Coming of Age
Silver Spanner Gets Her Cutie Mark
Admiral Biscuit
Outside, it was a beautiful spring day. Sidelong glances through the open window only confirmed what her nose and ears told her—birds were singing, foals were playing, flowers were blooming and begging to be sniffed or eaten, and here she was, stuck at an uncomfortable desk with a few other miserable students, being educated by what was possibly the most boring mare in all of Equestria.
If pressed, she would admit that school wasn't all bad. Recess was fun; the playground had a swingset that only students could use, and once a week, there was a special day just for the unicorns. She liked those classes.
But next year, she was supposed to go to Manehattan for more school. As if she didn't know enough already! She could add and subtract, and she'd learned multiplication and division tables up to twelves, which was far beyond what any pony ever really needed to know. She could read every spellbook the magic teacher brought into class . . . there just wasn't anything more worth knowing, and Pencils thought to fill the gap with lots of perfectly useless information, like how pegasus cloud cities came about. Not like she'd ever visit one.
She'd already tuned out the lecture, focusing instead on a sketch of Ponyville's new water tower. The class had taken a field trip there last week, to attend the ribbon-cutting ceremony. A clever system of pipes connected it to a fountain and public faucet that anypony could use. The mayor had said that one day, all the homes in Ponyville would have pipes running to them, like they did in Manehattan.
"Hey!"
She flicked an ear at the sharp whisper, and almost dropped her quill in surprise. With a slightly guilty look, she snapped her head up to look at Pencils, imagining the wrathful face of the teacher—but she was still writing on the chalkboard, oblivious to Silver Spanner's lack of attention.
"Is 'big' a noun or a verb?"
Silver Spanner turned to her classmate. "It's a . . . um, it goes before nouns. Like a 'big flower.' So it's a pronoun, maybe?"
"Thanks!"
"No problem." She turned back to her drawing. Some of the farms in town had artesian wells, she'd learned, and she'd been surprised to learn that the water tower was an artificial application of the same principle—water in a high place wanted to be in a low place. A steam powered pump temporarily served to put the water into the water tower—it would be retired when the dam was finished—and from there it wanted to run out into the pipes, and into the fountain. A book in the library had explained it all, and even though she’d had to look up some of the bigger words, it all made sense.
Already, a few train car loads of pipe had been delivered at the freight house, and they were being laid in trenches throughout town. She always stopped by the construction site after class, and hung out with the construction ponies. They knew so many things that just weren't taught in school.
"All right, class." Pencils tapped her ruler on her desk to get their attention. "We're done for the day. Please continue to work on diagramming sentences at home. Write down a dozen things your parents or siblings say and diagram them for tomorrow, please."
Silver Spanner stuck out her tongue, grabbed her composition book, jammed it in her saddlebag, and practically galloped out the front door to freedom.
In no time at all, she was at a familiar trench. A wagon half-loaded with clay pipe stood off to one side, while a few workponies labored inside, joining the pipes together. Silver Spanner leaned over the edge and watched them work, before her attention was drawn to an offshoot of the project. A smaller, secondary trench ran to the bakery. Her eyes lit up—here was an opportunity to see some indoor plumbing and spend some of her allowance on a treat.
She eagerly trotted into the store, making her way up to the display case. She stuck her muzzle right against the smudged glass, her eyes taking in the shelves of succulent treats. It was difficult to choose—all the food looked so yummy. Finally, after an indecisive thirty seconds, she made her choice. "Can I have a eclair, please?"
"That's a half-bit, dear."
Silver Spanner rummaged in her saddlebag for the coin, while the baker wrapped her purchase in a small square of thin paper. She set the coin on the counter, picked up her eclair, and looked up at the proprietrix. "Can . . . can I look at your plumbing?"
"Of course!" She could hear the pride in the mare's voice. "First shop in town to have it, don't you know? We're proud to be the most modern bakery this side of Canterlot." She stepped around the counter and put a gentle hoof on Silver Spanner's shoulder. "It's not done yet, though. Are you sure you don't want to wait until it's finished?"
Silver Spanner nodded eagerly.
"All right then." She shepherded the filly back into the kitchen, and then down into the basement. A pair of stallions were standing on a hastily-constructed scaffolding, routing pipes along the wall. "Stay out of their way, won't you?"
"I won't be any trouble," Silver said, and sat down on her rump to watch them work. This was so much more interesting than the supply lines—here they had to work around floor joists and drill holes through the floor for piping runs, instead of just digging a trench.
Once they'd positioned a couple lengths of copper pipe along the wall and sweat-soldered the joints, the younger stallion got off their makeshift scaffold and grabbed a toolbag in his teeth, before trotting up the basement steps, giving her a brief nod in passing. She smiled at him, before turning her head back to the work in progress. The older stallion was sorting through a bucket of pipe fittings, laying several out beside him—couplers and elbows.
Her ear turned up at the rasp of a drill bit in the floorboards above. The stallion glanced up at the rain of shavings, and hooked a tape measure over the end of the supply pipe. He stretched it out towards the new hole, only to grunt in frustration as it slipped off the end of the pipe, before trying again with the same result.
Without even asking, Silver got to her hooves and climbed up on the scaffold, and took hold of the end of the tape with her horn. He gave the silver-grey aura twining over his tape a brief glance, gave her a more critical look, and then stretched it out without a word.
She held one end of the tape measure for him as he measured out a new piece of copper pipe, and marked it with a few strokes of a triangular file, then he rolled the tape measure back up.
"Dad?" Silver turned her head up as a disembodied voice came down from the kitchen. "You need me to come back down now?"
The older stallion gave Silver another thoughtful look. "Nope. Go drill holes for the rest of the plumbing. Might as well get that done."
"Okay."
The older stallion looked back at Silver Spanner. "You do want to help, don't you?"
She nodded eagerly.
"I've seen you around town, always sticking your muzzle in construction projects," he ruminated. "Ain't the kind of thing unicorns are usually interested in. Still, that horn of yours might be pretty useful. You ever used a pipe-cutter before?"
Silver Spanner shook her head.
"Might as well learn how." He reached back into his tool belt and grabbed his pipe-cutter out, handing it to Silver Spanner. "All right, watch carefully. I'm gonna cut this piece, to show you how it's done, and then I'll let you practice on a bit of scrap."
She leaned in eagerly, her head practically touching his as he began working the tubing cutter with his hooves.
• • •
The rest of the afternoon just flew by. She helped the older stallion measure and cut pipes, and he showed her how to strap them to joists, and how to solder couplings. He explained the differences between ball valves and screw valves, and which one should be used where.
Finally, he led her upstairs, to the newly-installed kitchen sink. "Go ahead and get under there," he told her. "I'm going to teach you how to use compression fittings."
"Are you sure, Dad?" The younger stallion looked at her with a trace of concern on his face. "She's a unicorn—she doesn't need to know stuff like that."
"She's a better apprentice than you were as a colt," the older stallion growled. "Get down to the basement and pick up all our stuff."
It was crowded under the sink—there was hardly enough room for one pony, let alone two, but Silver Spanner didn't mind. She watched intently as he demonstrated installing the fitting on the hot water line, before handing her a second and a pair of line wrenches. He backed out of the cramped space and crouched on the floor next to her, watching intently as she worked the pieces into place, remembering to tighten it partway before slipping it over the feed line.
She bent the soft copper into place, then took the wrenches in her aura and tightened the fitting, giving a final push by hoof to make sure they were tight. He watched closely, but didn't say anything until she set the wrenches down.
"Are you confident it's tight and won't leak?"
She nodded.
"Okay, go ahead and turn on the valve, then."
Silver Spanner reached out with her aura, hesitating slightly. If she was wrong—if it wasn't tight—she was about to get a facefull of water.
The valve opened more easily than she expected, and to her satisfaction, the fitting she'd installed didn't leak a single drop. She proudly scooched out from under the sink, accepting a hoof from the stallion.
"Go ahead and use the faucet," he instructed.
She nodded, and reached for it with a hoof, giving it a decisive twist. There was a brief hiss of air, followed by a gurgle, and then a steady stream of fresh water splashed into the sink. Just then, she felt a warmth on her hips, and for a moment she thought the stallion was giving her a friendly nuzzle or something, but when she turned her head back, she saw a bright silver wrench on her hips where before there had been nothing but a bare brown coat.
"Well, I'll be damned." The stallion gave her a hearty clap on the back. "If that don't just beat all."