//------------------------------// // Chapter 6: Friends // Story: Dreams Really Do Come True! // by Dyno8man //------------------------------// Saturday 7:30 PM We’re just about to the 9th episode of season 1 of MLP, and I’m not even paying attention to the show anymore, mainly because I’ve already seen them, but mostly because I’m too busy enjoying the feeling of Mom giving me a belly rub. I feel sorry for all of you, you can only imagine how good this feels right now! Because I was a bit too relaxed while that was happening, I started to get a bit tired. As I yawned, I noticed that Mom and Natalie had also yawned after I did, which made me laugh a little knowing that I spread the yawn to them. What can I say? They are contagious. When the show ended, I heard someone at the door, trying to unlock it. Once the door opened, the person walked inside with grocery bags. It was Dad, who was just coming back from Wal-Mart. When he saw me, he scowled at me, and made his way to the kitchen. Mom followed him, of course, to give him a little “Hello” kiss, and he kissed her back. Afterwards, I hear Dad start whispering. “You still have that thing in the house?” Dad said, sounding a bit peeved. I take it that he took the time that he had alone to cool off a bit. I’m surprised that he’s still calling me a thing. I guess he still must not trust me. “Yes, we still have him with us. Despite how he looks, he’s still my son. I gave birth to him, and I wouldn’t throw him out for the world.” Mom said, sounding a bit shocked that he still hasn’t gotten over it yet. I could have sworn that I felt a tear slide down my cheek, but when I checked, I didn’t feel anything. “You still believe that talking, winged horse that isn’t even possible?! Sandy, get your head out of the clouds! Like I said earlier, stuff like this doesn’t just happen!” Dad said, raising his voice a bit. I felt just a little bit of anger build up inside me when he referred to me as a horse. I already told him that I’m a pony. I guess he’s just trying to make fun of me to get me angry so he can have a reason to throw me out. Well, Dad, that’s not going to work! I’m going to keep my cool throughout the whole night. “Look, when we went into his room this morning, we instead saw a light orange pony, which we assumed was Reece, because how else would it have gotten in his room if the doors were locked?” Mom told him, trying to make a point. She had a good point there, too. She was usually the one who won all the arguments. I swear she could get a job as an attorney. “Well, I, erm…” Dad stuttered, completely stumped. “Exactly.” I started towards the kitchen to see what Dad had brought home, when Dad stopped me. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! You stop right there!” Mom stared at him, disapproving of his choice of words. “Give him a chance, Henry.” Dad looked back at her, then back at me, then back at her again. Then, he finally decided. “Ugh, fine. One chance, though. To prove that that is my son.” Mom corrected him. “Correction: To prove that he is your son.” Then I chimed in. “Correction: To prove that she is your son.” I gotta admit, what I said kinda sounded stupid, and ridiculous. I hope that what I said didn’t hurt any chances of Dad trusting me. Mom told Dad another thing. “Oh, I almost forgot to tell you. Now, don’t freak out, but Reece is a girl pony.” My Dad completely flipped out after she said that. “WHAT?!” “Um, Mom? I think they’re called mares.” I informed Mom. Dad spoke up again. “Okay, there is no way that SHE is my son!” “Well, I guess he, or should I say she, is your daughter now, then. But I’m sure that she is still your son at heart.” Mom told him. I can tell that Mom wants to continue referring to me as a “he” because she’s not used to having to call me a “she” now that I’m a girl. “Fine! Whatever. One chance is all she gets.” Dad said right before looking at me, and scowling. He then walked out of the kitchen, and I trotted up to the grocery bags, with my hooves making the classic “clip-clop” sound on the hardwood floor of the kitchen as I did so. I jumped up onto a chair so that I had better access to the bags. I looked into the two bags that he brought in. “Dang it…” Mom looks at me with a confused look. “What’s the matter?” I hand her the bags, which contained only meat products. “He didn’t get any fruits!” ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About 5 minutes later, the phone started ringing. On instinct, I walked towards it. “I got it!” Mom walked in front of me, and looked down at me. “No you don’t.” She said, smiling, and giggling a bit. I was confused as to why she said that, but then I remembered: I have hooves. How was I supposed to hold the phone with hooves? I started laughing at my little goof up there. “Hello?” My mom said, talking into the phone. “Hi. This is Krystal, Reece’s friend.” I heard the person say on the other end. Man, these new pony ears really pick up sound much better than human ears, that’s for sure. “Um, may I ask who this might be?” I heard her say through the phone. Mom replies. “This is Reece’s mother. What do you want?” She said, trying to sound happy, rather than grumpy, because the way she said it kinda made me think she was upset that she called. “Oh, I wanted to talk to Reece for a moment. Is he home?” Krystal said through the phone. I smiled a bit as she said that, knowing that someone actually called me, and wanted to talk to me about something. Mom looks over at me, and mouthed “It’s for you.” I mouthed back “I know!” Mom spoke back into the phone. “Y-Yeah, he’s home. I’ll hand the phone to him now.” Mom started to walk over to me as I heard Krystal say “Alright. Thank you!” Mom stopped at my right side, and moved the phone over to my ear, since I couldn’t hold the phone myself. I kinda felt disabled with her doing that, so I told her to set it on the table, and put it on speaker. She did so, and she walked out of the room to give us privacy. It was quiet for a moment, so I decided to speak up first. “Yo.” “Are you still there?” I heard her say from the phone as soon as I said it. A second later, she spoke up again. “What?” “I said yo. This is Reece.” “Hey, Reece. Um, are you okay? You sound different.” She said, sounding a bit concerned. She always kinda liked me, but she tried to hide it. I already knew, but I decided to keep it to myself. I remembered that my voice had changed, too. I forgot to take that into account, so I tried to think of a believable excuse because, like Mom, she’s really good at finding faults in what people say, and what she hears. “Um, I’m inhaling helium. Yeah, from balloons. Me and my sister were being goofy, and inhaling the helium from the balloons to see how silly our voices would get.” Eh, that’ll work. “Oh. Well, if that’s the case, shouldn’t the helium have worn off by now?” Damn, she was good, but I was better…I think. “The helium lasts longer for me. There’s something up with my vocal cords that makes that happen.” “Rrright…” I cleared my throat, and moved on to the key topic of the phone call. “So, um, why did you call?” “Oh, I was wondering if you’d like to come over to my place for a sleep over.” Wow, this is so sudden! I don’t know what to say! Just kidding. I know what to say, it’s just a bit weird. With her thinking that I’m still a guy, she invites me to a sleep over. I don’t know what’s up with her parents, but apparently they think of it as okay for a guy to have a sleep over with a girl. But hey, who am I to judge? I’m not a guy anymore, so it’s not like it really matters. “Sure. I’d love to come over! It’s about time we spend some time together, anyway. We haven’t done that in a while, right?” It has been quite some time since I last came over to her place. Say, I don’t know, at least a year? “Yeah, it has, hasn’t it? Okay, great! You still know where I live, right?” “Yeah. 8164 Wiley St. I’ll ask my mom to take me over there.” “Oh, there’s no need for that. I’ll drive with my parents over there!” Well…dang it, then. That gives me less time to figure out how I’m going to break it to her. I’m sure we’ll work things out. “Oh, um, okay. Do you remember where I live?” I ask her, still feeling just a bit unsure. “Yeah. We should be there in about roughly 10 minutes. So go pack your things, and get ready!” Yeah…pack my things. Nice joke. “Alright. See you in 10 minutes!” “See you then.” She said, before immediately hanging up. She’s one of those people who like to hang up as soon as they’re done talking, not giving the other person a chance to hang up their end first. I pressed the “hang up” button on the phone, which, surprisingly, took me only 1 try. I then call for Mom, telling her that we were done talking. I’m still getting used to this new voice, so it’s typical for me to think over how I sound, and think that I sound stupid. Mom eventually makes her way to the kitchen, and takes the phone from the table, and sets it back on its charging dock. “So, what did she want?” I hesitated a little, knowing that what I’m going to tell her will shock her. “Um…she said she’d be over in 10 minutes.” Woops, I missed a crucial detail. “Wait, what?” Mom’s eyes grow big. See? Told ya. “Um, she invited me over for a sleep over, and she’ll be over in 10 minutes to pick me up.” “Why didn’t you ask me first?!” Mom snapped. “I’m sorry, I just got a bit excited!” “Well, putting that aside, we gotta get you ready!” Mom says, picking me up, and bringing me into her bathroom. “Mom? What are you thinking about doing to me?” I ask her, sounding scared. “Oh, nothing. Just going to play a small game of dress up.” Mom says in a calm manner. I can’t believe it. She’s going to do it. She is actually going to dress me up as if I were a pet! God, that is so insulting. And plus, I don’t like to cosplay unless it’s something that I like (that isn’t a pony), and dressing up like a girl, despite the fact that I am one, was something I hoped would never happen. But now, it’s happening. I start freaking out. “What?! No! You’re not going to put me in a dress! You can’t make me!” I struggle to get free of her grasp, but damn, she had a tight hold on me. Mom lets go of me, and sighs, while facepalming. I could hear her mutter “This may take a while…” She look back at me, and suggests she do something. “Look, how about this? I’ll call them, and ask for more time, say 40 minutes, so that I can bathe you, too. You smell like a horse.” “Okay. One, thanks Mom. And two, thanks Mom…” The second time I said that, I rolled my eyes, and sounded sarcastic. “Well you do!” She said, walking over to the phone in her bedroom. We had a landline, so all the recent calls were shared with all the phones in the house. She selected the most recent call, which was mine and Krystal’s. As she started calling them, I took this opportunity to get my bath ready. I couldn’t smell anything, which is typical of a person to not be able to smell their own funk, but I knew that Mom was right. I walked into her bathroom, and turned on the bathtub faucet. It was simple to use; It had one of those handle knobs for the pressure, and temperature, that you just had to push/pull and turn. I didn’t even need to grab on to it, not that I could or anything. I adjusted the water to a comfortable temperature. A few seconds after I found the perfect temperature, my hoof started hurting again from the hot water that burned me when I tried to adjust it. I normally like to shock it by turning it on to the highest setting so that the water would heat up faster, then turn it back down to a comfortable setting. I then put my hoof on the drain plug, and slid it into the tub, and onto the drain. It fit perfectly, and the water started to pool up in the tub. After, Mom came back in, and I could tell that she was surprised. “Let’s just get this over with.” I tell her, and she smiles. “They said they would be here at 8:15, so we gotta do this fast.” Mom told me. My heart started racing because god knows how long this will take. I wanted to get the hard part of all this past me as quick as possible. “The shampoo is under the sink, Mom! Come on, let’s do this already!” I say, pointing at the two cabinet doors under the sink. “Okay, okay. Hold your horses.” Mom says, a second later cracking up at her joke. “Mom, that’s n-not funny!” I shout at her, trying to be serious, but cracking a laugh here and there, trying my best not to smile. I got into the tub, which was now filled with water at this point. “Sure it isn’t…” She says, sarcastically. She pulls out the dog shampoo we kept in there. We used to have a dog, but stuff…happened. That was about 3 months ago. She grabbed a cup from the countertop, turned off the bathtub faucet, and started filling the cup with water. She then starts pouring the water on my body to prep it for the soap. I gotta admit, it felt very weird with me being the one getting a bath like this instead of a dog. Thus begins my bath. Only 40 minutes to go… Until Chapter 7…