“Miss Spoon, are you ready yet?” one of the butlers asked, knocking on her bedroom door. “Miss Tiara is due to be here any minute.”
“I’ll be out soon, Good Service,” Silver answered.
She picked up the paintbrush she was using, the paint on it the same silver as her coat. She ran it across her flank, trying not to shiver. With that final stroke, she put the finishing touches on the silver spoon she painted on herself every morning. She looked it over in the full length mirror, shaking her flank a few times, and determined it to be complete.
“Hey, slowpoke, not that I care, but we’re going to be late,” Diamond Tiara yelled up the stairs. “I have something special to give the blank flanks this morning.”
“Sorry, Diamond,” Silver answered, as she left her room and went down the stairs. “What are you planning?”
“I’ll tell you on the way,” Diamond replied.
---
“So, they pass under this tree on their way to school,” Diamond explained later, as they sat on a branch overlooking a path. “When they pass under us, I dump this bucket of eggs on them.”
Silver looked at the small collection of eggs sitting in the bucket. They were fresh, but the eggs would still make a large mess on their manes and coats once they hit. With the time it was, there was no way any of them could get back home to clean up and get to class on time.
“You know they’ll get in trouble, either from being messy or from being late,” Silver replied.
“And that’s the beauty of the plan. Even if they say it was my fault, Miss Cheerilee can’t prove anything. So they get detention, and I get off scot free,” Diamond replied.
“I don’t think-” Silver began.
“Shhh, they’re coming,” Diamond whispered.
Sure enough, the three of them was walking up the path right towards them, talking with each other as they walked. As Diamond prepared to dump the eggs, Silver looked around for a solution to the problem the Crusaders were about to have. As she looked, she heard what they were saying below.
“Rainbow showed me some of the books she owns,” Scootaloo said to the others. “Daring Do is so cool, getting out of danger by the hair on her mane and exploring ancient temples. So I was thinking we could do something like that, and get adventuring cutie marks.”
“But there’s no temples anywhere near Ponyville,” Sweetie replied.
“But I heard of a castle, one that Celestia used to rule from before moving things to Canterlot. It’s supposed to be deep in the Everfree forest.” Scootaloo answered.
“The Everfree forest? But if mah sister catch-” Apple Bloom started to say, before she was cut off mid-sentence by a waterfall of eggs smashing against their heads. “What the buck-”
“Oooh, it seems one of the blank flanks down there has a dirty mouth,” Diamond remarked. “And reaching our young and defenseless ears too,”
“But wait, their flanks may not be so blank,” Silver chimed in.
Despite their distrust of the two fillies, the Crusaders looked towards their flanks. But, as always, they were a solid orange, yellow, and white. The only difference is that they were also covered in egg.
“Oh, wait, that’s just yolk. Silly me,” Silver continued.
“Looks like they yolk’s on you,” Diamond chimed in, and they two of them giggled at their own bad jokes. As they climbed down and continued on their way, she added, “You three really laid an egg this time, blank flanks. Especially the chicken there."
As the two of them walked off, Diamond got lost in her own bragging and giggling. While she stayed in her own little world, Silver ran back as soon as she was sure Diamond would be out of earshot. When she got back, she found that the Crusaders were trying to get the egg off their bodies as best they could.
“What do you want, Silver Spoon? Haven’t you done enough for one day?” Scootaloo spat, as she tried to get some of the stuff off her feathers.
The words stung a bit, but Silver just stayed where she was, as all three Crusaders noticed her presence and glared in her direction.
“There’s a lake some yards that way,” she informed them, pointing a hoof to her left. “It’s your best chance to get clean and get to class on time. You better hurry.”
She ran off to catch up before Diamond noticed she was gone, as the three egg-covered fillies just looked at each other in confusion.
---
Tick tock. Tick tock.
Diamond just rubbed her hooves together in anticipation, as she watched the seconds tick by from her desk. Any moment now, Miss Cheerilee would walk in, and the blank flanks would be marked as tardy.
Silver Spoon sat on her left, and it looked like she was writing or drawing something. Diamond was about to lean over to see what it was, when she heard hoofsteps approaching the school door.
Everyone else must have heard them too, as they all turned and saw Cheerilee walk in. Diamond resisted the urge to cheer, but a smile was evident on her face. But it soon dropped, as she saw the three Crusaders come in right behind her. And they weren’t covered in egg.
Diamond noticed that some egg residue still remained in their manes, tails, and Scootaloo’s wings, making them sticky. But, somehow, they got clean enough to get to class in the nick of time.
As the Crusaders took their seats, Cheerilee went over to her desk. As she passed by Diamond, she stopped to slap a detention slip on her desk. As Cheerilee moved to her seat and took attendance, Diamond looked over at the three of them in surprise, while they just smiled back with near identical smiles.
---
“How? How did they do it? My plan was perfect,” Diamond wondered at recess, as she paced back and forth in front of Silver. She just sat and listened, as Diamond continued ranting.
“Somehow, they avoided getting into trouble. And they were even able to pin it on me-” she continued, before Silver stepped in.
“You were the one that dumped the eggs on them,” she interrupted.
“Not the point...” Diamond continued, before stopping and turning to Silver, something fitting into place in her mind. “But why didn’t you get detention like I did? For some reason, the blank flanks didn’t tell her you were there.
“Diamond...” Silver said, starting to get nervous. She stood up and backed up a couple of steps
“But why would they protect you? The only reason would be...you helped them!” Diamond finished, getting right into Silver’s face, their snouts almost touching. “You did help them find a way to get clean, didn’t you?”
As Diamond looked directly into Silver’s eyes, she looked angrier than Silver has ever saw her. Even though Silver could easily run, Diamond’s dominating presence made Silver feel like a trapped rat.
“Diamond...I...” was all Silver could get out.
Smack!
The strike caught Silver off guard. Unable to brace herself, she fell to the ground, looking up at Diamond in shock. They had their arguments and disagreements, but this was the first time Diamond ever struck her. She rubbed her left cheek, as Diamond just turned and walked away.
Silver laid there for a few minutes, crying and looking at the dirt below her. Then she noticed the white hoof held out to help her up. Grabbing the hoof, Silver accepted the help from Sweetie to get back on her hooves. The white unicorn filly in front of her looked concerned.
“I saw what happened,” she said.
“Just a bit of a disagreement, Sweetie. Nothing to worry about,” Silver answered, trying to sound normal, as she walked past her.
Her reply didn’t seem to reassure Sweetie. If anything, she looked even more concerned, as she turned to grab Silver’s shoulder and turn her a bit towards her.
“That didn’t look like a simple disagreement,” Sweetie told her. “I disagree with Scootaloo and Apple Bloom, but I don’t buck them in the face and walk away.”
“Really, Sweetie, it’s okay,” Silver said.
Sweetie didn’t look ready to give up, but before she could talk again, Cheerilee started calling them inside. She looked towards the doors, then back at Silver.
"Meet me at the clubhouse after school. We can talk more then," Sweetie told her, and went inside before Silver could object.
---
During the lesson, while Cheerilee’s back was turned, Silver noticed a folded piece of paper landing on her desk. After glancing at Cheerilee to make sure she wasn’t looking, Silver unfolded the paper and read what it said.
Silver Spoon, I’ll be expecting you to be outside the school when I finish my detention.
Silver pretty much expected Diamond to say this, and until her talk with Sweetie, she was going to. But even though she disagreed with what Sweetie wanted to tell her, Silver felt she probably needed to hear it. After glancing up to make sure Cheerilee wasn’t looking, she wrote a note of her own.
But Sweetie invited me to go over to their clubhouse.
She folded up the paper and had the student next to her send the note on it’s way to Diamond. After it reached it’s destination, Diamond read it, looked a bit angry, and started writing out another note, before sending it back to Silver.
So you’re going to choose a blank flank filly over your best friend? If you’re not there, I’ll tell everypony about how you feel towards Featherweight. And don’t bother to tell me what you’ll do if I tell ponies, because I know you’re too much of a wimp to do any of them. You’ll be there waiting for me, right?
That letter kind of stung, but Silver knew it was on the mark. With one last glance at Cheerilee, she wrote one last note, with just one word.
Right.