Fallout: Equestria - The Hooves of Fate

by Sprocket Doggingsworth


How We Treat Our Own

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE - HOW WE TREAT OUR OWN

"The test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members." - Pearl Buck




Cliff Diver wasn't feeling emotional education.

Sure, I'd had my moment in the sun. Or rather, I'd let the sun shine into me when Twink and her 2 x 4 o' Friendship split my brain wide open and let the light shine in. Hopefully for good this time.

I didn't need to take the blame for everything anymore. Didn't need to kick myself.

And with Foster's blessing, I moved forward. Told the kids of Safety about the glory of Twinkle Eyes, all without giving away any details that might set any red flags a-flyin'.

Just feelings. The patented Bananas Foster Method for Lying Your Fucking Ass Off About Having Journeyed from Impossible Locations in Equestria's Past.

But Cliff Diver just folded his hooves and resisted the whole thing. He was the weirdo of the group. The pegasus. Nopony knew where he came from. And everypony wanted to know.

So when, toward the end of a long, long, long, long, long group session, Glenn finally said, "How about you, Cliff Diver? Is there anything you'd like to say to the kids back home?" All the children who'd tenderly coaxed a confession out of me were suddenly silent. Eerily awaiting his answer.

Where did Cliff Diver, the gonzo pegasus kid with the broken wings, actually come from? Had he even been a Child of the Stables at all? What was he doing in Safety with a bunch of Stable kids like me?

"I've got nothing to say to them," he replied curtly.

"Nothing?" Glenn inquired, leaning forward on his curled up talons.

"No," Cliff answered. "The kids in the past are all jerks. All my real friends are right here."

He stretched one forehoof out to me. The other to Bananas Foster. And we shared a three way hoof bump.

He wasn't lying either. Cliff Diver really didn't have a use for any of our classmates back home. I'd never given it very much thought, but the Ponyville that I had idealized - that temporal Fortress of Innocence that was to be guarded and protected at all costs. To Cliff? It was just Jerk Town.

Who did he have, really? Me? Foster? Zecora? A couple of geriatric donkeys to play blues music with?

The Safety kids who'd all perched on the edge of their cushions, waiting to see if the Mystery Pegasus was gonna open up, and spill his bean secrets - they just sorta sunk back. Disappointed-like.

Cliff wasn't ready to talk. And every single one of them - even Glenn - was totally 100% prepared to respect that. It was the Safety way.

But damned if they weren't curious.

"I hear you," came a voice. "I don't miss my stable either. No offense to those here who do. Safety is just way better."

Some of the kids around us murmured vaguely in approval.

"We've got skee ball," said the yellow kid sitting next to Pistachio.

Everypony chuckled. Skee-Ball was apparently a tremendous hit.

"Anything else?" Glenn asked the room. "Would anypony like to share before we wrap things up?"

Elderberry Sunset's hoof shot up into the air.

"Of course," Glenn replied. "Go on."

"I just want to say how excited I am to be here," she said, though her voice showed no signs of actual excitement. "...And to share emotional education with the new kids. I'm so happy for you, Rose Petal."

"Oh, um. Thanks." I blushed a little.

"In my stable, we weren't allowed to share our emotions at all. We were discouraged from having them too. So I know how you feel, Cliff Diver."

Cliff recoiled. The stern, resolute expression fell from his face like a boulder that - kaploonk - dropped in the River of Facial Expressions That Are No More "Discouraged from…having emotions?"

"Oh, yes," she replied. "There were a lot of rules in Stable 64."

"But...how did they...how did you...?"

"Everything's regimented," she answered. "And we liked it that way - at least I think we did. We never really talked about what we liked, and what we didn't." A smile spread across Elderberry's face. And a nostalgic sigh escaped her grinning lips as she dreamt of simpler times back in her nightmarish doom stable.

"I'm so sorry," Cliff replied. A simple condolence.

"I know this is hard to accept," Elderberry Sunset answered. "Nopony really understands Stable 64. I don't expect you to. But one thing I've learned here is that every stable kid comes from a different culture, created with a different mission. I don't know why it ended up that way. That's just what the Stable designers did.

'My home was inspired by the marvel of shapes and numbers. Everything had a place. Every inch of ground - marked off with squares. Stand here. Don't stand there."

"That's awful," Cliff said.

Elderberry's eyes sparkled with wonder. "You don't understand!" She said. "It's beautiful. I talk about this every week - but no one really gets it. Staying within your squares is like...a whole universe of order. Of stability. A feeling of home.

'Not like the Wasteland. Where nothing matters. Where everything matters. Where anything can happen, and there's no rules to protect you...I guess that's why I like Safety so much. We have rules. We have classes. We have order. It's kinda mystical really. To be able to sit here. In this circle. Even if I've got no progress to report - nothing in particular to say! This is the one place where you have to feel your feelings. It's the rules."

"But everyone has feelings," Cliff said.

"I know," Elderberry replied, totally nonchalant. "And I understand this is weird for you. But back in Stable 64, so long as nopony felt their feelings, you always knew exactly what to expect. You could always trust Elderberry Sunset to have your best interest at heart. To keep you safe."

"Elderberry Sunset?" I said.

"Oh, yeah," she snorted. "In my stable, none of us had names. I was called 1417-G."

"Pardon?" Foster said.

"1417-G," Elderberry repeated. "We all called each other by our numbers. The only one of us with a real name, didn’t actually have a name at all. Elderberry Sunset was just what we called the eldest amongst us - our matriarch - a title passed down since the war.

'All of us were numbers. Living our lives in humble service to the great mother, Elderberry Sunset." She sighed. "I know it creeps everypony out, but--;"

"No," Foster interrupted.

Elderberry stopped. While all heads turned to Bananas Foster. Like some creepy dance move in a synchronized swimming competition.

"It sounds beautiful," Foster continued. "To have a mother like that. Or a mother figure, I guess."

"It doesn't creep you out?" Elderberry asked.

Bananas Foster shook her head. "Nah. You don't really need a name."

Elderberry giggled. A child's giggle. A normal fucking giggle. The kinda thing you'd expect to hear on the playground back in Ponyville.

"So when you came here," Foster said. "Elderberry Sunset was the name you chose? 'Cause of the memories."

"No," she gasped. "I would never!"

"Oh, geez. I'm sorry."

"The name Elderberry Sunset is a dignity reserved only for the oldest of the herd."

"Oldest?" I said. Looking her up and down. She couldn't be a day over seven. (And probably wasn't even that).

"That's me," said Elderberry Sunset. "Well, the oldest one left."

* * *

Once dismissed, everypony dragged their big red cushions to the wall. Like a wave o' kids sweeping driftwood ashore.

"Hay." Pistachio extended a hoof for bumping.

"Oh, um, hi," I replied. Only to get another hoof in my face. Coming at me from the other side.

Clop. "Thanks." I blushed a little. It was Lemon Drop, the yellow kid who'd sat next to Pistachio. Then Elderberry. Then some kid I didn't know at all. Followed by even more barely-familiar faces. Till at last, I was faced with the mountain of shiny black plumage colloquially known as 'Glenn.'

Massive as he was, he'd somehow managed to sneak up on me in the chaos. "Thank you," he said.

"Huh? For what?"

"For being so open and honest today."

My eyes darted to Foster. And Cliff. Who knew that I had not, in fact, been honest. At least about, you know, having traveled forward in time with my brain.

"Thanks," I replied. "For...uh...thanking me."

"Yes, well, anyway, if ever you have a problem, or even if you just want to talk, we have private emotional education sessions as well." He turned to Cliff and Foster. "Same goes for you. My office is open all day." He gestured a wing at a door in the back of the room. "Drop by any time. If I'm not in session with somepony else, my ears are all yours. Oh!" He clapped his talons together. "And thank you two as well."

"Me?" Cliff said. "For what?"

"You were very good listeners today - both of you."

"That's very kind of you," Foster replied.

We wrapped up our salutations, and conversations, congratulations and celebrations, and drifted out the door. Me and Cliff. Pistachio and Lemon Drop, the girl who'd sat next to him. A whole bunch of other kids whose names I still didn’t fucking know, (even though I had, over the course of two short hours, learned their deepest shames and fears).

Glenn himself slipped into his 'office' - which was basically a broom closet with a desk in it, and walls overflowing with books. Real books. The kind we had back home. Ancient tomes, as Elderberry had so ominously put it. Made out of paper.

The herd swept us toward the door at a lazy pace. But I shoved my way back in.

Oof! "Excuse me….Sorry...eep. If I could just...excuse..." Unngh.

I squiggled on through. Till at last, I made it back to the empty space where the circle o' cushions had been. And found Elderberry standing there all alone. She closed her eyes. Sighed contentedly. Like when you're watching the sunset over a lake, and you really really really reeeeally want it to last forever. But you've gotta say goodbye, so you linger just long enough to steal one final moment in the sun.

I let her be. Wandered to Glenn's office. The flimsy metal door was open only a crack. But a shiny plaque on one of the shelves tossed my eyeballs a reflection of something they clearly weren't meant to see.

Glenn at his desk. Head buried in his wing feathers. Stressed. Or ashamed. I couldn't tell. But the act of watching him twisted a rusty crowbar in my stomach.

It was wrong. Just plain wrong. To spy on his private moment like that! So I took a step back.

Squeak. My hoof slipped on the tile. Glenn jolted up in alarm. Damnit. I lunged forward and knocked quickly. Pretended not to have seen. Floor squeaks are totally normal noises to make if you're...like, approaching confidently. They're only suspicious if you act stupid and try to pretend that they didn't happen.

"Come in," he said. Voice as smooth as butter.

"Ok, um. Hi." I creaked the door open further. Poked my head in.

By the time the griffin caught my eye, he was sitting upright. Calm as the monks of the Chanting Isles. "Oh, hello again, Rose Petal," he said, "What can I do for you?"

"Oh. Um, I dunno." I laughed awkwardly. "I forgot."

"It's okay," he replied. "Take your time."

I tried to shake the answer loose from my brain. Attacked its brain-doors with the battering ram of my conscious will. But it locked up. Tight as Tartarus. While my eyeballs fixated on all the beat up old "tomes" on the walls: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Research and Practice, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: A Field Guide for the Battle Worn; DSM - VII ; In Search of Closure.

"You really taught yourself psycholog...I mean emotional education out of all these old books?"

Glenn nodded. "I'd been doing similar work with griffin soldiers for some time. When we discovered the library of Stable 93, it made a great deal more possible."

"That's pretty awesome," I said with a smile. But that smile soon faded. Mere seconds ago, Glenn had been in distress, and I'd been a jerk and intruded. "Uh...anyway. I should be going. Thanks."

"Wait," said Glenn, a bit too sudden-like. A teensy little gleam of panic flashed across his eyes, then vanished with a blink.

The shock of it nailed my hooves to the floor.

"Can we talk for a second?" He gestured conspiratorially at the door.

I stuck my head out. Found Elderberry still standing around doing nothing. And my friends still waiting in the doorway, glowering at me what-the-fuckishly.

I held up a hoof, mouthed, "Gimme a minute," and shut the door behind me.

Glenn studied me for a moment. Ground his pointy-beak-bits together. It was just a microexpression - the kinda thing I wouldn't have noticed at all if Colonel Wormwood hadn't taught me how. But it felt off. And then, as quickly as it had come, Glenn was his cordial, soothing-ass self again. "You're free to borrow any of the books on the bottom shelf," he said, all soothing and casual-like.

"Uh...That's what you wanna talk to me about?"

Glenn nodded. "Your friends too. Make sure they know."

He unclenched his beak. Unbunched his wings. A sigh of relief. He'd succeeded in avoiding telling me whatever the fuck was really bothering him.

"This is about Cliff Diver, isn't it?"

He held up a wing. As if to tell me, You don't need to say a word.

But I kinda did. 'Cause something had been eating at Glenn. And this was obviously it. Yet still, he'd chosen to shove his library at me rather than, you know, break his code or whatever, and ask me directly.

"Where are the other pegasuses?" I asked. A dumb fucking question that my mouth posed without consulting my brain first.

We're supposed to be blending in! A Rose Voice yelled at me from inside my skull. He's gonna realize we're not from here.

Duh. He already knows we're not from here, Another Rose Voice retorted.

But it's obviouser now! Rose Voice Number Three yelled. We're, like, reeeally not from here.

"Arg! Nopony's from here!" I snapped at myself out loud.

Glenn folded his wings inward. Touched his chest. Scandalized. "The other pegasi?"

One by one, his head feathers stood on their ends like some kinda punk rock griffin or something. "Nopony ever…" He geared up for a line of inquiry, but stopped himself mid-sentence. Ran a wingtip across his scalp. "No, I suppose they didn't. Well, you see, the pegasi are in the clouds."

"Yeah, but...wait, like...all of them? All the time?"

Glenn nodded. "Cliff Diver is only the third pegasus I've ever met face to face."

"But you can fly."

"Below the clouds, certainly. But if I were to breach the cumulus?" Glenn let slip a mirthless chuckle. "The Enclave would not welcome us with open hooves."

"So everypony thinks Cliff is…"

"We don't make presumptions here," Glenn said. "Nopony thinks Cliff is anything. What you need to do is focus on yourself, and your friends. You've been through a lot in the last twenty-four hours. Given your progress during our session today, I'd say you have a lot to reflect upon. Would you agree?"

"Yeah," I said. "I'm just worried about what all this pegasus stuff means for Cliff."

Glenn sighed. "I'll be honest with you, Rose Petal. Fillydelphia is worried right now because they don't know how you three got in, and they're eager to fix the breach in security. It has nothing to do with Cliff Diver, or his wings." Glenn leaned forward over his desk. Spoke in this magic sorta tone that somehow managed to be assertive and calming at the same time. "It's okay to be a pegasus, you understand?"

I nodded. Mesmerized by the sheer gravity of what should have been an obvious fucking statement.

"If anypony here makes Cliff feel otherwise - anypony - I want you to come to me, or Miss Honey right away. Can you do that?"

The emeralds in his eyesockets shimmered with the refraction of some weird flame. They seemed to stab me, and hug me at the same time. Pinning my brain to the spot with a needle of light that somehow pierced my very soul and paralyzed me as eyeball fire poured out of him, burning with a single unmistakable message. I won't let them hurt you. Any of you.

"Okay," I said.

"Now listen very carefully. You've taken the whole world on your shoulders."

"Yeah," I said. "I know. I need to stop that."

"Not at all," Glenn retorted. Casual and conversational-like. His green eyeball lasers gone without a trace. "Sometimes it's all we have. Our drive to save the world. But you need to save the world in manageable doses."

Hearing that - it felt like my face split wide open right down the middle. Like a pair of double doors. And Glenn was reading my entire brain. All at once. And I could see it too.

Every act of desperation. From Trottica to No Mare's Land to the bright idea that I just had to check out Screw Loose's dream-door and discover the demon shadow inquisitor torturer pony thing that she used to be.

It was all the same shit. Rose Petal the Hero biting off more than she could chew.

"That...makes sense," I said.

"Why don't you start by reflecting on what you learned today."

"Okay." I nodded. Slowly. Still adjusting to the strange sensation of having a great big door-face that exposed the secret machinations of my brain to the open air.

"Good. I'm very happy for you." Glenn's beak shifted into a warm smile. "Now, do you have any questions?"

"Yeah."

My heart took to racing. Should I ask about Misty? I mean, Blueberry Milkshake? Oof!
Was she supposed to be a boy or a girl? Or...wait...damnit...we weren't supposed to be letting on at all! Fuck. Damn. Stupid.

"Rose Petal?" Glenn asked.

"Who were the other two pegasi?" I blurted out. "You said Cliff was the third you ever met."

"Oh. Well, a long time ago, I met a pegasus at The Market. It was a brief encounter, so I didn’t get the opportunity to learn very much about her, but she sported a 'Fuck the Enclave' hat to put us all at ease, and much like Cliff Diver, her wings weren't quite right. It's not difficult to imagine what happened."

"They broke her wings? Just cause she didn't like the um...Enclave?"

"Sadly, no," he said.

"They kicked her out," I whispered. "For being broken."

Glenn nodded.

It wasn't just cruel. It was backwards! Against all reason! The Stables were worlds unto themselves - each with a fucked up reality that they inflicted upon the ponies who lived there - but they were still communities. The Wasteland, on the other hoof, was chaos, but it didn't know how to be anything else. Even Trottica enslaved all those kids for the benefit of the jerkfaced grown-ups that they considered citizens.

But the pegasi? They were organized enough to blanket the entire fucking sky with clouds at all times. That meant they had resources. They had structure. They had order. And simply refused to take care of those who needed it the most.

The very thought made me sick. I was gonna have to tell Cliff. It would break his heart to hear it, but he needed to know. To help him fib better. To fit in. To get some of those pesky eyeballs off his back.

"It's awful," Glenn said. "To do that to your own."

"What about the second pegasus?" I asked. "Was she um...broken too?"

"No," Glenn chuckled. "Just the mailmare, Ditzy Doo."

"Oh, yeah. Of course," I said. "Wait, what?!"

"Eeee!" A squeal from the other room.

Glenn swept past me like flowing water. Flung open the door. And there was Elderberry Sunset, leaping up to hug Foster's neck.

"Gah!" Foster plopped down. Elderberry had hugged her too tight. Warmth blasted off of the little filly like fireworks.

Glenn hid his grinning beaklips behind a fan of wingfeathers. While Elderberry strengthened her grip - squeezed Foster till her eyes burst out of her head like ping pong balls,.and blood flew out of the sockets like a fountain, and then Elderberry squeezed her some more and the rest of Foster exploded like she was stuffed full of dynamite and rainbows.

...Okay, that didn't actually happen. But I swear, it looked like it might.

When Elderberry Sunset was done with her monster hug, she extended a hoof for bumping. Foster laughed, coughed, caught her breath, and Clop! Met Elderberry's hoof.

And then, poof! In the blink of an eye, Elderberry was back to her stone cold self again. She walked out the door past an extremely-fucking-bewildered Cliff Diver, and nodded to him politely. Neutrally. As though everything was normal.

"What happened?" Glenn said.

"I'm sorry," Foster rubbed her throat. "It's a secret."

Glenn eyed Bananas Foster. Then me. Then Cliff Diver. Then Foster again. "Well, you certainly are an extraordinary bunch."

"Excuse me," some random colt brushed past Cliff. Into the room. Then another. And another.

Glenn checked the clock on the wall. "I'm terribly sorry," he said to me. "We'll continue this later. In the meantime, try to reflect on what you learned today...And you too." He turned to Cliff and Foster. "Thank you for your…participation."

Glenn stole one final glance at Elderberry as she slipped out the door. The girl seemed to drift. Like some kinda ghost. Back to her old self now that Emo Ed was over.

* * *

Once alone in that shabby hallway, and the last of the stragglers had rushed past us to make it to the next Emotional Education session on time, Cliff finally asked the obvious question.

"What in Celestia's name did you say to Elderberry?"

"Nothing important, really," Foster answered. "I certainly didn't expect a reaction like that."

"But what did you say?"

"Nothing."

Cliff threw Foster a look that could have pierced iron.

"Fine," she sighed. "I told her my real name, okay?"

I couldn't believe it. "You mean, like--;"

"She needed to know she's not alone."

Cliff leaned in close and whispered, even though we had the hallway all to ourselves, "Won't that arouse suspicion?"

Bananas Foster waved a dismissive hoof. Refused to say another word about it.

...Which, of course, left me - the bearer of bad news - painfully aware of the conversation void. Cliff needed to know about the Enclave. And this was obviously the time tell him.

But I didn't wanna.

Clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop. The sound of our hoofsteps slapped against the cheap "walls" of the renovation hallway maze, and echoed back to us. Hollow and thin. Each step blasted enormous holes in our conversation void. Like cannonballs from an enemy ship. Clip-clop clip-clop. Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! It blew my hull apart and drowned me in a sea of furious Rose Voices.

Come on. Tell Cliff Diver already!

Let him know that future pegasi are total jerks who huck wing-broke kids like him off of clouds!

He needs to know that the pegasi go on to be birdhorse supremacists who don't even take care of their own.

Tell him! Tell him! Tell him!

"Shut up!" I said out loud. And found my friends watching me. Patiently awaiting the punchline. "Uhh...I mean, Cliff?"

"Yes?"

"I um...managed to find some stuff out about the Wasteland."

"What kinda stuff?" Foster and Cliff said together. Slow and steady. Like a pair of preschool teachers trying to guide a foal gently toward an understanding of calculus. They were so accustomed to my weird random outbursts, it was scary.

"Bad stuff," I replied. "About the pegasi."

Clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop.

"Well, come on," Cliff said. "Are you gonna tell me or what?"

"Okay, well, for starters, they've walled off the clouds entirely. Not even griffins like Glenn can get up there. It's, like, some kinda fortress. They call themselves the Enclave or something stupid like that. And they're all a bunch of jerks."

"Yeah," Cliff said. "I get the impression we're not well-liked. It sucks."

We stepped out of the green building. Down the steps, into the dull gray light of day. And all of us turned our gaze to the cloud ceiling. Teeming, apparently, with unseen meanie pegasus fuckheads.

"It's not who we are," Cliff said.

The same words that rang through my head the night before. When Scribbles had told me about the scarcity of paper. Of trees. And I'd realized that nopony knew that they were supposed to run the leaves every autumn. That they were supposed to wrap up Winter the day before Spring started.

Our stewardship. Our symbiosis. Our kinship with the land itself. It defines who we are as ponies. Who we're supposed to be.

But I hadn't even thought of the pegasi. Their connection to the clouds. Their duty. Their identity. Or even that Cliff might consider that identity his own.

"There's more," I said.

Foster and Cliff both pried their contemplatey eyeballs from the clouds. Just to look at me in dread.

'Cause what could be worse, right?

"Um...Glenn said that he'd only actually ever met two other pegasi in his entire life. And, well...one of them had broken wings. It turns out that the Enclave, kinda, you know, kicks ponies out just for being...um…"

"Like me," said Cliff Diver.

"Yeah."

Bananas Foster kicked a hunk of broken concrete. Her cheeks boiled red. The kinda face that would make steam if you splashed just a little bit of water on her.

But Cliff grew a mask. Expressionless as Elderberry Sunset's. His dull eyes looked to the clouds. Just sorta staring at nothing in particular. Like those No Mare's Land ponies who'd been in the trenches for too damn long. "So I guess I know now what my cover story ought to be."

"Cliff, do you want--;" I tried to offer comfort. A break from the subject. Anything.

But he insisted on finding out more. "What do we know about the second pegasus?" He snapped.

"The second--;"

"The other pegasus that Glenn met," Foster clarified so that Cliff wouldn't have to.

"Oh, well, not very much. Just that she's a mailmare."

"The Wasteland has a mailmare?" Foster said.

"Yeah," I replied. "Her name is Ditzy Doo."

"Ditzy Doo," said Cliff. Suddenly awake from his staring contest with Trauma.

"Yeah."

"Like, the same Ditzy Doo?"

"There's more than one?"

"There could be." He scratched his head. "It might be a title...or something."

"Gee, I'm not sure. I didn't think to ask."

"Someone…" Cliff huffed out the very beginnings of a tirade. But it got cut short. A bunch of kids darted by, laughing and shoving one another playfully. And Cliff seized up. Alerted to the plain and obvious fact that we were not in the privacy and comfort of our dorms anymore. And couldn't just blab any old thing bouncing around the insides of our heads.

Bananas Foster spotted an alleyway and whisked us toward it. A quick gallop, a few harried glances over our shoulders later, and we were finally alone. (Well, alone enough).

Cliff picked up his rant exactly where he left off. Let it all out in one big gust. Like he'd been holding his breath the whole time. "So someone from two centuries in the future told you that they met somepony from our home town, and you didn't think to ask more about it?!"

"Well, when you put it like that, it sounds pretty stupid," I said.

Foster and Cliff damned me with their silent eyeballs.

"I didn't get the chance!" I squeaked. "Elderberry squee'd and threw herself at Foster, and then we all came running."

"Okay," said Bananas, slow and steady. Like she was speaking to a creature from some foreign land who'd learned all their Ponish through the kinda phrase book that only talks about restaurants. "Think. Very. Carefully. Okay?"

"Okay."

"What did Glenn say...exactly?"

"Uh...only that he'd met a mailmare named Ditzy Doo. He dropped her name casually, though, come to think of it. Like he thought I might have heard of her."

"So maybe it is a title," Foster mused. "You said yourself that rather a lot of Ponyvilleians go on to achieve a sort of legendary status during the war. If Ponyville is pivotal, it stands to reason --;"

"Not Ditzy Doo," Cliff interrupted. "She's too klutzy. There's no way."

"But it's the only explanation," I said. "Maybe she...I dunno...did something epicly famous."

"Like what?" Cliff scoffed. "A sonic rainboom?"

"What do you think happened?" Foster said.

"I don't know. What if we messed with time?" Cliff replied. "What if we tore a hole in the fabric of the universe? What if Ditzy….you know...ditzed her way through that hole, and ended up in the Wasteland at a point in time just a few years earlier than where we are right now. And, like, became a mailmare. 'Cause it's all she knows how to do?"

A dread clamped down on my heart, like one of those blood pressure cuffs they put on your leg at the doctor's office. Only made outta nails, and fire, and the physical incarnation of really really really bad breath. Did we just rip all of the timefabric? How many random Ponyvilleians from my time were scattered throughout the Wasteland now?! How many lives had we ruined?

My heart fell through my ribcage like a lump of coal burning its way through newspaper. It panicked aimlessly as only disembodied hearts can - freaking the fuck out over every possible implication of my having screwed up the fabric of time itself. But then I realized: Cliff's hypothesis was impossible. "There's no shadow pain." I lifted my evil hoof. Waved it around at Cliff.

"I don't follow," said Foster.

"She's right," Cliff exclaimed. "Zecora says that if Rose touches anypony's life - their timelines are tethered to hers. She can't go back and meet Colonel Wormwood as a foal. She can't go forward and meet Strawberry Lemonade as a grown-up - though technically speaking, Strawberry's got to be around in this timeline someplace, right?"

"Yeah," I replied nervously. "She should be...at least according to what I was told. But we're not supposed to be here."

"What has any of this got to do with the shadows?" Foster grumbled.

"They're tethered to me too. Since they...y'know...tainted my hoof, and I got away. Every ducky I go to is a door closed to them forever. Which is why they're so eager to capture me in the first place. If we had torn a hole in the fabric of timestuff simply by coming here, they would have followed." I stopped dead in my tracks. Held up my hoof.

"Look," said Foster. "We can't drive ourselves crazy over this. No matter what happened, or how, our course of action is still the same…"

"Find Blueberry," we all declared at once.

"Okay," I said. "But where do we look?"

We stepped out of the alleyway, and found ourselves face-to-face with the windowless building. The one with the happy mural painted on it. It depicted a yellow foal giggling under a jolly old tree with apples all over its branches, and a pair of zany appley eyeballs right in the thick of the brush. The girl in the painting seemed to stare right at us. Smile unnaturally wide.

Foster clutched me. Her touch sent jolts of lightning into my brain. Like flaming bouncy balls trapped inside my head, ricocheting everywhere till my entire skull softened into liquid hot skull lava, and dripped boiling brain goo into the backs of my eyes.

It was the pain of whoever was stuck on the inside.

"Are you alright?" Said Cliff.

Before I could answer, the dumpster hissed at us. "Shhh!!!" It said, all judgmental-like.

My friends and I consulted one another with our eyeballs. Foster's eyes told Cliff's eyes, 'I got Rose Petal. You go check out the shushing dumpster.'

To which Cliff Diver's eyeballs replied, 'Are you sure?' All concernitty.

Till my eyeballs jumped in on the ocular conversation, and said, 'Would you just go and check out the damn dumpster already? I'll be fine. I just need a minute.'

Cliff Diver nodded and slinked ahead whilst I got my bearings.

"I'm sorry." Foster reared back. Held up her forehooves. Careful not to touch me again. "Are you okay?"

"Just peachy," I replied. My brain cooled almost as quickly as the pain had hit me. "How do you live like this?"

Bananas Foster shrugged. "Live like what?"

"I dunno," I said. "This." It dawned on me how different changelings and ponies had to be. Not just culturally. Not just 'cause of their love diet. No. That hive mind stuff. The extreme empathy for those within the hive. The numbing of even horrific skull lava sensations for those who were not hive.

It made me wonder how big a leap it must have been for her. To approach Elderberry Sunset as an us instead of a them.

"Would you two get over here already?!" The dumpster snapped at us in hushed tones.

It was Cliff Diver. His hoof barely stuck out from behind the dumpster. But it was flailing like crazy. Beckoning us forward.

I hunched over and tiphooved across the dead end street. Shooting paranoid glances over my shoulder in case somepony was watching.

But Foster just strolled over there. Like she was the Imperial Dumpster Inspector. Carrying out official dumpster business that only a fool - wholly ignorant of the ways of trash receptacles - would question.

It made me feel stupid.

So I rushed to catch up.

"I'm so glad it's you," came a voice from behind the dumpster. Pistachio's voice. "Come on. Hurry." He stepped out into the open, radiating confidence from mane to hoof. Like it was somehow totally natural for him to hang around behind a dumpster for perfectly legitimate reasons. But his eyeballs screamed, 'Hurry, hurry, hurry the fuck up!' in secret eyeball talk.

The hiding spot was a little nook between two dumpsters and the building we were all scared of. That bouncy, happy nightmare mural towered over us now. Twisting the painted image into unnatural angles.

Pistachio stood in front of a metal service door marked with the letter R. It had no handles on the outside.

"What's going on?" Foster asked.

"Scribbles snuck in the other way," said Pistachio. "She's gonna let me in any minute now. What are you doing back here?"

"Wandering aimlessly," Foster replied.

"Wait," I said. "Aren't you the sneaker-arounder? Why is Scribbles the one letting you in?"

"It's a two-pony job. I've got to deliver this personally." Pistachio whipped out a key he kept on a chain around his neck. Mostly non-descript. Except for its pinkness.

I found my own hoof straying to the timepiece I wore around my neck. The Most Accurate Watch Ever, given to me by Pinkie, with strict instructions never to open it except if I was lost and confused - when I reeeeeally needed to know precisely when I was.

"Deliver it to who?" Cliff asked.

"Silver Shimmer's in there," Pistachio whimpered. "You gotta be my lookouts for once, okay?" There was real fear in his voice. Real vulnerability.

"Okay," I said without hesitation.

"Who's Silver Shimmer?" Cliff asked.

"The doofus," Foster answered.

Pistachio let out a mirthless laugh.

"The graffiti on their dorm room door," Foster explained. "Unicorns Only," she recited the door battle. "...Silver Shimmer is a doofus. Pistachio is a doofus. Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera. Ad infinitum."

Pistachio folded his forelegs. "Yeah, well, he's my doofus, and I'm worried about him."

The door swung open. And there was Scribbles, the girl I had met in the stairwell drawing pictures of cages exploding. "Okay," she whispered. "Let's...oh, hay, Rose Petal, how's it going?" She blushed just a little at my friend's and I.

"Uh, okay. I guess."

"You three wait here," said Pistachio. "I'm gonna wedge the door open with this piece of sheet metal." He lifted some random scrap off the floor. "If anypony comes by, just pull it out so we know it's not safe to escape this way. Can we trust you?"

Foster saluted. Cliff did the same.

But I lunged after Pistachio and Scribbles - already halfway through the door. "Wait!" I cried.

The two sneaker arounders spun around.

"My friend's in there. Can you help me find them?"

"How do you know?" Pistachio's face crinkled up like a pug's.

But Scribbles just lunged forward and swept me in, "Come on."

We found ourselves in a hallway lined with crates. At the end of it was a wide open maintenance facility. Mops. Ladders. Pipes running up and down the far wall. Zig-zagging all over the place.

Everything was either brown or gray. Except the lights above, sizzling out a sickly green glow. And a pair of swinging double doors in the corner that had been painted white once upon a time.

Clang! Metal hit the floor. It sounded like pots and pans getting into a wrestling match.

I whipped my head around. But saw only the tail of one of those blue jumpsuit mares. Galloping off in panic to some unseen exit, obscured by crates.

"Damnit," said Scribbles. And zip!

She and Pistachio made for the double doors on the far end of the room. Swept me with them. I scrambled to keep pace. Tripped on a drainage grate on the floor. Tumbled, slid, somersaulted, sprung to my hooves once more, and thunk! Whacked my head on some low hanging copper piping jutting out of the wall.

Scribbles and Pistachio skidded. Rambling inarticulately in hushed tones. Scribbles' forelegs wrapped around me. Yanked me under the cover of the pipes. But it was too late. Hoofsteps were coming our way.

The three of us tucked ourselves into the weird little pocket between the row of pipes and the wall. But my legs still stuck out. So I squirmed, and I squirmed, and I squirmed. Struggling to pull them out of sight while those stampitty hoofsteps wandered the floor in search of whatever the fuck was going on.

Cla-dunk. Cla-dunk. Cla-dunk. The sound of heavy work boots.

Pistachio rested a hoof on my shoulder. A reminder to stay calm. To stop squiggling. After all, a hoof that's slightly protruding from under some pipes is less fucking noticeable than a crazy flurry of flailitty motion

Cla-dunk. Cla-dunk. Cla-dunk. The stomping drew closer. But I could barely hear it over the sound of my own racing heart. Pounding blood all the fuck over my body. Blood that screamed at me to pull my legs in. To make a dash for those dirty white doors, only twenty feet away. To attack. To do something. Anything but sit there like a lump and wait to get caught!

The boots were near. Damn near. Each cla-dunk felt like a thundering cannon. They were gonna find us. Any second. I couldn't stop it.

There was only one thing left to do.

I slid out from behind the pipes. Even as Pistachio groped at my mane, begging me to stay.

I scurried a bit and rolled over. And there she was. A mountain of a mare. As big as the sun and twice as yellow. Her buzz cut speckled with whitening hairs. She wore beaten up black boots. A saddlebag o' tools. Simple white blouse that obscured a massive chasm of a scar that ran down her neck and ended Luna-knows-where.

"I'm really really really sorry," I said. Still on my back. Shimmying away like some kinda spastic crab.

I managed to circle the mare. Spin her around as she pursued me. Anything to keep her head pointed at me, and her flank facing my comrades. They were still stuck in the world's worst hiding spot.

"I'm new and I'm lost and I don't think I'm supposed to be here," I whined.

"How'd you get back here?" The Maintenance Mare asked in a grizzled voice.

"Um...um…" I backed away further.

She followed. Cla-dunk. Cla-dunk. Cla-dunk. Cla-dunk.

Pistachio and Scribbles slinked out from behind the pipes.

"It's dangerous for students to be in restricted areas," said the Maintenance Mare. "How did you get in?"

"Um...um…" My brain fumbled for words while my forehoof stretched out behind me. Pointed at the way we'd come in. The obvious fucking exit.

The sneaker-arounders tiphooved along the pipe wall. Inched quietly toward the double doors.

Keep leading her away from Pistachio and Scribbles! Shouted one Rose Voice inside my brain.

What if she storms outside and finds Cliff and Foster? Said another.

"Umm...ummm...umm…"

Pistachio and Scribbles made it to the doorway. Finally. Opened it really really reeeeeeally slowly so as not to make any noise. Looking to me the whole time with eyeballs that screamed: thank you; I'm sorry; and we'll get you out of this, we swear! - all at the same time.

But the door squeaked. And Maintenance Mare spun around - or at least started to.

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeee!" I shrieked. Both an imitation of the hinge sound, and a cry of distress. My comrades dashed through the door, and eased it shut whilst I screeched some more. "....eeeeeee!"

Maintenance Mare just looked at me like I was crazy. "Look, kid. You're not in trouble, okay? Can we stop with the screaming?"

"Eeeeee -- I'm not in trouble?"

"Of course not," she said. "But somepony's been busting in here, spooking my staff, and I'd like to know how."

"Oh. Um. The door was just sorta open," I said, hoping that I wasn't giving away any secrets. "I kinda...just...wandered in."

"Figures." The old mare stomped her clunky boot. "She's probably already inside. Break-ins always seem to happen just before visiting hours."

"Visiting hours?" I said.

"Yeah. Infirmary opens to student visitors at 11."

"This is an infirmary?!"

"Yeah. What'd you think it was?"

Oh, I don't know. A house of pain where you torture disobedient students until their heads get filled with searing hot skull lava that boils out every last one of their rebellious thoughts until they forget who they are, or why they're there to begin with. You know, normal, every day stuff.

I shrugged. Grunted. "A place to hide," I said. My mouth spontaneously took the reins, strategizing way better than my brain ever could. "We were playing hide and go seek."

"Don't you know better than to wander into a restricted area? We got equipment back here." She gestured vaguely in the direction of some mops. "You could've gotten hurt."

"Sorry," my mouth said. "It's my first day."

"Oh," Maintenance Mare replied. Just oh. "Your actual first day?"

"Orientation was last night," I replied.

She sighed. Dropped her bunched-up shoulders. It sounded like popcorn exploding. "Well, that explains a few things."

"I'm really sorry," my mouth said. Even as my eyeballs strayed to those dirty white double doors.

Was there a normal hospital on the other side of those doors? If visiting hours were about to start, why did Pistachio and Scribbles have to move in secret? What did Silver Shimmer need that key for? It didn't add up.

"But, like, is it okay if I go inside?" I asked. "Since, you know, visiting hours start in a few minutes anyway? I kinda came to Safety looking for one of my friends, and I still haven't found them. And now I'm worried they're, um...hurt, or something, and might be in here."

The Maintenance Mare hardened into a stone cold, featureless statue. Radiating disapproval out of her eyeballs like cannon blasts. She stared me down, just to let me know how ridiculously out of line it was for me to have asked. Then turned toward the double doors that Pistachio and Scribbles had slipped through a few moments before. Approached them super stern-like, gestured with her head, and said, "I don't want to see you back here again."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

* * *

The inside of the Scary Building looked like, well...a hospital. A normal fucking hospital. The tiles squeaked with busy nurse-hooves. And the air hung heavy with bleach.

It wasn't like Ponyville General, though. With its winding hallways and elaborate wings that you needed a degree in map-ology to navigate. No. There was a nurse's kiosk, a couple of patient suites, some unusually wide walkways between them, and another set of double doors on the far wall, labeled "Intensive Care."

That's it.

I hugged the wall. Tip-hooved along it carefully. This building may not have been a torturepalooza full of disobedient children, crying out in hope of rescue. But I still had to stay stealthy.

The clock said 10:56.

The entire hospital buzzed with the hustle of its staff. Nurses moving this way and that. Blue jumpsuit ponies hurrying carts o' cleaning supplies off the hospital floor and back to that maintenance area.

The total absence of children really drove-it-the-fuck-home that I wasn't supposed to be there. Not yet.

I crept along. Peeked into the window of Room #1. An orange unicorn. Her leg was bound in a cast and suspended from one of those pulley things. She kept herself busy fiddling with her Pip Buck.

I moved on in search of Misty. Or "Blueberry Milkshake." Or even Scribbles and Pistachio so I could pounce them, and ask what the fuck this mission was actually about. But there was no sign of them either.

The second door had a purple kid behind it. Coughing. Wheezing. She rolled over in bed; her tired eyes caught mine, and flung open in surprise.

I leapt away. Mortified to have startled her. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck, I thought. I don't belong here. I'm bothering kids who are trying to rest. I'm being a jerk!

But it was too late to turn back. I didn't even know the way out.

So I just squeaked on. Scuffing up the newly waxed floor with my hesitant hoofsteps.

A third door opened. Just a smidge. And out popped a pair of eyeballs. Bloink! Their blue irises shrunk at the sight of me.

Scribbles leapt out. Grabbed me. Yanked me inside.

"You made it!" She said. "How?"

"Wit and guile," I replied. "Now what the hell is going on?"

On the far side of the suite was a hospital bed. In it lay a shimmering silver colt who lived up to his name. Pistachio stood beside him. "Who's this?" Said the boy in bed.

"Rose Petal," I answered.

"She's new," Pistachio said. "...Don't worry!" He hurried to add. "She's one of us."

Silver Shimmer nodded in approval. Pistachio's meaning was clear. This was not the usual 'us'. You know, Safety kids. Members of our home dorm. Fillydelphians or whatever. Pistachio meant that I was a fellow sneaker-arounder. That I could be trusted.

"Thanks," I said. "Now can somepony tell me why we broke into an infirmary ten minutes before visiting hours??"

Pistachio checked his Pip Buck. "A minute and a half now."

Silver Shimmer reached under his robe and produced a necklace. Hanging from it was the pink key that Pistachio had been so keen to deliver. "...So that this doofus over here could give me the key to his heart."

"You're the doofus," Pistachio proclaimed, plopping his face on Silver Shimmer's lap, grin the size of Manehattan.

"Nuh-uh."

"Doofus."

"You're the doofus."

"Nevermind these love birds." Scribbles nudged me. "I'm just in it for the breaking...and of course the entering," she laughed. Nudged me again. But the smile shattered off her face the moment that her eyes met mine. "Rose Petal," she whispered. "Where'd you think we were?"

"It...doesn't matter," I said. But even as the words tumbled out of my mouth, my whole face clenched up like a towel getting rung out. I had to fight my eyeballs to keep them from crying.

Silver Shimmer and Pistachio fell utterly silent. I didn't dare look at them. All that concernitty-ness. It pressed on me like a sack of anvils. Even from the far end of the room.

"Look, uh, I'm just gonna try to find my friend, okay? He might still be here."

"Yeah," Scribbles said. "Of course."

The door swung open behind me, and in came hoofsteps. "Oh. I'm sorry," said a small voice. "I didn't mean to interrupt." It was a little filly. A badge labeled, VISITOR, hung from a lanyard around her neck.

"It's all good!" Silver Shimmer called out. "Great to see ya, half pint. Just give us a minute."

Another head popped in the doorway. A colt. Eager to come in and say 'hello.' But the filly whispered something at him. He nodded in solemn understanding, and they both receded.

The corridor beyond them moved with a quiet sort of commotion. Tiphooves and whispers. I drifted out there. Marveled at the orderly queues forming outside the door of each patient suite. The sound of pencil scratching came from every direction as all the kids quietly signed in on little slates that hung from the doors.

I moved forward. To my right was laughter. A mauve unicorn in Room #4, all hooked up to tubes like a marionette. A familiar sight. Except that she smiled. A little foal was presenting her with some kinda drawing.

But I didn't see much more of them. A green earth pony from the queue leapt forward and slid the door all the way shut. And suddenly the laughter was too muffled to hear.

The green girl looked to me. "Psst! New kid."

I approached.

"Make sure you leave the middle lane clear." She waved her hoof at the hallway we were standing in.

Just then, a nurse swept by. Straight down the middle 'lane'. She whisked past us straight into Room 6. While us kids hugged the walls.

"Thanks," I whispered to the green kid. And moved on.

I probably shoulda stopped to ask questions. How many patients were in the Super Happy Fun Infirmary? Did any of them happen to be blue? How to blend in without a special lanyard and visitor badge. Blah blah blah. Shit that makes sense to ask.

But I was eager to keep in motion. So I rushed ahead. Peeked through the open door of Room #5. There, an orange filly clutched the hoof of her near-identical older sister.

But no Misty.

I kept moving. Across the hall, the nurse who'd hurried into Room #6 just a minute before, now stood outside its door. "Sorry, kids. Buttercup needs her rest."

"Awwww!" Said the crowd of children. Like they just got told there'd be no Hearth's Warming this year.

Door after door after door. Everypony everywhere was showering love and attention on their bed-ridden friends. The very air seemed to tingle with magic. Like that Crystal Empire glow. (Only my shadow leg didn't seize up in pain this time). The love. The compassion. The support. It was thick enough to breathe.

I floated through it, and passed a few suites, each one more joyous than the room before. But none had anypony blue on the other end.

At last, I came to a bottleneck at the end of the hall. The only room with an actual serious queue to get inside.

It was those double doors that said, INTENSIVE CARE.

"Okay, everypony to your right," a nurse spoke softly, but held the students' rapt attention nevertheless. Like the world's gentlest drill sergeant. "You know the routine."

The kids all slid to the side. Good little soldiers. And suddenly there he was. Right in front of me.

"Cliff?"

"Rose!"

Bananas Foster was there too. But she didn't say a word. She just spun to us slowly. Jaw agape. Eyes open wide. Like a pirate gazing upon the Lost Jewel of Amazementia for the first time.

"What's going on?" Cliff and I asked one another at the same time.

"It's visiting hours," I replied. "How'd you get in? How'd you find me?"

"She led us," Cliff nudged Bananas Foster.

"I smelled this crazy feeling," Foster leaned in and whispered. "Hope. Love."



When Foster failed to elucidate, Cliff filled in the blanks, "We came in the same way you did. I thought you'd found Blueberry Milkshake."

"No. No sign of him."

"So you didn't accomplish his mission?" Cliff got all interrogational.

"No."

"And he's not about to get sent back to his time?"

"How the hell should I know?" I whisper-snapped.

"They're visiting," Foster spoke up at last. "All of them. Everypony's visiting."

"Yes. It's the Safety way," said Scribbles as she trotted up beside us with a smile. But eyeing the queue, that smile soon faded. "So, did you find your friend?" Her eyes strayed to the Intensive Care door.

"Not yet," I answered. "His name is, I mean her. I mean his…"

Cliff jumped in to finish that thought. "Do you know of any patients who are cerulean blue?"

"Cerulean?" Scribbles looked us over carefully. Like we might be pulling his leg.

"Uh, yeah," I said. "Um...blue."

"Wait one second. Don't. Move." Scribbles pointed a warning hoof at each of us, and dashed ahead. Skipped seven or eight kids - moved straight to the front of the line. Tapped the nurse on the shoulder. Whispered something in her ear.

The nurse perked up. Scanned the queue until her eyes landed on us. "Ooh," she said silently, and beckoned us forward.

Foster, Cliff and I, of course, followed.

"This way," she said, and led us through that final doorway. Unceremonious-like. Leaving Scribbles and the other kids behind.




The ICU was a mini-wing of the hospital. Cut off from the rest of the ward. Like its own little island.

The magic in the air no longer tingled with joy.

"I'm Nurse Chamomile. You must be Cliff Diver, Bananas Foster, and Rose Petal?"

"Yeah," said Cliff. "What's going on?"

Nurse Chamomile leaned in. Real close. "A few weeks ago, Red Eye's troops found a boy in the wide open Wasteland." She shook her head. Somber-like. "Radiation poisoning. Poor thing. We were able to save him - only barely - but he hasn't woken up."

"Geez," I said.

"There's a chance, however slim, that you might be able to identify him," the nurse took a moment to meet each of our eyeballs - to press on us how gravityish this all was. "But you don't have to if you don't want to."

"Let's go," I said without hesitation.

Cliff nodded in agreement. While Foster drifted back toward the door. Distracted. Like she was doing trigonometry in her head.

"Are you okay?" I went to her.

She recoiled in panic. "Don't touch me. You really don't want to touch me right now."

"Skull lava?" I whimpered.

Foster didn't answer. But her eyeballs screamed, 'sweet mother of changelings, you have no idea!'

Nurse Chamomile approached her. "Would you like to wait outside?"

"No," Foster said, suddenly calm as a clear night sky. "Let's go."

"Okay," said the nurse. "Well, if you're all sure."

She turned and led us down a cold, somber hallway. A mural adorned its walls, but like the happy monstrosity outside, it spread no cheer. At the end of the corridor was a curtain. A whirring sound came from the other side of it. Humming. Beeping. And a rhythmic hiss. (Like somepony stepping on a snake every three seconds).

Underneath it all was a faint, whispering voice. Only heard between the hisses - and even then, only barely.

Nurse Chamomile looked to Foster, Cliff, and me. We all nodded back in unison. It was time.

At last, she slid the curtain open. Just a crack. And slipped inside.

We followed.

Most of the room was a glass enclosure with a child inside - more wires and tubes than flesh and bone. His blue hide was speckled with sores that had scabbed and started to heal, ever so slightly. An accordion-looking thing beside him compressed. Made that hissing sound. And his chest rose. Moments later, it eased itself down again.

"That's not him." I said. And watched in silence as the boy encased in the giant fishtank struggled to breathe.

"I don't recognize him either," Cliff said to the nurse.

But Foster didn't play along. Didn't lie and pretend to know what Misty was supposed to look like. She just approached the glass, and raised a trembling hoof to it.

She didn't even notice the tiny green filly sitting on a stool beside her.

None of us did till she spoke up. "He likes it when you read to him," said the little girl. She offered Foster a decrepit old paper book. Like the kind from Glenn's collection.

The boy in the bubble winced. Just a little. And Foster leapt back. Spun around to face us, but ended up dumbstruck instead. She opened her mouth as if to speak. But instead, choked as tears of pure awe streamed down her cheeks. Her blurring eyeballs fixed on the wall right behind us.

There were drawings on it. Everywhere. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. The Safety kids didn't have access to paper, so their art was done on weird bits of scrap metal. Or any material that could be found. It made an utterly insane wall collage that ran from floor to ceiling. And wrapped around in every direction.

'Get Well Soon.' 'Welcome, friend!' Nonsense pictures of flowers - or what the Wasteland kids imagined flowers might look like. Crayon self portraits of different Safety kids introducing themselves. Optimistic doodles of the mystery blue boy one day joining them in class, and having lots and lots of friends.

"They don't even know him," Bananas Foster said.

"We don't have to," answered the little girl. "He's one of us."