Juvenile Deliquent and Cutie Pie
“I can’t believe this!” Toola Roola exclaimed, rubbing the broomstick-shaped bruise on her back. “Those brutes don’t know the meaning of true art!”
“This wasn’t really art,” Kettle Corn replied. She looked somewhat better than Toola Roola, owing to a faster gallop and a better ability to avoid obstacles – well, except for the bush they were currently hiding in. But it was either that or colliding with Granny Smith. “You were spraying rude words on the wall of Barnyard Bargains.”
“But it was still pretty artistic.” Toola Roola shrugged. “Besides, Coconut Cream deserved that diss…”
Kettle Corn let out a sigh. “Spoiled Rich didn’t think so.”
Toola Roola huffed. “It wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t say, ‘are you gonna sweep or ride it?’ when you saw her with a broom.” She patted her back and groaned. “And it was me who got hit for that.”
“You should’ve ran faster.” Kettle Corn chuckled.
“Running?” Toola Roola rolled her eyes. She walked from behind the bush and trotted across the lawn. “I don’t run. There’s nothing gracious about– Aargh!”
“There’s also nothing gracious about falling into the hole like that.” Kettle Corn walked to the hole and looked down. “You okay there?”
“You’re not my friend anymore!” Toola Roola exclaimed. “I just found a new friend!”
Kettle Corn raised her eyebrows. “We’ve been friends for, like, twenty minutes,” she said. “Also, what did you find in that hole? A bug?”
“Me.” This voice was muffled and strained, as if the pony at the bottom of the hole was struggling for breath. “Can you get off my head?”
Toola Roola got up, looking at the mud-stained blue filly lying at the bottom of the hole. “Hello, friend.” She smirked. “Did you fall into that hole like me?”
“I dug it, actually,” the filly replied, getting up and running her hoof across her curly mane, smearing the mud even more. “There used to be an old well here, in the Pre-Celestial era. You wouldn’t believe how many things fell into it over the years. Like old pottery.” She produced some potsherds from her saddlebags. “Over a thousand years old. I also found a foal.” She opened the other saddlebag and showed Toola Roola a skull carefully wrapped in paper. It was dried and chipped in a few places; the lower jaw was missing, but there were still a few teeth in the upper one, as well as a small horn still attached to the forehead. “Can you believe it? It must’ve been our age, but it was centuries ago!”
Toola Roola paled, looking into the empty eye sockets. She turned towards Kettle Corn. “I changed my mind. May I be your friend again?”
“We can all be friends,” Kettle Corn replied. “You, me, her, and, umm…” She looked at the skull. “Mr. Marrow?”
“My name is Petunia Paleo, by the way.” The filly looked at the skull. “And that’d probably be Ms. Marrow. The cheekbones aren’t as pronounced. It’d of course be easier if we found the lower jaw, but–”
“No.” Toola Roola staggered, resting herself against the wall of the ditch. “I’m not looking for any lower jaws. I want to get out of here.”
“Why not?” Kettle Corn asked. “We can find some ancient paintings in there. Or wicked circles.”
“Ancient paintings, you say?” Toola Roola tilted her head. “Now that’s interesting. I just hope it’s not more bones. Those are icky.”
Petunia Paleo put the skull back in her saddlebags. “Okay, girls. Before you dig something up, we need to establish a few rules…”
While the three fillies learned the joys of archeology, a young colt standing in front of Barnyard Bargains was just looking at a much more modern work of art.
The colt’s name was Chip Cutter, and he was a bit of an artist himself; he had just picked a rock from Maud Pie and already had an idea what kind of statue he’d make out of it. However, his train of thoughts was interrupted when he noticed the large, colourful letters on the wall.
Coconut Cream is a cu
Chip Cutter furrowed his eyebrows. There was no dash there, meaning that the artist didn’t intend to stop there. He also noticed that the “u” ended in a smudge, as if the process of creation had been interrupted by some unknown force.
He looked around, noticing an abandoned can of spray paint lying by the wall. Chip Cutter walked to it, carefully checking if there was no one in sight. Then he grabbed the can with his wing and added a few letters.
It was far from the perfection of the rest of the writing, but, as Chip thought, it had to do. He backed off to look at his deed from a greater distance.
Coconut Cream is a cutie pie.
Chip nodded. His work was done. He was going to walk away, but when he turned around, he faced a pale filly with colourful mane. The sight startled him; he backpedalled slightly.
The filly read the graffiti, blushing slightly. “Did you write that?” she asked.
“Umm… yeah,” Chip replied with a sheepish grin. “Well, parts of it.”
The filly smirked, taking a step towards Chip. “I am Coconut Cream…”
“Nice to meet you,” Chip said, backpedalling. He realised that they were getting close to the wall and soon he’d have to run or wait for the universe to find a way out. Which it soon did.
“Did you write that!?” somepony yelled right next to Chip Cutter. He immediately thought that he preferred Coconut Cream saying that. Especially when he turned and saw Diamond Tiara’s mother, Spoiled Rich.
This brought some memories. There was a brief time in his life when he was going out with Silver Spoon, and although it didn’t last long, he once ended up at some sort of five o’clock tea in Diamond Tiara’s mansion. Seeing Spoiled Rich in a swimming pool gave him some quite strange dreams.
This, however, wasn’t time for daydreaming. Suddenly, he saw the broomstick swinging right next to his head. He reacted instinctively, taking off. Coconut Cream dodged the broom and grabbed his hooves, bringing him down.
Seeing Spoiled Rich approaching, Chip flapped his wings harder, lifting Coconut Cream off the ground. She climbed on his back as he flew, nearly throwing him off course.
“Hey, this is fun!” she exclaimed.
“It’s not…” Chip panted, desperately trying to gain altitude, despite the combined weight of Coconut and the rock in his saddlebags not allowing him to get above the treetops. He could barely see anything, but he hoped they managed to leave Spoiled Rich behind.
“Where are we flying?” Coconut Cream asked.
“Wherever I can pass out,” Chip muttered. “We’re too heavy…”
“Oh, don’t worry about that.” Coconut Cream reached to his saddlebags, opening them. She furrowed her eyebrows, seeing a large rock. She glared briefly at Chip, sighed and threw the rock away, along with a chisel she found next to it.
Chip froze, turning to Coconut. “What did you–”
“Watch out!” Coconut Cream exclaimed.
“Wha–” Chip looked forward.
Just in time to see a large tree right in front of him.
“Okay, who said archeology was fun?” Toola Roola asked, carefully wiping the dust off some old ceramic pot. “I’ve been doing this for an hour. Why can’t we just dig deeper for more cool stuff?”
“We have to remember what layer was that so we know how old it is,” Petunia replied. “And your finding is already pretty cool. It looks like a chamber pot from the early Post-Unification Era. Maybe Clover the Clever used a similar one.”
Toola Roola winced, putting the pot on the ground and wiping her hooves. “I didn’t need a mental image of Clover the Clever using a chamber pot, thank you.”
“Well, that’s not the aspect of her life history usually focuses on.” Petunia turned to Kettle Corn, who was sitting in another ditch. “What did you find?”
“I drew a circle,” Kettle Corn replied. “If we had nine holes and draw circles and Xs at the bottom, it’d be the biggest tic-tac-toe grid I’ve ever seen.” She shrugged. “And maybe one of those Xs would lead us to a treasure…”
“Did you find a circle?” Petunia asked. “Those are believed to be used in astronomy or to summon gods…”
“No, I drew it.” Kettle Corn pointed at the large circle scratched in the mud at the bottom of the ditch. “Nice, isn’t it?”
“We’ll keep that in mind when we need to summon some gods. Like gods of tic-tac-toe.” Toola Roola rolled her eyes. “Are we gonna sit here all day, looking for treasures in an old chamber pot?”
“Well, we can go and catalogue my previous findings,” Petunia replied. “Or–” she was interrupted by a thud as something heavy landed exactly in the middle of Kettle Corn’s circle.
“Summon gods, you say?” Toola Roola muttered, walking to Kettle Corn’s ditch. “Wonder if the Great Whickering Stallions wanted to tell us something with that, umm... “ She looked at the object in the middle of the circle and poked it with her hoof. “A rock. That’s my destiny? Curious. Peculiar, even.”
“There’s also a chisel there. I know it,” Kettle Corn said. “You know that grey pegasus kid who likes sculpting and funny-looking sandwiches?”
“Chip Cutter?” Petunia asked. “I’ve met him once. The chisel in his cutie mark looks the same.”
“He must’ve lost it.” Kettle Corn looked at the sky. “Hmm, he’s not there. Have any of you seen him?”
“I don’t even know what he looks like,” Toola Roola replied. “Grey pegasus? You’ve just described Rumble to me. I’m not sure I ever heard of this Chip Cutter.”
“I did.” Petunia said. “But still, he’s not there and his rock is contaminating the site…”
“Conta–what?” Kettle Corn tilted her head. “We can always go and find him. Now that’d be an adventure, like in Daring Do books…”
Petunia shrugged. “They’re poorly-researched when it comes to actual archeology.”
“Between this and ‘actual archeology’, I’d rather look for Chip Cutter,” Toola Roola said, glaring at the brush she’d been cleaning the pot with. “I’d want to meet him. Where is he?”
Chip groaned when Nursery Rhyme bandaged his hoof. Ending up in the hospital was not a new thing for him; par for the course for all the young pegasi in a world filled with lampposts, trees, and absurdly tall fences.
Next to him, Coconut Cream was sitting, reading some old medical textbook. Luckily for her, she fell off his back before he ended up ramming the window of Berry Punch’s house, thus being spared the dubious joy of having glass shards pulled out of her hooves.
“Okay,” Nursery said, disinfecting another wound. She looked at Coconut Cream and chuckled. “Next time before you two try to join the mile-high club, make sure you can pull off an actual mile.”
“What mile?” Chip asked.
“You’ll understand in a few years.” Nursery shook her head and looked into Chip’s medical record. “Okay, so it’s your seventh flying accident, two of which resulted in a hospitalisation longer than one day. That means you now overtook Featherweight and you’re now in the top ten for your age group. The leader is still Scootaloo, with twenty-four accidents, including seven longer stays in the hospital and one serious brain surgery.”
“She can’t even fly!” Chip exclaimed.
“Doesn’t mean she doesn’t try,” Nursery replied.
“Which place did I take?” Coconut Cream asked.
Nursery looked at her, smirking. “To my knowledge, you’re the only earth pony in your age group to have a flying accident. In the Open category, you’re second. Cherry Berry is first and her track record includes a penetrating head injury and twelve hours of pulling bone chips out of the temporal lobe. I still have pics somewhere.”
“Cool!” Chip exclaimed. “Can we see?”
Petunia picked up a fallen leaf and sniffed it. She looked around and trotted forward, looking at every single blade of grass and furrowing her eyebrows. Suddenly, she stopped, licked her hoof, and raised it, checking the direction of the wind. A smirk adorned her face. She took another step forward and turned back to Toola Roola and Kettle Corn.
“I know where he is,” she said.
“Did you figure it out from that leaf?” Toola Roola asked.
“No, from the boarded window in Ruby Pinch’s house and the damaged branches on the tree. If you look at the map of Ponyville, they form an almost straight line if connected with where the saddlebags fell.” Petunia shrugged. “It’s elementary.”
“So far, you only proved you can connect dots,” Toola Roola replied. “Where is he, then?”
Petunia didn’t listen, busy sniffing a bush near the tree. “Someone was with him. Smells kind of nice.”
“Show me.” Toola Roola walked to the bush, sniffed it, and winced. “Eww! Seems like that little, annoying, whiny–”
“Who?” Petunia asked.
“My former friend, Coconut Cream!” Toola Roola exclaimed.
Petunia leaned over to Kettle Corn. “Is she always that harsh on her friends?”
Kettle Corn drew a circle in the sand and put a stick in the middle of it, creating a makeshift sundial. “Don’t ask me, I’m her friend for two hours, fifteen minutes, and thirty-two seconds.”
Petunia nodded. “Not bad.” She walked to Toola Roola. “So, he may have been here with Coconut Cream. Why?”
“Clearly to break this window.” Kettle Corn sent Toola Roola a glare. “Somehow, everyone I meet today ends up vandalising something.”
“Hey, if you knew her, you’d know I was right about her,” Toola Roola muttered. “Not even Spoiled Rich with a broomstick can convince me otherwise.”
Petunia ignored her, instead staring at the broken window. She was sure that the very sight of it could provoke further crime and disorder. Although given that Ruby Pinch lived there, crime and disorder were pretty much inevitable. This sent the train of her thoughts down the new set of tracks.
“Hmm, if you broke a window, where would you go?” she asked.
Kettle Corn shrugged. “Away.”
“You’re not helping,” Toola Roola said.
“Well, unlike you, I’m not a juvenile delinquent,” Kettle Corn replied.
Toola Roola rolled her eyes. “You were drawing circles on that wall, too. I’ve seen it.”
Kettle Corn smiled sheepishly. “I’m prone to bad influence. Rumble influenced me more, though.”
Petunia waved her hoof. “Come on! Where do you go after breaking a window? I’m a good filly, I wouldn’t know!”
“Good filly? You have a skull in your saddlebags,” Toola Roola muttered.
“Celebrate?” Kettle Corn asked.
Toola Roola raised her eyebrows. “What, the skull? How would you even celebrate the skull?”
“No, I mean that after breaking a window, I’d go and celebrate somewhere,” Kettle Corn replied. “Like, in Sugarcube Corner or somewhere.”
Petunia slapped her forehead. “Sure! Sugarcube Corner! Let’s go there!” She spun in place and galloped towards the market.
“You told her that just so we get something to eat, right?” Toola Roola muttered.
Kettle Corn smirked. “Bite me.”
Chip Cutter groaned, taking a sip of his milkshake. So far, the day just kept getting worse.
“Well, what was I supposed to do?” Coconut Cream asked. “I thought you could lift a bit more than an unladen swallow.”
“Not when I’m being chased.” Chip Cutter sighed. “Also, my rock, of all the things?”
“You can get another one,” Coconut Cream said.
“Yes, but here’s the thing…” Chip looked around and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Maud creeps the hell out of me.”
“Well, that may be a problem,” Coconut Cream replied. “Although… Do you know that crazy filly who keeps digging holes in the ground? I bet she found some cool rocks.”
“I don’t know her, sorry,” Chip said.
“Me neither, to think about it.” Coconut Cream shrugged. “I just saw her digging holes, once. She seemed really into it.”
“There are quite a lot of strange ponies in this town, don’t you think?” Chip looked around, counting the ponies. Since they were in Sugarcube Corner, Pinkie’s presence was pretty much a given. But she wasn’t the only weird pony around.
“Do tell,” Coconut Cream said. “I used to hang out with Toola Roola, but she just seems to look for excuses to argue. Cupcakes, hopscotch, Sapphire Shores or Countess Coloratura, Masked Matter-Horn or Radiance, shipping Daring Do with Ahuizotl or Dr. Caballeron…”
Chip raised his eyebrows. “Umm… Do I want to know?”
“Perhaps not.” Coconut Cream blushed, lowering her gaze. “But I mean she just always chooses something else than me, just to piss me off. Now we don’t talk to each other since, like, yesterday, because she thinks Fleetfoot is a better Wonderbolt than Spitfire. Don’t you think that’s just stupid?”
Chip shrugged, taking a sip of his milkshake. “Is this Toola Roola pink, with blue eyes and tail not matching the mane?”
“How do you know?” Coconut Cream asked.
“She’s standing behind you and her face gets more and more red with every word you say,” Chip replied.
Coconut Cream turned back to see Toola Roola, who looked like steam was about to come out of her ears. “Umm… hello,” Coconut Cream muttered.
“We stopped being best friends forever just yesterday and you already found a new friend!?” Toola Roola exclaimed. “That’s not fair!”
Coconut Cream furrowed her eyebrows. She just noticed two fillies—one of them blue and the other honey-coloured, with a pink mane—who desperately tried to look like they didn’t know Toola Roola at all. And the more they tried, the more it was apparent they were on friendly terms. Or rather, as friendly as Toola Roola allowed.
“Really?” Coconut Cream asked. “Who are they?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Toola Roola replied. “Who is this guy?”
“Chip Cutter,” Chip said, taking a large sip of his milkshake, just in case Toola Roola and Coconut Cream started a fight. He’d read enough Daring Do to know that bar fights and spilled drinks often came in pairs.
“Chip Cutter?” Toola Roola scratched her mane. “That name rings a bell…”
“Wait.” Petunia walked between Toola Roola and Coconut Cream with the oblivious grace of a clown in the minefield. “Chip Cutter, right? We have something for you.” She opened her saddlebags and produced an old, battered skull.
“I don’t know these fillies, the skull included,” Chip muttered, seeing that Mrs. Cake walked to them, furrowing her eyebrows.
“That’s Ms. Marrow,” Petunia replied. “How did she get there?”
“Hide that,” Mrs. Cake whispered to Petunia, throwing nervous glances around. “The health inspector is already making a fuss about Pinkie’s Salmonella test results…”
Chip looked at his milkshake unsurely and winced. Petunia smiled sheepishly and hid the skull in her saddlebags. She then produced a rock and put it on the table. “Is it yours?” she asked.
“Where did you find it?” Chip asked.
“It almost fell on my head,” Kettle Corn said, walking to the table.
“See?” Chip turned to Coconut Cream. “You shouldn’t have thrown it away.”
“And then it’d be me almost falling on her head,” Coconut Cream muttered. “Your rock at least survived the fall and didn’t mind spending all that time with Toola Roola…”
“Hey!” Toola Roola exclaimed. “We are friends, remember? Like, best friends forever!”
Kettle Corn sighed. “To be honest, I lost track. Are you two friends or not?” She turned to Toola Roola. “Just this morning I was drawing circles on the wall of Barnyard Bargains and then I saw you writing that Coconut Cream was a cu–” She cleared her throat, blushing.
“Cutie pie?” Chip asked.
“Yeah, that,” Toola Roola muttered, kicking Kettle Corn’s hoof. “I totally meant to write that, before I got interrupted by, umm… external factors.”
“A broomstick,” Kettle Corn said.
Coconut Cream turned to Chip and smiled. “I think we were in the same situation…”
Toola Roola looked at Coconut Cream and then back at Chip. Then her gaze landed on the remains of the milkshakes. “Are you two, umm… Eww!”
“Does she mean dating?” Petunia whispered to Kettle Corn.
“I believe it turned into an informal social gathering once we bursted in.” Kettle Corn turned to Petunia, only to notice her blank expression. “Do you want some cake?”
“Yup.” Petunia nodded. They both walked to the counter, leaving Toola Roola still standing in front of Chip and Coconut Cream, processing the recent events.
“That’s not fair,” Toola Roola muttered. “Why did everypony find new friends and leave me alone?”
Coconut Cream shrugged. “Maybe because you can be insufferable, sometimes?”
Chip Cutter looked at Petunia and Kettle Corn. “Didn’t you find friends?”
“Who?” Toola Roola turned back. “Oh… Umm… I did, didn’t I?”
“Slow on the uptake, as usual.” Coconut Cream shook her head. “Sit down, ‘artist’ and enjoy your newly-discovered friendship.”
Toola Roola sat at the table while Petunia and Kettle Corn brought some chocolate cake for everyone. Taking a bite, she looked at the other ponies gathered around – Chip, who grabbed a chisel from his saddlebags, poking the rock with it; Petunia, who was drawing a sketch of a skull on a napkin; Coconut Cream and Kettle Corn chatting happily about haikus.
Toola Roola sighed. “Oh, what have I done…”
Author's Note
Interesting fact: for this story, I chose several least used characters that still have tags on fimfiction (the counters are a bit wonky, but it's the first story featuring Chip Cutter, for example).
