A smile is all it takes

A smile is all it takes

  Chapter 1

“I call ‘em combo’s!” A cheerful high pitched voice yelled through the house.

“What was that?” A low voice called from another room.

“Nothing, dad.”  Mike, a closet brony, 18 years of age responded nervously as he turned the volume of the video down.

“Just keep it down.” The voice called again.

“Will do.”

Mike sighed. “Phew, close one.”

Mike had this problem all too often, sooner or later these pony video’s would get him kicked out of the house.

As he snapped out of the thought he clicked the next Kyrospawn video.

“Confound these ponies.”

* * *

It had been 5 hours now since mike’s parents left, but he was still watching clips and episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

“Okay, last video and then I’m going to do something useful”  Mike promised himself, but to no avail.

Many more hours later of mindlessly watching various of these videos a sudden noise erupts from upstairs, like something just fell and knocked over a pile of papers. Mike jumped up.

“It could’ve been the dog, but she’s in the scullery, safely locked in her kennel.” He thought, not trying to fret over nothing.

Another sound.

"Okay, now this is getting weird.”

It’s late at night and his parents wouldn’t be back until 02.00 AM, so he has his doubts on checking out what might’ve caused the sounds.

Mike finally decides to investigate. Cautiously he walks upstairs, through the hallway and to his room, all the lights in the house are off, except for a flickering light in his room. He doesn’t remember turning that light on, the newly spawned mess didn’t make much sense either.

“What the-”

Before he could finish his sentence he gets pounced on from behind, his head hits the wooden floor and the last thing he sees before he passes out is a pink lock of curly hair dangling before his eyes. “Oops, sorry..” he faintly hears as he loses consciousness.

Mike stirs awake about an hour later, lying on his bed.

He turns his head to the side and looks at his alarm clock; 02.07

Before even trying to process how he got knocked out and woke up on his bed, a sudden realization struck him.

“Crap! My parents must be home and I haven’t had the chance to cleanse my browser history of ponies!”

He immediately jumped up and ran down the stairs as if his life depended on it.

Not his best move; he missed a step which caused him to tumble down the remaining five.

Flat out on the ground, still dizzy from his fall Mike turned his head to the left to look through the window, giving a clear view of the driveway. He noticed something; there was no car there so his parents couldn’t be home yet. He slowly took notice of the sounds of drawers opening and closing, accompanied with the cheerful humming of a song he recognized, but couldn’t quite name.

Slowly crawling up, still sore from the fall, Mike steadily walked up to the kitchen; the door was open and the light was on.

He stopped right there.

“What if it’s a burglar, or some psychopathic murderer?”  He thought.

How unlikely the latter might be, he didn’t want to risk anything by walking in there, defenceless.

Mike turned around to walk over to the coat rack, he didn’t have many options for defence so a clothes-hanger would have to do.

As he grabbed the clothes-hanger he turned around to walk to the kitchen, slightly trembling on his legs.

His head hurt, and the adrenaline that was now pumping through his body wasn’t doing much good, either.

As he closed in on the door opening of the kitchen he slowed his pace.

He peeked around the corner.

Mike’s jaw dropped.

He now stood in the door opening.

A pink pony, covered in flour stains, he knew all too well was there in the kitchen, mixing something in a bowl.

Before he thought about it too much he cleared his throat to try and say something, this caused the pony to look up.

“Hello?” Mike said with a voice full of doubt; for all he knew this could’ve been an illusion from when he got knocked unconscious.

As soon as Mike’s words left his lips the pink pony spit out the spoon she was holding in her muzzle.

“Hey, my name is Pinkie Pie! I see that you’re finally awake, sorry about the falling incident!” The pink pony exclaimed with a cheerful tone.

Mike freaked out a little at this and backed up a step; “how is this possible, am I really hallucinating, or just dreaming?”

After a few seconds of doubt and confusion he finally decides to answer.

“Uhm, my name is Mike.” He responded sheepishly.

“Hi there Mike! Why are you holding a coat hanger?” Pinkie Pie asked fascinated whilst bearing a smile on her face.

“Well..” Mike began, stumbling over his words. “I thought… a burglar.. might’ve, uhm.”

Pinkie responded with laughter. “Did you think that I was a burglar? Why would I make you cupcakes if I was a burglar, silly?”

Pinkie Pie continued to giggle a little.

“Besides, I don’t think a coat hanger would do much to fend off an intruder.”

Mike felt embarrassed; She had a good point there.

He snapped back to reality.

“Wait, how did you even get here?”

Pinkie Pie looked at Mike with a thinking face.

“Well, I was at the Sugarcube Corner helping Mrs Cake with a new batch of cupcakes when suddenly I heard a huge BANG outside!” Pinkie waved her forelegs around to emphasise on how loud it was. “I galloped outside and looked around, then suddenly I was blinded by a BRIGHT flash of white light! When I could see again I fell, and then I landed on your floor, sorry for the mess by the way!”

Pinkie finished talking, Still having a grin and bright eyes printed upon her face.

Mike just stood there, still not fully grasping the fact that his favourite cartoon pony was there, in his kitchen.

“So, wait.. Let me get this straight; You heard a loud noise, went outside, were blinded by a huge flash and ended up in my house?”

He finally managed to respond.

“Hmh!” Pinkie responded while nodding, still bearing a grin.

The sound of a car driving up to Mike’s house filled the short silence.

Perhaps it was because Mike was tired, but he finally remembered why he ran downstairs in such a hurry.

He panicked. “Ponies!”.

Mike could easily just delete his browser history, that was the least of his problems, but now a pink pony from the very show he wanted to cleanse the laptop of was here!

Pinkie noticed the look of panic on Mike’s face.

“What’s wrong? You don’t like cupcakes?” Pinkie asked, her face showing a somewhat disappointed expression.

Sweat broke out on Mike’s forehead.

“Can you hide somewhere? Some place you’re hard to spot?” Mike said nervously, still thinking of ideas on how to handle the whole situation.

“Why?” Pinkie asked. A sudden smile appeared on her face again. “Oh, is this a game? Like hide and go seek?”

“Yes!” Mike responded immediately. “We’re playing hide and go seek!”

“Okie Dokie Lokey!” Pinkie responded cheerfully. “I gotta warn you though; I’m REALLY good at this game!”

Mike disregarded what she said and ran to the living room where the laptop stood, he heard Pinkie walk, off to find a hiding spot.

He finally arrived at the laptop and quickly sat down, adrenaline again rushing through his veins.

“Good.” He thought. “The laptop didn’t go on standby.”

After a few clicks his task was accomplished, and not a minute too late; He heard the rattling of keys, followed by sound of the front door opening.

"Hello, we're back."

"Are you still awake, Mike?" A female voice asked.

Mike jolted up.

That was his mom's voice.

"Yes?" Mike responded in his most casual voice.

He heard another set of footsteps. slightly louder than his mom's.

A low voice called from outside.

"Have you left the house intact while we were gone?" “Dad.” Mike thought to himself.

Noises came from upstairs.

Mike knew what this meant. Pinkie Pie.

"Uhm, i'm feeling really tired now, i think i'm just gonna go sleep now." Mike said.

Mike stepped out of the living room.

"Okay hun, goodnight."

His mother responded whilst making her way to the kitchen.

As Mike walked up the stairs he heard his mother call from the kitchen.

"Mike, shouldn't you clean this mess first, of whatever you were trying to make?"

"Crap." Mike thought. "I gotta think of an excuse now."

"Yeah.. Uhm.. Can i perhaps clean it tomorrow, i'm like really tired."

Mike said, trying his best to sound sincere.

"I'll clean it up now." His mother responded with a tired voice. "But the next 5 days it's your turn to do the dishes."

"Okay, thanks!" Mike yelled out. he continued his way upstairs."

He arrived on the second floor. “Now to find Pinkie.” Mike thought, sighing.