The Party Girl

by Godslittleprincess

Chapter 15: The Birthday Party that Changed Everything

“Okay, everyone,” Ms. Cadance announced to everyone in the classroom, “there’s a special surprise waiting for you all during lunch today, especially for one of you. It’s so special that I had to cancel morning recess and make lunch longer.”

Cadance stopped talking when she saw a boy in a green jacket with orange skin and purple hair raise his hand.

“Yes, Tender Taps,” Cadance called the boy, permitting him to speak.

“So, we’re not having recess today?” Tender asked, tentatively.

“I’m afraid not, but the surprise you’re going to get during lunch is going to be worth giving up recess for,” Cadance assured before formally beginning the day’s lesson.

By the time lunch rolled around, the children were becoming quite antsy due to skipping their recess, but their patience was eventually rewarded. When they rushed out into the schoolyard, everyone stopped and stared. The schoolyard was bursting with color from the streamers and balloons. Pinkie had set up all kinds of games all over the yard, and in the middle of it all was a huge table with the biggest cake the children had ever seen decorated with pink frosting and purple and white sprinkles. Pinkie bounced in with a sack full of colorful packages and greeted everyone while Flash, Twilight, and the rest of the postman’s family followed her.

“Awesome! What’s all this?” said a girl in a red jacket who was colored similarly as Tender Taps but her hair was darker and her skin was a bit lighter.

“Well, uh,” Pinkie began before she made an important realization, “what’s your name?”

“Scootaloo.”

“Right, you’re the girl I sent the scooter too,” Pinkie recalled before continuing, “Well, Scootaloo, this is a party. It’s when a whole lot of people get together to play games and eat yummy food to celebrate something special. At some parties, people get to give each other gifts, and this is one of those kinds of parties.”

“Wow!” cheered white-skinned, green-eyed girl with lavender and pink hair. Her name was Sweetie Belle, and she wore a green jacket indicating that she belonged to the Stones. “What are we celebrating?”

“We’re celebrating someone very special. It’s Diamond Tiara’s birthday!” Pinkie cheered.

Diamond Tiara gasped as her eyes lit up like her namesake. Half of her classmates clapped for her while the other half crossed their arms and scowled.

“That’s it?!” Scootaloo cried incredulously. “You did all this just because Diamond Tiara was born today?”

Before Diamond had time to be offended, Pinkie replied with a giggle, “Oh, birthday parties aren’t just about celebrating someone being born, silly. They’re about celebrating someone’s life and all the things they did after they were born.”

“Like what?” Apple Bloom added with a scoff. “All Diamond and her friends have ever done with their lives is steal my family’s apples.”

The smile on Diamond’s face faded, and the light in her eyes dimmed. With the way she was biting her lip, Flash and Twilight couldn’t tell if the girl was about to scream or cry, maybe both.

“You’re one to talk,” a girl in a green jacket with gray skin and silver braids retorted as she put an arm around Diamond Tiara. “You Woods haven’t done anything worth throwing a party for with your lives either besides make us and our families miserable.”

“That’s right,” Sweetie Belle agreed. “My sister Rarity and I have to waste half the day doing the washing because you guys keep dirtying our laundry while it’s out on the line.”

“Oh, yeah, well, unlike for Diamond Tiara, it’s not like Ms. Pinkie is going through the trouble to treat us like we’re special and throw parties for us just for being born,” Scootaloo snapped back.

Everyone who was uninvolved in the Griepsburg feud, except for Pinkie, looked at each other fearfully worried that a fight was about to break out. Cadance stepped forward to try to calm the children, but before she could, Pinkie spoke.

“Of course, I am,” she replied. The sunny, chipper tone in her voice made everyone wonder if she somehow missed the signs that the kids were about to throw down.

“Y-you are?” Apple Bloom exclaimed, the confusion on her face matching that of her classmates.

“Uh, yeah,” Pinkie continued. “I’m going to throw birthday parties for every single one of you. I wouldn’t be a very good friend if I was nicer to one friend than I was to all my other friends, would I?”

Pinkie’s declaration had an unexpected effect on the children. At first, their eyes shined with excitement at the prospect of a whole day of being celebrated, but just as quickly, the excitement faded, and one by one, the children began to hang their heads in shame.

“What’s wrong, everyone?” Cadance asked.

“Well, Ms. Cadance,” replied Silver Spoon, “Miss Pinkie has been so nice by giving us the toys and throwing birthday parties for us, but, well, you see, it’s just, it’s just...”

“We haven’t done a thing with our lives worth celebrating besides being born!” a girl with short-red hair wearing a red jacket yelled. She was Apple Bloom’s cousin Babs Seed. “All we’ve done is help our parents fight each other and keep this lousy feud going, and it sucks lemons! Everyone’s all mean and grumpy, and people are always breaking things or getting hurt or worse. What kind of a mook would throw a party for something like that?”

“Aww, that’s alright,” Pinkie comforted.

“It is?!” Flash, First Base, and the postman’s family all exclaimed in shocked horror.

“Well, no, I don’t mean that it’s alright that you’ve been making other people miserable because that is totally not alright,” Pinkie clarified, causing the children’s heads to droop lower, “but it’s okay if you haven’t done anything worth throwing a party for with your life yet because the great thing about birthdays is that they’re kinda an annual thing. That means you have a whole year to do something worth celebrating. In fact, you can even do a whole lot of somethings because a year is 365 days or 525,600 minutes which is a whole lot of time, but it’s also not a whole lot of time because time has a way of running out really, really fast. I think it’s because people are always spending it, but then again, people can’t help always spending time because it’s the only thing you can do with it because you can’t save it away or make more of it like you do with money. But if you know how to use it, you can actually do a whole lot with whatever time you have. You know what I mean?”

Twilight could tell from the blank stares the children were giving Pinkie that they didn’t understand a word she had just said. Twilight couldn’t blame them. Pinkie said a whole lot in a short amount of time, and that would be enough to make anybody’s head spin. However, Twilight had somehow been able to understand the gist of Pinkie’s ramble.

“What Miss Pinkie means is,” Twilight cut in, “that it’s not too late for you or anyone to do something with your life that you can be proud off even if it’s something small, but you shouldn’t wait around forever to do it because you’re not always going to have that kind of time.”

To Twilight’s relief and satisfaction, many of the children nodded showing that they understood what she had said.

“So, now what do we do?” asked Silver Spoon.

“Now, we enjoy the party, duh,” Pinkie answered. “Come on. What are you all waiting for? We only have less than two hours.”

Between the multiple mini existential crises Pinkie had inadvertently caused and the fact that none of them knew how to play party games, the children were hesitant to partake. However, they quickly got over their reluctance with some gentle coaxing from Ms. Cadance and Ms. Velvet and a few quick demonstrations from Pinkie Pie and the rest of Postman Night Light’s family. Soon, everyone was laughing, playing, and eating all kinds of party treats.

At first, Flash just stood off to the side, watching the children, especially his brother, take part in the festivities with a smile. Twilight notice this and approached him, holding two cupcakes.

“Hi,” she greeted him, offering him one of the cupcakes.

“Hi,” Flash greeted back, accepting the cupcake.

“So, what are you doing over here when the party’s over there?” Twilight asked.

“Oh, I’ve never really been to one before, so I’m just standing here, taking it all in. It’s pretty amazing. I’m smiling so much that my cheeks are starting to hurt.”

Twilight giggled in response to Flash’s statement as a light blush appeared on her face.

“You’d be smiling even more after we play a few rounds of games,” Twilight asserted as she took him by the hand and started pulling him towards where a group of children were playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey. “Come on. We have less than two hours.”

Twilight didn’t seem to notice that she had taken Flash by the hand, but Flash definitely did, and his face turned a shader redder with the realization.

---

When the party first started, the children preferred to play with only those who belonged in their clan. However, as the party went on, the red jackets and the green jackets slowly began to mix. Then, during the party’s last thirty minutes, a miracle happened.

“Hey, everybody, gather around,” Pinkie called. “It’s time to give the birthday girl her birthday presents!”

“So, we’re all just going to sit here and watch you give Diamond Tiara a whole lot of gifts?” Babs asked skeptically after everyone had gathered.

“Of course not, silly,” Pinkie giggled. “Diamond Tiara is going to get a gift from each one of you.”

“But none of us brought any gifts,” pointed out Tender Taps.

“I know. That’s why I brought all these gifts. One at the time, each of you are going to come up here and pick out a gift that you’d like to give Diamond Tiara,” Pinkie explained, gesturing to her sack of gifts.

“But we don’t know what’s inside them,” Scootaloo noted.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter what the gift is,” said Pinkie cheerfully. “All that matters is what the gift means. Sometimes, a cupcake means ‘I love you’ or a toy means ‘How are you doing?’ or a sweater means ‘I really want to hug you today.’ Just think about wishing Diamond Tiara a really happy birthday and use that feeling to pick out your gift.”

“But what if we pick out a gift that doesn’t mean what we wanted it to mean?” asked Snips.

Pinkie opened her mouth to answer but no answer came out because she didn’t have one. She shut her mouth and thought really hard about Snips’s question.

“I have no idea,” she admitted. “I’ve never had that problem before.”

The children looked nervously from Pinkie to Diamond Tiara to the sack of gifts before whispering to each other. They had never given anyone anything before in their lives, let alone a gift, and everyone was curious as to what it was like, but the fear of giving Diamond Tiara a bad gift and ruining the party held them back. Diamond Tiara nibbled on her lip nervously as she shifted from foot to foot, worrying that no one, not even her closest friends, cared for her enough to even try to choose a gift for her.

“Uh, kids,” Twilight stepped up to try to diffuse the situation, “why don’t you just do what Miss Pinkie told you to for now? It’s okay if the gift you pick out doesn’t perfectly say what you want it to say. I’m sure Diamond Tiara would be happy that you cared enough to try.”

“But what if we have to do this again the next time Miss Pinkie throws a party for one of us?” Silver Spoon asked.

Twilight’s forehead wrinkled as she tried to think of a solution for the problem Silver Spoon brought up. She only needed a fraction of a second to formulate an idea.

“How about we do it this way for the next party instead?” she replied. “You can make an ordered list of everyone’s birthdays and hang it somewhere in the classroom, so you’ll know when Miss Pinkie is going to come throw a party and who she’s throwing it for. Then in the days leading up to the next party, you can write to her about what you’d like to give whoever you’re celebrating on that day.”

“That’s a great idea, Twilight!” Pinkie Pie cheered, pulling Twilight into a tight hug. “I would have never thought of that. I’m so glad that we’re friends!”

Twilight couldn’t help but laugh in response despite how difficult it was to breathe. Twilight didn’t want to admit it, but having a friendship that wasn’t based on shared hatred felt wonderful. Heck, she didn’t even want to admit that she was thinking of Pinkie as a friend.

Despite Twilight’s earlier reassurance, the children were still quite reluctant to risk the birthday girl’s wrath and their own embarrassment. However, someone finally got tired of waiting around and volunteered.

“Oh, for land sakes, y’all are wasting our time,” Apple Bloom cried as she marched right up to the sack of gifts. She looked inside the sack and thought crossly to herself, “It would serve that girl right if I gave her a lousy gift with her and her friends stealing my family’s apples all the time,” but then she realized, “but I’m going to be a birthday girl one of these days myself. If today was my birthday and Diamond Tiara was up here picking out a gift for me, would I want her to pick out a bad gift for me on purpose?”

Then, Apple Bloom smiled to herself and carefully chose a box with a big, beautiful red bow on top. She had a particularly good feeling about it.

She held the box out to Diamond Tiara and said sincerely, “Happy birthday, Diamond.”

Diamond Tiara was hesitant to accept a gift from her family’s sworn enemy, but Apple Bloom didn’t seem to have any ill intent behind the gift. Besides, Miss Pinkie was the one who wrapped the gifts, and she wouldn’t be so mean as to enable the other children to give her a mean gift on her birthday, would she? She tentatively took the gift from Apple Bloom, said thank you, and began to unwrap the box.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, revealing to everyone present that she had gotten a box of hair ribbons that came with a comb, a hairbrush, and a hand mirror. The ribbons were in different shades of red, and a few of them were inlaid with various colored rhinestones.

“Wow!” Apple Bloom cheered. “You’re so lucky. I hope Miss Pinkie has another box of those for my birthday because they look so pretty.”

Diamond looked from the hair ribbons to Apple Bloom and back, pressing her lips together as if she was thinking really hard.

Then, she smiled and said to Apple Bloom, “I think you should have them.”

“But why?” Apple Bloom cried, slightly offended. “Don’t you like them?”

“Oh, I do, and they’re very pretty, but you seem to like them a lot too, and I think they’d look better on you,” Diamond explained. “You know what? Go ahead and try one on. If it looks good on you, I’ll let you have the whole box.”

“But it’s not my birthday. It’s yours.”

“Oh, just try it on,” Diamond insisted, turning Apple Bloom around so that AB’s back was facing her. Before Apple Bloom could get a word in otherwise, Diamond Tiara had already began brushing and tying up AB’s hair. “And done.”

Diamond gave Apple Bloom the hand mirror and stepped back so the other children could admire her handiwork.

“Whoa, cuz, that bow really makes your whole look!” Babs exclaimed. All the other children eagerly voiced their agreement. As Apple Bloom studied herself in the mirror, she couldn’t help but smile and admire what she saw.

She turned to face Diamond Tiara and said, “Thank you so much, Diamond. It really does look good on me, but if I take your gift, then you won’t have a gift from me.”

“It’s okay, really,” Diamond assured, practically shoving the box of hair ribbons into Apple Bloom’s hands. “It means a lot that you would even try to give me a gift for my birthday, especially after how everyone in my clan has treated everyone in yours.”

A wide grin spread across Apple Bloom’s face as she hugged the box of ribbons.

Then, she turned to Pinkie Pie and asked, “Miss Pinkie, can I please pick another gift for Diamond Tiara, please?”

“But of course. I brought more gifts than there are people in this party,” Pinkie replied, her smile mirroring Apple Bloom’s.

Apple Bloom cheered as she dashed back to the sack of gifts ready to make her selection, but then, her smile slowly morphed into an expression of horror as she realized that she had no idea how to determine which gift would be most fitting for Diamond Tiara. Going with her gut didn’t help her the last time, so what could she do differently this time to improve her chances of choosing a good gift?

“Miss Pinkie,” AB called, “which gift would you pick if you were me?”

“Oh, that’s easy. I’d pick this one,” Pinkie replied, lifting out a rather small box.

“That one?” Apple Bloom eyed the box skeptically. How could a box that size possibly have anything that would make a good gift?

“Yup.”

Although still doubtful, Apple Bloom decided to trust Miss Pinkie’s choice and took the small box from her. She presented it to Diamond Tiara with a warm smile.

“Oh, you really didn’t have to choose another gift for me,” Diamond protested.

“Well, I wanted to, so go on. Take it,” AB insisted, putting the box right into Diamond’s hand.

Diamond reluctantly accepted the package and slowly began to unwrap it. Once she removed the wrapping paper, she opened the box, looked inside, and gasped. She endearingly lifted from the box a small silver tiara set with rhinestones and placed it on her head.

She turned to Apple Bloom and gasped, “It’s perfect. Thank you.”

Author's Note:

What has Pinkie Pie unleashed now? Find out in the next chapter.

Comments

[Foxhelm]

Well this is getting interesting...

[SuperSonicHeroes]

Pinkie making everyone happy and bringing friends together through her parties!

[Ro994]

And so the first step to make a better Griepsburg has been taken