The sweet taste of apples

Chapter two: An unsuccessful dinner

The barn is full of wonderful smells and noises from different kinds of delicious dishes and a dozen ponies enjoying themselves. With the rumble of your tummy you realize how hungry you actually are. Applejack who heard the unambiguous sound from your gut smiles at you and nods in direction of one of the long tables covered with a white blanket. Before you can eat you have to squeeze yourself through a group of ponies and sit down on the wooden bench.
You take a look around.

The barn is built out of solid wood, made from hardened apple wood. For the celebration the barn had been divided in two functional parts. One serves as the place for the dining tables. The other, now that you showed up late to eat with the other workers, is just a wide open space where most of the ponies stood in groups. Some of them danced to music coming from an old gramophone. In one corner of the barn you recognize Granny Smith, the old mare who was in charge of the farms businesses. Of course she was asleep in her old rocking chair, as she usually was at this hour.
You remember back at the first year of your work at the farm.

Applejack places herself on the other side of the table, resting one of her elbows on the table to support her head. As soon as you made yourself comfortable you feel someone tapping you on the shoulder. You turn your head to see three fillies in front of you. An orange Pegasus with a purple mane, a white unicorn with a grey pinkish mane and a yellow earth pony with a big red ribbon in her hair. All three of them smiling at you like angles (you could swear that even for a second, you could see three halos above their heads).

“Umm… excuse me?” you ask.
“May we take your order sir?” The white unicorn beams at you.
“We are the cutie mark crusader waiters, on our quest to be the best waiters in all of Ponyville” The earth pony smiles
“And to find our special talents as waiters and earn our cutiemarks” the Pegasus adds.
You hear an annoyed sigh from Applejack as she rests her head on the table, covering her ears with her two front hooves.
“I’d like to have the apple strudel” you say to the unicorn.
“Right away” the three fillies chant in unison as they speed away.

Applejack risks a glance at the situation and removes her face from the desk, giving you a nervous smile.
“I hope ma sister and her crusaidin friends didn’t bother you too much”
“I find it very cute” you giggle.
In the same moment you hear the three fillies returning with your long-awaited food
“.. I’m gonna deliver the food and gain MY cutie mark first” you hear the little earth pony yell
“NO, it is ME who will get the cutie mark, argh” the Pegasus screams.

Applejack turns her head, a mix of surprise and anger in her eyes that turns into surprise and fear as her eyes follow a invisible object. Her eyes stop at your head as you close your eyes and await the impact of the three fighting fillies.
Instead you experience a soft splash as the long awaited apple strudel hits your head. You open your right eye, the one that isn’t glued shut with the delicious strudel, to see Applejack reaching out to wipe of the warm pastry.

“OH COME ON!” you turn your head to see a red haired filly glaring furiously at her fellow crusaders. “How are we going to get our cutiemarks if you keep fighting?!” She asks angrily.
“Now Applebloom.” Applejack steps in front of you. „You have covered my fellow here in his dinner; you and your crusaders should at least say you’re sorry!”
The three crusaders look at the ground, clearly disappointed and sorry for their rather unlucky action.
“We’re sorry” they apologize in unison.

Suddenly you realize something rather strange about Applejack. Something seems to be missing on her. She looks at you curiously “Everything all right sugar cube?”
“Do you have the feeling that you… missed something?” you ask her
She puts one hoof on her chin, looking on the ceiling of the barn thinking “Hmmm”. As she does so, you feel a strong desire building up inside of you, just as if you have lost something too and that something is standing now just a few hoof lengths in front of you.
The shocked look on Applejacks faces throws you out of your thoughts.
“My Hat, I must have lost it during the race!” she exclaims.
You can see the eyes of the three crusaders who stood by all the time widen.
“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS HAT RESCUERS GO!” they yell with a strength you would not think to be possible coming from three little fillies. Before you can say something they rush out of the barn, leaving you and annoyed looking Applejack behind.
“Well ah guess we’d better keep an eye on em” Applejack says as she turns and heads for the exit of the barn.
She turns her head, with half closed eyes she asks “You commin?”
You shake your head, partly because you have to recover from her look and partly because there are still some pieces of strudel in your mane.
You trot up to her, she gives you a little nudge with her hoof “You sure did look funny with that strudel in your face” she smirks. Both of you leave the barn into the night.