The phone was ringing.
I sat at the desk for a moment, hoping someone else would answer it. When nopony did, I somehow managed to drag myself out of my chair and over to the telephone that hung on the wall.
"Hello...?" I mumbled into the device. It was early Saturday morning, and I wasn't happy to have my free time disturbed. Although I was always tired in the mornings, I hated to waste a single minute on the weekends, since the rest of the school week was..... well, dead boring, not to mention frustrating, what with all the gossip that went around.
"Hey, Ghost, it's Sky!"
I was suddenly wide awake. Sky Storm, my best friend, hadn't been to school at all in the last month, and I was seriously starting to miss her. Although I loved all my friends, Sky Storm felt more like a sister to me. I knew what she was thinking almost before she even said it sometimes, and we could talk about anything. Well, almost anything. For some reason, I could never get Sky to open up to me when something was bugging her. I mean, I could always tell when she was upset, but she would never go into details, instead just shrugging it off with a smile. In the same way, I never really told her when I was feeling down, but just complained in a light hearted way.
"Hey, Sky! What's up?" I asked, leaning against the wall, with the phone balanced on my shoulder. Sometimes I really envied unicorns; life must be so much easier when you're able to levitate things.
"My trampoline is up; you should come over. Like, right now!"
"Dude, awesome! I'll be right over!" I hung up the phone and hurried outside, grabbing my skateboard. I wouldn't need it going up the hill, obviously, but going home would be much more fun this way. I trotted up the hill toward Sky's house. It was going to be awesome, finally seeing her again.
Way back, around January, Sky got really depressed, and none of us knew why. She stopped coming to school for a long time, and by the time she got over her depression, she was too far behind to be able to catch up. It also didn't help that she never really liked school in the first place...
I shrugged off these thoughts, instead choosing to look forward to today. After a long, and I mean long, Winter of pure boredom, jumping on a trampoline for a couple of hours sounded like the perfect way to celebrate the warm weather. I trotted into Sky's yard. Seeing she was already outside, I grinned and dropped ,my skateboard by the side of her house, then raced over and leaped onto the trampoline.
"The kittens all have their eyes open now," she said with a huge smile. I squealed and gave a huge bounce, landing on my back before being flung back into the air. Sky's cat had kittens a couple of weeks ago; four tiny little things, all adorable. I was hoping I'd be able to take one home, since they were just giving them away.
"They're soooooo cute," I replied as I landed, tripping over my own hooves again and falling flat on my face. Sky laughed at this, and we went on talking for a few minutes before I realized something, and burst out laughing again.
"Hi, by the way," I said with a giggle. This often happened; we were so used to each other that greetings never seemed to be needed.
"Hi," she said, doing a frontflip and landing on her belly. Sky started to say something, but kept messing up the words, until she finally gave up, throwing her hooves up in the air. I rolled my eyes, smiling.
She's so different now from what she used to be like... I thought, remembering back to the first day she came to our school.
~
It was halfway through fifth grade; a rather odd time for someone to show up, but nopony really noticed, or cared. She was made to stand at the front of the classroom while the teacher introduced her. The poor, shy pony was pressed against the wall, looking terrified. When she was finally allowed to sit down, she hurried to the only empty desk, which happened to be right next to mine.
Later that day, we were starting on a new art project, and were allowed to choose our own partners. Starlight hurried over to me, but I waved her away. I knew what it was like to be the new pony, having only moved to Ponyville two years ago, and I wasn't about to let this poor mare go through the same stress. She looked like she just wanted to disappear, and I didn't blame her; having to participate in a group project on your first day at a new school would *not be fun, especially if you were as shy as she seemed to be.*
"Hi," I said, trying to be friendly, "it's Sky Storm, right?" She barely looked up, nodding ever so slightly. I smiled, a bit awkwardly.
"Er... want to work together?" Again, a barely noticeable nod. We went to get our supplies, and sat down at one of the large, round tables at the back of the room. The assignment was to create items of furniture out of clay, then put them on a pizza box in the layout of a house, and label them in french. We were going to be working on it for around two weeks, so I thought, I might as well befriend this mare quickly, if I don't want to be sitting in awkward silence the whole time.
"So... um, I'm Silver Star," I said, with a quick smile. She made a quiet noise, kind of like a whimper. I assumed it meant she heard me.
"Fun being the new pony, huh?" I said sarcastically, shaping a lump of clay into something like a couch. Again, just a small whimper. I got an idea; maybe Sky Storm would be more comfortable if there were less ponies around. I got up and walked over to the teacher, who was currently helping one of the younger fillies.
"Would it be okay if Sky Storm and I went to work in the library?" I asked hopefully.
"Well," she replied, "as long as you're actually working, I don't see a problem with it. I'll be coming to check on you every so often."
"Great, thanks," I said, already hurrying back to the table where Sky Storm sat, rolling a lump of clay around in her hooves.
"Come on," I said, picking up the pizza box, "We're going to the library." She looked a bit confused, but followed willingly enough. Once we got there, I sat down on the floor and made myself comfortable. Sky Storm sat down across from me, picking up the lump of clay again.
"So.... is this the first time you've switched schools?" I asked, looking up at her. She shook her head, and I waited patiently for the answer.
"Eighth..." she mumbled, still looking down at her piece of clay, which was slowly taking the form of a....... square.
"Really?" I said, surprised, "You've been to eight schools? Wow, that's gotta be rough." She nodded.
After a little while longer of me asking questions, she gradually began to volunteer information, and even asked me some things. Soon we were laughing, rolling around on the floor, and having a grand old time.
"Hey, what are you making?" I asked, nodding to the thing that she was still shaping.
"It's, uh, supposed to be a table," she said, giggling. I raised one eyebrow.
"With three legs?" I laughed, poking it.
She nodded, barely able to contain her laughter, "Yep. It's a, uh.... special table?" I nodded in agreement.
"That's one special table." We both fell over, giggling uncontrollably. It startled us when the teacher walked in.
"Come back to class, girls, the school day's almost over," she said, with a smile on her face. We gathered our supplies, piled them on the pizza box, and headed back. I noticed that as soon as we stepped through the door into the classroom, Sky Storm got really quiet again. I couldn't really blame her; if I had been to eight schools, I'd probably be super shy too.
We sat down in our desks, and continued talking quietly until the bell rang. Well, I did most of the talking, but she seemed more willing to provide responses, as long as nopony else had to hear.
~
I let out a startled scream as I was flung high into the air. Sky had double-bounced me. Again. I landed on my belly before flipping over in mid-air, and flopping down again on my back. I lay there, unmoving, with my forelegs spread wide.
"You've killed me," I said in a weak voice, with my eyes still closed. Sky was too busy laughing her head off to even notice. I sat up after a moment, with large grin stuck on my face.
"You're so easy to scare, Ghost," she said through her giggles.
Ghost...
It was a nickname I had given myself once we got into Middle School, and it just seemed to stick. Now everyone called me that, even the teachers. Over the years, Sky Storm and I had kind of switched places; now I was the extreme shy filly, and she was the more outgoing. Although, she was almost never at school anymore, so I couldn't really make that judgement. In the halls, I stuck to the sidelines, pressed up against the walls in an effort not to be noticed, and it seemed to work most of the time.
"Whatever," I replied, getting to my hooves again, though my legs still wobbled.
"So..... how are you on this fine aaaaAAAAAHHHH!" My words cut off with anther scream as I was, once more, launched into the air. I actually managed to get my hooves in place underneath me as I fell, though the resulting bounce threw me into Sky Storm, knocking us both to the ground. And yes, I do mean the actual ground, not the soft, bouncy surface of the trampoline.
"Ow..." I muttered, opening my eyes. To my surprise, I was staring right into the face of my friend, who was laughing uncontrollably. Her eyes snapped open as well, though her giggles didn't cease. I started to join in, although, for some reason, my heart was pounding. I assumed it was just the aftershock of the fall, though this had happened a few times before.
I rolled away from her, quickly brushing the grass out of my mane and sitting up. Life really is unfair to earth ponies, I thought, wings would have saved me from that disaster.
"What I was trying to say," I said, rolling my eyes at my still-laughing friend, "was, 'how are you on this fine day?'"
"Oh, I'm-"
"no no, the moment has passed. I don't care anymore." I climbed back on to the trampoline, bouncing around in circles while I waited for her to join me. Sky rolled her eyes before backing up, and taking a running leap to land on the soft, springy material. This time I jumped up in the air before she could launch me again, letting out a triumphant cry as I did so.
After another few minutes of bouncing around, laughing, and generally having a good time, Sky asked if I wanted to go see the kittens. I nodded eagerly, letting out a squeal as I thought of seeing the adorable little fluff balls. We went inside, having our quick little argument over who should go inside first, as usual:
"You go."
"No, you."
"But I'm holding the door."
"Too bad, you first."
And so on. After that was settled, I headed downstairs while Sky went to the kitchen to get some water. I plopped myself down on the carpet, simply staring at the kittens for a few moments, before picking one up and cuddling it. They were still so tiny; I had to remind myself not to go "cuteness overload" and hug it to death. The one I was holding was a light brown, almost grey, tabby, with a white splash across its face. For this reason, Sky had named it 'Owl', and I agreed with the name. It was the only one that didn't cry when I picked it up, so naturally I tended to pay more attention to it than the others.
Sky entered the room, carrying two cups of water. She set one down on the carpet next to me, then went to sit on the bed.
"Thanks," I said, giving her a brief smile before turning back to the kitten. It let out a tiny mew, wriggling its tiny little legs, and I let out another squeal, quieter this time so I didn't terrify it. Sky watched for a few minutes, laughing every so often at my reaction to their tiny little faces. Eventually though, she seemed to get bored, and asked if I wanted to go back outside. I nodded and set the kitten back down in its bed, and chugged my water.
"What do you want to do?" I asked. Sky just grinned in response, and threw a blanket at me, before grabbing another one and charging up the stairs. I laughed, knowing what she was getting at, and hurried after her.
By the time I got outside, she was already back on the trampoline, with her blanket wrapped around her like a cocoon.
"I'm a caterpillar," she mumbled from within the depths of the quilt. I simply threw my blanket over top of her, and continued bouncing. Meanwhile, she wormed around like a blind thing, occasionally rolling over, which made both of us erupt in giggles.
"You have no idea how tempting it is to just tackle you right now," I laughed, standing still for a moment.
Woah. Where did *that** come from?* I wondered. I mean, yes, it was tempting to jump on top of her, but saying that made it sound really... odd, to say the least. To my relief, though, Sky just laughed.
"Don't you dare," she said, her voice no longer muffled by the blanket, as she poked her head out to glare at me teasingly. Grinning, I bounced over to her, turned around, and sat down on her back as she protested. After a moment, she sat up suddenly, throwing me off. I giggled, and sat up, facing her.
We just sat there for a while, discussing random things, like why there are so many Ponymon cards.
"Have you ever noticed that half the time we're on here, we're not even bouncing, we're just sitting here talking about random shit?" I asked, rolling over onto my belly. I had been lying on my back, looking up at the clouds passing over the area.
Sky thought about it for a minute, then nodded, replying, "Well, I never did before, but now that you mention it..." She turned onto her side to look at me. I was looking right into her deep, chocolate brown, beautiful eyes........ wait, what? Where the buck did that come from?
Sky Storm got up and started bouncing again, casting off the blanket, and I followed suit, but... I couldn't stop wondering about these thoughts that were running through my head. Like, seriously, what the buck? She's my best friend. I mean, yes, she's pretty, lots of ponies think so, but....
"Hey, let's pile the blankets in the center, and jump on them," I suggested, already kicking mine towards the middle of the trampoline. Sky nodded in agreement, and threw hers on top. She backed up a couple of paces, then leaped forward, doing a frontflip and landing on her back on top of the pile. She giggled, then got out of the way so I could jump. I thew myself at the blankets, and laughed in delight when they wrapped around me momentarily, blocking out everything else. Suddenly there was someone else on top of me; all the air was being crushed from my lungs. It didn't take me long to figure out that it was Sky. She was giggling madly as she leaned down to whisper,
"Payback."
My heart was pounding, and I could feel heat flooding my cheeks. I struggled to get out from under her, but at the same time, I wanted to.... roll over and grab her, and pull her into an embrace.
"What the buck?!"
I froze as I realized I had shouted that last thought out loud. But Sky just rolled her eyes, still giggling.
"Payback, idiot. You know, you sit on me, I sit on you?"
"Uhh.... right...." I said. I was grateful when she finally got off me, instead choosing to run around in circles, doing a frontflip every now and again. I got up, shaking out my mane and letting it fall over my eyes again. I was sure my face was beet red. My suspicions were confirmed only a moment later.
"Hey, you okay? Your face is kinda.... red," Sky commented, stopping in her bouncing.
"Hehe, yeah, I'm fine. I just, uh, get tired easily," I replied. I looked up at the sky, and saw the sun dipping toward the horizon, staining the clouds pink.
"I should probably go home," I said, "It's getting kind of late. My parents will probably want to eat dinner soon, if they haven't already."
Sky looked a bit disappointed, but nodded and began gathering up the blankets. I climbed off the trampoline, and waved goodbye as I hopped on my skateboard. As predicted, going home was really fun.
Water Balloons and Video Games
The sun was shining.
I forced my tired eyes open, rolling over to look at the clock. 10:47. I blinked in confusion. Wasn't I supposed to be in school by now....? I lay there for about ten minutes before I remembered.
Oh. Duh. It's Saturday. Ugh, now I was starting to lose track of time. Joy..... I thought about going back to sleep, but decided it was a lost cause; my room was too brightly lit now to allow any more rest. I stretched, and sat up, shoving my hair out my eyes. I felt like I was about to pass out, but that was normal these days.
The past few weeks, I had been having terrible nightmares that I could never remember when I awoke, but they seemed to prevent me from getting any sleep. Often I would wake up in the middle of the night, thrashing around, with my pillows hurled across the room. As you can probably imagine, school was getting very difficult, since half the time I was just zoned out, trying to stay awake. Two days ago, I had actually fallen asleep in English, but thankfully I was already done all the work.
I momentarily tried to remember last night's episode, but when the word spiders came to mind, I decided I didn't really want to know. I threw my pillows back onto my bed, fixed the blanket, and headed out to the kitchen to grab something to eat. It appeared my mom had made muffins.... when had that happened? Oh, well, they looked good, so I grabbed one and went back to my room.
Once settled in my chair, I opened my laptop, and opened PonyCraft. I logged on to my favourite multiplayer server, and started building. I was currently working on a castle-type base, which I was going to give to Sky and her group when it was done. At the moment, I was still building the wall. I put on my headphones, turned on some music, and got to work.
~
It took ages, but eventually the wall was done. I started to climb down, and a message from Sky flashed up on the screen:
HEY! It's warm enough outside for WATER BALLOONS!
I grinned, and replied:
Hi! Really? :O awesome sauce!
Ya so hurry up and get over here
lol ok I'm on my way
I smiled and quickly yanked a brush through my mane, then hurried up the hill to Sky's house. She was right, it was a really warm day, perfect for a water balloon fight. It was somewhat of a tradition that we had, and it was great.
When I got there, Sky had already filled up several balloons, and was placing them carefully onto the trampoline. I started to call out a greeting, then stopped as an idea formed in my head. I crept quietly over to the pile of balloons, picked up the biggest one I could find, and threw it at Sky as hard as I could.
Nothing happened.
The balloon simply bounced off her back and landed in the grass, unpopped.
"What the hay?" she yelled, turning around to see the balloon, still intact, sitting just a few feet in front of her. Her eyes narrowed, and she looked up to see me, standing there grinning.
"Oh, you are so going to regret that," she growled, stepping forward.
"What? I-it didn't even pop," I said nervously, retreating toward the trampoline.
Sky grinned, picking up the water-filled balloon. She hurled it at me, and I barely managed to dodge it. I turned around and climbed up onto the trampoline, and quickly kicked two more balloons at her. Somehow they still didn't pop, just bounced off and flew back at me. Sky was now on the trampoline as well, and she was holding an untied balloon in her hoof.
"Oh, no," I muttered, backing slowly away. She laughed and threw herself across the trampoline, grabbing my mane to keep me still, and dumped the water over my head. I screamed and struggled to get away; the water was ice-cold. Sky laughed and let me go, and watched in amusement as I did a face-plant right in the pile of water balloons. Thankfully, none of them popped, but it was still really cold.
Getting up, I whipped around and thew a huge balloon at Sky, and this time, it exploded, showering both of us in more freezing water. Sky looked shocked; I burst out laughing.
"Okay, we're even," I said, grinning. She nodded in agreement, and did a frontflip, landing on the pile of balloons.
~
An hour later, we were sitting on an extremely wet trampoline, surrounded by shreds of what used to be water balloons. I was telling her about the base I was building on PonyCraft, and she seemed interested, especially when I talked about the ideas I had for the potions room.
After a while, the topic switched to our favourite mmorpg. We both had really high level characters, and often enjoyed questing together.
"You should help me out on this one really tough quest," Sky said, "I've been stuck on it for ages!"
I smiled, replying, "Okay. Why don't I go home right now, and meet you on there?"
She nodded eagerly, and we parted ways for the moment. When I got home, I hurried to my room to log on to the game. Soon I was in, and we were battling a boss monster. After a fairly intense fight, I went to go edit my home. I was rearranging my virtual furniture when a message from Sky popped up:
CoolP0ny2000: Hey, so, if you could get the Jaguar mount instead of the Lioness, would you be happy with it? :)
In the game, most items cost real money, and we were all too willing to spend it; the mount in question was one of the coolest, in my opinion. Sadly, it was also one of the most expensive, so I had been going for the similar, but cheaper, Lioness. I replied to Sky`s message:
Friendly_Ghost: Um, Yeah. Why do you ask? That was rlly random lol.
CoolP0ny2000: :D
A few seconds later, the "gift" icon popped up on the side of my screen. I clicked it, and the message popped up:
CoolP0ny2000 has sent you a gift!
I grinned and opened the "gift". A 3d image of the Jaguar mount was spinning on the screen, and I grinned as it let out a huge roar, showing off it`s impressive fangs.
Friendly_Ghost: OMG! Thx Sky! :D :D :D :D
CoolP0ny2000: Question no longer random.
Friendly_Ghost:lol
I equipped the mount and spent the next ten minutes just running around the outside of my home, admiring the way my avatar`s colours matched it to perfection.
Friendly_Ghost: Sooo what brought that on? Or am I just that awesome?
CoolP0ny2000: lol you are helping me with my quests!
Friendly_Ghost: So you think that gives you the right to send me awesome stuff?!
I laughed as I sent the message. I was grateful for the awesome mount, but I felt guilty. I couldnt help it; it was like an automatic reaction whenever someone gave me anything. Still, it wasnt like I would send it back.
~
After a couple more hours of questing - with me looking epic, of course, thanks to Sky - another message popped up:
CoolP0ny2000: Hey, want to go skateboarding before it gets too dark?
Friendly_Ghost: Sure :) I can`t stay out too late though, got school tomorrow remember.
CoolP0ny2000: Oh ya that`s right. I forgot you normal ponies have school lol. see you at the bottom of the hill!
I sighed inwardly as I shut down the computer. I wasnt going to try to force Sky to go to school, but sometimes I really missed her. Okay, all the time. She seemed to be crossing my mind a lot these days, at the most random times, like when Im bored in Math class or something. You know, just thinking: How the heck do I figure this out? Then BAM! Sky Storm is stuck in my mind. Whatever. Shes my best friend; its only natural that I`d miss her, right?
I grabbed my skateboard and helmet and hurried out to meet my friend.
The bus was moving.
Wait, no it wasn`t. I pulled my face off the window and forced my eyes open. Shaking away the tiredness, I managed to figure out that we were at my stop. And even better, there was somepony there waiting for me....
I stumbled down the steps, somehow not tripping, and made my way over to my friend. She was standing with one hoof on her skateboard; obviously she had had fun riding down the hill to meet me here.
"Hi," I greeted her, smiling.
"Hey," she said, "the snow is probably all gone down in the forest; want to go see if the hut is still there?"
"The hut" was a little nickname for the tiny little structure we had started building last summer, way out in the forest on top of a huge hill. We had found a perfect circle of trees while exploring, and decided to construct a fort. We hadnt gotten very far, but we had managed to nail up some strong-looking sticks, and cover part of the roof with moss. What I wouldnt have given for a unicorn at that time... but we promised to keep it secret except from our closest friends.
"Yeah, sure!" I replied enthusiastically, "just let me drop off my stuff at home."
When we got to my house, nopony was there, so I threw my bag inside and quickly scribbled a note to my mom, telling her where I was. After that, we headed out. It was another bright, warm day, so it was quite pleasant to walk down the long hill, with the trees casting shadows over us, talking about nothing in particular. We went down to the creek first, debating whether or not to dip our hooves in. We decided against it, and turned back to climb one of the steeper hills to get to the hut. We were a little out of practice after the long winter, and a couple of times I almost fell, but we eventually made it. The little shelter was standing as strong as ever, with a few more fallen branches on the roof.
"Wow," I said, "we must have done a good job building this."
"Yep," Sky agreed, kicking one of the sticks. The structure shuddered, but otherwise nothing happened. I went out the "back door" and walked over to the cliff that overlooked a small valley.
"What a view," I said, "I'd forgotten." I turned around to see Sky right behind me, gazing out at the mountains in the distance. Canterlot was on the other side, and so there was nothing to disturb the peacefulness of the area. I found myself staring at my friend. The sunlight was making her eyes sparkle, and it really looked pretty. The slight breeze picked up slightly, and Sky's mane blew back in the wind. I couldn't tear my gaze away from her face... until she happened to look at me. Then I quickly shifted my eyes back to the scenery.
What is *wrong** with me?*
"Don't fall," Sky joked, right before pushing me toward the edge. Of course, I let out a shriek, and Sky erupted in giggles. I rolled my eyes and shoved her, then trotted back up to the shelter. I looked around at the many fallen twigs covering the ground, and said to Sky,
"Do you think we should clean it up a bit? I mean, we are going to finish it this summer, right?"
She laughed, replying sarcastically, "Sure, sure... just like last summer, when we were going to build a bridge across the creek."
"Whatever," I laughed, "I think we should clean up these branches a bit." I began scraping at the mess with my hoof, slowly pushing the debris into a neat little pile just outside the doorway. After a minute Sky started helping.
"You know this is pointless, right? We're probably never going to finish this," she said, carrying two large branches outside.
"Sure we will. It will just take a while," I said, grinning at her. "We just need to remember to actually, you know, work once in a while."
Sky snorted, rolling her eyes again, "Yeah, right. Have fun with that."
"I think the only problem would be getting you out of bed before two in the afternoon."
Sky laughed, "True."
~
An hour later, the floor of the hut was all clear, and there was a huge pile of sticks outside. We were taking a break before heading back home, just discussing random crap again. I flopped onto my back, and Sky did the same, and for just a moment my hoof brushed hers. I swear, it was like an electric shock ran up my foreleg. I jerked my hoof away, but I don't think she noticed anything.
This was so weird. The last time anything like that happened, it was when Thunder grabbed my hoof during capture the flag back in, like, grade five. I'd had a huge crush on him at the time, and since, in the game, you had to hold hands to get back from "jail", well... yeah. Of course, I'd pretended to hate it, but really, it was wonderful. But that was years ago.
What the buck is going- *oh*.
Oh, crap.
______________________________________________
A/N: Sorry for the short chapters. They will be longer, I promise! ^_^"