“Huff… huff… huff… huff…”
Lyra puffed away exhaustedly on her twentieth and final balloon.
It was late autumn, just a couple of weeks after Nightmare Night; the first snow was just a month away. At Sugarcube Corner, Pinkie’s party room was almost prepped for a relatively modest bash, at least by the standards of Ponyville’s resident party planner. Still, no matter the size of the parties she planned, Pinkie never threw one that wasn’t fun. Pinkie had been up late the previous night personally baking the goodies for the party: fifteen delicious cupcakes, a mouth-watering five-layer chocolate cake decorated with pink icing and strawberries, and a large tray containing various truffles and chocolates. Lyra could see a few of Bon Bon’s favorites on the plate. Maybe she could ask Pinkie if she could take some home when she was done helping her set up.
“…huff…huff…huff… done!”
Lyra tied up her last baby blue balloon. She tossed it to Pinkie, who relayed it deftly into a large sack hanging from the ceiling, which contained the other sixty-nine balloons, in pink and yellow as well as blue.
“That’s the last one!” Pinkie smiled gratefully at her helper. “Thanks for helping me set all of this up, Lyra!”
“No problem, Pinkie,” said Lyra, stretching her legs out after having sat blowing balloons for thirty minutes straight. She still had no idea how Pinkie had finished inflating her fifty while she was just starting her third, but that was just Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie. What she really wanted to know was why Pinkie had invited her of all ponies to help set up one of her parties. “It’s the least I can do for the pony who threw my last four birthday parties… and Bon Bon’s last two…”
“Oh, Lyra!” Pinkie shook her head with slight chagrin, while still sporting a broad smile. “You didn’t have to help just because I threw you and Bon Bon those parties. I threw you guys those parties because you’re my friends!”
“Okay,” said Lyra, Pinkie’s grin starting to infect and widen her own, “then we’ll say I did this because you’re my friend.”
“Sounds good to me!” Pinkie then started to survey the room, stopping occasionally to mutter to herself. “That’s set… that goes there… fifteen… seventy… WE’RE ALL SET!” She turned around to face a ticking wall clock. She gasped audibly. “…and just in time! The birthday filly’s gonna arrive any second now!”
Pinkie zipped under the concession table, hiding behind the white tablecloth that hung to the floor. Lyra stood alone in the festively decorated room. Well, I guess that’s my cue to leave.
Lyra trotted towards the door, when a half-whisper, half-shout stopped her in her tracks.
“Lyraaaa! Get under here!”
Lyra blinked, bemused by the pink pony’s request. She assumed that once she had finished helping Pinkie, she’d go home and practice her lyre. This was what she usually did on Monday nights, with Bon Bon as her audience, while the earth pony experimented with her candy recipes, looking for her next big sweet sensation.
“Hurry!”
Pinkie poked her hoof out of the tablecloth to beckon Lyra underneath. Lyra shrugged and snuck under the table with her. She must be inviting her to stay as thanks for setting up, the musician figured. Lyra scooched up next to Pinkie. The party planner’s commitment to her craft was evident in how she kept her lips pursed, and remained stark still under the table. Lyra peeked beneath the tablecloth, then looked back to the pink statue sitting beside her. She was now both literally and figuratively in the dark, and was curious to know who they were waiting for.
“Pinkie…” Started Lyra.
“Shhhh!” Pinkie’s shushing was quiet, but also very shrill and forceful. “Whisper!”
“Okay…” obliged Lyra. “Pinkie, who are we waiting for, and where are all of the guests?”
Pinkie let out an immodest snort, then caught herself mid-snort, as she suppressed her amusement with great difficulty. “Who do you think we're waiting for, silly? Why do you think I invited you to set things up?
"Uhhhhhhh...." Lyra was completely clueless. She couldn't think of anypony whose birthday was close enough to warrant a party.
"BON BON!" Pinkie elucidated, upon seeing Lyra's puzzlement. "Her seventieth birthday's today!"
"WHAT?!"
"SHHHH!" Pinkie once again shushed the unicorn, whose puzzlement had turned to shock.
"Pinkie," Lyra began to explain, "Bon Bon's..."
"WAIT!" Pinkie ears had pricked up.
"...birthday isn't..." A hoof was shoved into Lyra's mouth, shutting her up. Pinkie lowered one of her ears to the floor, listening carefully while Lyra's concerns turned into inaudible mumbles.
"...turdur! Uznurturdur!"
Pinkie shushed Lyra again before listening to the floor. When Lyra stopped trying to communicate with her, she too could hear ponies on the ground floor talking to each other. After about a minute, the ponies stopped speaking, and muffled hoofsteps could be heard making towards the bottom of the stairs outside Pinkie's room.
"SHE'S COMING!" Pinkie pulled her hoof out of Lyra's mouth. She reached out from beneath the tablecloth and grabbed a string from above the table. She then reared her entire body, as if she were a predatory animal preparing to pounce. "Not a sound!"
"Pinkie, Bon Bon's birthday isn't..."
"SHHHH!"
Lyra swallowed. She could hear Bon Bon climbing the stairs. She had to tell Pinkie before her friend opened the door to the room, but Pinkie wasn't having any of it. She remained in position, but shifted her gaze to Lyra.
"Okay! On three, we jump out from under the table and shout 'SURPRISE!' Ready?"
"But Pinkie...!" She could hear Bon Bon reaching the top landing. She was now only half-a-hallway away from the door.
"One..."
Bon Bon's hooffalls became incrementally clearer as she approached the door.
"...two..."
"Pinkie, this is all a big mistake!"
"SHHH!"
The doorknob slowly began to turn. Lyra fell completely silent, not at Pinkie's insistence, but out of fear. It seemed to take an age for the door to open, but within a second, the knob clicked, and the door swung open, revealing Lyra's roommate standing in the hall.
"THREE!"
Just as Bon Bon was beginning to register the state of the room in her mind, Pinkie pulled the string she was holding and jumped out from under the table as the seventy balloons hung in a sack from the ceiling were released into the room.
"SURPRISE!"
Bon Bon's mouth went agape as the balloons fell towards the floor. Pinkie was on her hind legs, with her hooves in the air. She was beaming at Bon Bon, pleased at her surprise's success. As the balloons hit the floor, Bon Bon didn't change her expression, but looked to both sides and back into the hall. Pinkie was waiting for her smile to come out, but the candy-mare remained incredulous. Pinkie looked around, then realized that she alone had jumped out from beneath the table.
"Lyra, come on out from under there!"
Bon Bon paused when she heard her best friend's name called. "Lyra?" She looked to the table that Pinkie was speaking to. With the balloons finally resting on the hardwood floor, the room remained still for a full five seconds. A rustling noise finally heralded the emergence of a mint-green unicorn, whose face had turned outrageously pink.
"Lyra helped me set up the surprise party!" said Pinkie excitedly, causing the unicorn's blushing to intensify. "The other guests aren't here yet, but we can get things started while we wait for..."
"Pinkie," interrupted Bon Bon, "it's not my birthday."
Pinkie blinked, positive that she had heard her guest wrong. "What?"
"It's NOT my birthday," said Bon Bon clearly. "You threw me a party months ago, remember?"
"Really? But I could have sworn..."
Bon Bon turned to her roommate. "Lyra..."
"I tried to tell her, I swear!" Her face was still incredibly flushed. "She just told me she needed help setting up a party, so I helped her, then she invited me to stay, and then she told me it was for you just before we heard you downstairs!"
Pinkie pulled a one-a-day calendar from Celestia knows where that had the current date on it. "But I marked my calendar! It says right here..." she showed Lyra and Bon Bon the drastically thinned out calendar, on which the top page was printed "M NOV 14," and in hoofwriting was scribbled, "Throw 70th Birthday Party for Bon Bon."
Bon Bon was less surprised by the note than she was by the number included in it. "SEVENTY?!"
"Yeah!" Pinkie tore the day's page from the calendar. "I made your favorite truffles and everythi..."
She paused, as she noticed what both Lyra and Bon Bon had caught a second earlier. The day's page had been slightly torn. It now read, "Throw 70th Birthday Party for Bon–" Lyra glanced at the calendar's next page, "T NOV 15," which read, "Pick up sea salt caramels from Bon Bon." It seemed as though the previous day had seamlessly covered all but the final "Bon."
"GUMMY!!!"
Pinkie dashed out of the room, leaving Lyra and Bon Bon alone.
"Listen," said Lyra reaching to scratch the back of her head, "I'm sorry I got involved in this..."
"Don't be," said Bon Bon. "You had nothing to do with it."
"I tried to tell her..."
"I know..."
"She wouldn't listen..."
"I get it, Lyra!"
Lyra finally looked her bestie in the eyes for the first time since she entered.
"This was just a silly mistake that wasn't even your fault," said Bon Bon. "Don't beat yourself up over it."
Lyra's blush finally settled down. Bon Bon smiled at her, and she laughed out loud. "Yeah... I guess it is pretty funny... who else in Ponyville even has a name that starts with 'B-O-N'? I can't think of anypony; can you?"
Bon Bon opened her mouth to answer when Pinkie reentered the room holding her pet baby gator by the tail. She set the young crocodilian down on the floor.
"Spit it out..."
Gummy obliged, coughing up a shred of paper that floated down onto the floor. Pinkie picked it up and read it.
"OH! Of course!" She dropped the piece of the calendar and began giggling uncontrollably. "Silly me! Of course it wasn't YOUR birthday! HAH!"
Pinkie rolled over on the floor in peals of laughter. As Lyra and Bon Bon waited for Pinkie's laughing fit to die down, Lyra picked the piece of paper and held it up to the calendar. Bon Bon leaned in to see whose birthday it actually was.
"What?" Lyra stared at the calendar. "Bonnie Zacherle? It's just gibberish."
Bon Bon shook her head. "Nah. It's just Pinkie."
The two mares shared a chuckle as Pinkie got to her hooves. "I guess that's why none of the guests arrived," she reasoned sadly. "They knew it wasn't your birthday." She shook off the feeling of disappointment before it could take hold of her. "Oh well! Hey, Bon Bon, Lyra; since you're both here, and I have cake, want to help me make a night of it?"
Bon Bon and Lyra looked at each other, roomie-to-roomie.
"Those are my favorite truffles..." said Bon Bon suggestively.
"Lyre practice can wait," concluded Lyra.
"Then let's PARTY!"
Pinkie turned on a record player that had been waiting all day to play some snazzy, upbeat tunes. Lyra and Bon Bon began to move their legs with the rhythm. They could already tell that they were going to enjoy themselves immensely.
Author's Note
Without her, none of the wonderful stories on this site would have been written.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BONNIE!
