I reached school to find a human outline drawn in chalk where we had left Levi.

“That can’t possibly be good…”

I decided to investigate. I grabbed the door handle and pulled. Crap, it’s locked… Better try the other one…

So I did that. Ditto for that one…

I looked through the glass in the door. I could barely make out the outline of the janitor walking toward the door. I waved my arms back and forth to try to grab his attention. No luck. Suddenly, a thought occurred to me.

Wait, why is the door locked? I’ve stayed after school way later than this before, and the doors have never been locked before I left. Weird.

The janitor picked up my backpack and tossed it into the lost and found bin against the wall between the main hall and the teacher’s lounge.

Suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I jumped, startled.

“It’s okay, Mark. I got your stuff for you,” he said.

“Levi!” I turned around to see him holding the laptop with two fingers, threatening to drop it. “D-don’t do it! I swear, if you drop it, I’ll-”

“You’ll what?” he stopped me.

Didn’t he use that one, like, an hour ago?

“Y-you know what I’ll do, Levi!” I exclaimed, trying to sound as threatening as I could.

Looking unamused by my reply, he let go of the laptop, dropping it.

“Nothing! That’s what I’ll do!” I finished.

“That’s what I thought,” Levi replied, smirking at me. “I played your stupid Minecraft parkour map. I hate that map.”

“Who do you think you are, Columbus?”

“What?” Levi asked. He scratched his chin, and after a second or two, got it. “Ooooohhhh…”

I smiled at Levi. “By the way, that wasn’t my map. That wasn’t even my laptop. I left my laptop at home.”

“Wait…” Levi started. “I-if that wasn’t your laptop, then…”

“It was yours. You left your locker open during lunch, so I decided to take your laptop and put it in my backpack.”

“Is that why you waited until just barely after your 30 minutes were up to leave the school? And then, after that, you paid your friend to throw milk at me to knock me out, and you ran down the hallway as the janitor was sweeping with his broom so you could look cool, only to have to drop your things on the ground right inside the door?”

“Yup,” I confirmed.

“But you only did that to tempt me into taking your stuff when I woke up, didn’t you? And you took my wallet…”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, what? I didn’t take your wallet, and I’m pretty sure Jacob and Rarity didn’t go anywhere near it,” I lied. I didn’t want to waste the genius that was that note.

“Does that mean that note was…” he trailed off.

“What was that?” I asked, putting my hand to my ear as if to hear him better.

“Nothing, nothing… Anyway, I can only assume you knew I was going to threaten you to meet me outside or else I’d beat up Rarity, because you obviously planned that date specifically to use her as bait!”

“Well, that is what marshmallows are made of…” I mumbled.

“Huh?”

“’Yeah, I did’ is what I said.”

“Oh, okay. Well, I need to go now, my mom is gonna be really mad when she finds out what I did to my laptop!” Levi realized, running off toward his home.

I didn’t really plan it. I just made all that crap up.

Speaking of crap, I really needed to take one…

Anyway, it actually was my laptop, but I knew the twenty we took from his wallet would cover the damage. I wasn’t sure that Jacob would give me the money, though.

I really hope he never looked at my pony folder. I mean, everyone in the school knew Rarity and I were going out, so being a brony was kind of a given. Still, if he ever saw the shear amount of pony fan art I have in that folder, I fear how badly he would blackmail me with it. I know Rarity would probably find it creepy.

Then again, she’s a main character in a little girls’ cartoon watched by thousands of grown men of another species.

I picked up the laptop, which was mostly undamaged, save for a few pieces that had fallen off, and went home. I passed by Rarity’s on the way and stopped. I looked up at the upper floor to see Rarity reading a book in her bedroom. I gently set my laptop on the ground and waved my arms back and forth.

Nope, that doesn’t work for her either.

I picked up a rock about the size of a pair of ear buds. Before I continued, I checked my wristwatch. 4:00. Looks like the movie’s over.

I pulled my arm back and aimed for next to Rarity’s window. I mean, I know some guys chuck it straight at the window, but I didn’t want to break the window and have the rock fly in and hurt her.

“Tom, meet wall. Wall, this is Tom.” I threw it.

The rock bounced off the wall off her house and plummeted harmlessly into the grass. She didn’t notice.

I picked up a slightly large rock, about the size of a wad of chewed gum. I paused for a moment.

I’m choosing such oddly sized rocks. Like, seriously, one the size of a pair of ear buds, one the size of a wad of chewed gum? What’s next, one that’s smaller than a refrigerator but larger than a really small refrigerator?

I pulled my arm back again and threw. When it made a noise, she looked up from her book. She looked around for the source of the noise, though not out the window. After a few seconds, she shrugged it off and found her place again.

Starting to get frustrated, I picked up a larger rock, about the size of a pocket knife. I threw it as hard as I could at the wall. Still, it bounced off, leaving no visible marks on the wall.

On the wall.

“OW!” I screamed, covering the left half of my face with my hand.

Rarity looked up at my scream and yanked the window open.

“Mark?! What are you doing?” she asked, worried.

“Howling in pain,” I answered.

“What happened?”

“Let’s just say I learned an important lesson about the rock-throwing method of getting attention…”

“Pardon?”

“Nevermind that!”

“If you don’t mind my asking, isn’t the so-called ‘rock-throwing method’ generally used by colts to get fillies to sneak out of their house at night?”

“Wrong species, but yeah, I guess…”

“Why are you doing it now? It’s only 4:02 in the afternoon!”

“I saw you and wanted to talk to you…”

“Then why didn’t you just ring the doorbell?”

“I don’t know…”

I took a step toward her house. Rarity leaned a bit farther out of her window to compensate.

“Also, why didn’t you throw the rock at the window?” Her hoof gestures, I suppose, were getting bigger as she spoke. “I mean, I’m not trying to poke fun at your aim, but it’s a fairly large window, quite frankly, and I don’t see how it could be so easy to miss!”

“Well I didn’t want to break your window with a big rock…”

Rarity started using her outside voice. “Then why didn’t you just use a smaller ro-” She fell out the window, which actually happened in my Minecraft parkour map. She screamed as she fell.

I turned around and put my arms out to catch her. I moved underneath her to save her life.

Unfortunately, I did.

With my face.

“GET ME A DOCTOR!” I yelled, muffled by the fur on Rarity’s stomach.

Author's Note

I feel like this one isn't as good as the others, but I didn't have anything planned for this one. I think I was trying to stretch out the Levi conversation for the whole chapter, but couldn't, so I kinda just stopped and improvised from there.

Seriously, I didn't know Chapter 8 was going to be in the hospital until I actually got to writing the end part.

And, yes, Chapter 8 is going to be in the hospital. Where else would it be, on one of Columbus' ships?

Anyway, if you have any ideas for future chapters you want to see, let me know in the comments below! I mean, I have a lot of ideas of my own, but your ideas might be better than what I have, so don't cease to let me know your hopes for the future of this series.

See you guys in Chapter 8 on Saturday, if all goes according to plan.