When Derpy picked up the page that Dinky handed her, she smiled and peered eagerly. When she lowered it again, the smile was… strained.
Dinky’s mind began working fast on her excuse. Suddenly, the living room was warmer than could be accounted for by the fireplace and the drawn curtains.
Just confess just confess just confess just confess…
But Dinky couldn’t confess. She daren’t. She needed the story to tell them her confession, but at the same time she daren’t say the confession out loud, herself. Not without some kind of shield, even if that shield was a bunch of make-believe words. Certainly not just blurting out the truth, naked and unashamed. That could doom her forever…
So she waited patiently, and then impatiently, for a roundabout kind of judgement that wouldn’t hit her directly.
Derpy still had that strange smile.
“Er…” she said, always fishing for good words even in the most polluted waters. “Are you sure that’s what Goldilocks and the Three Bears is really about?”
“Uh huh,” lied Dinky, who had a child’s instinct for how to handle adults. “Cheerilee set us homework. It’s part of our creative writing studies. All we have to do is pick a favourite story and re-imagine it.”
Derpy’s one good eye glanced at the paper. The eye glanced at Dinky. The paper, then Dinky. Paper. Dinky.
“And you chose Goldilocks and the Three Bears?” she said again to be sure.
Dinky nodded, widening her own smile. “Fairy tales all have morals in them somewhere, and it got me thinking: What’s the moral of that one? A filly goes into a house and gets caught? It just sort of happens, and then it ends. I thought I’d… get to the heart of it.”
Worryingly, Derpy screwed up her lips. Was she getting close? Dinky held her breath and her smile, and hoped for innocence and trust to keep her own neck the heck away from any trouble.
Nearby, at the table full of papers and books, Amethyst didn’t look up but simply said, “What did she write this time?”
“Umm-mum-mum-mum… here! I think it’s so good I don’t want to spoil it for you!” Desperately, Derpy thrust the page at her, and Amethyst caught it telekinetically when it shot off three feet away.
A moment of silence while her eyes scanned the page.
Then Amethyst looked up, dead serious. “So you think Goldilocks and the Three Bears…”
“Mm hm,” said Dinky.
“…is a cautionary tale…”
“Mm hm?”
“…on how not to get caught breaking and entering?”
“Mm… It makes a kind of sense,” said Dinky, far more confidently than she felt. “Goldilocks steals their food and breaks a chair. That’s property damage. She was doing all right too, up until she decided to go to sleep, and this way the ending makes more sense than –”
Amethyst held up a hoof.
“Dinky,” she said calmly, “correct me if I’m wrong, but cuddling up to sleep at the scene of the crime is not normal behaviour for the average criminal mastermind.”
She hesitated.
“Although anyone braindead enough to do all that in a bear’s house is probably already on…”
She hesitated again, as adults are wont to do when they realize precious ears are listening.
“…probably… on… sugar,” she finished. “In a sugar rush. Of sugar.”
“That’s right!” said Derpy with obvious relief. “Everyone knows the story is just a nice tale about a mare who accidentally breaks chairs but doesn’t let her mistakes get her down. She doesn’t know she’s doing wrong. And she’s just a nice pony really, under all those accidents and misunderstandings. I think she’s very inspiring.”
The other two looked at her for a long while.
Dinky cleared her throat. “I, um, think she’s very inspiring, too.”
“And she would be the sort of pony to smile a lot,” said Amethyst with a smile that hadn’t seen much practice. “Just like you, Derpy.”
The blush was brighter than the smile. Derpy rubbed the back of her own neck in instinctive modesty.
“Oh, I just try not to let anything get me down,” she said breezily. “Always look on the sunny side of life, right, Dinky?”
“You betcha!” Now Dinky changed her mind. She hoped, hoped, hoped this had all passed unnoticed. Unlike Derpy, Amethyst didn’t look on the sunny side of life. The interesting stuff was in the shadows.
And her big sister gave her an uncomfortably long, diamond-tipped stare. It drilled into Dinky’s mask of sweet ‘ickle innocence.
“This re-imagining thing is fun!” said Derpy’s sunny side. “How about you join in, Ammy? You could tell your version.”
Amethyst pushed her own piles of papery workload away – every evening, she worked, and every evening, she was a solid rock on the garden of Dinky’s world. What she lacked was Derpy’s more primrose approach to life.
“I’ve got two, actually,” she said after much too much cogitating.
“I always said you were clever, Ammy!” Derpy clapped her hooves together with glee.
But Dinky watched the foe, her face as blank as she dared. The trick was to give nothing away. Not even a cowardly lowering of the eyes. Always face the enemy. Never back down.
“First one,” said Amethyst, returning the blank stare with one that made snow look like graffiti. “Goldilocks and the Three Bears is a tale…”
“Yes?” said Derpy, flapping closer. “Oh, isn’t this exciting, Dinky?”
“…a tale of a mare, lost in the woods. Her airship: crashed. The passengers: no survivors. Just a little girl, alone in the woods, lost and hungry and cold…”
“Ah.” Derpy stopped flapping.
“She wanders for days and nights, living on the scrappiest of plants and the smallest of puddles…”
“Er, Ammy? Are you sure this is child-friendly?”
“…until she finds what she thinks is salvation.” Amethyst licked her lips. Since she didn’t blink at all, the result was snakelike. “A cottage in the woods. And at first, yeah, she thinks she’s safe. Warm food on the table, comfy chairs to rest on, secure bedroom to catch up on lost sleep. She can always explain to the residents, she tells herself. Or so she thinks.”
“Ammy, p-p-p-please! You’re sc-sc-scaring D-D-Dinky.”
“Yeah, you’re scaring me,” said Dinky, grinning her approval. “Keep going! Keep going!”
“But then, she hears a click at the door. Click. And footsteps stamping up the stairs. Raised voices. Angry voices. She peers over the bed covers, rigid with fear. She sees the bedroom door. The footsteps stop. Then… slowly… she hears the doorknob… turn.”
Dinky stood her ground. It was a battle of attrition. She stood her ground as hard as she could.
“The door creaks open. She hears the footsteps come in. Big footsteps, much too big for a pony. And voices. Three voices. The first says, ‘Someone’s been sleeping… in my bed.’ The second says, ‘Someone’s sleeping in that bed.’ And the third says nothing, but Goldilocks can feel the covers being pulled away.”
The fireplace dimmed. The room darkened. The heat fled for cover behind the mild flap of the curtains. Then, Amethyst opened her mouth to say, “She looks up, cornered like a cat, looking past the claws and into the cold ruthless predatory eyes of –”
“Stop! Stop!” cried Derpy, shooting up into the air. “I’m going to have nightm– er, Dinky is going to have nightmares!”
Just like that, the dark spell vanished. The warmth and light tiptoed back into the room once more. Both sisters sagged where they were, Dinky standing, Amethyst sitting.
“All right,” said Amethyst, careful as though she were handling a bubble. “I’m sorry I went too far.”
“So you should be,” said Derpy, who was not much good at being cross but was willing to give it a go. “You know I – You know Dinky doesn’t like those kinds of stories.”
“You’re right to think about her. I respect your wishes.” Amethyst turned back. “Dinky?”
“Yes, ma’am!” Dinky snapped her hooves together. It was textbook, the way she stood to attention.
“Don’t have nightmares. That’s a direct order from High Command, understood?”
“Roger, roger, ma’am, ma’am!” And this was the salute that set that textbook’s curriculum.
Lieutenant Amethyst looked at her with indifference, but perhaps the eyes were tinged with pride? Or else mild amusement.
Best to go while the atmosphere was cordial…
“Well, good night!” Dinky said, hurrying around the table to peck Amethyst on the stiff cheek and then reaching up to get a rib-threatening squeeze from Derpy. She was halfway to the door, hardly daring to believe her luck, when –
“Hold on,” said Derpy suddenly, lost in thought. “Didn’t you say you had two stories to tell, Ammy?”
“Why yes. I believe I did. One second, Dinky?” called Amethyst.
Dinky froze at the door. Oh no! Not now, not now, not now!
“Come over here, would you?”
She turned around. Amethyst squared her own lips and made that mid-air swipe, the universal gesture for: “Of course! I almost forgot! Silly me! Could’ve kicked myself!”
There was Amethyst, the High Court Judge. There was Derpy, the hovering angel of Dinky’s right shoulder, if a bit confused as far as angels went.
Swallowing, Dinky approached the stand – er, table. She meant table.
Derpy peered closer. “What’s that you’ve got on your hooves, Dinky?”
Guilt and self-cursing prompted Dinky to hold them out.
“Ink,” she said.
“It’s brown,” said Amethyst.
“Experimental ink.”
“Looks like mud to me.” The paper rose under Amethyst’s spell like a charge sheet. “And I notice your homework assignment is written in a more traditional blue ink.”
Derpy frowned in her efforts to keep up. “Oh my. It’s not as if it was scheduled to rain today. I’d have known about it. Are you OK? Did you fall on your way back home? I hope no one pushed you; they used to push me over all the time when I moved to Ponyville –”
Butterflies attacked the stomach lining deep below Dinky’s rapid heartbeat.
“I’m OK,” she mumbled, not looking Amethyst in the face. She’d rather get some sympathy from Derpy’s sad concern. “It’s not much mud.”
“Right. I thought you were a long time at the kitchen sink,” said Amethyst. “I could hear the water running from here.”
Uh oh.
How damned was Dinky right now? She supposed a little truth couldn’t hurt her defence too much. “I just wanted to be clean before I did my homework! Oopsie! Must have forgotten to check under the frogs. I’m so rushy sometimes. Rushy, rushy, rushy. That’s me.”
“Uh huh. So you were not removing any incriminating evidence, by any chance?”
“N-No.” Dinky shuffled where she stood. All of a sudden, Derpy’s presence was no longer welcome. She knew the pegasus hated childish lies whereas Amethyst just hated childishness.
This was it. Derpy looked from one to the other, perplexed and concerned as though someone had posed a mathematical conundrum and then said the house would explode in ten seconds if she didn’t solve it. This was it.
“What’s going on?” said Derpy.
“I had a very interesting chat with Roseluck this evening,” said Amethyst loudly enough for Dinky to miss nothing. “Just as she was dropping off her tax forms, as it happens.” She nodded to the desk full of many such forms. “Told me a very strange story. Something called Goldilocks –” her gaze jumped to Dinky’s straw-gold mane “– and the Three Flower Ponies.”
And… there. Dinky’s whole body breathed out. The worst had happened.
“I… think I know this one,” she said miserably, squirming where she stood in case that won Derpy over.
“Yes,” said Amethyst relentlessly. “It’s about a little filly who should’ve known better –”
Dinky sighed. Games. She hated her big sister’s games. “And she only wanted to look at something for a minute –”
“– so, from what I can tell, she waited until the Three Flower Ponies left the little cottage –”
“– but she only went in to look! Just to look! It’s not fair, keeping fillies out of such a beautiful garden like that!”
“A garden that this naughty little Goldilocks knew was off-limits.”
Derpy’s head went back and forth following them, or gamely trying to. “Huh?”
“So she tramped all over the garden,” continued Amethyst in that patient diamond-tipped drill of a voice. “And I imagine she said, ‘This rose bush is too sharp!’”
Shock crossed through Dinky. “How did you –?”
“You’ve got cuts on your legs. Just above your hooves.”
“I didn’t mean to ruin it! I mean –” she glanced nervously at Derpy “– Goldilocks only meant to take one. It was just one. Honest!”
“Um,” said Derpy, “I think you’re taking this story a little too seriously.”
“And then.” Amethyst banged the table for attention, and the strikes were from the gavel of the condemned. “This little filly said, ‘These sunflowers are too tall!’”
“I tried to put them back up again,” said Dinky in a small voice to the table. Even looking at Derpy was too painful now.
“You mean Goldilocks, right?” said Derpy, trying her best.
“And then Goldilocks – thank you, Derpy –” said Amethyst. “Goldilocks said, ‘But these rare Time Tulips, they smell just right!’ Although if she was going to sniff them, the least she could do was wipe the pollen off her nose afterwards.”
It was reflex: Dinky’s hoof shot up to her nostrils. Darn it! She’d just given herself away!
“But what Goldilocks didn’t know was that, when she climbed over the fence, the Three Flower Ponies came back and saw her gallop away. And the moral of that story is: You try and pull a fast one over me again, sister, and it’ll go very hard for you.”
Whimpering, Dinky shrank where she stood. No excuses rushed to her rescue.
At last, Derpy landed nearby. For some reason, she was clapping. Dinky beseeched her mercy. But surely, she couldn’t approve of such a crime?
Derpy beamed at them both proudly. “Now that is a re-imagining! I hope you write this down, Dinky. Why, I think it’s even better than the old one!”
Beside her, Amethyst didn’t move. Except for her eyes, which closed slowly, reset, and beseeched the ceiling for Derpy’s intelligence, if anyone could find it.
But as her big sister stirred to speak, Dinky jumped to it. She’d be darned if she was going to be sold short in front of Derpy herself.
“I actually did all those things,” she confessed in one quick breath.
Derpy eventually frowned; it took some time for her wrinkle-free brow to get the idea. “What?”
“The breaking and entering and hurting those little flowers. That was me. I did it. Today. After school.”
“You what?”
“I didn’t mean to!” Dinky caught up with her own flurry of worry. “OK, OK, I meant to. But only for a little while. I could see it if I climbed to the top of the fence. Everyone at school talks about it. And oh, it was so lovely and colourful!” She took a guilty breath. “Anyway, I kinda sorta maybe got the idea from you.”
“You got what from me?”
“Remember that story? The Secret Plot? About the hidden garden and all the secret stories hidden in it? I thought it might be worth a try. You never know until you try, right?”
“Right!” said Derpy, seizing the only bit she wanted to understand. “But look, that was just a story. All that Goldilocks stuff was just a story too, wasn’t it?”
“I broke into a garden,” said Dinky, finally realizing that Derpy would be stuck unless it was put to her straight.
The uncomfortable frown on Derpy’s head twitched under all the effort. Yet when it slid away, the tight cheeks covering Derpy’s lower eyes in shame hit Dinky all the harder.
“Oh, Dinky! You know I don’t like it when you do that. It’s not nice.”
Although it was like being patted by a kitten trying to be a tiger, Dinky winced under the mental blow. “I couldn’t help myself. It was like an adventure, and then –”
“You know better than that. Dinky, you’re supposed to be a nice girl who respects other ponies’ gardens, aren’t you? I said aren’t you?”
There was nothing for it. Dinky sat down and curled up tight, but fought to at least sit up a little straighter. If she was going to face life in prison, she ought to show a little dignity.
“Yes, Derpy,” she said, too late playing the good little girl role.
“And what are you going to do, young lady?”
Dinky shuffled her hooves, not acting this time; they felt way too hot to keep still. “Not… do it again?”
“And?”
“And… and go back and say I’m sorry to Roseluck and Daisy and Lily.”
“And?”
“And… and pay them back for the spoiled plants.”
Hastily, Amethyst coughed. “Actually, I don’t think she should be dipping into her savings just yet. I’ll cover the damages this time. Dinky –” Dinky winced under the word “– will pay me back over the long run, once she starts a job.”
“OK?” said Derpy, who didn’t have much financial acumen and who’d donated one of those tax forms on Amethyst’s table. Aware she was losing the initiative, she more grumpily added, “What your big sister just said, young lady! Get a job!”
“Yes, Derpy. Yes, Ammy.”
“No, Derpy,” said Amethyst patiently. “She’s not old enough to get a job yet.”
“Oh.” Derpy chewed her lip for a moment. “Isn’t she?”
“Nope.”
“Oh. Uh. Then! Then, Dinky, I want you to grow up faster. Your sister works very hard for you. It’s time you worked some of it back.”
“I know, Derpy,” said Dinky. “Will try my best, Derpy.”
“That’s not actually possible,” said Amethyst, equally patiently. “Everyone ages at the same rate.”
“Are you sure about that?” Derpy narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “I’ve heard of growth spurts.”
“That’s as may be, but last time I checked, growth spurts don’t violate the laws of physics.”
“I should hope not! Dinky’s already being charged for trespassing and flower abuse!”
Now, the moment of truth. The day of judgement. The ruining of her entire life. Dinky raised a cautious hoof, and held it up so earnestly that even Amethyst stopped trying to lecture Derpy on basic pony life cycles and why time didn’t speed up or slow down by convenience.
“Yes?” said Derpy.
“Um,” murmured Dinky. Ask the question, ask the question! “Am I… Am I going to prison for this? Am I? Um?”
Her hoof started to shake. She told herself it was just the effort of keeping it raised. It wasn’t because there might be Royal Guards bursting into the room at any minute, or that she might not see this room for months, or that she’d never be able to look her sister in the eye again…
Thank goodness for Derpy! She just laughed and rolled onto her back, clutching her ribs, not caring that the other two were staring at her.
Dinky was glad to see the dreaded visions fade away. They couldn’t get her if she heard that laugh. Even Amethyst gave a weak grin, once she stopped gaping and realized what was going on.
Then Derpy rolled back onto her hooves again and let the last chuckles die away. “Dinky! Prison? Never! Not for a silly little thing like that!”
“Oh, good.” Dinky wiped her brow, which left the cold clinginess of mud on it. “I mean, it’s not good what I did, but for a second, I thought I was actually going to –”
And now she sounded very, very stupid.
“I’m sorry,” she said, giving up on all thought.
“Come here, you silly little criminal!”
What Derpy lacked in brains, she made up for with hugs. Dinky was careful to hold her breath tightly without putting up too much resistance. She always liked the way Derpy’s chin rested slightly on her own frumpy fringe, pressing it against her forehead like a pillow. The hooves felt the same as a house was: big, safe, keeping her locked away from the cold night outside, all warm and snug under the covers with dreams for friends.
They broke apart just before it could get too warm and tight. She was growing up, after all.
“But you’re going back to the Florist’s tomorrow, understood?”
“Yes, Derpy.”
Yet it was Amethyst who Dinky watched now. True, Derpy might set the standard and set her straight, but behind the pegasus’s bright eyes and smile of goodwill, Amethyst watched her little sister like a hawk. A hawk with high, high expectations.
Dinky grinned weakly, in case it looked too cocky, and chuckled just enough to wish no hard feelings, but not so hard that it looked like she’d forgotten the guilt just a moment ago.
One raised eyebrow was all she got. From Amethyst that was… encouraging. Not great. Not much to raise anyone’s hopes yet. But there was definitely an escape clause where a cunning enough lawyer might find Dinky some wiggle room for redemption.
Amethyst did hand over the homework, though. “Not bad. You might want to cut down on the adverbs here and there.”
“Okie dokie!” said Dinky, even throwing off a salute.
A nod. She was excused. For now.
Dinky bolted. She didn’t need telling twice.
She went out the room and up the stairs and through the door and then she dived into her own bed and waited.
Once, she got out to clean her teeth. Amethyst would be inspecting later. Dinky carefully left bits of toothpaste in the sink, partly as evidence, partly because the imp in her wanted to wind up fussy old Ammy.
Then she dived back into bed. Then she counted under her breath.
Voices rose downstairs.
Cautiously, she slunk from step to step, remembering in time to overreach and so avoid the one creaky stair halfway down. By carefully accidentally getting a glass from the kitchen – her cover story would be the classic “I wanna glass of water!” – and very precisely accurately by mistake pressing it up against the door, she pressed her ear against it and pretended not to hear the two voices beyond.
She heard Derpy say, “Wow, what a rollercoaster that was! Dinky’s such a scamp, isn’t she?”
And she heard Amethyst reply, “If by ‘scamp’, you mean ‘incorrigible spawn of Tartarus crossed with an evil genius’, then I could not fail to agree with you less certainly than you think.”
“Oh, I’m so glad you’re being nice to her! You know it’s very nice to see you being nice to her. She’s so…”
“Nice?”
“I was going to say ‘adorable’. But that works too.”
Silence for a while. Deep inside Dinky’s chest, a fledgling pride fluttered happily. Derpy was better than mercy.
“And thank you for helping me with all those moneys things,” said Derpy. “I always get the numbers back to front and upside-down and goodness knows where else.”
“Well, I’m only doing half of Ponyville’s tax returns for them. Another one won’t make much difference here, anyway.”
“You’re so smart!”
“No, smart would be pushing the load off to some other poor sap. I’m just being practical. Besides, they’re paying me to do this.”
“You charge them?”
“I’m smart enough to make it worth everyone’s while. Including mine.”
Another silence. Dinky adjusted her glass, trying not to scrape it in case the sound gave her away. She swore she heard the scratching of pen on paper.
“Do you think…?” said Derpy, sounding worried for once. “Do you think Dinky’s… going to grow up bad?”
The scratching stopped. “What do you mean?” said Amethyst.
“Well, I didn’t want to say anything earlier, but… breaking into a garden? All that criminal stuff she talked about? You don’t think she might grow up into a… criminal, or something? Just maybe?”
A thoughtful pause.
“I didn’t want to put the idea in her head,” added Derpy nervously.
Amethyst didn’t hesitate. “Of course not. One little mistake doesn’t make someone a future criminal. She’s got time to learn right from wrong. I thought you handled it pretty well.”
“You do!?”
“Yeah. I can’t see her going wrong with ponies like you around.”
“Oh, thank you! You’re such a sweet soul really, when you want to be kind! Come here, you!”
A brief scuffle. “Argh! Derpy! Do not hug! I do! Not! Hug!”
Derpy’s satisfied groan let go. Papers were shuffled, and Dinky suppressed the giggles. Amethyst hated getting the paperwork messed up.
Before she decided to leave, she did hear Derpy ask, “What’s that you’re writing?”
“My own little story. To read to Dinky one day. You take the time to read her stories. I think I ought to do the same. Round off her education.”
“What does that mean?”
“I was young once too, you know. I could teach her a few valuable lessons.”
More pen scratching. Dinky tilted her head to hear better, but nothing was said for a while.
“I can’t teach Dinky to avoid that kind of fairy-tale wishful thinking,” said Amethyst. “Still, it’s probably not a good idea to feed her too many fantasies. Not when her imagination’s that strong. For one thing, it infects her creative writing. Gives her ideas. Makes her guilty with the temptation. She does love exploring.”
“Uh huh?” said Derpy, apparently waiting for a clue.
“So…”
“So?”
“So… since she’s likely to get into trouble again…”
More pen scratching, yet it didn’t last long this time. This time, Dinky heard the heavy breathing of Derpy fighting to focus on reading. Not being very good at it, Derpy took what little she could do very seriously.
“Is that the title?” Derpy said at last.
“Yep.”
“But… Goldilocks and the Guide to Tactical Home Infiltration? Really?”
“Well, I don’t want Dinky to break into any more houses,” admitted Amethyst, whilst behind a door Dinky found herself grinning. “But when she inevitably does, she should at least do it right.”
