"Squirt" [Slice Of Life]
Episode Three: “Squirt” - [Slice Of Life]
The storm had really been something. Scootaloo’s mom had told her that clouds which blew over from the Everfree always were dangerous – that’s why they had to stay inside while the older pegasi like Rainbow Dash fought to keep the storm in check. It was over now, but the damage left in the storm’s wake was… something.
Scootaloo trotted down the still-damp street towards the schoolhouse, which was among the casualties of the last night’s violent weather. Like a dozen other buildings throughout town, it was in terrible shape – the windows were shattered, the roof had a gaping hole in it and the doors were sprawled on the ground before the entrance.
School would be cancelled until it was fixed – but somehow Scootaloo couldn’t bring herself to see that as ‘the bright side’. Normally she would be overjoyed to have an extra long weekend to play with her friends and crusade for her cutie mark. But today, with all the damage throughout town and all the grown-ups working to get it fixed, she just didn’t feel like it.
“Look out below!” came a voice from overhead as Scootaloo neared the schoolhouse. She looked up just in time to see a piano careening towards the ground just ahead. She jumped backwards and covered her head with her hooves for good measure as the piano smashed into the ground with a terrible, drawn-out screech of musical notes.
Peeking out from under her hooves, Scootaloo found herself unscathed, with the splintered piano strewn across the ground a few ponies’ distance ahead. She quickly straightened up and looked about for her attacker. A familiar voice drew her gaze upwards.
“Derpy, seriously, we don’t even need a piano!” said Rainbow Dash, throwing her hooves out in anger as she hovered above, staring down a grey-coated pegasus who simply shrugged and smiled in response.
“My bad!” said Derpy cheerily.
Rainbow Dash huffed and massaged her head with a hoof. “Look, I know you’re just trying to help,” she said levelly. “Why don’t you clean up your piano and then go help Applejack on the farm? She needs another old shed knocked down.”
Derpy beamed and saluted. “That is my speciality!” she said before clumsily looping around in midair and diving towards the ground. Scootaloo cringed as Derpy collapsed in a heap atop the wreckage of the piano. “I’m okay!” she reported after a moment.
Looking back up, Scootaloo saw Rainbow Dash shaking her head with a smile. When their eyes met, Rainbow raised her eyebrows and glided down to meet her. “You okay, squirt? I didn’t see you there,” she said as she touched down.
Scootaloo nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine.” She paused for a moment to give the schoolhouse another look over. There were a few other ponies milling in and out of the building, some carrying out broken desks and floorboards whilst others brought new materials in to replace them. “That storm was pretty bad, huh?” Scootaloo said with a frown.
“Yeah, it was,” said Rainbow, following Scootaloo’s gaze. “But hey, Ponyville’s been through a lot worse. Trust me – we’ll have everything back to normal in no time.” She turned to smirk at Scootaloo. “Better make the most of your extra holiday, huh?”
Scootaloo stared at the schoolhouse for a moment longer. “Well, actually, I was kind of hoping I could help.” She looked up to meet Rainbow’s eyes. “You know – fixing the damage.”
Rainbow cocked her head to the side. “Help?” she repeated uncertainly. “Wouldn’t you rather go play with your friends or something?” Scootaloo shook her head and smiled expectantly. Rainbow blinked, then broke into a grin. “Well, it’s pretty awesome of you to offer, but this is kind of--” She cast a glance towards Derpy, who was tossing pieces of piano into an even more untidy pile than the one they were in already. “Dangerous,” she finished. “Leave this to the grown-ups, okay, squirt?”
Scootaloo’s smile fell into a frown. “But I--”
“Rainbow Dash, we can’t fit it all in!” came a shout from the schoolhouse.
Rainbow’s hoof met her face. “Do I have to do everything myself?” she muttered with a sigh. Flashing Scootaloo a smile, she unfolded her wings and prepared to take off. “Looks like duty calls, squirt. Go have fun, okay?” With that, she kicked off from the ground and soared over to rejoin those working on the repairs. “The entrance is the size of a barn door – how can you not fit one desk inside?!”
Scootaloo stared longingly after Rainbow as she went back to work. After a moment, she let out a conceding sigh and set off down the street.
A grumpy frown adorned Scootaloo’s face as she stared blankly at the cards in her hooves. The clubhouse in which she was sat was no worse for wear after the storm – Applebloom had built it to last. Or, more likely, the storm just hadn’t come this far afield.
“Scoots?”
Scootaloo blinked and looked up at her fellow Crusaders with a distinct feeling that she’d just missed something. “Huh?” grunted Scootaloo.
“Ya got any threes?” Applebloom repeated helpfully, her brow furrowed.
It took Scootaloo a moment longer to remember what they were actually doing. She glanced down at her cards and shook her head. “No, go fish,” she said tiredly.
Applebloom frowned at her. “You okay, Scoots? Do ya want to play something else?”
Scootaloo huffed and laid her cards down on the floor. “No, not really…” Applebloom and Sweetie Belle exchanged a questioning glance as Scootaloo got to her hooves and slowly strode over to the window. She rested her muzzle on the frame and gazed idly out over Sweet Apple Acres. Somewhere in the distance, Rainbow Dash was darting about – doing everything she could to fix up town…
“What’s got you all downy-dumps?” asked Sweetie Belle, coming up alongside her.
“Oh, nothing,” sighed Scootaloo. “It’s just… everypony else is back in town, helping put it back together.”
“…Yeah?” said Sweetie Belle slowly, prompting Scootaloo to continue.
Scootaloo turned to look at her. “Doesn’t it feel a little strange to be sitting here playing when everypony else is working so hard? I mean, wouldn’t you rather be out there – helping your sister?”
Sweetie Belle’s eyes widened briefly in comprehension, then she glanced away. “Well, I wanted to help Rarity clean up around town, but she said--”
“Let me guess,” Scootaloo broke in. “… ‘Leave it to the grown-ups?’”
“Pretty much,” said Sweetie Belle with a slow nod.
Applebloom stepped forwards. “Ah asked Applejack if she wanted any help fixin’ up the barn, but she said Ah shouldn’t worry about it.”
Scootaloo turned to her with a frown. “But don’t you want to help her?”
“Well, sure!” said Applebloom firmly. “But we ain’t grown-ups… what can we do?”
Scootaloo struggled to form an answer. “I-I don’t know… something!” she said with a shrug. Huffing again, she turned to look out of the window. “All I know is that I want to help and Rainbow Dash doesn’t think I can because I’m a ‘squirt’.”
“Aw, Scoots…” Applebloom sighed in sympathy. For a moment, the three of them were silent, before Applebloom laid a hoof on Scootaloo’s back. “Hey, come on – Ah bet, between us, we can help out at least as much as one grown-up.”
“Yeah!” Sweetie Belle chimed in, bouncing forwards and leaning in front of Scootaloo with a smile. “Maybe we’ll even get our cutie marks if we try out a bunch of different jobs!”
Scootaloo felt her frown shifting up into a smile in the face of her friends’ enthusiasm. They always knew how to cheer her up… She turned to beam at each of them in turn. “Thanks guys – you’re the best.”
“You bet we are!” said Applebloom cheerily. Turning on the spot to face the door, she stood suddenly upright and adopted a serious expression. “Alright, Crusaders – that’s enough mopin’ around!” she said, using her best military voice. “The mission is to clean up Ponyville and get our cutie marks. Everypony got that? Good – Move out!”
Scootaloo giggled and saluted playfully. “Yes, ma’am, Commander!”
“You know, suddenly I’m having second thoughts about this…” said Sweetie Belle as the Crusaders stood before the rickety old shed, flanked on all sides by the fruit-filled trees of Sweet Apple Acres orchard.
“Aw, come on, Sweetie Belle,” said Scootaloo, trotting up to the shed and poking it with a hoof. “Rainbow Dash said that Applejack wants this knocked down, right Applebloom?”
“Uh huh!” Applebloom grunted with a firm nod.
Satisfied, Scootaloo strode over to peek through one of the dusty windows. “And I don’t think it’s going to be very hard – this thing looks like it was falling down a long time before the storm hit. It’s a good start.”
“Yeah, but--”
“We could get our cutie marks in demolitions,” sang Scootaloo charmingly. Sweetie Belle closed her mouth and frowned in thought for a moment.
“I… guess that could be kind of fun,” she said slowly. “We are pretty good at destroying stuff…”
Scootaloo smiled and nodded. “Exactly – we do this kind of thing every day! What could possibly go wrong?”
Sweetie Belle seemed to consider it for a moment longer, then she looked up at Scootaloo and smiled. “Okay, where do we start?”
Scootaloo opened her mouth, only to close it again a moment later. She hadn’t really thought about that yet – she assumed it would just come naturally to them when they arrived. Biting her lip in thought, she turned to regard the shed again. The whole thing looked pretty flimsy, but there weren’t any obvious weak points.
“Uh,” Scootaloo began slowly. She looked to Applebloom for help, but received only a shrug in response “Maybe we should take a look inside first?” she guessed. “There might be some tools or… instructions or something.”
Applebloom and Sweetie Belle looked at each other, then nodded in unison. Content with the start of her ‘plan’, Scootaloo trotted up to the ragged, wooden door and nudged it open with her muzzle. She cringed at the creaking of the ancient hinges as the door swung slowly inwards, letting the sunlight creep its way inside.
She took a few steps into the shed and glanced about. Even though it looked smaller from the inside, it was still a pretty big shed. It was empty except for the flat, dusty workbenches built into the walls and a single, tall stack of ply wood propped up against one of said workbenches.
As she made her way further inside, she heard the other Crusaders’ hoofsteps behind her. They looked around the place together – down the sides of benches, inside drawers, even under loose floorboards.
“We ain’t really lookin’ for a ‘How to demolish your shed’ manual, are we?” asked Applebloom after a while.
Scootaloo pulled her nose out from under a floorboard and brushed the dust off it. “I don’t know… anything that could help us out.” She glanced around and started towards a workbench she hadn’t looked under yet. “Maybe a hammer or—whoa!” Her hoof got caught in the loose floorboard and she tripped – rolling across the floor and hitting into something hard with an “Oof!”
She shook her head to clear it and blinked a few times before figuring out that she was on her back. A pair of loud gasps told her that something was wrong and – looking up at the stack of ply wood towering over her – her fears were confirmed. Having been knocked off balance when Scootaloo struck it, the heavy stack was tipping slowly towards her.
Scootaloo rolled out of its path just as it collapsed – its top end striking one wall of the shed, accompanied by a terrible cracking sound. As her surroundings started to sway eerily, Scootaloo suddenly felt a little light-headed. “Uh oh,” was hardly an appropriate exclamation for the situation at hoof, but that was all she could manage as she saw the walls tipping towards her.
“Scoots!” yelled Applebloom in alarm. Turning, Scootaloo saw her two friends dashing towards her from near the door. A moment later, she dropped to the floor and covered her head with her hooves as wood started crashing down around her.
For a long moment, Scootaloo couldn’t bear to open her eyes. When at last she did, she was greeted by nothing but darkness. She tried to get up, but found that she was trapped – boxed in on all sides by what had to be the masses of wood that made up the shed. The air was thick with dust, prompting a few involuntary coughs.
“A-Applebloom?” she choked. “Sweetie Belle? Are you two o-okay?”
“Scootaloo!” came Sweetie Belle’s desperate voice in response. “Scootaloo, are you alright?!”
Scootaloo moved each of her limbs in turn to make sure, then sighed in relief and called back. “Yeah, I’m fine!” she shouted. “What about you two?”
“We’re outside!” said Applebloom. “Where are you? Can ya see a way out?”
“I c-can’t see anything… I’m stuck!” Scootaloo coughed again.
“Don’t worry, Scoots! We’ll get ya out of there!” called Applebloom. “Sweetie Belle, you stay here an’ start digging her out, Ah’m going to go get Applejack!”
Scootaloo wasn’t sure how long she lay there, under the dusty wreckage – in the dark with only Sweetie Belle’s awesome voice and the sound of shifting wood to keep her company. She had a lot of time to think about how much trouble she was going to get into for this – but even if it meant getting grounded for the rest of her life, she still wanted her mom to show up and dig her out.
The scraping of wood stopped for a moment and Scootaloo heard voices above her. “Mommy?” she called out hopefully, lifting up her head and banging it on the low roof.
A pair of quiet hoofsteps resounded through the wood. “Scootaloo?” came the familiar voice of Rainbow Dash, making Scootaloo’s eyes go wide. “Don’t worry, squirt. AJ and I are going to get you out of there, just don’t move!”
Scootaloo closed her eyes and let out a sigh of relief. The wood above her started shifting again, and she did as she was told – laying as still as she could.
“So what happened, squirt?” came Rainbow’s voice during a short break in the noise. “You should know better than to play in broken down old sheds.”
“Rainbow Dash!” began Applejack in a scolding voice. “This ain’t the time for--” She quickly went silent, as if hushed.
Scootaloo bit her lip as the silence dragged on. “We weren’t playing, we-- I mean, I heard you telling Derpy that Applejack needed the shed taken down and…” She paused and gulped. “And I thought that we could get our cutie marks in…” She broke off and shook her head. “I just wanted to help,” she huffed finally.
No reply other than the continued scraping of wood came back to her. It wasn’t all that long before the first fleck of sunlight crept in through a gap as one of the wooden planks were pulled out from overhead – and soon, enough of the wreckage had been moved for Scootaloo to look up and see Rainbow Dash hovering overhead, smiling with a hoof extended towards her.
Scootaloo gulped again and took it, too ashamed to meet Rainbow’s eyes. She was lifted up into the sunlight and managed to set her back hooves down on top of the wood pile that had once been Applejack’s shed. It might have looked a state before, but now the mess was something else entirely.
As soon as her hooves had guided her down onto the grass, she felt a pair of hooves pull her into a hug.
“S-Sweetie Belle, I’m fine!” she said, flushing and trying to pull herself free as she heard Rainbow giggling behind her. Sweetie Belle didn’t let go, so Scootaloo rolled her eyes in a vain attempt to look cool and patted her on the back. When Sweetie Belle finally stepped back, Scootaloo saw that there was a tear rolling down her cheek.
“I’m so sorry, Scoots – we tried to get to you but--”
Sweetie Belle was silenced by Applejack’s hoof on her withers. “Now don’t you fret none, young filly – none of this was your fault,” she said comfortingly. “Now, come on, let’s get you back to your parents. You too, Scootaloo,” she added with a smile.
The two fillies nodded and followed Applejack as she set off back towards Ponyville. They hadn’t gone far when Rainbow Dash called over to them. “Hey, squirt – come talk to me a sec?”
Applejack stopped in her tracks and furrowed a brow at Rainbow, who was standing at the edge of the wrecked wood pile with a casual smile on her face. Scootaloo glanced quickly between the three of them and, receiving only a shrug from Sweetie Belle in response, turned to trot over to Rainbow – still unable to look her in the eye…
“Go on, say it,” Scootaloo muttered sadly.
“Say what, squirt?” asked Rainbow.
“Say ‘I told you so’ – you did tell me to ‘leave it to the grown-ups’, after all…”
“Hey!” said Rainbow, as if offended. She put a hoof on Scootaloo’s chin and lifted it up until she was forced to look her in the eye. “Would I do a thing like that?” she asked, her half-frown twisting into a smile as she did. Scootaloo paused a moment, then shook her head lightly. Satisfied, Rainbow continued. “I just wanted to ask – what’s with the whole ‘knocking down a shed’ thing?”
Scootaloo frowned and turned her eyes downwards, though she kept her face towards Rainbow. “I know it was a silly idea, but I just wanted to help out and…” She paused and took a few breaths, then finally managed to meet Rainbow’s eye. “And I wanted you to see that I’m big enough to help – I’m not just a squirt.”
Rainbow opened her mouth, but only a huff came out. She lifted a hoof to massage her forehead. “Hey, I was kind of rushed off my hooves this morning – maybe I said something stupid, I don’t know…” She met Scootaloo’s gaze again, but this time it was with a sad frown. “You don’t have to prove anything to me.”
“That’s not true!” Scootaloo retorted before she could stop herself. “You think I’m just a kid – that I can’t take care of myself--”
“Okay, now I know I never said that,” said Rainbow, looking uncharacteristically serious. It was kind of unnerving for Scootaloo to see her like that, and once again she found herself breaking eye contact.
“But you always call me squirt…” she muttered simply. Rainbow went silent. When Scootaloo finally looked up again, she saw Rainbow staring sideways at the ground, a thoughtful frown adorning her face. After a while, Scootaloo started to wonder whether she’d hurt Rainbow’s feelings. “I’m--”
“Hold on a sec,” interrupted Rainbow Dash quietly. She looked over at Applejack and smiled faintly. “Uh, AJ – you mind giving us a minute?”
Applejack furrowed her brow again, but she was smirking as well this time. “Sure thing, RD. C’mon, Sweetie Belle, we’ll go wait over there.”
Rainbow Dash waited until Applejack and Sweetie Belle had disappeared into the orchard before turning back to Scootaloo with a frown. “Look, Scootaloo,” she began slowly. “I’m really sorry. If I’d known you felt that way, I’d never have kept calling you ‘squirt’. It’s just… it’s always been kind of special to me, y’know? I never thought that it could mean something bad to someone else…”
Scootaloo furrowed her brow. “Special?” she repeated in question.
After pausing to make sure that Applejack was definitely out of earshot, Rainbow nodded and a small smile crept onto her lips. Leaning down, she lowered her voice. “Yeah – when I was a filly back in Cloudsdale, ‘squirt’ is what the coolest pegasus in Equestria always used to call me. Well, ‘coolest next to me’, at least,” she added with a smirk.
Scootaloo’s eyes went wide. Who could possibly be as cool as Rainbow Dash? Was that even possible? Apparently, her face gave away her thoughts, because Rainbow smiled and leant a little closer to answer her unspoken questions.
“It was my mom,” Rainbow said simply.
“Your--” began Scootaloo breathlessly, the weight of the words taking a moment to sink in.
“Yeah,” said Rainbow, standing upright again. “And I just-- y’know, I thought-- Uh…” She broke off and looked up towards the sky. Maybe it was just the light, but Scootaloo could swear that she saw a hint of red creeping onto Rainbow’s cheeks. After a few moments of silence, Rainbow cleared her throat and met Scootaloo’s eyes with a smile and a shrug. “Yeah, you know.”
Scootaloo suddenly felt both warm and a little queasy at the same time. She was sure that her own face must have been glowing red right then. “I… didn’t know,” she muttered lamely.
“Yeah, well, there’s my excuse,” said Rainbow, glancing to the side. “So, uh, I guess that’s all I wanted to say. I’ve got to get back to the schoolhouse, Applejack will take you home, okay?”
Scootaloo nodded and summoned a weak smile to her lips before turning on the spot and walking slowly off after Applejack, silently pondering the conversation she’d just had.
The following morning, Scootaloo trotted through the town square with a pair of saddlebags across her back and an honest smile on her face. She came to a stop at the base of the Town Hall’s stage and turned her head upwards to wave at the pegasi hovering overhead.
A white coated mare – whose name escaped Scootaloo – glided down and offered a smile of her own. “Thanks, Scootaloo!” she chirped before grasping the saddlebags in her mouth and taking to the air again – carrying them up to the top of a scaffold attached to the Hall’s roof.
“Hey, Scoots! Working hard?” came Rainbow’s voice. Spinning excitedly in place, Scootaloo saw Equestria’s joint-coolest pegasus smiling right back at her.
“Hey, Rainbow Dash!” she greeted cheerily. “I sure am! That makes seven bags of nails, two sets of hammers and one basket of muffins.” A proud grin broke out on her face. “Thanks for letting me help.”
“No worries, squ-- Ahem, Scootaloo,” she said, cringing as she almost slipped up. She quickly composed herself and went on. “Sorry to hear you got grounded…”
Scootaloo nodded slowly and frowned a little. “Yeah,” she muttered. “I guess I had it coming though.”
Rainbow smiled again. “But hey, pretty cool of your mom to still let you come out and help, right?”
Scootaloo looked up and smiled back. “Yeah – moms are cool,” she said wisely.
Rainbow chuckled in response. “I hear that!” she agreed. The two of them turned their heads towards the sound of wood clattering to their sides – a couple of earth ponies had just dropped a delivery of planks and were struggling to pick it back up. Rainbow gave a smiling sigh. “Guess I’d better get back to it. Catch you later, Scoots!”
As Rainbow turned on the spot and started trotting away, the smile fell from Scootaloo’s face. There was something she still needed to say. “Wait, Rainbow Dash?” she said, hopping forwards abruptly.
“Yeah?” said Rainbow, looking back.
“…You can still call me ‘squirt’,” she said with a nervous half-smile. “I-If you want, that is. I guess it’s a pretty cool nickname after all.”
Rainbow’s lips broke into a wide smile and she flapped her wings happily. “You got it, squirt.”
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Sooo cute. I want more like button to click.
You write a really good Sweetie Belle. I'm impressed, I can never get her quite right. Great job!
I'm starting to love this fic/collection of fics more and more with each chapter. Keep em comin man.
Makes me want to find out what happened to Rd's mom.
Fodder for a later chapter, perhaps? I'm sure you have an interesting head canon for Rainbow's history.
1304661 Thank you again! I appreciate it
1306387 Cheers, I'm glad to hear it! I'm going to be publishing one every week so stay tuned
1306394 Hmm, I suppose I could expand on that in a later chapter... I'll keep it in mind! Thanks for the comment!
Ponies can't play cards.
1372954
And they can't talk, but yet they do it.
Gave a thumbs up after the first chapter...now I wish I had more thumbs to give :D These are fantastic! Very touching. I cannot wait to read the rest.
I really like your version of Derpy/Ditzy Doo. I'm a fan of Ditzy Doo as a deeper character ("Shipping and Handling", for example), and it usually really bothers me if someone writes her as nothing but a clumsy, muffin-obsessed ditz. However, it seems you have found that little spot where you do just that and make it work. The Derpy in this chapter makes me smile, and in the end that's really all I expect from a well-written Derpy/Ditzy Doo.
Awww!