Pinkie and the Mysterious Time Doughnut

Chapters

Chapter One: Rubber Chicken Lips
Chapter Two: A Well-Floured Machine
Chapter Three: The Swirly Lollipop

Chapter One: Rubber Chicken Lips

One afternoon, Pinkie Pie purchased a new toothbrush, blue with a pale green vine pattern on the handle. That night at bedtime, she used her old one for the last time, bid it goodbye, and threw it into her pink trash can. She put the shiny new toothbrush in the holder and looked forward to using it the next morning.

Pinkie brushed her curls and got ready for bed. She lifted Gummy out of his tank. "I think it's a little chilly for you to sit next to me on a pillow tonight," she told him.

Fluttershy had gently advised Pinkie that it wasn't ideal for an alligator to be denied access to his water source for the entire night. Pinkie had been troubled, because she was certain Gummy preferred to sleep in her bed, but of course she couldn't let him be uncomfortable. Twilight had been delighted to be called in to solve the problem with a No-Spill Magical Hydration Pillow to provide humidity for Gummy without getting the bedcovers damp. Now Pinkie placed the little pillow at the foot of the bed, on a corner of the quilt, put Gummy on the pillow, and tenderly rolled him up into a snug hatchling alligator packet.

Pinkie's quilt was a patchwork of varying traditional, if lopsided, patterns that came from all sides and crashed in the middle. It had been hoofmade by the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Pinkie had bought it at a sale held by the school to fund a field trip to the geode factory. The foals were all excited to learn how the Earth pony specialists get the crystals inside the stones. Pinkie Pie yawned, settled down under the quilt and cuddled her pillow.

In the morning she pulled her recalcitrant curls into a red paisley bandanna to get them out of the way until after breakfast. Most of her mane escaped, but Pinkie felt her attempt showed that she was making an effort to appear neat at the breakfast table. She put Gummy in his tank. She had fed him the day before. Fluttershy had told her it was best for hatchling crocodilians to eat only every other day, and Pinkie had determined to wait until the following day to feed Gummy again. "Fluttershy knows what's best," she reassured Gummy as well as herself. She went to her washstand at the mirror, briskly washed her hooves, and glanced toward her toothbrush holder, which held the new—no, the same old toothbrush.

"Where's the new one?" Pinkie wondered. She looked under the sink, in the pink trash can, in the medicine cabinet, and in Gummy's tank, but there was no new toothbrush. "Tricky old toothbrush! It must really want to stay with me. I'll have to buy a new one again, though. Buying new toothbrushes is something you gotta do, even if my toothbrushes have always been faithful friends."

She headed downstairs for breakfast. On the top step she recognized the feeling of a stray jelly bean smushing under her hoof. She checked the color of the splotch on the underside of her hoof. "Strawberry, almost the best flavor, after cherry. It's the same flavor I stepped on yesterday, right on this very step." She scraped the smashed jelly bean off of the bottom of her hoof with her lower teeth and chewed it carefully. "In fact, it tastes like the very same jelly bean! Hm. That's strange. But tasty!"

Pinkie Pie sat in the kitchen and had breakfast: yesterday's unsold sponge cake, some ice cream, and a little oatmeal with honey. By the time she was finished, she could tell Celestia was raising the sun; the nighttime outside the window was fraying and yellowed around the edges.

She heard a wagon roll up outside the back kitchen door and went to greet Biscuit and Baked Beans, the twin brother teamster mules. They had brought a delivery of fresh cream cheese. Pinkie wondered a little at this—Mr. Cake had just gotten plenty to last for a couple of days, the morning before. Biscuit helped Pinkie unload and carry the cream cheese into the kitchen. Pinkie thanked the teamsters and tipped them with some sugar cubes. After they drove out of the alley, Pinkie said to herself, "I'd better find a way to use this all up." Then she snickered. "Oh, no, I'll be forced to make lots and lots of cheesecake."

Pinkie opened the icebox to stack the cheese inside, and yesterday's order of cream cheese was no longer there. The bakery didn't have too much after all. "Huh. Mr. Cake must have had a huge secret cheesecake order."

Croissants had been shaped the afternoon before and were waiting in their usual place in the icebox. Pinkie Pie put them in the oven, and while they were baking she decorated cupcakes that had cooled overnight. The sky turned greyish blue, and peach-colored sunbeams from low on the horizon slanted across the kitchen. Pinkie hurried to make fresh muffins before the shop opened.

There were only a few customers during the first half-hour of the bakery being open. Pinkie thought the orders these ponies made seemed unusually familiar, but she was pretty sure they weren't regular requests made by these specific customers. She puzzled over it in her mind, and fulfilled the orders with a cheerful smile.

A golden-brown Earth pony mare with shaggy, darker brown mane entered Sugarcube Corner. Pinkie had seen her the day before, when she had brought in a mixed-up order for replacement.

"Hi, Cinnamon Caramel Streusel Crunch Swirl! Are you having a Day After Adoption Day party today?"

Streusel, along with most of the ponies of Ponyville, was used to Pinkie assigning feasts and hoedowns to nearly every day on the calendar. "No," she answered, "we're only having the one party, and it's today." She drew back her lips and took two bakery boxes off of her back with her teeth, laid them on the counter, and flipped up the lids with her hoof. "I picked up the order yesterday evening. I'm sorry to be a bother, but I ordered sugar cookies and brownies, and I received cinnamon caramel streusel crunch swirl cupcakes."

That was word-for-word what she had said the day before. Pinkie cocked an eyebrow and flapped one ear sideways in confusion. She peered into the boxes. Sure enough, the very same scrumptious, yet wrong, cupcakes were lined up in the boxes. "Oh, no! I'm so sorry about that. I can't figure out how I got it so mixed up." Hearing the words come out of her mouth was a little like listening to a record and reciting along with it, with the timing slightly off.

"It's not just you," said Cinnamon Caramel Streusel Crunch Swirl. "It happens to me fairly often."

"Aww, I know you're only saying that to make me feel better, but thank you anyway."

"I wish I had more time to give you to correct it," said Streusel. "I should have opened the boxes last night."

"I'm so sorry this happened," Pinkie said again. "I can set you up with the brownies we have on hoof." She tapped her lower lip with a hooftip. "The problem is the sugar cookies. I have some plain, not iced, and you obviously need iced for the party."

"They're supposed to be light green and blue," said Streusel slowly, in the way of a customer who's trying not to be too much trouble, but who really wants what she ordered. "To match Sea Lion's and Squirrel's coat colors."

"I have some white icing, just waiting for colors," Pinkie said thoughtfully. "The only trouble is that royal icing takes so much time to firm up." The best Pinkie could do was make a lunge and a long foreleg to the candy display and offer two alphabet all-day suckers with sugar pictures of a sea lion and a squirrel.

"Oh, how cute!" said Streusel, twirling one by its paper stick. "Well, I can certainly make the party work with these and the brownies. Thanks for doing your best, Pinkie."

"I always do my best," said Pinkie, but the cheerful squeak in her voice came out a little forced. Did she always do her best? Was this her very topmost best? "Here, take some more suckers for the other foals." She remembered offering that yesterday, too. She glanced hurriedly in the icebox. "Have a raspberry cream cheese pie, too. I'm sorry for this mix-up! It's a good thing I don't make mistakes like this every day. Just—yesterday evening and the evening before that. Hope the foals enjoy the party!"

"Thank you very much." Streusel left at a careful walk with the goodies balanced on her back.

Pinkie pulled out the house brownie mix to replenish the shop's supply in plenty of time before the lunch rush. She had also done that the day before. It was beginning to look suspiciously like today was masquerading as yesterday. She said so to Mrs. Cake.

"Every day should seem a little bit like the day before," said Mrs. Cake, "so we know what to do next, and save time. That's the benefit of having a routine."

"It's not just routine, it's exactly the same so far," said Pinkie, "except for my own actions. If I decide to change them—for instance, say I set off a confetti popper right now—" she pulled one out of her mane and gave it a twist, and confetti sprayed over the cooling racks. Mrs. Cake, without comment, picked confetti out of fresh, hot muffins. "That was new," said Pinkie, "because I just now chose to do it."

"Are you sure you're not confused, or misremembering?" asked Mr. Cake.

"I'm confused about how this could be happening, but I'm sure it is happening. I have a good memory for days," said Pinkie. "It's how I can get so many birthday parties planned—oh no! What if it really is the next day, and I've forgotten somepony's birthday?" Pinkie hopped to the counter and checked her cake-a-day calendar. "Phew! I haven't missed a party day. It's the same handsome, brown-sugar buttercream cake on the cake-a-day calendar. But, wait—if this is the same day over again, poor Gummy will be hungry!"

Pinkie whirled about the kitchen gathering and preparing Gummy's meal, and hurried upstairs with it. A small aquarium of minnows sat next to Gummy's tank; Pinkie Pie netted a few and put them in the water in the 'gator habitat. On the land section she put snails and a scrambled egg in a dish. Gummy was a good eater, and from his point of view it had been two days—she could tell because he snapped up the egg right away.

Pinkie went downstairs to help with the breakfast rush of customers. As soon as that was over, Pinkie made sure Mr. Cake could handle the counter for brunch time, got a stack of library books together, the same titles she had gathered up the day before, and went to the library.

She entered the cool, wood-smelling interior of the library tree. Twilight stood at a bookstand, reading. She looked up. "Hi, Pinkie Pie! I'm just about ready to head out to Sweet Apple Acres."

"We did that yesterday, too," said Pinkie as she placed her books on the returns pile.

"Who's we?"

"You and me."

"But . . . we haven't been out to Sweet Apple Acres in a while."

"We've been there today."

Twilight's brows angled down and she raised and ruffled her wings. "But I've been here all morning."

"I know, I met you here yesterday, too. I think tomorrow is today, now."

"That tends to happen," smiled Twilight.

"Almost every day," agreed Pinkie, "but this time I think tomorrow galloped on ahead and left me in today. Yesterday morning is the same as this morning."

Twilight was fighting it, Pinkie could tell, but slowly the librarian's right eyebrow twitched upward, and her head tilted ever so slightly. It was the onset of a skeptical expression. Still, Twilight carefully kept her attentive ear position and her friendly smile.

"Don't worry," said Pinkie. "I know what you're thinking. You're wondering if I'm just being Pinkie."

Twilight's mouth twitched in what looked like embarrassed amusement. Before she could speak, Pinkie continued: "Of course I am being Pinkie! I'm almost always being Pinkie! But this is more than that. This is really, super seriously, something scientific you can help me with, and you probably understand it better than I do."

Twilight snapped out of her skepticism. "Okay! So let me see if I have this straight. This morning is the same as yesterday morning, down to you coming to meet me, and the two of us planning to go out to Sweet Apple Acres?"

Pinkie bobbed her curly head. "Yep indeedy! And before that, I took in the cream cheese order over again, and there was plenty of room in the icebox, just as if we'd never received it before, so unless we got disappearing joke cream cheese yesterday, it was the same fresh cream cheese, as fresh as it was the first time. And Cinnamon Caramel Streusel Crunch Swirl returned the very same identical cupcakes as she did yesterday morning, and trust me, I never forget a cupcake. And the library books, the same ones, are due again, although they were always due today."

"Hmm. First of all, let me check you over." Twilight's aura slowly moved over Pinkie from muzzle to tail.

"Hee. Tickles."

"You're loaded with your own personal magic, but that's normal. There is no spell on you that I can remove," said Twilight. "If there's an artifact causing the effect, which is highly likely, I might be able to cast a spell on that. But the safest way is to find out what the artifact is, and then not bring it into your life today, or, barring that, to use or interact with it differently than you have so far."

"What would this artifact look like?" asked Pinkie.

"That's the hard part. It could be almost anything. Is anypony else in the loop with you?"

"Hmm. Not Streusel, who's never come back to me with the mixed up order before, from her point of view. And Gummy believed me when I told him I'm living the same day over again, but he swears he isn't, himself. Mr. and Mrs. Cake seem to think I'm confused."

"The artifact could be something you first come into contact with during this repeating day," Twilight said, "or the effect could be caused by something you've had around for a long time, and only just today used or interacted with differently."

Pinkie pondered with a hoof on her chin. "I ate some doughnuts."

"Sugarcube Corner doughnuts, made with the usual ingredients?"

"Yep."

"Things you made and ate with ingredients that have been in your kitchen for days, or that you received from the same suppliers, are not likely to be the culprits. Have you bought anything new lately?"

"I've bought lots of new things lately! Some of them were party supplies and door prizes and I gave them away, and some of them were gifts for myself so I kept them. Some of them were foods and I ate them, or fed them to Gummy."

Twilight said, "If somepony else used them up, then that's probably not it. It would be good if I could magically go over the new purchases that you've kept, so I can narrow it down."

"I'll bring a pile of everything!"

Pinkie had turned tail and was preparing to sproing out the door when Twilight said, "Wait, Pinkie. How many new, unused party supplies are there?"

"Oh, about fifty separate kinds—categories I guess you'd call them. But some of those I'm counting as one thing, like a case of twenty-four swoopfoomers, or a box of one hundred paper snaps."

"Okay. Don't bring everything. Only bring about a dozen things; that's all I can get through in one day. A boxful of one kind of party supply from one source counts as one thing. If we don't figure out what the artifact is today, and if this happens again, you'll have to remember what I already looked at, and bring me a different selection."

Pinkie dashed out and soon returned with an old grain sack full of new party supplies balanced across her withers. Meanwhile, Twilight had selected a number of books and stacked them out of the way on the floor. "Put the party favors here, Pinkie, and then we'd better get going to Sweet Apple Acres as we planned. It's best not to change too many variables when you're dealing with magic like this."

On the way out to Sweet Apple Acres, Twilight jogged, and Pinkie Pie pronked. Twilight planned to meet Big Mac and Applejack for lunch, and Pinkie had to pick up some ingredients for the Cakes.

Pinkie chattered to Twilight about her plans for the afternoon—which were the same as they had been the day before. "Me and Cheese Sandwich are collaborating on a party for the Elks Club. There'll be a guest speaker, buffet, and a film. There won't only be elks there; there'll be some ponies, too. It's kind of stressful for Cheese," said Pinkie, "since he isn't used to small, indoor parties. He wants lots more room to spread out. If we had all the stuff he wanted to set up in the lodge, we'd crowd out the ponies and the elks! Then who would party? Something I said yesterday—it might have been something incorrect about cheese—the food, not Cheese the pony—something I said touched him off yesterday, and we got into a teensy tiff over putting dipped marshmallows and marshmallow fondue on the buffet, when he wants room for ten kinds of cheese balls. I didn't even know there could be so many kinds of cheese served as balls! And when I made the super-smart suggestion of marshmallow-filled Pepato cheese balls, we got into a huge shouting match."

"I'm sorry to hear that. But you can choose not to get into an argument with him again today," Twilight said wisely.

"Anyway, how likely is it, really?" said Pinkie, absently.

"Well," said Twilight, "you and Cheese have very different party-giving styles. It can create some tension. But I'm sure when you meet in the middle the results will be wonderful."

"You bet they will!" said Pinkie. "Of course, I haven't found that out for sure yet, because I haven't hosted the party, which is tomorrow, that was supposed to be today. Ooh, if today really is the same day over again, that means the party I'm throwing with Cheese Sandwich is still tomorrow! I don't think I could ever get tired of anticipating a party!"

Twilight smiled, then changed the subject. "It's your turn for supper with Rarity, isn't it?"

"I knew you were gonna ask that, because you asked the same thing yesterday—and yep, it's still my turn, because I guess from your point of view I didn't have supper with her last night."

"That's right; I had supper with her last night—at least, that's how I remember it. And I still think something's wrong with her and I can't quite put my hoof on it. She tried to fool me, but I could tell something was off. Maybe Rarity's just working too hard on this project, and it will sort itself out before Canterlot Fashion Week."

"Maybe," said Pinkie Pie doubtfully, "but whatever it is, I'd love to help her."

"Maybe tonight the two of you can sort out whatever the trouble is."

"I sure hope so!" said Pinkie, pronking gracefully across the neatly grazed lawn to the Apples' barn door.

Inside, Granny got slowly up from her rocking chair. "Howdy, Pinkie, Twilight. Twilight, Big Mac and AJ will be in for dinner soon. Weather's gettin' a little chilly. How're you enjoying the quilt the girls made, Pinkie?"

"It's wonderful! So cozy, and the design is so crazy!"

Twilight stiffened, on alert, but Pinkie told her, "I got the quilt from the school sale weeks ago. Been sleeping under it since then."

Twilight relaxed and gave her mane a little shake-out. "Traditional arts and crafts works have a high probability of becoming artifacts."

Granny placed a hot casserole on a trivet on the dinner table and invited Twilight to help herself to fresh apple slices while she waited for Big Mac and Applejack. Pinkie planned to go back to town for a quick sandwich at home before Cheese Sandwich arrived. "I'll have a cheese sandwich, then it'll be foreshadowing his arrival!"

Granny trotted slowly out to the spring house, Pinkie maintaining a respectful pronking pace behind her shoulder. In the dark inside the little house over the spring, milk and eggs kept cool. Granny helped Pinkie Pie situate two large cans of cream on either side of her withers. Next came boxes of carefully packed eggs, two dozen in each box, stacked and tied with an array of straps on each side of Pinkie's barrel. On top she cinched her own saddlebags, splayed across the egg boxes. It was satisfying, as a farmfilly earth pony herself, to pack a load once in a while.

On the way back to town, Pinkie jogged gently, out of consideration for the eggs and cream. "Don't wanna make the cream into butter on the way home!" She snicker-snorted delightedly at her own joke.

At home at Sugarcube Corner, Pinkie quickly munched her cheese sandwich lunch. She had just finished and come out of the kitchen when a dun messenger-colt in a beige uniform shirt approached the bakery case and hoofed across a small envelope. "Hiya, Pinkie. This is for you. I'm supposed to wait for your reply."

Because she had already lived through a day just like this, Pinkie knew what the envelope contained: an invitation to go to Fluttershy's cottage that afternoon to have lemonade and listen to phonograph records.

Pinkie grabbed a piece of Sugarcube Corner stationery and a pink envelope and quickly wrote a note. As she wrote, she said to the messenger-colt, "I have to decline the invitation. Gotta meet Cheese Sandwich soon, to do some party prep work. I'll tell Fluttershy I can come another day. But that's okay. Anticipating good times with friends is such a fluttery, exciting feeling. Sometimes it's even the best feeling. You can't have anticipation unless you have to wait to visit your friends. There!" she scribbled her signature, sealed the envelope, and tipped the messenger-colt with a cherry tart. He touched his cap to her and left, the bell on the door jingling above him.

Pinkie waited until Mrs. Cake could handle the bakery customers, then pronked over to the Elks Lodge. She pushed open the heavy door and entered the large, cool, dim room. It would be all lit up later, for the party, but for now all she and Cheese needed was just enough light to work by.

Cheese Sandwich sat on his haunches across the room by the unfolded, bare buffet tables. He was surrounded by detritus from unwrapping supplies. Next to him stood a precarious pile of folded tablecloths. He was using his forehoof to apply lip balm to Boneless Two's beak.

"Whatcha doin' there, Cheese?"

Cheese looked up. His curly mane was frizzy, his jaw tight and his shoulders tense. A tablecloth clip curved around one lock of his mane. "Oh, hello, Pinkie." Cheese held up the tube of lip balm and waggled it. "Contrary to popular belief, chickens do have lips, and they can get chapped."

"Aw, that's too bad," said Pinkie. "It's kinda strange, though. Ever since you let me have Boneless the First, he's hardly ever had chapped lips. Did he used to get chapped lips when he was living with you? What do you suppose could be causing it in Boneless Two?"

Cheese worked his jaw for a moment. "Are you saying I don't know how to take care of my rubber chicken?"

"Of course I'm not! But have you considered that maybe it's his diet? How about feeding him less cheese? Are you sure White Stilton is good for rubber poultry lips?"

Cheese's eyelid twitched.

Boneless Two maintained a prudent silence during the ensuing noisy argument, although it was about him. After almost ten minutes, Cheese sat once more on his haunches, ears splayed. Pinkie had a cream pie splattered in her mane, the pan stuck at a jaunty angle. She had rolled into it during a particularly vehement tirade. She coughed. "We should get back to work. I'm getting hoarse. Hah! Get it? Horse?" Pinkie snorted and poked Cheese with a hoof in case he needed prodding to appreciate how hilarious she was.

Cheese raised one ear, then flattened both ears.

"I came here to help set up fondue pots," said Pinkie. "That was the plan."

"I guess we'd better stick to the plan," Cheese reluctantly agreed.

"What were you working on, besides Boneless Two's lip care, when I came in?"

"I was trying to choose the tablecloth for the fondue table."

"Let's do it now." Pinkie held up two from among the now-rumpled pile on the floor. "Balloon print tablecloth or red and white checkered tablecloth?"

Cheese Sandwich wearily waved a hoof at the red and white checked cloth.

"I agree!" Pinkie sprang in place like an eager Greyhound. "It's good we agree so often!"

Cheese smiled a little.

Pinkie and Cheese worked until suppertime. Then Pinkie hurried to the Hayburger to make her date with Rarity.

Chapter Two: A Well-Floured Machine

The table in the booth at Hayburger was piled high with triple stacks of triple hayburgers with cheese, beans-and-oats burgers with pickles, and deep-fried spicy walnuts.

Rarity gesticulated with a fry on the tip of her hoof. "There are three shows the very first day of Canterlot Fashion Week. I really must put in appearances to support other designers whenever I can. Then a street dance and reception the first night, models will be mingling. Four more shows the next day, and another reception, because the visiting giraffe designers will be arriving that day."

"I admire them so much," said Pinkie. "They're so spotty."

"And they make it work with stripes! At any rate, then we all model at Guess the Designer, where we swap ensembles with each other and the audience tries to guess who designed each outfit. Right away the next afternoon I do the collaborative show with Superior Buttons. Superior's work is far superior to any other pony designer's."

"So it's not just a clever name," said Pinkie.

Rarity gave a wan smile. Her normally brilliant white coat looked merely pale. "It's simply devastating that the solo Rarity for You show will be later in the week. The comparison to the blended work with Superior will surely not be kind. It's a brutal schedule, inequine, even if you're only a designer, but I also need to be at the boutique as much as possible. We're going to put on that most sadistic of inventions, an in-season show. We're hanging the new line of dresses on the racks when the Rarity for You show opens, not a second later and not a moment sooner."

Pinkie put a hoof to her chin. "It's not just the projects and stress. Not only normal Rarity flusterededness. There's still something else off. I can't put my hoof on it. But we'll figure it out."

Rarity said, "You're trying to help, darling, and I appreciate that. But I don't see as there's anything to be done about an indefinable something about myself, darling."

"One too many 'darling's," said Pinkie absently.

Rarity's cheeks flushed a light green. "Sorry, darling. Er, I mean—"

"The 'darlings' aren't the real issue," Pinkie Pie assured her. "But there's been something kinda off about your Rarityness."

"Three days," said Rarity. "Three days! I can't possibly be ready in time."

"You'll be as ready as you're gonna get when it starts," said Pinkie.

"I almost made a bug—big mistake in front of the press the other day, but Fancy Pants drew attention away from me, and I was able to save it."

"Good for Fancy Pants," said Pinkie. "You need to relax and have fun. You can't be your best self if you're not having fun."

"I'm trying," said Rarity, a little whine in her voice. She swirled the hay fry in golden sweet mustard sauce. "My best self has to be perfect. That's not precisely conducive to enjoyment and relaxation."

"I love sweet mustard sauce," said Pinkie. "I didn't know you liked it."

"Oh—I don't. I mean I didn't." Rarity glanced around as if somepony besides Pinkie might catch her at the sin of putting a hay fry covered in sweet mustard sauce in her mouth. She removed the fry before her teeth could close on it, and aimed it at the little cup of ketchup on the tray.

"That's a good idea!" said Pinkie. "I'll mix ketchup and sweet mustard too! Mmm, delicious," she said around four hay fries at once. "I didn't know you liked ketchup, either. You usually take your hay fries with salt and vinaigrette."

"Oh. I'm—I'm sorry about that. Of course you would know, darling, it's just that I—er—when I'm under stress I prefer ketchup?"

"Don't look so scared. Remember to smile!"

Rarity tremulously broke into a grin.

"That's a grin, silly. I mean smile. You don't need to grin wide like me."

Rarity put her head in her hooves and wailed, "Oh, Pinkie, I'll never make it the entire Fashion Week!"

"Yes, you will." Pinkie got out of the booth, went to stand beside Rarity, and put a hoof on her shoulder. "You will make it through. You are Rarity! There is only one of you."

"But I'm—"

"Shh! You are Rarity. Repeat after me: I am Rarity. There is only one of me."

"I am Rarity. There is only one of me."

Pinkie nodded approvingly and went back to her seat.

Before Rarity and Pinkie finished supper, raindrops were splattering on the Hayburger windows, and by the time Pinkie went outside, it was pouring. Pinkie splashed homeward through the puddles.

She had bought the same toothbrush over again, which was a new experience—getting to purchase the same thing brand new twice in a row. That night she put it in the toothbrush holder. She used her old toothbrush for the last time for the second time, saluted it gratefully, and threw it into the trash can.

The next morning her old toothbrush was the only toothbrush to be found.

The same day passed, and passed again, and again. Twilight checked over each batch of party supplies that Pinkie dutifully hauled to the library.

Pinkie made a point of memorizing each order she filled in the morning before Cinnamon Caramel Streusel Crunch Swirl came in with her boxes of mistake-flavored cupcakes. At night, just before bed, Pinkie went over the list to keep it fresh in her mind.

She got up at four as she normally did—the time spell, whatever it was, kept to her usual schedule. Her old toothbrush was in the holder. Pinkie Pie brushed her mane, put her cheerfulness in order, and neatly avoided the jelly bean on the step. She had her breakfast, fed Gummy again, and was in the kitchen by five.

Pinkie Pie slit her eyes at the kitchen shelves. She considered herself efficient and fast, and though Mr. Cake was not as quick, he was methodical and neat, so the Sugarcube Corner kitchen ran like a well-floured machine. Could Pinkie Pie make it faster and still turn out delicious delicacies to rival those of any other bakery in the history of Equestria? The answer, of course, was yes. The question was how.

Pinkie and the Cakes had years of experience in running a bakery, but that had been built on tradition combined with trial and error, until they had learned how to best work together. Now Pinkie had one day, over and over and over. She didn't have any way of preparing ahead of time. What she did have was the knowledge of the mistake she had made, and what time Streusel would be arriving to ask to have it corrected. Pinkie Pie couldn't prevent the mistake; it had been made the day before, and she had never been back to that time again. There was only this morning, and Pinkie was going to see to it that sometime, eventually, on this one morning, no other bakery customer in the history of Equestria, the planet, and neighboring planets would ever have been so abundantly compensated for their mixed-up order. Pinkie couldn't make progress from day to day, but she could experiment. She could whip up a little something as a do-for-now, to use every this-morning until she could figure out better ways to add to it.

Several big tubs in the dry-ingredients corner contained the Cakes' proprietary mixes for plain muffins as well as vanilla, lemon, spice, and chocolate cake flavor bases. Pinkie would stick with these tried and true mixes and not measure anything new or different. A few inches' less reach to the canisters for her flour-measuring hoof was all it took to shave seconds off of a cake batter. She took a moment to move the tubs and set the mixing table directly between them and the icebox, thereby saving a bit of time on each thing she would bake that day.

While Pinkie got to work, Mrs. Cake washed the family's breakfast dishes, swept the front steps of Sugarcube Corner, and whipped a large bowlful of cream to use as topping throughout the day. Mr. Cake put bread dough in the ovens, washed the empty proofing pans, and fried and glazed doughnuts. Pinkie zipped around him, barely dodging out of his way back and forth on her personal mission.

Normally any cake left over at closing the night before was left out for Pinkie to devour at breakfast. Baked goods didn't go stale at Sugarcube Corner. But this morning Pinkie exercised massive amounts of restraint, her light pink coat turning dark pink from sweat under her forelock, and she did not eat the day-old sponge cake. She had saved moments by cracking three extra eggs when she made Gummy's breakfast. Now she heated cream and sugar and whipped up some custard.

Pinkie couldn't give away all the breakfast rush muffins and scones, nor all the lunchtime focaccia nor teatime coffeecakes. She had to make something new for Cinnamon Caramel Streusel Crunch Swirl. One thing Pinkie Pie was good at was decorating cakes in a hurry without the end result looking rushed. She rebaked a cake meant for an afternoon order and decorated the one she had standing ready from last night. The fresh cake could cool until she frosted it just in time for the afternoon pick-up. This morning she could give Cinnamon Caramel Streusel Crunch Swirl yesterday's cake, freshly buttercreamed and boxed.

Mr. Cake flipped the bakery sign over to OPEN.

Before Streusel arrived each morning with the wrong cupcakes, four other ponies came in and ordered goods. One asked for two peach pies to be picked up at closing time; Pinkie set that aside to make later. The other three orders she had memorized. Croissant and a cherry cola. Pinkie's hoof was on the cherry syrup dispenser before the customer finished speaking. Butterscotch malt with whipped cream and sprinkles. "Yum!" And done before the mare who wanted it had opened her mouth to order. The next pony was still surveying the goods in the display case when Pinkie picked out a slice of cherry-chip torte and slid it across the counter to him, much to his evident delight.

Pinkie left the counter to Mr. Cake and dashed back into the kitchen. The custard was cool; she poured it over sliced sponge cake, used a dollop of the daily whipped cream on top, and met Streusel at the door, breathless, with a hoofful of animal lollipops.

Streusel's spontaneous "Ooh, I love trifle!" when Pinkie hoofed over the bowl gave the pink pony a surge of triumphant feeling that would suffice until she improved her technique. Streusel's make-up order was going to be magnificent, one of these days. Meanwhile, it was time for Pinkie to return the usual pile of library books to Twilight.

On the way to the library, she passed a little colt going in the other direction, spinning a hoop on the ground with a stick held in his mouth. He almost lost his hoop's balance when it wobbled in a wheel rut, but he deftly righted it. Pinkie called out, as she did most days: "Excellent hoop-rolling!"

The colt ran on after the hoop, and the stick in his mouth made talking difficult, but he collected his run into a canter and gave a pleased flip of his tail which showed Pinkie Pie that he'd heard her.

Pinkie went on into the library. Twilight said, "Hi, Pinkie!"

"Twilight! Drop the books and listen."

Twilight laid her open book on a bookstand, kept her place with a hoof, turned her head and perked her ears in Pinkie's direction.

Pinkie took a long breath and began. "Tomorrow will be your future, but it will be my today."

She told the story of what had happened to her so far on previous iterations of this same day. Pinkie Pie did this every morning, and the words had gotten to be really close together. By now they had hardly any spaces between them at all, in order to get the story told before it was time to leave for Sweet Apple Acres. "And I feed Gummy every day even though Fluttershy said it's healthier for him to be fed every other day, because every day is the other day to him, now. You've been looking—and right now you're about to start looking—for an artifact, something that magicked me into this wackiness. You've checked everything I bought yesterday—that is, real yesterday—that hasn't been used up. That took several yestertodays. So now I need to know what you think I should do next. Did you get all that?"

Twilight's ears quivered with how hard she was keeping them pricked in Pinkie's direction. "Got it."

"Thanks, Twilight, I knew you wouldn't let me down!"

"It sounds as if we should begin focusing on variables you can change one at a time."

"I left you out as a variable some days, already," Pinkie said. "I haven't seen you at all some days. I missed you!"

"Aw, that's sweet," said Twilight. "I'm sure I missed you, too."

"Thanks!"

"Wait—does this mean—er . . . I don't want to seem too obsessive, but those books were due today. I know your eliminating me as a variable is important, and that not bringing the books in was for science. . ."

"Don't worry, I return them to you most todays!"

"I hope that—"

"And on the few days when I stayed away from the library, I had one of the foals playing outside bring the books in for me."

"Why, thank you, Pinkie."

"You're welcome, Twilight! Also, I have something new. I forgot about the toothbrush. I bought a toothbrush and you said anything new I should test."

"Have you used the toothbrush?"

"Nope! I buy it this afternoon. I don't use it until tomorrow morning, but I've never been there!"

"Okay, don't change—"

"Too many variables," finished Pinkie.

"Right. Just pick a different color of toothbrush, or buy one somewhere other than the store where you've been getting it. The thing with artifacts is, it might only be that one toothbrush, or something might have magically affected all the toothbrushes from a specific supply."

Day after day, Pinkie bought toothbrushes of all colors and softness levels at the drugstore and at the dry goods store. She also changed her toothbrush holder to a cute one that looked like a spiraled candy stick.

When she'd finished changing minor variables about the toothbrush, she reported to Twilight, cramming in the whole story from the beginning and adding each of the places she'd acquired toothbrushes.

"To try another variable, I avoided buying a toothbrush, even though that's really hard. Do you know how hard it is not to buy a new toothbrush at the five-and-bit store, when you were really looking forward to it? Argh, it was too hard! But after a few days of practicing I managed not to buy one, and then I was walking and Minuette came out and offered me a free sample toothbrush! I couldn't say no to that! It would have been rude, orally unhygienic, and sad. So it took me a few weeks to figure out how to arrange it so I wouldn't see Minuette today—that mare really gets around, and she really likes to give out toothbrushes. I'm finally out of new places to get toothbrushes."

"Wait a minute." Twilight went to her bathroom and returned with a shiny new purple toothbrush. "You can have my spare."

"Thanks!"

"Unfortunately, if this doesn't work, we have to widen our net, and we have to make it extremely wide," said Twilight. "Now we need to address those objects which you have around you all the time, but which you only treated differently today. Objects you bought today were easiest to pin down. And it sounds as if you've pretty well stuck to the same schedule on each loop."

"Doughnut," Pinkie said.

"Doughnut?"

"Doughnut, the round kind, circular, not the twisty Long John kind. I've decided to call the time loop a time doughnut. If there's a filling it goes around the hole in the center, not in the middle. I thought of calling it a time hoop, like a fun toy, but time doughnut won out because the word always makes me think of soft, chewy, sweet dough, plus sprinkles, while the hoop makes me think of running and fun, but not sprinkles."

"Doughnut, then. So the question now is: Did you make or do something differently today, using something you've had around for a while?"

"I'll investigate! Thanks for all your help so far, which has been a lot, even though you don't remember it."

"You're welcome," said Twilight. "I hope it works out. Even if all of us don't experience the repeating days with you, I'm sure we need you looped back in with us."

"Doughnutted back in!"

"Yes . . . doughnutted back in."

At home, at bedtime, Pinkie regarded the purple toothbrush as she tilted it back and forth on the edge of her hoof. Gummy chomped on a squeaky toy underneath the sink. Pinkie asked the baby alligator, "What do you think? If I drop this last toothbrush into the holder, is this day going to be over?"

Gummy chomped his toy. The toy squeaked, once, twice, three times.

Pinkie hovered her hoof, and finally dropped the toothbrush into the holder. She watched it sit there. She sat on her haunches and watched it some more. Slowly she stood and backed away with her eyes on the toothbrush, and went to bed.

Pinkie woke up the next morning—that is, the same morning as the morning before, so she woke up the morning before, again, and picked Gummy up from under his corner of patchwork quilt. "Let's go see." She perched Gummy on her head and went to the washstand. The old, splayed, spongy toothbrush was back in the holder. Pinkie stared at it for a minute, then took a long breath that ended in a soft little sigh. She took Gummy off of her head, gave him a soft cuddle, and put him in his tank. "I didn't really think it would work," she said. "Well, time to go see if the jelly bean is there."

Sure enough, there it was on the top step. Later in the morning, when she went to the library, Pinkie took the jelly bean with her.

Twilight said, "There must be a lot of jelly beans in your day."

"This one was on the stairs. I must have dropped it. But the first time I saw it there was this morning, I mean every morning now, so possibly it got there magically and I didn't drop it after all."

"I need to examine this jelly bean."

Pinkie hoofed it over. "It's kinda sticky. I licked it once. Always the same flavor—strawberry."

Twilight peered at the jelly bean through a magnifying glass, cut it open carefully with a knife, and used various magic-testing instruments on it. Finally she stretched her stiff neck. "There's nothing magical about this jelly bean."

"Split it with you!" said Pinkie, and she grabbed one of the neat halves and chewed it.

Twilight smirked, but she bit into the other half, brightened and mmmed.

"There's one thing magical about it," said Pinkie. "The flavor!"

"It is pretty good," said Twilight, "but it's still just a jelly bean. Not the artifact we're looking for. Sorry, Pinkie."

Pinkie bounced in place. "Don't feel bad, Twilight. You're doing your best. Just like you always do!"

"We'll keep at it," said Twilight. "Well—you will, and the me who's here today, tomorrow. Tomorrow-tomorrow, I'll have moved on from this, and if you're living the same loop over and over, I don't know whether you'll know what I'm talking about if I bring it up to you in my own tomorrow. Or, I won't even remember it myself, if it's a closed loop."

"Doughnut," said Pinkie.

"Closed doughnut," Twilight amended agreeably but absently, adjusting dials on her telescope.

After her visit to Sweet Apple Acres, during her quick lunch of a lower-case cheese sandwich, Pinkie squinted in thought over the approaching meeting with Cheese Sandwich. She reflected on the previous day of the time doughnut, and the most recent iteration of the daily shouting match. She swallowed a bite of sandwich and said to herself, "Who knew a stallion could be so sensitive about serving Limburger with angel food cake? Well, I won't bring that up again. Still, I suppose an argument can't happen every day. Even though it has so far. Of course, it's not every day, it's only one day. It's just that it's every day to me, Pinkie Pie."

At the Elks Lodge, Cheese Sandwich objected to Pinkie Pie's choice of cheese to combine with strawberry shortcake. "Now, Pinkie, you know that's not a good flavor marriage. Anyway, we want to use the Aged Swiss as grilled cheese on Rye to go with the onion broth."

"Strawberry shortcake can marry whatever cheese it wants to marry," asserted Pinkie Pie.

"Pinkie, be reasonable. Aged Swiss is already seeing Rye."

"Strawberry shortcake is open-minded! It's willing to share!"

Before Pinkie Pie knew it, she and Cheese Sandwich were shouting at each other. She wasn't even sure how she had managed it this time.

Chapter Three: The Swirly Lollipop

At the Hayburger for supper, Rarity expounded on the grueling Fashion Week schedule. "And I simply must make calls on the other designers who are debuting lines in their boutiques this week. Many of them are close friends of her—mine. They'll be noticing every detail. I never should have agreed to this!"

"But they'll be mane-deep in Fashion Week, too," said Pinkie. "If you think about it too much and make a fuss about the details, itsy bitsy mistakes, you might make ponies notice things they wouldn't have even paid attention to on their own."

"Maybe," said Rarity, darkly. "Then again, I could ruin absolutely everything halfway through the week."

"That's not going to happen." Pinkie reached for her soft drink. She took a confident sip. "You have three days. That's plenty of time to get ready. There are a few details to work out, surface stuff." She gestured at the trays on the table. "As in, the double-basket of double-decker mushroom and onion burgers with hot sauce. You're not trying to impersonate me!"

"Oh . . . it's just that ponies seem to like food so much. I always see you all shoveling—"

Pinkie gave her a little, but stern, headshake.

"Er. I always see ponies partaking of generous portions."

Pinkie clapped her hooves. "Well done!"

Rarity glanced at the piles of burgers, onion rings, and deep-fried chocolate chip cookies. "So the food is too much. But being at the Hayburger is all right?"

"Oh, yeah, it's a great friends hangout!"

"Oh, good. I'm enjoying it."

"Me, too!"

Rarity reached into her saddlebag on the seat next to her and brought out a sheet of paper. She pushed it across the table toward Pinkie. "We just had these printed. Volunteers are posting them all over Canterlot. Ponies will subscribe and pledge based on nopony guessing which of us is the changeling. When that happens—if it happens before the end of the week, an announcement will be made and pledges will only be collected accordingly. It's going to a cause we're madly passionate about, the Fabulousness for Orphans charity. And we just found out that if we can survive the entire week, the princesses will match any donations we've earned from pledges. And I'm not even going to make it one day! There's too much interaction with ponies that know Rarity!"

Pinkie sat up straight and tapped her own chest with her hoof. "I know Rarity, and you're almost there. There's just something I can't put my hoof on, some kind of ingredient that doesn't go inside a good Rarity."

"Well, we had better make the most of my three days until showtime. You can help me by pretending various contingencies, and then I'll be ready to handle them professionally if they arise."

"We've been doing it that way for sixty-four days now," said Pinkie.

"Pardon?"

"I mean only one day, but we've used that way of getting you ready sixty-four times over."

Rarity slowly lowered her head, and looked up at Pinkie through lashes that made her eyes look even larger than a regular, non-fabulous pony's. "I don't . . . I don't wish to be any trouble to you, darling. Are you bored?"

"Bored? Of course not! Okay, contingency, contingency. I've got one! Picture this. I'm doing things at Fashion Week, trying on new party dresses. But suddenly! I turn into a giant butterscotch milkshake."

"I have to help a butterscotch milkshake try on clothes?"

"Sure, you get me a nice green dress, I'm sure you'll do fine, that's not the contingency. Suddenly! I have to go into outer space and rescue a race of green alien ponies who can't speak Equestrian, and their spaceship is in space-distress, and the aliens are naturally attracted to the color of my stylish, new green dress—and I can't speak, being a milkshake, and have to use drinking-straw sign language—and I take them aboard my cup-carton spaceship. Every place for a cup has an alien in it. And it turns out that these little green space-alien ponies are fashion designers, and this is their one chance to put on a runway show in Canterlot, in Equestria."

"I would give the fashion aliens half of the stage time allotted to my Rarity for You show. That is right, isn't it? Rarity is the soul of generosity."

"I'm not done," said Pinkie. "Away down at Sweet Apple Acres, Applejack saw my cup-carton spaceship land in Canterlot, and she came to meet the green alien ponies. She traipses up to you in the street in her muddy work duds and starts talking about how exciting this year's Fashion Week is going to be. 'Why, y'all even got some o' them there big-city aliens. Ain't that a shindig in a pumpkin patch. Cows alfalfa acorns. I wore my work clothes to Fashion Week. My overalls are as muddy as a muskrat at a pie-eating contest. I'm as impatient as a pig at the trough to see the new designs you'll be puttin' out for sale."

"Why, I would say, 'Darling, how exciting that you could come to Canterlot for Fashion Week.'"

Pinkie Pie narrowed her eyes and frowned.

Rarity fluttered her long eyelashes. "There's nothing wrong with that, is there? Applejack is a friend. I would be delighted to see her."

"Of course! But! Into all of her dialogue and description I snuck that bit about dirty clothes."

"The muddy duds, yes. I heard you."

"So why didn't you freak out?"

Rarity's elegant shoulders sagged. "That should have freaked me out? But I'm incredibly tolerant of dirty clothes on ponies. Consider Sweetie Belle—"

Pinkie planted a hoof on the table. "This is Applejack we're talking about. You can handle dirty clothes on ponies, but whenever AJ goes out in public in dirty clothes, you stammer and stumble over your words, trying to be polite about it, and then you give up and just criticize her."

Rarity reared back in her seat. "I do not!"

"Now that was perfect Rarity," said Pinkie, making an A-Okay sign with her hoof.

Rarity gave her mane a little shake of delight, and a gloss of green rippled over the purple.

"Watch out for that, though."

"Oh—sorry."

One night, it occurred to Pinkie to stay up all night and see all of the time doughnut. After the evening rain cleared, she sat on the balcony, drinking cola-and-ice-cream floats and munching sticky caramel nougat brownie peanut butter pie. She went to tuck Gummy in around midnight, went back to her pie on the balcony, and didn't remember going to bed herself. She woke fully rested, under her quilt, at four in the morning.

Her faithful, old-soldier toothbrush was back in its holder, looking tired and resigned.

She got ready for breakfast and hovered her hoof above the top step. There was that silly old jelly bean again. Pinkie stomped on it. She left it sticking to the bottom of her hoof all the way downstairs and across the bakery floor.

Streusel showed up right on schedule with her boxes of mistake-flavored cupcakes.

Just before lunch, Pinkie was obliged to politely reply with regrets to Fluttershy's invitation. She did occasionally change up her day enough to accept the invitation, but today, she would go the usual route of thinking about how she'd get to see Fluttershy again sometime soon—depending on how you defined “soon”. Tomorrow was soon, but lately, tomorrow never happened.

After supper with Rarity, Pinkie sat in the street, watching the interaction of ripples in a puddle. Each time a raindrop came down, it made a ripple, and the ripple bumped another ripple. Nowaday Pinkie only lived in one ripple, over and over again.

She noted the muddiness of her coronets. Dirty splashes had reached up to her knees, and there was some mud on her hocks. She gave a little frown.

The twin brother teamster mules, Biscuit and Baked Beans, drove up, hauling dry goods secured under a tarp which kept the dry goods literally dry. Biscuit sat on the box, driving with the reins between his teeth, and Baked Beans was pulling. They went at a good clip, and the wagon wheels sheeted muddy puddle water all over Pinkie's side.

"Whoa!" Biscuit pulled his brother to a stop. "Sorry, Ms. Pie. Almost didn't see you there."

"It's okay, I was already wet." She lifted her grimy leg. "And only a little bit dirty, before the mud you added."

Biscuit tipped his hat to her, which had the effect of dumping rainwater down his foreleg. He clicked his tongue to his brother, and they drove off.

Pinkie stood, shook her mane, and trudged toward Sugarcube Corner. Dirty water trickled down her side and left an outline of dirt where it dripped down the middle of her breast. Somewhere beyond the storm, the sun was setting. The light that made its way through the downpour was grey, and the rounded underbellies of the clouds, and the houses at ground level, were greenish-ochre. Beyond the veil, she knew there must be violet, orange, blue and even pink, bright as her own coat color—when her coat wasn't sloshed in mud.

Streusel put the bakery boxes on the counter and said in an apologetic tone, "This isn't what I ordered."

Pinkie's ears sagged. "I know. I'm sorry."

"Don't feel bad," said Streusel. "I should have opened the boxes last night."

"I won't be able to make exactly what you ordered in time for the party," Pinkie admitted.

"I'd like some kind of replacement—if you can manage it—but if you just refund my bits, there will be no hard feelings."

"Oh, I like to go way beyond no hard feelings." Pinkie fixed her valued customer with narrowed eyes and a stern frown. "I want you to be delighted." She whisked a golden linen table-cover off of a mountain of baked goods. "Cupcakes, tea cakes, coffee cake, trifle, brownies of course. I snagged a couple of bagels from the breakfast rush batch because we won't sell many of those this morning anyway."

Cinnamon Caramel Streusel Crunch Swirl blinked. "But how. . ."

Pinkie blew her sweaty forelock out of her eyes. "Usually when I make a mistake, I can only replace the order with what we have on hoof. Today I saw it coming, and it was too late to do anything about it last night, but I thought, what would I love to always do, if I had a chance to know ahead of time that a mistake was coming?"

Streusel stared at the pyramid of boxes with the trifle bowl on top. "It's so nice, but you didn't have to go to all of this trouble."

Pinkie pffed and flapped a hoof. "It was my pleasure. Refunded bits are nice, but so boring. Oh—I just this morning, I mean this-morning-this-morning, had a great idea about the icing for the sugar cookies! I'll mix up the colors—I already have the white icing—and I'll send some tubs of it with you, and the foals can decorate their own!"

"Oh, this is so nice of you, but, um." Streusel had placed a few of the boxes on her back. She stood behind the rest of the enormous pile of customer satisfaction, and Pinkie could barely see a bit of her shaggy forelock and the tips of her ears.

"Not to worry! The teamster brothers, Biscuit and Baked Beans, are waiting with their wagon out back of the kitchen, to take you and your baked goods to the party. Luckily they come by every morning with the cream cheese, and I asked them to wait."

Pinkie and Biscuit loaded up all of the baked goods, plus the customer. Streusel and Pinkie Pie waved to each other as Biscuit and Beans started off. The wagon jolted out of the alley and onto the street, and Pinkie called after Streusel, "Sorry again for the mistake!"

Twilight and Pinkie trotted and pronked, respectively, out to Sweet Apple Acres. Twilight was going to meet AJ and Big Mac for lunch, and Pinkie would pick up the very same fresh eggs and cream as she had picked up hundreds of times before. When they arrived and shut the heavy barn door behind themselves, Granny asked Pinkie how she was enjoying the quilt the Crusaders had made for her. Pinkie had answered this question for her lots and lots of times, but it was still Granny's first time asking it.

"I'm enjoying it lots!" Pinkie answered. "And Gummy is, too."

Twilight jerked her head up, pricked her ears alertly, and asked Granny if there were any magical elements to the hoofmade quilt, besides the magic inherent in heirloom crafts.

"Well, now," said Granny, "some say as there's magic in any hoofmade quilt. But there's a little extry magic in ours. We make 'em with Apple Family thread spun from wool from our magic sheep, which are regular sheep but we feed them peanut butter cookies and dried zap apples as treats."

Twilight asked, "Pinkie, have you done anything different with the quilt since you bought it?"

"I've had different dreams under it. So many different colors of pastel penguins. Not to mention different flavors of stick-candy pine trees. There was this one time when I grew wings and antlers! And Father Hearthswarming hitched me to his sleigh, which was fun—pulling around all those presents! But I knew it had to be a dream, since obviously he can pull a sleigh just fine on his own."

"Besides dreams," interposed Twilight, with a hint of amusement in her voice. "Did you do anything physically different with the quilt?"

Pinkie pondered. "Oh! I rolled Gummy in a corner of it, just as if he was a sweet alligator filling in a crazy-quilt crepe. Gummy has shared my bed lots of times before, but he usually sits on a pillow. During the time doughnut it's always been chilly last night, so I've always made him into an alligatorrito."

"Well, that'll do it," said Granny, rocking. "Patchwork quilts holds memories. And if'n you wind a gator in that thread, even without a patchwork quilt in the mix, you'll get weird and woolly things happening to the time stream. 'Course, it's only ever come up a couple of times 'round these parts. We don't have much call for wrapping alligators."

"There you have it, Pinkie," said Twilight triumphantly. "All you have to do is not wrap Gummy in a corner of the quilt. You can solve your time-doughnut problem tonight!"

Pinkie gasped. Her eyes widened. "You mean—you mean if I don't wrap Gummy in the quilt, this day will be ended?"

"Looks like it!" said Twilight.

"It's pretty near a sure thing," affirmed Granny.

"It'll be great to have you looped back in with us, Pinkie," said Twilight.

"Doughnutted back in," said Pinkie, but in a distracted tone. She was quiet while Granny helped her pack the eggs and cream, and she jogged thoughtfully back to town. Some of the time, she even dropped into a walk.

"Hold on a second, please," said Pinkie to the messenger-colt.

On Sugarcube Corner stationery Pinkie quickly wrote, "Dear Fluttershy: I'm sorry, but I can't make it for lemonade today. It sounds like so much fun! Hopefully I'll see you soon. Here's a little something for your ants. Love, Pinkie D. Pie."

She took the strawberry jelly bean out of her mane, dropped it onto the floor, and gave it a sound, purposeful stomp. She felt the sugary shell give under her hoof, and her pink hoof came up with shiny gel on it. Pinkie Pie scraped the jelly bean off of her forehoof and enclosed it in the envelope along with the note to Fluttershy.

Ants wouldn't mind a little floor dirt, and squishing the jelly bean made it easier for their wee little mandibles to take bites out of the candy. Fluttershy's cute little ants sure would love swarming all over the candy! Or perhaps they'd eat it a bit at a time, carrying off dainty bites to serve to their queen ant, or to savor in their own little anty rooms. Anterooms? Pinkie Pie laughed. She'd have to wait for Fluttershy's reply to find out what the ants had decided to do with the jelly bean, and until then the imaginings were unlimited. She handed her note, along with his fee and a free cupcake, to the messenger-colt. "Well," Pinkie said as she closed the door, "almost time for my meeting with Cheese Sandwich!"

Pinkie Pie pronked toward the Elks Club Lodge. As she pronked, she remembered more than three hundred and sixty arguments with Cheese. Pinkie vowed, "I will not get into an argument with Cheese Sandwich about whether or not it's weird to serve yak's milk cheese to elks. I will not get into an argument with Cheese Sandwich about mascarpone pastry filling. I will not debate about his favorite Gruyère fondue. I will not argue with Cheese Sandwich over apple varieties to use for cheese boards. I won't squabble over whether strained yogurt counts as a type of cheese. What other kinds of cheeses are there? Have we had any fights about fresh, squeaky curds? Have we argued over Maredsous? What about Bel Paese? Hey, that's fun to say! Bel Paese! That even rhymes with itself. Bel Pah-ay-say, the cheese that's fun to say." Pinkie pronked and chanted, making one hop for the Bel, and one hop for all of Paese. "Bel. Paese. Bel. Paese."

She entered the lodge, still chanting, and Cheese, who was, as he was every day, already there, lowered the lip balm he was touching to Boneless Two's beak. "What's this about Bel Paese?"

Pinkie blinked several times and a thought formed and sprang from her lips. "I thought we'd have it as marmalade and cheese sandwiches!"

Cheese narrowed his eyes. "We agreed on spreadable cheeses to accompany the desserts for this party. I want to use the Bel Paese on the hot horse d'ouevres."

"But Bel Paese is so versatile!"

"Exactly. So it can do what other dessert cheeses can't."

"But it slices nicely! Instead of spreadables, we could have slices of Bel Paese to put on hot toasted white bread with the jams and jellies buffet."

Cheese sighed, and the slow, restrained sound was as ominous as the slow breath a dragon might take before it breathed fire. He spoke. "I was afraid of something like this. You're so devoted to desserts you forget that Bel Paese can be a savory cheese."

Pinkie saw Cheese's mood unraveling along with his mane, and she gave the unraveling thread a little tug. "That doesn't mean you have to pigeonhole it into hot horse d'oeuvres," said Pinkie.

Cheese Sandwich put a forehoof down firmly. He frowned so hard his lips drooped past his chin. "I'm not pigeonholing Bel Paese! It can do whatever it likes, as long as I don't find it muscling out the whipped Ricotta and cream cheese on the dessert table!"

Pinkie and Cheese stepped closer to each other, scrunched their muzzles together and glared. Pinkie yelled, "Bel Paese doesn't have muscles!"

Cheese snarled, "It's a metaphor. A metaphor, Pinkie!"

"Argue!" Pinkie shouted. "Argue, argue!"

Cheese Sandwich grabbed Boneless Two and created a deep voice for him, so the chicken could join in the argument. Boneless more or less sided with Cheese Sandwich. When the rubber chicken began to be swayed by Pinkie's devastating logic, Cheese, aghast at this betrayal, set Boneless on the floor beside Pinkie and faced them both, forelegs folded.

Cheese couldn't stand up to both Pinkie and Boneless Two for long, especially since part of his speaking time was devoted to providing the rubber chicken's voice against himself. He lifted a forehoof and declared imperiously, in his own voice, "Bel Paese shall be served with marmalade and white bread as dessert sandwiches!"

"That's what Boneless Two and I have been saying!" screamed Pinkie, and then she and Cheese dissolved on the floor in a puddle of knees, hocks, and giggles.

Cheese struggled up into a half-sit and wiped tears from his eyes. "That was great! We hardly ever argue."

"We argue every day," said Pinkie mysteriously, still flopped on her side. "A different topic every time. I'm gonna miss it. I don't really want you to change anything about the Bel Paese for this party, you know."

Cheese smiled. "We'll have to convince Boneless Two."

Luckily, Boneless, as limp on the floor as the two giggling ponies had been, was amenable to Cheese's original plan for the Bel Paese.

Later, as they were working on the tiered treat displays, Pinkie Pie said to Cheese, "This party is going to be so much fun. I used to think I'd never get tired of anticipating a party, and I was right."

Rarity was surrounded by hayburgers and fried side dishes. Many pieces of the fried side dishes had been dipped once in something tasty from an assortment of condiment bowls, had one bite taken out, then had been hastily pushed aside in embarrassment when Pinkie pointed out that "Rarity-Rarity" would never be seen eating that.

Pinkie said, "Ah, never mind. Eat the rest of that chimi-pickle slider. I'm kinda getting the feeling that it's not very helpful of me to suggest things like not eating delicious food. Just eat what you enjoy. I've been figuring it out." Pinkie Pie twirled her hooves next to her ears to demonstrate cogs and gears turning in her mind. "All these things we're trying to fix don't matter. The only thing that's off is that you're trying too hard to be Rarity."

Rarity blinked her wet lashes. "Why—darling—whomever else should I try to be?"

"Nopony else. Of course you're trying to be Rarity! That's the whole point of all this practicing! But do you think Rarity tries to be Rarity? Sure, she has to work to be fabulous, I'm sure it's more work than it looks like, but as for being Rarity, she just is."

"But I'm not!" wailed Not-Rarity.

"But nopony is supposed to know that," said Pinkie. "And you're so scared of anypony finding out, that you're trying too hard. That's the one obvious thing that makes you different from original-flavor Rarity. If you're in any doubt, be yourself."

"But—"

"BE YOURSELF. You ought to know that better than anyone!"

"I ought, darling?"

"You ought, Rarity! If somepony asks 'why', and the honest answer is 'because I'm the changeling pretending to be Rarity', don't answer at all!"

"So I should just . . . ignore them?"

"Not at all! No, no!" Pinkie made a buzzer noise and crossed her hooves back and forth rapidly in front of her chest. "Rarity is never rude. Rarity doesn't ignore ponies."

Rarity dolefully licked pepper-pickle relish from her hoof. "What do I do?" She thought better of the licking and dabbed both her hoof and her lips daintily with a napkin.

"You give your mane a flip—" Pinkie demonstrated the gesture, though instead of doing a smooth and shimmering flip, her mane only bounced frizzily "—and you smile a mysterious smile. Enigmatically. Like this." Pinkie tried, though she knew her smiles were never enigmatic. Why keep a smile a mystery? "Only do it more like she does it."

"I hope it works. When I get nervous I tend to spout explanations."

"Just remember, you know a secret, Rarity knows a secret, I know, Fluttershy knows, Fancy Pants knows—we all know your secret. So you give the smile of someone who knows the secret."

"I don't think I know that smile. I'm part of a hive mind. We all know all of the secrets."

"Oh, wow, that must be so fun! I love sharing secrets! To do it all the time with everypony must be the very best of the best!"

"But I'm not sure how to look like I know something that only a very few ponies know."

"Rarity will teach you the smile. Practice it with her. I'm sure it's the answer."

The bell over the door jangled. Princess Twilight stepped regally in. The pony behind the counter bowed, then gave her three large paper sacks, and Twilight placed some bits on the counter.

Twilight carried the sacks on either side of her shoulders with her telekinetic aura and walked over to Pinkie and Rarity's booth. "Hi, girls! How's the last practice day going?"

Rarity sat bolt upright. Long, sharp canines shot out from her upper jaw. Her horn melted away until it was short, smooth and black, and her eyes glazed over with a solid, pale blue. She planted her forehooves hard on the table. A packet of ketchup burst under one hoof and the ketchup squeezed out over the edge of a new hole in her leg. "It's the last practice day?!"

Twilight jerked her head back and flattened her ears in surprise, then relaxed and gave her head a bob and her wings a little shake-out. "Wow, Rarity, great trick. I thought you were changeling-Rarity, but obviously if you were the changeling you'd never show it. Very clever!"

Rarity looked wildly from Twilight to Pinkie. "But it can't be the last practice day! It's three days to the opening of Fashion Week! Isn't it?"

"Oh, yes, it's still three days. I meant Pinkie's time loop—er—eclair—doughnut—er—never mind. But in any case, Rarity, you have nothing to worry about. Your changeling disguise will definitely keep ponies guessing! I didn't know you were so skilled at illusions."

Rarity began to protest, but Pinkie reached across the table and stuck an oat-nugget in onion sauce in her mouth. Pinkie stage-whispered, through a demonstrative, toothy grin, "Smile! Enigmatic smile!"

The changeling chewed and swallowed, and her smile quavered, but eventually got to enigmatic. She made a move to smooth her mane, but her ketchup-stained hoof found only her jagged, dark fin.

Twilight gave her a bright smile back and said, "Anyway, I just dropped in to pick up my usual order of seventeen Princess Meals." She rummaged through the paper sacks with her magic and dumped a pile of cellophane-wrapped action figures on the table. "Here are the toys, Pinkie."

Pinkie shoved the toys into her mane. The cellophane wrappers crinkled. She pushed down on her curls. "Ooh, lumpy."

Twilight smiled contentedly. "Well, 'bye girls. Gonna take these meals back to the library to eat while they're still hot."

"'Bye Twilight! Thanks for the toys!"

The bell jingled as the door closed behind Twilight. There followed a moment of quiet at the table.

The changeling developed a pearlescent aura, which coalesced into the appearance of Rarity's coat; her iridescent white horn swirled into shape, her irises were again a deep blue, and she blushed pink. "Did I just . . . fool Princess Twilight?"

Pinkie's whoop of victory rattled the float glasses in their rack behind the counter.

After supper, Pinkie sat in the street with her damp mane frizzing up like the foam on a strawberry ice cream soda. She looked down at the puddle rippling just over the tops of her hooves and heaved a little sigh.

Somepony sloshed along the street. It was Minuette. "Good evening, Pinkie. Why so discouraged?"

Pinkie looked up from under her sodden mane. "Oh, I'm not discouraged," she said. "I'm just sitting in the rain."

"You sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine."

"Would you like a free toothbrush?"

"Thank you, Minuette." Pinkie accepted the toothbrush and stuck it in her mane. Minuette gave herself a shake from nose to tail and hopped over a puddle. Slowly the sound of her sploshing hoofbeats faded.

Pinkie looked over her shoulder; the buildings behind her could barely be seen in the veil of rain. Finally she heard the sound she was waiting for: wagon wheels rolling through the packed mud with water running around and behind them.

Baked Beans trotted past Pinkie. She quivered but didn't stand up nor lean away, and the wagon wheels sheeted dirty water all over her side. "Whoa!" said Biscuit, and Baked Beans nearly sat down as he stopped and gave an apologetic nod sideways to Pinkie. Biscuit said, "Sorry, Ms. Pie. Almost didn't see you there."

"That's all right, boys!" said Pinkie.

Biscuit tipped his waterlogged hat and clicked his tongue to Baked Beans, and the wagon jolted forward.

Pinkie, dripping mud, walked through the steadily falling droplets to Sugarcube Corner. She shook herself just before going inside, and wiped her hooves on the mat. She headed for the stairs to her room. Mrs. Cake caught up to her and said, "Pinkie, would you like a—"

"I'd love a cheddar muffin while they're still hot, thank you!" said Pinkie. Mrs. Cake hoofed her the muffin on a napkin. Pinkie ate it, catching the crumbs carefully and licking them up. "Mmm!"

She wiped her mouth with the napkin, went upstairs, and drew a hot bath. "Aah," she said as she sank into it. "Perfect. Baths are better when there's a lot to clean off."

Pinkie had invited Cheese Sandwich over to play checkers. He and Boneless Two arrived with a wedge of crumbly, white, pungent cheese on a board. Pinkie didn't even bother to ask what kind it was. She merely did her share of devouring it with sesame seed crackers.

Gradually the rain stopped. Unseen pegasi herded the clouds away. Pinkie, Cheese Sandwich, the rubber chickens (for Boneless Two was visiting Boneless the First), and Gummy sat on the balcony at Sugarcube Corner and watched the stars twinkling at their nightly party in the sky.

Pinkie brushed her teeth with her old toothbrush. She placed Gummy in his tank for the night. Tears came into her eyes. She rummaged in the drawer of her bedside table and pulled out a swirly lollipop, which she propped against her lamp. If it was true about the quilt and the alligator, she would see the lollipop first thing when she opened her eyes. Pinkie had always supposed that the best day ever could only happen once. But she had lived the best day ever four hundred and sixty two times, and it was the best day ever, each time. She lay down under her magical quilt, closed her eyes and said, "This day has been just the best."

The next morning, Pinkie woke up.

The swirly lollipop was on the bedside table.

It was tomorrow.

This was a different today. This was the today when Pinkie Pie and Cheese would hold the party at the Elks Club Lodge. She had to get in a little more anticipation over that, quick, before it arrived, because it was coming this very night.

She remembered that Fluttershy had received the smashed strawberry jelly bean the day before, and today Pinkie would hear how the ants had enjoyed it.

She told herself all these wonderful things firmly, but even so a little sob escaped her. Pinkie got up, pulled her mane into a bandanna, and went downstairs. She felt a jelly bean crush under her hoof, and she let out a trembling gasp, but when she lifted her hoof she could smell and see that this was a grape jelly bean. Not the same at all. Delicious, though. Pinkie told herself to cheer up. After all, since it was tomorrow, she had given Cinnamon Caramel Streusel Crunch Swirl her replacement order the day before, and now she, Pinkie Pie, could eat the day-old sponge cake for breakfast.

She sat in the kitchen and let out a little sigh as she forked up the sponge cake.

After breakfast she climbed the stairs again and went to her washstand. Pinkie felt as if a tear might fall from her eye, but it never quite happened. A beam of sunlight came through the window and glowed golden on the coral-colored handle and fresh, neatly trimmed bristles of the new toothbrush.

She stared, and drew a breath of wonder at the beauty of the toothbrush. A new toothbrush! Never before used! She would have so many adventures with her new toothbrush. And who knew what else could happen on a day that began with a glimmering new toothbrush? Pinkie took one bound across the room to the alligator tank, picked Gummy up in her forehooves and spun him above her head. "Gummy, it's all right! Turns out it's still the best day ever!"

The End