Pint distanced himself from the misbehaving preschoolers. He couldn’t believe the stallion wasn’t saying, or doing, anything. He just kept reading his newspaper while occasionally telling the children to behave without so much of a glance.
“Perhaps,” thought Pint as he crept closer to the stairs. “Nobody would notice if I…”
CLICK-CLOP
CLICK-CLOP, CLICK-CLOP
The spotted Unicorn was taken from his thoughts as a sky-blue mare with a white and grey mane came up the stairs. Behind her was Bucky and Fall.
“Whoa,” said Pint upon noticing how Bucky appeared as if he had just gotten into a fight. His amber-colored mane was sticking up in places and looked as if it had been run through a mud puddle. The same went for his tail and yellow coat. Bucky also appeared to have a limp as he mindlessly followed after Fall, who didn’t look much better than Bucky.
“Keep moving!” snapped the sky-blue mare.
Bucky and Fall both replied, “Yes, Ms. Powder Puff” in a tone that was more out of defeat than respect.
“I’ve got to follow them,” stated Pint as he crept ever closer to Bucky’s behind. His Pegasus friend didn’t notice him approach. But neither did the newspaper stallion or Ms. Powder Puff.
***
Upon reaching the third floor, Ms. Powder Puff shouted at a volunteer to head down to the second floor and get the kids to bed. The volunteer complied while the older children grew eerily quiet.
“Okay, scamps!” she called out. “Lights out in ten minutes! Every pony who needs the bathroom better use it now!”
Some of the older children grew frightened expressions as they darted towards what Pint only could assume was the bathroom.
“There’s the False Foal!” called out a green-colored Pegasus.
“Thanks for doing the dishes, again!” shouted a purple Unicorn.
Fall said nothing. She was too tired and too used to these sort of remarks.
“Who’s up for a dogpile?” asked a colt with a white mane before charging towards Fall.
Fall gasped as she knew what was coming. The black colt with the white mane was going to leap and put all his weight on her as those who wanted to participate would do the same. Fear showed in her eyes as she could already feel the pain that was about to come.
“NO!” cried Bucky as he stepped in front of Fall.
BOOF!
“Ow!” the colt cried as he slammed into Bucky, fell to the floor, and found a herd of fillies and colts soon tripping and falling on top of him.
Bucky grimaced from the pain of the impact. His knees buckling as pain shot through his body from a combination of the impact and all the intense labor he had just completed with Fall.
“Run…” he groaned.
Fall was frozen in place. Her mind and body convinced she was going to be hurt immensely at any second.
Pint, seeing Fall standing there and shaking with fear, dashed towards the quaking, pigtailed Pegasus.
“Come on, Fall!” he called while grabbing her hoof. His eyes quickly looking for a place to escape to. He then spotted an open door and pulled Fall towards it as he exclaimed, “This way!”
“Pint?” asked Bucky upon noticing his Unicorn friend leading Fall towards an open door.
“You,” growled the black colt. “You’ll pay for that!”
Ms. Powder Puff finally took notice of what was going on.
“You two!” she shouted. She then recognized that the one she was shouting at was Bucky and stated, “You can’t keep out of trouble, can you, chubby?”
“What?” asked Bucky.
“Garbage duty for you tomorrow!” she boomed.
The black colt grinned at hearing Bucky’s punishment.
“And you!” snapped Ms. Powder Puff. “You’ll be doing it with him, Moonside!”
“But…” Moonside tried to say.
“But nothing!” snapped Ms. Powder Puff. “Now you and chubby better take this opportunity to use the bathroom like the rest of you urchins before lights out!”
The green Pegasus walked alongside Moonside towards the bathroom. Both with their heads down.
Bucky, wanting nothing to do with the two troublemakers, tried to make his way to where he saw Pint take Fall. But he was stopped before he could by Ms. Powder Puff.
“We have a rule here,” she said. “No accidents.”
Bucky watched as Ms. Powder Puff pointed towards the bathroom.
“Get it out of you, wash your hooves, and wait here like the rest of you little ingrates.”
Bucky watched as two fillies exited the bathroom. Both had noticeable frowns on their faces. He then sighed and obeyed Ms. Powder Puff’s command.