As soon as Flash finished working that day, he didn’t walk home; he ran.
“Mr. Light! Mr. Light!” he called as he skidded to a halt right in front of the cottage door. “Mr. Light!” He bent over with his hands on his knees panting like a winded dog. Maybe running wasn’t such a good idea.
Twilight opened the door, saw Flash panting, and exclaimed, “Flash? What are you—Did you run all the way here from the mountains just to get here sooner?”
“Maybe,” he replied with a weak chuckle. “Where’s your father? I need to talk to him.”
“I just got here,” a voice said behind Flash. Flash turned around and saw Night Light and Shining Armor standing behind him with their wagons. “What do you need to see me for?’
Flash stood up, took a breath, and presented a package that he had been carrying under his arm.
“Pinkie Pie needs this package delivered into town,” Flash replied. Night Light and his two children stared back at Flash as if he had asked them to poke a sleeping bear. Twilight was the first to find her voice.
“Flash, Father doesn’t accept packages,” she said.
“Actually, according to Limestone, he doesn’t accept packages from Sunset Shimmer and her ilk,” Flash corrected. “I’m assuming she means people who are involved in the feud. Pinkie isn’t involved in the feud. In fact, she and her family aren’t even from Griepsburg, so I don’t see why Mr. Light can’t deliver this for her.”
Twilight bit her lip as she shared a worried look with her father and brother. She would rather have had her tongue cut than admit it, but Flash was right. Night’s facial expression, however, changed from worry to curiosity.
Night Light held his hands out to take the package from Flash and asked, “Does it have an address?”
“It does,” Flash answered before pulling out a wrinkled crayon drawing from his pocket, “but I’m not sure it’s the right one. She needs it sent to this house, but neither of us knew the address, so she just wrote down her best guess.”
“Hold on, why would some strange girl from the mountains want to send a package to that house specifically?” Twilight interrupted, eyeing Flash suspiciously as her father inspected the house in the drawing and compared it to the mental image that he had of the building located at the address written on the package.
“She saw the drawing and wanted to cheer up the kids in it.”
“So, she just happened to see a picture of some sad kids and just happened to want to help? Completely unprompted?”
“Of course.” That was only partially true. Pinkie only saw the drawing because Flash showed it to her, and mailing the package to them was his idea. However, Pinkie had been more than happy to go along with it when he had told her, and she did assemble the package all on her own.
“This address is correct,” Night said to Flash. “I don’t know how your friend could have guessed it so accurately, but she did. Did she give you the money for postage?”
Flash pulled out a small, pink coin sack and gave it to the postman.
“It’s three coppers a pound for packages, right?” Flash asked for clarification. Night Light took the coin sack and nodded.
“I’m going to have to take this to the post office to be weighed, but assuming that your friend paid the right amount, I think I’ll have time to deliver this before dinner tonight,” Night Light replied.
To Night Light’s surprise, the little pink sack contained EXACTLY the right amount of money to pay for the package’s postage, and true to his word, he returned to town with the package. He found the house in the crayon drawing, approached the front door, and rang the bell. The door opened with an ominous creek, and Night Light found himself staring down the barrel of a rifle.
“Leave before I start counting,” the gun’s owner threatened.
“Ma’am, it’s Mr. Light the postman,” Night Light tried to explain, trying not to panic. “This is going to sound crazy, but someone from out of town sent you a package.
“A package? From out of town?” The rifle’s owner lowered the gun and stepped forward revealing herself to be a middle-aged woman with pale gray skin and turquoise hair that was hidden under a red bonnet. Her coat and dress were also in different shades of red. “My boys and I don’t know anyone from out of town.”
Before either Night Light or the woman could say another word, a five-year-old boy excitedly burst through the door and took the package from Night Light. Like his mother, his red clothes indicated that he was a member of the Wood clan. His skin was the color of the sky on a sunny day, and his hair was black tipped with electric blue.
“Oh boy!” he cheered. “We got a package? What’s in it? What’s in it?”
“Cerulean Brush, put that down! You don’t know what’s in it!” his mother scolded, but her words went unheeded.
“Sid!” the boy called inside the house, as he started to tear off the brown-paper wrapping. “We got a package!”
An older boy with blue-gray skin and jet-black hair came out of the house just as Cerulean Brush finished ripping the wrapping off. Cerulean lifted up the lid of the box, and a blast of air blew out of it with a squeaky honk sending colorful pieces of paper flying in all directions.
The mother and her two sons jumped back and screamed, covering their faces with their arms. They were clearly expecting something worse to follow, but nothing happened. The woman lowered her arms with a relieved sigh before berating her younger son.
“This is why we don’t open packages!” she screamed. “You’re lucky this turned out to be a dud, or—!”
“Mama, wait,” her older son interrupted, “I don’t think that was meant to hurt us.” He stepped closer to the package and looked inside it. He gasped and reached his hand in as a smile grew on his face. “Lean! Mama! Take a look at this!”
From out of the box, Sid brought out a little wooden boy with strings attached to two wooden bars. The wooden boy was wearing bright blue overalls, a red cap with a little blue feather, and a small, red bowtie. Most endearingly, it had the sweetest blue eyes and a friendly smile painted on its face.
“It’s a little person,” Sid cheered. He started fiddling with the bars and the strings, making the marionette move. “Cool!” After some more experimentation, he quickly mastered maneuvering the marionette and made it do a little dance.
His little brother laughed at the silly dancing boy before looking inside the box himself. He squealed with delight when discovered that the package contained one more gift inside. Lean pulled out a shiny wooden box painted in red and white. On the side of a box was a little crank.
Night Light could see Sid and Lean’s mother reaching for her rifle to aim at the box but stepped forward and stopped her.
“It’s alright,” the postman assured. “I know what it is. It’s not dangerous.”
The mother looked as if she was about to question him, but before she could, her youngest son began to turn the crank. To both his surprise and delight, music began to play, so he kept turning it. The music continued to play with each turn until suddenly...
“Ah!” Lean screamed as smiling pink clown on a spring popped out of the box. Lean waited with bated breath for something else to happen, but the toy clown just continued to bounce and smile. Unsure what to do next, Lean turned to the postman and asked, “Now what?”
“You push the doll back inside, close it, and turn the crank again,” Night Light explained.
Lean did as Night Light had instructed, and once again, the clown sprang out of the box. This time, Lean shrieked with laughter before pushing the clown back into the box and repeating the cycle.
The two brothers each played with their new toys for a while laughing as they did so. Then, the two of them switched toys and continued to play some more. Night Light couldn’t help but smile himself, seeing their happy faces. He tipped his hat to Sid and Lean’s mother saying his goodbyes and went on his way. Meanwhile, the boys’ mother kept looking from her now smiling children to their new toys to the now empty box, wondering why a stranger would go through all the trouble just to make her boys happy.