“I guess I’ll be going now,” Pinkie Pie said to Twilight, who was rolling the document back up with her magic.
“See you later then, Pinkie,” Twilight waved.
Pinkie began to bounce away towards the door, Applejack and the Silvers preparing to take their own leaves behind her, but then she did a sharp 180 and bounced right back to Twilight.
“Waitwaitwait! I can’t leave now!” she shouted. “I gotta deliver a message.”
“A message?” asked Twilight.
“Yeah. There’s an emergency.”
“An emergency?!” Twilight spluttered. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?!”
“I got distracted,” said Pinkie Pie. “Finding out if Silver Shill was related to anyone in Ponyville sounded cool.”
“What’s the emergency?!” urged Twilight, Spike and Applejack and the Silvers watching her and Pinkie talk.
Pinkie Pie looked around at everyone in the room for a moment.
“Can we play 20 Questions?” she asked.
“WHAT?!”
“Well, the last time there was an emergency and I came to get you, it was just you and Spike here,” said Pinkie. “Now we’ve got you, Spike, Applejack, Silver Spoon, Silver Tuna, Silverspeed and Silver Shill. We might never get a chance like this again. Can we play 20 Questions? Please? It’s not a life or death situation.”
Twilight groaned. “Alright, alright. Who wants to play 20 Questions?”
No one objected, so the seven players gathered around Pinkie Pie.
“Alright, let’s get started,” said Twilight. “Animal, vegetable or mineral?”
“Um… half animal, half mineral,” Pinkie answered.
Spike took the next turn. “Is it an Equestria-wide emergency?”
“Nope. Just in Ponyville,” Pinkie answered. “Although Canterlot might be affected later.”
Twilight slapped her head, but let Applejack make her guess.
“Uh… is somepony causing trouble?”
“No,” Pinkie answered, turning to Silver Shill.
Silver Shill took a while to think of a question, and Twilight and Applejack were getting itchy hooves.
“Are a group of ponies causing trouble?” he asked at last.
“Nope,” Pinkie shook her head.
Applejack also shook her head. Now it was Silver Spoon’s turn.
“Is somepony or a bunch of ponies in trouble?” she asked
“Well, no one’s really in danger, but a buncha ponies are a bit ticked off,” answered Pinkie Pie.
“Does it have anything to do with a building?” asked Silver Tuna.
“Yep,” answered Pinkie Pie.
“Does it have anything to do with the weather?” asked Silverspeed.
“Nope,” answered Pinkie Pie.
Seven down, thirteen to go. Twilight’s turn came again.
“Can this problem be solved by magic?” she asked.
“Probably, but you might make the group angry,” said Pinkie.
“What?! You said it wasn’t a group of ponies!” snapped Twilight.
“It’s not a group of ponies,” Pinkie insisted.
“Oh, is it a group of animals?!” burst out Applejack.
“Well, it’s not your turn, but yeah,” nodded Pinkie Pie. “Spike you go next.”
“Um, is it a group of timber wolves?” asked Spike.
“Nope. Silver Shill?”
Again, Silver Shill seemed to have trouble coming up with a question. Finally, he settled for “Is it a group of arctic wolves?”
“Nope. Silver Spoon?”
“Is it a group of animals from the Everfree Forest?” asked Silver Spoon.
“Nope. Silver Tuna?”
“Did these animals come from out of town?” Silver Tuna asked.
“Yuh, huh. Silverspeed?”
“Um… did these animals come from out of the sky?” asked Silverspeed.
“No,” said Pinkie Pie, “but they look like they came outta the sky.”
They only had six questions left. One of them would have to sit this round out, and Applejack felt it ought not to be Silverspeed. But before she could suggest that they skip over Silver Shill, the pieces began to come together in her mind. A group of out-of-town animals that looked like they belonged in the sky were causing trouble for a bunch of ponies in a certain building.
“Are a flock of sheep blockin’ the track outta Ponyville Station?” Applejack burst out.
“Applejack, you gotta wait your turn,” Pinkie Pie insisted. “But yeah. You win!”
“What? Sheep are standing on the train tracks?!” exclaimed Twilight. “Why?!”
“Some kind of civilly disobedient demonstration,” said Pinkie Pie. “I didn’t get all the details.”
“They’re not the ones I just busted my hump wranglin’ into the pen at home, are they?” groaned Applejack.
“Applejack, the game’s over,” sniffed Pinkie. “But yeah.”
There was quite a racket coming from the Ponyville Station when Twilight, Applejack and Pinkie Pie arrived, and for once, the locomotive at the platform was making the least noise. There were angry passengers standing around the Canterlot Express, and the sheep who’d been in transit were standing in front of the express. The sheep were chanting something, but no one seemed to be listening. Some of them were holding up signs, but they were written in what could only be sheep font. It was incomprehensible to equine eyes. Even Fluttershy had trouble memorizing it, and Angel Bunny always made a point of hiding her translation phrasebook for a laugh.
“Gadzooks! Look at that,” Applejack groaned.
She quickly spotted Big McIntosh and Granny Smith on the platform absorbing complaints from the stationmaster and the mayor.
“You seem to have lost your way with sheep,” said the stationmaster.
“I ain’t lost a thing!” objected Granny Smith. “I got two strong grandchildren and a sharp-as-a-tack dog. What else would I need?”
“Maybe a dog who doesn’t know how to play fetch!” yelled one of the sheep.
Applejack shot the sheep a nasty look as she approached the calamity. She couldn’t help but feel a bit dim remembering the low hanging branch over the pen.
“So you troublemakers distracted Winona and thought it’d be a good idea to block the tracks, huh?” she growled.
“You drove us here just like you drove us into your nasty pen!” shouted the sheep who’d complained during the run. “And now that you’re all here, we want to let you know that we are not gonna be treated like delinquents anymore!”
“Ya sure picked a bad spot to do that, fuzz head,” snorted Applejack.
“My name is Square Peg!” snapped the sheep. “And I am leading this protest against Granny Smith’s shepherding methods!”
The chanting picked up again. Applejack didn’t catch a word. Someone in the protesting crowd caught her eye. He was definitely the odd one out. He wasn’t a sheep. He was a pony. He was holding up a sign that a sheep had obviously passed to him because it was clearly written in sheep font.
“Silver Shill, what the core-kickin’ heck are you doin’?!” Applejack demanded, walking up to the visitor.
“Well as soon as I found out this protest was going on, I felt I ought to join in,” answered Silver Shill.
Applejack threw her hat on the ground.
“Ain’t ya got a brain of your own?” she asked. “Can’t ya think for yourself? I mean first ya come all the way out here just because your boss suggested it even though you knew you couldn’t possibly be related to Silver Spoon or Silverspeed, then you didn’t bother to speak up when you got caught up in the transfer until you were in the pen with the sheep, then you can’t even come up with decent question to ask Pinkie without rippin’ off mine and Spike’s questions, and now you decide to join a protest just because you saw I happening?!”
Silver Shill set his sign down next to Applejack’s hat.
“I shoulda guessed when that whole tonic thing was goin’ on,” Applejack went on ranting. “Ya sure did change your mind about honesty pretty quick-like. I mean it’s great ya learned from my mistake, but it sure is lucky no one told ya dishonesty’s the way to go after that. You’d probably have gone for it.”
“So I can’t think for myself, huh?” asked Silver Shill. “Then how come I had to tell you that your granny was gonna jump off the high dive?”
Applejack glanced to her right. Big McIntosh and Granny Smith were making their way from the complaining stationmaster and mayor to join her.
“Alright, ya got me there,” Applejack conceded. “That did take initiative.”
“Furthermore,” Silver Shill added, “I didn’t make any last minute decisions today, accept in that 20 Questions game. I would have come here whether or not I saw that article about the hail storm. I told you, I start work today and my first port of call happens to be Ponyville.”
“Jeez, sorry. Didn’t think to ask what your new job is,” said Applejack.
“Well, I work for the Fillydelphia community center now,” Silver Shill told the Apples. “I’ve been assigned to travel around Equestria advertising adult education programs. And if you want these sheep to move, you’ll be my first customers.”
The sheep bleated their approval of Silver Shill’s words.
“What are you scallywags so chipper about?!” demanded Granny Smith.
“Mrs Smith,” said Silver Shill calmly, “before you start calling these sheep rude names, you might want to ask them what they think of Ponyville.”
Granny Smith raised an eyebrow, but approached the sheep who had given Silver Shill a picket sign to hold.
“You there. What do…?”
“My name’s Heavy Light,” said the sheep, holding his hoof out to Granny Smith.
Granny Smith had never shaken a sheep’s hoof before, but there was nothing unpleasant about it.
“So, what do you think of this here town?” asked Granny Smith.
Heavy Light shrugged. “Nothing wrong with it. It’s small, but it’s nice.”
Most of the other sheep nodded.
“Well, that’s nice to hear,” smiled Granny Smith.
She turned back to Silver Shill and her grandchildren.
“I think I get it now, y’all,” she said. “We’ve been stickin’ to the tried-and-true shepherding ways even though our town’s expanded and the livestock in transit had no reason to complain anymore.”
“Wow,” Applejack’s cheeks went red. “And I thought Shill was the mindless one. I never questioned the stuff you taught us about sheep or nothin’.”
“Eeeyup,” Big Mac nodded.
“So, what do we gotta do to satisfy you guys?” Granny Smith asked the sheep.
Heavy Light nudged Silver Shill.
“I have it. Don’t worry,” Shill said, pulling out a pamphlet and passing it to Big McIntosh.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“It’s from the community center in Fillydelphia,” Silver Shill explained. “There’s a list of the adult education courses on page two.”
The Apples looked over the list and one course name caught their eyes at once.
“Sheep sensitivity training?”
Silver Shill grinned. “When I saw it one the list, I wondered if it was really necessary. So when I found out there was a herd of sheep on the train I was taking to Ponyville, I snuck in with them when we got here to see if they were being mistreated.”
“Did you catch what AJ said to me?” snapped Square Peg.
Applejack gulped.
“Oh, quit it,” scoffed Heavy Light. “There are worse things she could have called you than ‘buddy’, you know.”
Square Peg sniffed loudly.
“All the same, we’d appreciate if you three took the time to learn how to be gentler with livestock,” Heavy Light said to the Apples.
“If we agree to sign up for this course,” said Applejack, “will y’all get off the tracks?”
Heavy Light and some other sheep nodded. Applejack, Big Mac and Granny Smith looked at each other for a moment.
“Agreed,” Granny Smith said at last.
Right away, the sheep walked away from the tracks. From the platform, the late passengers cheered and the conductor began to wave them all into the Express coaches. Twilight and Pinkie Pie, who’d been watching the negotiations, offered their praise to Applejack.
“I know you’re not too proud about what you thought of Silver Shill or the sheep,” said Twilight, “but I really appreciate you agreeing to their terms for the sake of the passengers.”
“Oh, it ain’t just for them,” said Applejack. “Silver Shill was right. There ain’t no need to duff up livestock no more now that Ponyville’s a legitimate town. And I’d really like to kick these old habits of mine.”
“Come on, Peg!” called Heavy Light.
“I’m not satisfied,” Square Peg insisted obstinately. “I say we gave in too easy.”
“We didn’t give in. They agreed to our conditions,” said Heavy Light.
Square Peg didn’t move.
“Can we leave now?!” called the engine driver.
Twilight began to light her horn. “Just a min--!”
“Yeah, go ahead! You’re clear!” Heavy Light replied loudly.
“Wait!” cried Twilight as the conductor’s whistle and the loco’s whistle blasted at the same time. “I gotta…!”
“Just leave him there!” hissed Heavy Light.
The train started quickly opting to try and make up some lost time. Before anypony could react, Square Peg was flung to the side of the line.
“Oh, right,” said Twilight. “The cow catchers.”
One sheep was certainly easier to move than a whole herd of them.
Train service ran uninterrupted from then on, and the next day, Applejack and Apple Bloom were seeing Big McIntosh off on his train to Fillydelphia. The Apples were going to take it in turns to attend sheep sensitivity training as Sweet Apple Acres couldn’t afford too many missing farmers. Apple Bloom noticed that Applejack had brought the journal from Ponyville Castle.
“Whatcha gonna write about?” she asked.
“This whole experience with Silver Shill and the sheep, obviously,” replied Applejack. “Plus, some stuff about what I learned. Like somepony may not be as sharp of knowledgeable as she might think, so it’d be a bad idea to say others are weak-minded or spineless.”
“Spineless?”
Applejack jumped. Silver Shill had just stepped onto the platform.
“Uh…”
“Oh, it’s alright,” shrugged Silver Shill. “So you’re going first, Big Mac?”
“Eeeyup.”
“Then Applejack’s going for the next class,” said Apple Bloom
“Great,” smiled Silver Shill. “So that’s your plan mapped out. Um, any suggestions for what I should do next?”
“Come on,” laughed Applejack, poking Silver Shill in the ribs.
Silver Shill chuckled. “OK, I’m kidding. Still, though, it’s not like I wasn’t excited about the possibility of finding distant relatives.”
“There’s nothing exciting about probably being related to Silver Spoon,” smirked Apple Bloom.