Cheerliee, it’s called a bong.
“All you gotta do, little dude, is open up your mind. If you relax your mind, then pretty soon your body can bend into any position you want.”
It’s a low voice, a little hoarse, but somehow melodious despite that.
“Ugh! It’s too hard.”
My ears prick up. I know that second one. Rumble — what’s he doing here? I try to make a point of knowing what each of my colts and fillies like to do on weekends. It always helps to have common ground to talk about with them. And that means I know for a fact that every Saturday, Rumble is at Junior Wonderbolts Prep. He isn’t in the park, talking to strangers with unfamiliar voices. Even if those voices are strangely pleasant.
I pick up my pace and round the corner, breezing past a stand of laurel bushes. And on the other side of them I find my erstwhile student — looking like he’s trying to tie himself into a knot. My steps slow as I try to take in what I’m seeing. His forelegs are looped through his hind legs, his face is contorted with the strain, and his little wings are fluttering feebly as he tries to shove himself through the loop his legs have made.
“Rumble!” I say before I can stop myself. “What are you doing?”
His only answer is a pained grunt, but someone behind him chuckles. “He’s trying to master pretzel pose, and he is slaying.”
She peels herself out of the shade of the laurel bush, its green perfectly camouflaging her green, and I blink, realising I know this pony. I’ve seen her meditating in the park, and once at the music festival Princess Twilight organised, I saw her hunched over a little glass tube thing behind the porta-potties.
“Oh," I say, nonplussed. She isn’t an educator. I don’t think she even has a job. “It’s you…uh…”
“Treehugger,” she supplies, bending her head in an imitation of a bow that doesn’t actually feel mocking. Her smile is too broad for that, too genuine. “At your service, Miss Cheerilee.”
How does she know my name? But never mind that. “Why are you out here in the middle of nowhere?” And what exactly are your childcare qualifications?
“We’re practising being at one with nature,” she says, as though that explains everything.
I scowl and hurry towards Rumble, who is starting to turn puce. “Rumble, sweetie, let’s just try going back the way you came, okay?”
“Hang on, man,” Treehugger says slowly, though she makes no move to stop me. “He’s almost cracked it.”
“He’s almost cracked his spine, you mean,” I snap without thinking, and Rumble gives a strangled little scream. “I mean — no, Rumble, you’re fine, you’re fine. Just keep edging back, that’s it.”
With a little finesse and more than a little brute force, I manage to untangle him, and he stands up on shaky hooves. “Thanks, Miss Cheerilee,” he mutters. “I think I was almost there, though.”
Treehugger nods. “Right on, little dude.”
I kneel down to look into his eyes, pushing his mussed mane back so I can see him more clearly. “Does your brother know about this lesson, Rumble?”
She doesn’t exactly scream qualified professional to me. And given what I saw that day at the festival, who knows what habits she’s teaching him, besides this bizarre form of exercise? I try to be upbeat and positive, but there are some things you have to draw a line at. Children Rumble’s age are impressionable, and a junkie doesn’t seem like an appropriate mentor figure.
“Yeah,” he says, and Treehugger finally rises from her cross-legged pose — are our legs even supposed to bend that way? — to rest a hoof on his shoulder.
“Soarin’ and me go way back, Teach,” she smiles, her half-lidded purple eyes catching the light. “Half the ‘Bolts come to me for flexibility training.”
Or doping. The response is almost out of my mouth before I catch myself. But it’s too much, too catty — and I don’t want Rumble to hear me accuse his brother even indirectly.
“Hm,” is what I say instead, my lips pursing tight.
Treehugger’s smile broadens, and suddenly I feel a little ridiculous. A parody of the uptight schoolmarm, her mane pulled so tightly into a bun that it stretches the skin of her face.
“It’s just yoga,” Treehuggers says, mussing Rumble’s mane. “Builds adaptability as well as strength. Makes you a better flyer, right, R?”
He grins at the nickname, and I feel a twisting in my gut. I may have overstepped my bounds.
I swallow. “Oh. Right. Well, I’m sorry for interrupting. I’ll let you get back to it, then.”
“Nah.” She yawns and stretches. “I think we’re done for the day, Rumble, little man. Keep up with your excercises at home and we’ll try pretzel pose again next week.”
Rumble’s wings droop. “Aw. Okay.”
“Want me to walk you home?”
I had been going to offer, but she jumps in before I can.
He shakes his head. “No. I’ll fly. It’s faster. Bye, Treehugger.” He shoots me a look, and I wince internally. “Bye, Miss Cheerilee.”
“See you on Monday, Rumble,” I manage weakly, and in a buzz of little feathers, he takes off.
Treehugger turns to me, her eyes alight with some sort of private joke. “Want me to walk you home?”
“What?” My ears tilt back. “No thank you.”
“I figure we could use a chance to talk a little,” she says, ignoring me completely and starting to walk down the path that’s my route back to town. She’s left me little choice, and I reluctantly fall into step beside her.
“About what?”
“I teach a few of your kids,” she replies. “Diamond and Silver cross-train with me for their ballet. And those funky little kids with the capes come to me sometimes to see if they can get yoga cutie marks. It’d be cool if we didn’t have any more misunderstandings.”
I scowl. This mare has been teaching my students? That’s my job. I could have taught them yoga, if I’d known they wanted to learn it. Probably. I picture Rumble’s face as he tried to pretzel himself and shudder. Maybe not. But I could weave the easier aspects it into a PE lesson, surely.
She’s watching the play of emotions over my face and nudges me. “Come on. Spill.”
I gasp at the physical contact from a stranger. “Spill what?”
“Whatever the problem is.”
“What about the — that thing I saw you doing once?”
She stares. “Gonna have to be more specific than that, Teach.”
“The,” I start at a normal volume, then lower my voice, even though there’s no one around. “The drugs.”
Her eyes widen, losing their sleepy expression for the first time all morning, and she laughs in surprise. “The what?”
“The drugs,” I hiss. “I saw you. At the festival last year. You — you had a tube thingie.”
She shakes her head in disbelief, her red dreads swinging. “Cheerliee, it’s called a bong.”
“A bong,” I repeat, the word dirty on my tongue. “You were huffing glue out of it, or something! You were probably doing — doing—” oh, Celestia, why can’t I think of the names of any hallucinogenics, “Hard drugs or mushrooms or something.”
There is a very long pause, and the two of us stare almost blankly into each other’s eyes. Her purple eyes don’t match her coat or her hair, but they’re…very pretty. Especially when she opens them all the way.
Then Treehugger begins to laugh, and I feel the heat rush to my face.
“Hard drugs?” she repeats, between giggles.
“Y-yes,” I stammer. “And you can’t be a teacher if you do that sort of thing.”
“It was weed,” she says at last. “A little bit of MJ. It doesn’t do anything but chill you out, and you can teach anything, even yoga, if you’re buzzed while you do it.”
“Weed?” I echo, picturing dandelions and nettles.
She nods in confirmation. “Not a mushroom in sight, I swear. Just weed. Very, very mild stuff. And if I take some at a gig, where there’s no kids and none of my clients, I don’t think it impacts my ability to teach.”
“But aren’t you — an addict?”
She sighs and bumps me with her hip. I squeak at the contact, and she giggles.
“No,” she says, as though it is very obvious. “I’m not. Are you addicted to cider?”
That floors me. “What?”
“I saw you drinking some at S-A-A at last year’s harvest,” she smirks. “That make you an alkie?”
“N-no,” I mumble. “But cider isn’t…”
“It gives you a buzz, right?”
“Yeah.” I’m beginning to feel like more of an idiot than I already did. I always assumed that her sleepy gait and the drag in her voice meant that she was the town stoner, but…maybe that’s just the way she talks.
“Exactly like weed. Done in moderation, it’s harmless.” She snorts. “And honestly, Teach, maybe you should try some?”
I feel myself blanch. I can’t help but imagine what the PTA would say. “Me?”
“Yeah, you.” She nods before ducking to avoid a tree branch. “Of all the ponies I know, you sure seem like you could use some help chilling out.”
My mouth open in mute protest, I stand stock-still, rooted in place as I watch her sway her way down the path up ahead. The dreadlocks in her tail wave a counterpoint to the motion of her haunches, and she shoots me a look over her shoulder that shows me she knows that she’s won this little battle.
“Let me know if you ever want to try any of mine,” she calls back. “I grow my own, and I think you’d like it.”
And then she’s gone, blending back into the forest as though she’s a part of it, and I’m left staring after her.
