Chapter 5: Laughter is Magic
Chapter 5
Laughter is Magic
The train stopped at the station, and among the crowd that disembarked were six mares, who immediately made their way toward the castle at the top of the mountain.
Pinkie stopped briefly to guzzle down the soda she ordered on the train, then tossed the empty bottle into a nearby trash bin.
Back in an empty car, Garfield and Odie scratched madly to get out of the overhead luggage bin they were inside of.
"Who's the genius that only put handles on the outside of these things," Garfield grumbled as he tried to pry the compartment door open.
Odie tried to offer his help, but only impeded any progress made.
"The thing opens to the left, Odie! To the left!"
After a moment more of struggle, they triumphed over adversity and opened the door.
"Freedom," Garfield shouted, relishing the rush of uncontaminated air that washed over him.
Being stuck in there was like being in an oven with a pile of garbage that drooled too much. Now the two of them could continue their mission. But where were the ponies they were following?
Garfield heard a familiar burp in the crowd, and looked in the direction it came from. He caught sight of them, just as more passengers arrived in the car they were in. Without further ado, Garfield grabbed Odie by the tongue, and led him off the train.
The two animals plowed through the crowd, knocking down innocent passers with their collective bulk. A few unfortunate ponies fell victim to tripping over Odie's extended tongue, and landing in the subsequent puddle of drool. Unknown to either animal, their actions set off a chain reaction of flying suitcases, crashing ponies, breaking windows and the entire car rocking like a ship at sea.
Once off the train, and onto the platform, the two began searching for their ticket home. Finding the ponies wasn't easy, since walking among the crowd was like diving into a giant bag of rainbow marshmallows.
Garfield climbed atop Odie's head to get a look over the crowd, and after a brief scan, he saw the mares he was looking fore. He climbed down, and the two pets walked past a foal and his mother who were at the station.
Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, Garfield saw a twinkle of light. True to his feline nature, curiosity got the better of him, and he looked to find the source of it. All he saw were the two ponies he and Odie just passed by.
"Dad didn't come," the foal said, "He said he'd be home today on the 3:10."
"Oh, honey, I'm sorry," his mother consoled him, "But I'm sure he has a good reason for not coming. You know that he wouldn't stay at the conference unless he did."
That offered no comfort to the foal.
"Let's just go," the foal said before he turned away and left before his mom.
That simple exchange stopped Garfield in his tracks. He didn't know what it was about him, but he felt a strange kind of connection to the foal who wanted more than anything to see his dad again. Maybe it was the way the colt was so let down. Maybe it was the fact that Garfield himself never knew his own dad. In any case, his will to go after the mares began to fade, and he found himself unable to take his eyes off the young pony.
After only a brief indecision, he made up his mind to postpone his visit to the castle, when he noticed something to his side.
Odie was looking right at Garfield, panting and staring the way he always did, but something was different about it this time. Whatever passed as Odie's intelligence, it was there in his bug-eyes, and it said that he knew exactly what he was thinking.
In a flash, Garfield wrapped one paw around Odie's neck.
"Tell anyone about this, and you're roadkill," he threatened the dog before winding up to boot him over to the mares, "Now get to work on getting us home."
With another powerful kick, Odie sailed through the air and plopped right on top of Fluttershy. After a bit of rolling, Odie sprang to his feet, helped Fluttershy up, and trotted alongside his new friends.
Garfield began following the two ponies, only lose them in the crowd.
He followed their direction, but kept getting bumped around by the ponies who were passing by.
"Hey! I'm a cat, not a soccer ball," he shouted as he dodged the oncoming hoof of a blue pony.
He had enough of nearly being trampled. Before another pony's hoof could come down on him, he leapt onto the unfortunate equine's neck and climbed on top of his head, then jumped to the back of another one.
His crowd-surfing tactic worked well enough. Garfield caught the trail of the foal, and hopped from pony to pony, and even some of the structures at the station, such as benches and bollards.
He jumped onto the reception desk, and accidentally stepped on a stamp pad, creating a trail of paw prints across many passenger's tickets.
Next, Garfield tried to jump onto a suitcase, but its owner rolled it out of the way, sending him to the floor.
After shaking the wooziness from his head, Garfield considered raiding that suitcase, and shredding everything inside, but he had something more important to attend to. Why it was more important, he didn't know, but something told him that he needed to go after that young foal. He was told that 'the harmony needed him,' whatever that meant, and maybe the key was with that young pony.
"Hey, Kevin Costner listened to a mysterious voice. He built it, and they came," Garfield reasoned to himself as he got closer to the foal. He was nearly reached the colt, when the door to the station was closed in front of him.
"Hey! Hey! Let me out! Kitty wants out," Garfield yelled as he pawed at the door.
Doors were always a mystery to him. He mastered the refrigerator door, but for some strange reason, other doors were different from that, and couldn't simply be pulled open.
He waited for one of the ponies passing outside to come in, but they all kept passing by, as if nobody had any need for a train.
"Stupid airports, taking all the business from a good, honest train station," Garfield grumbled.
The foal was getting further and further away from him.
Garfield's mind raced for a solution, and he found it.
A trolley full of luggage was placed nearby, and looked hefty enough for his needs.
The cat quickly ran over to it, and started shoving it towards the door.
Slowly at first, it soon picked up speed and began speeding toward the door.
Ponies jumped out of the way as the juggernaut raged through the station.
Garfield jumped onto the luggage and rode it toward the door.
He held up a small case in front of him to soften the blow when the trolley crashed into the door, shattered the glass and sent him flying outside into the street.
As he soared through the air, Garfield placed the case he held underneath him as he landed in the street.
He slid for a few feet, until he came to a complete stop.
He breathed in to let out a sigh, but what came out instead was a yell as a pony-drawn carriage came rushing down the street toward him.
Only barely able to dodge, Garfield scrambled to the sidewalk, where he let out a long string of curse words that would raise the age rating on this story.
After his blue streak ended, he chucked the suitcase down the road.
It hit its mark on the carriage-toting pony's head, and with a wimpy yell, he landed on his face.
"It's all in the wrist," Garfield mused to himself.
But he couldn't get too full of himself this time. The foal was getting away from him. At the moment, he and his mother were a ways down the road, and the cat had to close the distance between them.
Garfield started by trying to cross the streets, only to be stopped by another passing carriage.
After it went by, the street was clear.
Garfield put one paw on the road, and another carriage sped past him.
He tried an experiment and put a single toe in the road, only for a red colt with a spiky yellow mane and his stuffed tiger go speeding past him in a red wagon.
The road was a bust, but there had to be another way to get across it.
Around Garfield, there was an athletic supply shop, a haberdashery, a donut shop, a florist.
Garfield went with the obvious option, and started a riot in the donut shop to loot it undetected.
After that business, he ran into the athletic supply shop and came running back out with a pole vault.
Sure he hadn't done this in a while, not since Jon stopped putting the cookies on top of the fridge, but he was sure he still had the technique mastered.
Garfield planted the end of the pole into the sidewalk and launched himself high into the air.
He could feel himself sailing forward, and was about to let go and go sailing toward his goal, only for the pole to snap under his elephantine weight.
"Aw! Stupid, cheap particle wood," he shouted as he fell on top of another passing carriage.
His ride took him down the street to an intersection, where he hopped across the tops of the passing carriages to catch up to the foal, who was now turning a corner at the end of the street.
To catch up with him, Garfield cut through the alleyways between the buildings.
Big mistake, since he was soon confronted by a giant, ragged dog with crooked teeth and bloodshot eyes, and smelled like dust and garbage. His appearance alone was enough to say he was bad news, but what he said next made him irredeemable, "Pardon me, sir, but do you have several hours to talk about life insurance?"
If there was anything worse than an insurance salesdog, it was an honest insurance salesdog. With a scream that would shatter glass, if any were nearby, Garfield ran like crazy out of the alley, past the assortment of back alley horrors of lawyers, politicians and fanfic writers.
Finally, the light at the end of the tunnel. He burst out of the alley and looked all around for the foal, only to find nothing. Then, at the very far end of the street, he saw him and his mother walking toward a building that he assumed to be their house.
With a renewed motivation, Garfield charged down the road, deftly dodging any obstacles on the way.
Except for the pony carrying the hot dog. That was promptly eaten, and spat out when he found out it was soy.
The foal opened the door, and sulked inside, followed by him mother, who began closing the door.
But Garfield wasn't about to be left out after what he had gone through. He charged full steam as the open space got smaller and smaller. He pushed his body faster than he did back in the forest when he ran from those wooden wolves, and swiftly approached the door. He was going to do it. He was going to make it.
The door closed, and he slammed into it face first, creating a Garfield-shaped impression on its surface.
"I skip my morning nap for this," Garfield said, noting that he hadn't slept once in almost a day.
He stepped back from the house to look for a new way in.
After a brief look around the house, Garfield found a few windows, but none of them were open. He then heard a noise above him, and saw a window on the second story open, conveniently enough by a tree branch.
"It's amazing how things work out in your favor in things like this," Garfield mused before he climbed the tree, walked across the branch, and jumped through the window.
Finally, he was inside, and was stunned by what he saw.
Before the door was closed in his face, the inside of the house looked so clean, but stepping into this room was so messy, it was like stepping into another world.
All around, there were papers with scribbles written on them, and books all strewn about, making Garfield wish he could read. Fortunately, some of the books were open, and showed pictures of a unicorn with its horn aglow and making objects appear in front of it.
"Hey. I think I saw Jon reading this once," he said as he looked at the picture. He moved to another book, and saw more pictures of unicorns doing things like levitating objects and opening doors.
In the room with him, the foal was busily studying one of the books at his desk, which was equally littered with books and papers. Along with all of that, Garfield saw a picture of the colt, along with two older ponies. One, he recognized as his mom, and the other was the one he assumed to be his dad.
Something about the picture made something click in Garfield's mind.
"Hm, one of these things is not like the others," he said to himself when he saw that both of the colt's parents were unicorns, but he wasn't. That, and all of the pictures in the books showed unicorns using magic.
From what Garfield had seen, only the unicorns could use magic, and this hornless, wingless kid was studying how to use it. He shook his head with a sigh, "Quit fooling yourself, kid. Stay on this track, and you'll be a dateless cartoonist with an extensive sock collection. Trust me, I've seen it happen."
The colt paid no mind to the cat. He was too busy studying the page in his book to be aware of anything else in the room.
The page he was on now was giving instructions on how to cast magic to make flowers grow. He hoped that he would have mastered it in time for his dad's arrival, and show him how far he had come in his magic studies. But since he hadn't mastered anything, and his dad didn't come home, it only gave him more time to perfect his technique.
"Okay. Let's try this again," he said as he opened a packet of seeds and pushed them down into a small pot full of soil. He looked at the book, read the instructions to cast the spell once more, and executed his technique. He concentrated hard to make the spell work, straining his mind to manipulate the magic forces in the world.
Garfield watched in dismay, "I can almost see the socks unfolding before my eyes."
It was painful for the cat to watch this foal try so earnestly at something he was clearly not meant to do, but it would be easier for him to fail and figure that out for himself.
Then the pot shook.
After months of trying, the foal was finally getting a different result from the usual embarrassing explosion in his face. Now he was finally doing it. He was doing it for everypony who doubted him, he was doing it for himself, he was doing it for his dad, who was the only pony who actually believed in him.
"Holy moly! He's doing it," Garfield said as he watched the foal's magic unfold before him.
For a second, he was sorry he doubted him. But only for a second, since the soil in the pot blew up in his face and sent them both flying across the room.
"There's probably a word for when something like this happens," Garfield thought to himself. Once the ringing in his ears stopped, he heard a knock on the door.
"Pratfall?"
"Yeah, that's the one."
The foal named Pratfall wiped the soil off his face and sulked to the door, finding his mom on the other side when he opened it.
She paused for a second when she saw her son's filthy face. All his life, it was a common thing for him to end up in some humiliating situation, so she barely paid any mind to it when thing's like this happened. She had to admit though, an explosion resulting in a dirty face was a new one. "Pratfall, Spring Flower's here to see you."
She opened the door more to let in another foal. A unicorn filly, the same age as her son. She then left the foals to their business.
"Hey," Spring Flower greeted him. She saw the mess in his room, but she had known Pratfall since they were both babies, and like his mother she knew it was just a part of his everyday life. "I heard about your dad. I'm sorry he didn't come home yet."
"It's okay," Pratfall sighed, "I really wanted to show how much I learned since he's been gone."
"You mean all of this," the young unicorn asked as she looked at the soil-covered room.
"Yeah. Look what I did just now. I still haven't grown anything, but I'm getting somewhere. Before, I couldn't even move the seeds, but look what I just did! I know I'm on the right track. I only need to work on my spells a little more, and I'll have it."
"That's kind of why I'm here."
"What do you mean?"
Spring Flower knew that nothing brought her friend more joy than practicing magic, but like everypony else, she knew that he was bound to fail. She spent a good amount of time (weeks, in fact) trying to come up with the words to confront him about his self-destructive pursuit, and chose today, hoping that his dad's presence would help to soften the blow. But even though his dad wasn't there, she decided to tell him anyway since she knew that if she didn't now, she wouldn't ever. "Pratfall, you need to stop learning magic."
"I'll say. He's not exactly David Copperfield," Garfield agreed as he shook the dirt out of his fur.
Pratfall couldn't believe what he heard, and was about to rebut, but Spring Flower stopped him.
"Everypony's concerned about you. You hardly talk to anypony anymore, you only leave your room to go to school, and you're obsessed over something that only unicorns and alicorns can do. You'll never get your cutie mark if you keep this up."
Something new was brought to Garfield's attention then: every other pony he saw had a mark on their flanks, but Pratfall didn't have one. It let him know that it was more than just some trend among the young crowd. But at least they weren't gauging their ears.
Ever since he was born, Pratfall was surrounded by magic users, and saw all the amazing feats they could do with their natural gift. It often made the colt wonder what made him special among his peers. But there was always one pony who encouraged him to at least try. "My dad thinks I can do it."
"But nopony else does. All the foals at school talk about you behind your back, and your mom never says anything so she won't hurt your feelings. Nopony believes in you. Not even me. And I think on some level: not even your dad."
"I hope the kid wore a cup for that one," Garfield said to himself. He was stunned by Spring Flower's candor. He himself had no faith in Pratfall's learning, but to hear it spelled out so plainly was hard for even someone as callous as him to hear.
It was even harder for Pratfall. In the deepest part of his subconscious, he thought that maybe his dad didn't actually believe in him, but hearing it out loud was too much for him to bear.
"Go away..." Pratfall said as he turned back to his desk.
"No. I need to know if I'm getting through to you." She only wanted to help him come to terms with his limitations, but at the same time, it felt like she had said the wrong thing.
"Go away," Pratfall snapped, "I don't want to see you again! Get out of my room!"
Spring Flower had never seen this side of her friend, and it disturbed her greatly. She didn't know how to handle such a thing. Even though she wanted to stay and console him, something in the back of her mind told her that she had better leave. An instinct that she obeyed, and quietly left, hoping that he would come to his senses.
"What's with all this heavy stuff? Aren't things usually funny when I'm involved," Garfield asked. Then he saw the colt tremble, and heard him start sniffling. "Aw, come on. Don't do that. It's only funny when Jon does it."
If he didn't do something fast, that crying was going to seriously bum him out. "When did I become such a softy," he asked himself as he prepared for what he was going to do next.
Pratfall lifted his head up when he heard something jump onto his desk, and saw it to be an orange tabby cat juggling three of his books. And for a second, he forgot what he was sad about, and watched the spectacle in front of him.
Now that he had the foal's attention, Garfield started adding some more flair to his act. He juggled all of the books in one paw, then reached to the side to grab a banana. Where from? Even he didn't know, but as long as it was funny, it didn't have to make sense to him.
He squeezed the banana, making the fruit jump out of its skin and into his open mouth. Then he dropped the peel, stepped on it, and fell to his rump, making all the books he was juggling fall on his head.
Finally, as the coup de gras, he opened one of the books, and a pie flew out and hit him in the face with an audible 'SPLUT!!'
Pratfall had to giggle at what he saw. Sure, it didn't solve his problem, but it helped him to forget about it for the time being. "You're a funny cat, you know."
"I should be. Funny's been my job for almost forty years."
"If mom wasn't allergic, I'd keep you."
Pratfall never had a pet before, due to his mom's serious reactions, but something about the cat made him feel a connection to it, like they were meant to cross paths at some point. Even so, it was kind of a downer for him to see that even this cat was better at magic than he was, even if it was meant strictly for comedic purposes.
"Wait a second!"
Something occurred to the foal then. Nothing he did turned out right, and only became an embarrassing mishap that made everypony laugh at him. The cat just did the same thing, and it turned out enjoyable for him. He knew that getting a cutie mark for magic was the path he was meant to take, but only now did he realize that he was taking the wrong approach to it.
Now with a renewed spirit, he started packing up some supplies to take with him. "Come on, kitty. We need to go to the park."
It was a beautiful afternoon in Canterlot park. The ponies who had gotten off work were enjoying the last few hours of sunlight to frolic and play with their friends and families before nightfall. In one corner of the park, that met at a busy intersection of the street, Pratfall had finished setting up his props for the show he was about to put on. Some of the ponies who had seen his shows before trotted by a little faster to avoid getting caught in any of the colt's mishaps.
But Pratfall was confident of his success this time. He knew that he was going to achieve his goal, where he had failed to do so every other time. He set up his prop, a giant cardboard square set up on a stand so that it was upright. the center of it was cut out so that a view of the park could be seen through it. Next to it was a small sign that said 'Magic Mirror.' Now that everything was set up, the show could begin.
Pratfall started by casually walking past the front of the cardboard, and as soon as he did, Garfield came into view on the other side of it. Normally, such a thing wouldn't be strange, except that Garfield couldn't be seen from the other side before, and the edges of the square were much too narrow for him to have hidden behind.
Once the cat came into view, Pratfall turned to it, an exaggerated look of surprise plastered on his face. He knew what his reflection looked like, and that wasn't it. It would have to be investigated. He carefully examined the cat, and Garfield mirrored his movements exactly. The spectacle caught the eye of a few passers who decided to watch the show and see what it was all about.
Garfield continued to mirror Pratfall's movements exactly as he did, creating an illusion of a magic mirror for the audience.
Now that a crowd was here, it was time to move on with the act. Pratfall looked around the edge of the trick mirror, and where his head should have been seen on the other side, there was nothing.
In the meantime, Garfield peered around from his side of the mirror and hit Praftall with a slapstick that he pulled out of nowhere, which got a giggle out of the audience.
Pratfall jumped when he was hit, and quickly resumed looking at the mirror, only to find Garfield once more copying his movements. He grew suspicious, and stepped away to the side, which Garfield did at the same time, but disappeared from his side of the mirror.
The audience was awed that a young earth pony could be so talented with close up magic, and with so few props.
One of the audience members was wearing a hat, which Pratfall took and stepped back in front of the mirror.
Garfield followed suit, and was wearing a completely different hat of his own.
The foal rubbed his chin suspiciously, and quickly switched the hat he was wearing with somepony else's.
At the same time, Garfield took the hat off of Pratfall's head and put it on his own.
When the foal looked back, he acted surprised to see that the hat he was just wearing was now on his 'reflection.'
As the final touch of the act, the Pratfall and Garfield both grabbed the edges of the prop mirror and started shifting it back and forth, which made Garfield disappear and reappear every time the edged passed him.
At one point, Pratfall let go, and Garfield continued to shift the square on his own.
"Ah ha," Pratfall shouted, now that he was certain that it wan't his reflection.
He leapt through the mirror to catch the culprit, only for Garfield to jump under him to the other side.
Pratfall landed on his face, and his rear hoof bumped the base of the mirror, which made it wobble back and forth until it fell over on top of him. Once it did, he stood up, now wearing a headband with cat ears on it, and whiskers painted on his face. The act ended when he let out a single, "Meow?"
The audience, which had grown large through the duration of the act, roared with laughter.
Pratfall took off the headband and wiped off his whiskers before taking a bow to the audience.
"Boy, if Jon could see me now," Garfield thought to himself, now that he was being kind hearted and helpful, "Then again, I glad he didn't. If he knew I gave a hanging hairball, he'd expect it all the time."
All of a sudden, without any warning at all, a bright light shone around Pratfall. At first, the foal was startled, then became excited when he recognized the light as something he had seen before. Once it faded, he looked to his flank, and saw that it was now decorated with a mark of a wooden slapstick crossed over a magic wand.
"I did it," Pratfall said quietly. His excitement burst forth when he loudly repeated, "I did it!!"
After trying for so long, he succeeded in getting his cutie mark in magic. Not the traditional kind, in the sense that unicorns use, but the kind that brought laughter to those around him.
He showed his mark to Garfield, who was still rubbing his eyes from the bright light he just saw. "Look! I got my cutie mark!"
"You got a tattoo on your butt. Now get a few piercings, and watch your parents really hit the roof," Garfield said with a grin. The next thing he knew, he was lifted up off the ground by the foal's tight hug.
"Thanks for your help kitty. If it wasn't for you, I never would have found my special talent," Pratfall said to the cat.
He would have stayed in the park to give an encore performance, but he still had to show his mom and Spring Flower his new cutie mark. That, and he had to practice some new acts so he'd have something to show his dad when he came home.
He put Garfield down, and ran home as fast as he could, all the while thinking of new ways to make ponies laugh through magic.
Garfield watched the colt run home, remembering how he once felt when he found his special affinity for cuisine. It was the single greatest feeling in the world when he found what he was meant to do, even if it was to gorge himself until he felt too sleepy to continue. Now he passed that feeling on to a foal that everyone else deemed a failure.
"I hope I don't make a hobby out of this. I have a reputation to keep up," he said with a smile. Then he noticed something else.
It was the same twinkle of light that he saw at the station that led him to Pratfall, and now it was shining in the middle of the park. Even though it was in plain view of everyone else, they acted like they weren't able to see it there.
"Did Peter Pan lose a fairy," Garfield asked as he batted at the light.
To the ponies watching, it only looked like he was a cat acting like a cat, but for Garfield, it was a mystery that needed to be solved.
"When the world is against you, all can seem foreboding and hopeless," came a voice that Garfield recognized from when he first came to this world, "It is only in humor that we find a way to make the darkness fade and bring joy back to ourselves. And it is the responsibility of those who carry it to spread it to others. Go forth to the castle, Garfield. Your friends are waiting for you there."
And with those last words, the light faded from existence.
It was something that never occurred to Garfield before. He knew he was funny, but he never thought of himself as someone who dispensed it to others to make their lives all that better, even if he was doing it for decades.
Even the ones he abused, he realized were much better off with him around. Without the laughter he provided, Odie would lament his stupidity, and Jon would probably be an emotionally crippled shut-in who never left his house.
"Being funny's a serious business," he thought to himself.
It really was a burden being the funny guy, but hey, if he didn't do it, who would?
He decided to follow the strange voice's directions and head toward the castle, where he would hopefully find the way back home. And even if he didn't, there were surely a few sad faces that could use a good gag from Banana Man.
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Aww...
That was a beautiful chapter. Thanks for the update sir!
Ah banana man I remember that my fav is the one Garfield dons his blanket as the caped crusader
6619262 I'm actually surprised that people like this chapter so much. I'm going to have a hard time trying to make Odie's chapter come close to the reader's expectations.
6619564 Funny you should mention that. I almost had Garfield and Odie become the Caped Avenger and Slurp for one chapter, but I couldn't figure out where it fit into the story.
Great heart touching chapter.
Great to see this still posting new chapters.
Technically, all ponies have magic, but it's generally passive things like walking on clouds or making plants grow better. I say "generally" because there's a scene in "Look Before You Sleep" where Daisy's picking up a branch telekinetically (it's better if you see it animated); whether you consider that canon or an error (i.e., they should've had a unicorn there instead) is up to you.
6623399 Thanks for the info. And I took a look at that clip from Look Before You Sleep, and I think that thing with Daisy is most likely an animation error.
Woah, the ending is getting way too deep into meta territory
Well, Garfield's helped at least one colt find his Cutie Mark, pushing aside racial tensions in the process. I imagine it might not be the first foal he does this for before the end of the story.
A double joke, continuing the dangerous street and making a reference to the greatest comic of all time. Well played.
9257730
Yeah. 'Garfield' and 'Calvin and Hobbes' are my two favorite comic strips, so I decided to pay tribute to them both.