Dawn of the New Day

by QueenOfTheSilence


Cracks

If there was one thing Derpy Hooves hated was disappointing and causing her mother, Delilah Hooves, problems. Now, it wasn't like Delilah hated her daughter or was generally malice towards her but Derpy knew that her disability of Strabismus had caused much friction between the two. Delilah didn't blame her for it, Derpy didn't ask to have it it but she also knew that because of her problem she had bad vision which often caused her to have accidents. Accidents that resulted in expensive things being broken.

Broken things that people expected Derpy and her family to pay for. A slide at the park when she was eight, a six hundred dollar tablet at the mall which she somehow managed to snap in half while sneezing, the list was quite long. But this had to be her biggest disaster yet. Causing a fire. Up until now, Derpy had been lucky that none of her accidents had resulted in damages that were in the tens of thousands of dollars. Now, if she were to guess, the damage was anywhere from ten to thirty thousand dollars. That number made her wince.

Every time Derpy returned home and had to tell her the unfortunate news that she had destroyed something or she arrived home and her mother was waiting for her, having gotten a phone call, she hated seeing the look on her face. The look of disappointment, anger and tiredness. Today was most likely going to be any less different.

Delphine "Derpy" and Dinah "Dinky" Hooves lived a bit away from their school. In fact, they lived roughly an hour and a half away by bus. They also happened to live in the poorer part of town. Canterlot didn't really have a ghetto but it did have a poor area, with several trailer parks and plenty of subsidized housing located on the western outskirts of the city.

The Hooves house was a small two-bedroom bungalow that was slightly run down due to the lack of funds and time needed to keep it in tip-top shape. The outside walls wear a faded yellow that was chipped and peeling and the door had a large crack in it, that had been caused six years earlier when the now absent Mr. Hooves finally got feed up and left for good, slamming the door behind him in an enraged fashion. The yard while not horrendously over-run with weeds, did have a a few spare patches in the grass which was five inches tall. On the side of the house there was a flower-bed with half-dead flowers; someones lazy attempt to plant flowers in an attempt to spruce up the outside of the house. Around it was a old, white picket fence and a cracked stone path going from the side walk to the steps of the patio.

The inside of the house was in a similar state though it wasn't too bad. The walls which varied in color from light coral to green, occasionally had a white spot where holes had been filled in with plaster yet hadn't been sanded down and painted over despite the fact that some of the patched holes had been there for years. Most of the furniture in the house was worn though in relatively good condition. Pictures dotted the walls and the side tables and misc things like books, school bags or DVD cases were littered in the corners of room or stacked all over the dinning room table which saw less use for meals then it did homework.

The bungalow, which lacked a basement, had nine rooms: Two bedrooms, one which contained a worn iron-cast bunk bed, a desk and a dresser, the other a queensized bed which took of two thirds of the room, two baths though they were small and cramped just like the bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, small dining room and a laundry room which was more of a walk in closet. The last room was the foyer which had an opened concept closet which was filled to the brim with shoes and clothing.

The moment Derpy and Dinky walked up the cracked path and opened up the front door, they were greeted by the familiar smell of baked goods. The forty-three year old mother of two helped manage a catering company and was constantly making various foods for jobs she had coming up in the week. Things like hot foods were made on the day of the event or the night before but any thing that could be refrigerated or frozen a few days in advance was. Since the family of three only had one car which was parked in the driveway, the garage was converted part way to house several fridges and two freezers to hold all the food. Giving a deep sniff, Derpy determined that her mother was most likely making sugar cookies. Years of living in the company of foods baking constantly allowed her to pinpoint most of which was being made.

True enough, they found their mother cutting out various shapes of sugar cookie dough, her hands, clothing and even her hair covered in dough and flour. Their mother did not notice them at first when they stepped into the kitchen; cooking was her special talent and she had a tendency to get lost in her work. It usually took some physical prodding to get her back to reality and away from her baking.

"Mom." said Dinky, poking her mother in the elbow with a finger as she tried to draw her attention. Delilah blinked and looked around, confused, before she spotted her youngest daughter next to her and her other daughter in the doorway. Frowning, she glanced at the clock. Was it all ready four-thirty? The clock read two-thirty .

"What are you girls doing home early?"

She struggled to remember if she had gotten an email or letter from the school about a half-day but her mind came up blank. Had the girls mentioned anything? Again, nothing. She turned her attention to towards her girls and realized that none of them seemed eager to answer her question. Dinky stood awkwardly, scratching her arm while Derpy was hiding in the background, her eyes staring at the kitchen floor and her arms crossed tightly, trying to look small. Something was wrong. She knew that look. The averted eyes, the trying to look small. Delilah closed her eyes and began rubbing the bags underneath her eyes.

"What happened Delphine?"

She knew that the girl had another incident, which was most likely resulted in her being sent home though that didn't explain why Dinah was home. Derpy kicked the floor with the toe of her shoe and meekly mumbled something under her breath which was incomprehensible to Delilah. She gave her daughter a stern look, her eyes narrowing and lips pressing into a thin line.

"What. Happened."

"I....I tripped."

"You tripped?"

She knew her daughter was being vague. While she tripped a lot, Delihla knew her teachers would only send her home if she had done something, not for just tripping. She gave her daughter another look. Sighing, the teenager relented, staring at the ground as she did.

"I tripped....and then some stuff happened and things started flying....and...."

"And....?"

"A vacuum exploded and the cafeteria was set on fire so Vice-Principal Luna sent everyone home." said Derpy, her mother barely able to hear her.


"How. Bad." Delihla could feel a full-on migraine beginning to to form.

"I-I....I don't know. It's not....The damage isn't very ba-"

Derpy found herself interrupted by the shrill ring of the house phone. Delilah drew her attention away from her eldest daughter and walked out of the living room to pick up the old, corded home phone they had in the living room. Derpy and Dinky stayed where they were, one looking down at her feet while the other gave her sister sympathetic looks. The heard their mother quietly greet the person on the other phone, though they made no move to eavesdrop on the conversation as they could hear most everything where they were without trying.

"Yes...I....."

"....I see... Well then do you think....."

"...How extensive......Oh.....Yes, I understand."

The conversation went on for a few minutes before they heard their mother say goodbye and the loud bang of a phone being slammed into it's carrier. Delilah Hooves stormed into the kitchen, her eyes filled with rage and disappointment. Something was wrong though, sure it wasn't the first time that she had been enraged but something about her was different. Her pupils were dilated, her hands were shaking and her hands were clawing the hems of her apron. Before either of them could speak, the woman walked past them, grabbing the keys to their old, 1998 Ford Winstar and walking out the door, slamming it behind her like Mr. Hooves had done years before.