Unexpected Changes

Glory's mom was still at work for the next two hours, so the girls had to walk home. Rather, they walked to the nearest place where they would all gather, which would often be either Lily or Daisy's place, as they were right next to each other. Snapdragon lived further out, and Glory lived just outside the city limits.

Today, they were going to Daisy's house. Lily's was closer, but since her dad wasn't home, they didn't all want to be under the care of a sitter. Lily excused herself to go talk to the sitter, to let her know that she was going to be next door, then came right back, as if it weren't a problem at all.

"So, do you like your sitter?" asked Daisy, walking into her bedroom.

"I mean, I barely know her," admitted Lily. "She's a little strange, but she's kind of sweet, and very earnest."

"If you needed a place to stay, darling, you could have asked," shrugged Glory. "I'm sure my parents wouldn't have minded."

"I know," answered Lily. "It's fine. She knows what I need, so it's not a problem."

"It shouldn't be too much for my parents to figure out. My sister already went through heat, so they should know what to expect."

"Yeah, but... My dad's going to be gone for a few months."

The room fell silent as everypony turned to stare at Lily.

"I'm sorry," chuckled Daisy. "Did you say... months?"

"Yeah," answered Lily. "He left a few days ago, and he said he'd hired a gryphon lawyer to look into something with him in addition to his normal business. Honestly, it's kind of strange that he told me that much. But when the sitter arrived, she said she'd been hired to look after me for the next few months."

"So... There are no parents at your house?" grinned Glory. "That's prime party time!"

"She still has a sitter, though," scolded Snapdragon. "That means there's still a responsible adult over there."

"Plus, what kind of wild party would we throw?" asked Daisy. "It can't be too wild; Lily still has to live there the day after."

"I guess you're right," sighed Glory. "I don't even know what kind of party to throw for an alien changeling robot's evil twin."

This time, when the room went quiet, all eyes shifted to Glory.

"What?" she asked. "That's the rumour that's spreading on the playground."

Lily raised her eyebrow. "The rumour is that I'm an alien changeling robot's evil twin?"

"That breathes fire," nodded Glory. "I specifically turned it around to give you fire breath."

"Why?"

"Because I thought that "heat vision" was a little too much on the nose. Which, if you have heat vision, and you cross your eyes, that's going to burn your nose. I wonder how those guys in the comics do that and still manage to breathe? I find it more difficult to breathe when it's hot outside, so if I had, like, these burning things right next to my nose all the time, I have to wonder... Would I just have to hold my breath until I was done with my laser beam thing? Oh, wait! How do I even turn it off! Do I have to have my eyes closed to breathe?!"

As she squeezed her eyes shut and started to hyperventilate, Lily grabbed her by the shoulder. "You can breathe just fine, Glory."

"Lily? I'm going to need you to be my eyes, so I can continue to breathe."

"No, you don't. You don't have heat vision."

Glory opened one eye, and seeing that the house wasn't on fire, she breathed a sigh of relief, then clasped her hooves over her mouth in panic.

"You don't have flame breath, either," grunted Daisy.

"Yeah, that's me that breathes fire," joked Lily.

"I knew it!" shouted Glory.

As the others rolled their eyes, Snapdragon turned to Lily. "So, tell us about this sitter. Is he cute?"

"She's an old lady. An old, hairy lady with a really weird accent."

"Maybe your sitter is the spy?" offered Glory.

"Don't be ridiculous," scoffed Lily. "She's not a spy. Who would she even be spying on? Me? I'm not exactly difficult to keep tabs on."

"Your dad's in a lot of business deals," offered Snapdragon. "Maybe she's spying on him?"

"I don't think so."

"But you don't know," warned Glory. "Because they programmed you to not remember!"

"That's enough," sighed Daisy. "Look, it's still Lily, she's just acting a bit strange, that's all..."

Lily's jaw dropped. "I'm acting strange?"

Daisy glanced to her friends, who were now turned away, pretending to be inspecting the ceiling. "Look, I don't mean anything by it, but you have to admit that you've been a bit... different... today. I mean, a whole jar of pickled eggs?"

"I was hungry!"

"For pickled eggs?"

Lily scrunched up her face. "No, I wanted a sandwich with popcorn and salted peanuts. Yes, for pickled eggs! Why else would I have brought pickled eggs?"

"Since when did you like pickled eggs? You have to admit, that's pretty weird..."

"Is it weird to eat eggs?"

"No."

"Is it weird to eat pickle relish?"

"Not on a hayburger, but--"

"So why is it weird to eat pickled eggs?"

"She has a point," noted Snapdragon. "I mean, we don't think it's too weird that Glory eats orange slices covered in chocolate."

"Yeah, we do," argued Lily. "But we accept that Glory is weird, and we like her anyway. We think it's weird, but we like Glory more than we think it's weird to mix chocolate with oranges."

"We still like you," countered Daisy. "It's just, you've never showed any interest in pickled eggs before. We didn't know you liked them."

"Well, neither did I until I tried them," Lily snapped back. "Have you tried them?"

"Well..."

Lily shook her head. "My sitter said she needed a snack when she arrived, because the trip was long. She had a jar of eggs, and they smelled tasty. So I tried one, and they were. Apparently, she makes them herself."

"Admittedly, I've never tasted one, myself," pouted Snapdragon. "Who knows? They might actually be really tasty. I'd be willing to try one, I think."

Realising that she was overstepping her bounds a bit, Daisy put her hooves up. "Okay, okay... I'll try one, too. Maybe you're right. Maybe they are delicious."

"Me, too," Glory nodded. "So, how often does this hairy old lady lay a pickled egg?"