Shopping Spree Day

by Lets Do This

Unexpected Treasures

Surprisingly, Rainbow wanted to go next. "Just so I can say I got my money's worth, in case this does go south!"

No one objected, so Applejack spun the hat for her. Rainbow reached in and pulled out a slip of paper. It was lavender in color.

"Oh!" she said dramatically, holding the slip to her forehead. "The Great and Powerful Rainbow Dash will now use her awesome mind-reading abilities to determine that the store written on this slip of paper is..."

She turned it over. "The bookstore! HA! Called it!"

Twilight shrugged. "What can I say? It is my favorite store!"

They trotted back to the Square and down another street, to the Owl and Scroll Bookshop. It was a smallish building with a glass-fronted display window and a sign shaped like a hardback book hanging by its spine.

"Heh. This shouldn't take long," Rainbow said, landing in front of the door and pushing it open to enter. "The only thing I'd possibly be buying here is the latest Daring Do book, and that won't be out for another couple months yet!"

They all trotted in, and with all seven of them inside it the tiny store was pretty much packed. Twilight immediately gravitated to the science section, Applejack dug right into the books on farming techniques, Fluttershy winged her way over the shelves to reach the section on birding, Pinkie Pie skipped over to the section on games, Rarity waltzed over to the section on music, and Spike leapt off Twilight's back to reach the comics shelf in a single bound.

And Rainbow morosely nudged books in the fiction section, trying to pretend to be browsing. As she'd thought there was no new Daring Do book on display, and she'd read all the titles the store currently had in stock.

After a while, Twilight wandered over to join her. "Maybe this would be an opportunity to try a different author?" Twilight gently suggested. "Find someone else you like as much?"

"Eh, I've looked around before," Rainbow said. Idly, she picked up one of the Daring Do titles, and flipped through the front pages. "There just aren't any other series that I like this much. I mean, Daring Do's got everything! It's got action, it's got adventure, it's got treasure and valuable statues, it's got ancient Aztec deities bent on world domination and total destruction --"

Suddenly, she froze, staring at the page in front of her. Then she rapidly flipped back to the copyright page.

"Omigoshomigoshomigosh!" she whispered.

"What? What is it?" Twilight asked, peering over her shoulder.

"It's a signed first edition!" Rainbow gently put the book down, and rapidly checked the other titles. "Darn, it's the only one here!"

"Well... it's probably a used copy that got mixed in with the rest. Owl and Scroll does carry used books, too."

"But this is so coooool!" Rainbow picked up the book and hugged it.

"Really?" Twilight looked puzzled. She generally bought books to read or to stock in her Library, so new, used, or antiquarian made little difference to her.

"Yeah! It means it's like, rare and valuable!" Worried, she checked the label on the front. "And it's regular price! They must have missed it! And that means it's under our bit limit too!"

"Well, congratulations! Take it on over to the register. I'll go see if I can peel Mr. Moneybags away from the graphic novels."

She and Spike joined Rainbow at the register, and Twilight counted out bits from the bag. The wavy-haired stallion behind the counter rang the sale up, and wrapped up Rainbow's purchase.

"This is a great choice. You're really into the series, huh?"

"Oh, yeah!" Rainbow said nervously. "And this one's my all-time favorite!"

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Daring Do and the Great Ball of Yarn?"

"Shh!" Rainbow shot back out the corner of her mouth.

The shopkeeper smiled. "Oh, I see! You're a collector!"

Rainbow suddenly looked panicky. "A... a collector? W-w-what makes you say that?"

"This one's been out for a while. You must have it already!"

"Uh... oh, yeah! Yeah I do! But... I don't have a copy I can just... take with me... when I'm flying around so... I don't have to worry about losing it!" Rainbow finally drew a hurried, tense breath.

"Well then, enjoy!" The stallion handed Rainbow the wrapped book, and turned to his next customer.

Rainbow somehow managed to keep from exploding, as they all trotted out through the door. Then she launched into the air and whipped around the store twenty times, leaving a rainbow-colored halo in the air.

"Yeesssss!" she said, landing. "I'm gonna be the first pony to have a signed first edition copy of every book in the series! This is beyond cool!"

She realized Applejack was looking at her. "What?"

"Thought you said this wouldn't last past the first store?"

Rainbow shrugged. "Meh! It's early yet!" Then she hugged her book again.

"Okay, everypony!" Twilight said. "Who wants to go next?"

Comments

[Scholarly-Cimmerian]

This was nice. Kind of wish that RD had found another book series to try, but her reaction to the signed edition was great.

And I can identify - I once found a copy of Digging Dinosaurs that was signed by Jack Horner, and I nearly danced to the checkout counter of the used bookstore.

[RoyalBardofCanterlot]

Adorable.