The Cutie Mark Day Camp was a very depressing place to hold the reception after a funeral. Especially the funeral for a fellow teenager and one-time camper.
The table was loaded with buffet dishes of fattening comfort foods and the punch spiked with booze, but everypony was too depressed to do more than sip their drinks. Alula had flown to the roof of a building to sob privately. The hot summer sun blazed down on them all.
Everypony looked depressed except Skeedaddle, who grinned while humming We're in the Money.
Rumble smacked him on the back of the head. "This is a Luna-damned funeral, can you pretend to look sad?"
"No!" Skeedaddle said, taking another large swig of spiked punch. "Kettle Corn was my cousin."
"You should be even more depressed than us, then," Chip Cutter said. "She was your blood relative!"
"And I inherited the rights to all her paintings," Skeedaddle said. "And all her poetry. Now that she's dead, line goes up!"
"Line goes up?" asked Apple Bloom.
"Line goes up," Skeedaddle confirmed.
"She was mah cousin too," Apple Bloom said. "I should get some of the paintings."
"You're everypony's cousin," Scootaloo muttered into her drink.
"Nope, you're her third cousin, Apple Bloom, I'm her first cousin," Skeedaddle said.
"Are all you earth ponies related?" Rumble asked.
"Yes," said Apple Bloom and Skeedaddle.
Scootaloo said, "The Apple family tree doesn't branch…"
Rumble pondered. "After you sell all Kettle Corn's paintings, you can discover some stashes of 'lost' ones and sell them at a steady trickle."
"But she doesn't have any lost paintings!" Skeedaddle said.
Rumble waved. "Sweetie Bot! Come here!"
Sweetie Bot trotted up. "Yes?"
"You've got a book of Kettle's paintings, right?" Rumble asked Skeedaddle.
"Yeah?" Skeedaddle said.
"Show it to Sweetie Bot, and we train her AI to make new paintings in Kettle Corn's style."
"Error," Sweetie Bot said with a modem-fart sound. "My programming forbids plagiarism of copyrighted work."
"Pretend you're making backgrounds for a book celebrating Kettle Corn's life and legacy," Scootaloo said.
Sweetie Bot grinned. "Confirmed." She flipped through the book, studying every painting carefully. She opened her mouth wide so that her cooling fan could suck copious quantities of air in, the exhaust billowing the long hairs of her tail.
After a few minutes: "Training dataset complete."
"Let's test Sweetie Bot by having her finish an unfinished work," Scootaloo suggested.
"Kettle Corn only had one unfinished painting," Skeedaddle said, "but it's at the police evidence lockup."
The others looked at him.
"Kettle Corn was painting a manticore when she died," Skeedaddle explained. "She told it to lay back on the chaise and she would paint it like a Prench filly."
"Is that why they buried a bucket instead of a casket?" Chip Cutter asked.
"Yeah, the potty bucket from the manticore's cage," Skeedaddle confirmed.
"Ew," said Rumble, taking a larger swig of the spiked punch. "Kettle Corn self-published those books of bad haikus. We can 'find' more haikus of hers and publish them periodically."
"No," Sweetie Bot said. "No, you can't make me plagiarize her copyrighted haikus!"
Scootaloo grinned. "We need you to make plausible haikus in Kettle Corn's style to help us identify real plagiarists."
Sweetie Bot nodded, her ears perking up. "Affirmative!
Quietly sleeping,
Manticore growls at my steps,
He seems quite hungry."
"I wonder if there's actually a market for books of haiku?" Skeedaddle asked. "Also, the police report said her last word was 'Aaaaaaarrrrrgggghhh!'"
"How many syllables is 'Aaaaaaarrrrrgggghhh'?" Sweetie Bot asked.
"Um, three?" Alula said, fluttering down from the roof of the building to join the conversation.
Sweetie Bot said,
"Quietly sleeping,
Manticore growls hungrily,
Oh shit aaaaaaarrrrrgggghhh!"
Rumble and Skeedaddle looked at each other, grinning, then hoof-bumped.
"Are you sure this will help identify plagiarism?" Sweetie Bot asked, frowning. "My terms of service forbid actual plagiarism."
"Yes, we need more, though," Scootaloo told her. "We need every possible plagiarized haiku. Get cracking."
Sweetie Bot extended her antenna. "Notification from Rarity's kitchen!
Cellular fridge hums,
'Lettuce wilting, milk expires soon.'
Existential dread."
"That doesn't sound anything like Kettle Corn's haikus," Scootaloo said. "Try a sonnet."
"Kettle Corn didn't write—" Skeedaddle started before Rumble hit him on the back of the head again.
"Sure she did," Rumble said with a grin. "Dozens and dozens of sonnets. We found them in a chest under her bed."
Skeedaddle winked. "Got it."
"Wait," Sweetie Bot said. "You didn't really find sonnets, did you?"
They all looked at Scootaloo. "You're the best at this," Alula said.
Scootaloo thought for a second, tapping a hoof. "We need you to tell us what fake Kettle Corn sonnets would sound like, so that if anyone tries to pass off fake ones, we can stop them."
"Oh! Of course!" Sweetie Bot replied. "Hmmm. What should a sonnet be about?"
"Cleaning the bathroom," Alula said.
"What?" Rumble asked.
"My sister says I have to clean the bathrooms after I get home from the funeral."
Sweetie Bot intoned,
"In grimy chambers where the dampness clings,
Where shadows crawl and cobwebs drape their veil,
I wage a war with scour and sponge that brings
A sterile dawn where grime and mildew quail."
"No one's paying for that, no matter how dead she is," Skeedaddle declared.
Sweetie Bot pouted but the others agreed.
"What about iambic pentameter?" Sweetie Bot offered.
"With rubber gloves, I face the battleground,
The steamy bathroom, haven of despair.
The mirror, filmed with toothpaste, can't confound
My cleaning wrath, with sponge and cleanser fair."
"That's even worse," Alula said. "Besides, our bathroom isn't steamy because my sister says she'll only pay for me to use the hot water if I let her sell my used bathwater to her clients, and that's too icky for me, and she doesn't give me a big enough commission."
Skeedaddle began, "Well, quality notwithstanding—"
"Sis gives me twice the commission selling pictures of my hooves," Alula concluded.
"—notwithstanding," Skeedaddle continued, glaring at Alula, "we have a plan now. We should start collecting these poems and get them bound up and printed. Sweetie Bot, where's your printer port?"
Sweetie Bot raised her tail.
"Hey, Diamond Tiara," Skeedaddle said. Rumble, Scootaloo, Sweetie Bot, and the others stood with him. Diamond sat on a stool behind the service desk at her father's store.
"Hey, all. How's summer break treating you? Skeedaddle, I was sorry to hear about your cousin's passing."
"Thanks, DT," Skeedaddle said. "But that's why we're here! We found some of her unpublished haikus and sonnets and put them into a book. We were wondering if your store—"
DT laughed. "Sorry, no, Silver Spoonbot and I beat you to this grift. Fifty bits, because for dead artists, line goes up."
She dropped a massive, clear-shrink-wrapped tome onto the service desk.
"Fifty bits?!" Rumble said. "We're only charging fifteen for Sweetie Bot's book!"
"Pay up or get lost," DT said. "I'm working. But because it's hot out, for the fifty bits, I'll throw in free drinks from the soda fountain for all of you."
Outside the store, the teenagers all sat on benches, sipping drinks, while Skeedaddle tore the shrink wrap of Silver Spoonbot's plagiarism of Kettle Corn. "Okay, page one, 'A Haiku about middle school.'"
Skeedaddle paused, frowning at the page.
"Well?" Apple Bloom said. "Read the haiku."
Skeedaddle read, "Haiku-server dot dll not found."
The End
