I felt so happy sitting there chatting with my big sister. The stuff she had told me was so amazing and remarkable. I could hardly believe how much she had gone through. Scootieloo was acting like her old self again. She looked so much happier now. I’m glad she was feeling better now.
I was happiest about her trusting me and telling me about all the adult stuff she had struggled with. As we had both thought before I didn’t understand all of it, but it was enough that she had told me.
When we finished our meal she took me over to a sports shop. She bought a few things as I looked around.
After that we went home. We went to my room and she took out the bag from the store. She left my room and came back a minute later with a few tools. She replaced the pieces that had broken and reattached the wheels. She looked sad again as she worked. I could understand her feelings. She felt bad for getting so mad she broke something that meant a lot to her. I had gotten upset at her too for breaking it because I had put my heart into it just like she had. I placed a comforting hoof on her shoulder. “Don’t get upset, Scootieloo. You’re gonna make it good as new again.”
She sighed. “I know, Rosie. But you also know now how much this thing means to me. You know why I cried when I gave it to you, and why I wanted so badly for you to take good care of it. And then I went and threw it at a wall. It was stupid and immature of me. Even with all I’ve done and all I’ve experienced… I still have a lot of growing up left to do. In some ways I guess I am still just a kid.”
Scootieloo looked like she was in a funk, just staring at the scooter unmoving. I tried to think of something to say. This felt like another thing I didn’t really get. “Well, um… I was stupid and immature today too. I should have trusted you to be there when I needed you, even if you would have gotten upset with me when you heard about what happened. We all do stupid stuff sometimes, but we all forgive each other for it because we’re family and love each other. So cheer up. Your grandmare wouldn’t want to see you get upset over this.”
Scootieloo looked over at me, and gave me a quick hug. “Yeah, you’re right. I shouldn’t beat myself up. I should learn from this and try not to make the same mistake again.
“Okay, now it’s time to teach you how to do repairs. Even if something breaks you can always replace parts here and there.” So she instructed me in servicing my scooter. She went to grab her own scooter, and showed me step-by-step how to disassemble and reassemble a scooter. She was so fast at it I had to tell her to slow down so I could watch what she was doing. It took a while, but I finally got the hang of it. One final time I took it apart and put it back together without asking her for help once. She congratulated me and clapped her hooves, which made me feel proud of myself.
We sat and talked some more. Mom suddenly knocked on the open door. “Hello, girls. Rose, you have a visitor.”
“I do?” I asked. Who would be visiting me now?
I followed mom to the living room, and I felt my stomach tighten as I beheld Rock Climber.
He looked awkwardly at me and said, “Hello, Rose. Do you think I could talk to you in private?”
I wasn’t sure of my feelings towards him right now. Neither me nor Scootieloo had told our parents what happened, so I wasn’t sure how to respond to him without making them suspicious in some way. “I’ll be right back,” I said, not giving them a chance to respond as I ran back to my room.
“What’s wrong, Rosie?” asked Scootieloo.
I was panting and my emotions were going all over the place. “He’s… he’s here!”
“Who? Not Thunder Storm?”
“No, his little brother. Rock Climber.” An angry look came to her face, but she managed to turn it more neutral. “He says he wants to talk to me. What do you think I should do?”
“That’s up to you to decide. You said on the way home that Rock Climber wanted no part in humiliating you and tried to get them to release you. Whether he did it for your sake or just for his own is up in the air. The fact of the matter is that you’re going to have to face him in school the rest of the year. You can choose to ignore him, or you can renew your friendship if he expresses regret.
"You complained earlier that I have been treating you like a baby, so I’m not going to tell you what to do. I’m going to let you try and handle this on your own, and trust that you’ll make the right decision. For now, at least, I think we should keep what happened today between the two of us so you have the chance to resolve this privately between you and him. Once we get our parents involved there will be no going back. They’ll start filing complaints and it’ll just turn into a big mess.”
“Okay. I agree. I guess I should hear what he has to say. I’ll go outside to the back. Can you go stay in one of the trees outside or something? I don’t think Rock Climber will hurt me right outside my house, but his brother might have forced him into it for revenge."
“Okay, kid. I’m also curious what he’s going to say. He seems to have gone off on a bad path. However, he didn’t seem like a bad kid when I was talking to him earlier.”
“Yeah, I know. In school he seemed like a great friend. I thought he’d be my Apple Bloom or Sweetie Belle. Oh, well. Go ahead. I’ll be out in a minute.”
Scootieloo flew out the window, and I saw her fly to a tree nearby.
I headed back to the living room. As soon as I saw him again that mix of indescribable emotions burst forth again. It was like a mix of liking him and hating him and feeling sorry for him simultaneously.
I walked past him and said, “Come on. Let’s go outside to the backyard.” I was glad my voice came out pretty normally. He followed me outside to the backyard. I looked around for the tree Scootieloo was in. I found her after a quick search. If anything happened I wanted to know what tree to run to.
Away from my parents I didn’t have to keep so much control of my emotions, and I said roughly, “So go ahead. Talk!”
He looked nervously at me, and then he looked down at the ground. “Rose Blossom, I’m sorry about what happened today. I never wanted this to happen.”
For some reason my emotions exploded. I shoved him hard, almost knocking him over. “Sorry? You’re sorry! You think that just makes everything better? You kicked me off my scooter and got me hurt. You ran off with those jerks and made sure to give me a happy grin to rub it in when you took off with those three jerks. I TOLD you how much that scooter meant to me, but you didn’t care. You’re just as bad as your monster of a brother! So you know what? You can take your apology, and shove it! Go find some other pony to betray.”
With that I turned my head away from him and began walking back to the house.
“Rose Blossom… how much does your sister mean to you?” His voice was shaking and he sounded on the verge of tears.
I turned back to him and said, “Everything in the world. She’s my hero and everything I want to be when I grow up. And what does that have to do with anything?”
“And what would you do if… if-if-if the only way you could spend time with her was to do something bad?”
“So is that your excuse?”
“I’m not making any excuses!” he yelled out, and now the tears had begun to pour down his face. “Please! I’m not asking you to forgive me or be my friend anymore, or to ever talk to me again after this. I’m only asking you to listen. Please, Rose. I’m begging you. ”
I sighed. I guess I’m just a sucker for a crying pony, no matter how mad I get. “Fine. I’ll listen to your story, but don’t expect anything else from me. It doesn’t mean I’m going to forgive you.”
“I know…” He let out a deep breath, and then continued, “My brother didn’t used to be like that. He used to always spend time with me and teach me about lots of cool stuff. He liked to show off his talents and I’d always admire him and I wanted to be just like him too.”
For a moment he smiled, but then it quickly faded as he looked back at the ground. “But things changed last year. He suddenly stopped wanting to spend time with me. He kept pushing me away and telling me I was just a bother to him and he had better things to do with his time. At first I didn’t know why he suddenly started acting this way.
“Those two friends of his sometimes came to pick him up to hang out, but they never stayed at the house. More changes started. He would be more rebellious and disrespectful to our parents, and sometimes he would sneak out when he wasn’t supposed to leave the house. It was like he had suddenly become someone else entirely. When I asked them about it my parents said it was just a phase he was going through as he began growing up and wanting freedom. I thought it was more than that.
“One day I followed them because I thought I wanted to see what they were up to, and if I could maybe join in. I was so shocked and surprised at what I saw. One of them was talking to an orange vendor, one of them was looking around, and my brother was throwing oranges into a bag. Then they took off.
“I couldn’t believe what I had just seen. My brother was stealing. He had never done that before. They went into a small alley to begin eating their stolen stuff, and I came in and confronted them. I told them I was gonna tell our parents. My brother got really mad. He picked me up and held me against a wall. He threatened me that if I dared tell Mom or Dad that he was never going to speak to me again and he’d go around showing everyone this embarrassing baby photo of me. He sounded so scary that I lost all my courage. I barely spoke to him lately as it is.”
Guilt shined on his face as he said, “And that’s when I made my first bad decision. I asked him, if I kept my mouth shut, if he’d let me start hanging out again with him from time to time. I just... I missed him so badly I didn’t even care what we did, as long as we got to spend time together. They talked it over, and when he finally came back he told me that as long as I kept the secret he would."
"Mmm..." I could identify with that feeling. I had said the same thing to Scootieloo, though I wouldn't have meant doing bad stuff.
“When we came home that night he almost seemed like my old brother again. I guess he wanted to stay on my good side so I’d keep my word. He told me about school. He used to be a shy pony, but that year some of the popular kids took an interest in him, and his reputation went up because of it. He started making a bunch of new friends, but those two were the biggest hotshots and nobody wanted to mess with them. All of a sudden he went from being a quiet nobody at school to one of the most popular kids there. The fame went right to his head and he began getting arrogant.
“Over the next couple of months I did a lot of things I’m not proud of. Heavy Downpour and Midnight Dream were fond of stealing and vandalism. Whenever my brother let me come along he forced me to participate in their activities in some way. He said that if I really meant what I said about not telling then I should share some of the responsibility. No one likes getting in trouble, so if I did something bad too it gave me less of a reason to rat them out.”
Tears began streaming down his eyes again, and his legs began shaking like he was going to fall down. “So I stole. I broke stuff. I painted graffiti on walls and houses. My conscience bothered me a lot at first, but soon enough I started having fun doing those things, because whenever I did them my brother became so happy. He showered me with praise and patted my shoulder and for a short time it was like the old days where I spent time with him."
Although I didn't agree with his actions I was understanding him more and more. He loved his brother so much he'd stoop to anything for his praise and approval. I'd like to think that I would never do the same, but I loved Scootieloo more than anything in the world. If it was the only way we could spend time together...
"One day when they were stealing some food I was on lookout close by. The shopkeeper caught them in the act. I suddenly got an idea. I ran forward, and I lied. I put on the waterworks and begged him not to be mad. I made up some story about how we were really poor, and I had been so hungry. My three brothers had only wanted their younger brother not to starve. I brought the shop owner to tears I was so convincing. He commended the three of them for looking out for their family, but that stealing wasn’t the answer. He did give us some free food though.
“When we got back to the hideout all three of them congratulated me and praised me, making me out to be a hero. Before this Heavy Downpour and Midnight Dream had both seen me as a pest and hadn’t really wanted me in their group. They changed their mind after that. They saw that I could be useful. Since I was just a little kid adults would let me get away with stuff the older kids wouldn't have been able to.
“During the day, when we had our 'fun,' I had stopped having any doubts and just did whatever they told me. Getting to hang out with the older boys and be fully accepted by them meant a lot to a kid like me. However, I had trouble sleeping at night because I knew that what I had been doing was wrong.
"I soothed my conscience by telling myself more lies. I asked myself what was a few things or food here or there. The pony wouldn’t notice if we only took a couple. We didn’t break anything too valuable, so what was a few bits to replace it? How much work could it possibly take to do a little repainting?
“Little by little I started changing too. I began getting snippy with my parents just like him. I began refusing to do what I was told, following after my brother. I didn’t feel too bothered by what we were doing because what we did never actually hurt anyone. Sure, it may get them upset, but they’d get over it soon enough.
“Things changed, though, because of you. You began telling me about how Scootaloo was so great and courageous and powerful, about the special scooter she had passed on to you, and how she always had time for you. You… reminded me of the past, before my brother met those guys. You made me realize how much I had been ignoring what my heart was saying. When you promised me that you wouldn’t tell anyone what I was about to tell you I felt so relieved. I wanted to tell you all this before, but then they showed up."
So that was what had him so worked up at the park. He had been about to tell me about what he and his brother had been up to.
“My head got all mixed up. In one way I saw how much my brother had changed, and so I felt mad at him. I also felt that same guilty burning feeling inside, because I thought of all the bad stuff I had done so I didn't lose my brother’s attention.
“When you showed me how much better you were than me at scootering, and then my brother made fun of me and had us race, I got so furious when you started talking about your sister again. I promise I never intended to knock you off like that. I only wanted to hurt you a little bit. I was so angry right then that when you fell down I felt nothing at all but satisfaction. And then they stroked my ego by cheering me like they had before. My conscience didn’t protest at all right then, and I felt glad that you had been knocked down a few pegs.
“After a little while, when we had arrived at the hideout, I started feeling bad again. I realized just how much what happened had to have hurt you. And then when you actually showed up I was scared of what they would do to you. When they tied you up and my brother threatened to leave you there overnight, and then joined in in spitting in your mane, and especially when he tried to force me to do the same, I also realized how different his friends had made him. He showed absolutely no doubt or guilt at all. That scared me more than anything."
"Rock Climber..." I remembered the expressions on his face in the warehouse. He had looked terrified, especially when his brother forced him to spit at me.
“After you and Scootaloo left and he recovered a bit we left too. Once more he threatened me to keep my mouth shut and to deny everything if we were accused. When we got home he went to his room. When our parents asked what was wrong with him I started to lie, but my heart burned too much.
"I was sick and tired of what I had been doing. I was disgusted with myself for doing so many bad things. I couldn’t bear to tell them one more lie. So I told them the truth. I told them everything that we had been doing. Our parents were furious. They gave him a really long lecture, punishments... everything they could do. Most of the time he just looked furiously at me, like he wished he could beat me up.
"Even if it meant he would never speak to me again, I… I… I couldn’t just watch my brother turn into a monster anymore.” And with that Rock Climber collapsed onto the floor and began sobbing.