“G’night granny,” Applejack said as she closed the door to Granny Smith’s room.
“Aww hooey, I ain’t even tired.” The old wrinkled mare complained.
“Granny, you will be asleep sooner than it takes big mac to finish his plate.” Applejack said with a stifled laugh. “Go to sleep and dream about… um… oh I know, apples.”
Granny smith let her eyes droop as she began to feign her night of rest. Her granddaughter quietly closed the door and walked away from the room. For the thousandth time Granny Smith had deceived her, tricking her into thinking she was asleep for the night. It was better like this anyway. No pony even knew the legends of the guardian of the orchard, let alone believed she existed. It was much better this way. She silently got out of her bed and walked over to her nightstand.
“Its quite peculiar how they have never suspected a thing.” She said in an accentless voice to the mirror as she carefully uncovered her horn and let down her long flowing mane. “Hmmm…” She whispered as she looked at the half old, half young pony before her. “I wonder what my subjects would think if I came to their orchards looking like this.” She snickered at the thought of the shocked faces of those whom she greeted every night, especially Applejack.
With a quick flash of magic she transformed from her typical wrinkled self to a beautiful fair skinned mare. The transformation never ceased to surprise her, even though she had gone through it hundreds, if not thousands, of times before. An ever so slight tap sounded from the floorboards outside of her room.
“Oh fiddlesticks,” she angrily whispered under her breath as she shot herself back underneath her covers. “Why does Applejack have to be so nosey all the time?”
“Granny?” The orange mare asked as she cracked open the door.
“Oh, don’t wake her up.” A older mare said from the hallway. “I can see her when she wakes up.”
Rats, that’s Auntie Apple Sauce. I’m going to be a mite tired after tonight’s run. Granny thought as she waited for Applejack to leave.
“She’ll be up bright and early tomorrow. Why don’t you get some rest. You’ve been traveling all day.” The door closed and Applejack showed Granny’s cousin to the window.
Granny quickly jumped out of bed, donned her and raced to her window. The pile of hay beneath her lit up with a white outline as she noted it with her horn. Her eyesight was less than average, but it was good enough for her to perform her orchardly duties. She carefully climbed out of her window and dropped into the mound. She stepped out of the hay
“Let’s see,” she mumbled to herself as she withdrew her notepad and looked over the list of orchards to visit. “First stop: The Peaches.”
She strode out onto the road and galloped toward the Peach’s farm.
--- Several hours later---
Granny walked up onto the porch of the home and rapped on the door. “The Orchard Overlord is here for an evaluation!” Granny shouted.
“Get the door!” A voice said from deep within the house.
“I got it last time.”
“Fine.” The sound of hoofsteps approached the door. A small teenage mare opened the door. “Hello Orchard Overlord Sir.”
“Sir? Do I look like a sir to you?” Granny shouted as she withdrew her notepad. “Hospitality: Failed. You’re off to a bad start.”
“Oh come on!” The mare protested. “It was an honest mistake.”
“Mistake or not, it’s written in ink on my pad, therefore it is truth. Next on the list is harvest quotas. Where are your logbooks?”
“They’re kept in the main drawer of the desk in our living room,” the mare said as she led Granny into the room and showed her the desk.
“hmm… I’m going to have to dock you for not making the desk out of peach tree wood.”
“What?” the mare exclaimed. “That doesn’t even matter!”
“It does now. Let’s hope your harvest records are up to par.” She pulled the log book from the drawer and studied the book. “This looks good. The letters are at 12 point font, the rows are clean and precise, and the entire thing was penned with the feather of a peach colored pegasus.” She closed the book, tore off the sheet of paper, and gave it to the mare. “It’s a C for now, but you get to keep your orchard.”
The mare breathed out a sigh of relief. “Thank you so much.”
“Yeah sure kid.” Granny said as she showed herself out. She cantered to the road and checked her notepad. “Next up: The Orange Orchard.” She rolled her eyes. “Not these ponies again.”
---Only a few minutes later since the Orange Orchard was just around the bend---
“Here for an inspection?” The orange stallion asked from his porch as Granny stepped onto the farm.
“Well you certainly are a genius.” She said as she strode past the pony and into his house.
“We have everything in ship shape for your arrival.”
“So I see,” granny said as she walked through the house to the back porch that overlooked the orchards. “Hmm…”
“Is anything wrong?”
“The better question would be ‘Is anything right?’” Granny said as she pulled out her notepad and began to jot things down. “To start off your trees have these annoying orange orange dots all over them. I won’t hold that against you since you did choose to grow oranges. Secondly your trees seem too far spaced apart and the row are too large as compared to an apple orchard. I’ll have to dock you some points on that as well.”
“You can’t just up and compare apples and oranges like that!”
“Watch me. Furthermore your barn is painted a depressing shade of brown as compared to the Apple Family’s bright red one. While it doesn’t hurt the effectiveness of your farm, it looks… tacky. Thats another failure.”
“I also see that your family reunions only include your direct family, not extended. That is also to the Apple Family.”
“Wha- How can yo- I… I just don’t understand anymore.”
“Don’t worry, thats expected from someone who grows something so contrary to apples.” Granny said as she tore the piece of paper from her notepad and gave it to the stallion.
“An F?” He shouted.
“The bank will be here tomorrow to take back their land.”
“But this isn’t even under a mortgage!”
“Have a nice night,” Granny said as she strode back onto the beaten path. Again she checked her notepad. “One more, the cherry orchard.” She stretched her legs and galloped toward the orchard.
---About an hour later---
Granny trotted to the gate of Cherry Jubilee’s farm. As she pushed it open the hinges let out a low, rusty creak.
“What is this?” she mumbled as she swung the gate back and forth on it’s squeaky hinge. “Nope. I told them last time, fix the gate,” she said as she jotted a big ‘F’ onto the page. “If they aren’t going to cater to my every command, then I will not even give them fair warning for when the bulldozers show up in the morning.” Granny crumpled up the piece of paper and jammed into the mechanism of the rusty hinge. “Maybe that will shut you up you piece of junk.” She indignantly trotted off to the Apple Farm.
---A minute or so later---
“Applejack!” She shouted as she stepped onto the porch.
“Who’s that?” Auntie Apple Sauce asked.
“It’s the meanest pony on the face of the planet, the Orchard Overlord.”
“I heard that!” Granny shouted as she kicked down the door and stormed into the house. “Who do you think you are letting me barge in like that?”
“What? I just-”
“You just what? Pinched some pennies on cheap door hinges?”
“But those were the hinges you required in your ridiculous building code!”
“I don’t care, you get a C!” Granny shouted as she stormed out of the broken down door. “You have one day to fix the door and get the rest of the orchards up to par before I return.”
Granny stomped out of the house and back onto the road. From there she quickly darted back to the hay stack beneath and clambered up the protruding wooden boards into her room. As she walked to her bed she placed her Overlord tools in the secret compartment of her desk, transformed herself back to an old Granny Smith, and quietly slipped into the covers of her bed.
She could barely hear the exasperated shouts of Applejack through the house. “That’s right, she just kicked down the door and told me that I nearly failed.” Granny snickered at her granddaughter’s angst. “It’s not even fair. Looks like I’ll be out buying industrial strength hinges tomorrow.”
Looks like I’ll be researching how to break industrial strength hinges tomorrow, Granny thought as she drifted to sleep.
