“I do not sleep with a Rainbow Dash doll!”

Scootaloo was red with fury. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle could only barely hold her back. But Diamond Tiara did not look the least bit intimidated, even though the rest of the students in the schoolyard had assumed a respectable distance from the feuding fillies out of fear. Even Silver Spoon herself had started slowly shuffling behind her companion.

“You do too,” Diamond Tiara said, smirking, “I saw it in your saddlebags.”

“Liar!”

“Scootaloo, calm yerself,” Apple Bloom begged. Turning to Diamond Tiara, she said, “Ya big bully, quit picking on other ponies.”

Silver Spoon, regaining some of her bravado, quickly snapped back, “Like it’s our fault that little crybaby can’t handle a joke. If you hadn’t come to his rescue—”

“His name is Rumble, you jerk!” Sweetie Belle shouted, “And he is not a crybaby!”

“Oh yeah, Diamond Tiara, we forgot: the little blank flanks are in love.”

“Y-you take that back!” Sweetie Belle cried.

Diamond Tiara snorted. “Make us,” she challenged. “Actually,” she said, pretending to ponder the thought, “from the way you fond over him, maybe you’re not actually Sweetie Belle at all. Maybe you’re a—”

“Don’t say it!” Scootaloo warned her, as Apple Bloom finally managed to pin her to the ground.

“—changeling.”

“That's enough!” Apple Bloom shouted, moving between Diamond Tiara and Sweetie Belle, “Ya bullies are going to leave us, all of us, alone fer good. Ya here me?”

“Or what? You’ll tell your mommy? Oh that’s right, I forgot. But you’ll just run crying to your sister anyway so it doesn’t matter.”

For a moment Apple Bloom saw red. When she came to Sweetie Belle was holding her by the tail, having foiled her attempt to lunge at Diamond Tiara and make her pay for that.

“In fact,” Silver Spoon chimed in, “Maybe all three of you are changelings. I mean, it would explain why you still don’t have your cutie marks. And it wouldn’t be too hard to capture the dorks anyway.”

“I said enough!” Apple Bloom cried, getting back to her hooves. She walked up to Diamond Tiara, who flinched for the first time since she’d started this peeing contest, and said plainly, “Yer done making fun of mah friends.”

Diamond Tiara took a step back, her brow furled and her perpetual smirk gone. Apple Blook took a few steps back, while Silver Spoon leaned in to whisper something in Diamond Tiara’s ear.

And boy was it good.

“Alright, blank flanks,” Diamond Tiara sneered, “That is, if you really are the blank flanks. I thought up an idea. We’ll leave you, and that other dork”—Sweetie Belle snorted derisively—“alone for the rest of the school year, if—and only if—you can stay one night in the haunted house on Elm Avenue.”

There was a gasp from the assembled crowd of students. But before Apple Bloom could so much as open her mouth to ask a very reasonable “what?”, Scootaloo had jumped forward.

“We’ll do it!” she said, “And then you creeps stay out of our manes for the rest of the school year.”

Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara took a moment to process this, and when it finally registered they were positively beaming with surprise. The dorks would spend an entire night in a haunted house, probably get eaten by ghosts or something, and if they survived they’d look like fools for accepting a fake wager.

The bell rang before anyone could get another word in, and the class unanimously turned to head toward the building. Apple Bloom stopped Scootaloo, though, and Sweetie Belle stopped to watch her. Rumble stopped a moment later when he realized what was going on.

“Scootaloo, what were ya thinking?” Apple Bloom asked, “Rushing in like that?”

“We couldn’t say no,” Scootaloo insisted, “You saw them. They were practically calling us cowards.”

“That doesn’t mean ya have to say yes!” Apple Bloom whisper-shouted, not wanting the other students to hear her.

“Yeah Scootaloo,” Sweetie Belle said, “How are we even gonna do this? It’s not like our parents are gonna let us.”

Apple Bloom raised an eyebrow at Sweetie Belle, but said nothing and turned her attention back to Scootaloo.

“We’ll figure something out,” Scootaloo said, pulling herself away from Apple Bloom’s grasp, “Just… let me think about it.”

Scootaloo passed Rumble, who said something about “glad it’s not me” under his breath, and stopped only momentarily at the front door to examine a poster on the wall of the schoolhouse. It had a picture of a changeling, taken just months prior during the attack on Canterlot, fangs bared and wings spread wide, along with a warning about reporting suspicious behavior and asking for ponies’ IDs.

Scootaloo shuddered at the thought of those cold, buggy eyes and the green gunk dripping from its mouth and the warm touch of its breath on her face—

A light touch caused Scootaloo to jump. She swung around to face Sweetie Belle, who was giving her a quizzing look.

“You alright?” she asked.

Scootaloo nodded and pulled away.

C • M • C

The final bell of the day made Scootaloo groaned. It had nothing to do with the day being over either. She’d just finally figured out the only option they could take, and neither of her friends were going to like it.

She threw on her saddlebags and joined her friends outside the front door.

“So? You going to do it or what?”

The three looked over to Snips. He was standing there with the other students, looking expectant.

“Yeah,” Diamond Tiara quipped, “Or are you going to chicken out? Ooh, maybe one of you can get your cutie mark in being a pansy!”

A few other students laughed at this.

Scootaloo was livid. And when she glanced over at the other she could see that Sweetie Belle was hurt.

Apple Bloom looked ready to say something, but Scootaloo didn’t wait before blurting out, “Of course we’re going to do it, you liar! It’s just a stupid old house!”

“A haunted house,” Diamond Tiara pointed out, smirking.

“That’s just a superstition!” Scootaloo shot back.

“We’ll see about that, blank flanks.”

“You’ll be at home, curled up in a queen-sized bed,” Scootaloo muttered bitterly, not content to let the bully get the last word in.

As the other students went their separate ways, the Cutie Mark Crusaders huddled together to come up with some sort of plan.

“Well Scootaloo?” Apple Bloom asked. From the displeasure written on her face, Scootaloo could only assume they’d come to the same conclusion.

“We need to tell our elders that we’re staying at each other’s houses for a ‘study-sleepover,’” she said.

Apple Bloom added, “The two of ya can say yer staying at mah place, and I’ll tell Applejack we’re staying at Sweetie Belle’s.”

She did not look any more comfortable now that she’d said it out loud. Scootaloo suspected that it might have something to do with lying to her older sister. Instead of confront her about it, though, Scootaloo simply nodded in agreement.

Sweetie Belle, however, had to ask, “Isn’t it dangerous to lie to our pa—elders? What if something goes wrong and they need to know where we are?”

“It’s just for one night,” Scootaloo told her, “So what if your parents don’t know where you are?”

“Easy for you to say!” Sweetie Belle blurted back. But as soon as it left her mouth, she looked stunned at what she’d said. She bowed her head and mumbled a brief apology. When Scootaloo didn’t answer, Sweetie Belle glanced up, but had to look away at the hurt welling up in her friend’s eyes.

“Apple Bloom!” Applejack’s voice rang out, “There y’all are! What are ya fillies waiting on?”

Apple Bloom started at the sound of her sister’s voice. She was walking up to them, looking confused as to why Apple Bloom hadn’t met her at the fencepost yet. She’d promised to help haul supplies back to the farm after school.

“I’m coming!” Apple Bloom cried back. Turning to the other two, she asked, “Are ya both sure about this?”

She got a firm nod from Scootaloo and a hesitant one from Sweetie Belle, but it was all she needed.

“Good,” she said, “We’ll meet at the edge of the street just before sundown. If we’re not all there… then we’ll just call it off.”

Then Apple Bloom took a deep breath and smiled, trying to hide her true feelings from her sister as she ran up to meet her. They left, and Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle stood alone outside the schoolhouse. At any moment Miss Cheerilee would step out and shoo them away, so Sweetie Belle didn’t have time to hesitate.

“Listen, Scootaloo, I’m really sorry about what I—”

“Please don’t talk about it,” Scootaloo said, looking away, “Anywho, I got to get home. See you tonight.”

Sweetie Belle wasn’t sure how long she stood there along, even after Scootaloo had moved beyond her range of sight, but eventually Miss Cheerliee did step outside and tell her to run on home. She took the long way. The scolding she’d get for being late wouldn’t be nearly what she’d earned.

C • M • C

It was time. Her chores were done but dinner wasn’t yet on the oven, so it was the perfect time for Apple Bloom to ask. Her sister was sitting on the porch, trying to get the outside lantern down so she could change the candle inside.

“Hey Applejack?” Apple Bloom began.

“Yeah, Apple Bloom?”

“The girls and I were talking earlier today, ya see, and we didn’t do so good on our last test. We were wondering… Scootaloo is spending the night at Sweetie Belle’s, and we were wondering if ya’d let me go so we could study together?”

Applejack didn’t respond right away. She stopped fiddling with the lantern to look down at her little sister, raising a questioning eyebrow.

“Well… ya know I don’t like ya falling behind on yer schoolwork. And if Scootaloo is already gonna be there, I suppose it’ll probably be alright with Sweetie Belle’s folks. But ya have to promise me that y’all are just gonna study ya hear me? No fooling around, and no Crusading while yer there.”

“I p-promise,” Apple Bloom choked. She cleared her throat, offering, “Sorry. I had to cough.”

“Now don’t ya be getting sick on me, ya hear?” Applejack said, “We ain’t got time fer another ‘Apple Family Flu’ like last year.”

Then she chose to ignore the lantern entirely and got back down on all fours, wrapping one hoof around Apple Bloom’s neck.

“Ya know I’m mighty proud of ya, sis. Fer putting more work into yer studies. Ya and yer friends have done a lot of growing up in the last few months, haven’t ya?”

Apple Bloom nodded along, trying not to give away that all her breath had caught itself in her throat and was now trying to suffocate her for letting a lie past her lips.

“Now ya get ready to go while I… figure out how Big Mac got this thing up here in the first place.”

Applejack returned to grappling with the lantern while Apple Bloom ducked inside, where she let out the breath that had been trying to kill her.

Well, she’d done it. She’d successfully lied to her sister. And now Applejack was proud of her.

It made her want to throw up.

The sound of Applejack’s voice made her jump instead.

“And tell Granny Smith that we won’t have to set yer place at the table tonight!”

“Will do!” Apple Bloom shouted back, her stomach turning at the thought of facing the rest of her family now.

Author's Note

Yeah, so no actual haunted house in the first chapter. Sorry, but it was getting pretty long and I'm already pretty behind on uploading this to begin with. The next chapter is all haunted house, though! I hope to have it up by Thursday, actually.

To clarify about the setting, this takes place not long after season 2 ends, hence the reference to the changeling invasion. I was kind of amazed to realize that I've never seen anyone talk about the effect it must have had on the Cutie Mark Crusaders, who were there at the time! But that's not really the focus of this story, really, at least not a very big focus.

Let me know what you think about it so far, even if it is just setup and no payoff at this point.