Ponyville the Town of Youth

by Ironskull

Day 9: Pranks a Lot

Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash stood in front of the community gym. It was still night out.

Rainbow Dash wordlessly held up two aerosol cans for Pinkie to see. Pinkie started giggling.

"Shh!" said Rainbow quietly.

Pinkie made a motion as though zipping her lip and became completely silent.

Rainbow Dash hoofed over the cans to Pinkie and then approached the double doors and slowly opened one. She grimaced as it made a creaking sound.

When the door was open sufficiently, she stopped to listen. She could hear no sign of disturbance from within the building.

Carefully, Pinkie positioned the first aerosol can in the space between the two double doors, and then the other. Holding the cans in place with her hooves, she gave Rainbow a nod.

Rainbow released the door and it tried to swing shut, but was stopped by the caps of the aerosol cans, which pressed in and began to eject vapors into the interior of the gym.

Pinkie released her grip on the cans. They stayed in place and continued to do their work.

Rainbow started giggling, and Pinkie quickly joined in.

"Shut up!" whispered Rainbow, aware of her hypocrisy. "Let's get out of here before anypony else notices!"

---

Twilight awoke to find herself in an unfamiliar location. After a moment of thought, she remembered that the six of them had been forced to stay the night at Applejack's farm after all.

What happened yesterday? she wondered to herself. Let's see. After that ridiculous prank, we fled to Applejack's farm to escape from everypony else. We spent the day helping Applejack cook apple themed deserts. When we tried going back...

Twilight frowned. When we tried going back, the others pelted us with water balloons. They didn't even care that we were bringing them desert. And we had to run before all of our hard work was ruined...

And Applejack was in a bad mood for the rest of the night.

Twilight saw that the kitchen light was on. Doubtlessly, Applejack was already making breakfast for the six of them.

She walked inside.

"Good morning, Applejack," said Twilight as cheerfully as she could.

"Mornin' " said Applejack nonchalantly.

Twilight didn't speak.

"I wonder what the others are having for breakfast this morning," said Applejack. "I bet you that they're lost without me."

"It wasn't a statement about the quality of your cooking," said Twilight assuringly. "They were just upset with us. They should be upset with Rainbow, Pinkie, and Rarity, not you. It's all just a misunderstanding."

"Misunderstandin' or not," said Applejack, "ya don't waste good food. We spent all day baking yesterday. And then they ruined over half of it by gettin' us all soakin' wet! How do you think that makes me feel?"

"Unappreciated, I suppose," said Twilight. "But they are the ones at fault here, Applejack. Not you."

"Perhaps," answered Applejack, "But they did it because of what we did to them. Ah shouldn't have just watched and laughed, yesterday. Ah should have put a stop to it."

"Well," said Twilight uncertainly. "It was at least a little bit funny..."

"Yeah," sighed Applejack. "It was real funny when our hard work got ruined too."

Applejack shook her head. "It doesn't matter," she continued, speaking more to herself than Twilight. "At least there are ponies here that appreciate a good breakfast."

---

There was a knock on the front door.

Applejack approached the door and peeked through the window to see who it was.

"Spike?" she said aloud in surprise.

She opened the door.

"Alright," cried Spike in a mirthful tone. "Who did the thing with the air freshener cans? That was hilarious!"

"Air freshener?" said Applejack in confusion.

"We did that," answered Rainbow Dash from behind Applejack. "Pinkie and I, that is."

"Wait," said Twilight. "What did you two do?"

"How did they all react?" asked Rainbow to Spike, grinning.

"Well," said Spike, "This morning I was shaken awake by Apple Bloom. And first thing that she says to me is 'Was it you?' And I was about to tell her that I didn't know what she was talking about when suddenly that smell hit me. It made me want to gag. Everypony was putting their hooves over their faces and stuff. I almost missed the fact that Diamond Tiara woke up Pipsqueak and asked if he did it.

"Anyway, everyone swore that they didn't do it, so we figured that it had to be one of you. When we went to go find the source of the smell, we found two cans of air freshener stuck in the gym's front door. One was 'fresh flowers' scent and the other was 'summer breeze'. And they were both empty."

"Pinkie! Rainbow!" cried Twilight. "Why did you do that?"

"Hey," said Rainbow defensively. "You have to admit that that is funny."

"But you're going to get them even more upset with us!" shouted Twilight.

"Hey," said Spike. "I was one of the victims, and I thought it was hilarious."

"Yeah!" agreed Rainbow. "Spike here knows what's up. There's nothing wrong with a harmless prank or two. It's all in good fun!"

"Oh yeah," said Spike. "By the way, the fort is pretty much a no go until it has a chance to air out. I'm pretty sure that some of the others are going to get back at you."

"Well," said Rarity. "Then I'm going out to make sure everypony knows that I had nothing to do with this most recent incident.

"I'll go with you," said Spike eagerly. "That way, I can tell everypony that you are telling the truth."

Rarity opened the front door and stepped through.

"Ahhhh!" she cried in alarm. Her hooves started flailing in front of her. "It's got me! It's got me!"

The others rushed to her side, but Spike was quicker.

"Hold still, Rarity! I'll get it!"

Rarity obeyed Spike's command and stopped flailing. She looked down at herself in fright, which quickly changed to confusion.

"Plastic wrap?"

She carefully stepped away from the doorway, revealing the glare of sunlight on the plastic wrap that had been stretched across it, now stretched and warped in several places.

"They got you good, Rarity!" cried Rainbow, who began laughing.

"How did I not see that?" cried Rarity. She grabbed at the plastic wrap and pulled with all her might, but all she accomplished was stretching the plastic further.

"Allow me," said Spike. He jabbed into the plastic wrap with a claw and pulled his hand across, cutting through.

"There," he said. "See? No harm done."

"No harm done," repeated Rarity, "except I've made a fool of myself."

"Hey," said Rainbow. "It could have been any one of us. And besides, this just means that it's our turn to get them back. You want to help?"

"No," answered Rarity.

"Are you sure? You don't want to get back at them for doing that to you?" offered Rainbow.

"I'm sure."

"I'll help," offered Spike. "I'd much rather be on this side, anyway."

"There are no sides!" cried Twilight. "We're supposed to be working together! Not 'getting back' at each other!"

"It's just a game, Twi!" said Pinkie. "Nopony is getting hurt."

"You really need to relax, Twilight," said Rainbow. "When we pull a prank, we don't hit and run. That would be totally uncool. We let the other's get us back. Everypony else gets to have their fun, it's not just us."

"Fine," said Twilight, giving up. "But please don't do anything that might hurt somepony!"

"Of course not!" protested Rainbow. "Do you really think we'd actually hurt anypony?"

"Not on purpose..."

Comments

[StarzGecko]

"Yeah!" agreed Twilight. "Spike here knows what's up. There's nothing wrong with a harmless prank or two. It's all in good fun!"

I think you meant it for Pinkie or Rainbow to say that, not Twilight

[Ironskull]

7130043 It never ceases to amaze me how I make these stupid mistakes. Thank you for pointing that out.