//------------------------------// // Down The Rabbit Hole // Story: Equestria Girls: The Looking Glass World of Cheese and Pie // by scoots2 //------------------------------// Applejack did not waste a moment. Yanking the neckerchief from around her neck, she rushed forward and pressed it to Pinkie’s bleeding forehead, putting Pinkie’s hand over it to hold it in place. “Where’s your phone?” said Applejack. “Backpack. Over there,” said Cheese, indicating the direction with his head. Applejack grabbed Cheese’s backpack, quickly found the phone, and dialed the emergency number. “Hello? We’re here at Canterlot High. A friend of mine fell in the gym. Looks like she’s hurt real bad. Her head’s bleeding. -- Yeah, she’s breathing.” Cheese held his good hand in front of Pinkie’s face. “Pinkie, how many fingers am I holding up?” Pinkie shook her head slightly. “How many fingers have you got?” “And she’s conscious,” Applejack assured the dispatcher, pacing back and forth. Cheese steadied Pinkie’s head so she couldn’t shake it again and held the neckerchief down with the hand he could use. “That’s irrelevant, Pinkie.” Pinkie giggled a shadow of her usual giggle. “No, silly, it’s a hippopotamus!” Cheese sighed with relief. “I think you’re going to be fine.” Pinkie hiccupped, and a little of the focus came back into her eyes. “My head hurts.” “I know,” said Cheese. “It really, really hurts a whole lot,” Pinkie insisted, her voice quavering. “I know, I know. I’m sorry.” “We’re at the school gym, back entrance. The door’s unlocked.” Applejack hung up and immediately started towards her cousin. “Wait, Applejack,” said Cheese. “Take some pictures.” “Are you nuts, Cheese? I don’t know about you, but I sure as hay don’t want this on Twitter.” “Just, you know—where everything is, and what it looks like. Especially the end of that girder.” Applejack began to take some quick shots of the accident. “Where’d she fall from, anyhow? Off that ladder?” she said, taking a picture of it. It had fallen to one side, and was still braced open. “No,” Cheese replied, trying to keep Pinkie from pushing the neckerchief away. “I fell off the ladder. She fell out of the grid.” Applejack stopped taking pictures for a moment. “You were up in the grid? I didn’t know you were going to be up in the grid. You are both insane!” “Well, yes, but that’s normal for –what’s that?” Sharp, ringing footsteps could be heard coming quickly down the corridor, followed by the rattling of the hall doors. “Vice Principal Luna! Quick, toss me my phone. No, put it on my right, where I can pick it up. Then get yourself back and hide somewhere!” Applejack walked over and started to hand Cheese his phone, before she realized that he couldn’t take it from her. “I am not gonna leave you two. Not like this.” “There’s no sense in both of us getting in trouble! Now go!” Applejack hesitated for a moment before sprinting back to a dark spot near the parking lot doors. The hallway doors were flung open with a bang. Vice Principal Luna paused for a moment in the doorway. She took in the scene—two of her students, one seriously injured, trespassing on her school grounds, after hours, without her permission—and fury almost visibly boiled off of her. A draft blew down the corridor and whipped her long blue-black hair into a cloud swirling around her, and she might easily have been mistaken for a wrathful goddess in the eye of a storm of outrage, instead of an angry vice-principal who had been interrupted while catching up on writing disciplinary reports. She briskly made her way to a locked brown box on the wall, drawing out her cell phone. “I already called 911 . . . ma’am,” called Cheese, shrinking back as she turned her full gaze on him. She turned back and removed a packet of sterile gauze, a thin foil blanket, and some other supplies before making her way to Cheese and Pinkie. “When was this?” she snapped. “Hold still. Keep her head steady.” She removed the blood-soaked cloth and replaced it with gauze. “A few minutes ago. They said the paramedics were on their way.” She obviously was not finished with her interrogation, but turned her full attention to Pinkie, checking for herself to see that she was in fact breathing and conscious, and being careful not to move her any more than was necessary. Meanwhile, Cheese began to drag his left arm—the injured one—back where it was less visible, curled against his long-sleeved shirt and half-hidden by his jacket. The Vice Principal sniffed. “At least you had the sense to call 911. Head injuries should always be taken seriously. Keep her steady, please, and let me see—” “I’m fine!” Cheese said with a nervous grin. “I know, amazing, right? I mean, what are the odds that there would be all this metal scrap and collapsed ladders and busted steel and Pinkie here knocked out and me without a scratch on me, right? Must run in the family because my Great-Uncle Buster got carried down the street by a tornado and got put down on the ground not a bit worse for the wear and—” “That’s enough. You and Miss Pie had no business being here at this hour. You in particular are not permitted to engage in any non-academic activities whatsoever. There is no possible excuse for this. What I want to know is—” “Why?” “No. You will have ample time to explain yourself in my office on Monday morning. I want to know how. How were you able to get into the gym at all?” Cheese said nothing, as though he hadn’t heard. “Well?” Cheese’s eyes widened and then shifted rapidly from side to side. He took a deep breath and had just opened his mouth when the vice principal’s eye fell on the lanyard around Pinkie Pie’s neck. On it hung a keychain and a small fob: a rainbow-colored lightning bolt. As she reached for it, Pinkie suddenly seemed to be aware that a conversation had been going on. “Oh, no, you can’t take those!” she protested. “Those are Dashie’s! And I promised to give them back to her tomorrow!” “The keys are not ‘Dashie’s.’ They belong to the school,” Vice Principal Luna said with a frown. “Besides,” she added more gently, as Pinkie showed signs of agitation, “you probably won’t be able to give the keys back tomorrow. They are perfectly safe with me.” The loud wail of a siren and flashing lights outside announced the arrival of the paramedics, who quickly took over. They carefully removed Pinkie Pie from her position propped up on Cheese, shone a light in her eyes, and placed her on a backboard. “She’s definitely concussed,” the chief paramedic said to the vice principal, “but we won’t know how badly until she’s been fully examined. And we’ll have to keep her immobile, in case there’s a fracture. Does she have any relatives who could—” “Applejack!” Cheese exclaimed, a little too loudly. “She’s our ride. I called her right after I called 911. She should be here any minute now.” Applejack came in from her position near the back door. “Well, gosh, Cheese, I just got here, sakes alive, Pinkie’s been hurt, what has been happening here,” she said in an unconvincing monotone. Cheese rolled his eyes. The vice principal’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, but she merely said, “Good. Your cousin is being taken to the ER, and you should join her there as soon as possible. If there is room in the ambulance, Mr. Sandwich should go as well.” “No, no!” Cheese insisted. “I’m fine. See?” He rolled over on his right side and sprang to his feet in one movement. “Nevertheless, I feel you probably need a full medical examination. A comprehensive one.” Cheese gulped, but said nothing. “I’m headed off to the ER right now,” Applejack said. “I’ll take Cheese with me. It’s no extra bother.” As they slid her into the back of the ambulance, Pinkie had clearly begun to panic. Her arms were strapped down, but she was clenching and unclenching her fists and kept trying to say something. Applejack followed the stretcher outside and leaned over her. “Now you hang tight, sugarcube. I’m gonna be right there.” Pinkie continued to panic until she saw Cheese’s head pop around Applejack’s. “Make that a double,” he said. Pinkie smiled and closed her eyes as the stretcher was slid in and the ambulance’s doors shut. When the noise had died down, Vice Principal Luna said, “I will lock and secure everything. I suggest you go to the hospital immediately. And Mr. Sandwich—my office. Monday. You’ll have plenty of time to explain yourself then. In the meantime, I will be contacting your aunt.” Cheese nodded, his gaze fixed on the ground. “And your parents,” she added. Cheese quickly looked up again, eyes widened. His face went white, and his lips formed the word no. He looked as though he wanted to protest, but couldn’t, and as he stood there, frozen to the spot, the vice principal walked back into the gym and closed the doors. “Well, that doesn’t sound good,” said Applejack. “C’mon, Pinkie’ll be worrying and what the hay is that?” “That” was an ugly compound fracture, which had begun to bleed through Cheese’s jacket. Applejack could see odd bumps under the sleeve, which she guessed were projecting fragments of bone. Glancing at his whitened face, she assumed he might have been losing blood, too. “Holy moly, Cheese,” she said, “we best rush you in. Why’d you hide that?” Cheese rapidly shook his head, as though he were suddenly brought back to reality. “Ignore it,” he snapped. “Forget about it. There’s nothing wrong with me. Let’s get out of here.” They walked quickly over to Applejack’s truck, and he said, “Oh, um—and do you mind opening the door for me?” ~~ “I could kick myself,” Cheese muttered, as Applejack’s truck bounced along. “I should have known. I think I did know, but I just didn’t want to say anything. Can we go any faster?” Applejack was making her way to the hospital as quickly as possible, but the shocks on the old truck were bad, forcing her to drive slowly. “If we go any quicker’n this, it’ll bounce something awful, and that’s not what you need right now. How’s the arm?” “Ignore it!” he snapped. “Just forget it. I should have known something was bound to happen. Pinkie’s been on a massive high for weeks.” “What?” retorted Applejack, slowing down a bit more and swerving to avoid a possum. “My cousin’s never touched drugs in her life.” “That’s not what I meant,” he replied, shaking his head. “Pinkie has bipolar disorder.” It wasn’t a question, but Applejack was still stunned. “How’d you know that?” Even in the darkened cab, Applejack could feel the withering glance Cheese shot her. “How do you think I know that?” There was silence, except for the bouncing and shuddering of the truck hitting some potholes. “I noticed she was getting more wound up in those lessons we’ve got with Sunset Shimmer,” Cheese continued, “but maybe I blew it off because Sunset Shimmer always creeps me out and makes me feel antsy, too, and when she suggested dancing instead, of course I wanted to . . . but I still should have said something. And then I was spending all that time working on the party cannon, but that’s no excuse. I know exactly what it feels like. How could I have been so dumb?” “Don’t you go hogging all the blame for yourself, Cheese,” Applejack said, shaking her head. “She was talking herself in circles in math class—that’s why I had to take her and show her what you were building in the barn. Then, at her birthday party, she told me she’d slept only three hours and spent most of the night re-organizing her room. I know better n’ that. I let her down, too. It’s just that—” “—you hoped if you didn’t say anything,” Cheese said, finishing her thought, “somehow it wouldn’t be true and it would magically go away. I know. It’s just that I only know it from the inside. I’ve never seen it from the outside—when it’s a friend or someone you . . . someone you know who has it. I didn’t know how much I’d want it not to be happening to her.” “Well,” said Applejack, stopping at a traffic light, “maybe that’s how your mama and daddy feel, too.” “No. No, they don’t. Anyway, we’re talking about Pinkie.” Applejack began to be aware of a sick, slushy, rubbery sound. She hadn’t noticed it on the back road, but here, closer to the hospital, it was hard to miss. It almost sounded as though it were coming from Cheese’s arm. “What in the hay is that, Cheese?” she said, trying not to turn around and stare. “Ignore it,” he snapped. “Just forget about it.” Cheese had begun to get edgy. His knee was pistoning up and down. “Are you sure we can’t get there any faster?” he complained. “You can see the signs for yourself,” Applejack pointed out, “’Hospital Zone.’ Anyway, we’re nearly there. And I know you’re worried, but this is a good hospital. They’ll take good care of Pinkie, and they’re not gonna let her go until she’s all fixed up. You’ll see.” To Applejack’s astonishment, this had the opposite of its intended effect. Instead of calming Cheese down, this only agitated him further, and she had the impression that he was considering jumping out of the truck if they hadn’t pulled into the hospital parking lot just then. As they pulled in, he was already unbuckling his seatbelt with his left hand. The hand on his broken arm. Or his formerly broken arm, because as he banged the door shut, Applejack could see that there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with it. Even the bloodstains on his jacket were fading. Her jaw dropped. “What?” said Cheese. “Oh, this?” he added, following her gaze and holding up his perfectly healthy-looking left arm. “Yeah, it mostly sorts itself out if you don’t call attention to it. I wouldn’t mention it to anyone else if I were you, though. You wouldn’t want anyone to think you were crazy.” He winked at her, and then raced for the emergency entrance as quickly as his long legs would carry him. ~~ “I know you’re concerned,” said the emergency room receptionist, “but we can’t let everyone in the unit just because they’re concerned. Are you relatives of the patient?” “Yes, ma’am,” said Applejack. “I’m her cousin.” “And I’m her brother,” snarled Cheese. “We’ve even got the same hair.” He pulled his curly brown forelock, and it snapped back with an audible spoinnnng. “Obviously.” A physician’s assistant carrying a clipboard stopped to see what was going on, and approached the desk. “Are you here for Miss Pie? Good. We’ve been trying to determine what medications she’s on, but unfortunately she’s much too confused to remember, and we haven’t been able to contact her doctor. Come this way.” As they were buzzed past the doors and followed the white-coated physician’s assistant past gurneys and hospital curtains, some open and some closed, Applejack muttered, “You have the same hair? Seriously?” “It was the best I could come up with on the spur of the moment,” Cheese hissed back. Pinkie’s face lit up as the curtain was pulled, and then she winced. Her head was bandaged and there were monitors measuring her pulse. “Hey, there, hon. You doing all right?” said Applejack, as she came and stood next to Pinkie. A nurse in pink scrubs with cartoon animals on it approached. Pinkie smiled. “Cute,” she said. “Hi—I’m Grace Redheart, and I’ve been looking after Pinkie. You’re Pinkie’s relatives?” “Yes,” said Applejack and Cheese together. Applejack rolled her eyes. “Well, I see from Pinkie’s records that she’s been taking several medications, but we weren’t sure it was accurate because it hasn’t been updated in a while. We’ve tried paging her doctor, but she hasn’t returned the call yet. Are you sure you can’t remember anything, dear?” Pinkie started to shake her head again, then said “ow. Noperooni. All I know is there were a whole lot of them and most of them began with ‘B.’ Or was it ‘L?’ Anyhoo, they’ve changed a bunch of times and I don’t remember what they are, and I’m all confused and super-tired.” “Do either of you know what they are?” the nurse asked, looking at each of them. Applejack hesitated, and then shook her head. “Seriously?” said Cheese, looking at her. “You don’t know her cocktail?” “No,” she replied, furrowing her brows. “Pinkie doesn’t always tell me that stuff. And what do you mean, ‘cocktail?’ Pinkie doesn’t drink.” “The combo of meds she’s taking,” explained Cheese. “Most of us are on two or three, maybe five medications. They all work together. Well, some just offset the side effects of the others, but anyway, we call that a ‘cocktail.’ Hmm. Maybe this’ll help.” He moved closer to Pinkie. “Hiya, Pinks.” “Hiya!” she said, smiling. “Listen,” he said, putting his arm down on the bed next to her hand. “I’m going to say a whole lot of names. If you recognize one of them, just tap my arm like this.” He showed her. “Like that. Can you do that?” She started to nod, but he said, “don’t nod, just tap. Ok?” He began to reel off a long list of drugs by their brand and their generic names. Applejack’s eyes widened as the list went on and on. Once or twice Pinkie tapped Cheese’s arm and he held up a finger for Nurse Redheart, who wrote it down. Cheese mentioned a certain name, and Pinkie tapped, then paused and looked confused. Cheese repeated it again. “Yes? No? How about this?” and he mentioned another. Pinkie tapped his arm several times. Cheese snorted. “Great,” he said, turning to the nurse. “She’s on the generic. The generic doesn’t work. It’s like sugar pills, only worse, because you think it’s working right up until you realize it hasn’t worked in a long time and by then you’re in trouble. Her doctor should know that.” He went on listing names until Pinkie tapped again, then stopped, and tapped. Cheese furrowed his brows. “Yes? No? You were taking it, but now you’re not? Wait—you were taking it and you just stopped? Like, without telling anyone? Why?” “Cupcakes,” said Pinkie. “Cupcakes? What do you mean, ‘cupcakes?’ I mean, I like them, too, especially those new ones you—ohhhh. Cupcakes. I get it. Metalmouth?” “Yepsidoodle!—ouch.” He turned to Applejack. “Metalmouth. One of those meds makes everything you eat taste as though you’ve been licking an iron fence. And Pinkie’s been developing all those new cupcake flavors, so she stopped taking it. That was kind of dumb, Pinkie,” he added, turning back to her. “You can tell your doctor you can’t stand the side effects. Sometimes there’s something else you can take instead. Oh, wait. I forgot your doctor’s a moron. Well, fire her and get someone else. Anyway,” he said, smiling at her, “thanks.” “That’s helpful,” remarked the nurse. “We still don’t know the dosage or the form or how many times a day she was taking them, but at least it’s a start. It looks as though they’re ready for you now, Pinkie. We’re just going to wheel you down the hall for a CT scan. It’ll take hardly any time at all. You two can stay here,” she added. Two orderlies pulled up the sides, unlatched the wheels, and took Pinkie away. Applejack and Cheese sat there for a minute or two—not in silence, because the beeping and pumping noises, the paging over the announcement system, and the worried conversations of different patients on the other side of curtains make silence in an emergency ward impossible—but without talking. Finally Applejack said, “Have you really been on all of those?” Cheese shook his head. “No. Some of them. Some of them I tried, but the side effects were too bad or they just didn’t work. Some of them I just know about from other people. Hey,” he added brightly, “do you think there are emergency rooms for cows? I wonder what those are like. I bet it’s really tough asking a cow what medications she’s on.” Applejack frowned. “Are you trying to change the subject?” “Nope,” said Cheese, “I’m succeeding. Pick a number from one to ten.” He held up a piece of paper that had been folded into a set of triangular shapes, divided in four and big enough for two fingers and two thumbs. “Uh . . . four, I guess.” Cheese moved the paper shape back and forth four times. “Now give me a letter of the alphabet.” “R?” Cheese repeated the motion eighteen times. “Ok—now give me a color.” “Green?” Cheese moved the paper back and forth, flipped up a corner, and read, “Fruit will be very important to you today.” “Hang on a second—does it really say that?” Applejack grabbed the piece of paper out of Cheese’s hand, unfolded it, and looked at each side. They were both blank. Cheese grinned, and Applejack smiled, too. “Ok—you got me.” She yawned. “Boy, it sure is late. I’d call and let Granny know where I am, but I’d probably wake her up. I’ll just text Big Mac and let him know. Maybe you oughta . . .” Cheese grimaced, and she bit her lip. “Oh, right.” Cheese took a deep breath. “So,” he said, “this pony walks into a bar . . .” Pinkie and the orderlies pushing her bed arrived, followed closely by a doctor. “I wonder if I’m ever going to get to finish that joke.” “Well,” said the doctor, “the good news is that there’s no fractures and no signs of hemorrhage. It looks as though something hit her on the head, but I don’t think she hit her head on the floor, and if anything, it looks like something broke her fall. You’re very lucky,” she said, addressing Pinkie. “However, she’s still very woozy and confused, and there’s the issue of her medications as well, so we’re going to keep her in for observation.” “Observation?” stammered Cheese, his eyes wide with shock. He held his fists to his eyes and muttered to himself, “72 hours. 72 hours of living hell.” He looked up at the doctor again. “It was an accident!” He leaned over Pinkie’s bed. “Pinkie, listen. You’ve got to tell them you know what was going on. Tell them you’re happy to stay to look after your physical injuries. Tell them that!” “Um, ok,” said Pinkie, looking bewildered. “What was going on again?” “What’s your name?” insisted Cheese, an edge of panic in his voice. “Pinkamena Diane Pie,” Pinkie stated. “And mine?” “Cheese Sandwich.” “What’s today?” “Friday?” Cheese whirled around to the doctor. “She was injured before midnight. It was Friday. She couldn’t know that. She knows her name. She knows my name. She’s staying voluntarily. You can’t hold her.” The doctor backed away. “We weren’t planning to,” she said slowly. “We’re keeping her overnight to monitor her. With any luck, she’ll go home tomorrow with her parents or an approved adult.” “That would be the Cakes,” said Applejack. “I called them earlier, so they already know.” “It takes a while to recover from a concussion,” continued the doctor, “and it’s best to take it slowly. She’ll probably be fine. You, on the other hand, might want to see your doctor for some sort of anti-anxiety medication.” “Oh, don’t worry about that,” muttered Cheese. “I’m all fixed for that.” “’Night, sugarcube,” said Applejack, and kissed Pinkie’s cheek. Cheese stood at the side of the bed, looking extremely awkward. “Um. Well, goodnight, Pinkie, I’ll . . .uh . . . see you later then.” He backed away, and then made his way towards the exit, walking very fast. “Goodnight, Miss Apple,” said the doctor, as Applejack left, and then muttered, “Goodnight, Mr. Pie,” and snorted with amusement. ~~ Applejack drove without talking for several minutes, and then Cheese broke the silence by asking, “Was Pinkie ever hospitalized before?” Applejack thought for a moment. “Well, we did think she might need her appendix out once,” she said, “but that turned out to be a false alarm. Oh. You mean . . . for that.” “Bipolar disorder,” Cheese said. “Yes, that.” “Just once,” she replied, as she shifted gears. “No, I guess it was twice.” “I see,” said Cheese, looking out the window at nothing. Applejack did a U-turn and headed in the opposite direction. “What was that for?” “Because you got questions and I want answers,” said Applejack, “and it’s gonna be way easier to talk ‘em over if I’m not in a truck trying to keep my mind on the road. We’re going out for donuts.” Cheese shook his head. “I’m already out after hours. I have to go home.” Applejack snorted. “Seriously, Cheese? If Vice-Principal Luna already called your aunt, you think half an hour for donuts is gonna make that much of a difference? Don’t tell me you’re not hungry, ‘cause I never knew you when you weren’t. I’m driving, and I say we’re stopping for donuts.” Applejack pulled into an almost deserted parking lot, squinting against the harsh glare of the parking lot lights. She and Cheese nearly slipped on the asphalt, which was slick with a mixture of early morning damp and motor oil. A neon sign over a chrome diner proudly proclaimed: “Don t Joe’s--OPEN 24 r .” “Come on, Cheese,” Applejack said, holding open the door and ushering him in. “You’re gonna like these. There’s practically nobody here at this hour but Joe himself, and he’s got years of experience in keeping his mouth shut.” She chose a booth in the corner, as far away from the door as possible, and ordered two coffees and a dozen donuts. They were simple, freshly made, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, and still slightly warm. It was much harder to feel miserable while eating them. “Now,” she said, after her second donut, “you asked me about Pinkie, but let’s start with what that doctor said. She says Pinkie didn’t crack her head on the floor, or her head woulda been a lot more hurt than what it was. You had a broken arm. Pinkie says you ‘don’t tell all the way the truth.’ Well, for once, I want you to tell me the honest truth. You didn’t fall off that ladder, did you?” Cheese shook his head. “Did you jump?” Cheese looked everywhere but at Applejack, and finally stammered, “I . . . well, you would have done the same thing.” “So, really, Pinkie landed on you, and that’s how your arm got broken.” She frowned in thought. “How’d Pinkie’s head get hurt then?” Cheese pulled out his phone. “I don’t know, but maybe there’s some kind of answer in these pictures. The honest truth, Applejack, is that I think there’s something fishy about the whole thing.” Applejack pushed herself back and subjected Cheese to a long, steady gaze, and finally gave a decisive nod. “I don’t know what else to make of you, Cheese, but you tried to help Pinkie, and I’m gonna trust you with why Pinkie’s here. You know a bit what she’s like by now—all bright and bubbly. Always has been, too, though you wouldn’t know that.” Cheese coughed on a chunk of donut. “Don’t choke on that,” she cautioned, “because I’ve had enough of the hospital for one day. From what I understand, she was just getting happier and happier and more and more worked up. And Pinkie’s family—well, they’re just not like that. They’re kinda quiet. Then Pinkie calmed down all of a sudden, and at first Aunt Cloudy was relieved, ‘cause she wasn’t driving ‘em all crazy. But when Pinkie got slower and slower, she knew something wasn’t right, until one day that happy little girl could barely get out of bed.” Applejack stirred her coffee in circles as she talked. “Aunt Cloudy and Uncle Igneous aren’t much for fancy education, and they don’t have a TV and all that, but they know their daughters. So finally, Aunt Cloudy asked Pinkie if she was feeling bad and could she take her to the doctor, and Pinkie, she was so down, she just nodded. And that’s how we found out Pinkie had a problem. The hospital out there’s kinda basic, so Pinkie was transferred here, and we all agreed it was best for her to stay here where she could get good care if she ever needed it again. Over at the farm, well—we’ve got our own row to hoe, and we couldn’t see how we could make room for Pinkie, too, but my Pie cousins know the Cakes from way back. So that’s how Pinkie came to be here, but you gotta understand, Cheese—she’s got lots of people looking out for her, and she never fought it, and she’s never told me otherwise, so being in the hospital can’t have been all that bad.” Cheese snorted into his coffee. He shook his head as he held a napkin to his nose. When he’d recovered a bit from the sting, he said, “Sorry, Applejack, but that’s funny. The best you can say about one psych ward is that it’s a lot better than some other psych wards.” Applejack gave him that long steady gaze again. “I trusted you about Pinkie. Now you trust me about you. How’d you wind up in the hospital?” Cheese paused, unconsciously twisting a paper napkin until it started to fall apart. “Fine,” he burst out. “You really want to know how I wound up there? My mother called the doctor and told him I was throwing knives.” Applejack just blinked at him. Finally, she said, “Were you?” “I don’t know,” he said, dropping the shreds of napkin. “Is juggling throwing? I was definitely practicing juggling, and I was definitely juggling knives, but I can juggle chainsaws and it doesn’t mean anything except that I’m a good juggler. No, I think what bugged my mother was that they weren’t her knives.” “What do you mean?” Cheese dropped his hand, and then raised it. Five spoons went flying through the air in a dizzying circle. After a minute or two, he caught them and lined them up one by one. “Notice something?” Applejack squinted down at the spoons. Suddenly she saw it. “They’re not Joe’s spoons.” “Exactly. And that’s not acceptable to my mother,” said Cheese, scooping up all five spoons so that they vanished up his sleeve again. “It never has been. Anyway, the next thing I knew, I was in the hospital.” He stared straight ahead, as though he were seeing something far away. “They take away your belt. They take away your shoes if they lace up—just in case. The first twenty-four hours, they’ve got you on suicide watch—just in case. And that means they open up the door every fifteen minutes while you’re trying to sleep. It took a couple of days before they brought me up in front of a panel.” He looked Applejack in the eye again. “You’re right, AJ, I’m a liar, but I wasn’t always one. The head doctor on the panel asked me about the knives and where they came from and did I really think I could just make party hats come out of thin air, and I did something really dumb. I told them the truth. That meant I was delusional, so . . .” His voice trailed away, and he looked out the window, at the slick black parking lot. He shook his head. “Anyway, they can keep you up to 90 days after that, and I could have gone home a lot sooner, but it was my mom’s decision, and she wasn’t in a hurry to get me out.” He looked down into his coffee cup. “I was twelve.” Applejack was staring at him in pure horror. He swallowed. “You have no idea how much I want to tell a joke right now. So, um—yeah, it’s not all that bad!” He grinned and spread his hands wide, then dropped them and the grin and said in a worried tone, “Does that count as a joke?” Applejack frowned and looked at the ceiling, as though she were trying to work something out. “Are—are you saying you don’t really have . . . y’know . . .” “Bipolar disorder? Oh, no.” Cheese shrugged. “No, I’ve got it, all right, and it’s no picnic. Poor Pinks. She must be feeling really awful right now. I should have said something. But I manage ok with some medication and a bit of common sense. Just because I’ve got bipolar disorder doesn’t mean that I had to get shoved through hospital after hospital as though they all had revolving doors.” He leaned his chin against his fist. “Y’know, I take what I said before back. They weren’t all terrible. Remember when Fluttershy asked if my parents sent me to camp, and I said I’d been to the country? That place really wasn’t bad. The doctors got me stabilized, and I started feeling a lot better. There were a lot of kids who were way worse off than me, and I wanted to make them laugh, and I guess the staff just let me. They’d never let me do that anywhere else. So one morning, they had us all in a group, and we had to go around and check in. You know, ‘Hi, my name’s Mike, and I’m feeling very angry this morning.’ Anyway, they got around to me, and I just rocketed out of my chair: ‘Hi, I’m Cheese. And I feel like a PARTY.’” Cheese beamed. “And you know, they let me do it? Spontaneous joy among the lost boys on the third floor. It was amazing. And they must have done something, said something to someone, that they didn’t think I was all that sick, and that maybe I should go home.” He sighed. “I was so glad to get back to my accordion. I missed it so badly. I still don’t like letting it out of my sight.” “So you never got sent to the hospital again?” He blinked in confusion. “Did I say that? Oh, no. It’s always a possibility if I get too far out of line. As she always says, ‘Cheese, it’s for your own good.’ And you’d be amazed how something like that looks on your school record, especially if your mother pulls strings and lets the headmaster know about your ‘special problem.’ That’s what I meant by this being my last chance. If I flunk this time, and I don’t graduate . . . and I guess now I’ve also technically committed a crime. Sorry if I got a little upset back there. I’ve gotten used to the way this always plays out with me, and I didn’t want to see them doing something like that to Pinkie. I should go home,” he said. “I can’t put this off forever. I’ll get this.” He stood up and picked up the check. “Why didn’t you tell us? Any of us?” Applejack protested. “I didn’t want to be the kid with bipolar disorder,” he said simply, and walked towards the register. They drove in silence the rest of the way to Cheese’s house. The lights were on in the first floor windows. “Thank you for the ride,” he said, looking through the window at Applejack. “Give my best to Pinkie, ok?” “Cheese?” said Applejack. “You take care now.” He nodded. Applejack watched as he walked up the porch stairs, unlocked the door, and slipped into the hall. The same shrill voice she’d heard before—the voice of the macaw—screeched, “You’re in a lot of trouble, young man.” And then a genteel elderly lady’s voice replied, “The bird is right for once, young man. You really are in quite a lot of trouble.”