Chapter 8: Crash Test
Pinkie had been busy that morning. Things didn’t happen in Ponyville without her knowing about it. It wasn’t because she was the town gossip. No, her Pinkie Sense™ told her there were new ponies in town. Ponies she had to welcome. Add on top of that the birthday surprise for Cantrip. Well, he wasn’t going to have a party, but that was because he didn’t have any friends. She told him her friends call her Pinkie, he called her Pinkie, so now he had at least one friend in town and she was going to throw a surprise party for him!
But first, to get the new ponies.
Somehow she convinced Applejack that her new help had to come and that she couldn’t say no. She visited Fluttershy where a large, strong stallion was ordered under penalty of no cake to come. She found the lookout Rainbow Dash had, whose named just happened to be Lookout! How funny was that? Oh, and she had to come. So did the new mailpony. He was going to deliver himself! That really got her laughing. Finally, she got her hands on Twilight’s new librarian. Twilight said it was okay because they were only in the planning stages. After Pinkie had been convinced it wasn’t a party planning, she went back to Sugarcube Corner.
The cake was finished. She decorated it herself. The deal was she couldn’t make the cake, but there was nothing about decorating it. Mr. Cake relented and went to work on other orders. Given what she was planning, he was happy to let her have some fun and go to town. He did notice she was using more blue than normal for the icing, and when he asked why, she said because he blew up the pond.
Mr. Cake learned long ago not to ask and went back to work.
Pinkie Pie went to work setting up the streamers and confetti, along with a banner that said “Happy Birthday Cantrip!” and a second one that read “Welcome to Ponyville!”
Each of the new ponies arrived one by one. Pinkie told them to hide and told them when to jump out. The magic word was ‘carrot cake’. Well two words, really, but they got the idea.
It wasn’t long before the fated time had arrived. The door opened, ringing the little bells. Pinkie put on her best smile (which was any of them really, if she thought about it. She didn’t.) and welcomed the customer. “Hello! Welcome to Sugarcube Corner!”
Cantrip smiled and said, “Hi Pinkie! I’m here to pick up my carrot cake.”
At once, five ponies sprung up and shouted, “SURPRISE!”
Pinkie pulled a cord and confetti and streamers popped up all over.
What she found awkward was Cantrip wasn’t smiling. He looked horrified. Did she use the wrong color streamers? Maybe there was too much yellow in the confetti. Did she do something wrong?
Before long, she realized he was looking at the five ponies. They were looking back, equally as shocked.
In that span of two seconds after pulling the cord, Cantrip found the energy to finally say something:
“WHAT ARE YOU ALL DOING HERE?!”