“You know, I think I might be becoming part tree” moaned Scootaloo as she attempted to remove the last annoying flecks of tree sap and splinters from her mane.
“I don’t even understand how we managed to get covered in tree sap!” complained Sweetie Belle having just finished removing the last pieces of sap from her mane and starting to help Apple Bloom, who was still covered. They were alone on a small island in the middle of Ponyville lake, the island was desolate not even a tree on it until a large explosion, a splash and three filly’s landed, covered in a surprising amount of tree sap, and pieces of an ,until recently, sea worthy fishing boat.
The island was at the center of the Ponyville town lake, which was normally a calm and serene place, with beautiful flower bushes spread along the edge at surprisingly regular intervals. There was a path that encircled the lake for ponies to walk on, which most did during their lunch breaks or in the evening, and during winter it froze solid, so ponies (like a certain pink mare) often ice skated on top of it, although now it was thankfully deserted.
“Yeah, ah mean we was just trying to get a fishin’ cutie mark then, BAM tree sap.” Said Apple Bloom straining against Sweetie Belle as the unicorn attempted to remove a small section of their former boat, which had become attached to her friends face. “Although, it might have had something to do with that thing you threw in the water to ‘speed things up’ Scoots”, said the yellow pony, now slightly yellower from the tree sap.
“Yeah what was that? all I saw was you through something red off the side and say ‘This’ll speed things up a bit’” agreed Sweetie Belle, still trying to work out how to remove the piece of boat from her friends face.
“Well that fisherpony told us the fastest way to fish was using dynamite, so he gave me some and I used it.” Scootaloo said cheerfully as the Pegasus came to the aid of her two friends, “heh, I had no idea that would happen” she said as she strained with Sweetie Belle. They stained together for a few minutes before the plank of wood finally, and suddenly, came free sending unicorn, Pegasus and earth pony alike back into the lake they had just climbed out of.
“Ah think we need to come at this from a different angle” stated Apple Bloom once she and the other two had climbed back out of the lake and dried off a little helped by Scootaloo’s wings. “Like, maybe we should try to find-“
“If you suggest we listen to more cutie mark stories I’m pushing you in the lake” Scootaloo interrupted, “unless you want to listen to Rainbow’s again then I’m fine with that.” She smiled she would never tire of listening to that story.
“Ah was gonna suggest we try and find out if anypony’s had this kind of problem before. And if they have how they fixed it.” Apple Bloom said glaring at Scootaloo.
“How will we do that though?” asked Sweetie Belle as she flailed, trying to remove the plank that was now firmly attached to her hooves.
“Well we can’t ask ponies about it, because we will just get more stories, and I could really do without them right now.” Huffed Scootaloo grabbing the board between her teeth and pulling one way while Sweetie pulled the other, after a few seconds the board came loose and Sweetie Belle was free, Scootaloo decided to throw the plank away so it didn’t get attached to anyone again.
“We could try the library” piped up Sweetie Belle. Scootaloo groaned she hated the library, it was dull and boring and eerily quiet, and Twilight always tried to lecture her on the importance of a good education and the value of knowledge. “Well anything is better than this” Sweetie Belle said a look of disgust on her face as she rose a newly tree sap covered hoof.
“I guess” admitted Scootaloo
“And we can try to get our cutie marks as librarians” chimed in Apple Bloom “again”.
“I suppose, it can’t be that bad.”Scootaloo conceded. “Alright let’s go, once we get back to dry land.” Scootaloo said in a resigned tone before bursting into a fit of giggles, when she saw the state she and her friends were in, and when they saw what she was laughing at they joined in too.
Sometime later, when they had all washed the remaining sap out of their coats and manes, the three crusaders met outside the library. After all the usual greetings and gestures Scootaloo stepped out in front of the door to the library and turned to face the other two “OK, I want to work out what we need from in there right now so that we don’t have to spend too long in there giving Twilight more of a chance to lecture me.”
“Well we need to find out if any other ponies have ever had this problem before and if they have how they solved it” said Sweetie Belle looking thoughtful, “So I suppose we will want books on history and maybe cutie marks.”
“Yeah and ah’ve been thinking, I’m sure I’ve seen the name ‘Cutie Mark Crusaders’ before but I can’t remember where.” Said Apple Bloom thoughtfully her face contorted as though it was physically hurting her trying to remember. “Ah think we might need a book on wars, and maybe on old secret societies?” she continued in the same thoughtful tone with a hint of confusion mixing in at the end.
“Right, so we need books on History, cutie marks, wars and secret societies.” Scootaloo confirmed looking top the others to be sure there wasn’t anything they were missing.
“Right” agree the other two.
“OK then, here goes” said the orange Pegasus as she turned around to face the door.
“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS LIBRARIANS! YAY” they shouted together as they walked up to the door and Scootaloo knocked.
After a few moments of silence Scootaloo knocked again harder, this time they were surprised by the bottom of the door opening and a small purple and green blur shooting past them.
“SPIKE, where are you going?!” Apple Bloom shouted after the blur which stopped revealing itself to be Spike, Twilight’s number 1 assistant, in his usually scaly form.
“Oh it’s just you three, I thought you were…, never mind what can I do for you?” asked Spike a little sheepishly, with small red patches starting to appear on his cheeks, which is quite impressive considering his cheeks are obscured by thick scales.
“Did you think we were Twilight?” asked Apple Bloom as a look of confusion slipped on to her face.
“Why were you worried that we might be Twilight.” Sweetie Belle asked also slightly puzzled
“No reason.” Said Spike quickly almost shouting, trying to look as innocent as possible. “Now was there something you wanted or –“
“It wouldn’t have anything to do with this, would it Spike?” asked Scootaloo as she swung the door to the library open to reveal chaos that Discord would have been proud of. All the books in the library, it appeared, were thrown haphazardly into one corner of the room, most of the chairs were tipped over and some were broken, and there was the occasional party hat or streamer lying on the floor, all in all it looked like Spike had thrown one heck of a party.
“OK you caught me! I was a little down because I have been on my own for a while because Twilight is out running errands so pinkie helped me throw a party and, this happened.” Spike confessed practically crying as he did so.
“Calm down Spike, Jeez, anypony would think we were torturing you, look if we help you tidy will you help us find some books we need?” said Sweetie Belle earning a look of disgust for Scootaloo and an eye roll from Apple Bloom. Spike just nodded. “OK then Apple Bloom you stand the chairs back up, the ones that can at least, Scootaloo pick up the streamers, party hats and broken chairs and pile them near the door, Spike you and me are going to sort out these books.” Sweetie Belle commanded as she surveyed the situation. A few minutes later with some grumbling a few splinters and more than a few paper cuts, the job was almost done; all that was left were the books. Sweetie Belle was having trouble finding the books they needed while Spike was trying to remember where they all went.
“What do you have so far Sweetie?” asked Scootaloo, looking up to the white and purple unicorn, who was now rummaging around in the pile of books. She pulled her saddle-bags out of the depths and looked through them.
“We’ve got, some history books, one on obscure history just in case, a book on wars, most of those wars are mentioned in the history books, a few books on cutie marks and the theories for how they work, the only one we’re missing is on secret societies.” She listed carefully, a look of concentration on her face.
“Could this be the one we’re lookin’ for scoots?” asked Apple Bloom holding up a copy of ‘society – the secrets of the equestrian elite’
“No, that looks like a psychology book, not what we need.” Replied Sweetie Belle before Scootaloo could even open her mouth.
“Darn” muttered Apple Bloom as she threw the book away, looking annoyed. “What about this one?” She asked holding a black covered book that was nearly the same size as her head entitled ‘Secret Societies of Equestria’ between her teeth.
“That’s the one!” exclaimed Scootaloo jumping and fluttering her wings happily.
“Perfect!” said Sweetie Belle watching as her friends faces lit up as they completed their objective. “Now all we have to do is finish sorting out the rest of these books.” She stated matter-of-factly while the others groaned.
After half an hour of work the place looked to have barely changed there were a few more books on the shelves but the majority were still in a large pile on the floor.
“We have to hurry” moaned Spike, “Twilight could be back any minute, and if she sees the place like this she’ll make Owlouisous the number one assistant!” he was starting to look hysterical so Apple Bloom sent him over to stand by the door, partly as a look out and partly to calm him down as he tended to snort small amounts of fire when he was agitated like this, and she wasn’t particularly curious as to what the inside of an inferno was like. A few seconds later they heard a yelp as Spike turned and in a terrified voice whimpered, “she’s coming” this was not received quite as he had expected it to though, as the only reply he got was from Scootaloo who simply said “we are definitely not librarians”
“I should think not-“ Spike didn’t get chance to finish his statement as Twilight Sparkle and Cherilee walked in at that moment each wearing their saddle bags. “What’s going on here?” asked an annoyed Twilight as she saw the pile of books and the heads of the three fillies.
“I had nothing to do with this” Spike said quickly, motioning to the pile of books. Scootaloo saw what he was trying to do and she wasn’t about to stick around and get blamed for this mess, most of which she and her friends had cleaned up.
“WOW, is that the time we had better get back home.” She said in her most innocent (and slightly sarcastic) voice and with that she jumped out of the pile of books and made a beeline the for exit only pausing to give Spike an angry look before leaving, followed closely by Apple Bloom with Sweetie Belle bringing up the rear as she was weighed down with all the books they had collected. The three moved as quickly as they could to try to avoid Twilight or Miss Cherilee calling them back. They stopped once they reached the Ponyville town well, while they where there they split the books up between them so that Sweetie Belle wasn’t carrying all the weight. When Apple Bloom looked up in the sky she saw that it was just starting to go orange.
“Wow, it actually is gettin’ pretty late, I should get back to the farm” she said looking to the other two, they both nodded in agreement.
“We’ll meet at the clubhouse tomorrow, after school, and we’ll all bring the books with us.” Scootaloo said with a small amount of enthusiasm, not so much from the thought of reading the books as from spending more time with her friends, and maybe finally earning her cutie mark.
“Yeah” the others to exclaimed, before they went their separate ways home. Sweetie Belle headed in the direction of Carousel Boutique, while Apple Bloom and Scootaloo walked a little way together. They reached a crossroads, Apple Bloom turned down one road and Scootaloo down another.
“See you tomorrow” Scootaloo said to Apple Bloom as they started to walk down their chosen paths.
“Yeah, see ya” Apple Bloom replied. And with that the two went their separate ways home.
The next day the three fillies hurried home to drop their books off and collect the books from the library. They then made their way to the Cutie Mark Crusaders club house. Apple Bloom was the first to arrive since she didn’t actually have to go anywhere so she decided she would start on the books she had taken from the library; she looked to see which ones she had and laughed, naturally she had the two she had told them they should get one on ancient pony wars, and ‘Secret societies of Equestria’ she put the other book down and settled down to start reading. About 20 minutes later Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle showed up.
“Now, what took y’all so long to get here?” asked Apple Bloom in a slightly irritable tone, she had been trying to read the book for twenty minutes and had barely gotten past the first three pages, and two of those were the contents.
“Well I stopped to pick up Sweetie Belle” Scootaloo started
“Then we went to sugar cube corner and got muffins” Sweetie Belle continued “we got you one as well Apple Bloom”
“Well, OK then” said Apple Bloom brightening up at the prospect of a muffin. “I don’t know how you manage it Sweetie Belle, I’ve been trying to read this book for nearly half an hour and I have barely gotten past the contents.” She continued looking at the book as if it had offended her in some way. Sweetie Belle started laughing.
“What’s so funny” Scootaloo and Apple Bloom asked in unison, a look of confusion on Scootaloo’s face, one of annoyance on Apple Bloom’s.
“Y-You don’t read this type of book” Sweetie Belle managed after her laughing fit subsided slightly “It’s a reference book you use the contents and the index to find something specific and then you read that.” She said while suppressing chortles.
“Oh, well that makes more sense, where’s the index”
“At the back”
Apple Bloom flipped to the back of the book while the other crusaders got settled she then started to look through the index until something jumped out at her. She did a double take then slowly made her way to the page number the book told her, as she read her mouth fell open in awe. When she finished she looked at the other two who were reading like she was, or had been. Quietly with a shaky voice she said to her friends “Girls y’all need to read this, we weren’t the first”