Bob Heartstrings, a man in his forties, was sitting in the waiting room reading a newspaper feeling anxious. His seven-year-old daughter Lyra was next to him, playing with her favorite toy, a stuffed pony. They had been sitting there for several hours, waiting.
"Daddy?" Lyra crawled into her father's lap. "How much longer?"
Bob sighed and looked at his watch. "Any minute now, dear."
A nurse popped her head into the room. "Congratulations!" she said. "It's a girl!"
Bob and Lyra quickly followed the nurse into the hospital room. Lyra's mother, Hilda, was laying in a bed holding something wrapped in a blanket.
Lyra peeked between the layers of cloth. Inside was a wrinkled pink thing that stared back at her with big, blue eyes. A dusting of red hair lay on its head.
"This is your new sister, Lyra. Her name is Valentine." Hilda said but Lyra wasn't listening. There was something in those
eyes. Something that told Lyra that there was only room for one girl in Bob and Hilda's hearts.
And that girl wouldn't be Lyra herself.
An explosion rattled the windows of the Heartstrings mansion. It was followed by yelling, the opening of a few windows, and a fire alarm going off. A family rushed out of the house: a middle-aged man and woman, and two girls, one six years old and the other thirteen. Soon a firetruck pulled up in front of the house and several men jumped out. They immediately hosed down the smoking house and left without a word.
The minute they were gone Bob Heartstrings turned to Lyra and yelled, "When will you learn? I've told you over and over that inventing is dangerous! We could have been killed!" He stomped back into the house and returned minutes later with his arms full of Benson burners, beakers and chemicals, all of which he dumped into the trash cans next to the house.
"There! I hope that will teach you! No more inventing in my house!"
Lyra frowned. Her father had threatened several times about taking away her supplies, but she never thought he'd acutally do it. She glanced at her younger sister, Valentine, who had a smug look on her face, like she was anticipating this very moment for quite some time.
Lyra's mother glared at her daughter and led her family back into the house, where Lyra immediatly raced into the basement.
"Don't even think about inventing down there!" Hilda called after her.
Lyra figured that she wasn't really disobeying since she was not thinking about inventing at all. As long as she kept the words "invent", "inventing" and "invented" out of her mind, she was perfectly innocent.
She ran to the end of the basement and opened a shabby, mildew-covered cupboard slouching against the wall. She opened it and took out her secret supplies: a chemistry set, assorted cooking oils, and a cup of liquid laundry detergent.
Lyra smiled. Her father would never find these.
She was working on a secret project, one that would take a lot of supplies and a lot of hard work.
"But it's going to be worth it," Lyra said to herself. She was making a potion that would allow it's drinker to love. Far more than the average human could on its own. And she was going to give it to her family.
"Soon," she said, mixing chemicals. "Very soon."
"Lyra!" Hilda yelled. "Get ready. We're going to Valentine's award ceremony."
"That's my girl. So talented." Bob smiled at his younger daughter. "Just like her father."
When the family arrived at Valentine's elementary school, they took their seats at the front row of the auditorium. Bob, Hilda and Valentine all had smiles on their faces. Lyra, however, was concentrating on her love potion and how to mix the chemicals properly.
The third-grade teacher announced, one by one, the students in his class and how well they behaved. After most of the class had gotten their name called, the teacher paused and straightened his tie. A nervous expression was on his face.
"One of the most, er, sucessful students in my class is Valentine Heartstrings. Her accomplishments in this school year include..." Sweat ran down the man's face. "...not only showing excellent self-control and tidiness, but also showing exceptional kindness to other students." The man looked away as if ashamed of what he had just said. Lyra raised her eyebrows. That didn't sound like Valentine. In fact, in sounded like the opposite. Valentine, a satisfied look on her face, marched up to the stage and recieved her diploma.
After the ceremony, Lyra caught a glimpse of her father slipping something - several dollar bills - into the third-grade teachers hand. She gasped. Her father had bribed the teacher into lying about Valentine's behavior!
Lyra ran over to her father. "I can't believe you bribed him!" she shouted.
"Lower your voice," Bob growled. "And I did it for my angel-baby's own good. Now everyone will think even better of her."
Lyra was shocked. "I've had four times as many award ceremonies, and I don't remember the teachers saying anything great about me, let alone you bribing the teachers!"
"This is none of your business! What I do with my daughter is none of your concern!"
"I'm your daughter, too!" Lyra screamed, on the verge of tears.
Bob grabbed her arm and gestured for Valentine and Hilda to join them. "We're going home." He barked. "Now."
Lyra began working on the potion the minute she got home. She needed it more than ever, and so did her family.
She carefuly poured several poisonous liquids together in a plastic cup and stirred. What had made her mother and father so, so cruel? Valentine wasn't the only daughter they had. it. Why couldn't they realize that?
"Lyra!" She heard her mother call from the top of the basement stairs. She sounded angry.
Lyra slowly walked up the stairs and saw Hilda holding a flask of green liquid. Bob and Valentine stood next to her. Uh-oh, Lyra thought.
"Look what we found in your bedroom, Lyra." Bob snarled.
Lyra took a deep breath. She didn't keep any chemicals in her bedroom, and she had never seen the qreen liquid before in her life. "I don't know what that is, or how it got in my bedroom," she said calmly.
"Don't play with me, young lady," Hilda stomped her foot. "We exspressively told you that inventing is not allowed in this house!"
"And I expressively told you that I don't know how that got in my bedroom!"
Lyra knew how it got there. She had suspected Valentine would do something to her, but never like this. Valentine had framed her.
Bob turned red. "And what will we see if we go into the basement?" He gestured at the basement door.
"Don't!" Her love potion was down there, uncovered. Bob would definitely find it, and her work would be ruined. So would her family.
Her father smirked and opened the door to the basement.
"Please don't! It's for your own good!" Lyra felt tears forming.
Bob wouldn't listen. He, holding Valentine's hand, walked clamly down the stairs. Hilda followed, pulling Lyra along.
There was Lyra's potion, on her work table. Bob spotted it and a smile crept on his face. Valentine had a smug grin on her face, the same expression she had when Lyra accidentally caught the house on fire.
Bob grabbed the potion and held it high. "I thought you said you wouldn't invent anymore!" He yelled in Lyra's face. "What do you think this is?"
Lyra grabbed the potion out of her father's hands. It slipped out of her grasp and the contents poured on her head. All her hard work, and her family's future, gone to waste.
But had it?
Lyra began to experience change at the very moment it spilled. She grew shorter, and felt something on her face. She put her hand to her nose, and felt something soft and furry. It was a muzzle.
"Bob, do something!" Hilda cried. "She's turning into a monster!"
Bob just stood and stared as Lyra's body continued to change. Her sneakers sank into her feet and soon formed hooves. Her skin was changing color, a light turquoise. Lyra muffled a scream as she felt something else on her - a bushy, blue and white striped tail.
She had become a pony.
Lyra was not unhappy with what had happened. In fact, she was quite impressed. She had mastered something she could never accomplish: transformation.
But her father was seething. "Look what you've done!" he roared. "You brought this upon yourself. I told you not to invent, and look what happened!" He picked up her remaining supplies and threw it on the floor. "Get out!" he screamed.
Horrified, Lyra froze. Get out?
"OUT!"
Lyra ran, and didn't stop until she was out of the house. She only turned back once, and saw Valentine, sitting back and looking satisfied. Blinking back confused tears, Lyra raced down her home street, struggling to run with her hooves.
After running over a mile, Lyra sat down on a curb and wept. All she was trying to do was bring her family back together. And now look at the mess she had created!
She stood up after a few minutes and suddenly felt exhausted. She realized that she didn't have anywhere to spend the night.
She heard some noises from behind the house she was sitting in front of. Feeling suddenly bold, she ran into the backyard of the house. A hole was dug in the center of the yard, and a purple light was shining from inside.
Lyra didn’t know what was coming over her, but she instinctively jumped through the hole. She fell, deeper and deeper into the hole, for several minutes, and she was beginning to think that maybe jumping into a bottomless pit wasn’t such a good idea. Who knows what she would get herself into?
But her life was now worthless. She had no family anymore, so her entire life felt empty.
All of a sudden, Lyra stopped falling. She had landed in the middle of a grassy patch surrounded in other ponies, exactly like the one she had turned into.
"Hi!" One of the ponies said cheerfully. "What's your name?"
"I'm Lyra," she said, still in awe of her surroundings.
"I'm BonBon, and these are my friends, Carrot Top and Derpy." She smiled. "What brings you here?"
"A love of inventing," Lyra replied without thinking. "Do you think I could stay here for a few nights?"
"Of course you can! We all love making new friends.” BonBon extended her hoof and helped Lyra to her hoofed feet.
Lyra felt warm inside all of a sudden. Her life no longer felt so incomplete. She knew that she had found her family.
The End
