Suzie was having the time of her life. Although the Hooveses did not have fancy equipment like the playground, they did have a yard with room to run, and Dinky seemed to know a dozen games that could be played with just two ponies. Tag, hoof-races, leapfrog, (though Suzie had always been told to never play leapfrog with a unicorn, and thought that there might be some logic to the warning.) all of them were fun, and Suzie had never done them before. As the day waned, she found herself more tired than she usually was after a day’s activities, and yet she never wanted to stop.
Over the hill came Suzie’s mother. Seeing the two fillies being so rambunctious, she approached and said, “Be careful, now, you two, you don’t want to get hurt.”
“We will, mom!” said Suzie
“Hello, Mrs. Pie!” said Dinky, “It’s OK, nopony ever got much hurt just running around. You should come run with us, I bet you’d be real fast!”
“Mmhm. And where is your mother, little one?”
“Oh, she comes and plays with us sometimes, but right now she’s cleaning up the kitchen. Suzie was a great helper with the muffins!”
Inkara looked at her daughter. “Muffins? What kind?”
“Chocolate, but I only had one!”
Dinky said, “You did, didn’t you? You should go have more!”
“No, that’s all right.”
“I should say so,” said Inkara. “You know, you little foals shouldn’t be out here all on your own. What if somepony came by and snatched you up?”
“Who would do that?” asked Dinky.
“You never know.”
“Mrs. Pie, Suzie’s real nice and I’m glad you let her come over. . . but you can be a real mean mommy!”
Inkara bristled. “I think we should go in and see your mother now. She should know that you’re not showing the proper respect to your elders.”
Suzie was visibly nervous. As they trotted in, the two fillies trailed behind and she whispered to Dinky, “You’re in trouble now. Mom will make sure your mom punishes you.”
“Mommy wouldn’t do that. Mommy always says that respect doesn’t mean letting ponies walk all over you, or we’d never get anywhere. She’ll understand.”
“Yeah, that’s fine for other foals, but mom’s an adult! Adults always listen to each other instead of their fillies.”
Dinky stopped and looked at Suzie. “That’s why I say your mommy can be mean. Who’s right is who’s right, doesn’t matter how old they are.”
Inkara called back, “Come along you two. You’re not to stay out on your own.”
When the three of them reached the house, Derpy was just finishing scrubbing the table. “Hi there! Welcome back!”
“Miss Hooves,” said Inkara.
“Oh, you can call me Derpy, everypony does!”
“Be that as it may, do you know what your filly just said to me?”
“. . . Was it hello? Because usually when somepony comes into the yard she says hello.”
“No! Well, yes, she did say hello, but that’s not what I’m talking about. She was very disrespectful and said I was mean!”
“And are you?”
“I most certainly am not! The very idea! Suzie, go on and tell her that I’m not mean.”
The gray filly said, “It’s true, you’re a good mother.”
“I wonder how not mean you are if you have to have your filly confirm it,” said Derpy.
“All right, I’ve had just about enough of you. I have a thing or two to tell you and you’re going to listen.”
But Derpy walked right past Inkara and into the yard. She took to the air and flew about a hundred yards down the road.
“Of all the nerve!” said Inkara, and she ran after Derpy. When she reached her, the pegasus said,
“I’ll listen to anything you have to say, but we will not get into an argument in front of our children. They’re friends.”
“Not anymore, they’re not. You’re neglectful, irresponsible, and you let them get away with far too much. You’re free to raise your own filly the way you like, but you will not turn Suzanna into a disobedient little brat like yours. I don’t know how you expect her to ever grow up and make something of herself with only one parent, who as near as I can tell is one of the most incompetent, unintelligent, and just plain stupid ponies in Ponyville!”
Derpy fought back tears. She thought about whether to just walk away, but emotion overtook her. “I may not be very smart, and I may not be able to see all that well, but I can see which of our kids is going to grow up right. Dinky knows how to take care of herself, have fun, and be helpful around the house. Suzie is a wonderful girl, but is crying out to be left alone for one moment in her life so that she can find out who she is. Unless you plan to keep watching over her for the rest of her life—“
She cut herself off as realization hit her. “That’s what the expression means! I’m not the pegasus parent, you are! Because you’re going to hover over Suzie all her life and block out the sun. Only someday you can’t and there’s going to be trouble.
“And you told a lie. You can’t let me be free to raise Dinky as I like. If you do, then Suzie will want to be friends with her. The only way to get your daughter to grow up as you like is to make sure every pony in Equestria who has a child treats them just the way you do. And I’m certainly not. So the fact is that you can let Suzie have a wonderful unicorn for a friend, or you can keep trying to raise the pony in the plastic bubble, and believe you me, I know a thing or two about bubbles.”
The two ponies just stared at each other. Then Inkara lifted her head and started trotting back to the house. “I’ll be taking Suzanna home now,” she said.
When Derpy reached the cottage a few moments after Inkara, the two earth ponies were already heading out the door. For a moment, Derpy was able to look both mother and daughter in the eye. Then she headed in.
Dinky was sitting down at the kitchen table. “Did I do something wrong, Mommy?” she asked.
“A little. You didn’t mean to say the wrong thing, and that means you can’t be blamed for it. But things have gone wrong, and you have to deal with it.”
“What’s gone wrong?”
“Well, you might not get to see Suzie again, not for a long while at least.”
“You and Mrs. Pie got in a fight?”
“Yeah, and I whipped her earth pony butt!” said Derpy, just to break the tension. Then she got serious again. “We lost our tempers, and we shouldn’t have. Whether she comes around and lets Suzie play with you will depend on how she really is deep down.”
“I hope she does.”
“And so do I, but not so much for you.”
“Huh?”
“Little Suzie needs a friend like you much more than you need her.”
“But she was fun to play with and taught me stuff!”
“And you taught her too, Dinky. You probably didn’t even know it at the time. But now she’s not going to get to play with you and learn more. Again, not for now. Maybe someday you two will be in the same class at school, or she’ll grow up and remember you. There are always possibilities, my little muffin, and we just have to grab on to the good ones.”
“Mommy?”
“Yes?”
“When you and Suzie’s mommy went off, I took Suzie into my room. Do you know my little hair barrette? I gave it to her and told her to hide it in her hair till she got home. I planned to go to her house someday and she would give me something of hers, you know, a friendship exchange. But now I can’t.”
“No, but that was a good thing nevertheless. If you never see her again, you’ll never get it back. You liked that barrette, didn’t you?”
“Mmhm.”
“Then that means that until you meet again, Suzie will have a piece of your heart with her at all times. That might just be enough to keep you together.
And Derpy and Dinky cuddled together, and they watched the sun set.