Adventures Are No Fun.

Screech woke with a scream. Her nightmare was about her mother. She was happy it was not about Periwinkle. She picked her head up off the table. She was in the library. She looked at the wall clock. Ten minutes.

Scoops sauntered into the library. She spotted Screech lying her head on a table. She was sleeping peacefully. She sat beside Screech. "Wake up!" she yelled.

Screech flew to the ceiling with bared her fangs. She dropped to the floor. "Leave me alone."

"You looked like you were having a nightmare," lied Scoops.

Screech hissed, "I wasn't." She looked at the clock. Four minutes. "How did you get out of history class?"

"Bathroom. Why aren't you in detention?"

"That is not the punishment I deserve."

Scoops nodded and waited for the opportunity to talk. "Want to be my mare-friend?"

"No." Screech laid her head back on the desk.

"You aren't gay?"

Screech blushed. "That is none of your business."

Scoops smiled. "I knew you were." She wrapped both of her forelegs around Screeche's.

Screech pulled her leg free. She fought the urge to bring her hoof down on Scoop's skull. She heard Periwinkle screaming and her stomach turned. She put her hoof on her chair. "Please leave me alone. I don't want to hurt you."

"That is so sweet," said Scoops with a smile. "I am sure you will not hurt me. No pony has ever broken my heart." Her smile looked a little too big.

"I am not gay."

Scoops shrugged. "I don't mind. I will love you either way."

Screeche's heart jumped into her throat. "You what?"

Scoops smiled. She could have been mistaken for a safe cracker. "I- Love- You."

Screech didn't breath.

Scoops wrapped her hooves around Screech. She pressed her maturing body against the younger fille's. "How about we go on a date?"

"Ok-k-kay," Screech stammered out as she leapt out of her chair and flew out of the library.

Screech stood on top of the rock slide. It was made of smooth plastic. Nothing in the Platinum Park playground was made of rock. Everything from the purple and yellow seesaw to the pinks swings were plastic. The floor was a dull orange rubber.

Bobo sat against the far wall in the middle of one of the four hop scotch courts. The same Foals who cried when they saw Screech pet him. He stared at Screech. She looked away.

Wild sat on the bottom of the slide. He tossed bread crumbs to a colonies of moles.

Screech sat on the ground out side the bad wing of Luna's. The warm sunlight baked her coat. The slow wind ruffled her mane.

Wild glanced at the some-pony special of the fillies he poured house paint on. "I am going to get my flank kicked the moment you are gone."

Screech nodded. "You deserve it."

Wild laughed. "I know, two wings."

"I am helping out at the daycare," announced Scoops.

"I can't imagine foals liking you," said Wild without a hint of sarcasm.

Scoops laughed. Her first genuine laugh. "Kids love me."

Screech looked up at the partly cloudy sky. "I am helping the weather team. We need to gather stray rain clouds."

Wild stuck his tongue out at the burly colt. "I hear the kids from the good wing get to volunteer at the butterfly garden. Not moving logs for over industrious beavers."

"Monsters deserve to be punished. Screech stretched her wings. She fought back a yawn.

"I am not a monster," objected Scoops.
No pony said a word.

Screech sat on the sloped wood shingled roof of her school. She drew a picture of Wild, Ham and their friends throwing water balloons at the kids who had to show up on their days off to take "truth" classes.

"You like baseball?" asked Wild.

Screech shrugged. "I hope if I give her what she wants she will leave me alone."

"Slut!" yelled Ham.

Screech continued her drawing.

Wild threw a balloon at Ham. "It is nice to see you trying to make a friend. You have changed a lot since Dodge."

Screech smiled. She felt pride well up in her chest. Her stomach churned. She leaned over the edge of the roof and hurled. Her pried left with her breakfast.

Ham Bone rolled a baseball like a bowling ball across a tennis court.

Wild Heart sat on the ground beside Ham. His black eye was covered by an ice pack. "Why are we on a tennis court?"

Ham shrugged. "Curfew is not for another hour. What do you want to do?"

Bright Melodie put her chin on her hooves. "I am fine laying on plastic bleachers for an hour."

Screech tossed a baseball to Ham. She didn't offer an excuse for being at the court so no pony asked.

"How did your date go?" asked Ham.

Screech shrugged. "Scoops was quiet the entire game. She is pretty when she isn't talking."

"That is most mares," joked ham.

Screech and Wild teased, "Slut," at the same time.

"Scoops seems nice," said Melodie. "She was the first pony to be nice to me at Luna's. She was one of the first ponies ever to not run away when I told her I was an umbrum."

Ham rolled the baseball. "She wants to sleep with you."

Melodie flicked her pink and gold tail. "I know. Why do you think I am doing her this favor?"

"She asked me to me her mare friend," said Screech pointedly.

Melodie looked to Screech. "She told me you said no."

"I didn't say anything," lied Screech. "Marry her if you want."

Melodie flicked her long twisting tail. "I will. If I want."

Screech hissed under her breath.

A gang of earth ponies with black duffel bags over their shoulders and hard liquor in their hooves walked across two courts. They stopped a few hooves from Ham.

"Beat it kids this is our territory," barked a thirty something year old pony. His old double breasted jacket reeked of vodka and urine. The kids glanced at him for less than a second.

Melodie looked at the gang. The whites in the umbrum's deep spiraling black eyes glowed green. "Go turn your selves in at the police station."

The gang of ponies nodded to show they understood and marched away.

"Make them leave the boos," said Ham.

Melodie put her chin back on her hooves. "No. I am not letting you molotov Luna's."

"Do you think one of those guys was Scoop's dad?" asked Screech.

"Why would Scoops want me to give one of those jerks an autographed baseball?" asked Wild.

"Because he is her dad dumbass," said Melodie without raising her head.

The gang of ponies marched up to the kids again. "You just earned yourselves a beating," snapped the leader.

"You Scoopse's dad?" asked Wild with no interest in the answer.

A young stallion stepped forward. He looked far too young to be any pony's das. He had an ice-cream cone as a cutie mark. "That is me. How is she doing?" He caught the baseball.

Ham shrugged. "Didn't ask. She just told me to deliver the ball."

"She told me to deliver the ball," corrected Melodie. "I can't be filly-napped because my body is made of smoke." The bright gold swirls on her shiny black coat started to move.

"I am not going to..." Cone looked at the ground. "Tell her I am sorry."

Melodie yawned.

"Scram!" shouted the leader.

The kids rolled their eyes and left.

"Why bother having the ball signed if she is not going to give it to him herself?" asked Ham.

"She loves him as much as she hates him," guessed Screech.

"Parents suck. I am going to make sure my kids never have parents," Wild half joked.

Two hours after curfew Screech wondered through Ponyville. Unless she was exhausted enough to sleep through her nightmares she never got any rest. Her eyes glowed in the soft moon light. She passed by tall metal street lamps and straight rows of cozy little homes. She hard a faint cry so quiet even her ears had trouble hearing it. She stared up at a small grey and white kitten. The kitten stared back, eyes also aglow, and mewed.

Screech flew to the top of the lamp post. The kitten was wearing a collar made of rope and cardboard. "Bird food" was written on the collar.

The kitten mewed but didn't move.

Screech tried to pick up the kitten. It was glued to the lamp post. Her first instinct was to put the poor creature out of its misery. She shook her grandmother's voice from her head. "Meow," said screech hoping it would reassure her new friend she would be back soon.

"Mew," responded Bird Food as if she understood.

Screech flew away to find any unicorn. She flew faster than she did when she was in the rodeo. Her lean body tore through the night sky at a speed that would make a falcon look like a dodo. She was grateful Luna's windows never closed properly as she tore one open. She grabbed Scoops and returned to Bird Food without explaining where they were going.

On the lamp post was four paws, a clump of fur and a puddle of dried glue.

Screech glided to the ground. She knew she didn't always have the best reasons for killing dogs. She didn't think she was any better than the pegasus who glued Bird Food to the lamp post. She accepted this was a form of punishment for killing animals. If she was not a monster she would have been able to save Bird Food.

Screech burst into tears. She stomped her hooves so hard they hurt. She hated being a monster. She sobbed so loudly she hurt her own ears. She wanted to kill something. Anything.

"Can you take me back to Luna's," asked Scoops through a yawn. "I need to get six hours or I look tired."

Screech stomped as hard as she could. She grabbed Scoops and flew back to Luna's.

Screech flew around Luna's seventy-two times. She had done it wrong the first sixty-three times.

When screech returned to her bedroom she found it ransacked. "Goddesses live among us!" was painted across the wall in white paint. She didn't care about the room and she didn't own much, so no real harm was done. Her crayons were broken. Her letters from Carver were untouched. No pony wanted to die.

Screech pushed her mattress back onto its bedframe and took off her prosthetic wing. She could still smell the ponies who were in her room. She could have tracked them down easily. She went to bed.

After school Screech sat on her bed. Two letters sat in front of her. She was only expecting one. One was from Carver. The other from Mrs. McVeigh. Screech wondered how a mare who was eaten by her own rabid dogs could send letters. She opened the letter from Mrs. McVeigh.

"Prey is doing well," Mrs. McVeigh's letter read. "We did not cast him out no matter how much Funny begged us to.

The entire town is mad at you. Myself included.

Word of your attempt to murder me spread to Manehatten. You are not getting your new wing.

Your hero ceremony is now in honor of Mrs. McVeigh. I thought you would want to know that. You seemed to enjoy irony.
I hope you are doing well. I hope you know I will never forgive you.

-Periwinkle."

Wild slipped bits of cheese through a crack in the wall. "Why are you crying?"

Screech hissed. She hissed and hissed until her throat burned more than her eyes.

"Use your pony words."

"I hope the rats bite you!" Screech grabbed her broken crayons. She had to write back. She stared at a blank page for an hour. There was nothing she could say.