The items on the list simply had to get done this weekend, she said. There was just soooo much to do in soooo little time, she said.
Spike couldn't help but roll his eyes. Even so, he knew he could sulk all he wanted, but that still didn’t change the fact that there was work that Twilight needed him to do.
The contents of one of the shelves lay on the floor to either side of Spike. To his left, the books lay in a haphazard pile, contrasted by the several neat stacks he had formed to the right as he sorted them out.
It was a long meticulous process, but he nonetheless did it with only the occasional sigh or roll of the eyes, which for him was an achievement. The system was simple but time-consuming; he picked up one tome at a time from the pile and examined the title written on the spine, flipped it open, and brushed through the pages before deciding which stack to place it on.
But in spite of the ever-growing height of the stacks, it seemed like he had hardly made a dent in the humungous pile looming to the left. Although, he had to admit that based on what he could already tell, it really had been far too long since the library had been re-shelved and re-sorted…
The knocking on the front door was so hard that it rattled the hinges. He jumped, dropping the book in his hand with a startled exclamation.
“Could you get that, Spike?” Twilight requested from upstairs. “Tell whoever it is that I’ll be right down!”
Eager to get away from the tedious task at hand, even if only for a moment, he walked over to the door and called up to her, “Sure, I got it!”
The pony on the other end of the door knocked again, rapping their hoof against the door several more times. Spike huffed.
“Jeez, gimme like five seconds,” he said. The library’s hours on Fridays ended early, at four o’clock, so whoever was waiting on the other side of the door, it was readily apparent that they wanted to see Twilight badly. Expecting it to be one of Twilight’s friends, he grabbed the knob and opened the door partway, stepping into the open space.
He did not expect to see Miss Cheerilee standing there. He raised his scaly eyebrows.
“Oh, hi, Miss Cheerilee,” he greeted her with a sharp-toothed smile. But no sooner had the friendly greeting left his mouth that he noticed something was off about her; her chest was heaving with heavy breaths as though she had just finished running, and her hooves tapped the ground in a little dance.
“Hello, Spike. Is Twilight there?” She posited the question right off the bat. Her edgy voice was further evidence that something was amiss. He nodded.
“Yeah, she said she’ll be down in a second,” he said, stepping to the side and opening the door wider to let Cheerilee in. The other mare stepped inside, nodding a silent thank-you to Spike.
“I’m coming!” Twilight said while already halfway down the stairs. When she saw Mrs. Cheerilee standing in the doorway, she too looked a bit surprised.
“Oh, hello, Cheerilee. So nice to see—”
“Twilight, I’m sorry to come here while the library is off hours,” she interrupted the other mare, “but I need to talk to you. Alone.” She shot Spike an apologetic look.
Twilight picked up on Cheerilee’s grave tone. It was not often that she ever saw the amiable mare like this, and she knew right away that something was wrong.
“Oh. Well… of course,” she said. She motioned for Cheerilee to follow her upstairs and turned to Spike. “Sorry… You just keep up the good work, Spike. We’ll be in my room.”
“Um… okay,” he conceded, walking back over to the pile with reluctance. He shot the two mares a few glances over his shoulder out of curiosity as they disappeared upstairs, with Cheerilee following Twilight close behind. He picked up the book he had dropped and resumed working.
Or at least, he tried to. Curiosity about what he had just seen made it impossible to focus. He looked down at the book held in his claws and read over the title several times, trying in vain to categorize it with one of the stacks, but his preoccupied mind couldn’t make the connection.
He turned his gaze away from the book and directed it over at the stairs once more. He bit his lip.
Screw it.
Quietly, he set the book back down in the pile and began to tiptoe over to the staircase. He thanked his lucky stars that the steps did not creak as he tiptoed, keeping his head low and staring up, preparing himself to bolt back downstairs if necessary.
When he was in hearing range, he stopped on the stair, crouched down low, and tuned his ears to the muffled voices above.
...
"What is it you wanted to talk to me about, Cheerilee? You look like you've seen a ghost," Twilight observed in a low tone of voice. She could see the droplets of sweat on Cheerilee's forehead as she made eye contact with her. The other mare cleared her throat.
"I, ahem, wanted to ask for your thoughts on a very important matter... a matter concerning one of my students," she replied. Her face was aglow with fear and dread. Twilight cocked her head.
"What kind of... matter? Behavioral, or..."
Cheerilee shook her head. "Errr... well, no. Not exactly. It's much worse than that... you know Scootaloo, am I right?"
"Scootaloo?" Twilight repeated the name. "Well, yes I do, but not very well. I know she's one of those Cutie Mark Crusaders fillies that's always running around... and what do you mean, 'worse than that?'" Twilight asked, her voice rising in volume. "Is something the matter with her?"
Cheerilee paused for a moment, a lump traveling down her throat as she swallowed. She then replied in the affirmative.
"Yes... I'm afraid that something might be very wrong. I cannot be certain, but... that is why I'm here right now. I wanted to consult you, since I know you are a very knowledgeable pony and could offer some helpful insight, before I make a final decision."
Every word that the schoolteacher was saying served to make Twilight feel more and more uneasy. She coughed, and asked her, "Um... final decision?"
Cheerilee nodded, gritting her teeth together.
"Before I decide to send a letter to Foal Protective Services."
...
Pressed up against the wall bordering the staircase, Spike listened to the entire course of the conversation.
The more he heard, the wider his eyes grew, and the harder his heart thumped in his chest. He put his right hand on his heart and pressed down hard on it as if her were saying a pledge, out of fear that it would be heard all the way up the stairs.
He knew about Scootaloo. He remembered hearing things about her family past a long time ago. Some ponies knew, and others didn't. He did.
But he had never heard anything about something like this.
He continued listening, staying quiet as a mouse.
…
"And then when I tried to explain it to her, she wouldn't listen," said Miss Cheerilee. "I told her she was not in trouble, that I just wanted to mention the whole thing to her father, but she was just... irrational. But worst of all, Twilight, she was... terrified. Scared out of her wits. And now, I'm starting to think that maybe..."
Cheerilee trailed off, wiping her eyes and pulling herself together. Twilight had listened carefully, and as Cheerilee told her more and more of the story, her conversation with Rainbow Dash only a few hours before was called to mind.
"...maybe something else is going on. Something at her home," she concluded, her eyes welling up with water.
Twilight mulled the facts over in her brain silently, unease building up in her gut. She remembered the story Rainbow Dash told her, and at the time it had made perfect sense to her. But now...
"So she became scared as soon as you mentioned telling her father..." she reiterated what Miss Cheerilee said before. The other mare affirmed with a nod. "And this isn't the first time she's come to school with marks?"
Miss Cheerilee shook her head. "No, it is not. She's shown up to school this year on more than one occasion with a couple of bruises here and there. But it was worse than usual yesterday, and I took notice. Whenever I've asked her in the past about it, she always tells me that she got into some kind of crash when she was trying to do a trick on her scooter, but after yesterday... I don't know if I can believe her."
Twilight nodded, biting her lip. She matched up what Rainbow Dash said before with what she was hearing right now, and her stomach churned.
"So... did you ever get to talk to her about it? All of the injuries, specifically?"
"No, I haven't," said Cheerilee with a groan. "What's worse is that I had planned on talking to Scootaloo after school today about it... but before I could even get a hold of her, she had already raced right out the door. I'm telling you, once that girl gets going on that scooter of hers, she's gone."
Cheerilee's face was halfway between a smile and a grimace. Twilight's face soon matched hers.
"And... do you know why she was in such a hurry?" the alicorn asked, having a sneaking suspicion of what the answer was. Miss Cheerilee took a deep breath.
"I asked Apple Bloom that same question as my students were leaving class, and she told me that Scootaloo was supposed to meet with Rainbow Dash for flying lessons today. Which makes sense, considering how much that filly adores Rainbow Dash."
With that said, Twilight's guess had been confirmed. Everything Rainbow Dash said to her the previous day was matching up perfectly with what she was hearing right now.
"Did she say where they were going?"
"No," Cheerilee answered. "I ran all around town looking for them, but I couldn't find them anywhere. I even canceled my tutoring session with Sweetie Belle today so I could spend more time looking, but..." She closed her eyes. "I didn't see either pony anywhere. I would have sent a letter to the FPS yesterday, but... I decided to talk to Scootaloo after school today about everything before I decided. But now..."
She exhaled, sighing softly. Twilight raised an eyebrow quizzically.
"Do you know where she lives? She might be there later. Or even right now..."
Miss Cheerilee's face brightened up for a moment at the suggestion, but it quickly faded.
"I don't know the exact address. I believe she lives on one of the little streets off of South Main Road, but... if something bad really is happening at home, then I don't want to show up at her front door and raise suspicions," she reasoned.
Twilight pursed her lips, thinking through what the teacher had said. She agreed.
"Well... yes, I suppose... if something is actually going on, which, based on what you've told me, it sounds like there's a good chance... that might not be the smart thing to do. The last thing we want is for her father to do something drastic because he thinks we're onto him..."
She shuddered. Cheerilee nodded her head in concurrence.
"Yes... it's just... I just... I'm sorry." Miss Cheerilee halted to wipe her moistening eyes with a hoof. "I just really, really hope this turns out to be nothing. I--I don't want one of my students to be hurt because of... I've... I've never had anything like this happen before..."
She sucked in a breath to pull herself together. Twilight stepped forward and laid a hoof on her shoulder.
"I know, Cheerilee. I know this is hard," she tried to comfort her. "I'm sorry..."
Cheerilee stepped back away from Twilight causing her hoof to slide off her fur and fall to the floor. She shook her head vigorously, whisking away a tear that was threatening to escape the corner of her eye.
"No, no. I'm fine. It's alright. I'm just... I'm sorry for being such a wreck," she belittled herself.
If Twilight didn't know better, she could've sworn that there was even a trace of anger in the other mare's tone. She did not know what to make of it, but she kept the observation to herself.
After a short period of awkward silence, Twilight spoke.
"I know you came over here to ask me advice, and... I think you should do it. I think you should send Foal Protective Services in Canterlot a letter requesting an investigation," she concluded with a resolute grimace. Cheerilee matched her expression.
"I... I will. Thank you, Twilight. I... I just need to go back to the schoolhouse so I can find the address," she said. She wiped off the sweat from her brow. "I'm sorry for dumping all of this on you..."
"No, no no," Twilight dismissed the notion, "Don't think that. I am honored that you would come to me with something like this, Cheerilee, and I'm glad that I could help. Here, I'll come with you," she offered, draping a wing around the mare's shoulders as they began to walk toward the stairs. Cheerilee smiled.
Below, both mares heard the door open and slam shut, followed by the fading pitter-patter of feet striking the ground outside. Both of them stopped at the top of the stairs.
"Um... Spike?" Twilight called out to her number one assistant. Spike didn't answer her. "Spiiike..."
They both got to the bottom, and they noticed a piece of paper lying beside the door. They walked over to it.
A hastily written message had been scrawled on the paper in black ink. It read:
"Taking a break. Will be back soon. Spike~"
Twilight hovered the message to her face, reading it over with her features wrinkled in confusion while Cheerilee read it over her shoulder.
"Uhh... Huh?"
...
Spike usually used landmarks to find his way around, and as a result, he never paid much attention to the street names. But right now, he fixed his eyes on every street sign he saw as Cheerilee's directions played back in his head: Off South Main Road, down one of the little streets.
But was it the street?
Spike passed Sugarcube Corner at a light jog, keeping his breathing constant and at a steady rhythm. He already ran earlier that day, and his legs were unaccustomed to the exercise, but the adrenaline flowing through his bloodstream made up for it.
Ten minutes later, he reached the entrance to the same neighborhood that he had walked through yesterday and the day before that. He looked to the left and right of the cobblestone road until he found the two perpendicular wooden boards stapled at the top of a square wooden post where the road names were labeled. He read the name of the neighborhood street.
South Main Road.
He stopped jogging, feeling a knot form in his bulging belly, and walked into the neighborhood, keeping his eye out for the first intersection in the road.
...
Rainbow Dash searched for more than an hour, scouring the entirety of Ponyville before finally giving up.
The late-evening sun warmed her cyan fur as she flapped aimlessly on the way back to her home in the clouds, moseying through the air in a state somewhere between absent-mindedness and deep thought.
She was disgusted. She was disgusting. Just to think that a stupid book could have caused something like this to happen…
“No,” she corrected herself with a low growl. “The stupid book didn’t do anything. You were the one who left Scootaloo hanging out to dry. Nopony else.”
Her hooves trod over soft cloud, but the surface felt like tacks beneath her hooves. She whisked the door open and stormed into the house, brow creased downward as the anger built against herself.
“You suck, you know that? You suck. Eggs. Tell her you’ll be there at three, and then what do you do? You throw her under the carriage. And now she probably never wants to talk to you again!”
Her voice started off quiet, but now she was speaking as though she were on center-stage in a theatre production. She paced back and forth over the linoleum floor, stomping her hooves with each step.
“And you know what else? You deserve it. Kid’s excited out of her mind to learn from the best, only to figure out that the ‘best’ is just a big. Fat. JERK!”
She slammed her head onto the countertop to punctuate each word. She immediately regretted it. The force of the blows caused an onset of dizziness, and she staggered away from the counter with her head held in one of her hooves, sitting back on the floor and emitting a soft groan of pain.
“Uhhh…” Rainbow Dash pressed her hooves on both sides of her throbbing head and closed her eyes. When the pounding finally ceased and her mind cleared, she thought some more.
Which only made her angrier.
She stood up, shaking her head to get rid of the lingering ache in her skull, and made a beeline for the stairs, to her bedroom.
The Daring Do book lay on the floor in an upside-down V, spine-side up. Rainbow Dash bared her teeth at the offending object and plucked it up from the floor, zooming back out her front door with the novel gripped tightly in her hooves, and with a furious yell, hurled it out into the open air.
Her eyes followed the book as it plummeted toward the earth. Its pages unfurled like the wings of a flightless bird trying desperately to preserve its life, but its efforts were all in vain as it shrank into a tiny speck, becoming lost to sight.
Rainbow Dash stayed there for a while, staring at the spot in the sky where the book had disappeared. She slowly drifted back home, flapping her wings half-heartedly. When she made it back inside, she went into the kitchen and sat herself down at the table, propping her elbows up and resting her head in her trembling forelegs.
She could have thrown that book from the upper edge of the stratosphere, but it wouldn't have made her feel any better. There was no penance; no wrong was righted, and there was no retribution.
She closed her eyes, squeezing them shut to keep tears from leaking out the corners.
"I'm sorry, Squirt," she whispered. "I'm sorry..."
...
The claws on Spike's feet scratched into the cobblestone as he stood in the center of the intersection, looking down the sidestreet that formed a little pipestem off of what he now knew as South Main Road.
Twilight and Cheerilee's discussion played out in his memory, and the knot in his stomach tightened.
Down one of the little streets...
And here he was.
He took the first step. Then the second, and then the third, walking until he was partway down the pipestem.
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't remember what it sounded like, but its echo had nonetheless left its mark. The sound had been so faint, so imperceptible...
He could see the end of the cul-de-sac. No sounds issued from the little houses on either side of him, and wide rays of light from the descending sun flowed in between them and formed light and dark bands on the street. He kept walking, shifting his gaze between three of the homes situated at the very end of the road...
That was when he saw it, lying in the browning, weedy grass of the middle home's front yard, just beside one of the trees; a blue scooter.
Spike stopped breathing. The artery in his neck visibly throbbed with the tempo of his heartbeat. There was no mistaking who this scooter belonged to.
The dragon stopped his forward progress, but only for a moment before he resumed his approach, leaning forward on the balls of his feet. Deadly curiosity outweighed uncertainty, and he was pulled closer and closer, passing the spot he had stood two days prior...
...and then he got a better look at the scooter lying on the ground. His pupils dilated. At the joint where the handlebars met the scooter platform, the metal bar was bent at a shallow angle, sticking up from the grass. One of its four red wheels lay a few feet away, and on the tree beside it, there was a wide gash on the bark.
He stepped into the yard and crouched down, looking at the scooter with his mouth wide open. He didn't know Scootaloo well, but if there was one thing he did know, it was that she and her preferred mode of transportation were inseparable. And seeing it like this...
It felt like an ice cube was slithering down his back. He shivered, and his head shot up to look at the house only footsteps away.
This time, he couldn't have imagined it. He heard something. The faintest, tiniest squeak, like hearing a rodent in the attic of the library when he was having trouble sleeping late at night. His heart froze.
A choked, pained squeal that barely broke through the wall, but was just loud enough for Spike to pick up. One word.
"Help!"
His stomach did a front flip, and bile traveled up his throat to burn his esophagus.
"Help!"
The same cry as before, amplified just enough to remove any semblance of doubt. For a brief moment, he stood stock still.
Then, he lurched forward.
Everything felt numb, the world around him appearing like a passing blur as he stormed across the lawn. His cold blood boiled as he leapt up the two steps to get onto the front porch.
"I'm coming!" he screamed in reply, so loud that his voice cracked.
He came to the front door...
"Help!"
...and threw it open.