Truffles Are Not the Only Candy
Truffles Are Not the Only Candy
© Scribbler, July 2013.
Truffle’s pocket money burned a hole in his saddlebag. He could almost feel it sizzling through the fabric, the same way he could feel his belly aching from emptiness. It reached down the insides of his legs like an internal puppet master, steering him down the street. He had been envisioning food since afternoon recess. When Miss Cheerilee was talking about fractions, his hungry brain had even converted the pie chart on the chalkboard to an actual pie. The other students had giggled when he was drooling too much to answer their teacher’s question when she called on him.
Sugar Cube Corner was only two streets away. He often went there after school, to fill the long gap between lunch, afternoon snack and dinner. Most of his pocket money each week went into their dinging cash register and the ponies who owned the café knew him by name. Sometimes the pocket money didn’t stretch very far and he had to mow the lawn or hire himself out doing chores for neighbours in exchange for a few coins. Today he had five bits and already knew what he was going to buy: a slice of triple chocolate cake with whipped cream and sprinkles. His mouth watered afresh at the prospect. Most colts his age couldn’t finish the massive portions Pinkie Pie cut, but Truffle was nothing if not a perfectionist; which meant that cake was perfection and finishing it was nothing.
He skidded to a halt when he rounded the corner. A stripy pink and yellow safety barrier stretched from one side of the street to the other, behind which a dour looking stallion with a clipboard was talking to two much bigger unicorn stallions in hard hats. Several feet away what looked like a geyser shot into the air through a large gash in the asphalt.
“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!” the clipboard stallion was saying. “We need to fix that water pipe as soon as possible or it will be chaos!”
“We?” muttered one of the big unicorns. “Don’t you mean ‘you two’?”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Fusspot,” the other sighed, as if he couldn’t imagine the smaller pony doing anything else. “We’ll be done on time.”
The clipboard stallion bit his lip. “But will you? Will you really? Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear – hey, you there! Scat! You can’t be here! Get along with you!”
Truffle took a step back. “M-Me?”
“Sorry, kid.” The bigger stallion who had spoken gave him an apologetic nod. “Burst water main. You’ll have to find some other way home.”
“Oh. O-Okay,” Truffle replied uncertainly. He could see Sugar Cube Corner at the other end of the street – so close and yet so far. “I’ll … I’ll go around.”
“You do that, son.” The unicorn turned back to his fussing colleague. “Now, Mr Fusspot, you gotta clear the area too so we can do our jobs …”
Truffle was already mentally planning his route. Chocolate cake awaited him in that café and he didn’t intend to let it down. He dashed into a side alley, intending to run around the backs of the buildings and come up on Sugar Cube Corner from the opposite direction. It was a flawless plan. Well, except for one minor detail: the part that involved running. By the time he reached the other end of the alley he was gasped and bathed in sweat.
“Triple … chocolate … cake …” he gasped to himself for encouragement. “… with … whipped … cream …” He staggered along, using the wall for support. “… and … sprinkles …”
Running was awful. Usually he faked a tummy ache or something when they had to run in PE. He suspected Coach Crimper knew what he was up to but the coach didn’t much care. Truffle didn’t exactly light up the gym when he tried to climb ropes or swing on the parallel bars, and neither of them liked to think about what happened when they played team sports. It was an ugly, ugly business that left everypony irritable and disappointed. Even when working alone, Truffle had problems. Last semester he had got stuck halfway up the climbing rope and Featherweight tried to help him down while Coach Crimper wasn’t looking. Given that Truffle weighed more than three Featherweights, the results had not been pleasant for either of them.
“Triple … chocolate … c-cake …” he continued to wheeze. It was amazing what a good motivator could do for even the most lacklustre sportspony. “… whipped … cream … s-sprinkles … cake … c-cream … sprinkles …” Nevertheless, he was forced to sit down for a moment before he fell over. “Cake … c-cream …” He slid down the wall, burbling encouragements to himself.
A shop bell jingled. Hoofsteps clattered towards him. “Oh my goodness, are you okay?”
Truffle looked up, blinking through his own sweat – and his mouth fell open. “Sprinkles …” he squeaked.
“Huh?” The vision of loveliness bending over him frowned.
She was the prettiest thing Truffle had ever seen – even prettier than the biggest slice of triple chocolate cake in a dish with whipped cream, strawberry ice-cream, wafers, sprinkles and gooey chocolate sauce. His mouth flopped as he tried to speak through a combination of love-struck breathlessness and clinical exhaustion.
“Sweetie, can you hear me? Have you had a seizure? Are you having one now?”
Truffle realised he was trembling, though with fatigue or as a result of her beauty, he couldn’t tell. “N-No,” he stammered. Had his voice always been so shrill? “I’m okay. Really.”
“You’re not,” the gorgeous pony replied firmly. “Ponies who are okay don’t collapse in the middle of the street. Hmm, if it’s not a seizure, it might be low blood sugar. When was the last time you ate?”
“Um …” His brain wasn’t working right either. Even if he had been able to say them, he couldn’t summon the correct words.
“This is my store.” She gestured behind him. Evidently he had been using it as a prop. “C’mon and I’ll help you inside. If there’s one thing I can cover, it’s sugar.”
She reached out and touched his foreleg. Truffle nearly died from bliss. She helped him to his feet and supported him as he weaved his way through a door with a jingly bell and calligraphic writing across the glass. He was too focussed on her to notice what it said but his nose was more alert. It zinged with the scent of –
“Candy!”
Truffle blinked at the towering array of jars, each full to the brim with a different confection: mint humbugs sat beside butterscotch bars, which abutted sherbets in all colours of the rainbow, squeezed between hard gums, gobstoppers, chocolate mice, aniseed balls, coconut chews, fruit licks and so many other things that not even he could name them all. Strung across the counter was a large cloth sign that read ‘Grand Opening Tomorrow’.
“I’m not technically open yet,” the vision said, bringing him behind the counter and sitting him down on the chair she had clearly been using. A half-eaten sandwich lay on the work surface in front of it. She had abandoned her food to come and help him! Such supreme sacrifice … it nearly brought Truffle to tears. “But I can make an exception. Hmm … now let me see …”
Truffle watched as she reached up, her tail swishing elegantly as she braced one foreleg on a shelf and reached even higher with the other. Every one of her straining muscles was graceful, even when she teetered backwards, yelped and nearly fell on her butt. He suddenly understood what Miss Cheerilee had been talking about when she made their class study those old love sonnets by William Shakespony. Truffle couldn’t write poetry but suddenly he felt like penning an ode to this mare’s magnificence.
“Oof! Here we go.” The mare unscrewed the top off a glass jarred filled with uneven chunks of toffee. She spent a moment choosing, then plucked out one piece and offered to him. “Do you like treacle toffee?”
“Ergal …” Truffle replied.
“Huh?”
“Ragaha. Fasdooey. Nahnahnah.”
Her expression creased into concern. “Maybe I should call a doctor –”
“No, no, I’m fine!” Truffle wrested control of his faculties from the blithering idiot that had momentarily taken hold of them and accepted the toffee. He jammed it into his mouth, chewing appreciatively so she wouldn’t think he was, in fact, a blithering idiot. After a few seconds, however, his jaws slowed as the toffee cemented itself to the roof of his mouth and stuck his teeth together. He smiled anyway. “S’gooh.”
The vision smiled as if she wasn’t fooled for a moment. “I’ll get you a glass of water to loosen that off.” When she was halfway through the door into the back, however, she paused. “What’s your name, sweetie?”
“Uh, Trffl!”
“Excuse me?”
With great difficulty, he tried to say, “My name is Truffle, oh pony of ponies, capturer of my heart, new beacon of love, which I used to think was crummy and icky and just a bunch of cooties but now can understand on a deep, spiritual level like all those stallions in those movies with the kissing and hugging and other stuff my mom won’t let me watch.” Unfortunately, what came out was, “M’nay … isss … Truff … ull …”
“Truffle?” she echoed. He nodded vigorously. “Wow, I sell those! See? Right there in that jar. What a coincidence, huh?” She smiled and nearly blinded him. “Okay, Truffle, I’ll be right back.”
He stared after her, sighing in abject pleasure. Had he ever been truly happy before this moment? Had he even understood what happiness was until now? The love he had felt for triple chocolate cake with whipped cream and sprinkles seemed so hollow and empty compared with the sudden feelings swelling inside him. Even his love of his mother’s special tortilla, tuna and cheese casserole couldn’t stand up to this love.
He caught sight of the sign above the counter, next to the price list of all the candies the store sold: ‘Hi there. Welcome to Bon-Bon’s Bon-Bons!’
“Bnn … Bnn …” he murmured joyfully, if stickily.
The evening, and indeed all evenings of the next few weeks, his neighbours were surprised to keep opening their doors to an eager chubby colt asking if he could do any chores for them. They were used to seeing him every so often and most thought him cute, even if they disapproved of the way he spent all the money he earned on snacks. Yet as time went on and the days stretched into weeks, even the most indulgent of them began to grow tired of seeing him bouncing up and down on their doorsteps.
“Now sonny,” said Chelsea Porcelain, an aged mare whose osteoporosis meant she usually welcomed any help with household tasks. Truffle’s tenacity, however, was trying even her seemingly endless patience. “This is gettin’ silly. Why in Celestia’s name do you got such a bee in your bonnet about doin’ chores for everypony?”
“I’m earning money. I need lots of it but I’m too young for a real job and I’m not allowed to get another paper route on account of how last time I accidentally delivered Filthy Rich’s special magazine to Fluttershy’s cottage by mistake.” Truffle paused. “Nopony would tell me why he was so upset. What are ‘Plentiful Ponies and Their Bouncing Booties’ anyhow? Something to do with fat foals and their shoes? I got in real trouble for that and it was an honest mistake!”
“Uh … that’s as may be, sonny, but why do you need money so urgently?” Chelsea Porcelain tried to turn the conversation away from that particular topic. She would never look at Filthy Rich the same way again.
Truffle’s whole face lit up. When he smiled, his cheeks dimpled deeply and it became apparent that he had put on more weight in the last three weeks. “I need it to buy candy.”
Fin.
Author's Note
Written for 30 Minute Ponies, even though I missed the deadline by miiiiles by falling asleep at the wrong moment. The prompt: an unlikely first meeting results in an unlikely attraction.
