Chapter 5: Bookin' 2: Frantic Scootaloo

Scootaloo zipped speedily along the bumpy dirt road towards the Apple farm on her scooter, wings buzzing and a dust cloud rising in her wake. In her mouth she carried a rolled up flyer for the Daring Do play company coming to town next week.

Oooh! Where is she? Scootaloo thought frantically, looking around wildly for her idol, Rainbow Dash. She knew, like most of Ponyville did after that incident at the hospital, that Rainbow loved the books about the intrepid pegasus explorer and archeologist.

She was hoping the opportunity to see them perform live would be something that they could do together as sisters. She’d been so excited after Rainbow Dash had taken her under her wing, and she was getting used to the idea of having a big sister to do stuff with.

She’d been looking all over town for Rainbow, but hadn’t found her anywhere; not even at her cloudy home outside of town. She’d spent nearly an hour shouting up at it, thinking Rainbow had just been sleeping in again since it wasn’t her day for cloudbusting.

Since Applejack and Rainbow Dash were pretty close friends, being top notch athletes and all, she was hoping that Applejack would have some idea where she was.

She didn’t notice, looking all over as she was, the two slower moving figures on the road ahead of her until she was almost upon them. It certainly didn’t help that the pair didn’t have their own very obvious dust cloud to help her see them.

“Hey!” She cried out, “Watch out!” But too late and too muffled with the paper in her mouth that she refused to let go of; she was moving too fast and came too close to swerve. She did try, but lost control and the scooter rolled and tossed her off it as it went spinning away in a wild tumble.

She rammed into the side of the larger stallion as he turned, alarmed, at the shout coming from so close. It didn’t help that he froze when he saw her coming and was unable to just recover from what she considered a relatively harmless crash. Instead, she ended up hitting him high and sending him tumbling.

“Umph!” he whinnied. His saddlebags flew clear and dumped their contents on the dusty road. Quills, stoppered ink bottles, scrolls, parchments, and a few books spilled out in a great mess and clatter of glass clinking together and the gem bag bursting open and spilling forth the copious shades and hues of gems he’d gotten from Rarity.

Scootaloo lost her grip on the precious rolled up flyer and ended up sprawled atop the stunned stallion, his eyes crossed comically. Her scooter flipped over a few times and crashed into Spike. He just staggered a little and recovered quickly, catching the scooter in one claw like this was an everyday occurrence.

“Where is it?! Where is it?!” She spied a scroll lying close by and grabbed it in her mouth, not noticing there were quite a few nearly identical laying just beyond it in the cloud of dust the crash had kicked up.

“’M ‘o ‘orry!” She tossed out as she scrambled around the stallion recovering in the road, looking somewhat dazed and a little confused. Spike just offered her the scooter, brushing some of the dust off the hoof-stand. She got back on, fore-hooves on the handles and one hind-hoof ready to kick off.

“Just watch where you’re going, Scoot,” he admonished, “Where are you going in such a hurry anyway?”

“’’Ainbow ‘ash!” she said through the mouthful of paper.

“Rainbow Dash, huh? She’s at the library with Twilight, last I saw her.” Spike answered, pointing back the way Scootaloo had just come.

“Argh!” She groaned and spun the scooter about with a deft kick and was off again, buzzing wings sending up a dust cloud behind her as she took off once more back into town.

Why didn’t I think to check the library? She thought admonishingly, mentally kicking herself. She knew why, though. She didn’t like the library much, and she knew that Rainbow Dash didn’t really enjoy reading much beyond Daring Do and similar stories.

Still, she wanted to be the first to show Rainbow the flyer and every minute that she couldn’t find Rainbow was another minute that she couldn’t spend with her adopted big sister and super cool idol. She just hoped she wasn’t too late.

She paid more attention this time through the town to where she was going and dodged deftly around slower ponies and carts of goods going to and fro across the crowded noon-time streets of Ponyville. She still kicked up a bit of dust on her way through, though, and a few ponies shouted at her from behind a curtain of dust; but she was focused on what was in front, not what was already behind her.

With her speed on the scooter, it didn’t take her long to reach the large tree that housed the library.

Please still be here, she thought to herself as she came to a stop beside the door. She took a deep breath to steady herself and knocked on the door.

Twilight’s voice sounded from inside, “Come on in.”

She went inside to find Twilight and Rainbow Dash sitting together around the center table, each with a book open in front of them. Scootaloo recognized the binding of the book Rainbow had propped against one hoof as one of the Daring Do books with the heroine’s likeness emblazoned across the front.

Seeing Scootaloo come in, Rainbow set the book down and tucked a loose leaf into the pages before closing it.

Scootaloo dashed up and dropped the scroll on the table, feeling excited. “I wanted to show you this, Rainbow! I thought we could go together.” Suddenly shy, she ducked back and sat down, “You know, if you want to.”

“Of course, Scoot!” Rainbow replied happily, “What is it?” She opened up the scroll and started reading.

“Dear Applejack, I wanted you to know that my little sister and I are coming down to Ponyville this year for the Sisterhooves Social. With love, Apple Flower. P.S. Lucid Thought is a good friend of the family, he’s almost a brother to Applebranch. Have fun!” Rainbow tapped a hoof against the paper, plainly confused. “Uh, Scoot…”

With each word, Scootaloo’s horror grew and grew. She felt as though a giant pit had opened underneath her and threatened to swallow her whole.

“No, no, no!” She cried as tears filled her eyes, “That’s not the flyer!” Sudden realization came up rushing up from the pit at her feet. Vertigo assaulted her, and she knew with a sudden certainty where it must be. She collapsed, realizing her mistake.

“You don’t want to go to the Sisterhooves Social?” Rainbow asked, sounding concerned and still confused. She stepped down off the bench and nudged Scootaloo with a gentle hoof.

“No!” She paused as the realization hit her and cried again. “I mean yes! But… there was this awesome flyer too, and I ran into this other pony and he must have dropped the letter and… and I must have picked up that letter instead!” She gestured frantically with her hooves, trying to tell the story as quickly as she could and got overbalanced in her mad dash to retell the events of just a few minutes ago.

Scootaloo fell forward with a little thump and covered her eyes with her hooves, feeling mortally embarrassed at the mix up.

Twilight intervened, “You mean this flyer?” She asked gently, unrolling another flyer from the table and showing it to Scootaloo. “Rainbow Dash brought it in this morning.”

“Yeah! I was going to come find you and see if you wanted to go too,” Rainbow added, rubbing Scootaloo’s mane into a mess.

“Yes! Yes!” She cried out and jumped up, hugging Rainbow tightly, embarrassment forgotten already. “Of course I do!”

“That’s settled, then. But I think you oughta bring this other letter to Applejack,” Rainbow said, pushing the letter, rolled up again and tied with a ribbon, back to Scootaloo. “I’ll catch up with you later. I want to finish this chapter, first, though. Daring Do is being chased across the sky by some nasty Griffons!”

“I’ll see you later, big sis!” Scoot cried, dashing back out without the letter. She went back in just a moment later and sheepishly grabbed it before dashing back out again.