The worries of the one who grows up
Some days are just beautiful. And in Equestria, it so happens that most days are incredibly beautiful. In some way, mastering the weather helps greatly in that regard. So it was, in conclusion and to begin this story, a beautiful day in Equestria.
Well, mostly a beautiful day as Applebloom was looking quite gloomy when she entered the cutie mark crusaders’ clubhouse. Both her friends, who were already there and had actually been waiting for her to arrive for a good ten minutes, which was, quite honestly, two and a half eternity in child’s time, immediately noticed it.
“Hey, what’s up with the frowny face?” asked Scootaloo head on. “Let me guess… Diamond Tiara?” she added.
Applebloom’s frown suddenly changed into an awkward smile, just as if the filly had been caught daydreaming and had just woken up.
“Huh? What? No. I mean… what? Did Diamond Tiara do something again?”
“It’s what I just asked you.” replied Scootaloo, not certain to follow.
It took a little while, all the diplomacy of Sweetie Belle and almost a quarrel for the three little ponies to agree that Diamond Tiara hadn’t done a thing that day, at least out of the ordinary, that Scootaloo was not a stupid head, that Applebloom was not a goofy ugly something whatever and that it was all probably just a big misunderstanding.
At that point, both Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo had forgotten why the whole argument had begun in the first place and were just happy to place the whole thing behind them.
But if the rest of the day went pretty well, with some crusading activities, some homework and a whole bunch of procrastinating, the next day brought the whole problem back again.
Applebloom, late this time too, came in the clubhouse with a gloomy look, which triggered a rematch from the fight of the last day. The battle escalated quickly, and some heavy insults were used to win the moral high ground, in a logic only children and politic understand, but a truth was signed under the exhaustion of all fillies, leading to a new peace.
This time, however, eager to prevent a third war between them, Sweetie Belle remembered the cause of the whole ruckus and asked Applebloom what was going on.
“Nothing special.” replied Applebloom. “I’m sorry I caused so much disagreement. Don’t you worry, it won’t happen again.”
And she sort of kept her promise, as, the next day, she arrived barely in time, but in time nonetheless, with a smile on her face.
It only happened that her fake smile didn’t deceive anypony. Her eyes were looking tired, her mane was untidy, the corner of her mouth were going way too high, showing how much she was forcing herself to smile and creating more of a grin than a joyous look. Altogether, it was clear she was hiding something from her friends, who were children and therefore way too curious to accept such a behavior.
“Alright.” began Sweetie Belle. “Stop the act and just tell us what is going on.”
“What are you talking about? Nothing is going on, everything is just perfect.” replied Applebloom, adding a fake tone of cool to her fake smile.
“You know…” said Scootaloo, almost laughing, “If you are going to try to fool us, you could at least do it properly. Even a blind pony could see something is worrying you!”
In reality, Scootaloo was mostly proud to have seen under the mask her friend had put on. But she kept that to herself.
“It’s not that I’m worried.” began Applebloom, “Well, I am, but it’s so silly I don’t think it’s worth talking about.”
“And if I were to decide in your place that it’s worth talking about?” replied Scootaloo, willing to cut down the chase and go straight to the point. “We are your friends, you should share such things with us. We won’t make fun of you because it’s silly, but we will help if we can.”
Actually, Scootaloo was going to make fun of Applebloom if it was going to be silly. In fact, she was hoping it would be about a foal so that she could tease her friend about it. Children are children. And in some way, she got what she expected, just not in the way she expected it.
“It’s just…” began to explain Applebloom, not sure how to say what was on her mind, “My birthday is in seven months.”
Both Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo wanted to yell that it was clearly not a reason to be worried at all, but they felt it would be better to wait and give enough time to Applebloom to explain.
“I have only been wondering about the future.” continued Applebloom.
“You mean our cutie marks?” asked Scootaloo, who just couldn’t wait any longer.
“No, not that.” replied Applebloom. “Just… the future. I realized I’m growing up, and… well, I began wondering about stuff.”
“What stuff?” asked Sweetie Belle, who couldn’t just make with such a vague word.
“All sort of stuff.” detailed, in her own way, Applebloom. “You know, like how life is going to be later, what will happen to my family, what could happen, what will happen to me and what could happen to me… just stuff.”
“I think I understand!” said Scootaloo, who had no idea what her friend was talking about.
“And mostly…” continued Applebloom, who wasn’t finished, “I’ve been wondering about the pumpkin.”
“Okay, now I’m totally lost!” said Scootaloo, having to face the reality of her situation.
“The pumpkin?” asked Sweetie Belle? “Is it some sort of stuff where you use a word as an image?”
She just remembered the word metaphor, but it was too late and she blamed herself for her lack of vocabulary, forgetting that the important thing was her friend’s worry.
“No, wait!” tried Scootaloo, “The pumpkin is actually a foal, or a foal’s name, and he has been turned into a pumpkin and you have to kiss him before midnight or he will turn into… something but not a foal, but you don’t want to kiss a pumpkin because it would be silly!”
A silence ensued. An awkward, very long silence. And during the whole time, both Applebloom and Sweetie Belle looked at Scootaloo, not knowing if the pegasus was joking or if they should be worried about her instead of anything else.
“Hey!” finally said Scootaloo, “At least I’m trying!”
She was about to go sulk in a corner, but Applebloom suddenly said:
“Actually, I think I should show you my pumpkin. And I even know what I should do about it.”
She ran out of the clubhouse in a hurry, happy to have found the solution to her problem, even if it wasn’t really a solution at all. But then she noticed she was all alone. She came back to the clubhouse, saw the look of both her friends who still weren’t sure what they should do or what was going on at all, mostly if it was some sort of a new game or not, so Applebloom had to add:
“Just come with me, I’ll explain when we are there.”
So, finally, all three fillies went out of the clubhouse and, under Applebloom’s lead, made their way to Sweet Apple Acres.
The chances of a pumpkin
“Here, that’s my pumpkin!” said Applebloom, pointing at the vegetable with her hoof.
And, in fact, there was, where Applebloom, was pointing, a pumpkin. Not the biggest pumpkin ever, or not the most beautiful of them all. Just a simple pumpkin. In the middle of nowhere.
Actually, it wasn’t literally the middle of nowhere, as it was on Sweet Apple Acres properties. But, on the other hoof, the pumpkin was hidden from the rest of the crops. It was clear Applebloom had chosen that very place because it was the most likely to never be found out. And both her friends imagined that it was so that the rest of her family wouldn’t know one of the Apples was growing a pumpkin, which was totally the reason for the whole secrecy.
“That’s a great pumpkin…” slowly said Scootaloo, not sure how to react, as she hadn’t really been expecting to see a real pumpkin and was even more lost than before.
“I really like her… color?” asked Sweetie Belle, more to try and find out what Applebloom was expecting than to make any sort of compliment, as she had no real knowledge or interest about pumpkins to begin with.
“Okay.” suddenly said Scootaloo, bursting out laughing. “You got us, nicely done. That’s a good joke.”
She wasn’t certain it was a joke. Actually, she had no idea, but it was the most likely explanation her mind had come up with. The only explanation that made any sort of sense anyway.
“It’s not a joke!” replied Applebloom with an angry tone. “It’s my pumpkin!”
“Well then your pumpkin is a joke!” replied Scootaloo with her own angry tone because she just didn’t want to be wrong and pass for a fool once again.
“Look Applebloom.” intervened Sweetie Belle, separating the two of them, “It’s your pumpkin, I get that, and you are serious about it, I get it too. ‘Cause… You are serious about it, right?”
An angry look from Applebloom made the unicorn understand that it was, in fact, a serious matter.
“Good.” continued Sweetie Belle, just relieved she had only gotten an angry look and nothing else, “But I’m like Scootaloo, I can’t understand if you don’t explain it to me.”
“I don’t need her to explain it to me!” replied Scootaloo, without adding, because her wisdom told her it would just make things worse, that the pumpkin was a joke and it was the end of the story.
“Alright, she doesn’t need an explanation, but I need one. Please.” responded Sweetie Belle, thanking Celestia for her friend’s restraint.
“Well, if you had just left me the time to explain in the first place…” said Applebloom.
But she simmered down and accepted to tell the whole thing, mostly to Sweetie Belle as Scootaloo was just faking sulking, lending an ear at the same time as she was still curious.
“I realized I needed a pumpkin after Big Mac had explained the probabilities to me.” the earth pony began.
“The what now?” asked Sweetie Belle, who was still, like most fillies her age, at the stage of addition and subtraction.
“The probabilities.” proudly explained Applebloom, even if she hadn’t understood everything from it and was also still only mastering addition and subtraction. “It’s sort of a thing to calculate if something is likely or unlikely to happen. For example, if you throw a dice, there is a probably of one chance out of six that you throw a six, because there are six sides to the dice.”
“What if you want to throw a one?” asked Sweetie Belle. “What would be the probabilities stuff of that?”
“I don’t know that!” replied Applebloom. “Probably one, but that’s not the point.” she answered, trying to hide the fact she had really not understood how probabilities are calculated and was just re-using an example Big Mac had given her. “The point is, there are stuff where the probability for it to happen is like one out of a million, or one out of a billion.”
“What does it mean?” asked Sweetie Belle, not sure if the whole concept was useful or not, because she didn’t want to have to think in billions.
“It means there is almost no chance at all that it would happen. But it also means there is still a chance it might happen, because one is more than zero.” Applebloom explained, reciting word for word what Big Mac had told her. And she particularly insisted with her tone on her last sentence. Suddenly, there was a lot of excitement in her voice. So much excitement that she forgot to hide the fact she was just reciting what her big brother had told her and just continued saying: “I asked Big Mac and he told me that you don’t even need to wait a billion times for the thing to occur, because you have the exact same chance that it might happen every time. As long as the conditions are fulfilled for it to happen, it might very well happen, even if it’s very unlikely, or, as Big Mac said, it there is a very low probability.”
“How is a billion a low probability? Seems kind of big.” said Sweetie Belle.
It almost created a doubt for Applebloom, but the earth pony chased it away. It wasn’t really important at that point. She just added:
“That’s why I grew the pumpkin. It fulfills the condition, so I’ve got a chance that something might happen.”
A new silence ensued. There was obviously some important information missing in the middle of the whole diatribe for anypony to have a real chance of understanding the whole mess. Or, as Big Mac could have translated, the probability for Applebloom’s friends to understand the logic of her own filly’s mind was about one out of a mere trillion. And the one chance didn’t happen. Both Scootaloo, who had listened to the whole thing, and Sweetie Belle, who had tried to understand it, were utterly completely lost.
One could say it was because of their young age and the lack of mathematical abilities to learn such concept in such a rushed and chaotic way. Another could add it was because Big Mac seemed to have omitted to speak about the concepts of conditional and inverse probabilities. Here we can reply that it would have just confused Applebloom’s mind, as Big Mac had only been trying to prove to his youngest sister that the most unlikely things to happen might, against all odd, still happen.
He hadn’t been teaching her mathematic. He had been giving a message. And Applebloom had understood the message, as well as she had decided to apply it in her own way. Therefore: the pumpkin.
The silence hadn’t helped and Scootaloo just as Sweetie Belle still had no clue whatsoever.
“I still don’t understand the pumpkin.” said Scootaloo, who was done sulking and was just too lost to even consider showing any other emotion than complete confusion.
“It’s not important.” replied Applebloom, knowingly angering her friends, but quickly adding: “It’s not important because I shouldn’t have grown the pumpkin to begin with. It was stupid from me. No, it wasn’t stupid, it was childish, and as I grow up, I realize I can’t be childish anymore. So I will get rid of it.”
“So you grew a pumpkin for whatever reason and now you will just throw it away?” summarized Sweetie Belle.
“Yes.” answered Applebloom, mistakenly interpreting that as a proof her friend had understood her. “But I can’t just throw it away like that. I got kind of attached to it, you know, taking care of it and all. So I thought I could give it to one of you. What do you think?”
Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo looked at each other. They weren’t thinking much. It was just ridiculous all the way. They had no idea what was going on, no idea what was going to happen, it was sort of late, they were hungry and they were pretty tired. Something had to be done to offer them a chance, and a good chance, to end the whole thing, so, after some silent looks from the pegasus to the unicorn and back, telling “You do it” and “No you do it”, Scootaloo just cracked up and said:
“If I take you pumpkin, can we go home?”
Applebloom nodded in an affirmative way with excitement, as she was feeling her wish was about to get fulfilled. Well, at least one of her wishes.
“Alright, then give it to me.” replied Scootaloo, who was already regretting her decision, as she didn’t really want a pumpkin.
But she took it anyway, fearing any change of behavior may make things go on again, and she was way too tired to allow that to happen. Applebloom thanked her, many, many times, and then the three friends agreed that, due to the hunger they could feel, it was time to go their separate way eat at their houses and then gather again in the afternoon to enjoy a real day of playing and crusading, or anything along those lines.
Sweetie Belle left, both relieved that it was all over, but still wondering what a probability could be and making sure she would ask Rarity about it during the dinner, as she was absolutely certain her big sister would master such a concept so well that she would make it easy for a filly like her to understand. It didn’t go as well as in Sweetie Belle’s imagination, but that was to be expected.
Applebloom left too, the heart lighter from one problem, but feeling something new and weird that she just wasn’t able to identify. It had a strange taste, like not really a taste. If she had to put a word on it, she would have said it was like chewing a little bit of dust. Or having eaten dust, or anything with dust. It was feeling like dust. Old, tasteless, unpleasant, but very easy to accustom to…
Scootaloo also left her friends to got eat. Of course, she did so with the pumpkin in her hooves. At first, she thought of just going a few yards and then throwing it away. But she felt bad about that idea. Maybe because it would be littering. Or because it would be a waste to throw away an edible pumpkin. She couldn’t decide what the reason was between those two, which usually means there was at least a third one she was consciously or unconsciously ignoring. But she was able to realize that, the more she was looking at the pumpkin, the more it was fascinating her, because it was such a simple thing, fragile, not rare at all, just one pumpkin out of the million other that existed, but that one was special because it had been very important for one of her friend.
As she got home, Scootaloo wasn’t convinced anymore that she should get rid of the pumpkin. The feeling itself was feeling childish, but the pegasus indeed was feeling she should keep the pumpkin. She just didn’t know what she was supposed to do with it…
Growing up
A week passed and things seemed to have gone back to the usual routine. But one day, Applebloom appeared in the clubhouse with a gloomy face.
“What’s going on?” asked both her friends, trying to forget about the last time and to convince themselves it was going to be something else entirely. Something that would make sense.
“Nothing.” replied Applebloom.
“You do know that nothing just means there is something, right?” rhetorically asked Sweetie Belle, now worried because it was the same answer as last time.
“It’s nothing I tell you. I’m not even sure why I’m feeling low, but I just do. Let’s forget it.” replied the earth pony.
But telling a child that something has no cause, or that the cause of something isn’t known is just like trying to convince Celestia that the sun is a fix celestial object around which the planet is rotating. Let’s just be very optimistic and say you have very few chances of success if you’re lucky.
So Sweetie Belle just didn’t accept Applebloom’s explanation and began pressuring her, taking as granted that the earth pony had to have the answer she was obviously, in her opinion, hiding from them:
“Come on, tell us already. But it better not be a vegetable again, or any crop whatsoever. I really don’t want to relive stuff so weird.”
“I don’t know, I really don’t know!” shouted Applebloom who honestly didn’t know. In fact, she had been feeling more lost each passing day after she had gotten rid of the pumpkin and she was way too young, or immature, or just not knowledgeable enough, as if anyone really was, to understand how getting rid of a vegetable could cause any sort of turmoil.
Sweetie Belle, reminded of her confusion of last time, reminded of the inability of her big sister to explain something Applebloom’s big brother seemed to have been, him, able to explain, reminded of some sort of shame she could have felt back then, or just simply ashamed at that very moment, for whatever reason, because she still hadn’t been able to understand, because she was feeling like crying out of anger probably, or because she had realized her aggressive behavior was shameful, and she didn’t want to accept that, well, Sweetie Belle decided not to lay down and kept on attacking Applebloom to get an answer that she would clearly never get, and as Applebloom herself didn’t back down, both entered a big fight that didn’t end very well.
Applebloom left the clubhouse unharmed, but frustrated, sad and ashamed to have fought with one of her best friend for no good reason.
Sweetie Belle went in a corner to hide that, even if she was pretty much unharmed, she was frustrated, sad and ashamed to have fought with one of her best friend for no good reason.
Meanwhile, Scootaloo had no idea how to react. She was feeling frustrated, sad and somehow also ashamed, because she recognized how powerless she was to help either of her friends.
The rest of the day went with only Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, but they didn’t talk much, and certainly not about what had just happened.
The next day, Applebloom came back. She had a gloomy face, but nopony made any remark. They all tried to be joyous, and have a good time, but they all failed and once again, left each other with a feeling of frustration, sadness and shame out of being so powerless to help each other in such a situation.
The next day went just the same way, and then another day just the same way. It became really awkward and soon the three friends began avoiding each other to avoid the awkwardness, but, by doing so, just increased their sadness.
At some point, Applebloom stopped completely to come to the clubhouse and, after a little more time, she even stopped showing up at school. Cheerilee explained she had gotten ill, but for a certain pegasus and a certain unicorn, that was most unlikely. Even more, as children do it so well, they felt responsible for the state of their friend. And powerless to help her.
Somehow, they were also beginning to feel ill and coming to school was feeling harder and harder.
And then, out of a billion, something happened.
Cinderella
“Excuse me, could we see Applebloom?” asked Scootaloo.
Applejack immediately opened the door of the barn to the filly and the foal as, even if her little sister wanted to see nopony, knew some visit would be very beneficial.
“You know…” she said, “I was wondering what might have happened so that neither you nor Sweetie Belle would come visit her. I guess you had your own problems to solve, but I’m glad you came in the end. She can really use a friend at her side right now.”
Scootaloo tried to hide how guilty she was feeling not to have come sooner. She was trying to find reasons for her behavior, but just couldn’t find any that was satisfactory to her ego. She had, however, found a very good reason to come visit and as it had to do with the pumpkin that, at least for what Scootaloo knew, was at the beginning of the whole thing, the good reason might even be helpful in some way. And just the idea that she might have a chance to be helpful was creating enough joy in Scootaloo’s heart to overcome the guilt of her absence at her friend’s side.
Applejack guided the two visitors to Applebloom’s room, repressing her curiosity about the foal until later, and then left to give those friends all the freedom possible to make something work out. She disappeared from their view, waited until they had entered the room and closed the door, and then came back to try to listen to what was going on, in order to gather any information that might help her help her little sister.
“Go away.” said Applebloom, in her bed, who hadn’t even looked at those entering her room. “I’m not in the mood to see anypony. I don’t care, I don’t know anything. Just leave me alone.”
She wasn’t angry. She wasn’t even frustrated. She was just very sad and had no idea why, which was making her all the more miserable.
“It’s me, Scootaloo.” said the pegasus.
She received no answer and let a little silence take place, as she hadn’t expected such a cold and gloomy welcome. But still, she had that little reason to have come seen her friend, that little hope that she might do something helpful. So she smiled and continued:
“I know you’re not feeling really well right now, but I had something very important to tell you. And there is someone who wants to thank you.”
Applebloom didn’t respond, but her body shivered under the sheets of the bed. Scootaloo noticed it and took it as a proof that her words were having some sort of good effect. Not that there was any logical way for her to arrive at that explanation, but she really wanted for her words to have some sort of good effect so it was really easy for her to convince herself that it was the case.
“You see, about the pumpkin you gave me back then.” she kept on speaking, “I kind of kept it and it was weird because some ponies asked me why I was keeping that pumpkin so preciously and in the end, I ended up giving it to Squire Charming.”
“You gave it?” asked Applebloom, suddenly waking up at the news of the pumpkin, remembering that it had been very important once, for some reasons now obscure to her. “Why would you do that?”
Scootaloo thought of pointing out that Applebloom was one to speak, but the pleading tone of her friend prevented her to and she just explained:
“Well, he asked about it and he seemed interested, way more than I was, so I just thought it would be good to give it to him.”
“And I’m more than glad that you did!” added the foal with a very happy voice. “It changed my life.”
“What?” asked Applebloom, now completely awake, but still hiding under her sheets. “What happened?”
“I got my cutie mark thanks to your pumpkin!” the foal said. “If you hadn’t given that pumpkin to Scootaloo, she would have never given it to me, and I would never have found out that growing pumpkins is my special talent. I’m even thinking about changing my name from Squire Charming to something more fit, like Pumpkin kin, or something like that.”
I won’t lie to you, Applebloom only heard half of what the foal had said. Not because she wasn’t interested. I assure you she was more than interested. No, she heard only half of it because she was too fascinated listening to the foal’s voice. It had such a lively tone, it was so great, and happy, and deep, and high pitched, and smooth, and sweet, and warm, and pleasant, and comfortable, and so soft on her skin that she forgot about anything else.
When the foal’s voice stopped, she woke up and, instinctively surfaced from her bed to look at the pony who had been speaking.
And there she saw Squire Charming, on his four hooves, with, incidentally, a pumpkin cutie mark that he was owing to her, and two eyes that were looking right at her. Two big colorful eyes that made her blush.
She wasn’t the only one. The foal blushed too and moved back a little in surprise. It took him a little bit of time to speak, but when he did, it was only to say:
“I can’t believe you’re so cute.”
He blushed even harder than before, trying to hide how much of a crush he was having over the filly in her bed. The whole thing was very awkward and the surprised, but very pleased, filled with sudden glee look of Scootaloo wasn’t helping at all in that regard.
“I’m sorry!” said Squire Charming. “I didn’t want to say… I mean, I’m sure every foal has already told you how beautiful you are, but I was surprised and… I… hum…”
If there had been any mouse hole, he would have tried to crawl into it and, to be honest, at this point, he would have accepted any hole whatsoever. But at the same time, he couldn’t stop looking at Applebloom and was feeling his heart racing like never before.
On her side, Applebloom’s heart was pumping more blood in a second that it had in her whole life altogether. And if you think I exaggerate even a little, know that her face had become as red as her mane.
“No, it’s okay, I mean, I’m flattered…” replied the little filly, “Not that I want to be flattered! I’m not like that!” she lied to defend herself, “I just… Are you for real?” she asked, immediately forgetting the way she had asked that question, or to have asked it at all.
A silence followed, as Squire Charming didn’t know how to answer the question without looking bad and Applebloom didn’t know how to correct her mistake and was too afraid to risk doing another one by speaking again.
So the silence continued, as both the foal and the filly were looking at each other in a mix of embarrassment and pure happiness. And the happiness made it okay for them to keep on looking at each other in silence, even if an awkward one.
So the silence continued a little while longer. And then, a little more. And still a little more. Somepony was bound to break it at some point, but it just seemed those two had become two statues dedicated to the goddess of love, set to contemplate each other for all eternity as if it everything else in the whole universe had ceased to have any interest whatsoever.
So the silence continued, until somepony would break it. Somepony whose nerves would break. Somepony about to explode…
“Come on!” shouted Scootaloo, unable to hold on any longer and startling the loving couple, “Just ask to go out together already!”
Squire Charming came one step forward and asked, a little shyly, but still:
“Would you want to?”
Applebloom’s world literally broke down around her, revealing a new world filled with sun and colors and music and joy absolutely everywhere.
“Yes!” she told him. “I want to.”
And she realized she was maybe pushing him a little, so she added:
“If you want to that is.”
He wanted nothing else more than to go out with her. They came near each other and their nose bumped into one another, which made them laugh and blush again, that is, a little more than before as astounding as it may seem to be given how red they were already.
“You know…” began Squire Charming. “I already owed my cutie mark to you, I never thought I would owe you that much more.”
She just smiled, because his presence was making her owe a lot to him too.
“What do you want to do?” she asked him to create a diversion, as she was about to faint out of happiness.
“I’m not sure. I could show you my field of pumpkins.” he replied, out of instinct, as he did have gotten a great interest for that particular type of crops, and, after all, it was a pumpkin that had brought Applebloom to her.
The filly accepted.
Not that she really cared about pumpkin anymore. And why would she have? She had the foal and even if he wasn’t exactly what she had wished for, he was still her Squire Charming. It was more than she could have reasonably hoped for.
After all, there had only been a chance out of a billion.
THE END
