A Chicken on a Wild Goose Chase: Scootaloo on the Hunt for Her Diary

by Wise Cracker

What a Way to Wake Up In The Morning.

Scootaloo yawned as she crawled into bed, mind wandering to recent events.

She’d moved, for one thing. Her parents had come by for the first time since forever.

She sighed, and closed her eyes. She felt like writing.

It had been a while since she’d written anything in her diary, and those drowsy minutes before sleep had a way of clearing her mind for a new entry.

---

Dear diary,

A lot’s happened since last time I wrote anything. Fluttershy looked after me for a few days, I got to sleep over at Rainbow Dash’s place again, it’s been kinda long. Guess I’ve been really distracted.

Anyway, mom and dad came by, they said they had a new job in Shire Lanka. They wanted me to come with them. Obviously I didn’t want that. I tried to tell them I had a good reason to stay in Ponyville, but they didn’t believe me. I guess lying to them and pretending there was something new in the Everfree Forest didn’t help. I don’t know if they really believe all my letters, come to think of it. But then everypony in town came by to help make them see I should stay.

I hope they don’t hate me for that. That must have been embarrassing for them.

They left without me.

So Aunt Lofty and Aunt Holiday moved to Ponyville instead, and now I can stay with them fulltime. No more bugging the Cakes to make sure I don’t burn the house down (even though that was totally Sweetie Belle’s fault and it only happened one time.)

Rumble’s been missing school, too, that’s the other big news. Turns out he was taking pills to make his voice sound deeper. A lot of boys in Equestria are taking it, Miss Cheerilee said, and it makes them all sound the same, for a while. Then their voice is just gone.

I didn’t even notice his voice had changed. I just thought it was weird he sounded like a grownup all of a sudden. Not like we haven’t had weirder stuff in Ponyville.

He’s fine now, though, he’s just lost his voice for a while. He’s not supposed to come to school or leave the house, to let his throat rest. If he tries to talk or if he hears too much talking, his throat gets sore. It’s okay, though. I’ve been bringing him his homework every day after school, since I live closest to him. I mean, I used to, before I moved, but I’m the only pony in class he really knows and who can get to his house, so…

Come to think of it, remind me to check the wind before I use that slingshot again. I’m gonna hit a pigeon one of these days if I’m not careful.

Things have been changing really quickly. I hope my mom and dad are okay in Shire Lanka. I hope Rumble doesn’t feel too bad about his voice.

---

She tensed under the covers. It had been too long since she’d written in her diary. She wouldn’t get any sleep at this rate, not with all this stuff running around in her head. With a snort, she hopped out of bed and reached for the book in the drawer dresser at the far end of her bed.

Her hoof reached towards nothing.

The dresser was on the left of her bed now.

More to the point, the book wasn’t in her dresser in the first place. Of course it wasn’t, she reasoned: she kept it with her when she slept over, she moved it all the time.

She stuck a hoof under her mattress.

The diary wasn’t there, either.

She remembered then, in her pre-sleep stupor: she’d put her diary in a secret compartment under her bed, one of the perks of living in a home originally built by Pegasus weapon smiths who needed a way to keep things safe from burglars.

Her heart sank when she realised.

Her old home had been built by Pegasus weapon fanatics. Her old home had secret compartments for keeping diaries, embarrassing pictures, and the occasional burglar destroyer. The house she was in now was an Earth pony home, and Earth ponies tended to treat burglars with open arms and open hooves.

Her mind raced.

Floorboards? Pillowcase? Behind one of the closets? Buried under stuffed animals? She drew a blank.

It had been too long.

“Where did I leave my diary?”

---

With no way to vent her thoughts and worries, as well as having another pressing worry keeping her up all night, Scootaloo awoke tired. She rubbed her eyes as she went to go get breakfast in the kitchen. Aunt Lofty and Aunt Holiday, as always, noticed.

“Hey, kiddo,” Aunt Lofty greeted. “Rough night?”

“Yeah. Still getting used to the new place, I guess.”

“Well, at least it’s Sunday, so you can take a nap if you need to. Got anything planned for today?” Aunt Holiday asked.

One thing, maybe. I could go back to our old place and see if my diary is still where I remember it.

“Sweetie Belle’s off in Canterlot today, and Apple Bloom’s cheering on Big Mac for a rodeo, so I thought maybe I could just hang out around Ponyville, no biggie.”

“Clear your head, huh? Good idea,” Lofty said, before turning her attention to the newspaper. “Oh, hey, look at that: your mom and dad are in the papers. They found a new yeti species in Shire Lanka.”

“Really?” Scootaloo’s ears perked.

“Ugh, nasty looking thing, too,” Lofty added, grimacing at the picture. “Do you think that’s the one that got-” She stopped herself.

“The one that got those other researchers they sent?” Scootaloo finished.

“Hold on, you two, they never found those ponies, they only found an ear,” Aunt Holiday protested. “And Shire Lanka’s got a lot of weird portals and pocket dimensions floating around, so don’t go writing obituaries where you don’t need to. And for that matter, you don’t have to worry about your parents, either, Scootaloo. You know they can take care of themselves. It’s gonna take more than a yeti to get the drop on them.”

She nodded. “Yeah, I know. Actually, I think I’m gonna stop by Rumble’s place, see if he needs any help with his homework.” With that, she turned to leave.

“Wow, you must be really tired, huh, champ?” Aunt Lofty asked.

“Why?”

Right on cue, Scootaloo’s stomach let out a primal growl.

“You were gonna leave without breakfast? That’s not happening. Come on, sit down and eat.”

“Eheh, yeah, I guess I’m just a little bit distracted.”

Reluctantly, Scootaloo sat down at the table and helped herself to a daisy sandwich.

I gotta get my head on straight. I need my diary back.

---

It was always possible she’d left the diary elsewhere, of course. Scootaloo did pack her things in a hurry, first for her little escape trip to her aunts, then for her parents. For all she knew, that diary was in the wrong suitcase right now, in Shire Lanka.

But Scootaloo was the daughter of two researchers, and at least part of her had a good sense of knowing where she left things. So, despite the nagging doubts and second-guessing, she took a detour to her old house on the end of Lookout Lane. She took off her helmet and parked her scooter out of sight.

The door was open. No sound came from the house.

She bit her lip. There was no doorbell anymore.

She knocked on the door, three times.

No response.

The house was empty, had to be.

With a deep breath to steady her nerves, she snuck in.

The dining room and kitchen had been stripped bare: even the cupboards were gone, so were the table and chairs.

She went in deeper, careful not to make a sound, and to keep her head down in case anyone saw her through the windows.

I’m just checking out what they’ve done with the place. Nothing suspicious at all.

I am so gonna get arrested if anypony finds me here.

She found her room at the end of the hall. That door was open, too. Poking her head in, she noticed that her bed was still right there, at the right of the entryway, pillow side facing away so she could always see whoever came in. Her little closet was gone, though. In its place there were boxes full of crystals and metal doodads of all sorts. She recognised a P10 brick sticking inside of a C5 motherboard for, if she remembered her Twilight Time lessons correctly, an automated magic-powered lawnmower.

“Huh.”

Stepping further inside, she peeked under the bed. The secret compartment looked undisturbed, so she reached underneath to try and find the switch.

She recoiled when she heard someone, or something, say “Halt.”

Scootaloo jumped, and instantly saw the source: a blueish grey metal creature of sorts, sitting on the wooden beam above the door. It still had the Wonderbolts insignia on it and everything.

The creature jumped down, blocking her escape. It looked vaguely froglike, but stood on hind legs that reminded her more of an ostrich. Its front legs were little barrels that pointed at her. In all, it stood a little taller than her, but not by much.

“Umm, hi?” she asked.

“You are trespassing on private property,” the thing droned in a menacing mechanical voice. “Raise your hooves in surrender now or face destruction. You have thirty seconds to comply.”

She gulped and rose up on her hind legs, front hooves high up. “Okay, I surrender.”

A blast of a roar erupted from the thing, and it took a step forward.

“Do not make any sudden movement. Raise your hooves in surrender or face destruction. You have twenty seconds to comply.”

Scootaloo stretched her arms up higher. “I surrender! I surrender!”

Then she saw her mistake, in one of the boxes nearby: mirror-like lenses with metal threads attached to them. Ocular inputs, Twilight called them, or mechanical eyes, as her parents referred to them.

The eyes are still in the box. This thing can’t see me surrender.

Again, it roared, and the barrels flared up with arcane energy. A low whine built up to a crescendo, energy crackled from the tips.

“Raise your hooves in surrender or face destruction. You have ten seconds to comply.”

She clenched her jaw and closed her eyes.

Well, it was nice knowing me.

Author's Note:

Possibly my last story for this year, getting it out there to break the slump after a wrecking ball of a summer.

Trying something a little different with this writing style, didn't plan as much, really did it in a binge over five days or so. Not sure if I like that approach, but it got me some output, and I don't think it turned out bad, just... not my usual sort of quality. But hey, maybe folks will like it.

For those new to my works and wondering why comments and ratings are disabled: my author page has a blog post on it that explains it in more detail.