> Ponk Home, Virginia
>  by totallynotabrony
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Nine Hundred Miles and a Dead End
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

A small icon popped up on the GPS with a caricature of a dead president and the message Welcome to Virginia. Pinkie Pie didn’t notice because she was busy guiding a pickup truck and a 44-foot triple-axle trailer over a mountain pass that really should not have been a suggested route. She’d wanted to get off the beaten path, and she sure had.

Pinkie glanced off to the northeast to spot Mount Rogers, the tallest point in Virginia. It had been years since she’d seen it, the flat peak covered in pine trees, but she remembered how close to home it was.

Passing the mountain also meant that it was all downhill from here. The engine brake began to roar, countering momentum as the rig started down the pass.

Pinkie tapped the steering wheel with her fingers and hummed, making her own music.  Even the satellite radio wasn’t doing much good in the mountains. The temptation to sing one particular song was strong, even though it was the wrong Virginia.

This part of the country was still where Pinkie considered home, even though she hadn’t been around much in the last ten years. She and her sister had gone off to California on scholarships and falsified paperwork, living together without adult supervision to attend one of the best high schools in the country.

Well, Pinkie got lost on the first day and somehow found herself instead enrolled in public school. At least there were no gangs, before she started a few. It was worth it for the choreographed dance fights.

The road started to flatten out and came to a stop sign at a T intersection with a four-lane highway.  A faded green sign indicated the direction to Dashville.  Pinkie could see the trees thinning out already. She turned onto the highway, looking ahead.

The city lay between mountains on two sides and a river on another. It was large enough to have distinct neighborhoods, but wasn’t big enough to have its own smog. At night, any light pollution from Roanoke, Knoxville, or Charlotte - each more than one hundred miles away - was blocked by terrain.

Pinkie passed a historical marker alongside the highway, a cast metal sign painted silver with black letters and trim. It said something about the Civil War, but she didn’t stop to read it. A hundred yards further down the road was a much larger sign made of carved wood and brightly painted with the words Welcome to Dashville.  It featured half a dozen signs for the Rotary Club, Lions Club, and others in a neat row below.

On the other side of the sign but still not properly inside town was a truckstop. Pinkie put on her turn signal. Her rig was huge, but still not as big as an actual eighteen-wheeler, so it fit comfortably in the parking lot. Pinkie found a spot in the back, after the pavement had ended and where even the gravel of the lot was slowly giving way to dirt. There, she finally stopped and put the truck in park for the first time since leaving Miami.

It had been a very long day of driving.

Pinkie sprinted for the restrooms.

Ten minutes later, she returned to the truck with a Big Gulp of Cherry Coke. She cast a critical eye over the rig, taking in the cotton candy-pink paint, mud from the parking lot, road grime, and tattered vinyl graphics hastily ripped off in the middle of the previous night.

Baby blue eyes and a winning smile could get you a lot, but twenty bucks to look the other way got her a place to stow her trailer for a while. It was the best she could do on short notice. Pinkie glanced back at the highway, looking south. With any luck, they still hadn’t figured out she was gone.

Pinkie took a long drink through her straw, cheeks expanding. She put the drink down in the truck’s cupholder and then set to work separating it from the trailer. After unhooking the cables and the fifth wheel, she pulled out and then went back to set the corner jacks, which would keep the trailer level and prevent it from sinking in the mud.  That done, she drove the truck over to the diesel pumps and filled up, including the auxiliary fifty gallon fuel tank in the bed.

After getting back in, she did a search for autobody shops. Silversmith Custom Motors came up, and the user pictures were all full of shiny chrome and bright paint. Pinkie set the GPS.

Leaving the highway, Pinkie drove down through College Heights, looking around at how much the place had changed since she’d seen it last. Virginia A&M must be doing well for itself. Her truck was actually not that out of place at a country college.

It certainly was in New Town, though, and even more so in Old Town. Trucks were still popular, but locals started to give her sideways looks. Some noticed the rumble of the engine, but none could miss the paint.

Silversmith Custom Motors was in The Bottoms, an old industrial neighborhood on the north bank of the Holston river containing a few medium manufacturing companies served by a railroad spur. Pinkie pulled into the parking lot, facing the open garage bays. Only one was currently in use, a blue, classic Bug on the lift.

A young man came out of the shop, wiping his hands on a rag.  He looked vaguely familiar to Pinkie, but not enough to put a name to him. His eyebrows had lifted a millimeter at the sight of the truck, but they lifted more as Pinkie got out to meet him. Even on a good day, some people would have described her pink hair as a mess, and she was still wearing her pajamas from the night before.

“Except for the color, I would have thought this was a brodozer,” he said, eyeing her. “I didn’t know Mary Kay was giving away Dodge 3500s.”

He seemed startled when Pinkie fell to her knees, tears in her eyes and screaming with laughter louder than the truck’s idle.

She slapped her thighs and got her breathing under control. “Oh my…” Pinkie stood up, wiping her eyes and still chuckling. “Oh my sweet Harmony! Thanks mister, I really needed that after the day I’ve had.”

“Sure…” he said, eyebrows furrowing.

“Do you do paint?” Pinkie asked.

The question seemed to catch him off guard, but after a pause he replied, “Sure.”

“I’m thinking about a change,” said Pinkie, gesturing to the truck. “How much do you think it would cost?”

“Well, that’s not an easy answer without knowing what you want, but figure a couple thousand for labor and a couple more for supplies.”

“No problem. Can you do it while I wait?”

“It’ll take a day, at least. Not to mention, we won’t have an opening for at least a week.”

“Aww. Well…” Pinkie frowned and crossed her arms. “Can you call me when you’re ready?”

“Alright, let me get your information.”

He led her to the shop’s office and pulled out a pad of yellow sticky notes. “Phone number?”

Pinkie almost handed him her card, but no, he didn’t need to know that much about her. She just told him.

“Alright, I’ll give you a call, Miss…?”

Was she going to just give him her real name? If not, she’d better come up with something fast. The first name that came to her was Bubble Berry, but no, there was a chance the woman had been this guy’s old babysitter, too. He looked about her age, and Dashville wasn’t that big.

He kept staring at her until Pinkie finally burst out, “Pink-er, Pinkamina Pie.”

He wrote it down and used a handshake to pass her a shop card. “Flash Sentry.”

Oh right. They’d gone to the same school. He apparently didn’t recognize her after all these years.

“See you soon,” said Flash.

Pinkie thought it over as she went back to the truck. A week, he’d said. Sure, she could find other options. She could keep moving. But deep down, she didn’t want to. She’d come to Dashville for a reason.

Still, she kept considering her options as she got back in the truck. At the moment, she really only had one.

Getting back into the driver’s seat, Pinkie sat with her hands on the wheel. Her one option was...not great. Surely there was something else she could do, somewhere else she could go. But as the truck sat there idling, nothing came to mind.  She took a drink of her Coke, which was getting warm, and then got going.

She wasn’t humming this time as she left the parking lot. The road led through Old Town, filled with intricate victorian houses with wavy old glass and too much paint. Towards the north, vaguely following the railroad out of town, Pinkie passed another welcome sign, which said See You Soon! on the back. That was exactly what Flash Sentry had said.

Pinkie wasn’t sure what to think. Yes, she’d instinctively returned to Dashville. She was still trying to determine if it had actually been a good idea. She’d left the place so many years ago. But it was like everyone knew she’d be back. They had, in fact, seen her again. And in the grand scheme of the universe, ten years was soon enough.

The highway climbed up into the hills. Pinkie took a road marked with a green sign that was too faded to read. Her GPS was shut off now.

The road narrowed continuously as it began to climb and wind, aiming vaguely for Griffin Mountain. On one curve, the slope to the left of the road fell away, bare rocks and sheer cliffs overlooking an open pit quarry. Pinkie leaned in her seat, trying to see the bottom.

Loose gravel started to cover the road until there wasn’t any pavement left and the occasional roadside tree brushed the truck’s mirrors. There was nothing up here except one house, not difficult to find, but Pinkie could have done it blindfolded anyway, even after all these years.

It was tucked back in the forest, but visible from the road. Pinkie turned past the mailbox that said Pie in faded, lichen-covered letters.

There were several vehicles already in the gravel driveway, but plenty of room for another. Pinkie parked the truck and got out. It wasn’t the only pickup truck in the drive, but it was certainly the only pink one.

Facing the house, it didn’t seem to have changed. Once a house was a hundred years old, what was a few more? The pine needles had been swept off the roof and lawn. The paint had been kept up. Pinkie smiled, but her lips tightened again as her feet started to move, down the driveway and then up to the covered front porch.

It felt strange to knock on the door. She used to live here. She used to just walk in.

Her hand had barely withdrawn when the door was yanked open. The woman on the other side of the threshold was Pinkie’s height and wore jeans and a faded sweatshirt. Her hair was the color of slate and short, brushed to one side. Her bronze eyes locked on Pinkie, pure surprise written on them.

Pinkie lifted a hand and smiled. “Hi-”

Limestone Pie, Pinkie’s oldest sister, punched her in the face, knocking her completely off the porch.

Pinkie had time to raise her hands but not much else before Limestone was on top of her, swinging hard. “How dare you!”

“Limey!” Pinkie cried out as fists connected with her blocking forearms.  “I can-”

“You abandoned-!”

Limestone was suddenly jerked backwards, seemingly by the scruff of her neck, even as she continued to struggle and spit. A taller woman with her hair cut in ruler-straight bangs held Limestone back. Her eyes shifted to Pinkie, though her neutral expression didn’t change.

“Hi Maud,” Pinkie said to her second-oldest sister, though she failed to meet her eyes. She got up and brushed the dirt off herself and touched a place under her eye that felt like it would bruise. Fortunately, it didn’t seem like her nose was going to bleed, or she’d end up looking like one of the tour t-shirts her merchandise shop sold.

Another woman’s face, half-hidden behind long hair, peeked around Maud.

“Hi Marble,” Pinkie said, smiling, to her fraternal twin. Marble gave her a hint of a smile in return.

“What’s going on out here?” called a man’s voice.

Igneous Pie stepped onto the porch. His face was shaven, but not within the last twelve hours, and grey stubble had already come back, though not as long as his bushy sideburns. His expression changed as he saw Pinkie, though whatever his reaction, he kept it inside.

“Did I hear-” Cloudy Quartz, her half-spectacles on a chain and her hair in a bun, came out the door. She drew up, hand covering her open mouth. “Pinkamina Diane Pie, is it really you?”

“Hi dad, hi mom,” said Pinkie.

There was a moment of silence as the six of them stood there. Cloudy Quartz said, “Dinner’s almost ready. You’re just in time.”

Tendons popped out in Limestone’s neck, but she didn’t say anything.

Pinkie asked herself again if this was really what she wanted to do. She pasted on a smile and walked over the threshold, feeling all of their eyes on her as the center of attention.

The inside of the house was exactly as she remembered, but seemed...smaller? She’d grown since the last time she’d been here. Pinkie still remembered the way to the kitchen, though.

Passing through the living room, she saw the old shotgun over the mantle and the even older Burning Wreath over the couch. Not actually burning, local vines woven and wrapped up with orange fabric - fire and unity. There still wasn’t a TV in the room.

The kitchen table was set for seven, and two seats were already occupied. “Granny!  Großvater!” Pinkie exclaimed.

“What?” demanded her grandmother, eyes cataracted past the point of clarity. “Is that you, Pinkie?”

Her grandfather said something Pinkie didn’t catch. She used to understand him just fine, though she was never certain if he ever really spoke English. Pinkie saw a walker behind the table. The two of them must have moved in, to be nearer to family.

Pinkie was still delighted to see them. She swept around the table to distribute hugs as her mother set another place at the table.

By muscle memory, Pinkie avoided the Walther P38 in her grandmother’s hand. At Pinkie’s touch, though, she relaxed and kept it below the table. Pinkie vaguely recalled a story that the gun was a gift - well, sort of - from her großvater when they’d first met. He’d been swept away from the Reich and literally swept off his feet by a mad plattdeutsch-speaking religious fanatic warrior-woman. Crushed by her certainty, and drawn away in her wake, until he woke up one day married to her and getting ready to dig rocks somewhere in darkest NordAmerika.

Pinkie had gotten an F on her elementary school WWII history report.

“Your friend who retired in Florida says hi,” Pinkie said.

“That old reprobate,” Granny replied.  “It’s always nice when yer old shit-stirrers live long enough to get youngins making fun of their wrinkles.”

Pinkie looked up as Maud joined the conversation.

“How long are you staying?” Maud asked. She had released Limestone, but stayed within arm’s length.

“I’m not sure,” Pinkie said.

Her mother put a roast and another place setting on the table and they all sat. Pinkie picked up a fork, but was interrupted by hands thrust at her from both sides. Sheepishly, she put down the utensil and took hold.

“Pinkie,” said her father. “Would you like to say grace?”

“Okay.” Pinkie swallowed, attempting to buy time while accessing memories she hadn’t used in a decade. “Thank Harmony for this food and this family. I’m…” she swallowed again “...thankful.”

Silence stretched out, and then Limestone broke the circle. That was apparently good enough for everyone else.

Pinkie dug in. Her eyes closed at the first bite. It was, well, objectively not the most amazing thing she’d ever tasted. But she hadn’t realized until just then how much she’d missed it.

“Can you pass the gravy?” Pinkie asked.

“Mm-hmm,” Marble replied, and handed it over.

“What have you been up to?” her mother asked, pausing with food on her fork.

“Well, a lot,” Pinkie said. She should have expected the question, and raced to try and catalogue everything into an answer. “Lots of parties.”

Her father’s head jerked up. “You party?”

“I mean, I host parties. I set them up. I play a little music, cater the food, make sure everyone’s having a good time. I’m kind of a professional host. I put on shows, events.  I’m a Cyan Seacrest-type; I host things, it’s what I do.”

“Oh,” said her mother.

“It’s actually a good career, mom,” Pinkie insisted. “I’m actually making a name for myself. I’m Ponk PK; it’s on my business card - I have business cards. People have heard of me.”

No one responded. Pinkie glanced around the table as she chewed. Should she try to explain more, or bring out the novelty t-shirts? Weighing that option, trying to demonstrate her success - no, that would only lead to questions like “If you’re so successful, what are you doing here?”

What was she doing here? She could have run from her trouble without involving her family.

Limestone was the first to finish eating and get up. She dropped her plate and utensils in the sink and left the room. Marble was next, gently delivering her own setting and then beginning to wash them. Pinkie’s grandparents seemed to be done eating, so she collected their dishes for them and took them to the sink.

Pinkie helped Marble for a moment with rinsing, the two of them standing elbow to elbow. Run water over the plate, hand to Marble for a quick scrub with soap, pick up another plate - like a little assembly line. The muscle memory came back. Pinkie glanced at Marble, who gave her a half-smile.

When the table was clear and all the dishes had been washed, Pinkie dried her hands. Maud had also left the room, so she started to say her goodbyes to everyone else.

“Are you staying the night?” her mother asked.

“No, I have a place.”

“How long are you going to be around?”

“I don’t know,” Pinkie answered truthfully.

“Well...it was good to see you.”

Pinkie traded hugs with all of them. Despite the awkwardness, it was genuinely good to see them, too.

Her father walked her out. The sun had gone down and moths were beginning to flit around the porch light. After closing the front door, he silently pulled out his wallet and took out a hundred dollar bill.

“Dad, no, I don’t need it.”

His head tilted slightly, but his expression didn’t change.

“No, really.” Pinkie put her hand on his, lightly pushing away. She gave him a polite smile, and stepped off the porch.

As she reached her truck, Maud loomed out of the darkness. Pinkie stopped.

“Are you coming back?” Maud asked. “For good?”

“No, not for good.”

“I’m stuck here,” said Maud. “Because of you.”

“Maud, we both left for California. I didn’t get to Crystal Prep like you did, but-”

“I went there to help the family,” Maud went on, voice still low. “I was going to get a degree. We were going to make things better for everyone. And then you disappeared.” 

“I found my true calling.” Pinkie gestured to the truck’s license plate which read PONKPK.

“My true calling is silicagenesis and advanced basaltic seeding,” said Maud. “But instead of going to college where I could research it, I’m here working at the family quarry because you left. There was no one else to provide. You know Limestone and Marble need help. Mom and dad are getting old, and they can’t do everything.”

“I found something I liked and was good at,” said Pinkie, voice falling. “What was I supposed to do?” 

“You were supposed to think of other people besides yourself.”

“Maud, I…” Pinkie couldn’t bring herself to apologize. She liked the path she had chosen. Or she had, until recently. Was it wrong to be happy? Had it really come at the expense of her family?

Pinkie couldn’t find the words. Instead, she collapsed forward onto Maud, arms around her midsection. Maud didn’t return the embrace.

Pinkie looked up. Maud stared at her impassively.

Pinkie disengaged, standing up straight and sniffing. Words still hadn’t come to her, and she walked away, escaping the conversation but stumbling under the weight of it.

She barely remembered the drive back to the truckstop. Unlocking the trailer’s side door, she crawled up into the tiny living space at the front and collapsed onto her single mattress.

It was partially caffeine, but mostly regret and memories that kept her up for another few hours.

Even still, morning felt like it came too soon, because now she had to make a decision on what to do about how she felt. Pinkie lay in the half-light coming through the screened window for a while. She was going to have to have a good think eventually, but procrastinated first. Eventually, humidity and stuffy air inside the trailer made her get up.

She stumbled out into the bright sun of the parking lot, getting mud on her socks, to start the generator. Back inside, she started the coffee pot and hit the switch for the living area slide-out which opened the wall on electric motors to create an extra two feet of space inside the trailer. That gave her enough room to take a shower and change clothes.

The coffee was ready when she finished and Pinkie had a cup, leaning against her clothing cabinets. Her bed was in the loft over the trailer’s hitch and aside from that the entirety of her personal living quarters was pretty much just standing room.

She sipped her coffee and pondered. What was she going to do?

A gift or something thoughtful wasn’t going to work here. Saying sorry might mean something, but it wouldn’t actually solve the problem. As Maud had laid it out, they wanted Pinkie to give up what she had and come home to the family business. No one else had said it, but Maud had a habit of speaking plainly. Limestone had said it in her own way.

There was a difference between right and wrong. Pinkie had done some wrong things, but she’d always known in the back of her mind what they were. That’s how she was raised. But she didn’t feel wrong here. She was being asked to give up what she had, what she’d made for herself, what she loved doing. And in her current situation, needing sanctuary, it was harder to refuse. Did that make it a choice between right and wrong, or just what she personally wanted?

She could pack up the trailer and keep going. Or she could stay here in Dashville. The first option would preserve her freedom. The second would fix her relationship with her family, but in return might mean she would sell rocks for the rest of her life.

Pinkie’s stomach growled. Breakfast, that sounded like a good option.
> Faces New and Old
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The small café was the kind that took its diacritic mark seriously and served crêpes and other food with accented names. That didn’t mean it was actually good, or even French.  Pinkie regretted choosing it for breakfast and should have found a greasy spoon diner instead, where there wouldn’t be anything on the menu that had du fromage in the description. She realized how much she missed a good omelette. That thought put her to mind of her mother’s cooking.

As she sat beside the window, Pinkie glanced out at the sidewalk and across the street. Courthouse Square was the center of government buildings in Dashville, and effectively a sub-neighborhood of Old Town. It wasn’t exactly bustling in the late morning. Pinkie frowned and checked her phone. Thursday, it was Thursday morning.

A few people had started to drift in for an early lunch. One of them was a tall, skinny young man who wore a fairly new everyday suit but seemed awkward in it.  Unbuttoning his jacket revealed a badge on his belt, and he sat in a booth facing Pinkie. He seemed too pale to be a local but too friendly with the wait staff to be anything but a regular. No taste, either, if he came to this café a lot. Well, that wasn’t fair, it was the closest place to the police station.

The detective looked out the window, apparently noticing Pinkie’s truck. His eyes swung around and met hers before she had time to look away. Even still, she felt the recognition in his look. Surely the police weren’t involved? Pinkie dropped her head and pretended to be engrossed in her phone.

Apparently that worked. He seemed to have lost interest when she snuck a look at him a few minutes later.  Pinkie looked up as the waitress arrived with her food. Just as she drew level with the table she tripped over something, perhaps her own feet, and the plate of crepes went flying - straight into Pinkie’s hands.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!” the waitress burst out, horror written on her face.

“Hey, it’s no problem,” Pinkie said, putting the plate down and standing up to pat her on the shoulder.  “I always did like…fast food.”

Despite the situation, that actually did get a smile out of the waitress.  Whatever had her so distracted in the first place seemed to melt away.

Pinkie sat down to eat, realizing the detective had noticed her again. Just when she thought she had successfully melted into the background. He had only ordered coffee and a croissant, and was finished a few minutes later, well before her. He got up, dropped some money on the table, hesitated, and then turned towards her booth.

Pinkie still had food in her mouth when he stopped by her table and said, “Pardon me, ma’am, but are you…Ponk PK?”

Pinkie’s face automatically put on her business grin. Thank Harmony, just a fan. She swallowed. “I sure am.”

She watched his attitude immediately change from cool police detective to starstruck geek. “Oh wow, I remember seeing you in Daytona five or six years ago on spring break. What are you doing here?”

She could say she was just passing through, but what if he saw her again? “I’m actually originally from this area.” Pinkie stuck out her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“Oh wow, I didn’t know that.” He accepted her handshake. “I’m Whet Stone.”

Pinkie didn’t recognize his name, but in trying to get another oh wow out of him, she said, “You probably know some of my family.”

“Oh wow, who?”

Nailed it. Wait, he’d asked who. Pinkie hadn’t thought this through. “Limestone Pie,” she admitted.

“What!?” He’d finished his coffee before getting up, but still looked like he was about to spit it. “Where is she right now?”

Pinkie caught his shift in tone. “Why do you want to know about my sister?”

“And she’s your sister?”

“Well, I haven’t seen her in a while,” Pinkie said, mostly truthfully.

“Well…” Whet Stone paused, and then reached into his pocket. “If you see her, give me a call, okay?”

Pinkie glanced at the card he handed her. Dashville Police Department. “If I see her.”

Whet Stone’s face brightened again. “It was really good to meet you.”

Pinkie sat in the booth and watched him leave. She picked up her phone, but paused. Not because she wasn’t sure who she wanted to call, but because she didn’t remember the number. She had to look it up.

“Pie Family Aggregates.”

“Hey mom.”

“Pinkamina?”

“I wanted to call. A police detective just asked me where Limestone was.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Nothing.”

“Good, dear.”

“I just wanted to tell somebody. It seemed like the kind of thing you should know.”

“Where are you?”

“Courthouse Square.”

“Oh, you aren’t too far from Marble’s shop.”

“Marble has a shop?”

Pinkie’s mother told her the address. “Oh, and since we’re talking, how about you come to church with us tonight?”

On a Thursday night? Pinkie frowned. She had no excuse, nowhere else to be. “Okay.”

“See you there. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Pinkie paid for her meal and left the café. Following directions, sure enough, she found a quaint little shop just a few blocks down the street with all manner of shiny rocks in the window.

There was something mildly ironic about that, a historic building from the previous century, housing a modern business, that sold minerals that were billions of years old.

Pinkie walked in. The square footage was small, but the space wasn’t wasted, walls stacked floor to ceiling with shelves of polished rocks organized by alphabetical name.  The more expensive samples were inside a glass case at the back of the room, behind which sat Marble.

“Hey, fancy place,” said Pinkie. Marble smiled. Pinkie walked over to lean on the counter beside a sign that read locally sourced.

Pinkie said, “How has business been? Mostly tourists, I guess?”

Marble nodded.

It wasn’t tourist season. Pinkie looked down through the glass at the samples.  Each display was precisely arranged and neat, apparently untouched. 

“Well, I just wanted to say hello. I hadn’t seen your shop before.” Pinkie straightened up. She turned at the sound of a vehicle and saw an old Jeep pull up to the curb, three teenaged girls getting out. “I’ll see you later.”

Marble nodded to her and turned to receive the customers coming in. Pinkie took a step backwards to the wall and they passed by without a glance in her direction.

“We’re looking for some decorations,” said the pale girl.

“We’re trying to rush a sorority at Virginia A&M and they want us to organize some kind of event tomorrow night,” added the darker-skinned one with windswept purple hair.

“Some kind of party,” said the redhead.

“Um,” Marble said.

“Did you say party?” Pinkie stepped forward. The three of them turned, surprised, as if they hadn’t noticed her.

“Who are you?” the pale one asked.

A deck of business cards slid out of Pinkie’s sleeve into her palm.  With three flicks of her thumb, she fired cards into each of the girls’ hands.

Her cards were bold white parchment stock, and in embossed pink letters, read:

Ponk PK
PARTIES


“The Ponk PK?” the middle one exclaimed.

Pinkie remembered again that she was supposed to be hiding out. On the other hand, getting back in her groove would help distract her.

“How are we supposed to pay for a professional?” the third girl pointedly asked the other two.

Some complicated math went through Pinkie’s head. Remembering what she had in the trailer’s stocks, the fact that she’d forgotten to run the generator overnight to keep it all refrigerated, and the relative ability for college students to spare some coin; balanced by the fact that she didn’t have her crew to help, something was better than nothing, and this was more a favor to herself than anything.

“Tell you what,” said Pinkie. “I’ll do music, cake, a small craft table, and grill-your-own meat for the low price of whatever you have on you.”

The three girls hunted through their pockets and purses, coming up with almost forty dollars.

“Are you really sure this is okay?” asked the first one.

“Sweetie, don’t second guess, just go with it,” said the second one out of the side of her mouth.

The third one had borrowed a pen from the counter and had been scribbling down an address on the back of Pinkie’s card. She handed it back.

“Okie dokie loki!” Pinkie winked and made finger guns. “I’ll see you there!”

Wearing expressions as if they couldn’t believe their fortune, the three girls thanked her and left the shop.

Pinkie turned back to Marble and put the money down on the counter. “I’m going to need all the pyrite you have.”

After making the transaction and visiting with Marble just a little more, Pinkie walked out of the shop again and down the block, mission in mind.

There was the wrinkle of going to Thursday night church, but Pinkie could carry herself through by mentally planning the next day’s party. It was an extra challenge to do more with less.

Speaking of challenging, back at her trailer Pinkie had to figure out what she was going to wear. Slacks and a blouse were not her usual outfit, but she did manage to find some in her wardrobe. Trying to do something with her hair was not going to happen with comb nor fropick nor anything short of industrial steam and press.

She looked at herself in the mirror for a moment. This was how people would see her.  Usually, she wanted to be seen. What would the fellow parishioners think?  What had her family told them?

Well, it was time to find out. Pinkie drove to the church. She was not the first one to arrive, but fortunately didn’t have to hang around by herself very long before the rest of her family showed up.

Her grandmother had always been a little different in beliefs. Pious, enthusiastic, but different. Pinkie had never experienced one of the services her grandmother sometimes talked about from the old country. She was never exactly sure where that was, either. Somewhere to the north. Whatever her großvater believed, he mostly kept it to himself.

Everyone was dressed business-formal, so Pinkie had apparently guessed right on the outfit. Limestone wore a scowl, and Pinkie didn’t tempt her by meeting gazes. Maud, meanwhile, seemed to be doing the same thing to Pinkie.

The church was a plain building of cinder blocks washed white located in an otherwise empty field along the northern country highway out of town. There were no windows, which was by design. One, it made the building cheaper. Two, it kept everyone focused inward.

The sun was already on its way down, but Pinkie’s eyes still had to adjust as she walked through the front door. There may have been electric service, but the chapel hall had always been lit by candles, which dripped wax and seemed more trouble than they were worth, but illuminated the room with a certain ambience. The yellow glow didn’t quite reach the highest rafters.

The congregation leader stood with his hands folded in front of him at the head of the room. There was no pulpit. There was no fancy dress, in fact he wore a button-down shirt, clean dark jeans, and polished cowboy boots. He didn’t even have a fancy title like minister or pastor. Pinkie didn’t know this particular man. He must have arrived after she’d left.

Pinkie sat with her family in a familiar pew. It was the one they had always used. Their name might as well have been on it. Other people filed into the room over the next few minutes until it was time for the service.

The leader lifted his hands. “We are gathered here in the service of eternal Harmony.”

“Service,” everyone murmured, even Pinkie, caught up in the moment. It was all coming back to her.

“How has our service borne fruit?” he asked the room, looking around.

Pinkie’s mother stood, pulling at Pinkie’s arm. “My daughter Pinkamina has returned to us!”

Pinkie stood awkwardly, forcing a smile. It was as if no one had noticed her until then.

“Greetings,” said the leader, stretching a hand out to her. “Please, come up here.”

Pinkie knew what came next, but she moved forward anyway. She couldn’t not. The walk up the center aisle between the pews felt like going out on a narrow pier into a foggy lake. The people to either side were no help now, and might as well be empty space.

“How long has it been?” the leader asked, conversationally, as Pinkie reached him.

“Ten years,” she replied. She hoped her voice didn’t carry, but was sure it did.

He put the tip of his finger on her forehead. “But you have returned. Our paths may not always be straight and narrow, but they always lead us where we need to go. Are you on the right path?”

He turned away before she could answer, which was just as well, because Pinkie had no idea what to say. She watched him walk to the wall, against which was a wooden box roughly one foot on each side.  He crouched down and lifted the lid, as a rattling sound began.

The leader lifted out a snake nearly six feet long. The rattling got louder. Pinkie swallowed, but didn’t move.

“The faithful have power,” the leader said as he walked back to her. “In the name of Harmony, signs of faith shall follow them that believe. In the name of Harmony, they shall cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues, they shall take up serpents in their hands without fear.”

He held the snake out. Pinkie took hold, hoping her sweaty palms would not betray her.  The snake curled up her arm, tongue flicking. Pinkie moved slowly, taking up its weight and allowing it to climb towards her shoulder. A drop of sweat rolled down Pinkie’s back. The rattles brushed her ear and the snake’s head went out of sight behind her neck as it slithered into coils around her shoulders, a living, snakeskin vestment.

The leader smiled and took her hands. “Welcome back.”
> Smoke and Fire
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fresh air. Pinkie needed some. She took a huge gasp as she stepped out of the church.

The sun had gone down and the air was cool. Pinkie stood on the front step, people flowing around her like a rock in a stream.

Hers was not the only whole-family to come to the service that night. Pinkie spotted them in the crowd and fell in step on the walk to the parking lot. Her mother looked up and smiled. “You’re back.”

If anything, it only made Pinkie more uncomfortable and unsure about her place in Dashville. Having seen the outside world and having gotten a taste of what she thought she wanted…she still wasn’t sure this was it.

“Hey girls, can I talk to you for a minute?” Pinkie said, sliding through the center of the group to face her three sisters as they walked. Her parents and grandparents gave them a look, but kept walking.

“What?” Limestone demanded. She did stop, though.

“I got hired to host a par-er, an event here in Dashville,” said Pinkie, lowering her voice.  “It’s tomorrow night. I was hoping you three could come.”

Marble’s eyebrows lifted. Limestone said, “What kind of event?” Maud glanced at the other two, and then looked at Pinkie.

“It’s a low key event at the college,” Pinkie said. “Just cake and music.”

“The college? I’m in.” Limestone grinned, all teeth.

“If you come to the quarry,” said Maud.

Well, she’d been to the house and the church. “Sure,” Pinkie agreed.

After telling her sisters where to find the party, Pinkie said goodnight and drove back to the truckstop. Despite the day she’d had, well, it wasn’t worse than the day before.  She felt optimistic as she fell into bed.

In the morning, Pinkie had her coffee and leisurely prepared a few things for the party.  She got the truck and trailer mated back up and had time to fix a few of the more unsightly pieces of tattered graphics. Tearing them off seemed like a good idea when she went on the run, but in retrospect it probably didn’t matter that much because who else would be driving a pink rig with PONKPK license plates? She was beginning to wonder if she’d overreacted.

I mean, it was just a gang of Chinese drug smugglers… They probably offered all sorts of people the opportunity to transport things for them. People probably turned them down all the time. It didn’t have anything to do with that city block in Miami burning; she was just overreacting.

As the evening approached, Pinkie got going. She’d very rarely been to College Heights before, but found the sorority easily enough - always helpful when they put up Greek lettering in ten thousand point font on the building facade.

It was slightly disorienting being alone for this event. She’d gotten used to having help. Pinkie Pie's roadshow turned into a travelling carnival so slowly, she only realized what was happening when a convoy of party-seeking caravans started following the eighteen wheeler she'd hired to carry the stuff that didn't fit into her own trailer. Or the tour bus they picked up in Duluth from a deathcore band that had suddenly went under after something about a murder suicide involving the bassist. Or possibly something about the drummer getting a job as a CPA. Or maybe both, the used tour bus salesman had gotten Pinkie confused. They'd never gotten around to painting over the cutesy balloon lettering of the band logo. Pinkie wished her house band was actually as friendly and approachable as Party Cannon had sounded.

She’d left the whole crew behind when she’d run. They were definitely wondering where she was right now.

Distracting herself, she parked her rig at the curb outside the sorority, lowered the corner jacks, and started the generator. Going around to the back of the trailer, she hit the switches that lowered the tailgate.

A layer of fog and haunting tones rolled out the open door, an ethereal golden glow revealing Pinkie’s tools of the trade. The special effects were only for her own amusement, but she was glad she had rigged it up.

She stepped onto the trailer and released the parking brake of a vintage Maserati TC convertible. It was painted in metalflake red and rolled on gold-plated wire wheels.  Pinkie backed it down the tailgate and to the curb with gravity.

Next, she activated the trailer’s slide-outs to increase the room inside and folded down tables from the walls. The inside of the trailer featured extravagant vinyl graphics of her logo and brand just the same as the outside used to.

The tile floor already appeared clean, so she kept unloading her stuff. She ran wires between the car, trailer, and rolling DJ booth, hung the disco ball, and started to preheat her ovens.

The three girls from the other day appeared just then. Even if they knew who she was, they still appeared starstruck that Pinkie had actually shown up, and brought all this stuff.

Pinkie finished closing the oven door with her hip and turned to smile at them standing at the foot of the tailgate. “Cake should be out soon. I brought the grill, did you bring the meat?” She didn’t trust anything in the trailer’s freezer at the moment.

“Um, there might be some in the kitchen?” the redheaded girl asked. “We don’t actually live here, since we haven’t officially gotten in yet.”

“Well, I’m here to make that happen,” said Pinkie. “I’ll tell them this was all your idea.  Er, what are your names?”

The pale girl, who seemed to have more fashion sense than the other two, was named Sweetie Belle. The lean, tanned one was Scootaloo. Apple Bloom was the redhead with a trace of a country accent.

“We live with my big sister at the old orchard outside town,” Apple Bloom said. “Though it would be easier to live here, so we didn’t have to commute.”

“Seems like a nice place. Centrally located,” Pinkie commented, glancing at the sorority building as she walked over to the car. “Y’know, there’s an old rumor about Virginia A&M. They say sororities were required to be located on campus because any group home for young ladies might as well be a brothel in the eyes of the town fathers. And mothers.”

“What is it about this town?” Scootaloo laughed.

“And how did you hear that?” Sweetie Belle asked Pinkie.

“I actually grew up around here,” Pinkie explained as she lifted the hood of the car.

“That’s really cool,” said Scootaloo. “Hey, um, can I get a selfie?”

“Sure!” Pinkie posed for the three of them. Scootaloo’s phone, held high, revealed the complete lack of an engine in the car behind them. After the picture, Pinkie turned around and began to light the grill that fit neatly under the hood. The igniters made the typical tic-tic-tic-whoosh sound that was half the charm of a gas grill.

Pinkie went around and opened the trunk, revealing a set of subwoofers that barely fit.  Other speakers of various sizes were mounted in the car’s interior and all around the trailer.

Other members of the sorority had begun to notice the setup, as well as random passers-by.  Just in case they hadn’t, Pinkie started the music.  She was already square with the RIAA for public playing.

Apple Bloom actually did find a couple of pounds of hamburger somewhere and a loaf of bread.  It was only going to make weird sort-of soft tacos with one slice of bread wrapped around a dab of meat to ensure everyone got some.  Well, that was better than nothing.  This wasn’t the first college party Pinkie had done and most of the time kids were just happy to get free food.

Pretty soon, there was a small crowd gathered around the trailer, talking, some of them dancing, just hanging out.  While the crowd was mostly girls from the sorority, other people had begun to join, a few boys circling like predators around the herd.

Pinkie had put out the red Solo cups, though just with a cooler of instant lemonade.  She could have made arrangements for a liquor license in this state, but the three girls who had contracted her were freshmen.  Alcohol wasn’t in their budget, anyway.  Pinkie spotted a few of the guests with flasks who thought they were being sneaky.

When the first cake came out of the oven, Pinkie slapped pre-chilled frosting on it from the fridge. The temperature difference balanced out well enough that it didn’t melt everywhere. It had the added bonus of sealing in the moistness of the cake itself. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but she’d perfected the art of being good enough. Again, college kids were happy just to have it, and would rather have slightly sticky cake than wait an extra fifteen minutes for it to cool. Pinkie cut it, and put it out with paper plates and biodegradable utensils. Again, she had to know her crowd. It was a country school, but hippies were everywhere these days.

The cake had just gone out when Pinkie’s sisters arrived. They were older than the students, but not so much as to stick out. Pinkie wiggled through the dense crowd to greet them.

“So this is it,” said Limestone. She actually seemed too interested to even snarl.

“There’s cake.”

That got the attention of the others, too.

First, though, she took them by the grill to get an underwhelming bread burger.  Apple Bloom was doing a good job, despite her initial reluctance. Pinkie had said “grill your own meat,” after all.

“What did you do to this car?” said Limestone.

“It just seemed like a convenient way to combine entertainment essentials into one eye-catching package,” said Pinkie.  “I’ve got the gas turned up for grilling now, but I can also do low-temperature slow-cooking.”

“How low?” said Apple Bloom. Pinkie was reminded that some folks in this part of the world were very particular about their barbecue.

“My Maserati does 185. I put this grill in; now I don’t drive.” Pinkie added, “Farenheit, of course.”

“Pinkie, how many times have I told you, the scientific community frowns on your Imperial units of measure,” Maud replied patiently.

Pinkie got her sisters cake and went back to hosting. She occasionally adjusted the music when she noticed a shift in the crowd, cleaned up when she spotted trash, and sometimes had to stop and take a selfie with someone who recognized her.

More people had started to drift in. Maud and Marble hung at the edge of the crowd, not talking to anyone else. A few minutes later, Pinkie spotted Limestone huddled with someone over behind the car. He seemed a little crusty, and wore a headband and a patchy mustache.

“Who’s that?” Pinkie asked the next time she went by Maud.

“He goes by Captain Planet. He’s a drug dealer.”

Pinkie came up short. “Wait, what!?”

Maud recognized the rhetoric and simply stared at her.

Pinkie’s eyes went between Maud and where Limestone was apparently making a transaction. “Is she really-”

“Yes. These days, she mostly does crystal molly. Though, she might be switching. She said something about it getting hard to find.”

It wasn’t that Pinkie didn’t know anything about drugs. She was in the party business after all, but most of the substances that snuck into her events were either pot or sometimes X. She had heard of crystal molly, some kind of new designer chemical that was said to somehow combine the blissfulness of molly and the hard-edged craziness of crystal meth.

“What would mom and dad say?” Pinkie accused.

“You think they don’t know?” Maud looked at Pinkie, bitterness barely visible on her face. “They can’t admit it to themselves, and they won’t tell anyone. Can you imagine if the church found out?”

“Well, why don’t you stop her?”

“I’ve tried. I could go over there right now. It would only cause a scene and get someone arrested.” Maud turned to stare at Limestone’s back, expression cloudy. “I’m sure you don’t want that to happen at your party, either.”

“But-but we have to do something,” Pinkie whined quietly.  

“I’m open to suggestions,” Maud replied. “All I can really do is just make sure she’s safe.”

Even as worried as she was, Pinkie caught the barb in Maud’s words. She felt it in her heart, too. Could she have stopped Limestone if she’d been around?

It ate at her the rest of the evening, even as she drove back to the truckstop, emptied the trailer’s grey water tanks, and tossed her trash in a dumpster. Maybe going to the quarry the next day would give her ideas on how to handle Limestone.

Pinkie lay on her mattress, listlessly scrolling her phone. Even as worried as her mind was, her body was coming down from the rush of the party, doing what she loved. She just liked seeing people enjoying themselves. Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle had thanked her profusely, though Pinkie was happy to help.

She saw that she’d been tagged in something and opened the picture.  It was the one Scootaloo had taken.  Smiles all around, not knowing what was going on in the background.

Well, now Pinkie did know.  And now, she could do something about it.

In the morning, she got up and put on boots, jeans, and flanel.  They were more designer than functional, but still the closest thing to work clothes she had these days.  What would her family think, Pinkie wondered as she drove her pink pickup truck to the quarry.

The front gate was as she remembered it, flanked by two large stones in rough cube shapes.  The metal gates were swung open.  The sign was faded, but still perfectly legible: Pie Family Aggregates.

Just inside the gate was a low building that was temporary, yet had been around as long as Pinkie could remember.  A small sign that said office was by one of the doors.  The other door was unmarked.  Most of the cars parked around were closer to the further door.

Pinkie parked and went into the office.  It was exactly as she remembered it, except for maybe newer computers and phones.  It had the smell of dirt and the same worn...well, everything.

Her mother looked up from a desk as she came in.  “Pinkamina!  This is unexpected.”

“I just came by to see everyone.”

“They’re just about to head out.”  She tipped her head towards the accompanying wall.

Pinkie said goodbye and went next door.  There, she found Limestone and Maud getting ready.  This side of the building was part locker room and part break room.  It was even more dirty and worn than the office.

Limestone muttered something as Pinkie came in.  Maud nodded to her.  Pinkie glanced around, spotting a coffee maker among the detritus.  She grabbed a cup, purposely not looking inside, and poured coffee.

Pinkie gagged on the first sip.  “Wha-what even is this?  Is this even coffee?”

Limestone smirked.  “Too much for you, city girl?” 

Pinkie picked up the bag of grounds.  “I have nothing against this brand.  Apparently, you just suck at making coffee.”

Limestone changed the subject.  “If you’re coming with us today, listen to everything I say.  You haven’t been around for a while, so you might have forgotten how things work around here.”

“So you...still suck at making coffee, or is this new?”

It was mildly astonishing that Limestone ignored her and went on.  “Stay out of the way of the trucks.  Don’t get too close to the walls so you’re out of the way of falling rocks.”

While she talked, Pinkie had put down the coffee cup and was attempting to clear up the table.  There were crumbs, dirt, coffee stains, and even a handful of gravel for good measure.

She had just lifted a small plastic bag when Limestone said, “And stay away from Holder’s Boulder.”

“What’s Holder’s Boulder?” asked Pinkie.

“Her last dealer safeguarded his crack cocaine inside his rectum,” Maud replied.

Pinkie hastily dropped the bag.  “Wait…” she paused “...was that a joke, Maud?”

Limestone, face red, threw open the door and stalked out.  Maud leisurely went after her, with Pinkie bringing up the rear.

“That’s Holder’s Boulder,” said Limestone, jabbing a finger at a huge monolith perched on the far quarry wall.  “We were carving out that side and eventually cut it free.  Making sure it wasn’t going to come down wrong was going to take too much time and effort, so we just left it.”

“It looks unsafe, like it could fall,” Pinkie observed.

“That’s why you should stay away from it,” Limestone said.

“I feel like it looks kind of like a monument,”Pinkie went on.  “Like a mascot or something, like if it ever fell it would mark a dark day in the quarry’s history, a metaphorical end of days.”  She turned to Limestone.  “Why would you do that?  Are you trying for a Fall of the House of Usher vibe?  Because that's how you get falls of houses of guys named Usher!”

“No, it isn’t a metaphor for anything.  It’s a fucking boulder.  What is this, a romance novel?”

“There are other literary devices out there than those used in Granny’s harlequin books,” Maud put in.

“Nothing mom and dad would allow in the house, there aren’t.”

Limestone and Maud climbed aboard aboard an enormous dump truck parked behind the building that dwarfed any of the personal automobiles.  It used to be yellow, but was now mostly rust.  Pinkie rolled up her sleeves and followed them.  There was only one seat, so while Limestone sat in it, Pinkie and Maud held onto the ladder outside the cab.

“Isn’t this also one of those things that isn’t safe?” said Pinkie.

“Only if you fall off,” said Limestone, starting the engine.

They drove down into the quarry pit.  The truck’s suspension mostly just consisted of flattening the ground as it went.  Still, Pinkie enjoyed the ride.

Limestone pointed out things along the way, shouting above the noise.  “Don’t go near the rock crusher, it sometimes spits out chips.  Don’t get caught in the auger.  Don’t go near the water at the bottom of the pit; a crocodile lives there.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Pinkie.  “Crocodiles live in saltwater.  Gummy is an alligator.”

“I still don’t know how it survives,” Maud muttered.

“I asked Marble to feed him while I was gone.”

Both of them looked sharply at her.  “What?” Pinkie said.  “It’s not like she had to do much.  A lot of wild animals find themselves lost in the quarry.”

They came to a pile of loose rock that had been blasted from the walls.  A large loader was working the pile, scraping up bucketfulls.  Pinkie saw her father driving it and waved with her free hand.  He seemed surprised.

Limestone stopped the truck and their father began to load it.  Huge, jagged boulders made a sound louder than thunder as they tumbled into the truck’s bed.

With a full load, the truck started back up the hill.  At the crusher, Limestone backed in and pulled the hydraulic lever to raise the bed.  Maud and Pinkie got off with the load.

Most of the rocks had gone into the loading area.  Maud walked over to a small booth with all manner of controls inside, Pinkie tagging along.  Limestone drove off for another load.

Off the truck, it was quieter.  Maud grabbed a grease gun and headed for the crusher.  She connected the hose to the first zerk and started pumping.

After a moment, she said, “It’s strange how I only realized I missed you when you came back.”

Pinkie looked at her, confused.

“I knew I had another sister, but I never really thought about it.  Nobody talked about you.  But when you came back...I remembered everything.  I overreacted.  It was too much at once.  I’m sorry for what I said.”

“I’m sorry,” said Pinkie.  She wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for, but now felt that she might have something.  If she had been forgotten...that had to be at least partially her fault.

She wrapped her arms around Maud from behind and rested her chin on Maud’s shoulder.  Maud stopped pumping the grease.  After a moment, she leaned her head sideways to rest against Pinkie’s.

“I’m not going to do that to you again,” said Pinkie.  She added, “I want to make it up to you.”

After a moment, Maud said, “You can start by fixing the coffee.”

Pinkie laughed and disengaged the hug.  “No problem.”  She said goodbye to Maud and walked back up to the office, where she threw the coffee out and made a new pot.  Borrowing a sticky note and a pen from her mother, she wrote out simple directions.  Hopefully Limestone would follow them.

She drove away from the quarry, pondering on what she would do next.  Maud had seemed to take back what she had said the first night, but that didn’t mean Pinkie wasn’t still thinking about it.  Maybe...some kind of benefit event?  The rock walls might make for nice acoustics.

Pulling into the truckstop parking lot, Pinkie frowned at the sight of a fire truck in the back parking lot.  Her eyes widened when she realized whose trailer it was parked near.

There wasn’t much smoke, but that was still a lot more than she wanted to see.  Pinkie jumped out of her truck, hurrying into the crowd of people standing around.

The firefighters didn’t seem too concerned, so apparently the fire was out.  A small crowd of police were behind them.  A man in a trucker hat was telling a cop, “I seen a car pull up and throw something out.  There was a big fireball.”

A couple of other truckers stood around, some of them with empty fire extinguishers lying on the ground beside them.

Most of the side of the trailer was scorched, with powered extinguisher mix and water everywhere.  One of the firefighters commented, “Good thing it didn’t catch the tires, or there would have been nothing left.”

Forget about the trailer.  It could have burned to the ground and it would have meant the same to Pinkie - the important thing was, they had found her.

She turned away, shoulders hunched.  She hurried back to the truck and fished in the center console, finding a business card.  She dialed the number.

“Hello, this is detective Whet Stone.”

“Hi, this is Pinkie Pie.  I, uh, have a problem.”

“Oh!” he said.  “I wasn’t expecting you to call, but I’m glad you did.  Are you the owner of a trailer with Florida license plates?”

He’d apparently found out before she had.  Surprised, Pinkie asked, “How did you know?”

“I’m looking at it right now.”

Pinkie turned around and walked back towards the crowd.  She saw Whet Stone with his phone to his ear.  “How does it look?” she asked.

“Well...salvageable, probably.”

“I hope so.”  Pinkie stepped up beside him.

He glanced at her, and then did a double-take.  He put the phone down.  “I’m glad you’re here.  I’m going to need to ask you a few questions.”
> Sunday Freestyle is Better Than Thursday Night Snakes
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Who could have done this?”

Pinkie thought about Whet Stone’s question as she made coffee in her small living area.  They’d opened the trailer to check that the insides were okay.  While she was at it, politeness dictated that the least she could do for the emergency personnel and truckers standing around was offer them a hot beverage.  She was going to have to do something nice for the truckers who’d been first on the scene with their personal fire extinguishers.

“Do you have any enemies?” Whet Stone asked.  He held his notepad and pen up expectantly as if he thought she might dictate the exact details of the culprit to him.

To be fair, Pinkie had a pretty good idea.

Whet Stone read his notes.  “An eyewitness said a black BMW pulled up and someone threw a bottle from the back seat onto the side of your trailer.  It was apparently some kind of firebomb.  We can test what accelerant was inside.”

He tilted his head and looked her in the eye, in a pose he probably thought was dramatic.  “They said the car had Florida license plates.”

“Huh, so do I.”

He seemed disappointed, as if she had made a rather less interesting connection than he hoped.  “Do you think it’s someone you know?”

Pinkie still hadn’t come up with a good answer.  Not that she was the bad guy here, but it could be said that there were certain reasons Chinese gangsters were out for her blood.  Anything she told Detective Stone might invite further, uncomfortable questions.

This was also bigger than her.  Since learning what her family had been up to since she’d left, Pinkie had other people to think about besides herself.

So she poured coffee into her pink, personal mug, leaned back against the interior wall of the trailer, and answered Whet Stone’s question with another question.  “How much bullshit are you willing to tolerate, detective?” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“This is not a simple story.  Imagine that the world was a stage and all the men and women were merely players.  They each have their exits and entrances, and each plays many parts.”

“So I’m imagining Shakespeare.”

“You wish this was as simple as Shakespeare.”

Whet Stone still hadn’t learned anything he could write in his notebook.  He lowered it.  “What’s going on?”

Pinkie took a sip of her coffee.  “The Kirin are after me.”

Whet Stone’s eyes widened and he asked incredulously, “Chinese organized crime?”

“Yep.”

“Why?”

“If they catch me, I’ll ask them.”

“That-”  He shook his head.  “I don’t buy it.  You have to know something.  Did they threaten you?  Do they have some dirt on you?”

Whet Stone might have been a sharper knife than he looked.  Pinkie finished her coffee and started to turn away, but he caught her arm.  Just as quickly, he released her, but said, “Miss Pie, I know this is a smaller town than you’re used to, but the Dashville Police Department can help you.”

“I’ve been doing pretty well on my own,” said Pinkie.  “You see, detective, I have this theory that I actually experience reality differently than most people.  I’m not good at consciously altering people’s perceptions of me, but I’ve noticed that I generally get exactly as much attention as I want.  I’m a great entertainer because people look at me.  But when I’m out of sight, I’m out of mind.  You know, most people have a natural tendency to just not see anything they don’t want to, didn’t expect, or can’t explain.  They ignore things they think are problems someone else should handle.  I don’t know why, but I think I have the ability to amplify that and basically become invisible if I want to.  I’m somebody else’s problem.”

“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was written before either of us were born, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t read it,” Whet Stone deadpanned.  Pinkie wondered if he’d looked up her Wikipedia page to find out when she was born.

“Then let me ask you a question, mister detective.  Where did my coffee cup go in the last thirty seconds?”

Whet Stone blinked, and his eyes darted around the inside of the trailer.  Pinkie spread her hands, which were empty.  She turned them over, showing him both sides.  “Nothing up my sleeves.”  They were still rolled up above her elbows from her morning at the quarry.

He shook his head.  “Regardless of what you think about your personal safety, your slight of hand or supposed ability to go unnoticed isn’t the argument.  We’re trying to solve a crime and arrest people who might be guilty of other crimes, too.  This is bigger than you.”

He...did have a point there.  Pinkie frowned.  She didn’t necessarily know what else these gangsters had done or who they had hurt, but did that mean she could turn a blind eye?  Or was she only concerned with helping her own family?

Pinkie took a sip from her refilled mug, which seemed to startle Whet Stone.  “Okay.  I admit, I might have gotten a little dismissive there.  And, to preempt the obvious question, if I’m so good, I don’t know how they found me.”  She paused.  “Wait a second…”

She facepalmed violently.  “The selfies!  Instagram, you’ve betrayed me again!”

“What are you talking about?”

Pinkie briefly explained about the college party.  She didn’t mention that her sisters had been there, or what she’d seen Limestone doing.

Whet Stone listened, frowning, through the story.  “What are you going to do now that the Kirin know you’re in Dashville?  You can’t stay in your trailer.”

Pinkie almost said that she would go to a hotel.  But if they’d found her bright pink trailer, they could find her bright pink truck.  She almost asked if Whet Stone would give her a place to stay, because she was sure he would want to help her out, but didn’t think he could white knight his way past a conflict of interest in the case.

So she said, “I’ll stay with my family.”

“Your parents own the quarry north of town?” said Whet Stone.  “That them?”

“Right,” said Pinkie.  She shouldn’t have introduced herself to him the other day.  He’d obviously been doing some research since then.

He nodded.  “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?  Maybe you’ll remember something helpful if you have some time to calm down and think.”

“Tomorrow’s Sunday.  Church.”

“Alright, Monday.  In the meantime, if you’re in trouble, call 911.  But if you want to talk, you have my card.”

He cast a glance at the pink mug in her hand and then stepped out of the trailer.

Pinkie stood there for a while longer, finishing her second cup of coffee.  The event in Miami had started out just like any other.  At the time, she didn’t know who had organized it.  She’d wandered into a room where she wasn’t welcome.  She’d seen a few things she shouldn’t have.  She’d never been able to resist shiny red buttons.

Boom - she was on the run from an international crime syndicate.

Pinkie washed her cup and the coffee maker, turned off the generator, and locked the door.  She walked away from the trailer.  In the distance, a black BMW pulled away from the side of the truckstop building and out onto the highway.

Pinkie got into her truck and made a phone call.

“Silversmith Custom Motors.”  It sounded like Flash Sentry answering the phone.

“Hi, I came by the other day.  Pink truck.”

“Oh yeah.”

“I find myself not needing it at the moment.  Can I leave it with you and you can get to it when you get to it?”

“I guess we could do that.”

“If you have the space, I hope you could keep it indoors.”

He paused.  “Well...that’ll cost a little extra.”

Pinkie agreed to that and headed for the shop.  As she drove, after much deliberation and a couple of false starts, she pushed the phone button on the steering wheel.  “Call Limestone.”

The voice recognition actually worked for once and dialed the number.  Pinkie paused, thumb hovering over the hangup button.

The ringing suddenly ended.  “Who is this?”

“Uh...hi, Limestone.”

“Why are you calling me?”

Good question.  Pinkie swallowed.  “I’m in trouble.”

There was a moment of silence on the line.  Limestone said, “Where are you?”

Pinkie let out the breath she had been holding, hoping the microphone didn’t pick it up.

Limestone didn’t say much, just listened as Pinkie talked.  That was encouraging in itself.  Limestone ended the call with a simple, “I’ll be there.”

At the shop, Pinkie handed her keys to Flash Sentry.  She might have caught him at a bad time; most of the shop doors were already closed and he gave the impression he was doing her a favor by staying late.  He was dressed in leather and a low, chrome motorcycle was parked with its front tire aimed out of the parking lot.

Still, he paused long enough to ask, “Do you have a ride out of here?”

“Yes,” Pinkie said.  “My sister’s coming.”

Limestone turned into the parking lot just then.  Flash stared at her, and then looked back at Pinkie.  “Wait, Pie?  You’re related?”  He shook his head and got on the motorcycle.

“You said something about a fire,” Limestone said as Pinkie got in the car.

“Yeah, um…someone tried to burn my trailer.  Almost did, too.”

“How did that happen?”

“Long story, but...it’s kind of related to the crystal molly.”

Limestone looked at her, surprised, but just as quickly turned back to the road to pretend she wasn’t.  Pinkie didn’t expect a response from her, nor desired one.  She kept talking.  “A couple of days ago, I pissed off the Kirin, the big Chinese gang.  You may or may not know that they import a lot of precursor chemicals.”

If Whet Stone had been doing research, so had Pinkie.  She’d known next to nothing about them, but finding out about their involvement with crystal molly had been easy enough.

Limestone glanced at Pinkie again, concerned but wary.  “Only you, Pinkie.  Only you could do that.”

“I don’t know if they would kill me if they found me, but whatever they did would still be unpleasant.”

“And they followed you here.”

Pinkie stared at her lap.  “I’m sorry for bringing this to Dashville.  I should leave again.”

“No you fucking don’t.”  Limestone grabbed Pinkie’s shoulder.  “Not again.”

“I don’t want to bring you any trouble.”

“Pinkie, you aren’t trouble.”

“I’d feel better about that if you hadn’t punched me the first time you saw me in ten years.”

Limestone opened her mouth, fumbled, and then blurted, “Look, I’m sorry, okay?  You know I have control issues.”

“You feel helpless to control your own life and your impulsiveness, so you feel compelled to exert dominance over others?”  Pinkie paused, but while she was laying out how she felt, she might as well add, “And also drugs?”

Limestone struggled for several seconds, growing visibly redder in the face, before glancing out the window and suddenly jerking the car into a parking lot.  “Mom wanted me to get groceries while I was out.”

Pinkie acknowledged the change in subject but didn’t call her on it.  She looked through the windshield to the grocery store sign.  “Neat, I was hoping they might have gotten a Piggly Wiggly in town since I left.”

“Before this place opened, it used to be Food City or nothing,” Limestone replied.  “They still sponsor the NASCAR races over in Bristol.”

“I once hosted a private party during the race at Homestead,” Pinkie said.  “Jeff Goaton crashed it.”

“You met him?” Limestone asked, before quickly turning her head away and adding, “Whatever.”

The two of them got out of the car and walked through the grocery store’s automatic front doors.  Limestone said, “You get the milk and eggs: 2%, and large.  I’ll get the bread and meat.”  The two of them parted ways.

The nice thing about big-box stores was standardization.  It wasn’t too difficult to find the coolers, even if Pinkie wasn’t familiar with this particular store.  She compared prices, checked for broken eggs, and headed back towards the cash registers.

A woman in a black suit was standing in the aisle behind the registers.  She had attentive eyes and a lot of ginger hair which almost concealed the cigarette tucked behind her ear.  A gold chain around her neck disappeared under her shirt.  It matched a couple of rings on her fingers.  Her shoes were polished and appeared to be made of alligator or some other kind of scaly leather.

Pinkie thought it was a little strange that she didn’t seem to be looking for anything, like most people in grocery stores were.  Probably because she was looking for Pinkie.  As soon as their eyes met, she smiled and started forward.  “Ponk PK, I presume?”

“Hi, yeah,” said Pinkie, trying to shuffle the milk and eggs around her hands enough to get one or the other free.

The woman didn’t go for a handshake, though.  She put her hands on her hips and looked Pinkie up and down.  “You know, finally meeting you - I’ve been thinking about it for a while - and it’s just...wow.  Here you are.  Your website says you’re ‘the premier party person.’”  Her head tilted, still smiling.  “Has anyone ever told you that your greatness is just an accident arising from the inferiority of others?”

“...no?” Pinkie replied, caught off guard.

Limestone pushed past just then, bumping the woman with her shoulder.  “Quit talking to my sister.”  She grabbed Pinkie by the elbow and pulled her along, behind the line of checkout counters.

“That was weird,” said Pinkie, brows wrinkling as they walked away.

“What, random people walking up to you in the grocery store because you’re famous?”

“Ironically, no; happens all the time.”  Pinkie shrugged.

The two of them went home.  Well, to the Pie Family house.  It was technically home, Pinkie supposed.  Her home.  She’d been on the road for the last ten years and a trailer was a place to sleep but not really a place to settle.  So the house up in the hills above Dashville was home.  In name, at least.  Even if she hadn’t been there.  Even if it didn’t feel like it.

Even sleeping in a bunk bed with Marble felt impersonal.  It was exactly where Pinkie had slept every night before departing for California.  That was more than half her life so far.  Yet lying awake Saturday night and listening to Marble’s soft breathing from the mattress below, Pinkie definitely felt the separation in the years.

Pinkie recognized that she’d been the one to change while she was gone, not her family.  Coming back and suddenly popping into their lives as if a completely different person...well, Limestone still had no right to punch her, but Pinkie had almost appeared as a stranger.  There was also the lingering guilt about whether Pinkie’s unconscious command of attention had played a part.  Her absence had been enough without throwing that into the mix.  Don’t look at me...Don’t look at me...Okay, I’m back, look at me!

Pinkie was still restless on Sunday morning, but too busy to dwell much on it.  Everyone in the house was up and around, getting dressed.  Sunday church was a little different than mid-week.  It was more formal, for one.  Pinkie had to borrow a skirt from Marble.

After a quick breakfast, they set out as a family.  Seated in the back seat of her parents’ car on the way to church, Pinkie whispered to Marble, “Do we still do the yodeling?”

Marble gave her a curious look.  Pinkie mimed noise coming out of her mouth.

“Oh!  Mm-hmm,” Marble replied, smiling.

If Thursday night was about showing one’s devotion through not getting bitten by snakes through the safety of faith, then Sunday was about joyful noise.

Of course, there was also brimstone to be had, beginning with a heated sermon.  The leader stood before them and spat fire for an unbroken half hour.  Damning of evil, guidance on the way, political commentary.  Pinkie did her best to pay attention, without thinking too hard about the words.  Everyone around her seemed to be into it, though, and audience participation was encouraged.  Occasionally someone from a pew would hoot encouragement, pound a fist, or do something else to add more energy into the room.

All of that charged up the congregation to raise their voices together.  Now this, Pinkie could do.  Sing whatever came to mind.  A capella, meandering free-range hymns, maybe a rebel yell, any sound that felt right.

Pinkie and her sisters had once gotten in trouble for planning and practicing together with smuggled phrasebooks in Romanian and Malaysian, in four part harmony.

Their father, as he’d paddled them, explained the true meaning.  “Dagnabit, girls, it's supposed to be our inner harmonics modulated by the eternal wave!  It just comes to you!  You can't cheat and just teach yourself foreign as a crutch!”

Pinkie had picked up some Spanish from a couple of years basing her operation out of Miami.  Amid the din of the congregation, she probably could have gotten away with Cuban rap, but after the weekend she’d had so far, didn’t feel like putting the energy into being subversive.

At least Sunday Freestyle didn’t leave her as drained as Thursday Night Snakes.

Back home afterwards, the family prepared for lunch, changing into casual clothes.  Pinkie stuck her head into the kitchen to see if her mother needed any help with the roast, but she’d gotten so used to not having Pinkie around, that she didn’t even seem to miss the extra hands.

That hit her harder than it should have.  So much so that Pinkie switched back to thinking about her other problem, that of the revenge from the south.  Or was it technically east since China, even though the shortest flight to get there would go west.  Well, at least it wasn’t the north.  The Yankees mostly behaved themselves these days.

They’d better, or Pinkie wasn’t going to come back to their stadium in New York.

The police were working on the case, since Pinkie had told them about the Kirin.  Still, she would have felt a little better about a larger police force or even the FBI, DEA, or some other alphabet soup agency.

Darn it, she was back to thinking about food.  Pinkie shook her head and returned to the other topic.  Even if the police were on the case, what should she do?

She knew what her father would say.  Probably her granny and Limestone, too.  And at the moment, personal protection did sound like a good idea.

Pinkie was no stranger to weapons, of course.  She knew exactly where the guns were kept around the house.  Granny’s war trophy Walther was usually in her purse.  Her father used the bedroom closet to store his armory.  Though Pinkie didn’t know what her sisters might have acquired since she left, she knew them well enough to know where to look.

She hadn’t ever owned a gun of her own.  She did have dozens of tazers in the trailer, which were a less extreme option for party circumstances, not to mention how popular tazer-parties were in Florida.

After considering her options, Pinkie decided to at least have the conversation.  “Hey dad, can I borrow a gun?”

Igneous Pie was not a man to get outwardly excited.  Still, there was a noticeable spring in his step as he showed her to the collection.

It was no gallery, but Pinkie did find it remarkable what could fit and be neatly displayed in the space of half a closet.  The other half was taken up by her mother’s Sunday best.

“You thinking about the varmints who burned your trailer?” he said.

“That’s right.”

He put a revolver in her hand.  The barrel was shorter than her index finger and had .44 Magnum stamped into it.

“Thanks Dad, but I like my wrists unsprained.  It wouldn't make my day at all.”

He scratched his head.  “Well, I don’t have anything smaller.”

“Do you have something smaller caliber?”

“Uh…”  He checked.  After rooting around a little, he found an old semiautomatic.  “Forty-five, but still kicks less.  Got a holster, too.”

“Thanks.”  Pinkie tried it on.  Two pounds of iron on her hip.

“You got one of them Florida permits that’s good in thirty-some states?”

Pinkie didn’t.  Also, there was a good chance that she would be up close and personal with a police officer the next day.  “I’ll figure it out.”

“Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six.”  He patted her shoulder, but his hand slowed to a stop.  “But...take care of yourself.  I just want you to be okay.”

That, they could agree on.
> Hot Wings Not Worth It
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

At eight a.m. on Monday morning, Pinkie’s phone rang.  She buried her head under the pillow, suddenly regretting her choice of ringtone.  

Everybody just have a good time 
And we gon' make you lose your mind 
We just wanna see you-
Shake that!
...followed by a cacophony of electronic noises.

She found the phone and muttered “Hello?” into it.

It was Detective Whet Stone.  “Ms. Pie, if you’re available, I’d like to ask you a few more questions.”

Pinkie sat up in bed, blinking at the sun coming through the window and pushing some hair out of her face.  “I’m not really able to travel right now.”

“That’s no problem.  I’m on my way there.”

That woke Pinkie up.  “Um…”

She slipped out of bed, glanced at Marble’s unoccupied mattress, and then poked her head into the empty bedroom next door.  “Okay.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Pinkie wasn’t sure what she would have done if her family, specifically Limestone, were home.  She could have told Whet Stone not to come, but he was clearly already on the way.

What she did know was that ten minutes was barely going to be enough time to get ready.

The grey Crown Vic pulled into the driveway twelve minutes later.  Pinkie sat on the front porch in the first clothes she’d grabbed from the bedroom - Marble wouldn’t mind - which were black jeans and a grey sweatshirt.  She’d left the borrowed gun on the bed.

Whet Stone said hello as she got in the car.  He hadn’t asked her to, but there was no way Pinkie was going to invite him into the house.  Her grandparents might not make the best impression.  There was also the simple paranoia about what he might see or leave behind.  Better to just make him drive somewhere else.

“How about we go to the station?” he proposed.

“Do you have coffee there?”

He laughed.  Pinkie didn’t.

They made small talk on the way.  The Salt Seasonings Festival was this week, held in Metternich Park, and Whet Stone seemed happy to be missing it.  It was not exactly a high-key event, and any security detail would just be standing around for hours.  The festival was a fond memory for Pinkie, and she made a mental note to go.  No hurry, it was all week.

They arrived in Courthouse Square, the most modern part of Old Town, which only meant that it was halfway there.  No one had ever accused the government of having taste, and the police station was a modernist mess of concrete, aluminum, and glass in the middle of several more traditional buildings, including a stone courthouse. 

Whet Stone led Pinkie through the spacious lobby and past the front desk.  He swiped an ID badge on an electronic panel to gain access to the back rooms.

The hallways were much the same as the rest of the building, though swapping the glass with eggshell-colored drywall.  Whet Stone stopped by a kitchenette to get Pinkie some coffee.

A man short of stature and thin of hair passed by, noticing Whet Stone and turning into the room.  His suit looked like it cost at least three times what Whet Stone’s did, though that may have been just because it was pressed.  

“I brought her,” said Whet Stone, gesturing with his own coffee cup to Pinkie.  He then gestured to the other man.  “This is Detective Soft Eyes.”

The newcomer extended a hand.  “Hey hon, I hear you’re an entertainer.”

Pinkie shook with her hand that wasn’t holding a disposable coffee cup.  “I consider myself more of a facilitator to bring entertainment to people.”

Soft Eyes glanced down at the business card Pinkie had palmed to him during the shake.  “Well, you’ve certainly brought enough entertainment to this town.  Your truck looks like Liberace started ranching.”

Pinkie wondered briefly how he knew what it looked like, but he was a cop, he could easily pull the registration.  She put a hand to her cheek, eyes and mouth wide.  “I take offense to that, sir!  It’s barely bedazzled at all!”

The corners of Soft Eyes’ mouth turned up briefly, but he went on.  “You did do some de-bedazzling recently, if your tags on Instagram are anything to go by.”

“What do you know about Instagram?” Whet Stone asked.

“You’d be surprised at the kind of things you can find there,” Soft Eyes replied, though his gaze hadn’t left Pinkie.  “Or not find.  You stopped posting your locations a few days ago.  As near as I can tell, you’ve never done a show in your hometown, either.”

There was an obvious question the conversation was leading up to, so Pinkie attempted to redirect it.  “Well, I haven’t been home in a while.”  She hesitated, then added, “You know my sister, Limestone.”

“I do,” he confirmed.  “I’ve seen plenty of her work, and I’d like to have a conversation with her sometime.  I get the feeling, though, she doesn’t  have as interesting of a story as you do.”

“I mean...” Pinkie put out her left hand “-Dashville barfights versus-” she put out her right hand “-globe trotting party planning entertainment shenanigans.  Limestone may only be a one trick pony, but she’s got it down to a science.  From what I hear.”

“What you hear?  No firsthand experience?”

“I’ve been gone.”

“How did you get that bruise on your cheekbone?”

Pinkie blinked, about as blindsided by the question as she had been by the punch.  The bruise was almost healed.  In her rush that morning, Pinkie had neglected to cover it with a dab of makeup.  After a second of hesitation, she went with, “What bruise?”

“Maybe it’s nothing.”  Soft Eyes held her gaze for a moment longer and then tipped his head towards Whet Stone.  He turned to leave the kitchenette.  “I’d love to talk to you again some time, Ms. Pie.”

He disappeared down the hall.  Pinkie looked at Whet Stone.  He seemed contemplative, as if the conversation had just given him a lot to think about.  Trying to keep him off balance, she said, “Your boss is gay Columbo?  That’s awesome!”

“How do you know he’s my boss?” Whet Stone asked.

“It’s not like you’re his.”

Apparently that was so true that Whet Stone didn’t even try to protest.  He just gestured Pinkie to follow him and they went down the hall to an interrogation room.

Over the next hour, they worked out a chronology of the firebombing from Pinkie’s point of view.  Whet Stone asked her a few questions he had asked before and Pinkie gave him the same answers as before.  Nothing much caught her off guard.

Still, while Whet Stone may not have been the detective his boss was, it seemed clear that he thought Pinkie was holding out.  To be fair, she was, but also didn’t think she knew anything that would help the police catch the actual people who had come after her.  They were probably Kirin or affiliates.  Outside of that, she didn’t know anything about them.

“The security cameras from the truck stop confirm the witnesses’ stories about a black BMW,” he said, finally ending the questioning and deciding to share a few answers of his own.  “Two of them, in fact.”

“Does that imply anything?” Pinkie asked.

“It makes me think they followed you up from Florida; not locals.  Two cars might mean at least four people.”

Well, they were a gang.  Still, hearing about numbers made Pinkie feel outnumbered.  Being alone and unafraid was all fine and dandy until you did have something to be afraid about.

Well...she wasn’t alone, at least.  As much as Pinkie had fought against coming home, she did at least feel safe here.  Or at least, safer than anywhere else.

Whet Stone didn’t have much left to ask or to say.  He seemed to realize this and got up from the table.  “I think that’s it.  I can drive you back.”

“Lunch first?” Pinkie suggested.

Whet Stone checked his watch.  “It’s a little early, but sure.  Where did you want to go?”

“Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve visited a good old fashioned Waffle House, but we can get those anywhere in the south.”  Pinkie put a finger to her chin.  “But you know what chain I really miss?  Shoney’s.  I can’t even remember the last time I went.”

“We have one in town, but I don’t think I’ve ever gone.”  Whet Stone looked thoughtful.

“It’s really more of a state of mind,” Pinkie agreed.

The two of them got back in Whet Stone’s detective car.  Whet Stone seemed to unlock a little from the stoic cop demeanor he’d maintained during the interview.  It was a look Pinkie had seen before from fans who she’d ended up working with in a professional capacity.  Business and pleasure couldn’t be mixed, but they could exist side by side.

Whet Stone said, “So once this is behind you, where do you think you’ll do your next show?”

“I’m not sure,” Pinkie replied.  “I’m not usually in this part of the country, so there could be some new opportunities.  Maybe a fair.  Maybe the next NASCAR race at Bristol.”

“You could hang around and be a celebrity police consultant,” Whet Stone joked.

“I guess if I’m hanging around anyway,” Pinkie said.

He paused and glanced at her in surprise.  “Really?  I mean…”  He considered it for a moment, and said, “If you’re serious, yeah, maybe we can set something up.”

Pinkie had also been joking, but, well, it would get her out of the house and keep her away from the quarry.  She might also be able to use the position to protect herself and her family from the police getting too close.

At the restaurant, Pinkie went with the buffet and was two plates in before Whet Stone received the hamburger he had ordered.  She was up to plate four before he finished.

“I’m just going to go get dessert now,” she said, standing up.

When she came back to the table, the checks were sitting there.  Pinkie started to reach for both, but Whet Stone pulled them to his side of the table.  “You paying for my meal would be a conflict of interest.”

“Wouldn’t it also be one if you paid for mine?”

“Maybe.”  He pushed her ticket back across the table.

“At any rate, I wouldn’t want you to start paying my food bill on a regular basis anyway.”  Pinkie was already nearly finished with her dessert.  “I’ve got a little bit of a metabolism imbalance.  The doctor actually recommended a minimum calorie intake for me.  The last couple of days were kind of hectic, so I’m just catching up now.”

“Must be nice to eat whatever you want,” Whet Stone observed.

“Well, not if I have to take extra time out of my busy schedule just to eat.  Plus, all that extra energy has to go somewhere.  I might be exposing myself to heart conditions down the line from constantly being amped up.”  Pinkie shrugged, and went on in a quieter voice.  “On the other hand, it might be powering my somebody-else’s-problem forcefield.”

Whet Stone looked as skeptical as he had the first time she’d brought it up, but said, “Like how Superman could vibrate his body so that his face would be blurry in photographs?”

Pinkie stopped suddenly, forkful of chocolate cake halfway to her mouth.  “That...might explain a lot, actually.  As a public personality, I’m usually in look at me mode, but I wonder if I’m actually saving energy when I flip the switch the other way.”

“The SEP/LAM switch.”

“Well, not a literal switch.  I’m pretty sure I’m not a robot.  At least, I haven’t found my father’s secret mechanical-mastermind’s lair.  Or my mother’s, for that matter.”

She decided not to bring up her granny or großvater.

They both paid their checks and got back in the car.  Pinkie quickly set up a group text to her sisters, letting them know Whet Stone would be bringing her back to the house.  Really, the warning only applied to Limestone, but the others could help.

Sure enough, the house was empty save for Pinkie’s grandparents when they arrived.  Pinkie said goodbye to Whet Stone in the driveway, still not inviting him in.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said.  “Once I get cleared for the consulting.”

He seemed enthusiastic, possibly to a reckless extent.  Pinkie didn’t usually manipulate her fans, but it was good to know she could if she had to. 

Pinkie went into the house and caught up with her grandparents for a while.  This was the first time she’d had them to herself since coming home.

Later that afternoon, when her sisters and parents had begun to arrive home from work, Pinkie was looking forward to dinner.  She was thinking about making it herself, just to do something nice.  If her mother would let her, anyway.  She was very possessive of the kitchen.

However, Limestone pitched a different plan.  “Come with us to Monday night football.”

“You play football?” Pinkie said.

Limestone sneered.  “Nobody to play against.  No, we’re going to a bar to watch it on TV.”

“The Salt Seasonings Festival is going on this week.  We could go, just like old times.  Would you rather go to that?” Pinkie proposed.

“It’s all week,” Limestone pointed out.

“Okay,” said Pinkie.  “Monday night football, then.  Sounds fun.”

Her sisters changed clothes, mostly button-up shirts and jeans.  Limestone’s were ripped, possibly intentionally.

However, Marble also getting ready to go with them surprised Pinkie.  “You’re coming?”

Limestone hooked a thumb at Marble.  “She wants to be DD.”

Marble nodded.

“She also uses our girls’ nights as an excuse to check out cute guys,” said Maud.

Marble flushed, but nodded again.

“She’s not the only one,” added Limestone.

“You can check them out without fighting,” said Maud.

“No one said you had to help me fight,” Limestone sniped back.

“I wish I didn’t have to.”

“Girls, let’s just get going,” Pinkie interjected.  “I can’t wait to get some shitty bar food and watch football.”

The four of them drove into town in Limestone’s car.  There was a strip mall wedged between the main part of College Heights and the interstate that served highway travelers and college students who wanted to get away from campus.  There was a Hooters there.

It was about the last place Pinkie expected Limestone to pick, and Pinkie didn’t believe it was her usual haunt, either.  She briefly wondered if Limestone was trying to make special considerations for her, going to a place with a recognizable name.  That was touching, but it was also probably better in all respects than going to some Dashville-quality dingey hole in the wall.  This place didn’t even smell like vomit and cigarettes.

On the other hand, it was Hooters.

The place was built with groups in mind, but wasn’t very crowded.  There were a couple of bros at the bar, and a handful of people scattered around.  Maybe half seemed to be there for the game.  Limestone, though she had likely picked this place for Pinkie’s benefit, seemed to be disappointed in the turnout.

Pinkie had been holding her tongue but now could no longer help it.  “So you said you were looking for guys.  Does the strip club not show football?”

Limestone’s hand moved like she was going to punch Pinkie in the shoulder, but she stopped.  “For your information, a restaurant focused on men is the best place to find them.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, it’s statistics.  Marble did the math.”

“Mh-hmm!”

The Pie sisters took a table made for six in a good position relative to the TV screens.  The game was just about to start, though considering it was Lions versus Browns, Pinkie wasn’t expecting very much.

The waitress came over to take their order.  “Hi, I’m Blonde Faith.”  She seemed a little tired, perhaps working a shift after a long day of college classes, but was apparently non gender-discriminatory and did the whole spiel with shoulder touches and reaching across the table in front of them.

Maud and Limestone both ordered chicken wings.  Maud asked for the hottest sauce.  Limestone shot her a look, and then ordered the garlic sauce.  Maud also ordered a German beer with a five-syllable name.  Limestone had Bud Light - two of them to start.  Marble had a salad.

“I’d like a fried chicken,” said Pinkie.

“How many pieces?”

“A fried chicken,” Pinkie repeated.  “Some white toast too, if you have it.”  She smiled.

The waitress paused, looking up from her pad.  “Wait...aren’t you Ponk PK?  I saw on Instagram that you were in town!”

“I get around,” Pinkie replied, noncommittally.

The waitress seemed happily flustered, and walked away to put the order in.  She would probably be back for an autograph later.  Pinkie turned her attention back to the TVs, where the kickoff was happening.

Their food came in a few minutes, Pinkie’s chicken lagging slightly, which was good because it took up more than her share of space on the table.

The meager crowd around them had changed slightly.  By the end of the televised game’s first quarter, it seemed like those who would be staying for the whole thing were in place.  Maud was beginning her second beer.  Limestone was eyeing the bottom of her fourth. 

Just then, the lights went out.  A couple mutters of surprise went around the room, individual volume depending on the level of commitment to the game.

The door opened and someone came in, silhouetted against the setting sun.  Pinkie glanced away, but a moment later realized that whoever it was had approached their table.

“Sorry, we’re having some technical difficulties right now,” said Blonde Faith, intercepting them.

“It’s fine.”

Pinkie looked up.  It was the ginger-haired woman from the grocery store.  She was wearing a cream-colored blouse today and green corduroy trousers.  She may have been trying for hipster, but she wasn’t doing a good job of it.  Her clothes looked brand new and uncomfortable.  Still, she wore a smile.

She finished brushing off the waitress and turned to Pinkie.  “We meet again.”

“Hello,” said Pinkie, eyes looking at the woman, but keeping her head turned towards the TV, hoping it would come back on.

“I’m Autumn Blaze,” said the newcomer, pulling out one of the extra chairs at the table and sitting down uninvited.  “And you, Ms. Pie, have not been easy to find.”

“What-” Limestone started, but Maud bumped her leg.  That didn’t change the consternation on Limestone’s face, but she didn’t make a loud scene.

“I have to hand it to you,” Autumn said.  “I didn’t think it was going to be a challenge.”

“Thanks?” Pinkie said, unsure what she was talking about.  Attempting to add some levity, she added, “People tell me I’m challenged all the time.”

“I didn’t think I was chasing a ghost into this backwater town.  You don’t leave a trail; I had to keep connecting the dots.  Fortunately, whenever you do pop up, it’s usually well documented.”

Everything fell into place just then.  Not only that, but Pinkie realized the waitress had probably posted about her as soon as she’d walked away from the table, unknowingly tipping the Kirin.

But Autumn Blaze was just one person.  Where were the rest?  In her peripheral vision, Pinkie could see three people hanging out in front of the restaurant’s windows, silhouetted against the evening sky.

All three of Pinkie’s sisters seemed to catch her sudden realization.  Still, Pinkie was nothing if not cool in the spotlight.  She forced herself to smile back and said, “Well, it’s not much of a hometown, but it’s all I’ve got.”

“It hasn’t been all bad,” Autumn said.  “I’ve had some time to think.  I don’t like work - nobody does - but I like the chance to find myself, my own life, what no one else can ever know.  They can only see me from the outside, not experience what it really means.”

“I...think I know what you’re saying,” Pinkie said, actually surprising herself in the agreement.  “Kind of a shame we weren’t taking the trip together.”

“We’ll go back together,” Autumn said.  “If anything, I’m loyal to the nightmare until I’ve seen it through.”

“Has it been a nightmare?” Pinkie said.  “I mean, sure, I didn’t make it easy on you on purpose, but I kind of think I had a little rougher time of it, being the one chased.”

“Well, that’s a nice fantasy for you.  I can’t delude myself.  You know, I hate lies.  Can’t stand them.”  Autumn paused and lifted a hand.  “I acknowledge that doesn’t mean I’m honest.  It’s because I realized that lies taste like death.  Not the death of killing someone, that’s different.  I mean the difference between life and nothing.”

Autumn paused for a breath.  A monologue was not at all what Pinkie had been expecting, but the longer she talked, the longer Pinkie didn’t have to figure out how to buy more time.

The thought of calling the police went through her mind.  Pinkie hesitated.

Autumn went on.  “Life...it’s a flash of lightning, a struck match.  A moment that we live in.  It’s why I like fire.  It reminds me to burn bright and live.”

“I think I noticed,” Pinkie said.

“Maybe it was a mistake to burn your trailer,” said Autumn.  “We probably should have just waited, watched, and then done it when you were inside.”  She shrugged.  “But feelings get the best of us sometimes.  Maybe I did a little too much soul searching.  The impulsiveness echoed loudly inside me because I was hollow.  Maybe in this shithole town I had too much time on my hands, looked inside, saw there was nothing there, and went mad in the wilderness.”

“You ‘went mad in the wilderness?’  Well, okay, I guess Dashville, Virginia is pretty far from home for you.”

“So I’ll just be taking you back now,” said Autumn, shifting in her chair.  She leaned forward, preparation to stand up, or to move.

Two others had come through the door and now stood behind her, a woman and a man.  Autumn tipped her head side to side, introducing them in turn.  “This is Femme Flambe and Buffalo Brushfire.  They don’t talk much.”

As outwardly friendly as Autumn Blaze was, the other two wore neutral expressions, but their eyes were focused and each seemed tensed to move.

Autumn went on.  “I’m going to recommend you leave enough cash to cover the bill and then come with me.”  

Limestone still hadn’t said a word, but her face was twisted into a snarl.  Autumn looked at her.  “If any of you have any objections to me taking Ms. Pie, I and my alliterative associates here are going to have to insist.”

“You want to take her back to Miami.  Then what?” asked Maud, voice level.

“Well, that depends on her.  If she pays us fifty million, we’ll let her off the hook - for this.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the services of the illustrious Ponk PK were retained in the future.”

Pinkie opened her mouth, but Autumn preempted the question.  “And if you don't have  that kind of cash...well, I’ll probably be told to take it out of your hide.  You know, there’s a market for young women who have been disfigured to the point they can’t run away.  People pay good money for that.  We have to get our reparation somehow.”

“I understand where you’re coming from with the whole ‘me owing your boss big time’ thing, but damn girl,” Pinkie said.  “You aren't much of a saleswoman.”

“Well, I told you I hate lies.”  Autumn’s introspective look from earlier disappeared.  Her smile widened.  “And I have nothing to hide.  I kind of wanted to break a few of your bones anyway to make the trip back easier.”

Limestone’s chair went flying across the floor as she leaped up.  Autumn’s female sidekick was closest and raised her fists.

Pinkie was also moving and dodged around Marble as she got up.  The male Kirin darted forward, but was held up by Maud, who had somehow gotten in front of Pinkie.  His hands were fast and Maud couldn’t catch up.  She managed to deflect the first couple of blows, but couldn’t go on the offensive.

He threw a punch straight at Maud’s face that she was too slow to intercept and his fist slammed into her nose with a crunch.  Maud took the hit and her hand didn’t stop moving, clamping on his wrist, holding him in place.  Her other arm came up, telegraphing for miles as it built power, but she had him held tight and he could only watch it coming, eyes widening in inevitability.

The point of Maud’s elbow hammered him in the temple and followed through, driving him down and straight through the table.  Plates and glasses were tossed in the air and came down to shatter on the floor, based on the sound.  The lights in the room still hadn’t returned.

Limestone had her opponent by the hair and had already put her fingernails to the woman’s face.  She kicked the Kirin in the back of the knee and then shoved her to the floor in the assorted shards of broken table and table setting.  

At the sound of the fight breaking out, the fourth Kirin had came running through the front door.  He passed Pinkie without noticing her and she hit him in the back of the head with a convenient chair.  He dropped and slid across the floor into the mess.

Autumn Blaze still sat in her chair, back stiff and her hands folded in her lap.  For the first time, she had stopped smiling.

“Come on!” Limestone shouted, at the door and waving.  Pinkie pulled out her wallet, grabbed all the cash she had, which was maybe three hundred dollars, and slapped it on a nearby table.  She hustled out of the building.

Marble was already in the driver’s seat of the car with the engine started.  Limestone slid across the hood and jumped in the passenger seat.  Pinkie and Maud got in the back.  Maud’s nose was bleeding heavily, and Pinkie pulled out a handkerchief.

The car started to move.  There was a moment of silence as they pulled out of the parking lot, Marble driving at the speed limit.

“Pinkie, what the fuck!?” Limestone demanded, turning to glare at her.

“Well...I told you they were after me,” Pinkie replied weakly.  She glanced out the back window, but didn’t see any obvious pursuit.  The Hooters was still dark.

“Damnit.”  Limestone shook her head and turned back to face the front as Marble drove them sedately back towards home.  Limestone threw up her hands and shook her head.  “That’s another place we can’t go again!  I think Maud killed a guy.”

“Heh weh steh brethin,” Maud said through the handkerchief.

“What are we going to tell mom and dad?” Pinkie said.

Limestone looked back at her.  “Tell them that we were in a Hooters?  Why are we going to tell them anything?”

Pinkie didn’t reply.  She checked on Maud, and then sat back in her seat.

She wondered what she was going to tell the police.
> Taking a Bite Out of Crime
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The phone rang in the morning.

“Hello?” Pinkie murmured, not raising her face from the pillow.

“They actually approved you to be a consultant!” Whet Stone blurted.

“Wa-really?”  That got Pinkie up.  She had been joking about being a celebrity consultant.  With the position she was in, it wasn’t like she wanted to spend more time with the police.

“I’ll be by in ten minutes to pick you up.”

What was this bullshit with him and early mornings?  Pinkie rushed to get ready.

By the time Whet Stone picked her up, Pinkie was dressed but still uncaffeinated.  She mumbled a hello as she got in the car.

He did a double take, seeing the handgun strapped to her hip.  “Do you have a permit for that?”

“In Virginia, you only need a permit to carry a weapon when it’s concealed.”  Pinkie then herself did a double take, only now realizing her half-asleep autopilot routine had added the gun to her ensemble.

“I have to say, I didn’t expect you to carry a Colt that looks like World War Two surplus,” Whet Stone commented.

Attempting to conceal the fact that she, too, was surprised, Pinkie played it off.  “What did you expect?”

“I don’t know.  A gold-plated Desert Eagle, maybe.” 

“You say ‘gold-plated Desert Eagle,’ I hear ‘party cannon.’”

“Please don’t.”  Whet Stone started the car.  “And take off that fake badge.”

“I’ll have you know I’m a McGruff Junior Detective!”

It was a keepsake, and she was surprised it was still around the house.

Speaking of, “So if I’m a celebrity consultant now, does that mean you’re going to take me to crime scenes and stuff?”

“That’s right.”

“So where are we going now?”

“There was some kind of fight at the Hooters near the interstate.”

Pinkie suddenly regretted asking.

Whet Stone did not seem to notice her sudden change of mood.  Pinkie wondered if that was an effect of her SEP field.  If so, it went a long way towards explaining why nobody ever asked her how she was.  Maybe that was also why she never stopped to think about herself.

She shook her head.  No, this was not the time for introspection.  She had to be on her A-game at the restaurant and maneuver out of any pressing questions that might come her way.

There were already half a dozen police vehicles in the Hooters parking lot when Whet Stone arrived with Pinkie.  She got out of the car, pausing with her hand on the door as she glanced around the parking lot.  She was really only pushing the celebrity detective angle to find out what the police had, but it wouldn’t hurt to at least pretend she was looking for clues.

She followed Whet Stone into Hooters.  He glanced around, seemingly hiding a smile.  His eyes lingered a little more than professionally necessary on the promotional materials around the entrance.  There didn’t seem to be any actual waitresses present.

A shot of panic went through Pinkie.  What if there were?  That girl Blonde Faith would surely recognize her just like she had the first time.

However, there didn’t seem to be any restaurant staff around except an older woman in a polo shirt.  Maybe she was the manager.  Her arms were crossed and she looked annoyed as cops canvassed the dining room.

Gaining confidence again, Pinkie walked forward to join a couple of suits standing in a semicircle around the broken table.  “What do we got?”

She’d stopped next to Soft Eyes and he glanced at her, amused, noting the tarnished gun on her hip and the plastic badge on a string around her neck.  “Well Ms. Pie, there was some kind of dust-up here last night.”

Pinkie looked at the debris, taking in the splintered wooden table and broken plates.  She hadn’t gotten a great look the night before, with the lights off and being in a hurry and all.  Wow, Maud had really gone to town on that one guy.

“Was anyone hurt?” she said.

“We think so.”

“You think so?”

Soft Eyes gestured to the mess.  “From the looks of the blood, there were at least a couple of people fighting.  Responding officers didn’t find anyone, though, and there haven’t been any recent hospital check-ins with obviously connected injuries.”

“Camera footage?”

“It was the darndest thing,” Soft Eyes said.  “The tapes cut off because there was a power outage just then.  We found the main utility feed in the back of the building had been turned off.  Likely, someone that was part of the incident planned it.”

“Witnesses?”

“It was dark, because of the power outage.”

“Hmm.”  Pinkie crossed her arms and tapped a finger on her lips.  “This is going to be a toughie.”

“What do you think happened?” Soft Eyes asked.

“Wellll...the last time I attended a Southeastern Service Marketing Expo, I remember the Hooters representative saying that they were trying to move away from their breastaurant roots and become more of a sports bar.  There are usually football games on Monday nights, so maybe there was a riot when the power cut off in the building.”

Soft Eyes glanced at one of the uniformed cops.  “Gridiron, who was playing last night?”

The man looked up.  “Browns and Lions, sir.”

“Having provided stadium box parties, I can tell you, fans of those teams are diehard.”

“See, this is the kind of expertise she can offer,” said Whet Stone, apparently still riding the afterglow of getting his celebrity consultant request approved.

Soft Eyes gave him a patient smile, and then turned back to Pinkie.  “Or you could just tell me what happened, hon.  You were here last night.”

It felt like Pinkie’s heart stopped, and then restarted at triple speed.  He’d known from the start and had only asked her to see if she was going to come clean.

A hurricane of options ran through her head.  She could tell the truth - but that could get her sisters in trouble.  She could tell a modified version of the story - but that was risky because she didn’t know what police already knew.  She could lawyer up and shut up.

Pinkie was just about to decide, when Whet Stone opened his mouth.  “Wait, she was here?”

“I was going to tell you this morning, but then you offered to bring her here and there wasn’t time.”  Soft Eyes gestured to the scene.

Whet Stone internalized that, and turned to look at Pinkie.

Under both of their stares, Pinkie finally made her choice.  “So the power outage wiped the security cameras, but there’s probably a backup, so you probably saw everything up until then, including me walking in with my sisters.  Not only that, but if you’ve interviewed the staff, someone probably mentioned me by name.”

“I actually just saw where you were from an Instagram post,” said Soft Eyes.

Whet Stone seemed surprised by that, but kept his mouth shut, for once.  Pinkie, meanwhile, was growing increasingly frustrated with social media.  She was a public figure, but maybe getting to be a little too public.  She was going to have to have a talk with the Zucc when she saw him next.

“Who were the people that came in just before the fight?” Soft Eyes asked.

“What makes you think there was a fight?”

Soft Eyes stared at her, and then did an impression of Vanilla Smiles from Wheel of Fortune to present the shattered table.  “The elder Ms. Pie was with you.  I think it’s safe to say there was a fight.”

Pinkie hesitated, but then took a chance.  “You said you’d seen her work.  Does that look like a Limestone Pie bar scrap?”

Soft Eyes’ lips pursed.  “No, to be honest.  But if we were to throw in some Kirin that came up here from south Florida hunting Ponk PK?  Well then, I’d be willing to believe just about anything.”

He gestured to the plastic badge around her neck.  “So are you going to help me take a bite out of crime?”

Pinkie felt backed into a corner.  At least she could truthfully say that she had no idea where to find the Kirin.

But before she could reply, there was a ping.  Soft Eyes paused, and then frowned.  Apparently it was his phone, though he didn’t reach for it.

“Aren’t you going to get that?” Pinkie suggested weakly.

“How did you know I had alerts turned on for your Instagram posts?”

“First of all, what!?  Second of all, I didn’t.  Third of all, I didn’t just post, either, so I have no idea what that notification was for.”

Whet Stone looked at the two of them blankly.

Soft Eyes held Pinkie’s look for another second, and then pulled out his phone.  “What’s this?  Did you have a post pre-scheduled?”

“Um...no?”  Pinkie walked over to him  

He showed her the phone.  “Then you didn’t just take a selfie telling everyone that you’re hosting a fitness-themed event during the Salt Seasonings Festival in the park right now?”

On the screen, dressed up in plastic star-shaped sunglasses, spandex, a headband, and a pink clown wig, was Marble.

“Oh my Harmony!” Pinkie said.  She quickly added off the cuff, “Also, I’m really sorry.  I thought you just said I had made a post on Histagram, which is a, let’s say dating app for refined gentlemen.”

“Why would you have-” Whet Stone started to ask.

“However, I did just make a post on Instagram.”  Pinkie pulled out her own phone and showed it to Soft Eyes.  The post was already getting little hearts.

Pinkie had no idea how Marble had gained duplicate access to her account, nor what the horse pucky she was doing.  

Soft Eyes stowed his phone and then asked, “How did you just make a post if you’ve been standing here talking to me the whole time?”

“Oh, I’ve got the fastest fingers east of the Mississippi.  For example, here’s Whet Stone’s wallet.”  Pinkie held it up.

Whet Stone slapped his pockets and looked up in alarm.  Pinkie handed the wallet back to him.

It was a good thing they’d forgotten about her gun, or they might be very concerned about it right now.

Now that she had the police stirred up, Pinkie had gotten out of the metaphorical corner, but was treading a very fine line, and could see the abyss on both sides.  But there was also a glimmer of light guiding her forward.  Maybe…

“So if you can see where I am from hashtags, maybe the Kirin were doing the same thing,” Pinkie said.  “Now they think I’m in the festival.”

Soft Eyes sighed.  “This would have worked a lot better if you’d coordinated with us first.  Alright, fine.  Let’s go to the park and see who we see.”

This had actually worked too well.  Marble with a wig and sunglasses was a passable impression of Pinkie, but if she showed up with the police, they were going to have questions about why there were two of them.

But to be fair, right now Pinkie had questions about Marble, too.

Soft Eyes and a couple of other detectives rode together.  The way he was on his phone, Pinkie figured he was probably calling ahead to secure more support.

As she rode with Whet Stone, Pinkie also wanted to somehow warn Marble, but there was still the problem of how exactly she was going to play this off when she arrived.

The convoy of cop cars pulled into the park.  The Salt Seasonings Festival was not really hopping in the late morning on a Tuesday.  There was plenty of parking for the detective cars.  Most of the crowd was just now showing up for lunch.  It was a food festival, after all.  Among the scatter of vendor canopies, it was not hard to spot Pinkie’s pink trailer.  The burned side was turned away from the crowd.

“Wow, you really went to a lot of effort for this,” muttered Whet Stone.

It looked like the trailer was hooked to Maud’s pickup truck.  Were Marble and Maud in on this together?  And again, why?  Was Limestone also here?

Absent any coordination with her sisters, she was just going to have to trust that they trusted her to be herself and take matters into her own hands.  Her Granny had once told her that the best way to fill a hole in a secret plot was to march a brass band through it.

Maybe that was how the 88mm Flugzeugabwehrkanone had come to be in the park, as the town’s World War Two memorial.  It was kept neatly maintained, if inoperative, with the barrel pointed skyward.  At some point when Granny was Pieing her way through Nazi Germany and occupied France and Italy, she’d picked it up and then shipped it back in her luggage.  The small plaque affixed to the concrete base on which the anti-aircraft gun sat did not offer details, just that it had been donated.

Pinkie took a breath, and then broke out in the biggest smile she could muster.  She was never quite sure if she was putting on a mask or taking one off, but just like always, it got the attention of everyone within a city block.

“WHO’S READY TO PARTY!?”

She jumped atop the gun, doing a quick twirl around the barrel like a firepole.  As she vanished around the backside, her clothes changed to workout gear, spandex and sunglasses.  Superman needed a phone booth - Pinkie needed just the width of a flak gun barrel.

The ruse may have worked a little too well.  All the cops were staring at her.  At least that meant they weren’t looking for her sisters.  From her perch, Pinkie had a good view, and saw a flash of pink wig over by the trailer.

“Alright everybody, let’s get those hearts pumping!”  Pinkie had already activated the Bluetooth audio controls from her phone to the trailer’s sound system.  Granny had nothing pleasant to say about Jane Fonda, so this was going to be a Richard Simmons-style workout.

She even found the time to spit some freestyle.  Pinkie was not a musician herself, but she dabbled.  Workout rhyming wasn’t hard while trying to burn off the lard.

Put up your left hand / and then your righty
Work out with me / and you become mighty

Pinkie did a handspring off the flak gun, landing badly, but smoothly transitioning it into a somersault.

I’m Ponk PK, and I’m here to say
This is a quick work-out; I ain’t here all day

She’d hit the ground near her trailer and was suddenly grabbed by the scruff of her neck and hauled behind it.  Pinkie saw a flash of pink as someone passed her, going the other way.

Pinkie landed on her back, staring up at Maud and Limestone.  From back around the front of the trailer, she heard Marble rap:

Now that you’re loose / now that you’re warm
Stretch out a little / use the proper form

“What is going on!?” Pinkie demanded in a loud whisper.  She scrambled to her feet.

“Well, we were setting a trap for the Kirin, but we caught you!” Limestone retorted.

“I couldn’t not come!  The police are here, too!”  

“How did they find out?  Why are you here with them?” Maud asked.

“Long story.”  Pinkie glanced down at the brass knuckles Limestone was wearing.  “And you’re even carrying evidence of premeditation.”

“Not just evidence,” Limestone said.  “I was going to beat the shit out of them when they showed up.”

“And you brought Marble, too?  How is she even-”

Do the limber up / it’s rule sixteen
It’s way important / to you and me

“Just…” Pinkie shook her head and raised her hands.  “Let me take care of this.”

She peeped around the corner of the trailer.  Every eye was still on Marble.

One jump now / way up high
Eyes up now / up to the sky

Marble threw the microphone she was carrying into the air, and sure enough the crowd followed it.  Pinkie had swapped out with her by the time it came down, and caught it.

That’s all folks / that’s all for now-er
Cooldown now / and hit the shower

Pinkie struck a pose just as the song ended.  There was a small scatter of applause.   Most of them probably didn’t know who she was.  Most of them probably just wanted lunch.

Four of them, in the back and wearing dark sunglasses, were definitely there for Pinkie though.  Unfortunately, as the song ended, the spell seemed to be broken and they realized the cops were right there.  They were already getting into one of the black BMW’s.

“And for my special guests from south Florida, why are you leaving so soon?” Pinkie said into the microphone.

Whet Stone looked around wildly.  He saw the car and ran after it.

Unsurprisingly, he was not fast enough.

He returned, panting, to the small group of detectives.  Soft Eyes looked at him, but was talking on his phone, staring into the distance where the car had vanished.

Well, the plan hadn’t worked.  On the other hand, Pinkie got her nostalgic trip to the Salt Seasoning Festival.  Just like old times.
> Take the Third Right
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pinkie stood there after finishing the performance.  A handful of people clapped, either because they knew who Ponk PK was or they were just being polite.  All the cops seemed rather cross.

Soft Eyes perhaps put it best, pinching the bridge of his nose before thrusting his open hand at her.  “Just what did you think you were doing?  It didn’t work, and you could have been in danger.”

Well, it wasn’t like it was Pinkie’s idea.  Still, revealing that her sisters had set it up in an attempt to trap the Kirin would only take this conversation in a direction Pinkie didn’t want.  

She tried to play the sympathy card.  “I’m just doing the best I can.  I didn’t ask to be targeted by gangsters.  I don’t want to be involved.  Not my monkeys, not my circus.”

“It’s literally your circus!” Whet Stone piled on, gesturing at her pink trailer.  

“Amid all this, I’m also concerned about calisthenics while carrying,” Soft Eyes said.  “On top of the public perception issue, bouncing around with a gun isn’t safe.”

Pinkie realized she still had the old Colt strapped to her hip, over her spandex workout suit. 

“Point taken and noted, detective.”  Pinkie lifted her hands, palms open.  “Now I know all y’all are big old sticks in the mud who didn’t want to work to the rhythm, but I worked up quite a sweat, so I’m just going to have a quick shower.”  She pointed at her trailer.

This was a risky move.  It would give the cops some time to consolidate and they might come up with more questions to ask her.  However, it also gave Pinkie some time to think of her own.  At any rate, the part about her being sweaty was true.

Her sisters were waiting for her inside the trailer.  Pinkie closed the door and put her hands on her hips.  “Okay you three.  I’m not mad, and I applaud your initiative, but this could have gone very badly.”

“You’re really gonna lecture us?” said Limestone.

“You bet your britches, missy.  You three borrowed my stuff without permission, you stole my identity, you alerted the cops that something fishy was going on, and you exposed yourselves to gangsters who have already proven they are willing to get violent.”

Marble’s face had mostly disappeared behind her hair as she withdrew.  Maud looked at the floor.  Limestone stood with her arms crossed.

Pinkie shook her head.  “I mean, I recognize that you did it for me, but come on, if you were going to go after the Kirin, you could have asked me to help.  If nothing else, I’m good at planning events.”

Limestone lifted a hand.  “Well...what next?”

“I’m going to start with a shower.”  Pinkie turned.  “Why don’t we talk later, at the house, when we aren’t surrounded by cops?”

 At least one thing went Pinkie’s way today and she got her sisters to go along with her suggestion.  They snuck out the back of the trailer and Pinkie did what she said she was going to and got cleaned up.  Exiting the trailer again, she was mildly disappointed to see that the squad of police had waited on her.

“Did you pay the vendors’ fee to be a part of this festival?” Soft Eyes asked.

“I did indeed.  It came with parking, too.”  While Pinkie hadn’t counted on being involved in quite this way, the possibility was always on the table and she had been trying to attend the festival anyway.  It was always good to be prepared to party.

“Always be prepared to party” would have been the Party Scouts motto, if the other two Scouting organizations in town hadn’t proven surprisingly closed-minded about Pinkie's proposals to start a third branch.

“Anyway,” she said, “I guess I should apologize.  I really tried to make this work.  I didn’t even pull a Blues Brothers - ‘And we would especially like to welcome all of the representatives of the Dashville City law enforcement community, who have chosen to join us here in Metternich Park this fine, sunny morning!’”

Soft Eyes gestured to Whet Stone.  “Get her out of here.”

Pinkie walked back to the car with Whet Stone.  He, too, seemed irritated with her.  Considering everything else that had happened today...Pinkie decided she could live with that.

“I’ll take you home,” he said as the two of them got into the car.

Pinkie thought for a second.  “Actually, can we go to the quarry?”

She wasn’t sure if that was going to increase or decrease her likelihood of running into her sisters.  It seemed a slim hope to bank on Whet Stone having a phobia of heavy equipment.  Maybe Pinkie could just say that she had agreed to help out her parents this afternoon.

If Whet Stone was surprised by the change in destination, he didn’t show it.  He also appeared to know exactly where the place was.

“Okay, thanks,” Pinkie said, unbuckling her seatbelt the picosecond after the car had stopped and already reaching for the door handle.

She got out of the car and shut the door, turning to hustle for the office building.  She came up short when she heard a second car door shut behind her.

Pinkie turned.  Whet Stone was walking around the car, following her.  She quickly stuffed down her actual reaction and waved a hand.  “Oh, you don’t have to walk me all the way to the door.  This isn’t a date.”

Whet Stone did pause, but Pinkie had apparently not put enough over-the-top flamboyant energy into her statement, because he wasn’t shamed into stopping.

“You never know,” he said.  “They could be waiting for you or something.”

Pinkie seriously doubted that, but what was she supposed to say?  No, don’t check that the gangsters out to get me might be here?

She walked into the office, Whet Stone right behind her.  As expected, Pinkie’s mother was at the desk.  She was mildly surprised to find her father there.

“Hey dad, hey mom,” said Pinkie, hurriedly getting ahead of the conversation.  “This is Detective Whet Stone.  He was just dropping me off.”

She turned to see Whet Stone glancing around the office before joining the conversation.

“How do you do?” he said.  “I take it you’re Pinkie’s parents.”

That was literally what Pinkie just said.  Apparently her folks were also a little miffed, though they hid it much better than her.

“We were chosen by the Pairing Stone and betrothed within a fortnight,” said her mother primly.

“The choosing stone decreed, ‘Thou shalt love one another.’ And lo, it was so,” added her father.

“Four kids. It must have,” said Whet Stone.  Even he was starting to see the awkwardness here and changed the subject.  “Speaking of, are your other daughters around?”

“No,” both of Pinkie’s parents replied simultaneously.  They glanced at each other, and to Pinkie’s surprise, actually traded quick smiles before returning to stonewalling the detective.

“Okay then,” said Whet Stone.  He waffled awkwardly and then said, “Have a nice day.”

He finally left and Pinkie let out a long sigh after the door had closed.  Though, she now had another problem.

“Pinkamina, why were you with a police officer?” her father asked.

“He was just giving me a ride,” Pinkie said.  “I didn’t know he was going to come in and start asking questions.”

Pinkie waved her hand, passing off the incident.  “So I did come to see everyone else.  Are they around?”

“Did you not see them?” her mother said.  “They had asked for time off to spend time with you.”

Telling her parents what had transpired would only invite more questions, and certainly disapproval.  Pinkie affected surprise and clamped a hand over her mouth.  “Oh no!  I hope I didn’t accidentally stumble on them setting up a surprise party.”

The back of her mind twinged.  It wasn’t exactly lying to her parents, but it was close enough to make her uncomfortable.

“Well, I’ll go see if I can catch up, then,” Pinkie said.  “Is that little footpath still in the back or did you get around to dynamiting that wall of the quarry?”

Her father said that the trail was still there.  The two of them left the building and mounted up on the big loader.  He drove her to the back of the pit and Pinkie hopped off, finding the old crevice among the rocks that lead up the wall.

She and her sisters had found it and expanded it into a pseudo path when they were kids.  It was steep and narrow, and falling off was a real danger, but it was a great shortcut.  It was a couple of miles to drive from the house around and down the hills to the entrance of the quarry, but by making the climb at the back, it was perhaps only half a mile.

Pinkie made it to the top, breathing hard and sweating.  She was just outside the guardrail of the road that led to the house.

She turned, taking in the view.  The quarry floor was far below, with the pool of water in the middle.  Holder’s Boulder was just down the way.  In the distance, she could see her father working.

She turned again, setting off down the road.  Within a few minutes, she came to the house, and almost by muscle memory found the correct rock in the flower bed that concealed a spare key to the front door.

Unlocking the door, Pinkie called “Coming in!” as she opened it.  She didn’t get shot, so her voice must have carried.

She found her grandparents in the kitchen, but still not her sisters.  Well, Pinkie was sure to run into them eventually.  In the meantime, she sat down.

“How was your day, Pinkie?” her grandmother asked.

“Oh Granny, you have no idea.”  Pinkie sighed.  “I’m trying to keep the gangsters who are after me at arm’s length while trying not to let the police know why they were after me in the first place and then Limestone, Maud, and Marble tried to help me but they accidentally almost made things worse and to be perfectly honest I sometimes wonder how I can keep putting out this much energy and not get any results.”

“What did your sisters do?”

“We were down at the Salt Seasoning Festival and they tried to throw an event like I would have, and it might have actually worked out but we didn’t count on this fabulous police detective following me on Instagram.”

“How is the festival this year?”

“Well, I might make the newspaper.  Other than that, it seems pretty normal.  To be honest, I did kind of miss it, just a simple small town event.”

“Is it still held in the park?”

“Yeah.  You go down into old town, cross the bridge, and then it’s just the third right.”

Her Großvater’s arm started to raise, palm flat.  Her granny pushed it down with her own hand without even looking.  “Maybe we’ll go.  It’s been a while since we’ve been out of the house.”

“I guess I should go back,” Pinkie said.  “My trailer is still there.”

“From what I’ve heard, it was quite a nice one.”

“Yeah, but it’s kind of beat up now with the gangsters and the firebombs and my own defacement in an attempt to run and hide from my problems.”

“Well, I’m sure there’s a metaphor there.  Pinkie, you know it’s what’s on the inside that counts.  Great sculptors say that sculpting is a matter of removing everything that isn't the statue from the block of stone.  Something beautiful lies within.”

“Well yeah, but...what if you remove everything and all you find in the stone is another stone?”

“Then you aren’t done yet.”

“But if you keep going, eventually there’s going to be nothing left.”

“Then you’ll have a pile of gravel, and that’s useful for many things.  You could make some concrete and build your own statue.”

“Huh.”

Maybe Pinkie had been going about this the wrong way.

Maybe it was time to break a few rocks and do things herself.
> The War Council
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Ladies, I’m sure you understand why we’re here today.”

“Pinkie, did you really have to break out the secret decoder rings we haven’t used since we were in middle school just to call this meeting?” Limestone complained.

“The Pie Sisters War Council will come to order,” Maud intoned.

Limestone crossed her arms.  Cross fairly well described her expression, too.

Marble scribbled down notes for the meeting minutes.

The four of them were in the loft of the barn, having cleared a space between old boxes, broken mining equipment, and a curiously large collection of dusty Precious Moments figurines still in their original packaging.  And in the original shipping crates, actually, as if someone had stolen them right off a truck at some point in the mid-sixties.

It was not a great war room, but just having her sisters at her side buoyed Pinkie’s confidence.  They would figure this out together.  The Pie Sisters - like a boss.

Of course, Limestone felt exactly the opposite.  “We haven’t done this in like twelve years.  Actually, I remember it.  Sour Grapes kicked dirt on Marble’s doll so we convened the council and resolved to throw rocks at Sour until she cried.  When the school called mom and dad, they grounded us all for a month and told us never to do this again.”

“Throw rocks at Sour Grapes?  Is she still in town?” Pinkie asked.

“No, dummy, I meant the whole paramilitary revenge planning.”

“Well sure they told us not to, but are you saying you never disobeyed mom and dad again?” Pinkie said.

Limestone gave her a look, but replied, “I’m just saying, this could go wrong.”

“Strange how you’re the one being cautious all of a sudden,” Maud noted.

Limestone hesitated, confliction on her face, and then blurted, “Look, I’m concerned about what might happen, okay?  I know you all worry about me being a junkie, and I know I should quit, but I’m worried about the broader ecosystem in the illegal narcotics trade and how many people could end up unemployed, broke, and desperate because of this.  Do you have any idea how much drug money goes around this town?”

“I really shouldn’t have told you what happened to a major illicit transshipment warehouse in Miami.  But...I don’t really have a good solution to that,” Pinkie admitted.

“I didn’t expect you to,” Limestone said, also lowering her tone.  “And...it doesn’t outweigh helping you.”

“And if we do this right, there won’t be too many people killed,” Maud said.

“What?” said Pinkie.

“Yeah, Marble drafted up a plan for us,” said Limestone.  She gestured.  “Show her.”

Marble flipped a couple of pages and turned her notebook around.  Pinkie’s eyebrows jumped.





Pinkie stood in the darkness, just past the open gates of the quarry.  They were usually locked at this time of night.  In the glare of headlights, she posed and took a selfie with the Pie Family Aggregates sign in the background, and then posted the picture to Instagram.

She got back in the car with Limestone.  The two of them drove through the gate and then parked the car behind the office, shutting the lights off but leaving the engine running.

It didn't take more than about twenty minutes before they saw the glare of two cars arriving, slowly pulling up to the open gates.  Pinkie rolled down the window.  Limestone put the car into gear and stomped on the gas pedal.

Between the car shooting out from behind the building, kicking rocks over the two Kirin cars, and Pinkie hanging out the window flashing double middle fingers it should have been a lead-pipe cinch that they had the attention of Autumn Blaze and her crew.

The Kirin gave chase.  Limestone kept ahead of them, winding down into the pit of the quarry, skirting ledges and sliding in the gravel turns.  Between hanging on for dear life and glancing in the mirrors at their pursuit, Pinkie found a free hand to turn on the radio. An old Emerson, Lake, and Palmer song came across the airwaves.

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends, we’re so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside!

Pinkie turned it up.

The pursuing cars were still behind them, attempting to close the distance but held back slightly by kicked-up dust.  Limestone swung around another corner, arriving at the large, open bottom of the pit.

As they reached a certain prearranged point, there was a flash and boom of dynamite from up the slope, activated by Maud who had been watching from above.  The explosion had been carefully set, and its force tore away the last restraints on Holder's Boulder.  The giant rock fell from the wall of the quarry and landed squarely atop the lead Kirin car.  Needless to say, a thirty-ton stone falling from a few hundred feet and landing atop a car didn't leave much recognizable debris.

The other carload of Kirin swerved and just barely missed the boulder.  In doing so, however, they found themselves right in the path of a front loader driven by Marble.  She lit up the work lights and raised the bucket with hydraulic controls, crushing the car's passenger compartment.  Only one person made it out.

Autumn Blaze, her red hair a mess, raised a handgun and fired several times, but the bullets didn't have a hope of penetrating the rock-rated steel of the equipment.  Marble chased her across the floor of the quarry with the loader.  Autumn ran towards the pool of water at the lowest point of the pit, apparently thinking the heavy equipment might bog down.

Sure enough, Marble stopped at the edge of the water.  Autumn kept moving, slogging through the increasingly deep pool.

A faint ripple in the water was the only warning before Gummy the alligator surfaced, clamping his jaws around Autumn Blaze’s head.  She might have screamed, but it was lost as Gummy started to roll, whipping her body through the air and underwater.

Marble pushed the wreckage of the second car over to a pile of gravel and covered it over.  That done, she climbed down from the loader.  Limestone stopped her car and she and Pinkie got out.  Maud came down the small footpath on the wall of the quarry.  The surface of the water had now gone calm.  The four of them stood there, looking at what they had wrought.

There wasn’t much left.  The turkey vultures that nested in the slopes above the quarry should take care of any pieces they had missed.





“Oh my gosh,” Pinkie gasped as she sat in the barn loft and read the plan in Marble’s notebook.

“It might be a little bit much,” Limestone acknowledged.  “We could just shoot them, I guess, but since they’re a different race we’d have to be careful that people didn’t think it was a lynching.  We hate them because of what they want, not what they are.  Important distinction.”

Limestone’s sensitivity might have actually surprised Pinkie more than the plan, but she shook her head.  “How about a solution where we maybe don’t kill them?”

“Such as?” Maud asked.

Pinkie thought for a moment.  “I mean, they keep finding me because of social media posts.  You girls had the idea to lure them somewhere.  But what if we could reverse that?”

“How?  Do you even know their Instagram handle?” Limestone asked.  “It’s not just going to be ChineseBadguys69420.”

“No, but...well, the Zucc owes me a favor and he probably can track that down for us.”

“The Zucc!?” Limestone burst out.  “How the fuck-”

Pinkie giggled at the unintended rhyme.

Limestone glared at her and went on.  “So Facebook owns Instagram and some nerd who owns it all is going to help you?”

“How do you know Mr. Zucchini?” Maud asked.

“I hosted a party for him once.”

“I should have known.”

“So I guess I could reach out to him in a PM or something?” Pinkie said.  “I’m still kind of new to this surveillance-via-network thing and I don’t know the etiquette.”  She pointed to the others.  “By the way, if the Pie Sisters War Council becomes a thing again, we totally need to buff up our resources.  We’ve got to fight for our right to party.”

“Pinkie, I appreciate your enthusiasm,” said Maud, “but please keep such comments to this small group.  Remember what happens in this household when you bring up hip hop, and in the case of quoting the Beastie Boys, the Tribe.”

“Mom and dad forbid us from convening war councils, too,” Pinkie pointed out.

Marble put the finishing touches on the meeting minutes and the four of them climbed down from the barn loft.

Pinkie trailed behind her sisters on the walk back to the house in the growing dusk, tapping on her phone.  It took an inordinate amount of brainpower to figure out how many y’s she was going to use in her greeting.  Did Heyyy sound too needy?

She had to walk to the front yard to get a decent line of sight down into the valley and the cell towers there for a data connection.  After typing out her request in a private message, she pressed send.  It was up to him now.  In Zucc we trust.

She turned around to go back inside the house, when her phone launched into the particular ringtone that indicated an incoming message.  Huh, that was fast.  Pinkie turned around again and opened the notification.

It was a PM, but not from Zucc.  Pinkie didn’t recognize the username, but realized that the profile picture thumbnail was of Soft Eyes.  Frowning, she opened the message.

It was two pictures, side by side.  One was of Marble, one was of Pinkie, and both had been taken at the Salt Seasoning Festival.  The two of them wore the exact same workout gear and were standing in roughly the same pose.

There was really just one major difference, like a really bad newspaper game, and it was clearly circled in red.  Pinkie had a gun strapped on and Marble didn’t.

Pinkie facepalmed hard enough to hurt.  How could she have forgotten that!?  Soft Eyes may not have initially realized there had been two performers, but now that he had clear evidence he might start paying attention to subtle details like the difference between the wig Marble wore and Pinkie’s real hair.

Granted, Instagram was a really shitty platform for photos, so it wouldn’t be easy to collect slight details like that.  And really, it didn’t actually mean anything.  Soft Eyes wouldn’t have sent it to her if he thought it was worthwhile evidence.  Pinkie could simply claim she had a stunt double.  It’s not like the police were seeking Marble.

Though after Marble had drawn up plans to kill two carloads of Kirin, maybe Pinkie should ensure the police didn’t try to interrogate her too much.  At least Pinkie had confidence that Marble wouldn’t talk.

Still, why had Soft Eyes sent the picture?  Was he trying to tell Pinkie that she shouldn’t try any more sneaky tricks?

Like that was going to happen.
> Milk and Cookies
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zucc told Pinkie off to where she could fuck.

“It’s like he’s averse to breaking his own terms of service,” Maud said when Pinkie shared with her sisters the results of her plea for help via Instagram.

“I just thought, y’know, if he’s helping us find bad guys there’s not really a loser here.”  Pinkie waved her hands.

“Except Zucc’s multibillion dollar empire if anyone found out,” Limestone said.

“So we need a different plan,” said Pinkie in resignation.  “Who can we ask in order to get more information if the tech billionaire has refused to help?”

“Another tech billionaire?” said Maud.  “What’s Bill Gaits up to these days?”

“He could only help us if they had Windows phones, and who has one of those?” Pinkie said dismissively.  

“Elon Muskrat?”

“Maybe with the drugs, but he’s a long way from Dashville.  Where would a Kirin go in this town?  Maybe we should find somebody who knows where the local dealers are.”

They all looked at Limestone.

She had the good grace not to protest, but did at least cross her arms and look annoyed about it.

The next day, the Pie sisters set out to score some drug dealers.  They met in the barn loft to assemble the plan.

Pinkie was quite obviously too visible to be seen hanging around on those kinds of street corners.  Marble was not comfortable with the kind of conversations that would be required to wheel and deal.  Their targets would probably not be comfortable approaching Maud.

Unsurprisingly, the task fell entirely to Limestone.  Once more, she saw it coming and did not put up a fight, but did grumble a little.

She pulled out her phone to get her dealer’s number.  “He goes by Captain Planet,” she explained.

“Huh, how did a guy like that get involved with the harder stuff?” Pinkie said.

“What do you mean?”

“With a name like that, I would think he would just stick to pot.”

“It’s not his real name.”

“Ah, that explains it.  What’s his real name?”

Limestone shrugged.  “I don’t know.  I vaguely remember it as Corner Rule.”

“Hmm.”  Pinkie considered it.  “You know, that name does also kind of work for a drug dealer.”

“What are we going to tell him?” Maud asked, getting the conversation back to business.  “I doubt that he, out of respect for what they might do to him, will simply tell you about a group of Chinese gangsters.  If he even knows who they are.”

“Well...maybe we can find a way to look around his place,” Limestone suggested.  “Maybe distract him or something and look for clues.”

“This might be a problem,” said Pinkie.  “You’re the only one who knows anything about sifting through paraphernalia, but you’re also the only one who knows this guy and could keep him distracted.  That’s if the first part of the plan comes together.”

“So we wait until he leaves and then we sneak in,” Maud suggested.

“Well...he lives with his parents,” Limestone said.

“Like, are they in on it?” Pinkie asked.

Limestone raised her hands.  “I don’t exactly keep up with my drug dealer’s family situation.” 

“Well, how are we going to get our foot in the door?” Pinkie said.

“He was hanging around the party at the college,” Limestone suggested.  “We could say something about you.  I didn’t tell him we were related, but it might be an angle.  Maybe tell him that you have all kinds of drugs so he would want to talk to you.”

“Okay, but what if he wants samples or something?  I have plenty of baking supplies, but even a drug dealer, maybe especially a drug dealer, should be able to tell flour, sugar, and baking powder aren’t narcotics.”

“I have an idea,” said Maud.

She told them what she was thinking, and the others agreed that it could work.  None of them had a better plan.

Limestone made the call.  She put the phone on speaker.  When Captain Planet, or whatever his name was, answered, she said, “Hey, you know how Ponk PK is in town right now?”

“Yeah?”

“So she had that show the other day, and I managed to meet her.”

“Really?  How did you do that?”

“Uh...it’s not important.”

“It kind of is important!  That could be an incredible opportunity, if I knew how to talk to celebrities.  Both personally and professionally.  Think of how many autographs I could get and how much product I could move.  So, how did you do it?  Does she have sex with groupies?”

Limestone stuttered and looked around her group of sisters.  Pinkie covered her eyes, cheeks going pinker than normal.  But, going with that it was easier than coming up with something else on the spot.  She gestured for Limestone to continue.

“Yes, I fucked Ponk PK,” Limestone said, looking like she wanted to gag.

“You sly dog!” Captain Planet crowed.  “So all I have to do is get with her.”

“Well, she’s only into girls,” Limestone hurriedly added.  “But that’s how I can help you, I can be the go-between.  And speaking of moving product, she’s actually looking to sell.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah, she just came up from Miami and her whole trailer is full.  She’s got some brand new stuff, but she doesn’t have a local connection - like you - to take it to the streets.”

“Brand new stuff?”

“Yeah, it’s called Dippin’ Dots.”

“Dippin’ Dots?  Like the ice cream?  Groovy.”

“You want a sample of this?  Should I come by your place?”

“Yeah, let’s do it.”

He gave her the address and Limestone said she would be there.  She hung up the phone.  “I can’t believe he bought that.  ‘Dippin’ Dots.’  Seriously.”

“Did you have a better idea?” Maud said.  She indicated a plastic bag of tiny, pale-pink spheres that could very well have been strawberry Dippin’ Dots.

It was industrial ammonium nitrate, commonly called ANFO, and was used at the quarry as one ingredient in explosives for blasting rock.

Limestone stood up and put the bag in her pocket.  “Alright, let’s do this.”

They piled into the car and drove to the address Limestone had been given.  It was in New Town, though on an older street that might have been there fifty years.  They drove past the house without stopping, to get a feel for it.  There was a garage, but also a beater car parked in the driveway.

“That’s Captain Planet’s; I’ve seen him driving it,” Limestone provided.

“Did you say he lived with his parents?” Maud said.

“Well, if that was a problem, would he have invited me over?”

“Okay Limestone, you distract him and the rest of us will handle things,” Pinkie said.

“What are you going to do?”

“Well, not knowing anything about what or who we’re going to find, it’s going to have to be played by ear.  Fortunately, I’m a master at improv.  A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants.”

“Are we sneaking into a drug dealer’s house or are you putting on a clown show?” Limestone demanded.  “What kind of wackadoodle shit is this?” 

“I’m basing it on the early Bozo era, where physical gags were often nonsensical and intended to garner entertainment based purely on the absurdity.”

“Pinkie,” said Maud, “If you know so much about wackadoodle, you should write a book about it and get it out of your system.”

Pinkie did acknowledge that they had something a little more important going on.

They stopped the car a block away and everyone except Limestone got out.  She turned around and drove back to the house while Pinkie and the others went a street over to approach from behind.

“I guess we’ll have sneak into the back yard without anybody noticing us, see if the parents are home, and then go from there,” Pinkie said.  She paused and turned to her sisters.  “Maud...I’m going to say this in the nicest possible way, but you’re about as subtle as a truck.”

“I know.”  Maud turned.  “You two sneak in.  I’ll keep lookout.”

Marble looked anxious, but followed Pinkie.  They peeped through the gaps in the back fence, and then helped each other to climb over it.  Pinkie hadn’t climbed trees and rock piles with her sisters in a decade, but the old memories came back, cooperatively giving each other legs-up and handholds.

She shook the past out of her mind for the moment, focusing on this secret mission the War Council had sent her on.  The stakes were somewhat higher than throwing rocks at Sour Grapes.

Dropping down in the back yard, Pinkie and Marble hustled to the house, rounded the enclosed porch, and knelt out of view of the windows.  It seemed their infiltration had been successful, but the objective was not yet complete.

Pinkie knelt, inching towards a basement window that was open an inch, careful to keep from casting shadows through it.  From somewhere around the front of the house, she faintly heard a doorbell ring.

Pinkie had thoughtfully set her phone to silent mode, but still nearly jumped as it vibrated.  She glanced at it.  Maud had sent a text.  Limestone’s in.

Near-simultaneously, there was some movement in the basement and Pinkie hastily drew back from the window.  Someone’s footsteps clumped up the stairs.

Peeking back through the window, the basement appeared to be somebody’s crash pad.  Certain aromas coming through the slightly open window reinforced this.  Maybe Captain Planet lived in the basement.  Though, if he lived with his parents, why not just continue using his childhood bedroom?  Not that Pinkie understood how normal families worked.

Marble stood on her tiptoes and looked through the first floor window.  “Hm!”

Pinkie, too, stood upright to see what was going on.  Captain Planet, who seemed a little crusty and wore a headband and a patchy mustache, was sitting with Limestone at the kitchen table.  A plump woman in a frilly apron was serving them cookies.  Pinkie was somewhat disappointed that this window wasn’t open so she could smell this smell.

If Limestone could just hold him there, it was a perfect opportunity for Pinkie to sneak into the basement.  She knelt again and pulled the basement window open wider.  She nodded to Marble to watch her back, and wiggled inside.  

The smell of uncleanliness and a few types of smoke got stronger as Pinkie dropped into the room.  She glanced around.  There was old furniture and couches.  It looked like more than one person lived there - or was it just for hanging out?  No, there were definitely a few suitcases in the back.

Pinkie had just started to take a closer look when her phone vibrated.

There was an “Eep!” from outside as Marble read the same message from Maud: Kirin inbound.

How were they here!?  Surely Pinkie hadn’t done anything to alert them to her presence.  Unless…  Pinkie looked at the suitcases again.  Oh no.

She turned immediately for the window.  Marble gave her a hand and she scrambled out.  Standing up, Pinkie brushed herself off and turned to speak to Marble, but came face to face with Captain Planet’s mother, who had apparently stepped out on the back porch to shake out a rug.

“Oh, um, hi!” said Pinkie, her hand shoving Marble down by the head to keep her out of sight.

“Can I help you?” the woman asked skeptically.

Pinkie’s mind was racing, trying to come up with a good excuse.  Limestone had to get out of the house.  They couldn’t leave via the front because the Kirin were coming.  Marble was still undiscovered, but that might not last.  But first things first, Pinkie had to plausibly explain why she was there.

“I’m sorry about this,” said Pinkie, raising her hands.  “Your son invited me over and I think I got lost.”

The woman’s demeanor changed instantly.  “Oh, it’s no trouble, dear!  Here, come inside, I just baked cookies.  Someone else is over right now.  It’ll be like a little party.”

Pinkie realized she’d said exactly the wrong thing.  Now she was expected to go inside, and it would look even more suspicious to refuse now.

But...a party?  Maybe she could work with this.

Captain Planet’s mom ushered her inside.  Pinkie hoped Marble would be alright.  She was probably already messaging Maud with the news.  Hopefully Maud wouldn’t immediately bulldoze the front door.  They didn’t have much time, but maybe Pinkie could-

She was led into the kitchen.  Limestone had apparently also gotten Maud’s message and looked like she was trying to disengage the conversation.  She and Captain Planet looked up.

“I found one of your friends,” the older woman said, presenting Pinkie in a manner that suggested she was emulating Vanilla Smiles on Wheel of Fortune.

Captain Planet nearly fell out of his chair in surprise.  Limestone looked like she was about to have an aneurysm.

“Here you go, dears.”  Another plate of cookies landed on the table.  “I’ll just leave you three alone now.”  Captain Planet’s mom bustled out of the room.

“How-what…?” Captain Planet stammered.

“Close, it’s actually Ponk PK.”  Pinkie winked and gave him finger guns, attempting to keep his startled paralysis going.  She turned.  “Limey, we need to-”

The front door opened.

“-go to the restroom!” Pinkie blurted as she pulled Limestone to her feet.  “You know how girls always go together.  We’ll just be-”

“You can’t leave yet!” Captain Planet seemed to have worked through his daze and jumped up.  “This is so cool!  My friends have to meet you!”

“I’m really sorry, I-”

“That’s probably them right now!”  He turned towards the front of the house.  “Hey guys!”

Out of the corner of her eye, Pinkie saw Limestone’s fist draw back.  But, in a sudden inspiration, she raised her hand, stopping Limestone and probably saving Captain Planet’s jaw.

Pinkie glanced at Limestone, eyebrows bouncing.

Uncertainty was written on Limestone’s face, but she reluctantly followed Pinkie in sitting back down at the table.  That was how they met the four Kirin coming in.

“Surprise!” Pinkie exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air.  Her emergency pocket confetti went everywhere.

Autumn Blaze and her associates certainly looked surprised.  The three Kirin behind Autumn were all wearing various bandages and braces.  One in particular looked like he had been thrown facefirst through a table.

“What’s going on?” Autumn said, recovering.

“Can you believe it?” said Captain Planet, missing her tone completely.  “Ponk PK is here!”

“When I found out where you were staying, I thought you could use a cheering-up,” said Pinkie, addressing Autumn.  She gestured to the cookies.  “I thought I would throw a little party for y’all.”

Autumn was savvy enough to realize something strange was going on, so Pinkie kept pushing to keep her off balance.  “We haven’t really had a chance to talk, between everything that happened.  Why don’t you sit down and take a load off?”

“Where are the rest of you?” Autumn asked, glancing pointedly between Pinkie and Limestone.

“It’s not the Pies you see that you have to worry about.  Now have a seat.”

Still reluctant and still sensing something amiss, but apparently not seeing another option, the four Kirin sat down.  The table was getting a little crowded, but there were enough chairs.  

Pinkie picked a cookie and dunked it in her glass of milk.  “Now, let’s discuss this kidnap-and-torture business.”

“Huh?” said Captain Planet.

“We already told you what was going to happen,” said Autumn.  “It’s not open for discussion.”

“Of all the things you talk about, that’s off limits?”  Pinkie shrugged.  “Okay.  Well then, let’s talk about you being here in Dashville.”

“Which kind of ties into the kidnap-and-torture business,” Limestone pointed out.

Autumn shot her a look, but Pinkie waved her fingers, pulling the attention back to herself.  “Hey.  Look at me.”

Pinkie locked eyes with Autumn.  She’d never really noticed the Kirin’s yellow eyes before.  Interesting color.  Maybe an interesting implication on the soul.  Something something windows.  Pinkie forced her train of thought back on track, now that she was fully in command of Autumn’s attention.  “So tell me, Autumn Blaze, just what makes you think this is going to end how you want?  I threw this party for you.  So, you can cry if you want to.”

The look on Autumn’s face slipped a little further.  Her control of the situation - in the room as well as in Dashville - was eroding fast, and she knew it.  Pinkie absently flicked her hand at Limestone, but didn’t break her stare at Autumn

“Maybe it’ll be your blue eyes crying in the rain,” Autumn replied.

Pinkie cracked up laughing.  “That’s a good one!  I need to remember that.  Selfie!”

She whirled around in her chair, holding up her phone to snap a picture of herself and everyone sitting around the table.  Turning back, she typed a quick caption.  “...crying in the rain.  Ha!”

Limestone was notably absent from the photo, not sitting at the table anymore.  Pinkie did not point it out.

She put the phone back in her pocket and addressed Autumn again, though she hadn’t taken her eyes off her even while typing.  “I didn’t figure you for a country music fan.”

“I’m not, but you people don’t have anything else to listen to around here.”

“That’s Dashville for you.  Funny thing about this place.  You know, it may not be my home anymore, but it’s still my hometown.  My people live here.  And you know, I may even have to thank you for this, for bringing me back to them.  Even if they do listen to country.

“But music’s good.  It puts a little soul into our lives.  You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said the last time we met.  You said you were soul searching, you were hollow with nothing but an echo inside, you went mad in the wilderness.

“But Autumn Blaze, I think I can help you with that.”  Pinkie raised her hands, leaning into her speech.  The fervor had seized her, somehow stronger here in this suburban kitchen surrounded by drug dealers than it ever had in church.  Maybe because of what was at stake.  She put her hand out, reaching across the table to Autumn.

“I will give you your purpose - that is to pay penance for your deeds.  You will be filled by my determination, and you will know the error of your ways.  This town is not your place, and you shall be delivered from your wanderings.  You will know that I am the beat and the rhythm when I pound you back into harmony with your fellow wretched creatures!  The disharmonious will know there is a song in the wild when its rhythm is beaten into their discordant hides!”

Autumn’s phone beeped.

“Aren’t you going to get that?” Pinkie said.

Autumn jerked in her chair as if a spell had been broken.  “It’s just an Instagram notification.”  She paused, brow wrinkling.  “You...are the only one I have notifications turned on for.”

“Weird,” said Pinkie.  She smiled.

Autumn started to move.  Limestone hit her in the back of the head with a frying pan, slamming Autumn’s face into the table.  Donk-crack!

The others were still in the process of reacting when Pinkie flipped the table.  She may have been ten years’ out of practice strength training at the quarry, but she’d always wanted to flip a table and wasn’t going to miss the opportunity.  Autumn was knocked limply back into one of her henchfolks.  The plate of cookies got another in the face, and Pinkie’s glass of milk hit the third.

“I can’t believe that worked,” Limestone muttered.  She glanced at Pinkie and shook her head.  Turning to survey the mess, she said, “Did you seriously just post a selfie in the middle of that conversation?”

“I actually didn’t,” said Pinkie.  She checked her phone.  The top post was a picture of Marble in a pink wig, posing in front of a black BMW with a Florida tag.  Soft Eyes had already heart’d the post.

“What...what just happened?” Captain Planet asked dumbly, still sitting in his chair.

“I think your mom’s not going to like this,” Pinkie predicted.
> Community Service
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pinkie stopped her pink pickup truck at the curb and put the flashers on.  She walked into the Dashville Police headquarters.  “Hey, I made a citizen’s arrest on four drug dealers that were trying to kill me.”

The desk sergeant blinked.

“They’re Kirin, and they probably came here from Florida.  This is my first time doing something like this, so I don’t know how it works.  Would you guys like to take them off my hands, or…?”

Yes, the police would.

Autumn Blaze and her three cohorts had been hogtied and gagged in the back of Pinkie’s truck, and a couple of burly officers carried them into holding cells.

In exchange for Captain Planet’s silence about Pinkie, she had agreed to keep quiet about him - and gave him an autograph.  Normally, Pinkie wouldn't be inclined to favor someone who had been selling drugs to her sister, but that was a separate issue she was going to take up with Limestone.  Plus, Captain Planet had some hemp rope lying around to help with the whole hogtying thing.

Pinkie supervised the transfer of the bound Kirin.  All of them still seemed dazed and didn’t struggle.  Though, that could have been because of Maud’s expert knotwork.

As Pinkie was peeping through the window in the heavy door that separated the office from the holding cells at the police station, a hand lightly came down on her shoulder.  She turned.  It was Soft Eyes.

“Hon, we need to talk,” he said.  He stepped back.  “Go with Detective Whet Stone and I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Well, Pinkie had figured this was coming.  She hadn’t gotten any time to rehearse, so this was going to be an ad-lib performance.

Sure, she had a lawyer on retainer, but just for business stuff.  The law firm probably would not appreciate a call this late in the afternoon from Dashville, Virginia regarding their client’s sudden entry into freelance law enforcement.

Pinkie went with Whet Stone.  They got coffee and he led her to an interrogation room, mirrored glass and all.  There were no cuffs anywhere in sight, but the table had the fixtures.  It was the same room they had talked in before, but Pinkie noticed things like that more this time.  She sat down, looking at her hands and squirming a little.  She took a breath, flipped the switch, showtime.

“So, tell me how this all began,” said Whet Stone, pencil poised to write in his notebook.

Pinkie laughed and leaned back in her chair.  “We could be here for hours, detective.”

“So tell me about today and we’ll expand from there.”

Pinkie pulled out her phone and slid it across the desk to him.  Whet Stone looked confused.  Pinkie started flipping through posts on her Instagram.

Muffins are my favorite breakfast!

Getting toned! #workingoffthemuffins

Going for a walk!

Hey look at this car I found!

“That doesn’t prove anything,” Whet Stone said, glancing up.

“The alternative is me just telling you.  This, at least, is photo evidence.”

“I don’t know if your social media is admissible in a court of law.”

Pinkie met his eyes.  “Why would it need to be?”

Whet Stone looked like he hadn’t quite decided how to answer that when the door opened and Soft Eyes came in, holding his notebook in one hand and a disposable cup of coffee in the other.  Whet Stone scooted over and Soft Eyes joined him on that side of the table.

“Some of those Kirin are making some very outlandish claims,” Soft Eyes said.

Pinkie laughed.  The other two didn’t, and she pulled up short.  “Oh, sorry, I thought you were making an icebreaker joke, detective.”

“That doesn’t mean that it isn’t a little funny,” Soft Eyes said, consulting his notebook.  “They said you pulled some kind of Jedi mind trick in order to assault them with milk and cookies.”

This time it was Whet Stone’s turn to laugh, but he quickly got himself under control.

“Now that sounds like a party,” said Pinkie.

“Did this come before or after the citizen’s arrest?” Whet Stone asked.

“Assaulting someone who was already in custody sounds…”  Pinkie put a hand to her chin “...illegal?”

“Where did this happen?” Soft Eyes asked.

“Where did which happen?”

“The citizen’s arrest.”

“Oh, I promised I wouldn’t say.”

Soft Eyes had been going for his coffee cup, but paused. “Promised who, hon?”

“I promised I wouldn’t say that, either.”

Both of the detectives seemed miffed, but moved on to other questions.  Soft Eyes asked, “Why did you also bring us so many suitcases and sleeping bags?”

“Oh, I found where they were bunking.”

“But you can’t tell me where that was?”

“Nope, it would be breaking a Pinkie Promise.”

“What, I fear to ask, is a Pinkie Promise?”

“Oh, it’s too late in the story to explain, detective.”

“What was the original genesis of Kirin gangsters coming here, to Dashville, Virginia of all places, after you?”

“Well, I heard that they had put a fifty million dollar bounty on my head because they thought I snuck into a warehouse full of crystal molly, other drugs, and precursor chemicals, and leveled it with precision implosion demolition.”

Whet Stone chuckled.  “Precision demolition?  You?”

Soft Eyes did not seem to think it was funny.  “What kind of components would go into an explosion like that?”

“Oh, I only got a pyrotechnics license to shoot off fireworks.”

Soft Eyes pondered his notebook for a moment.  “We’ve taken statements from several of the Kirin: Autumn Blaze, Femme Flambe, and Buffalo Brushfire.  Hmm, all fire-related.  What would policing be like if they didn't helpfully name themselves accordingly?”

“Wait, is that your secret!?” Whet Stone burst out.

Soft Eyes turned to Pinkie.  “I’m sure there will be many follow-up questions.  You aren’t going to leave town, are you?”

“I’m not sure.  I’ve been here almost a week and that’s about as long as I’ve been anywhere in years.”

“If it became necessary, we can hold you for up to twenty four hours without charge.  At which point, your truck parked out front in a fire zone would definitely be a charge.”

“I mean, not to toot my own horn or anything, but all it would take would be one post from me on the internet and the whole world would know about this - and be on my side.  I’m not saying that makes me above you or anything, just that the juice here may not be worth the squeeze.  Er, all reference to OJ aside.”

“We’d confiscate your phone,” said Soft Eyes, though it probably sounded hollow to both of them.

Pinkie leaned forward.  “Well, would you like to see what would happen if I spent twenty four hours in your prison?”

Soft Eyes took a sip of his coffee.  “No.”

Pinkie leaned back and lifted her hands, palms up.  “So...community service?”

“You’re not even being charged with anything,” Soft Eyes replied.  “And I’d rather just have you out of my town.  But if you’re offering...my niece has a birthday party coming up.”





Pinkie parked her truck in the driveway.  She went straight for the barn.  Her sisters were waiting and the four of them went up to the loft.

“Is it over?” Maud asked.

“For now,” Pinkie replied.  “I can’t say whether they’re going to send more gangsters.”

“I think we’ll have a plan in place.”  Maud put a hand on Marble’s shoulder, who blushed.

“Speaking of preparing things, I’ve just about got my media contacts convinced to do a feature on Marble’s rock shop and to publish Maud’s thesis.  To be clear, that’s two very different magazines.”

“You did?” said Maud, eyebrows lifting.

“Well, I have to support the arts and the sciences somehow and it seemed a lot easier than dropping a few million dollars at Virginia A&M to get a building named after me.  I felt like I needed to do something for you girls before I leave town again ahead of any more Kirin.”

Limestone opened her mouth, but Pinkie preempted, “I’m not leaving forever again.”

She raised her hands.  “I know, I shouldn’t have stayed away for so long.  I’m sorry it was ten years and I really should have done things differently.  But I’m back with you girls now.  It’s kind of weird how this whole thing happened.  If Granny hadn’t gotten one of her old contacts to come out of their retirement in Florida to track me down and tell me what was going on here, I wouldn’t have lost my cool and bombed an organized crime headquarters to stop the major overseas flow of crystal molly into the country.

“Buuut it’s water under the bridge!  Limey, don’t say I never did anything for you.”

“You didn’t really do it for me-”

“You mean ‘thank you, Pinkie.’”

Limestone’s jaw tightened, but she dropped her eyes and said, “Thank you, Pinkie.”

There was a moment of hesitation, and then Pinkie moved forward.  Limestone seemed surprised, but almost to her own surprise, met Pinkie halfway.  Marble and Maud joined in.

As the four of them shared the group hug, Pinkie knew that she and her sisters weren’t out of the woods yet.  Every Ponk PK had her day, to twist an old phrase.  That day wasn’t today, but she could see things looking up.  There was still planning to be done.

Pinkie pulled back.  “You know, we should celebrate.  Let’s have a party.”