Derpy Deeds (Done Dirt Cheap!)

by Unwhole Hole

Chapter 2: Finally Starting the Story

Somewhere, somehow, Derpy was derping.

This in itself was not unusual. It was something she did quite often. On this particular day, she was doing it in Ponyville, a pointless backwater near Canterlot that nopony at all cared about. It was also where she lived.

At this particular point in time, in addition to derping, she was also vomiting into a bush. She felt terrible: nauseous, dizzy, and overall unpleasant. But she needed to work. She had been vomiting every day for almost two weeks, but taking a single day off of work would be far too costly. She simply could not afford it.

“Gah,” she said, sticking out her tongue and staring down at the base of the newly fertilized shrub. “When was the last time I ate a pistachios?”

The answer, of course, was the night before, in muffin form. That was the one advantage of repeated vomiting: she always got to taste her muffins a second time. That was a good thing for at least a third of the flavors, and only a bad thing for one in ten. She had learned to avoid those muffins- -or would have, if she had actually bothered to stop eating them. But doing so felt bad, as she did not want to leave any of them out. It would hurt their little muffin feelings.

When she had finished, she wobbled back to her poorly assembled stall. Derpy- -which was not, in fact, her real name- -was the town muffin mare. She sold muffins and muffin accessories.

A mare was standing at the stall. An earth mare, to be exact, and one with green hair. One of the numerous secretive carrot-ponies who lived outside the city.

“Sorry about that,” said Derpy, wiping her mouth again and smiling. “What can I get you?” She reached into her muffin box. “I have carrot, if you- -”

“NO!” cried the mare, stepping back. Her eyes were wild. “You- -you have MUFFIN POISONING!”

“I do?” Derpy looked down at herself, and then suddenly frowned. “Hey wait a minute! That’s not a real disease!” She paused again. “Is it!”

“It is!” gasped a passing mare, a unicorn. “I read it in a book!”

“And I had it once!” said a stallion accompanying the unicorn. “I got it at this very stall! Don’t eat her muffins, they’ll poison you too!”

“No they won’t!” pleaded Derpy. “I changed the recipe, they don’t do that anymore! At least not most of the time…”

The ponies all screamed and ran away as Derpy crossed into the front of the stall, producing a tray of adorable mini-muffins as she did so. It had been at attempt to convince them not to flee, but that seemed to be oddly hard to do.

“Oh,” she said, watching them go. “Maybe…maybe they had a full breakfast?”

She turned suddenly. One of the advantages to having eyes that faced opposite directions was an unexpectedly large peripheral vision. The violet pony who had tried to sneak past her would have been able to get by any other pony unseen, but not Derpy. That was the power of the derp.

“Cheeri!” cried Derpy, recognizing the newly hired town teacher. “You like muffins! Here! You can have one half price!”

Derpy produced a muffin and held it out. Cheerilee ducked for cover behind a nearby bale of straw.

“No, wait!” she cried. “I still have burns from the last one!”

“Oh my!” gasped Derpy. “Did I serve it too hot?”

“No. Well, not at first.”

Derpy was confused, until the question answered itself. The muffin she was holding burst into flames.

“Wha?” she said, confused. Her confusion turned to strong annoyance. “Oh, come ON!”

She dropped the muffin. It landed in the dirt and fizzled and popped. Derpy wondered if replacing powdered milk with powdered gun had been a good idea. She did not know what a “gun” was, but assumed that if it had a powder it was probably a type of milk.

“Well,” she sighed. “At least it didn’t land in all that straw. That would have been really bad.”

The straw promptly burst into flame, even though the flaming muffin was nowhere near it. Cheerilee screamed; the profuse quantity of hairspray she used in her mane- -and tail, to a lesser extent- -caught fire. She began running down the street.

“Stop drop and roll!” called Derpy. “You have to…oh, she didn’t hear me.” She sighed, and then shrugged. She stared at the still smoldering remains of the flaming muffin. “I just don’t know what went wrong!”

She slumped. Which was appropriate, as she was in a slump. Muffin sales had been terrible as of late, and her business was dying. Ponies were just not interested in muffiny goodness anymore. Even the ones with raisins.

The streets were growing empty. Derpy sighed, then jumped as she saw two ponies rounding a corner. One was an aging earth-pony with puffy white hair, while the one walking beside him was a pink filly who must have been no older than five. The stallion was wearing a vest and an oversized cravat, while the pink filly was wearing a tiara.

Derpy gasped, because she knew this pair. At least vaguely. The mother of the filly was fabulously wealthy, and sometimes would throw bits at Derpy when she saw her. Derpy had always thought that it was very nice of her, and was sure to send her best muffins to that mare’s family.

“Hey there!” said Derpy, producing a chocolate muffin. Chocolate muffins were the best flavor- -although she never let the other muffins know that, because they would have been discouraged. She held it out to the little girl. “Do you want to buy a muffin?”

The girl stared up at her. Not with surprise or girlish wonder, but an expression that Derpy was too naïve to realize was actually grave but bored contempt.

“Seriously?” she said. She could barely pronounce the “r” sound, as she had apparently only learned to do so recently.

“There is nothing more serious than muffins,” said Derpy, solemly. She then proceeded to wiggle the muffin. That always worked for her; food looked so much more tasty when it was moving.

“Um, how about no?” The filly made a disgusted face. “My mom says muffins make you fat.”

“Fat?” Derpy could scarcely comprehend the word. She had never known a fat pony. Although rumor had it that Celestia herself was of enormous girth, measured solely of course by the supply of cakes, frosting, and pastries (but, to Derpy’s eternal chagrin, not muffins) that the Royal Solar Palace demanded.

“Uh, yeah. You know. Eat a muffin top, grow a muffin top?” The filly’s eyes narrowed. “I mean, look at you. You’re downright obese.”

Derpy looked down at herself, as she had been commanded to do. She was aware that she had been growing fatter and fatter recently, but it had only recently become noticeable. She wondered if it really was because of her diet of solely muffins.

“I’m not fat…”

“Yeah. Keep telling yourself that.” The filly reached up and slapped the muffin out of Derpy’s hoof. It landed softly in the dirt of the street. “Gross, I can’t believe I touched it.” The girl clapped her hooves together. “Come, Randolph. We’ve wasted enough time talking to this fatty. I have shopping to do.”

“Of course, Miss Tiara,” said Randolph.

They left. Derpy watched them go, and then sat down in the dust and the dirt. She looked at her spilled muffin and sighed.

“I know how you feel, little guy. But it’ll get better. It has to.”

She was not sure if she was lying. Not that it really mattered, at least not on this day. The sun had passed its zenith, and that meant that it was time for Derpy to pack up. Normally, of course, she would stay on the street selling her muffins until long after dark, and be out at three the next morning- -but on this day, she had a doctor’s appointment (to find out why she kept throwing up and was getting fat). That meant there would be at least a brief reprieve from wondering what had gone wrong in her life.

She picked up the spilled muffin- -it would be her dinner, breakfast, and lunch for the next two days- -and moved to her ramshackle stall. She was less good at building things than she was at making muffins, so it was a bit flimsy. Upon approaching it, she unhooked one of the lines that held up the sign. It immediately dropped too rapidly as the cord pulled itself out of derpy’s teeth.

The sign swung, and Derpy ducked. The stallion passing behind her did not, and he was smashed in the face. He wailed in pain.

“Oh no!” cried Derpy. “I’m sorry, I didn’t- -”

The sign came back around like a pendulum. She ducked again, and it struck the stallion again, this time sending him reeling backward and into a ditch. He went in with a splash, and did not move.

“Oops! Sorry again, I didn’t- -”

The sign came back down and hit her in the forehead. She fell backward into the stall and the whole thing collapsed, covering her in boards and the scent of muffins. The process left her battered, bruised, and covered in splintered wood that had moments before been the only thing that allowed her to make any sort of money.

From underneath the pile, she sighed. The day was going about as well as all of them did.

Comments

[Titanicgaming360]

First view. Looks cool.
Also, I'm going to garrote Diamond Tiara.

[Opium4TmassS]

Can't wait to read it.

[chaoticevl]

Havent read this yet still trying to decide if i want to, but i find it highly amusing that this story popped into my feed while ac/dc's dirty deeds just started playing. For the sheer coincidence i might have to read it.

[moviemaster8510]

Did somebody say D4C?
i.pinimg.com/originals/0c/f6/e4/0cf6e4ecabda84b71ca90cb778c2dfda.jpg

[REDMAMBA]

I saw the title and I just went, "...I get it!"
For that alone I shall take a look see.

[Lord Destrustor]

With a title like that I thought she'd get a stand.

[Graglithan The Greater]

9108401
Dang it, you beat me to it.

[SWEETOLEBOB18]

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=lyrics+dirty+deeds&&view=detail&mid=AFDF8619C45DFD38C70FAFDF8619C45DFD38C70F&&FORM=VRDGAR
Love the song. Unfortunately, stuff from before the 80s often doesn't have a good video

[Viper Pit]

i'll just leave this here for you to enjoy

[lordelliott]

How is this featured already? It's not even displaying likes/dislikes.

[moviemaster8510]

9108896 It’s not featured on my end. It’s showing up under “Popular,” which is a completely different algorithm.

[Pump It Up]

9108896 9108927
It's showing up as featured for me, too. Not that I mind, this is a really enjoyable story so far, it's just really strange that it's up there. 🤷

EDIT:
78.media.tumblr.com/ed5f143738034ce544d2326026e1f2f0/tumblr_pdffxhKkIW1tgxn6co1_540.png

[lordelliott]

9108927
Turn off mature stories? It's still showing on a page I just loaded.

[TheKaiser]

For those interested, I came up with the title.

Mr. Hole is usually the master of puns, but this one is mine.

I can't write though.

[Unwhole Hole]

9109021
It is true. He did.