Bon-Bon turned down the alley and stopped. It looked the same as the one she had just left. Had she made a wrong turn? She spun around, pushing up her glasses to better stare into the gloom. She had thought she heard the calling of taxi carriage stallions, but there was no exit. The alley ended in a wire mesh fence and a clutch of dumpsters that smelled like yuck.
Despite herself, tears pricked the backs of her eyes.
I’m not going to cry, she thought sternly. I’m a big pony now. Big ponies don’t cry just because they get lost.
Big ponies probably didn’t get lost at all. Especially not in the city. Especially not at night.
Nonna, where are you?
She shouldn’t have wandered away. She knew it. Yet it had been so boring waiting for her grandmother to finish her conversation, and the house with the giant pumpkins had only been one street back from where they met Mrs Widdershins. Bon-Bon had thought she could dash back there, get some candies and be back at Nonna’s side before she was even missed. Instead, here she was, wandering around in circles and trying not to bawl like a baby.
It didn’t help that the encroaching evening brought thoughts of goblins, ghosts, ghouls and other monsters. Who the heck got lost on Nightmare Night?
Taking a breath that puffed out her chestplate, she picked a direction and started walking. One of these alleys had to lead back to the main street. It had to.
It didn’t.
She held onto her nerve with a lasso of fraying cord. She would not cry, she would not cry, she would not cry, she would not –
A tear rolled off the end of her nose.
“What’s the matter, honey? Are you lost?”
The voice was not one she recognised. She whirled, alert to Stranger Danger. Miss Orange Blossom had taught them about that in school. She had been very insistent that little fillies and colts weren’t to accept candy from strange ponies unless they had gone up to their house to Trick or Treat. Strangers were bad news. They made incautious foals disappear except for photos on the sides of milk cartons.
The whole issue of candy acceptance was a thorny one that Bon-Bon struggled to wrap her mind around. Nonna’s cooking group were sometimes at her house when Bon-Bon came to visit, and she didn’t know any of the old ponies, but Nonna had told her it was rude not to accept the sweet treats they gave her. Why was it okay to accept candy from strangers sometimes and not others? The conundrum had literally kept her up at night as she wondered why grown-ups didn’t make rules simpler to understand.
“No need to jump, child! I ain’t gonna hurt you.”
The pony in the alley was taller than any Bon-Bon had ever seen. The frizzy purple mane seemed very far away and the matching purple eyes staring down at her made her feel like a bug underhoof. The mare’s bottle green coat gleamed in the streetlight, brushed to perfection beneath an outfit so bizarre that Bon-Bon could only stare open-mouthed. She hadn’t thought adults dressed up for Nightmare Night unless they had kids.
The mare tilted her head to one side. Gigantic earrings twinkled like stars, and when she talked a little gold stud winked in the light from the streetlamp. “Ain’t you got no tongue in your head, child?”
“I think you scared the poor thing, Glitter,” opined a softer voice.
Another mare appeared from behind the first. This one was rail thin and seemed to wobble a little as she walked. Her joints stuck out at odd angles when she dipped her head to get a better look at Bon-Bon, blinking lashes so big they looked like they might fall off under their own weight. Her pale blue legs were covered in what seemed like spider-webs, which reached all the way up to a red bodysuit that rustled as she moved.
“Sweetie, you shouldn’t be wandering around this part of town. Did you take a wrong turn somewhere?”
Bon-Bon stared, remembering her Stranger Danger lessons. These two mares certainly were strange, and she didn’t know them. Yet they weren’t offering her candy, and that had been what Miss Orange Blossom made such a big deal about. Plus, she really was scared she would never find her way out of here by herself. She nodded.
“Were you with someone?”
She nodded again. “My Nonna.”
“Nonna?” The green mare wrinkled her nose. “What’s a Nonna?”
“Nonna Cioccolata. My grandmother.”
“Must be from over in the Belle Boot neighbourhood,” said the blue mare. Her mane had been tamed into pretty whorls and then pinned back so thoroughly that when she shook her head they didn’t move. “Was she taking you Trick-or-Treating?”
Bon-Bon nodded emphatically. “Yes! Only … I wandered off when I shouldn’t have, and then she was gone, and I couldn’t find her, and when I tried looking for her I took a wrong turn, and now I don’t know where I am and … and … and …” Another tear dripped off her nose. She tried to rub her eyes but her bracelets got caught in her flyaway mane and her glasses clattered to the floor. She cheeped in pain, trying to free her hair and only getting it hopelessly tangled. She began to cry in earnest.
“Shh, shh, it’s okay sweetie.” The blue mare reached out with one skinny foreleg. Beneath the spider-webs, her fur was patchy like Cream Puff, the filly at school who had gone bald when she had to keep going to hospital for Radio-Jeremy last semester. Tiny dots freckled the bits of exposed skin. “Is it okay if I help you out?”
“H-How do you know my name?”
“What?” The blue mare looked nonplussed.
“Sw-weetie D-Drops.” Bon-Bon took a shuddering breath. “That’s my name. Only everyone calls me Bon-Bon because Sweetie Drops are the candies my dad’s factory makes and it gets confusing. I’m supposed to be named after them but I like Bon-Bon better.” Her tears seemed to have unstoppered something within her and now words poured forth like sugar emptying from a punctured bag.
“Sweetie Drops?” The green mare wrinkled her nose. “Them little boiled sugar things with the fruit centres? Shoot, I buy them from the corner store all the time. They’re delicious! I’d eat them every day except I need to maintain my gorgeous figure.”
Bon-Bon didn’t reply. The candies that had made the Drops family famous were a lot less appealing when you had literally been eating them all your life. They definitely lost their charm after you’d cut them out of your mane and tail when kids at school flung them at you as you walked by, or when your parents missed every single school show, parent teacher conference and bake sale because of important meetings that simply couldn’t be missed, darling.
“Wow, child, you must be loaded!”
“Glitter!”
“What? I’m just tellin’ it like it is. Half my johns work at that factory. Heck, half yours do too!”
The two mares exchanged a look. The blue mare spoke without looking up from untangling Bon-Bon’s mane from her bracelet. “Well, Bon-Bon, I’m Spring Cherry and this is Glitter Glamour. This isn’t such a great part of town to be in after dark. Would you like us to take you home?”
“What?” Glitter Glamour all but shrieked. “An’ leave our patch?”
Bon-Bon shrank back.
“Stop that!” Spring Cherry responded. “You’re scaring the poor kid.”
“I ain’t leavin’ our patch tonight! Juice could come by any time an’ see us gone!”
“I’m not scared of Juice.”
“The heck you ain’t!”
“Fine. You stay here and wait for him. I’ll take the kid home.”
“An’ leave me out here all alone? Girl, you know we gotta stick together ‘less we both got tricks.”
“Tricks? Are you trick-or-treating as well?” Bon-Bon sniffed. “I thought only little fillies and colts went trick-or-treating. Thank you,” she added, finally able to lower her foreleg to the ground again. Wisps of pink and blue hair floated away in the light breeze.
“Uh, no,” Spring Cherry replied. “Some adults do too.”
“Heh, yeah. They trick and we treat.”
“Glitter!” Spring Cherry interrupted the other mare’s uproarious laughter.
“What?”
Bon-Bon stared between the two of them, not understanding.
Spring Cherry sighed. “Look, I can’t leave her out here alone even if you can.”
“What’re you sayin’? That I’m heartless enough to leave some poor defenceless filly alone out on the mean streets of Manehattan at night? That I’d put myself before a helpless kid? A helpless kid in glasses?” Glitter Glamour rolled her eyes. “C’mon. Sooner we’re done, sooner we can get back.”
“Aw, you’re all heart.”
“Don’t push me, girl.”
Spring Cherry turned back to Bon-Bon. “Sweetie, where do you live?”
“Um, Silverdale.”
Glitter Glamour halted in her tracks. “The rich side of the river? For serious? Ugh, that figures.” She shook her head. “Ain’t no way we can go there! It’d take at least an hour there an’ back on the ferry! Besides, cops’d move us on as soon as look at us in this get-up.”
Bon-Bon wondered whether their Nightmare Night outfits were scarier to adults somehow. They didn’t look very scary to her. In fact, she kind of liked them. Glitter Glamour’s silvery catsuit looked amazing, and she looked with envy at Spring Cherry’s mane, wishing she could tame her own curls like that. “Well, um, my Nonna lives in Belle Boot and I was staying with her this weekend so she could take me Trick or Treating so -”
Glitter Glamour blew out a breath. “Okay. That we can do. Pffft. Crossin’ the river. I ask you …”
“Don’t mind her,” Spring Cherry assured as they moved off. “She’s just an old grumpyguts when she doesn’t have her breakfast before leaving the house.”
“Thank you,” said Bon-Bon, before registering the statement. “Breakfast? But it’s nearly night-time.”
“Uh, yes. Well. We keep odd hours. Now where in Belle Boot does your grandmother live?” Spring Cherry went on briskly.
“On Almond Street. Number twenty-seven. It’s a little row house with a green front door.”
Mummy hated that door. She hated everything about the little row house. Bon-Bon adored its poky, musty charm, but knew not to tell Mummy that. Mummy was always so busy that she barely visited at all, which made Nonna sad. It did mean Nonna came to see all Bon-Bon’s school shows, and she baked amazing cakes for the bake sales, and when she was allowed she even came to the parent teacher conferences to hear Bon-Bon’s teachers say nice things about her. Most important of all, it also meant Nonna was the one to take her trick-or-treating each year, so that wasn’t all bad.
Well, until this year.
“I bet she’s real worried about me.” Bon-Bon dropped her head. “I was supposed to stay close. Mummy says my eyes are too big for my stomach and that it’ll get me in trouble someday. I guess she was right.”
It always hurt when Mummy was right, since Mummy was never right about good things.
“Well, we’ll soon set things right,” Spring Cherry said cheerfully. “Tell me, sweetheart, what’s your costume? I’m trying to figure it out but I’m stumped.”
“You don’t recognise it?” Bon-Bon’s head dropped further. She and Nonna had worked so hard on her outfit that Nonna hadn’t had time to sew one for herself. Instead she had cut a hole in a trash bag, glued on some tinfoil stars and gone as the Garbage Witch.
“The Garbage Witch is the worst witch of all,” she had said as she picked up her mop and whirled it around her head. Her accent clung to her words, rolling her consonants around like dried peas in an empty tin can. “She eats all garbage, and if little bitty fillies wait around too long staring, she thinks they are garbage left out on the curb for the garbage-collectors and gobbles them all up!”
Bon-Bon had giggled all the way around the kitchen table, wet mop fronds flapping at her heels.
Now, sadly, she replied, “I’m dressed as –”
“She’s Wonder Mare, you uncultured ingrate.”
Bon-Bon’s head jerked up in surprise.
Glitter Glamour looked over her shoulder. “Ain’t you got no a brain in your head? The blue starry shorts, red bustier an’ gold chestplate? Not to mention those gold bracelets an’ that big ol’ tiara. The kid’s clearly Wonder Mare – the best dang superhero in the whole dang world, I might dang well add.”
Bon-Bon brightened. “You like Wonder Mare?”
“Darn tootin’! D’you read the comics or do you just like the movies?”
“Both! She’s so awesome! I love her lasso and how she throws her tiara at the bad guys!”
“Wonderrrrr Tiaraaaaa Magiiiiiic!” Glitter Glamour elongated the words dramatically, her voice bouncing off the dilapidated warehouse walls around them. She turned a little circle, as if throwing a small invisible discus. “Totally boss. Have you seen the latest issue?”
“No, not yet.”
“Child, it is gonna knock those glasses of yours right off!”
Bon-Bon flinched, but only a little. She hated it when ponies pointed out her glasses. They were thick and ugly and often had tape in the middle where she had broken them. Mummy made her buy new ones if they got broken but Daddy refused to pay for prettier pairs since ‘the cost would be astronomical with how many times the clumsy child breaks them!’
“You want a spoiler?” Glitter Glamour asked slyly.
“Um, sure.”
“You know Crackpot Croaker?”
“The evil frog demon prince wizard? Yeah. He’s yucky.”
“Well in the next issue, he forces Wonder Mare to marry him!”
“What!?” Bon-Bon actually stopped walking. “But … but she can’t do that! They’re mortal enemies!”
“He holds Wonder Filly captive in his acid dungeon until Wonder Mare agrees to become his new queen. If she doesn’t, he’s gonna feed Wonder Filly to his generals.”
“But nopony cares about Wonder Filly! Wonder Filly’s dumb! They just created her to sell more merchandise!”
“I know that an’ you know that but Wonder Mare ain’t about to let even a plot device like her stupid sidekick get eaten alive by demon frogs. That ain’t her style.”
Bon-Bon shook her head. “She’ll find a way out of it. She has to. She can’t marry – ugh! – Crackpot Croaker!”
Spring Cherry looked between the two of them and shook her head. “I have no idea what either of you are talking about.”
“That’s because you ain’t got no class, girl,” Glitter Glamour sniffed. “You just read them dumb ol’ romance novels.”
“They’re not dumb!” Spring Cherry’s cheeks reddened. “I … I like romance.”
“Ain’t what real life is like though.”
“Yes. Well.” She suddenly seemed to find the far end of the street very interesting. She fixed her gaze on it, even speeding up from a walk to a trot to get there faster. “Sometimes it’s nice to get away from real life, isn’t it?”
Bon-Bon struggled to keep up with the sudden increase in pace. She hopped, skipped and jumped over a few piles of old garbage, catching her hoof on the last one. She found herself caught by a strong foreleg and scooped up onto an even stronger back.
“There you go, honey.” Glitter Glamour gave her a smile over one shoulder. “Livin’ the high life.”
Bon-Bon clung to the tall mare’s mane before recognising that was probably tearing it out. She loosened her grip and they continued at a brisk pace, leaving the dirty alleyways behind and turning onto a main street. It startled Bon-Bon to see traffic again. Carriages whizzed to and fro, the hubbub of Manehatten nightlife not subdued one bit by Nightmare Night.
“We were so close the whole time?” she whispered.
“Those streets are a maze, child. Don’t you worry none about gettin’ lost. Happens to everypony who don’t know their way around like what we do.”
It was a quick trip back to Nonna’s house, or maybe it just felt quick because she was enjoying being so high up. Glitter Glamour’s legs were enormous! Every time she took a step, whole paving slabs passed beneath them – sometimes even two at a time. When Bon-Bon looked up and saw Nonna’s mailbox, she squeaked in surprise.
“Does that noise mean this is it here?” Glitter Glamour asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“It looks nice.” Spring Cherry’s voice had an odd quality to it; like a kid with one bit looking at a five bit box of chocolates in a store window.
“Uh-huh, Nonna keeps it real neat. She says you have to take pride in your home because it makes as much of a first impression on ponies are your appearan-”
The front door slammed open. “La mia preziosa bambina!” Nonna ran out onto the walkway like a mare half her age. “Sono stato così preoccupato per te! Dove sei stato? Dove sei stato?”
Nonna always reverted back to old country language when she was really frightened, angry or scared. Bon-Bon wasn’t sure which emotion had inspired all this shouting. It made her hesitate about getting down from Glitter Glamour’s back.
Nonna pulled up short, as if only just seeing the two mares herself – which was ridiculous, as she had to have seen them from the window if she had run outside like that. “Bon- Bon ... chi sono questi giumente?”
“Nonna, I can’t understand you. Um … non capisco? ” Bon-Bon only understood a few words of Old Country and struggled to pronounce them. When Nonna reverted, it sounded beautiful. When Bon-Bon tried, she sounded like she was trying to hack up a furball.
“Yes, yes, sorry, sorry.” Nonna nodded compulsively. “Um, who are you please? And why do you have my granddaughter with you?” She stood on her hind legs with a giant wooden ladle in one forehoof. Bon-Bon recognised it from the back of the kitchen door. She could have sworn Nonna had made a witch’s wand from a stick, not a ladle, though.
“I got lost, Nonna. They found me and brought me home.”
“Oh.” Nonna’s eyes went wide, travelling from the silver-clad chest in front of her nose up to Glitter Glamour’s face. “Oh. Oh my.” Her voice pitched upwards in surprise. “You two … mares helped my little Bon-Bon?” She transferred her gaze to Spring Cherry, who had shrunk back behind Glitter Glamour like she didn’t want to be seen.
“Sure as sugar.” Glitter Glamour tilted her head and struck a pose. “Got a problem with that?”
“I … no.” Nonna glanced back at the house. “But I have called the police. I was so scared when I could not find her. They are coming to get a photo of her.”
Glitter Glamour said a bad word that made Bon-Bon blush. Mummy never, ever, ever let her say words like that. “Time to get down, child.”
“We have to go,” Spring Cherry added.
“No, wait!” Nonna lowered the ladle to her side. “I can call them again. I can tell them she is safe; that she is home. They will not come.”
“That’s mighty nice of you, ma’am, but we’d better book it outta here anyhow. We’ve been away from our patch too long as it is.” Glitter Glamour ruffled Bon-Bon’s mane, making it spike up all over. Bon-Bon didn’t care.
“Wouldn’t you like to come in for cocoa and candy?” She held up her pumpkin-head bucket, which swung on its little plastic hinge with an almost canine whine. “I have lots of candy! It’s Nightmare Night! You have to have candy on Nightmare Night!”
“She is right.” Nonna stepped close and laid a protective hoof on Bon-Bon’s shoulder. “You should, ah, be rewarded for … for your kindness.” Even for Nonna, she sounded like she was choosing her words carefully.
“That offer is as sweet as pie, ma’am, but we really gotta go.” Glitter Glamour turned and began trotting away as she spoke. “C’mon, Cherry, ‘fore Juice spots we ain’t there an’ gets his tail in a bunch.”
“Wait!” Bon-Bon slipped free of Nonna’s hold and cantered down the walkway. Since Spring Cherry was closest, and turned at the call, she cannoned into her first.
“Oof!” It felt like there couldn’t possibly be much air inside Spring Cherry to begin with, but a big gust whooshed out under the force of Bon-Bon’s hug. She felt Spring Cherry’s jabby point elbows but kept hugging anyway.
“What the-?” Glitter Glamour’s question was cut off by a similar hug delivered to one of her hind legs. She lifted the leg – and Bon-Bon – into the air and peered underneath herself to get a better look at the unexpected passenger.
“Thank you.” Bon-Bon hugged as tight as she could. “For saving me. You’re more like Wonder Mare than me tonight.”
For a second Glitter Glamour looked shocked. She recovered quickly, clearing her throat and lowering her leg so Bon-Bon could let go. “Just don’t let me see you wanderin’ around them there streets again with no clue where to go, okay? C’mon, Cherry.”
“Take care, sweetie.” Spring Cherry, at least, returned the hug with one of her own – though Bon-Bon found it odd how she kept her gaze on Nonna as she did so, and how Nonna was wringing her hooves like she wanted to step in and break them apart.
“Take it.” Bon-Bon pushed the pumpkin bucket at Spring Cherry until she took the handle into her mouth. “I have plenty of candy at home, remember? I want you to have this. Bye! And thank you again!”
Bon-Bon watched them down the street until they were out of sight. Almost as soon as they turned the corner, from the other end a police carriage skidded towards the row houses. The horn of the unicorn pulling it flashed red and white and his mouth was a perfect ‘o’ as he wailed the siren.
It took a while to get everything sorted with the police. The earth pony officer inside the carriage wanted to chase after Glitter Glamour and Spring Cherry to ask them questions, but Nonna told him she didn’t know which way they had gone. Bon-Bon stared at her, shocked at the lie. She stayed silent, however, since she had been told to be quiet after giving her statement.
Only after the two officers had gone did she ask, “Nonna, why did you fib? The police only wanted to talk to them.”
Nonna sighed, hooking the giant ladle back into place on the kitchen door. “It would have been no good, la mia graziosa caramelle.”
“Why?”
“Because those … mares.” Nonna paused, staring at the grain of the ladle’s curve for a moment. “Those mares,” she repeated, “are not the type the police only talk to. They may have … been unkind to them, and Miss Glamour and Miss Cherry brought you home safe to me. I did not want to cause them problems.”
“Problems?”
“Yes, problems. You see, Miss Glamour and Miss Cherry, they are … ah … they are what you might call Ladies of the Night.”
“Ladies of the Night?” Bon-Bon turned the words over in her mouth and her mind. It sounded spooky and cool, just like Nightmare Night. “Ladies of the Night. But what are Ladies of the Night? Are they like witches? Are witches Ladies of the Night?”
“Ah, La mia graziosa caramelle, it is something you will understand only when you are older.” Suddenly Nonna turned and swept Bon-Bon up into such a tight hug that she struggled to breathe. “And forgive me, but I do not wish for you to grow up just yet.”
“Nonna, my glasses! You’re holding me too tight!”
“I will buy you new ones.”
“Nonna, you can’t afford that! Put me down! Nonna!”
“Let me have this, little one. I was so frightened I had lost you tonight. Let me have this now.”
….
Bon-Bon sat in front of the mirror in her bedroom, pre-dawn light sneaking beneath the curtains. She turned her head left and right, studying her face with and without glasses. She needed them to see, but preferred how her face looked without them. Until now, she had resisted Mummy’s idea of contact lenses on the grounds that touching your own eyeball was icky, not to mention dangerous if you used hooves instead of telekinesis.
Those unicorns are so lucky.
They certainly would not have to struggle this much. They wouldn’t yank out so much hair with a brush, get rollers stuck or accidentally spritz themselves in the eye with hairspray.
I wish I knew some unicorn who could help with this – ngg!
Another clump of hair parted ways with her scalp. Tears beaded in the corners of her eyes but she soldiered on. She had to tame out all the knots and tangles first. Then she could do the rest.
It took hours, much trial, error and pain, but eventually it was done. Bon-Bon stared at her reflection critically. She would never be pretty like her mother, but she liked this. She liked it so much that she hopped down from her stool and marched downstairs and into the kitchen.
“Bon-Bon?” Nonna looked up from the stove in surprise. A large pot of porridge bubbled merrily, waiting for the foal and mare who ate it together every morning. “You’re up early - oh!”
“Do … do you like it?” Shyness crashed over Bon-Bon in an unexpected wave. What had seemed pretty upstairs now felt like nothing more than a series of mistakes glued to her head. She caught sight of herself in the metal edging of the stove, which had been polished to a shine like a mirror. Two whorls of mane balanced on top of her head like pink and blue liquorice wheels. They were a little too tall and wobbled when she moved. She fought the desire to sit down and hide the ones she had also put into her tail.
“You look like … that mare who brought you home,” Nonna breathed. “The real one.”
“Real one?” Bon-Bon was puzzled. Both mares had been as solid and real as anypony.
Nonna blinked, guilt flashing briefly in her eyes, then waved the words away. “Never mind. I misspoke. You look … why did you do this?”
“Because Spring Cherry looked so pretty. I’m not tall like Glitter Glamour, I look silly when I try to wear nice clothes, I’m not pretty like Mummy and I’m not graceful when I move like you so I …” Bon-Bon dropped her head. “I was just trying to look nice. It’s stupid.”
“No, no, it is …” Nonna tilted her head to one side. She sounded like she was choosing her words carefully again. “It is nice. It suits you, actually.”
“Really?” Just like that, Bon-Bon’s whole chest felt lighter. “You’re not just saying that?”
“No.” Nonna sounded like the fact surprised her too. “It really does.”
Bon-Bon beamed.
Next Nightmare Night, she was so dressing as a Lady of the Night.
