Another Lovely Day in the Neighbourhood

“So, where’s your girlfriend?”

Flash looked up from his phone. He’d been busy hashing out a new song in the notes app. He had the melody and the chorus down, but the transition chords between verses needed—

“Earth to space cadet, you copy?” Lyra waved a hand in front of his face.

“Yeah, totally!” Flash said. “What were you asking me again?”

“Your girlfriend,” Lyra said. “Where is she?”

“Oh! Sunset.” Flash grinned. “She’s still on her trip.”

“Where?”

“She’s—” Flash took a second to think “—Out of town. At some school event.”

“Do you know when she gets back?”

“Later this week. But that’s not important. You got some time? I have a new song idea I wanna hash out with you.”

“Oh, sweet! Definitely. I’ll grab Vinyl and—”

“Lyra!”

Flash and Lyra turned toward Bon Bon on the opposite end of the classroom. She had a hard glare directed at Lyra with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Uh oh. Looks like I did something wrong. Gotta go deal with that.” She pointed finger guns at him and clicked her tongue. “I’ll talk to you later. Really wanna hear the new Sentry original.”

“For sure. We’ll talk soon,” Flash replied. “Try to remember your instrument this time.”

“I’ll—”

“Lyra!”

“Gotta scoot! Later Flash!” Lyra took off.

Flash watched her go, taking in the rest of the classroom. A small tiled room with nine evenly spaced desks and walls plastered over with colourful posters. All of them were mayoral campaign messages from Celestia with a slogan of ‘Call ?#$-^&*-@#!^ if you need help’.

He didn’t know what kind of problem you would need to call a number like that, but he doubted that he would ever need to.

Another glance toward his classmates. Lyra was getting reamed out by Bon Bon. Moondancer was huddled up in a corner with her nose in a book. Vinyl was bobbing her head to music. Bulk was trying to look as small as possible. Timber—

Two hands slammed down onto Flash’s desk.

“$%^!#&*(%^?!.”

Flash looked at Timber in surprise. He was waaay too close and Flash could easily make out the bags under his eyes and haggardness in his face. Also—

“What did you say?” Flash asked.

“$%^!#&*(%^?!,” Timber repeated.

It sounded like what he would expect Wingdings to sound like if they were even remotely pronounceable.

“Again, what?”

Timber rubbed his forehead with a hand.

“Nevermind,” he said. “Do you know where you are?”

“School?” Flash said, a hint of uncertainty in his voice.

“No, Flash. Where are you?”

Flash shrugged helplessly.

“Dammit— Okay, listen. I’m gonna tell you something. It’s really important that you remember this, okay?”

“Yeah sure. What is it?”

He leaned in close, his breath tickling Flash’s ear.

“Remember that none of this—”