Chapters A Pilot and a Pastry Maker
Second Lieutenant Rebecca Douglas strolled into Sugarcube Corner Bakery and Candy Emporium, her rainbow hair just peeking out beneath her US Air Force cap, and smiled at the short, round-faced woman behind the counter, whose mass of curly pink hair was tied up in a hairnet. Her name tag read “Pinkamena D. Pie, Proprietor”.
“Hey, Dashie!” the shop-owner said with a grin.
Pinkie lacked her usual bubbly cheer. It could have been because of Gummy’s illness, but Rebecca wasn’t so sure.
“Are you OK, Pinks?” she asked. “You seem a little… off.”
The two lovers smiled at one another, and kissed again, their lips brushing softly. Pinkamena giggled, and looked up at the clock on the wall. It was two minutes to five.
“I think we can close up early tonight,” Pinkie said, locking the door and flipping the sign to “Closed”. “I want to spend as much time with you as I can! We’ll have so much fun and bake cupcakes and watch movies and have a totally awesome send-off party for you!”
Pinkie did a happy little dance around the room before disappearing upstairs into the flat they shared above the shop. She turned right and bounced into the kitchen, while Rebecca took a left into the living room and flopped onto the large pink faux-leather sofa.
“Becky?” Pinkie called from the kitchen excitedly,.
Rebecca grinned and selected a cake with light blue icing and a cherry on top. She was never sure if Pinkie was as absent-minded as she made out, or if she planned everything, but it was cute either way.
“By the way,” Rebecca said, “You have to let me choose the movie.”
They settled down to watch an action film about a spy (and his attractive Russian love interest), some exploding helicopters, some cool cars, and a villain who wanted to use a giant laser to cause an earthquake that would flood the world. Pinkie didn’t quite get it.
“You’re not supposed to get it,” Rebecca said when she asked. “You’re just supposed to watch it for the explosions and hot girls.”
The couple sat there in silence for a while, enjoying each other’s company and losing track of whatever plot the film had.
Finally, Rebecca broke the silence. “Do you remember when we first started dating at high school?”
Pinkamena gave up and made her way upstairs sadly. Rebecca just needed some space, she supposed, and she’d be better in the morning. Pinkie resolved to get up early to see her off, just as she flopped on their empty bed and burst into tears.
The loud beep of her alarm clock woke her up at 4:30. She rolled over and rubbed her eyes, and slid herself out of bed. She yawned, pushed her feet into her pink bunny slippers, and shuffled across the bedroom and out of the door onto the landing. She opened the door to her left and entered the kitchen, where she made herself a cup of coffee, being careful not to make too much noise.
Once her coffee (milk, seven sugars) was done, she took the mug with her back across the small landing and nudged open the door to the dark living room. To her surprise, the sofa was empty, although it had clearly been slept on.
There was no reply. She turned on the light, put down her mug, and looked around. Sticking out from under a lamp on the coffee table was a piece of paper, folded in half with “Pinkamena” scrawled on it in what looked like Rebecca’s neat handwriting.
Pinkie,
Pinkie stood there for a moment, not quite sure what to make of the letter. She put it back on the table, where she had found it, and walked over to the tank at the end of the room, below the window.
“Hey, Gummy,” she said to the small alligator inside. “How are you?”
Gummy didn’t respond, partly because he was asleep, and partly because he was an alligator.
Pinkie had adopted Gummy from a reptile sanctuary in the city two years ago. He had a rare genetic defect that meant he would never grow longer than 3’ in length, and that he had no teeth. Pinkie, who had been something of an outcast all her life due to her naturally pink hair, had immediately sympathised with the poor alligator, and adopted him on the spot.
Gummy had been ill lately, and it seemed to be getting worse. The white patch on his back was spreading, and ha had been becoming more docile recently. He almost looked like he was in pain.
Pinkie sighed. “I hope you’re OK, Gummy. Hannah will make you better, I promise. She’s the best vet in the world.”
Pinkie Pie clumsily pushed open the door to the veterinary clinic, carrying Gummy’s tank in both arms. Pinkie was a small woman, only a smidgen over five feet tall and of a slim build, and the tank was very heavy indeed, so she struggled to carry it. She stepped into the waiting room, and made her way to the receptionist’s desk.
“I have an appointment with Dr Falter for ten o’clock,” she wheezed.
Pinkie thanked the receptionist and sat down on the nearest chair, putting Gummy’s tank down on the floor. The old lady next to her was stroking a fat, long-haired, white cat, and next to her was a man with a puppy who was holding its paw in a manner that implied it was injured.
Pinkie sat reading some celebrity gossip magazine (apparently, yet another sports star had been caught having an affair, and some actress or other was gaining weight) until she was called through to Hannah’s office.
Dr Hannah Falter was a rather attractive woman, of average height, with small features and long, strawberry-blonde hair that half-covered one of her large cyan eyes. She had been at high school with Pinkie, Rebecca, and their friend Emma, but in the year above them.
She was very shy, and had always been fond of animals. Since she never spoke to anybody, she didn’t have many friends and often got teased by other students, but Pinkie and her friends had accepted her into their group regardless and had stayed in touch while she studied veterinary medicine at the local university. She had graduated only a year ago, and was the youngest and the newest vet at the clinic.
“Hey, Hannah!” Pinkie said excitedly, greeting her old friend with a hug once she had placed Gummy safely on the table.
Pinkie described the problem as best she could, pointing out the white patches and lack of movement, and mentioned that he appeared to be in pain.
“Could it be related to his genetic condition?” she asked.
Hannah took swabs of Gummy’s scales in various places, and a couple of blood samples, and sealed them in labelled containers for tests. She smiled softly at Pinkamena, and quietly left the room.
Pinkie lifted herself up with her hands, and sat on the table next to Gummy. She gently stroked his scales. They felt dry.
“It’ll be OK, Gummy. I promise.”
The alligator made an odd growling sound in response. Pinkie gently picked him up and cradled him in her lap. He opened his mouth to reveal the toothless gums that had given him his name. He wagged his stubby tail slightly as Pinkie stroked the length of his back.
After a while, Dr Falter returned.
“Well, I’ve sent the samples off for testing,” she said quietly. “I should hopefully have the results back in about a week.”
Meanwhile, in a top secret military facility among the mountains in southern Missouri, 2nd Lt Rebecca Douglas was getting suited up for her flight.
She found herself thinking about the girlfriend she had left behind in a whole other state. Maybe she had overreacted—in fact, she had overreacted. Pinkamena was worried about her, and she had just shouted at her. If something went wrong, and she never returned—which was very possible indeed—was that how she would be remembered? She didn’t want to end on an argument.
With great apprehension, she checked her parachute and, steeling herself, lowered her body into the cockpit. She pushed some buttons, lights came on, and the aircraft began making noise. She put on her headset just in time to hear the countdown begin.
As the sun set over the south-western Missouri Ozarks, Jackie McIntosh looked up at the sky and mopped the sweat from her brow. She had spent all morning harvesting apples from the orchards she ran with her brother, and she was exhausted. She couldn’t wait to get a nice cool shower and crawl into bed.
It sometimes got lonely in the small rural community she lived in—everyone was friendly and all, but she got bored of seeing the same old people day in, day out. Her older brother (whose name was John, but everyone just knew him as Big McIntosh) was a man of few words, but he was just about the closest thing she had to a friend.
The people in the town nearby were friendly enough, of course, and Jackie (whom they had affectionately nicknamed Applejack) was always more than happy to take the apple cart to the town market every Sunday, but the brief exchange of pleasantries she usually enjoyed was hardly a substitute for real friends.
Her little sister, Jennifer, was only seven, and therefore spent most days at the school in town and couldn’t help out on the farm. Jackie loved her very much, and called her Apple Bloom because she wanted to see her sister “bloom like an apple tree in springtime.”
Big McIntosh was not quite so fond of his youngest sister, although he hid it well under his layer of stoicism. He knew it wasn’t her fault, but he couldn’t help but blame Jennifer for their mother’s death; there had been complications during her birth and, despite the town doctor’s best efforts, Mrs Mary McIntosh had passed away a few hours after Jennifer was born.
Traumatised by his wife’s death, and afraid of the idea of running the farm and bringing up the three children on his own, their father left home shortly afterwards. He had left Mary’s mother, Doris Smith, in charge of the farm, but she soon became unable to run the orchard herself due to her old age and passed it on to Big McIntosh.
Jackie sat on a stump and thought about her parents. She quickly wiped away the tears from her eyes—she couldn’t be seen to cry—and turned to go inside. As she did, she heard a loud roaring sound from above. He eyes still bleary, she looked up to see a plane soaring across the amber sky.
It looked like it was spinning out of control, and it descended rapidly. It soon disappeared behind a small mountain nearby, and a loud crash shook the orchard. Jackie ran towards it curiously.