Ya know??
You know~.
And y'know what else ya know? I put a lot of work into all that good stuff I brought on the trip, ya know! A lot! That's two words! Why do we tell ponies it's one word? That just makes them spell it alot because it's one word so they don't think a space goes there. And then you confuse them even more with allot which is a different word and if I didn't like talking so much I'd think talking was really really dumb. I know you like to talk too, Twilight, you can't tell me you don't think it's more trouble than it oughta be sometimes with all these words, right?
So anywaysies I made all these sweets and you probably already heard that the boat sunk so we didn't get to eat it. Not even the salt water taffy! It coulda been saltwater salt water taffy! Gummy tried to filch the donuts and I guess I shoulda let him since no one got to eat them. Well no, that's not truesies.
What is true is I boxed all the sweets 'n' boxed the pinata 'n' boxed my shadow 'n' then I thought two things.
The first thing I thought was I didn't know what else to pack for a boat trip. So I just went 'n' got what I'd pack for a regular trip. Y'know, a sleepin' bag, a mat to put under the sleeping bag, rocks and sticks to make a fire, buncha other stuff 'n' some bouncy balls!
The second thing I thought was heeeey, how'm I gonna carry all this stuff? Now I know what you're gonna say. You're gonna say what Rarity said. And I know what Rarity said: She said I put it all in my hair and had a big ol' poofy head. Right?
Well I didn't! I got a really big sack and --
W-what?
... That's exactly what Rarity said?
..... Well gee. Umsies.
So um, I got a big ol' sack and I just kinda dumped everything in it, tied it up, 'n' put it on my back, I guess!
Anyway, my hair was gettin' in the way of the bag! And I tried a ponytail, but that didn't help. Then I tried a pompadour but I couldn't stop going wuh-huh-huh thankyouverymuch. Then I tried just wearin' it down but Mrs. Cake freaked out and when I looked at her she looked like a big ol' cupcake. Which I guess is her name but I went with pigtails.
And here we are about 800 words into my story count 'em bookbutt and I'm finally gettin' outta the front door!
I took a big ol' sniff of the nice Ponyville air 'cause I'd been to the ocean before and it stiiiiinks, just ask Izzy Moonbow in another thousand years. The whole way down to the train station I kept lookin' back and forth wonderin' when this fight with my friends was gonna start! ... Probably not before they showed up, now that I think about it.
I got to the train station first and I found that kinda weird because you'd think Applejack would always get up the earliest and Rarity'd always be perfectly on time and I'd show up at the very last second to go "it's not a paaarty without meeee!" and do some craaaazy thing to get onto the train as it was takin' off but nope! I wouldn't'a been able to do that with a giant bag on my back anyway.
I waited for six hours before Rarity showed up! Maybe six minutes. But I think it was six hours. And I waved and she waved and do ponies who do sign language just wave to say hi? Do they have other words to say hi? Because I said "Hiya Queenie! Have ya seen Applejack?" and she got ruuuuude.
"Oh posh!" she sigh-coughed at me. Yes, she sighed and she coughed at the same time! HHhchCOOOUGH. Whattyou call that? Scoughing? You know how we talked about how words are dumb? Like scoffing. Ponies think scoffing is that sigh-cough noise that all the Rarities of the world use to pronounce any consonant but scoffing isn't a noise you make, it's a tone of voice that makes you sound like Rarity. Right? Something like that? Anyway she did that sigh-cough thing, HhchHOoUugh. "However should I know, dummy, darling? I don't know what she gets up to on that dirty nasty no-good very gross farm of hers. Not shower, I can tell you that. Or bathe or wash or other words of that sort nyeeeeehhh whine whine."
I thought I was bein' a good friend by not lettin' Rarity be a party-pooping prickly-pony pest before we even got on the train, so I said: "Maybe she ran into a gator-gopher! Maybe she accidentally crossbred a starbapple! Maybe a new cultivar is aggressively spreading across the farm like a kudzu vine! Haha, that's a funny word. Kudzu-wudzu-ba-dudzu. Could you cuts you a kudzu? Pfffhahahsnort!"
Ooooh, IIIII'm sorry, did I snort agaaaain? Rarity doesn't like when I snort. Snoooort. Oops, happened again, better not tell her, SNOOOOOORT, oh wow, they just keep going they're outta control, SNOOORT SNOOaaahackcoughcoughokaythatsenough.
She just smiled and nodded and stared at me like I was nuts. ... Whattya mean that's how she always looks at me?!
Anyway, who should show up on the horizon but Applejack, looking like the colts' fashion version of Daring-Do, y'know, the jacket 'n' the fedora 'n' all that. "Hoooooold yer horses, pardner!" she called out, backlit against the sun. She reared up and yip-yip-yeeehaw'd and kicked three cans up into the sky and shot 'em down with a BB gun she held in her teeth! ... Eh. I admit it was kinda cool. I've seen yip-yip-yeehaw-ier. Then she skipped up lookin' real proud of herself.
But Rarity wasn't having it, because Rarity never has anything but temper tantrums. "Applejaaaaaaaack waaaaaaah! Where the heeeeck have you beeeeeen booohooohoooo?!"
Applejack slapped her hat onto the ground. "I tole you, Mizz Rarity," she growled in that outrageously low, gruff voice she has like a fat colt you're trying to talk to but he won't stop eating every other kid's applesauce, how does anyone have so many Magic the Gathering cards to trade for applesauce, anyway she says, "I tole you once, I tole you a hunned times, no free mare lives on another mare's timetable." She spit on the ground 'n' narrowed her eyes and they stared each other down for a bit and a cool whistle ditty played.
"You're being silly and dumb like Pinkie," Queenie sniffed with her nose up. Like I said, rude.
"You always got a stick up yer butt," Applejack rumbled, which was also rude but totally true, and she picked up her hat and shook it off and put it back on, wiggling it with a squeak-squeak.
I looked back and forth and neither of 'em were saying anything else so I tried. "Travelin' light this time, Queenie?" I put a big ol' smile on and my patented Friend Eyes so she couldn't possibly get mad.
Except for Applejack ruinin' it. "Have a run-in with a bandito, did ya, madam? Uwaaa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ho!" She has the throatiest laugh, she's like an oil baron, remember that one time those eco-themed superheroes mistook us for bad guys and whooped us because of her? ... No? Just me? I mean I can't blame ya for wantin' to forget that but.
"Madam means oooooold I'm not ooooold shut up both of you waaaaaahh," Rarity said, and we got on the train.
I tried to play look-boop with them where ya look and see things out the train window and them boop 'em on the nose and they both yelled at me and breathed fire on me and told me I was annoying and dumb and fat so I stopped and I'm not fat I'm just happy you jerks oughta try it sometime.
The Shoals've got boats and fresh seafood and retirement homes so you know they're a tourist hot spot and we split up when we got there 'cause we were all interested in a different tourist trap!
I joined the old ponies at bingo and got kicked out for. Reasons. Just reasons. I'm pretty sure the old guy who ratted me out was Princess Luna in a mustache. I swear! It was totally her! We'll go down there sometime and see if she's there again!
Soooooo for luuuuunch we had Seaward Shoals Slow-Soaked Shore-Shelled Seaweed!
Seaward Shoals Slow-Soaked Shore-Shelled Seaweed!
Seaward. Shoals. Slow. Soaked. Shore. Shelled. Seaweed. Gosh you're as bad as Applejack 'n' Rarity. I know those tubby girls love to eat, the least they could do is remember the names of their helpless victims as they devour their entrails.
Anyway I thought it was pretty good, but Rarity wouldn't shut up about how the best it was. "My word darling it's so darling it's darlingously delectably oooooo," or some crud like that! You ever think Rarity doesn't actually know a lotta words so she just stuffs darling and magnifique in to mean everything? Oh nonono Twilight don't start talking about literally I'm sorry we're off-track we're tangential to the thesis MY STORY IS VERY SCIENTIFIC PLEASE LISTEN.
So since Rarity was bein' Rarity - the reflexive property, see, scientific - Applejack had to get all nuh-uh about it. There was one gust of wind while she stared us down. "Mizz Rarity, this seaweed is like fool's gold... it looks like gold ta th' untrained eye... but it's got no stem 'n' no..." No, uh, what the hecksies did she say, it didn't make any sense, I don't remember it very well. It doesn't matter, I'd bet my best cupcake recipe she liked it just fine and was just being Applejack. Reflexive property science.
And you know what makes me mega super-duper ultra mad?! When we got to the hotel they only gave us two beds! And of course Rarity was all "waaaaah Pinkie's too fat to share a bed with waaaaah" and I had to sleep on the floor so lucky me I brought a sleeping bag so I just rolled that out while Rarity and Applejack were arguing and waited for them to notice between all the "you're dirty and gross" and "you're a plumb ornery git".
Did you know Rarity takes two hours to shower?! Two hours!! Fluttershy takes half an hour and she can barely fit her whole tail in the darn stall, who the heck takes two hours?!
And ya know what? When we woke up she was already in there. So Applejack said the nicest thing she said to me on the entire trip, which is, "Let's not waste our time waitin'," and we just got dressed and left! My hair was a disaster! ... Like more than usual! Applejack looked great, I dunno how she does it, Rarity thinks she's absorbed the concept of being dirty to make it part of her charm or something like that.
How do I know it was two hours? Because that's how long after we left and took another look around the shops and then waited for her at the boat that she finally showed up at the stupid dock!
You know what was there on time? Her luggage. All twelve giant chests of it. "Yooohoooooo!" I heard the distinct call of a princess, no offense Twilight. "Can anyone pweeaaaase do a little lifting for lazy good-for-nothing get-a-colt-to-do-it little old meeeeeeee?"
And like six dudes started pickin' that crud up and puttin' it on the boat!
Do you know what Rarity said when she saw me? No go on, guess. ... WRONG. She said: "Pinkie, my word, you look like a bog-witch! What the devil happened to your hair! Imagine what will happen when the wind picks up!" Which I should remind you was her fault.
I coulda ate her alive, ya know. Little willowy thing like her, two bites, CHOMP CHOMP. But no. I smiled. "Aw, Rarity!" I beamed at her. "My hair's always a mess in the wind! One time a fish got blown in there, I dunno how that happened! Hey, where'd Applejack go? She was right here!" 'cause Applejack was right there and I guess she got tired of waiting for Rarity's slow butt so she musta wandered off.
"Nyeeeh well it wasn't my turn to watch her nyeeeeehh," Rarity said, ugh.
"Still here!" Applejack yipped, and to make sure everyone remembered she'd been there for years and years, she stomped a giant crater in the earth like she was puttin' her hoofprints on the Applewood Walk of Fame!
So we got on the boat in a hurry, and oh! We didn't hire any crew! Applejack said she could do it!
Do you guys know Applejack has a really weird concept of being honest. No, I understand, that's a really weird thing to bring up right now, but Applejack sometimes just doesn't let you know about stuff that's really important, such as, oh, I dunno, THAT SHE HAS MEGA LAND LEGS.
That's right. Applejack, our boat-steering -- horse... pilot -- THE BOAT-STEERER got seasick the INSTANT SHE WAS ON THE BOAT!!!
I'm sorry, I promised not to yell, didn't I. Ooourgh, I just wanna throw a pillow at her head. A pillow that I sprayed to smell like beans. Wait, does Applejack like the smell of beans? She's a buckaroo, they like beans, right? What smell does Applejack really not like? Oh! Rarity's nasty perfume! I can spray it with that!
Rarity is on yachts all the time and I do parties for spoiled rich kids where I balance on a ball in the water so neither of us can get seasick anymore. We've built up an immunity to the seasick virus. Twilight, I love you, but I gotta be honest, shush, I'm obviously making a joke here, of course seasickness isn't a virus, you're as bad as Rarity and I'm sorry please don't cry.
So the whole time we're on the boat, Applejack is blue-and-green in the face and stubbornly trying to steer the boat and doesn't wanna do anything. She wouldn't eat Rarity's watermelon sandwiches or any of the stuff I baked. She wouldn't hit the pinata. She couldn't even look at the weird map thingy she brought!
Rarity didn't wanna hit the pinata either. And I mean, I guess it wasn't a very big boat, and she coulda stumbled and fell off, so just this once I'll take the minus one and admit maaaaybe that was the wrong place wrong time for a pinata.
I spent like an hour or two trying to get them to do something. Anything. And then Rarity pulled out her pickle sandwiches and I was like--
Huh? ... Wait, hors d'oeuvres and appetizers aren't the same thing? I don't know what the difference is! I just put it in my mouth!
Anywaysies I was like "Oh wowie-zowie! I brought snackies too!" And I had to dig around in the bag a little bit and there really wasn't any room on the little table Rarity brought so I just kinda dumped bags of chocolates and candies onto the deck. "Who wants warheaaaads?"
Then I remembered Applejack was sick and I shouldn'ta said that.
And Rarity was like "Oh pffft ohohoho pffft Pinkie, my dear fat Pinkie pfffft perhaps later you idiot OOoOOHhohoho have an avocado sandwich!"
And then the boat sank.
Pinkie sat there staring past them at nothing for twenty seconds. The two of them slowly turned to see if there was a giant bug on the wall or something.
"Uh," Twilight eventually broke the silence, turning back. "Pinkie?"
"I'm tryin' to figure out how the stupid boat sank," Pinkie thought, her brows furrowed. "If all Rarity's luggage didn't tip the darn thing over I don't see how any of us coulda done it. I had a fortune in that bag, ya know. Some of the games I brought aren't even sold anymore!"
"How'd you get back to shore?" Spike prompted.
"Oh, ya know what?" Pinkie "snapped" a hoof like fingers, "I bet it was because dumb Rarity dropped my sour warheads in the water. That musta caused an explosion and capsized the boat!"
"I don't know about that," Twilight tilted her head, frowning.
"Trust me, Twilight, they were real fizzy," Pinkie insisted.
"You know what this means, of course," Twilight said to Spike with a sigh.
"No one's gonna answer my question?" he pouted.
"We gotta try to get the truth out of Applejack..." Twilight mumbled in a monotone.
"Ha!" Pinkie tossed her head. "Good luck with that Pinkie Promise-perverting produce-pony!"