There weren’t any two mornings that started the exact same way for Pinkie Pie, she always found a way to wake up differently every day. Except once a year on her birthday, that’s when she broke tradition.
That morning, the sun’s light filtered through the curtains and traveled slowly from the sill and throughout the pink pony’s room; roaming over the wooden floor, the carpets and finally climbed up the bed to finally reach her face. Her eyes opened with a smile that almost escaped from her face and somersaulted, landing in front of her calendar.
Gummy watched his owner take a red marker and made a circle on that morning’s date.
“Today’s the day, Gummy!” Pinkie said, grabbing her pet and throwing him to the air then catching him with her tail “It’s my birthday!”
She put on a pink party hat while Gummy poked his head out from Pinkie’s tail and flicked his tongue.
“Aw, thanks Gummy!” Pinkie chirped with a kiss on the little alligator’s nose “But there’s no time for compliments, we have to go to the party cave immediately.”
With that said, the pink pony ran to the stairs and threw the lever, turning the stairs into a slide and at the end of it, the entry to the party cave opened. She leapt onto the slide and went into the the darkness of the cave
“Party cave: Activate code Pink, key word: ‘Happy birthday’!” she yelled, making an echo.
After a second of silence, the mechanisms within the cave activate, red emergency lights and raid sirens sounded, their brightness illuminating the whole room as party cannons exploded in synch with each other and a giant banner unfurled from the ceiling, revealing Pinkie’s face with the phrase “Happy birthday!” on it.
Suddenly, a strange object descended from above, attached to balloons of every colour. Pinkie watched it patiently descend onto the desk.
“Okay, let see what my friends are planning to me this year, you have to see this too Gummy.” Pinkie said, taking her pet out from her tail and putting him next to the folder.
She took a deep breath and opened the folder. She stared at the folder, her face paralyzed in a wide smile until it morphed to a worried frown.
“What?!”
She flipped the folder open, closed it, opened it again, lifted it over her head and shook it expecting something, anything, to fall from there but nothing came. Gummy watched indifferent to how his owner went from one side of the cave to another trying to solve the mystery of the empty folder.
“It’s fine, it’s fine! Calm down Pinkie, there must be an completely logical explanation for this. Maybe my friends tried really, really hard to not reveal a thing about my surprise party. But what they don’t know, is that Pinkie Diane Pie is always a step ahead,”
Pinkie grabbed her bag and shot out party cave, not before speaking to her pet “Gummy, look after the cave until I come back.”
All this became a tradition, or rather, a game. After the incident of her forgetting her birthday, her friends tried to throw her a surprise party, but no matter how hard they tried, where they went or who knew the secret of the party, she always found out. Although Pinkie and the guests had fun, they deep down, wanted to surprise her for real.
Today, after five years of that fateful party, she was confused and didn’t know what they were planning.
Pinkie trotted through town to Twilight’s castle, after all, where’s a better place to hide a party in one of the dozens of empty rooms in the castle of the Princess of Friendship? But something weird was happening, the ponies she passed said “Hi” to her like always, as if that was a normal day.
She stopped, arriving the castle, and instead of knocking, she took a hook and threw it onto the balcony, then rappelled up, making sure that neither Twilight nor Spike saw her. Then she took out from the bag her spy suit and night vision goggles and dresses herself.
“Let see what you have for me, Princess Twilight,” she said, entering the castle.
Around noon, Twilight was walking through the hallways of her castle looking for her loyal assistant, fearing that he might’ve found the room of food supplies.
Again.
“Spike! Come out from wherever you are!” Twilight yelled.
She kept walking through the infinite hallways until an unfamiliar sound caught her attention. Something kind of like snarl, a monster? Fearful, she approached the door where the sound came from and put an ear against the door to confirm her suspicions. Her horn glowed instinctively, she stepped back, opened the door and shot a magic barrier that’d go through the room until it found a living creature and caught it in a paralyzing spell.
“Gotcha!” she exclaimed.
The alicorn pulled the strange creature out from the shadows and into the daylight.
“Pinkie pie?” Twilight asked, releasing the pink mare “What are you doing here? Where’s the monster?”
“What monster?” Pinkie asked
Suddenly Pinkie’s stomach roared. Twilight just rolled her eyes.
“Do you want lunch?” Twilight offered.
In the dining room, Twilight set two daisy sandwiches onto the table. When she put the plate in front of Pinkie, she tore into it.
“So how long have you been in that room?”
“A few minutes- mmrph- before you got me out.” Pinkie replied, chewing.
“But it seems like you didn’t have any breakfast.” Twilight added.
Pinkie swallowed.
“It’s just that… I can’t explain it…”
“Pinkie… What are you hiding?” Twilight asked
“N-nothing, I-I mean… it’s just… I forgot something the other day and I wanted to look for it, silly me, right?” Pinkie chuckled nervously.
“Pinkie, you know it’s not necessary to sneak into the castle if you forgot something from your parties.”
“Thanks Twilight, I’ll won’t do it again.” Pinkie said,inhaling the last bite to her sandwich.
“Besides, it’s understandable if you forgot stuff from your own birthday party. I have to say it again, it was a great party.”.
Pinkie eyes widened, in confusion and surprise. It was so much that, when she gasped, she started to cough on the food.
“Water! Water!”
Twilight leapt up to get her a glass of water.
“What do you mean ‘My birthday party’?” Pinkie finally asked.
“Don’t you remember? Last night we had your birthday party.”
Pinkie looked confused.
“Pinkie… yesterday was your birthday… remember?”
Pinkie’s brain was invaded by thousands of thoughts. It wasn’t possible that she’d forgotten her own birthday.
“Pfft, cut it out Twilight, I know you’re planning to throw me a surprise party.” Pinkie said nervously.
“What are you talking about? You found out about your party like every other year. Maybe you ate too much sugar this time.” Twilight answered, smiling.
“What are you saying that?! Why you keep saying that?!” Pinkie asked, shaking Twilight.
Moments later, she begrudgingly let Twilight go, who was dizzy for a few seconds before regaining her bearings.
“Forget it… sorry Twilight.” Pinkie mumbled.
“If you want to know what happened last night, why don’t you check the album…?” Twilight said, but didn’t get to finish because Pinkie disappeared faster than she’d eaten her lunch.
On the outskirts of town, in the lone treehouse the Cutie Mark Crusaders were arguing over plans to help a colt to obtain his cutie mark. There were plans for everything, from the most simple thing to the most extreme and dangerous. Of course the possibilities would reduce when they eventually meet him for the first time.
“Okay Crusaders, now that we took care of that emergency thing for the princess, we can focus on the new colt in Ponyville.” Apple Bloom said, beating her hooves on the podium.
“I’ve got reliable sources saying that he’ll be our new classmate.” Sweetie Belle supplied, remembering to pay Feather Weight for the pictures and the espionage.
“Alright, let see what we have planned.” Apple Bloom declared, unrolling the plan… right out the treehouse door, down the tree and and into the grass.
“I got it!” Scootaloo exclaimed, chasing after it.
When the fillies were about to restart the conversation, Pinkie came up through the floor, surprising both fillies.
“Oh, hi Pinkie Pie.” they said in unison.
“There’s no time to chat, my little spies, I need you to tell me why the folder with your investigation was empty when I saw it this morning.” Pinkie said, shaking the debris from the floor out from her mane.
The fillies noticed the desperate tone in her voice and that her mane was messier than usual.
“But you told us that you incinerate everything related to the spy thing after your birthday party so that nopony would suspect or find it by accident.” Sweetie Belle said.
Pinkie pressed her head with her hooves “But today is my birthday! I haven’t incinerated a thing yet!”.
“Ah’m not sure how much sugar ya ate this time Pinkie, but your birthday was yesterday. Here, look at the calendar.” Apple Bloom said, approaching the crusader’s calendar, almost every day filled with notes.
The day before was marked with an “X”.
Her birthday had passed and she couldn’t remember it.
“B-but... if that’s true, how come I don’t remember anything?”
“We don’t know.” Sweetie said “Did you drink something that wasn’t fruit punch last night?”
Pinkie tried her best to remember anything from last night, the fillies even helped by placing the Light Bulb of Ideas over her head.
“I don’t remember...” Pinkie said, frowning.
“Wait, ah know!” exclaimed Apple Bloom “The photo album!”
“What album? There’s an album?” Pinkie asked.
“Sure, last night you took a lot of photos of your party, but you lent the album out after the party.” Sweetie explained.
“To who?! Who?!”
“My sister ah think.” Apple Bloom replies, fiddling with the Light Bulb .
As quick as she appeared, she left, leaving a trail of dust in her wake; and at that moment, Scootaloo came back with the rest of the roll and saw the hole in the floor.
“Oh c’mon!” she yelled, dropping the roll “Now it’s my turn to fix it...”
Not far from the treehouse, Applejack and Big Mac bet all of their days off for the next month that they could put more apples in a cart than the other. After the stallion let the apples fall after reaching the height of an apple tree, it was her turn of stack the fruit.
The mare was concentrating on the task, one by one kicking apples to the top of the tower that she’d made. It was perfect, nothing could knock it down. She was only a one apple short of breaking Big Mac’s score, she picked the reddest apple of the pile, took off her hat in order to have a clear shot, the took a deep breath and…
“Applejack!” she heard in the distance.
Applejack’s ears flicked in response, but ignored it, attributing it to her ears playing tricks on her.
“Applejack!”
This time the noise was closer. Her ears flicked again, this time turning towards the source of the sound. Her eyes widened as she beheld a pink blur approaching. The first thing that came to mind was her stack, which she gave a nervous glance.
She felt the clock ticking, and rushed to get bales of hay to stack in front of the apples, praying that’d it be enough to stop Pinkie.
A few seconds later, Pinkie was about to impact the hay wall at full speed, Applejack closed her eyes and Big Mac hid behind an apple tree.
Suddenly, a huge cloud buffeted the Apple siblings, but no pink pony. When Applejack opened her eyes, Pinkie was nose to nose with her.
“Hey Applejack, whatcha doing? Is it a competition?”
“For mah hay Pinkie, you scared me.” sighed in relief “An’ yes, ah’m havin’ a friendly competition with mah brother.”
“Sounds fun! Hey Applejack, do you know anything about a photo album of my party?”
“Of course, Rainbow took it last night to burn some embarrassing photos, but ah borrowed it this morning to show it to Granny and Apple Bloom.”
“Cool!” Pinkie exclaimed, impatient “Where is it?! I need it!”
“It’s on the nightstand in mah bedroom.”
She barely managed to finish speaking before Pinkie shot off in less time that took the country pony to articulate her thoughts,Pinkie had the photo album.
“Thanks Applejack and good luck with your competition!” yelled Pinkie whizzing past her.
Applejack just waved her hoof saying goodbye. And strained smile on her face.
“Alright Mac, it’s time to finish this. It’s almost time for the other thing.”.
She walked to the wall of hay and, and out of habit, she kicked it with all her strength. Her green eyes shone in the fear when she saw not just the hay but also her apple stack fell in front of her. Her brother sat still with a big smile in his face.
“Eeeeeyup,”
In her mouth were the answers that she was looking for, maybe even the reason why she forgot her own birthday and how the next morning she swore over and over again that day was that day. A spell of amnesia? A head injury?
No, that one was ruled out when she remembered the many times she hit her head. Ghosts in her head? Maybe.
When she arrived at Sugarcube Corner, she used her hook to climb into her room. Once there and with a feeling of relief that she hadn’t felt since that morning, she prepared herself to take a look at the album.
“Let see album, show me everypony in town is wrong and my birthday is today.” Pinkie said with a crazy laugh.
Then a silence took root, the movement of the paper sheets and the occasional sigh were the only things that broke it. It had twenty pages, each one with different photos portraying the same thing, moments of fun with her friends in Ponyville. It even had drawings with crayons and little messages on the sides.
“I… did forget my own birthday.”
After admitting it to herself, she closed the album as a sudden sadness invaded her being. In a final act of resignation, she went to the calendar struck through the circled day.
Frowning, she left her bedroom with a final task: clean up the party cave. She pulled the lever and once again she went down to the depths of the cave. But this time, when the entrance opened, the lights didn’t light.
“Great, now I have to change the light bulb.” Pinkie muttered, irritated “I hope I don’t step on Gummy...”
After finding the wall, she felt around for the switch.
“Here it is...” she said, turning the lights on.
“Surprise!”
Confetti and streamers of all colours flew through the air. Pinkie was so shocked her mane returned to being fluffy.
“But how? Today’s not… yesterday was… the pictures… birthday… calendar…” she said, trying to find an explanation.
“Calm down Pinkie, we’ll explain it,” Twilight said, putting on a party hat “Look, every year you were a step ahead of our surprise party plans, so this year we decided to do something a little different, make you think your birthday already happened.”
“But how’s that possible? How come I didn’t find out?”
“I think I can explain it to you darling.” Rarity replied, whistling.
From within the crowd, the Cutie Mark Crusaders walked up.
“You see, last year we put the pieces together and found out that the girls were working for you to get information about your surprise party. But instead of scolding them, we decided to use them to give you fake information and distract you from discovering our true plans.”
“Ah’m sorry Pinkie Pie, we had no choice” Apple Bloom said, scuffing her hooves in shame.
“But my calendar… how?”
“We changed it while you were out,” explained Sweetie Belle.
“But, what about the photos?”
“We altered some old ones, even acting in some of them.” Rainbow said.
“So all this time... you were playing with my mind to throw me this surprise party?”
“Yes, and the whole town helped” Twilight replied.
Pinkie, trying to absorb everything that happened, sat down in the ground and slumped over, hiding her face from everypony.
“Are you okay?” asked Twilight.
All of the guests were worried. Maybe they went too far…
Until a little smile appeared on the face of the pink pony.
“Of course I’m okay silly! It’s the best surprise party in years! You guys worked so hard, you’re the best friends ever!” she exclaimed, euphoric and pulling all of her friends into a group hug “C’mon everypony, it’s party time!”
And just like that, everypony in the town celebrated in Pinkie’s secret party cave.
Obviously, they had to hide a lot of stuff in order to keep that place a secret and make it pass for a normal basement.
They’ll have ample time to think about the next surprise party, hoping to not go too far this time.
Making her believe that all of Equestria was banished isn’t going too far, right?
FIN
