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// Chapter 3 
// Story: A Scootaloo Story 
// by Golden Tassel 
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Pulling weeds. That was Appleboom's big idea: They would go door-to-door around town, offering to do yard work for money.

Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle needed a lot of convincing to go along with it. Applebloom had plenty of experience working the fields on her family's farm, and to hear her tell it, it was some of the easiest work a pony could do. The potential of ending up with a weed-pulling cutie mark was the biggest concern. What eventually sold them on the idea, though, was when Applebloom pointed out that there would be exactly zero risk of Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon showing up to steal their customers away.

"That would be quite a sight, for sure!" Sweetie Bell had said as the three of them shared a laugh. "Can you imagine Diamond Tiara doing work? For herself? With her hooves? I'd pay to see that!"

Once they had finished laughing and were all firmly in agreement that seeing Diamond and Silver doing manual labor would be a sight worth paying to see, the Cutie Mark Crusaders set out for a day of hard work.

It turned out that, while Sweet Apple Acres was certainly the agricultural center for the entire town, lots of ponies had small flower and/or vegetable gardens, and they were all more than happy to pay someone else to take care of them. The work wasn't even that bad once they got into it. It was all second nature to Applebloom, but Scootaloo picked it up easily enough. Even Sweetie Belle described it as "playing in the dirt" while remarking about her sister would probably faint if she ever had to do anything so common.

By the late afternoon, the Cutie Mark Crusaders had visited several homes and spent an hour or so at each of them. They had nearly raised all the money they would need to send Scootaloo to the stuntpony competition; one more house would do it. And did they ever find the mother load: The final house they approached was owned by an old widow who rarely ever left her house, and had let her entire yard run rampant with every kind of weed that had ever been known to grow in Ponyville (and several others that the young fillies had never seen before).

The old mare was stingy, and haggled the price down to half the hourly rate that everypony else had been paying—to be paid only when the entire yard was cleared. Still, though, with the amount of work her yard would require, it would be more than enough to cover Scootaloo's registration fee, so with only a few hours of daylight remaining, the Crusaders agreed and got to work.

One of the most prolific weeds was thistle, and after only an hour of hard work, all those prickles had given the Crusaders sore hooves and mouths. They kept working through it, though, encouraged by reminding themselves that they were almost finished and then they could return their attentions to less back-breaking ways of earning their cutie marks. By the end of the day, with the sun resting low on the horizon, even Applebloom was exhausted.

While Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle sat down to rest, Applebloom went up to the house and knocked on the door. She asked the old mare for their payment when she answered.

"I told you I'd pay you when the job is done! I still see a weed in my yard. There!" said the old mare, pointing to a lone dandelion flower in an otherwise pristine yard. "You lazy kids aren't getting a cent out of me until you've finished."

"I'll get it," Scootaloo said as she got to her hooves and trotted over to the dandelion. She ached all over, but what was one more little flower? She grabbed the stem in her teeth.

"Make sure you get the root!" yelled the cantankerous old mare. "If you don't get the root, it'll just grow back and then I'll have a yard of nothing but weeds!"

Scootaloo rolled her eyes and bit down lower on the plant, grabbing up as many of the leaves as she could before she started pulling. It was a stubborn little flower, but Scootaloo wasn't about to let a stupid plant get in her way now. She pulled harder, but still the dandelion wouldn't budge. She put her whole weight into the effort, and even started flapping her wings.

Sweetie Belle, seeing the trouble her friend was having, grabbed one of the small garden trowels they had brought with them and went over to help. She pushed the trowel into the dirt under the dandelion. As soon as the blade cut through the weed's taproot, it no longer resisted Scootaloo's attempt to pull it out. Suddenly the young pegasus filly had every ounce of her own strength pulling her in one direction with nothing holding her back.

Scootaloo went flying, completely out of control, and she crashed through the old mare's window.

Sweetie Belle and Applebloom both rushed to the window to look in on their friend; she was dazed, but unharmed, and as soon as the old mare was satisfied that she wouldn't be responsible for any medical bills, she began angrily demanding payment to fix her broken window.

The day ended with the Crusaders giving up everything they had earned that day and going home with nothing but aching backs and shoulders for their trouble.

Tomorrow, they agreed. Tomorrow they would find another way to earn that money.