My teeth crunched into the wood of my pencil as another piece of crumpled up paper bounced off of the back of my head. It fell near-silently to the ground to join the others, hitting the floor with a dry "tap" sound. Behind me I could hear Plum let out a strangled squeak of outrage and then mutter something darkly to herself.
Miss Persimmon heard her and turned around to see what was going on. She gaped in surprise, not at me but at the mess on the floor by my desk. Wads of crumpled paper lay there, scattered around the floor like dead leaves. The teacher’s forest-green eyes narrowed as she looked up from the mess and stared directly into my face.
“Cinnamon Swirl, did you drop all those papers?”
I took the chewed-up end of my pencil out from between my clenched teeth before I answered her.
“No, ma’am,” I said. The calm of my voice was thanks to me wrestling my anger to the ground and standing roughly on its neck until it shut up. “Somepony’s been throwing this stuff at me for the last ten minutes.”
“It’s true, Miss Persimmon!” Plum Pudding said. The schoolmare turned her stare on her and the filly blushed and sunk back into her seat. The burnt-orange mare was a real stickler for not talking until called upon. “Sorry, I forgot,” Plum mumbled, raising her hoof too late.
“If this mess isn’t yours, then who’s is it?”
"I can't—" I started saying, but I was cut off.
“Vanilla Sweet!” Plum piped up, once again forgetting to wait until called on. Miss Persimmon shot another glare at her and she cringed back in her seat.
“Was not!” Vanilla Sweet protested.
“Who else would do it?” Plum asked, turning around to yell at her. It was pretty surprising. This filly wouldn't have said boo to the bully a week ago.
“You didn’t see me do it, so you better not say I did!” the bigger filly shouted back.
“Who else would be that big of a jerk?” Plum said, getting halfway up out of her seat. If she’d been facing the other way, the look on the teacher’s face would have been more than enough to make her keep her muzzle shut.
“That’s enough!” the mare shouted, and both fillies shut their traps and sat back down quickly. “Vanilla Sweet, did you throw these papers at Cinnamon Swirl?”
“No, ma’am! I would never do such a thing,” she said, her voice full of more false sweetness than a diet cola.
“I’m not sure I believe you, Miss Sweet,” Miss Persimmon said. Her horn glowed, and the papers lifted themselves up and floated in front of her face, where they de-crumpled and smoothed out. All of the pages were blank, torn raggedly out of a notebook. “If I check your desk, am I going to find the notebook that these came out of?”
“You can check my desk if you want, ma’am,” Vanilla Sweet replied. I stopped the derisive snort before it burst out of me. Stupid mistake. You never give permission for a search. And the smug false confidence in her voice would have been a lot more believable if it weren’t for the quaver that gave her nervousness away.
“I think I’ll do that,” Miss Persimmon said. The whole class watched as the teacher went through the filly bully’s desk, pulling out books, notebooks and school supplies. Nothing matched the papers from the floor.
Vanilla Sweet looked like she was ready to start gloating... until the teacher’s eye noticed the corner of a notepad sticking out from underneath the filly’s rump.
“Stand up, please.”
“What?” Vanilla sure as hay wasn’t sounding smug anymore. “I... I don’t...”
“You’re sitting on a notebook. I want to look at it,” Miss Persimmon said. “Get. Up.” When the filly still didn’t move, the mare took another step forward and stared directly into her eyes while Vanilla Sweet shrunk back. ”Now.”
A tense silence passed before the filly came to her hooves, moving as if she were being dragged. The notebook she’d been sitting on was a perfect match for the papers that had hit me in the head. The ragged ends matched up where the pagers had been torn out.
Awkward hushed giggling from the colts and fillies in the room mixed with angry words from the teacher, skewering the filly as she stood there, her face crumpled into a mix of shame, resentment and sullen anger. When Miss Persimmon ordered her to the principal’s office, she packed up her school bag with stiff, quick jerks, stalked out of the room, and closed the door with force just shy of a slam.
The orange schoolmare sighed into the ensuing awkward silence before finally returning to the front of the class. On the way, she dumped the crinkled papers into the waste bin, and then she picked up her lesson where she'd left off.
It was a strange feeling not being the one in trouble for once.
~~*~~
Lunchtime came slower than it should have, and was passing by faster than it had any right to.
The cool air of the afternoon was invigorating in a way that the recently-past summer could never manage, and I let the smells of the fall fill my lungs as I walked towards my tree. Beside me, Plum chattered happily away as we walked.
It had been a weird day so far. The teacher had somepony else to focus on, the weather was perfect, and I felt in a strangely good mood. I think I even almost managed a smile at some odd fact that Plum told me about bird plumage when my mood suddenly shifted south.
Vanilla Sweet, scowling with bitter resentment, was standing at the base of the tree where I always ate my lunch. Next to her was her friend Ivy, the nervous-looking unicorn from a different class. I stopped. Our eyes met. She stared at me, hot anger crawling over her features.
Dammit. If I went over there now, there’d be no avoiding trouble. I knew the look of a pony spoiling for a fight. I'd seen it often enough. A pony will feel like they've been pushed too far, and the only thing that matters is making sure that whatever target they settle on gets hurt, and as much as possible.
On the other hoof, if I walked away, the filly would think she could just take whatever she wanted by laying claim to it. I was still debating my options when Plum saw the two standing there.
“What are they doing there?” the purple filly demanded to know. I reflected on how much Plum had changed since we’d known each other. Even in just the last week or so, she’d gained a lot more confidence and self-assurance.
I made my decision right then. Her new confidence was a good thing, in my opinion. But she didn't know her limits, and that could get her hurt. Here she was, ready to go up against somepony looking for a fight and who didn't care about the consequences. Without the muscle or skill to back up her resolve, the only thing her new confidence would end getting her was her flank kicked. Badly.
I turned away. Plum gaped at me as if she didn’t know me. “We don’t own the tree,” I said loud enough for my voice to carry to the two fillies watching us. It was a peace offering, in a way. I didn't expect to be taken up on it, but it didn't hurt to offer. “We can eat somewhere else.”
Plum protested loudly until I shushed her, whispering quickly into her ear. “We go over there, we’re getting in a fight,” I said quietly. “She’s wants one, and I think Ivy would back her up.”
“We can take ‘em,” Plum said stoutly. I almost laughed at the thought of sweet little hyperactive Plum Pudding getting into a knock-down drag-out fight. I swallowed the laugh back. I owed her better than that. And the thought of seeing her face all bruised up made my heart lurch.
“That’s not the point,” I said. “Look, Plum, there are times you can’t avoid fighting. But when you can avoid it, you do.”
“I don’t like being pushed around,” Plum said darkly.
“Nopony does,” I said. “But if we got into a fight with her now, do you think that would end it?”
Plum considered that. It didn’t take her long to reach the right answer. “No,” she said reluctantly. “Even if we beat her, she’d just come back and start another fight later.”
“Right. There’s a difference between standing up for yourself and fighting to protect your pride. Look, there’s a nice spot over by the swingset. How about there?”
Plum grumbled, but finally relented.
“And, hey,” I said to her, waiting for her to look up at me. “She can take our spot, but only you can decide if that’s going to make you miserable all through lunch.”
She stared at me for a few seconds, then laughed. “You’re right,” she said. “Fine, then. I’ll let her have our favorite spot, and she can just sit there in the shade, being all angry while I have fun with my friend.”
“You grow wise, young one.”
She shoved me hard with her shoulder, but she laughed while she did it.
We sat down, the colts and fillies nearby filling the air with the sounds of laughter and playing. After a few seconds, Plum started another monologue. I envied her ability to get over being upset so quickly.
I kept up just enough interested noises and noncommittal grunting to keep her talking, but I kept my eye open. Sure enough, after a few minutes Vanilla Sweet came looking for us, probably intending to even whatever score she thought we had.
She saw us and started walking quickly our way, Ivy trailing behind her like a puppy being dragged to the vet. Things could have gotten on the violent side, but I didn’t pick this spot randomly. I met her eyes as she stalked up to us like an angry dog. Once I had her attention, I pointed with a hoof, indicating a direction back over her right shoulder.
Vanilla was almost blind with anger, but she still had enough sense in her to recognize a friendly warning. She looked in the direction I’d pointed and froze. Miss Persimmon was watching the tableau unfold with a scowl of her own. She’d already taken a couple of steps towards us to head off the cream-colored filly but had stopped at the same time Vanilla had.
The bully turned her glower back on me. I stared impassively back. Ivy, having spotted the teacher, was whispering rapidly into her friend's ear, no doubt urging the course of sanity.
All of this was just a delaying tactic. I knew that all I was doing was buying time. The only question was, could I buy enough time for Vanilla to cool down before she found either me or Plum alone in a spot where the teacher couldn’t see us?
She quivered with a moment of indecision, then turned on a back hoof and walked away, towing Ivy along behind her. Miss Persimmon relaxed, then gave me a wry grin, which I gave right back to her. Another lunch day gone by with no bloodshed, and Plum was still chattering away, completely unaware of how close we’d come to sudden violence.
All in all, I’m willing to call that a win.
~~*~~
“So, we’re stopping by your place to pick up anything you need, and then over to my house, right?”
“What?” I asked her. She rolled her purple eyes at me.
“The sleepover?” she said. She groaned with exasperation when I didn’t say anything. “We talked about this over lunch! I said, we should have a sleepover at my place tonight, and you said sure!”
“I did?” I asked, surprised. Plum glared at me as she packed up her schoolbag.
“You never listen,” she groused. I guessed that she probably took a grunt of mine that I'd intended to be noncommittal and took it to mean that I'd love to come over for a sleepover. Maybe I should start paying more attention to what she says.
“I’m famous for it,” I replied. The look on Plum’s face informed me that my wit went unappreciated. “I really agreed to a sleepover?”
“Yes! You did! Finally!”
“Oh.” I thought about it, then shrugged. I’d been over to Plum’s house once or twice in the last week, though not for long. Even though she was actually a filly, her bedroom was a lot less frilly than mine. “Fine, if my mom says I can.”
Plum’s cheerful acceptance of that statement would explain why she didn’t notice my flinch and the sudden drop in my mood.
A shock of ice water had thrilled down my spine when I realized what I'd said. I actually said that I’d have to ask my mom. That I'd need permission to do something. It had come out automatically. And that shook me, right down to my core.
The last week had been... well, it was the least grim week of my life since I’d been changed. Things had been better. I wouldn’t say that I’d been happy, but I can’t deny that I hadn’t been as lonely. Plum had filled that void, gave me somepony to spend time with, to talk to. I realized with a cold clarity that I hadn’t thought about getting the cure for almost two days.
“Something wrong?” Plum asked, coming down off of cloud nine long enough to notice my mood. I shook my head, my braided mane tossing as I did so.
“Nothing easy to fix,” I said. “But yeah. Let’s stop by my house, and I’ll tell my mom we’re having a sleepover.”
And I would tell her, I decided. None of this “asking” horseapples. I was staying somewhere else for the night, and that was final.
My mental assertion of independence would have felt a lot better if it were for something other than a filly’s sleepover.
~~*~~
My mom gave in to the whole sleepover idea with a lot less resistance than I’d expected. Going in all ready for a fight like I’d been and not meeting any resistance was a little like having a rug yanked out from under your hooves.
“That’s fine, dear,” she’d told me with a smile. “Just make sure you behave yourself, and be a good girl.”
I don’t know what my face looked like after that, but Plum found it hilarious. I dropped my saddlebag in my bedroom, with the Plum tagging along. She took one look inside and whooped with laughter, and that's when I realized that this was the first time she'd actually seen my bedroom.
“Yeah, yeah,” I grumbled. “Enjoy yourself.”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” she said, trying to straighten her face out. “It’s just... I mean...” She spread her front hooves in front of her, taking in the whole room. "Wow."
I can’t honestly blame her for her reaction. It looked like a cake factory had exploded inside of a fabric store moments after a collision with an out-of-control wagon full of plush animals. Mom had gone all out with decorating. New, pale pink carpeting hugged my hooves. The furniture was all white with gold accents, and none of it looked sturdy enough to handle any kind of use. My dresser had a hoof-made doily on it. A doily. And that wasn't all of it by a long shot.
I had a vanity table now. Completely unused, of course, with the ridiculous oval mirror designed to show my face in magnified detail. I never looked into it. I was pretty sure my scowl would crack the damned thing. The table had tubes and jars and containers of makeup carefully arranged on it. Never mind that even if I really were a filly, at my apparent age I'd be too young for it. It was there, unused and gathering dust.
There was a small table in the room as well, almost directly in the middle. On the table was a delicate porcelain tea set. Arranged on cushions around the table were stuffed animals: a plush cat, a pair of ducks made out of felt, and, lording over them all, a massive teddy bear. Mom had made all of the animals herself.
My bed was ridiculous, easily twice as big as I’d need even as a grown stallion. Even still, it was hard to find room to sleep in it until I shoved at least half of the plush animals off of it and onto the floor. The top of the bed was like trying to sleep in a bowl of whipped cream. You lay in it and sink so deeply into the fluff that you can barely see daylight.
The one time I had tried to sleep on the bed without clearing off all of the plush animals, I'd woken up in a panic as half a dozen of them tumbled down all at once into the divot I'd made in the bed, burying me under a landslide of adorably fuzzy critters. It was a lot more terrifying than it sounds.
Not that it was easy to see the top of my bed, crowded as it was with pillows and critters, what with the posts and the gauzy white curtains in the way. A proper princess-style bed, or at least what regular ponies imagined a princess would sleep on. Somehow, though, I have a hard time thinking that even Celestia would be comfortable in all of this.
There was also a bookshelf with almost no books. Instead, it was decorated with more stuffed animals, a selection of small porcelain figures, decorated boxes, and stuff I had no words to describe and, honestly, hadn't bothered taking a very close look at. I don't know how my mom afforded all of this. I don't even want to imagine how much it must have cost her.
Any one of these things, taken by itself, I could see being in a typical female bedroom. All of them together, though? It went straight past "feminine" and into the realms of parody. Or so it seemed to me, but what do I know? I'm just a stallion, and I never claimed to know a lot about what mares like.
I took out my lunch box and dropped it with a clang, and then shook out my school supplies all over the floor. I told my mom I wouldn’t trash the room, but I’d never promised to keep it tidy. I slipped the bag back on and then went into the bathroom to grab my toothbrush, toothpaste and brush.
After a moment of thought, I also nabbed the book I’d been reading, a work of contemporary fiction written by a buffalo named Plains Walker. By all accounts, it was an accurate portrayal of life amongst the buffalo herds on the great plains west of Appleloosa. If this night was going to be as dull as I thought it was probably going to be, having something more adult to pass the time would probably save my sanity.
What was left of it, that is.
“All set,” I told Plum.
“Your pillow,” she suggested.
“Oh.” I grabbed one of a dozen frilly pillows off of my bed but was then at a loss for what to do with it. It was too big for my bag.
“Geeze. Carry it on your back,” Plum said, rolling her eyes.
“Ugh. I don’t want everypony to see me walking around town with this thing.”
“Fine. I’ll carry it, you big baby,” Plum said. She nabbed the pillow and flung it onto her back while I frowned at her, letting her know how little I appreciated that description. “You don’t like being called a big baby?” she asked, sounding apologetic.
“Not especially.”
“Then don’t act like one,” she said. She gave me a cheeky little grin and then trotted out of my insanely frou-frou’ed bedroom. I shook my head and followed her. How I managed not to blow up at her on a daily basis was something that scientists somewhere should study. It was sure as hell a mystery to me.
On my way out I said goodbye to my mom, who once again reminded me to be good. I managed to stop myself from saying anything by throttling my first reaction, which was anger. Then I garroted the second reaction, which was also anger. My third reaction, resentful whining, got bucked directly in the face and buried in a shallow grave.
I followed Plum out the door and back to the street.
~~*~~
“Here we go!” Plum said.
Her bedroom was almost plain, compared to mine. Sure, her bed had a few stuffed animals on it, and there were typical girly posters on the wall, including no less than three of Sapphire Shores, but I didn’t see much in the way of frills. A sensible bedroom for a young filly, as opposed to the plush and lacy nightmare that I slept in every night.
“I’m taking this damned braid out,” I declared, and immediately suited actions to words. The Deal said I had to wear the braid while I was going to school. It didn’t say anything about wearing it while at a sleepover. I couldn’t be rid of the thing fast enough.
Plum giggled and helped me. I was happy enough just having my mane loose, but she insisted on taking my brush in her hooves and tugging it through the hair a few times. I tried not to curse at her every time she hit a snag, but it was a close thing.
“Plum!” the filly’s mom called up from downstairs. “More of your little friends are here!”
“Oh, goody!” Plum said, her purple eyes sparkling. “They’re here!”
“Wait, what?” I said, now decidedly on edge. "More ponies?"
"Yeah, I invited some other friends. Is that a problem?"
“I thought it was just us tonight.”
She looked at me as if I’d just said the sun was a purple gumdrop. “What fun is a slumber party with only two ponies?” she asked me. It was a riddle I didn’t have the answer to. “I invited all of my friends from school, and some from the neighborhood, too!”
“How many?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“Including you?” she tilted her head back, counting silently. “Well, with me and you, it’s six total. So, four others.”
Just then, Plum’s mom shouted up again, sounding slightly irritated. The filly scooted out of the room to meet her other guests, leaving me gaping like a goldfish in her bedroom.
Five little fillies. And me. All having a slumber party, which I only knew about from vague and unsettling descriptions from the odd female I’d known over the years.
Dear Celestia, please don't let there be makeovers.