I stare down at A.J., our eyes locked in competition.
Sweating, bleeding, unending agony!
Then she blinks.
“HA HA! I win!”
“Gawsh dawn it!” she squeaks.
Two weeks have passed since the ponies wound up on my doorstep. Surprisingly not much has changed, I still attend my classes during the week, work on the weekends and in the evening, and then I come home and take care of the ponies. Who it turns out can talk, as if it wasn’t already weird enough that Twilight and Rarity can use magic (did I mention that they can talk?) and RD and Fluttershy can fly!
Oh yeah, and they can talk!
I turn back to my work laid out on the table.
“We’ll play more latter A.J., now I have to do my school work.”
A.J. cranes her neck trying to get a look at what I’m working on.
“What ya’ll goin’ to school fer’?”
I need to make sure Jon stops talking around her.
“Well, I go to school so that I can learn... things and get a nice job.”
“Do other people go to school?”
“Yep, everyone does at some point.”
She’s quiet, thinking, then she says:
“I wanna’’ go to school!”
I nearly fall out of my chair.
“What?”
“I wanna’ go to school to! That way I can get smart an’ be with you all day!”
“A.J. I don’t know…”
“pleeeeeeeeeessssseeeeeeeee?”
I look down at her, she’s giving me the biggest puppy dog eyes I’ve ever seen. I can’t say no to that!
“We’ll see…”
***
“You want them to what!?”
“Come on! Weirder thing have happened!”
Jon just shakes his head.
Jon has started coming daily now to help feed the six, luckily enough he has a mare who had just lost her colt so she had enough milk for six ponies half the size of a normal foal. I had just told him about my idea to try and get the ponies into a school.
“It’s not that,” he says topping off another bottle. “Just think what would happen if the meda found out!”
“Jon, we don’t even have a local newspaper! I doubt that some media tabloid would come up here looking for news stories!”
“But what if the government found out? What if they took them away to experiment on them?”
“What branch of the government would do that? hmm? Tell me!”
He shrugs.
“That’s what the government does isn’t it?”
I rub the bridge of my nose in frustration.
“No… I don’t think that’s what it does, no.”
He shrugs and hands me the last bottle, next week we’ll start feeding them oats.
“Ok, let’s say you do in fact find a school willing to enroll six candy colored ponies as students. Do you know how hard it is to pay for six kids going to school? That’s six backpacks, six lunches, six cases of pencils…”
***
“... six notebooks, six boxes of crayons and six folders!”
I look down at Twilight and Rarity sitting in the shopping cart, surrounded by our newly gathered school supplies.
“I think that’s everything!” I say. Twilight hops up and down excitedly.
“Oh boy, oh boy! I can’t wait to go to school! It’ll be so fun!”
While in my experience anyone who associated the words fun and school was either a complete arrogant bunghole or someone so smart that they didn’t really need to go to school, but Twilight seems genuinely excited.
“What about you Rarity?”
Rarity ignores my question and instead decides to peak over the top of the cart to look at a display of dresses that have been set up along side the aisle. I do have to admit (even with my normal man level of fashion knowledge), they are quite nice.
“Da de!” she squeaks excitedly, she speaks with an accent unlike the other ponies, A.J. just copies what Jon says but it looks like Rarity’s accent is natural.
“Da de! Can please get that dress?” She says pointing to a fluffy red one, I look down at the price tag attached to it…
NOPE! NOPE! NOPE!
I am not spending that much money on a dress!
“Sorry, Rarity, I can't get it. It probably wouldn’t fit you anyway.”
“Oh pleeeeeeeeesssssseeeeee Da de?”
“No!”
As we navigate our way up and down the aisles of the store we get some strange looks from several people but they turn away just as quickly, it’s almost impressive how much humans are willing to ignore things they don't understand.
When we reach the checkout counter I notice that Rarity isn’t in our cart. I dig under all the school supplies to she if she’s hidden herself. I spin desperately hoping that she’s still around.
“Rarity? Rarity where are you?”
No answer.
Damn, where on earth could she have wandered off to? Suddenly all the things Jon told me about come rushing back to me.
‘If the government found out they’d take them away and do experiments on them.’
I shake my head, that’s ridiculous! but some voice in me hisses back, ‘you lost her, now she’s going to be brought to a petting zoo for sixth graders to rub their hands all over!’
I take the cart and pick up Twilight, holding her by one of her hoofs.
“We’re going to go look for Rarity, you need to stay with me.”
She nods and we walk off.
At the service desk a woman clerk with dyed blonde hair and long fake nails looks up at us.
“Can I help you?”
“Um, I lost my...?”
She picks up a phone, without waiting for me to finish.
“Well, what does she look like?”
I hold up Twilight.
“Um, a little like her but white...”
“Hi!”
The clerk stares at Twilight for a moment, dumbstruck, then dials a number on the phone.
“Yeah, I have guy here who says he lost his daughter a white… unicorn… no I don’t think he’s high he has one with him...no I’m not high either… OK thanks.” She hangs up the phone and turns to me. “Don’t worry sir if she’s still in the store they’ll find her.”
IF SHE STILL IN THE STORE!?
***
A while later Me and twilight are pacing up and down the aisles frantically looking for her.
this is horrible, what if she got taken by someone or what if she got locked in one of the display refrigerators? Could she have wandered outside? WHAT IF SHE HAD BEEN HIT BY A CAR?
“There she is!” Twilight shouted, interrupting my train of thought, and points with her other front hoof. Down the aisle, at the same dress stand where we were before is Rarity, trying and failing to put on the red dress she saw earlier. I run over to her and pull her out of the dress by her tail.
“We have been looking everywhere for you!” I shout. “What on earth were you thinking?”
She starts to tear up.
“I-I only w-w-wanted to try the dreeeeeessssss!” as she finishes she starts breaking out into sobs.
There’s that voice again. ‘Dude, you made a baby unicorn cry! You are a horrible person!’
I let out a long sigh.
“Hey, I’m sorry I yelled,” I say putting her down. “I was just scared.” She stops crying and looks up at me. “Were you scared too?” She nods.
“I-I didn’t know where you were.”
I smile and take her hoof in my hand,
“Well I’m here now, you don’t need to be scared anymore.”
She wraps both her front legs around my arm and squeezes tight. It is honestly the most adorable thing that I have ever seen.