Twilight Sparkle had gotten no shortage of unusual mail since she became the Princess of Friendship. Mostly marriage proposals, or other things less savory, which was why she couldn’t risk her baby dragon, Spike, sorting the mail himself.
But a ransom letter for a stuffed animal was new, even for her.
She blinked. There could be no doubt about it. The picture was of Smarty Pants, tied to a child’s plastic chair next to a copy of the previous day’s Foal Free Press. Cutout letters from a magazine read, Deliver 500 rolls of toilet paper to the grain-house outside of town, or Smarty Pants gets it! XoXo, love- The spot on the page was torn where the doll-napper had pasted her name, and then changed her mind.
Twilight giggled. She called Spike over to show him, expecting to share on a laugh, but the baby dragon was horrified.
“Fiends! Monsters! We have to call the Royal Guard!”
“Spike,” Twilight said with a laugh. “It’s just a raggedy old doll.”
“It is not just a raggedy old doll, Twilight,” said Spike. “Smarty Pants slept in your bed since before I was ever hatched! She used to ride on your back with me and sat with us during picnics at the park. She sat in on your classes with Princess Celestia for your first three years as her student. Smarty Pants is a part of you, Twilight,” said Spike.
All of a sudden, the nostalgia hit Twilight Sparkle like a ton of bricks. In her brain, “How Am I Supposed To Live Without You” played while she flashed back to dozens of scenes of her having fun with Smarty Pants around Canterlot.
She crumbled up the ransom letter in a rage. “Hang on, Smarty Pants! Mama’s bringing you home!”
She cornered her number-one suspect in a cave outside of town. Big Mac looked so pale and withdrawn, kneeling over a wet rock near a pool of water and mumbling about his lost “precious.”
Spike hopped down and made himself at home in the lovely cave as Twilight’s horn flashed. Heart-bubbles popped and Big Mac shook some sense back into his head as Twilight broke the “want it, need it,” spell.
“Where am I?” Big Mac asked. “My whole world was that doll. I was so out of my mind in love with that thing, I couldn’t even talk. The only thing I could say was ‘eyyup’ and ‘nope.’”
“Big Mac, where is Smarty Pants?” Twilight asked.
“And are you done with this cave?” Spike asked. “I’m getting bigger, this would be a great spot for my first treasure pile. That’s sure to get me some attention from the ladies,” he said with a sly voice.
Big Mac blinked hard and Twilight magicked up some water to help him drink. “Are you alright?” asked Twilight.
“Yeah,” said Big Mac. “Just kinda tired.”
“Can you tell me where Smarty Pants is?”
“No,” said Big Mac. “That’s why I’m here. Someone stole it, I don’t know who and I went kinda nuts. Oh no!” he said, eyes wide.
“What?” Twilight asked.
“Apple Bloom, AJ and Granny are all still locked in the storm cellar from my interrogation! They’re gonna tear my head off!” He took off, full gallop, back to Sweet Apple Acres.
“Hey!” Twilight called after him.
After saving Big Mac from the Apple Family’s wrath and scouring Sweet Apple Acres for clues, Twilight and Spike embarked on a psychedelic journey to Discord’s home in the Nth Dimension.
Sitting on his couch, Discord asked in his most innocent voice, “Why ever would you think that I had stolen Smarty Pants?”
“For starters, I didn’t even tell you about that, yet,” said Twilight.
“That doesn’t mean I did it,” said Discord. “It just means that I listen to National Pony Radio.”
He magicked up a radio set and an angry voice said, “Your tax-bits at work, gentlecolts. Our new Princess of Friendship just spent all day looking for her lost teddy pony instead of attending government session in Canterlot. And can someone please explain to me why all of the alicorn princesses have always been female?”
“So you won’t mind if I have a look around?” asked Twilight.
“Haven’t you ever heard of boundaries, Twilight?” asked Discord. “I don’t want you seeing my dirty laundry. Not to mention my magazines,” he mumbled.
Twilight started to argue, but she stopped. He had a point. “You’re right, I’m sorry,” she said.
Catching the depressed tone in her voice, Discord’s tone softened. “Oh, if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll give you the grand tour,” he said.
Twilight followed him through a set of double-doors.
“It won’t help your search, but I don’t want you thinking I’m being mean. I can only imagine how I’d feel if someone stole my- OOOOoooh!”
Discord’s eyes went wide and he fell to his knees in the empty, wide open room.
“What, Discord?”
“My throne!” Discord wailed. “My beautiful, scary-looking throne!”
Twilight frowned and patted the chaos god’s back.
“Can’t you just magic one up?” asked Spike.
“It’s the sentimental value, my boy. I was sitting on this throne when I reigned terror and chaos upon Equestria and now I have nothing left to remember those times.”
“You were also sitting on that throne both times me and my friends turned you to stone,” said Twilight.
The sadness fell off of Discord’s face like a mask. “Good point. Buck it. But whoever could have been crazy enough to find my house and steal it?” he asked. “Something tells me that it’s the same culprit who kidnapped your Smarty Pants.” Discord magicked himself into a white shirt and an ascot with blond hair. “I say we’ve got a mystery on our hands, team.”
“Crazy enough to fin d your house?” Twilight repeated. “Are you saying that people can’t find your house unless they’re crazy?”
“Pretty much, yes,” said Discord.
“We are not crazy!” said Spike. “Twilight, maybe, but not me.”
“Well I’m not saying you are, Spike,” said Discord. “You rode on Twilight’s back. She’s the only one who actually found my house.”
“Oh, that makes more sense.”
Twilight gave him a look, but didn’t comment. Maybe it was time to start seeing that specialist that Celestia told her about.
“We’ll ship the throne to you if we find it,” said Twilight. “Come on, Spike.”
Twilight teleported herself and Spike back to the tree-castle.
“You’re giving up?” Spike asked.
“Of course not,” said Twilight. “We need to make a checklist of suspects. I should have known better than to leave the castle without a checklist.”
She stopped at the door when she found a note stuck to it with a piece of gum.
The ransom has gone up for making me wait,” said the note. “I forgot to say that I wanted you to deliver the goods this afternoon. New time is tonight at seven p.m. Also, come alone and no cops. I forgot that part also. Kisses and hearts.
Behind the scroll, she found a picture of Smarty Pants, hanging upside down from a line of yarn over a playpen full of yapping puppies ready to rip the doll apart.
Twilight rolled up the scroll and picture, wearing a look of grim determination.
“What are you going to do?” Twilight asked.
“Buy every toilet paper roll I can find and pay the ransom. If I don’t come back, deliver this scroll and picture to the agents of S.M.I.L.E.”
Spike sniffled. “I’ll tell Celestia that you died a hero.”
That evening as the sun began to drop, Twilight Sparkle used her magic to pull over a dozen shopping carts, connected by chains, to the grain silos outside of town. She almost didn’t make it in time, she had to go all the way to Canterlot to find an actual shopping center instead of street venders.
Twilight kicked open the door to a tool shed, ready to fight, but all she found was a note and a clown costume hanging on a rack.
Leave the TP and put on the costume. Wear that while you skip backward to Sweet Apple Acres singing “Raise That Barn.” I’ll know if you don’t do it and Smarty Pants is counting on you.
Twilight slipped into the yellow jumpsuit with balloon patterns, put on a puffy red wig and smeared her face with white paint. The clown nose honked in her hoof as she put it on.
Pinkie was her number one suspect at this point.
She obeyed the instructions as best she could, falling several times. Because she had never heard “Raise That Barn,” the only thing that she could do was repeat the words “raise that barn” over and over again in the “Winter Wrap-Up” melody.
She wobbled from dizziness and squinted her eyes against a massive headache by the time she reached the barn at Sweet Apple Acres.
She found another note with another outfit. If she wasn’t a lady, she’d yell “darn” at the top of her lungs.
Stripping out of the clown costume and washing off the makeup in the water trough, she used the comb provided to slick her hair back and slip into the spikey, leather jacket. Per the note’s instructions, she found the cow, Sarah Cowner, and said, “Come with me if you want to live.”
“What?” said Sarah Cowner?
“Sorry, weird blackmail thing,” said Twilight.
“Ooooh. Yeah, that’s why you don’t send the boys those pictures they always ask for,” said the cow. “Oh, this is probably for you.” She opened a tool shed and gave Twilight the new suit and note.
A few minutes later, Twilight Sparkle, red from rage and embarrassment, hopped through the streets of Ponyville in a Pikachu outfit saying “Pikapika!” to everyone who looked at her.
She ripped off her costume as she approached Sugar Cube Corner, expecting to find another note and outfit. Instead, she found Pinkie Pike at a table playing with Smarty Pants.
“Pinkie!” yelled Twilight. “Why did you kidnap Smarty Pants?!”
“I didn’t,” said Pinkie. “Someone left her here. I was just keeping her company. She’s got the funniest stories, Twilight! You never told me you had a crush on that guy from Nickelbuck.”
“How did you-?” Twilight shook her head. “Never mind. You really didn’t take Smarty?”
“Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”
Twilight said no more. With a Pinkie-promise involved, Pinkie’s word could be counted on even more than AJ’s.
But she was reunited with Smarty Pants. Twilight pulled Smarty into a tight hug. Pinkie snapped a picture before Twilight could object.
“This is going on the internet as soon as someone invents it!” said Pinkie.
Smarty Pants rode on Twilight’s back on the way back to the castle. She still had to track down the culprit, but at the moment she felt like singing.
“That’s not a bad idea,” she said out loud. “Let’s sing one together, Smarty!”
She turned a corner as she opened her mouth to sing, but a scream came out instead as she saw what happened to the tree-castle.
The point of all of the costumes and errands became obvious. While Twilight was dressed in suits and doing dares, the criminal mastermind behind it all was here, draping the castle and yard with sheets of toilet paper.
It was a hectic rush to do all of that so quickly, to paper-roll Twilight’s castle and still have enough time to get the toilet paper to her secret hideaway.
Light purple eyes glowed in the darkness and the filly giggled. Moonlight through the boarded up windows reflected off of her cutie mark of a baseball and a screw.
She gave the spinner on her beanie a twirl as she climbed up on her stolen throne, spray-painted with her face and the words “Screwball was here” in purple and yellow.
Sitting on the over-sized throne surrounded by mountains of toilet paper, Screwball, daughter of chaos and lunacy, laughed maniacally. She’d already outsmarted the Princess of Friendship, and how she had enough toilet paper to TP every home in Ponyville.
The end.
