I didn't sleep a wink that night. I was so tense that every snore, squeak, and gentle breeze sent my mind and heart racing. The fact that Bruiser wasn't around didn't help matters any—he claimed he had influence, and I could only imagine how far that influence stretched. Could he pay off a guard and 'accidentally' sneak out of solitary? Did he have any loyal henchponies that would do his dirty work for him? Could he access the food supply in the jail, and would he decide to poison me before I could poison him? Every possible scenario was in play, no matter how ludicrous it seemed.
It felt like it took a whole week for the sun to rise, but eventually a few beams of light came streaming through the cell window. The light was soon followed by the sound of rolling wheels emanating from the hallway leading to the jail cell. I crouched down against the back wall of the cell to avoid being seen, and waited to see who approached.
Eventually, an earth pony dragging a large, drawer-filled cart emerged from the hallway and came over to the cell. She was an older pony, with a few streaks of gray in her dark-red mane, and she wore an apron over her green coat. I quickly checked the mare's cutie mark, and was relieved to see that it was a bundle of beetroot as opposed to, say, a sword or a skull and crossbones. She didn't look anything like a policewoman, though, so I kept a wary eye on her as she worked.
The green mare brought her cart to a stop at the cell door and began reaching into the cart drawers, pulling out several large, steaming aluminum pans and setting them on the floor. Next, she pulled out a stack of plates and a large spoon, and began spooning out piles of greens onto the plates. After filling a few plates, she started scanning the cell, raising a hoof and pointing at each pony as if she was counting them. She stopped counting when our eyes met, however, and she made a face that suggested she hadn't expected to meet a zebra this morning.
I braced myself for the inevitable frown, but instead, the mare smiled and motioned for me to come up to the cell bars. I wasn't sure I wanted to go, but I also didn't think making the mare mad was a good idea either, so I swallowed hard and picked my way through a maze of sleeping ponies to reach her.
"Good morning, dearie!" the pony whispered cheerily as I approached. "I don't remember seeing you here last night. Did you just come in?"
I nodded. "Yes."
"Well then, you must be starving if you missed dinner," the mare said, keeping her voice low to avoid waking anyone. "My name is Beet Green, and I'm in charge of feeding everypony at this facility." As she spoke, she spooned out an extra-large portion of greens onto a plate, then slid it through the slot at the bottom of the door. "Have as much as you like. I've got plenty!"
The greens smelled and looked delicious, and my stomach growled with anticipation. Still, I wasn't sure I could trust Mrs. Green, and was hesitant to take her offering.
Mrs. Green seemed to sense my nervousness. "What we need is a taste-tester," she said. She started looking around behind me at the other ponies in the cell, but her smile faded as she searched. "I don't see Lonesome Road anywhere. What have they done with him?"
I'd never heard the name, but I had an idea of who she meant. "You mean Roady?"
"Well, yes, I've heard other ponies call him that."
I sighed. "He got stuck in solitary for fighting with Bruiser."
"What?!" Mrs. Green didn't bother whispering this. "Fighting? With that bully Bruiser?" The pony scrunched up her face. "I don't understand it. Lonesome knows better than that. What was he thinking?"
I hung my head. "It's my fault, I think. Bruiser called him a zebra lover."
Mrs. Green sighed. "Is that why you're not eating?" She stuck her hoof through the bar and placed it on my shoulder. "I know it looks bad from in there," she offered, "but not all ponies are as closed-minded as Bruiser. Give us a chance." She pulled her hoof back and winked. "Besides, isn't it better to be trusting and full than suspicious and hungry?"
Mrs. Green's compassion caught me by surprise, considering she didn't know anything about me. For all she knew, I could have been a bloodthirsty murderer who was ten times nastier than Bruiser! She had a point about the hunger thing, though, and as I looked at the tasty treat before me, I decided that poisoning would be less painful than any death Bruiser could think of, and took a small bite of greens.
It was definitely the right choice.
I'm telling you, I hadn't tasted food like that since I'd left home. Heck, I'd paid good money for restaurant meals that weren't as good! I scarfed down the entire plate in about sixty seconds, and asked for seconds with a smile.
"I told you!" Mrs. Green said as she doled out another plateful. "Tell you what: Bobby will be assigning morning work detail in a few hours. You should volunteer to work with me in the kitchen! It's a much nicer job than smashing up rocks outside, after all."
Now she thought I should work with her too? "But you don't know why I'm here," I blurted out without thinking. "How do you know I'm not dangerous?"
"I don't," Mrs. Green said with a shrug and a smile. "But like I said, isn't it better to be trusting?"
This pony's good, I thought to myself. "Thank you, Mrs. Green. I'll volunteer for the kitchen."
"Great!" Mrs. Green said. "Now, you may want to step back. Things could get a little crazy..."
She was right: Within ten minutes, the appetizing aroma of her greens had roused my cellmates, and they all rushed to the door to get their share of the food. "Now, now, don't shove!" Mrs. Green instructed. "There's plenty for everypony!"
At I watched Mrs. Green work the crowd of hungry ponies, I felt hopeful for the first time since being incarcerated. Bruiser was still out there, of course, and I didn't really know how the other ponies felt about me. Still, as I thought back to my mother's warnings, I started to wonder if she had been wrong about ponies after all.
After another hour or two, Bobby and a few other officers came into the cell to assign morning work detail. Kitchen duty was the first job they offered, and while a lot of hooves went up in the air, they all came back down the moment I raised mine. "Alright, pal, you're in," Bobby said to me. "Since Roady isn't in shape to do anything besides kitchen duty, that means we only need one more volunteer."
After about ten seconds of silence, Bobby scowled and pointed his hoof at someone. "Congratulations, Tiny," he said, "you're our volunteer!"
I couldn't tell who Bobby was pointing to at first, but as Tiny stepped out from the crowd, I discovered that he was a gargantuan, black-coated earth pony who stood a good head taller than Bobby himself. "You know where the kitchen is," Bobby told Tiny. "Take the zebra over there, and make it snappy!"
Tiny nodded and started walking out of the cell without so much as a word or even a look towards me. I followed him to the kitchen, where we found Mrs. Green chiding Roady for fighting the night before. "You can barely walk!" Mrs. Green exclaimed. "There must have been another way to deal with Bruiser's temper."
Roady shook his head. "Bruiser was looking for a fight. If he hadn't fought me, he would have fought somepony else." He gave Mrs. Green a smile. "I figured he should at least fight somepony his own size."
Mrs. Green shook her head, then noticed Tiny and I standing nearby. "There you are, dearies!" she said. "I hope you're both hungry. We're making wheatgrass pancakes, with apple muffins for dessert!"
Roady and I were assigned to batter-mixing duty for the pancakes. "Your eyes look worse than mine do, Stripes," Roady said. "Let me guess: Not much sleep last night?"
I nodded. "Right as always."
"I figured as much," Roady said. "Still, at least you didn't have to stare at Bruiser's ugly mug all night."
"Why'd you do it, Roady?" I asked. "I'm the one Bruiser has a problem with, not you."
"Bruiser's got a problem with everypony," Roady clarified. "Besides, I hate seeing bad things happen to good ponies—or good zebras, in your case."
Another pony who just decided I was trustworthy? I decided to press Roady for more information. "What makes you think I'm good?" I asked. "You haven't even asked me my name, let alone my story."
"I heard Bobby trip over your name yesterday," Roady explained. "Stripes is easier to pronounce. Also, you aren't the first creature to get caught in a certain pencil-pusher's trap. The first zebra, maybe, but not the first creature."
"What do you mean?"
"Every time there's a celebration around here," Roady continued, "Bureaucrat sticks one or two ponies in the slammer for not having a performer license, despite never telling them they need a license in the first place. They're never bad ponies, just unlucky."
"Bureaucrat? Does he wear a pinstriped shirt and have a holier-than-thou attitude?"
"That's him," Roady confirmed. "You'll see him again when you go before the judge."
We worked in silence for a minute before I realized I didn't know any more about Roady than he knew about me. "So," I asked, "did you fall in Bureaucrat's trap too?"
"No, no," Roady replied. "I made the mistake of taking shelter in somepony's cider shed during a rainstorm and deciding I was a little chilly." He laughed at the memory. "I never figured I could burn down a whole building in a downpour like that. I'm stuck here until the city figures I've worked off the debt."
"How long do you think it'll take?"
"For the shed? I worked that off ages ago," Roady said. "For the two new plows and four hundred gallons of grade-A cider inside? That'll take a while."
"What about Bruiser? What's his story?"
"He got transferred out here from Manehattan before I arrived," Roady explained. "He says he put four ponies and two police officers in traction during a bar fight, and rumor has it that some of the ponies that went into the hospital never came out."
"And you decided to fight him?!"
"Bruiser tries too hard to make you fear him. I figured he was more talk than action." Roady looked down at the reflection of his black eye in his mixing bowl. "Apparently I was wrong."
"Wow." It was all I could think to say. Roady decided to take on a dangerous pony for some zebra he barely knew just because he thought he was a good guy? My mother would have never believed it. "Thanks, Roady."
Our conversation was suddenly interrupted by the sound of smashing glass. I looked over to see Tiny cursing over the remains of a full lemonade pitcher on the floor.
"Don't worry about that, dearie," I heard Mrs. Green say. "I'll get a mop and clean this right up. You can use the sink next to Lonesome for a while, so you don't get any glass stuck in your hooves."
Tiny stomped over to our position, still grumbling about his accident. "No worries, Tiny," I said in an attempt to cheer him up. "We all make mistakes sometimes."
Tiny glared back at me. "My name ain't Tiny. It's Smash."
Looking down at the broken window on his flank, I decided I should have suspected as much. "Sorry. I just—"
Smash shot me another irritated look. "Don't bother," I heard Roady whisper in my ear. "Tiny's not much of a talker."
We continued working silently while Smash filled up a set of six pitchers. As soon as he left to get some lemonade mix, I whispered to Roady, "What's his deal?"
"I'm not sure," Roady admitted. "This is the fourth time he's done time here since I arrived. It's the same story every time: He smashes his way in, snatches some stuff, and gets caught red-hooved with the goods within a few hours." He rolled his eyes. "For a pony with his special talent... Let's just say that crime might be the thing he does best, but it's not something he does well."
"His special talent is crime?" The idea was both terrifying and fascinating at the same time. How exactly did you discover a talent like that? What could you do with it? Was a pony like Smash doomed to a life of deviance, or were ponies like that redeemable? As Smash returned to the sink to fill a few more pitchers, I looked down at the three stars on my own flank, and said a prayer of thanks to the zebra spirits for a talent that was generally constructive.
"How are my batter mixers doing?" Mrs. Green said as she came over to check our work. "Great! That looks like more than enough for the pancakes! Lonesome, why don't you take it easy for now, and let us finish things up?"
Roady smiled. "How can I refuse an offer like that?" He slapped me on the back, and starting limping to the door. "See you at lunch, Stripes."
I soon found myself mixing muffin batter with my terse partner Smash, and spent the rest of the morning working in silence.
Lunch was served as a buffet in a large room that looked like a school cafeteria, save for the unsmiling uniformed ponies standing at every door. Smash went off and sat by himself, but Roady and I grabbed seats near the buffet line to ensure Roady wouldn't have to go too far for seconds.
Amazingly, we spent most of the meal talking about life back home! Apparently Roady spent time in the Zebrazil province in his younger days, and he asked a lot of questions about landmarks and businesses and how things had changed over time. It turns out he even knew a few of my once-removed cousins! I guess our world is a lot smaller than I thought.
Halfway through my meal, as I was marveling at Roady's worldliness, a stray hoof smacked me in the back in the head and pushed me face-first into my pancakes. When I wiped the syrup from my eyes and looked back to give the offender a piece of my mind, I found my old friend Bruiser standing over me. "Gee," he said, "I knew zebras were stupid, but I never imagined they had such awful manners."
I stared angrily at Bruiser for a moment, unsure of how I should react. "Be the bigger zebra, Stripes," I heard Roady whisper. "Besides, now's not the right time."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Look at him." Roady pointed at Bruiser as he shuffled down the buffet line. "He's getting food, which probably means he doesn't know you were in the kitchen. You should enlighten him after a few bites."
The idea made a lot of sense: Not only could I show Bruiser once and for all that I wasn't out to get him (yet), but his reaction to realizing I had helped with lunch would be priceless. "I'm in," I told Roady.
I watched as Bruiser pushed his way to a seat at the head of one table, then waited until he had taken a few bites of pancake before standing up and approaching him. "Hey Bruiser, do you have a minute?"
Bruiser looked up at me from his pancakes. "What do you want, zebra?"
"First of all," I began, "in the interest of full disclosure, I thought I should tell you that I was on kitchen duty this morning, and helped mix up the batter for those pancakes."
"You what?!" Bruiser's eyes nearly popped out of his head. "You... You were..." He looked down at his half-eaten pancake, and his face turned a sickening shade of green.
I tried really hard not to smile, but I'm not sure I succeeded. "That's right," I declared, "I had a prime opportunity to cause you harm, and I didn't do it! I'm not that kind of creature, Bruiser, and most zebras—"
Bruiser cut me off by puking all over his tray. "I'm... I'm..." was all he managed to say before fainting onto the floor.
I broke out in a cold sweat as I felt every eye in the room burning a hole through my coat. Thanks to Bruiser's overreaction, instead of showing him that I wasn't bad, I had instead showed everyone else that I was. "Now, just a minute," I stammered, "I know what you're thinking, and I know this looks bad, but—"
My plea was drowned out by the sound of stools toppling and trays crashing to the floor as the room descended into chaos. I had to dive under the table to avoid the herd of inmates stampeding towards the nurse's office. I waited there until the room cleared out, but as I started to emerge, I was surrounded by a magical aura and pulled over to where an irritated-looking Bobby stood with two unicorn officers. "Look," I said, "I can explain—"
"Maybe we ought to put you somewhere where you won't bother anypony," Bobby growled.
With that, I was hauled off to the solitary confinement cells, my uncle's dire warning ringing in my ears the entire way.