Piece of Cake?

by AppleJTZ

How hard can it be?

The entrance to Crystal Prep Academy was a rather calm place before the beginning of school, with only a handful of students hanging around on the schoolyard. Most of them were passing the time until the first lesson by themselves, though a few were bundled in small groups, talking to each other about various things. One of those groups was not engaged in a conversation however. Instead a gloomy silence was hanging around the five girls sitting on the stairs in front of the school. It wasn’t hard to figure the source of the gloom was the white-haired girl in the center of the group: Her arms crossed Sugarcoat sat there with her head held low, looking in a bad temper through her glasses at her knees. Around her, scattered over the stairs her friends tried to pass the time, each in her own way: Sunny uncomfortably sat on her hands, Sour kicked her legs through the air, Indigo leaned her head against her first and Lemon ate the rest of her melon. The whole time none of them said a word, but were just sitting around in silence.

Eventually, as the first lesson was drawing close, and a growing number of students walked past the group into the school building, Sunny cleared her throat. “I am really sorry about your laptop, dearie” she said, addressing Sugarcoat.

Briefly the grumpy teenager raised her gaze towards Sunny, before resuming to stare at her knees. “Thanks, but I don’t blame you for what happened. It was an accident – besides, your sympathy won’t get it back.”

Again silence fell over the five girls. Indigo glared at her friends, looking both bored and annoyed. “Well, how ‘bout a lil’ bit of soccer to cheer up the mood?” she suggested. “Not much time for a match, but we could just, you know, kick a ball around.”

Sour flashed an exaggeratedly large smile at her. “How very considerate of you!” she chirped at her, before putting on a frown. “Way to read the atmosphere, Zap.”

Frowning back at her Indigo huffed, stemming her hands against her sides. “What? Should we just sit here and mourn Sugar’s laptop all day? Tis’ not like someone died or anything!”

From the side, Sugarcoat cast a rather dark glance at the sporty teenager. “No, but I just lost a brand-new 600-dollar laptop I saved almost a whole year for” she stated, the ring in her voice flat, but aggressive. “So excuse me for not being all sunshine and smiles today.”

A fist in front of her mouth Sour coughed. “To be fair, you usually aren’t really sunshine and smiles – no matter the situation.”

“Can’t you ask your parents get you a new one?” Sunny suggested. “Maybe one not quite so expansive, and-”

But Sugarcoat shook her head. “I’ll have to buy it from my own money. And since I spend all my savings for this broken plastic case full of ripped wires…” She nodded at the trash can where they had buried the remnants of her laptop “…I’m totally broke.”

Again it became quiet. The silence was somewhat interrupted however by the slurping noise of Lemon eating her melon, finally causing Sour to turn her head towards the green-haired rocker girl. “Hey Lemmy, how about you put that melon away and try to help us here a little?” To herself, she mumbled: “Though I doubt you something useful to contribute anyway…”

Chewing on her melon Lemon pondered for a moment, then swallowed. “Dunno… Maybe we can make some cash with a gig?” she thought out loud.

Sugarcoat looked very seriously at Lemon. “Our band still needs a hundred hours of practice before we can earn money with it” she told her. “At least.”

“But maybe you can earn money in another way?” Sunny remarked, pointing with her index finger in the air. “Like searching the newspaper for a job offer?”

Raising an eyebrow Sugarcoat skeptically glanced at her. “A teenager taking a job from a newspaper announce? That’s rather cliché.”

“Oh, is the idea not original enough for our little Captain Obvious?” Sour asked, then scoffing at her. “Then how about you try earning money by grabbing it from thin air? That’d be new!”

“Hey, isn’t there this website that distributes jobs for teenagers?” Indigo chimed in, though she still seemed rather disinterested in the conversation.

Sugarcoat considered that for a moment, and shrugged. “Still cliché, but at least with a modern touch to it.” She pulled out her smartphone, and began browsing through the web. When she had found the site she began to search through the list of job offers from her region, her friends curiously looking over her shoulders at the display. “Let’s see… there are twelve requests to mow the lawn, three offers to deliver newspaper, four requests to clean a house, and one guy who searches for someone to organize his jelly tub collection.” Raising her gaze from her phone she harrumphed. “All of them sound like a lot of work and little money.”

Looking over the payments Indigo nodded. “Jeez, no kidding - it’d take months before you could even afford the charging cable of your new laptop!”

Suddenly Sunny’s finger jolted past Sugarcoat’s shoulder. “Wait, a new one just popped up!” she declared, pointing at the display.

“What is it?” Sour asked, all four girls leaning closer over Sugarcoat’s shoulders. Pushing them back slightly Sugarcoat gave herself more space, glaring angrily at her friends before looking back at her smartphone. Seeing what kind of job it was, she curiously arched her eyebrows.

“A babysitting request.”

Lemon, Indigo, Sunny and Sour shuddered slightly. “Babysitting?” they all said in unison.

Ignoring her friends Sugarcoat clicked on the offer, reading through the details. “Twins, this Friday night, roughly four hours…” Reading the payment details, her eyes widened. “Twelve dollars per hour!” Without hesitating, she clicked on accept. After filling out some contact details she put the smartphone back into her skirt pocket. “Well, that’ll kill my plans for Friday, but at least it looks like I just earned some easy first bucks for my new laptop.” As she turned to her friends however, she was slightly startled by the dumbfounded stares they were giving her. “Why are you all looking at me like that?”

Her friends exchanged some concerned glances, before Sunny cleared her throat. “That’s great, Sugarcoat dear, but um… do you really sure babysitting is the right thing for you?” she carefully asked.

The white-haired girl arched an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

With a sheepish smile, Sour scratched her head. “Ee don’t want to be rude or anything, buuuut you don’t seem like the type who likes kids.”

Lemon nodded. “Yeah, more like the type who eats kids.”

Sugarcoat shrugged. “What does it matter? I don’t need to like them. I just have to make sure they’ll still be alive by the time their parents return.”

Rubbing her forehead Indigo shook her head. “Jeez, did you ever actually babysit before?”

“How hard can it be?” Sugarcoat asked back. “I’ll be watching over two little kids who will probably be already asleep by the time I arrive. Only problem will be to kill the time.” The ringing of the school bell then caused her to stood up. “We should head to class now” she stated, walking past her friends up the stairs. Still sitting the others looked after her, with mixed feelings.

“Should we tell her?” Sunny asked.

Indigo shook her head. “Nah, let Captain Obvious figure that out on her own.”

Comments

[ImRaidAccount]

A moment of silence for Sugarcoat's sanity.

[bronyp0ny]

More please .... I love the series and everything about it... Can't wait for the next chapter

[Animation Crusader]

New story, alright! I was waiting for a new one. I'm so happy to see the Shadowbolts series continues. I feel so bad for Sugarcoat about her laptop right now. If that happened to me, I'd probably cry.

Sugarcoat in a babysitting experience is definitely an interesting storyline to go with since she's so blunt and unfeeling most of the time. I await to see what happens while she babysits the twins. Who knows, maybe she won't have it as bad as Pinkie Pie did. These are the human twins we're talking about. They don't have the ability to fly or use magic.

[Godslittleprincess]

“Let’s see… there are twelve requests to mow the lawn, three offers to deliver newspaper, four requests to clean a house, and one guy who searches for someone to organize his jelly tub collection.”

I see what you did there.