Spies: Jrby AnonponymousChaptersESSPaintball TimeMischief and TroublesWhat is ESS?ESSTHE BIGGEST HOLE IN THE WORLD! Playing in holes is fun. The biggest hole in the world is in Equestria and it’s called the Galloping Gorge. It’s more than a thousand kilometres long and two kilometres deep, which means that if you fell into the deepest part, you’d have three and a half minutes to regret putting your hooves on that slippery piece of rock before you finally hit the bottom and went KER-SPLAT. Lots of ponies play inside the Galloping Gorge. They climb up the walls, they ride rafts down the river that runs along the base and some ponies even jump off the edge in hang gliders and fly down to the bottom. If you think that flying to the bottom of the world’s biggest hole with a little glider strapped to your back is too scary, a more sensible option is to go down in an air chariot. Lots of ponies do this and during tourist season dozens of air chariots swoop in and out of the canyon, keeping close to the edges. Most passengers get a thrill out of seeing the scenery whiz by, though it has been known to make some of them a bit queasy. The pegasi who fly into the canyon are very skillful and air chariots are very safe, so things never go wrong. Well, almost never… YOU MUST BE THIS TALL TO FLY! Five Years Ago Four year old Cat and her three year old brother Pancake were on holiday in Appleoosa. They spent the night in a motel a few kilometres from the Galloping Gorge. Before setting off to visit the gorge the next morning, the two youngsters were taken out into the desert sunshine and made to stand on the back of their family’s rental cart. Their Mummy, Daddy and older brother Streak stood alongside them and they got a mare who was walking by to take a photograph so that the whole family could be in it. Afterwards, the family got on their cart and set off for the gorge. When they arrived, Pancake escaped. The foal clambered between the metal railings and leaned over the biggest hole in the world before his mother dragged him away. ‘You’re a very silly colt, Pancake,’ she said sternly. ‘Stay away from the edge or I’ll make you wait behind when everyone else rides on the air chariot.’ ‘But I want to goooooooooooo in the chariot,’ Pancake whined. He kicked at the desert sand with a hoof and made a big fuss as his mum grabbed his ear in her mouth and marched him towards the runway. By the time the five members of the family arrived at the runway, Pancake’s fur was a mess: bright red, with snot and tears running everywhere. To make things worse, Pancake’s twelve year old brother Streak wouldn't let him look through his binoculars and his four year old sister Cat was behaving like a perfect little mare and generally showing her brother up. But Pancake forgot about his tantrum when he saw the air chariot coming in to land. It was silver. It had Princess Celestia's Cutie Mark painted on the side and it made such a racket that he held his hooves over his ears. The pegasi crew took off their harnesses, dressed in flight suits, ear protectors and goggles. He trotted over and opened the side doors while the rest of the crew waited patiently to the side and two fat stallions clambered out of the passenger compartment. As the stallions waddled towards the terminal building, the pegasus waved the family towards his chariot. But he frowned when they got close. He leaned inside his craft and pulled out a measuring stick. He lined it up against Cat and Pancake and supplied terrible news to the family: ‘They’re too short to fly, Mrs Gold. You have to be taller than my stick to ride in my Chariot.’ Pancake’s mum looked very upset. ‘But it was so expensive,’ she said. ‘We booked tickets for the whole family as a special treat.’ ‘It’s in the terms and conditions, maam. You should have read them. Our safety belts aren’t designed to hold small foals.’ ‘What if my husband and I hold on to one each?’ Mrs Gold asked. ‘I’m very sorry, but it’s against regulations. I could lose my licence if I let you do that.’ Pancake was too little to understand what was going on as a smiling mare came running out of the terminal building and gave ice creams to him and Cat. ‘I’ll make it up to you both,’ Pancake’s mum said, as she leaned down and gave her two youngest foals the kind of smile she usually saved for injections and trips to the dentist. ‘You’ll have to wait inside, but we’ll only be away for twenty minutes. The mare will look after you and she says they have a play area and a big box of toys.’ Cat looked upset, but Pancake was more concerned with tearing the wrapper off his ice cream, as his parents and older brother climbed inside the chariot. ‘So long, suckers!’ twelve-year-old Streak said, giving his little brother and sister a wave, as the pegasus slammed the door of the chariot and took his place at the front of the air chariot. Cat looked upset, but Pancake was finding his chocolate covered ice cream a highly satisfactory alternative to an air chariot ride, especially when he got inside the big glass terminal building and saw the play area with a giant model chariot and a trampoline. ‘Cry foal,’ Pancake sang to his sister, as he raced up the steps of the slide with his ice cream held in his mouth. As he glided down on his bum, a flash of orange light tore through the window, followed by an earthshaking bang. Everypony started screaming. When Pancake hit the bottom of the slide, he raced outside behind all the grown ups to see what was going on. ‘Mummy!’ Cat screamed, holding her hooves over her face. The air was filled with black smoke and the smell of burning lighter fuel from the exploded air chariot. Chunks of smouldering metal and wood were scattered all around in the sand. ‘Oh Luna,’ a large stallion cried as he stared up at the cloudless sky. ‘I just saw a family get inside that thing.’ ‘Mummyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy,’ Cat screamed again. Pancake felt very strange. He was too little to understand what had just happened, but the hot sun was making his ice cream melt all over his muzzle so he thought he’d better concentrate on licking it up. Pancake’s mum always got cross if he made a big mess with an ice cream. COMPUTER HACKING CLASS Pancake was now eight years old. He lived with the Equestrian Spy School and was training to be a professional spy. He had spent about half a year in an orphanage with his sister Cat, when they were approached by these mysterious mares wearing suits. The mares had offered to take them in and Cat accepted, taking Pancake with her. He didn’t remember much about his dead mum and dad, but he could remember the air chariot crash and hadn’t eaten a mouthful of ice cream since that sad day. Ice cream seemed like extremely unlucky stuff. It was Friday afternoon and Pancake was in computer hacking class with seven other colts and fillies. Each foal had a computer on the wooden bench in front of them. Their task was to unscrew the metal case, remove some of the bits inside, pull out a wire on the back panel, install a special thingy called a key-logger, then put everything back together again. And they were only allowed ten minutes to do it in. ‘Two minutes left,’ Miss Weller said firmly. Pancake felt hot and the tension was making his stomach turn somersaults. He’d pulled lots of stuff out of the computer and fitted the key-logger. But now he had a pile of bits left over and couldn’t work out where they’d all come from. Even worse, three other kids had completed the task and the rest all had the covers back on their computers and were calmly finishing off. ‘Ninety seconds remaining.’ Pancake looked helplessly at the loose wires dangling inside the computer and the green circuit board in his hoof. He glanced pleadingly at the aqua marine furred filly who sat at the next bench, with her task complete and her forearms neatly folded. Her name was Lyra. She was also eight years old and she was Pancake’s room mate and best friend – even though she was a filly. ‘Connect that to the yellow wire,’ Lyra whispered, trying not to move her lips. But Miss Weller was the sort of teacher who could hear someone farting three floors down. ‘Don’t help him, Lyra,’ Miss Weller said angrily. ‘This is not a team assignment.’ Pancake had taken Lyra’s hint and fitted the yellow wire to the circuit board. But he still didn't have a clue where to fit the board inside the computer. Even worse, everypony else had now finished. The room was silent apart from the sound of Pancake’s magic fumbling helplessly inside the computer case. ‘Thirty seconds left, Mr King. You’d better get your skates on.’ As Pancake made a desperate last attempt to force the circuit board into the wrong slot, it made a sharp crack and snapped in two. ‘Nooo!’ Pancake gasped. His hopeless task had now become an impossible one. And to make things even worse, a couple of his classmates sniggered at his misfortune. ‘Time’s up,’ Miss Weller said airily, taking a final glance at her watch. ‘Everyone who has finished their task can leave. Have a lovely weekend and don’t forget to read chapters thirteen and fourteen in time for the next day’s lesson.’ All the colts and fillies except Pancake and Lyra grabbed their saddlebags and filed out of the small computer hacking workshop. ‘You can go, Lyra,’ Miss Weller said. She shrugged. ‘I’ll wait for Pancake. We’re going paintballing together.’ Miss Weller looked surprised. ‘I thought you were both banned from paintballing.’ ‘It was only a three week ban,’ Lyra said. ‘It ended yesterday.’ Miss Weller tutted. ‘I’ll tell the medical unit to expect heavy casualties if they’re letting you two back on the paintball range.’ ‘We’re not that bad, Miss,’ Lyra said, grinning guiltily. Miss Weller now stood beside Pancake and looked at the tangle of wires inside the metal case. ‘A disaster,’ she announced, shaking her head. ‘How old are you Pancake?’ ‘Eight miss.’ ‘Nearly eight and a half, isn’t it?’ ‘Yes, Miss.’ Miss Weller shook her head gravely. ‘In less than a year and a half, you’re going to turn ten and be sent to basic training. You’ve lived here for more than three years already. You’ll be expected to pass first time and qualify as an underage spy. But that’s not going to happen if you produce sloppy results like this, is it?’ ‘No, Miss,’ Pancake said sheepishly. ‘You’ve removed circuit boards and wires that you didn’t need to touch and you snapped that piece by trying to force it into the wrong slot.’ ‘Sorry, Miss.’ Miss Weller tutted. ‘Will sorry cut it when you’re working on a job? What if that computer belonged to a drug dealer or a terrorist? Your life might be in danger if you messed up their computer. Have you even read the chapters in the textbook?’ ‘Of course,’ Pancake lied, as he shot an evil glance at the battered copy of the ESS Guide to Computer Hacking on the desk in front of him. ‘What did the chapters tell you to do with the DVD drive?’ ‘Unplug it?’ Pancake guessed, as Lyra frantically shook her head. ‘Hah,’ Miss Weller said triumphantly. ‘You haven’t read it. Those chapters don’t say anything about the DVD drive. Do you even know what a key-logger is?’ ‘Something to do with, erm … logging keys?’ Pancake said weakly. ‘Once installed, a key-logger records everything typed by the pony using the computer. We can return to the computer a few days later, remove the key-logger and we’ll know every password and security code that the owner typed in.’ Miss Weller grabbed the hacking guide off of Pancake’s bench and pressed it firmly against his chest. ‘Study it properly,’ she said. ‘I’ll be expecting you to repeat this exercise after class the next lesson. If you mess up again, I’ll make you clean the senior toilets. Is that understood?’ Paintball TimeCAT – THE EVIL SISTER! Pancake and Lyra bolted out of the classroom and slid down the banisters to the first floor. They flung their heavy saddlebags into their bedroom, making a noise that startled the two guinea pigs who lived in cages on the window ledge. ‘I’ll just give Chip and McFlurry some carrots,’ Lyra said. ‘There’s no time,’ Pancake gasped, as he grabbed another saddlebag that he’d already packed with a towel. ‘We have to get there first and nab some good equipment.’ Lyra knew Pancake had a point. The ESS paintball shooting range had thirty-five sets of guns and protective gear. If you arrived late, you ended up with one of the tatty old guns that didn’t shoot straight, a battered helmet and a padded suit that smelled worse than feet. ‘I’m faster than you, I’ll catch you up,’ Lyra said, as she grabbed a plastic bag filled with carrot sticks and began sliding them between the bars of each cage. Pancake ran out of the bedroom, scrambled down to the ground floor and raced off across the squelchy hoofball pitches towards the paintball range. Paintballing was all about running around in a helmet and padded suit, getting extremely muddy and shooting at your mates with brightly coloured paint pellets. If there was something in the world more fun than paintballing, Pancake had yet to discover it. And today he was even more excited than usual, because he’d been banned from paintballing for the past three weeks. Getting hit by a paintball doesn’t usually hurt, but it’s dangerous to shoot someone from close range and Pancake had gotten in very serious trouble for shooting his big sister Cat from less than the two meter minimum shooting distance. Even though Pancake couldn’t run as fast as Lyra, he was still quick and there was some good kit left when he arrived at the changing hut on the edge of the paintballing area. The mud splattered room had three long wooden benches. A bunch of noisy eight and nine year olds were excitedly changing into protective gear. Some had only just arrived and were still peeling off their boots, while others had already zipped themselves into thickly padded suits, strapped on protective helmets, pulled down their face visors and slid on gloves. Pancake happily grabbed the last two really good guns and rummaged inside a plastic crate until he found overalls for himself and Lyra. All the overalls were muddy and disgusting, but he’d found a couple that were slightly less disgusting than some of the others. ‘Thanks, mate,’ a filly growled from behind him. Pancake turned to see the grim faces of his sister Cat and her half Germane best friend, Gerda. Cat was only a year older than Pancake, but she was much bigger. She looked more like an eleven year old, with a beefy neck and powerful shoulders. Gerda wasn’t quite as scary, but was still bigger than Pancake. Pancake backed up to the wall and shook his head. ‘This stuff is for me and Lyra,’ he said. ‘I got here first.’ ‘I got here first,’ Cat squeaked, mocking her brother’s voice as she gave him a shove and snatched the gun out of his mouth. Gerda quickly grabbed the other gun and the two suits. ‘Danke,’ she growled, using the Germane word for thank you, but clearly not meaning it. Pancake was upset, but he’d never let it show in front of his sister. He screwed up his face and tried to sound fierce. ‘I don’t care what guns me and Lyra have got,’ Pancake said. ‘We’ll still wipe the floor with you two.’ ‘Oh, I’m sooo scared of little Panky,’ Cat giggled, as she gave her brother another shove. ‘You sad little shrimp.’ WHEN I GET HOLD OF THEM… Ten minutes later, fifteen pairs of colts and fillies stood eagerly at the wire gate of the paintball compound, with their visors down and pockets stuffed with ammunition. Pancake scowled at Lyra. ‘I’m gonna get my sister so bad,’ he said. ‘I don’t care if I’ve got a rubbish gun. When the gates open, I’m gonna follow her and…’ But Lyra shook her head firmly. ‘We’re not here to go after your sister. We’re here to have fun and win the game.’ ‘But we’ve got to get my sister back,’ Pancake said indignantly. ‘She ripped off our guns.’ ‘Cat and Gerda are bigger, faster and older than us. If we pick a fight with them we’ll lose,’ Lyra said sensibly. Lyra usually acted a bit more grown up than Pancake and he realised that she was right, as usual. ‘Us getting banned from paintball was totally bogus,’ Pancake moaned. ‘Cat shot me from close range before we shot her, but we were the only ones who got done for it.’ ‘Forget Cat,’ Lyra said. ‘There’s nothing you can do about her.’ ‘Why does Cat always have to pick on me?’ ‘You’re almost as bad as she is,’ Lyra reminded Pancake. ‘You broke her CD player, you poured water on her school books, you even put itching powder in her underwear drawer that time.’ Pancake cheered up enormously as he relived one of the happiest moments of his life: ‘Oww, oww! Miss, my private bits have gone all red!’ The paintball game was being run by a fearsome looking instructor called Mr Pokey. He stomped his giant hooves on the ground to get everypony’s attention. ‘OK you horrible brats,’ Mr Pokey yelled. ‘The rules are simple. You must obey the safety code at all times. The game lasts for forty minutes. Each team has ten envelopes and there are ten letterboxes hidden around the paintball compound. Whichever team posts a letter in the most boxes wins the game. If you get shot three times by a member of another team, you’re dead. As soon as you’re killed, you must raise your hooves above your head and leave the training compound by the nearest exit. ‘Today we also have one extra rule. We’ve had a lot of rain over the past week and some of the trenches are very muddy and waterlogged. Therefore, all trenches are out of bounds.’ Mr Pokey raised a whistle to his lips as he opened the gate of the compound. ‘Spread yourselves out and don’t start shooting until you hear my whistle.’ The thirty youngsters all cheered as they raced into the compound. Lyra watched to see which way Cat and Gerda went before dragging Pancake in the opposite direction. UNDER FIRE ‘It’s so good to be back playing paintball,’ Pancake grinned, as his hooves slipped and squelched across the muddy ground. It was spitting with rain. The canopy of dripping leaves over their heads made it dark and creepy as they jogged past tree trunks splattered with brightly coloured paint from hundreds of previous battles. As well as the trees, the compound had a number of ponymade features designed to make paintball games more exciting: small wooden forts, climbing nets, rusted carts with all the glass removed and pitch black tunnels full of mud and rats that only the bravest colts and fillies dared venture in to. Lyra stopped running when she spotted a red plastic box nestled between two trees. It was lucky to find one of the mailboxes before the exercise had even started. As Lyra crouched down to post one of the ten letters, Pancake twisted his boot deep into the soggy ground. When Lyra turned around, Pancake flicked his leg forwards and splashed her with mud. ‘Aaarghhh!’ Lyra giggled, as she retaliated by skimming her hoof through a deep puddle. A great wave of muddy water pelted Pancake’s protective suit. The mud fight might have turned more serious, but Mr Pokey blew the whistle to start the game. Within a second, Pancake and Lyra heard the distinctive pulse of air from a paintball gun and ducked down as two green pellets whizzed between their helmets and splattered into the tree trunk behind their heads. ‘Ambush,’ Lyra shouted. ‘That was too close,’ Pancake gasped as he and Lyra ducked down and started running. More paintballs whooshed through the low branches and soggy leaves around their heads. After trotting twenty metres, they reached a wooden fence and dived behind it, but not before Pancake felt a distinctive stinging sensation in his flank. ‘I’m hit,’ he yelled, as he looked over his shoulder at a splat of yellow paint stuck to his fur. But there was no time to stand around worrying. Pancake and Lyra both raised their guns into firing positions and peered through slits in the wooden fence. ‘Can you see them?’ Pancake whispered, knowing that his companion had a knack for spotting tiny movements in the darkest places. Lyra nodded. ‘See the branches moving between the two trees over on the left?’ ‘I see ‘em.’ Pancake nodded. ‘You move around that way,’ Lyra said, pointing towards a line of shrubs. ‘I’ll blast them out and you can nail them as they try to escape.’ ‘Good thinking,’ Pancake nodded, as he crept away. He crawled through the undergrowth on his belly, to a position twenty meters away between two prickly bushes. He gave Lyra a wave to signal that he was ready and eyed his opponents – two friends of his called Stars and Cirrus. As Cirrus crept towards the little red mailbox to post his letter and score a point, Lyra jammed the muzzle of her paintball gun between a broken section of fence and began rapid firing. The first shot hit Cirrus on the flank and Lyra’s blaze of paintballs forced him and his companion to retreat. Unfortunately for Cirrus and Stars, they ran directly into Pancake’s line of fire and he showed no mercy, blasting Cirrus once and Stars twice before they made it into the trees. ‘Run and hide, you wimps,’ Pancake yelled triumphantly as the two colts scrambled away. ‘Two hits on each of them,’ Lyra smiled as she walked towards Pancake. They made a hoof bump with their mud covered hooves. ‘Nice shooting,’ Lyra said. ‘This is the greatest game in the world,’ Pancake said, as he grinned from ear to ear. Lyra spoke breathlessly, ‘Let’s go find another mailbox.’ HALF AN HOUR LATER… After thirty minutes of paintball action, Lyra and Pancake were exhausted. Their legs ached, they had sweat pouring out of their manes and they could hear their hearts banging in their chests. But they didn’t care because they were having so much fun. ‘Do you think they’ve gone?’ Pancake whispered, as he lay flat on the ground behind a line of shrubs. Brown water dribbled down Pancake’s visor as he pulled his face out of the mud and looked up for an enemy that had shot at them a few moments earlier. ‘Only one way to be sure,’ Lyra said. She sat up, half expecting a paintball to come flying out from behind a tree and explode against her helmet. But it didn’t. ‘Whoever they were, it looks like they’ve cleared off,’ Pancake said. The pair stood up and looked around cautiously. They each had two splats of paint on their suits, meaning they’d be dead if they were shot one more time. ‘It was definitely around here somewhere,’ Lyra said as they started walking. ‘Right there,’ Pancake grinned, as he spotted the red mailbox hidden in a bush. They’d seen the box before they’d been shot at, but hadn’t been able to post their letter because they’d come under attack as soon as they got close. ‘Now we’ve got nine points out of a possible ten,’ Lyra smiled, as Pancake slotted the envelope into the box. ‘Eight or nine points usually wins the game, so we must be in with a chance.’ ‘Seven minutes to go,’ Pancake whispered, glancing at his watch as they scurried up a small hill. ‘Where do you think that last mailbox is? If we get to it, no one can beat us. They can only draw at best.’ Lyra shrugged, ‘We’ve hardly been over the east side, I bet it’s over there.’ ‘Oh wow,’ Pancake gasped, as he looked over the top of a hill into a meadow. Lyra thought he’d spotted a mailbox, but then saw that it was Cat and Gerda. Gerda was leaning against a tree, holding on to her forehoof like she’d twisted it or something. Cat had her back to them, with a distinctive blob of green paint across her flank. It was perfect. Within a second of seeing his sister, Pancake raised his gun up to eye level and blasted off three well aimed rounds. Each one splattered into Cat’s back between her shoulder blades, making her stumble forwards. ‘You’re dead, fat head,’ Pancake hooted. Lyra had shot Gerda in the side, but Gerda dived forwards and managed to crawl away into the undergrowth, despite clearly having something wrong with her forehoof. Cat spun around angrily with her gun and almost pulled the trigger. But the rules of the game said she was dead, which meant she wasn’t allowed to shoot back and there were surveillance cameras all over the compound to make sure nobody cheated. ‘Flank head,’ Cat yelled sourly, as she stood up. But Pancake and Lyra had allowed their triumph over Cat to interfere with their concentration and Gerda had slipped out of sight. Despite being injured, Gerda managed to scramble up the hill through the undergrowth and rattled off a shot that hit Lyra in the thigh. ‘Now I’m dead,’ Lyra complained, as she scrambled behind a tree and gave the final envelope to Pancake. ‘Take it, try and find the last mailbox.’ Pancake gave Lyra a friendly pat on the back. ‘There’s not much time, but I’ll do my best.’ CAT’S REVENGE As Pancake raced off between the trees towards the eastern side of the compound, Lyra trotted downhill towards Cat and thought she’d try being nice. ‘Good game today,’ Lyra smiled. Cat looked Lyra up and down stiffly, trying to decide if she was worth talking to. ‘Wasn’t bad I suppose,’ Cat said, as she unscrewed the ammunition clip from her paintball gun. The two fillies headed towards the gate together, eyeing each other warily while holding a forehoof in the air to show that they were out of the game. ‘We posted eight letters,’ Cat said. ‘I reckon we’re in with a chance of winning.’ ‘We’ve got nine already,’ Lyra said brightly. ‘I don’t suppose Gerda will get any more with her dodgy forehoof.’ Cat didn’t like the idea that she wasn’t going to win and gave Lyra a mean look. ‘You were out of order, shooting me when Gerda was injured.’ ‘Oh give over,’ Lyra said acidly. ‘It’s not against any rules and it serves you right for stealing the guns off Pancake in the changing room.’ Cat held her chunky hoof in Lyra’s face. ‘Maybe you should shut that mouth of yours, before I cram this in it.’ ‘It’s sad that you and Pancake don’t get on,’ Lyra said thoughtfully. ‘I mean, I know most brothers and sisters have fights, but you two really hate each other.’ ‘Shut your gob,’ Cat said. ‘It’s none of your business.’ Lyra didn’t fancy pushing her conversation any further. Cat was tough, clever and would probably make a very good spy when she passed basic training. But she certainly wasn’t a very nice pony. A few seconds later, Cat proved that she wasn’t very nice by grabbing Lyra around the neck. She dragged her away from the path and into a giant boggy puddle. ‘What are you doing?’ Lyra screamed, as Cat’s beefy fore arm crushed her windpipe. ‘Leave me alone. I can’t breathe.’ ‘You think you’ve got problems now,’ Cat sneered, as she stopped walking at the edge of one of the trenches that had been declared out of bounds. ‘See how you like it down there.’ Cat let go of Lyra’s neck and gave her an almighty shove. Lyra skidded down a slippery embankment, before splashing head-first into thirty centimetres of runny mud. The freezing sludge blinded Lyra as it poured inside her helmet and filled her nostrils. She coughed violently as she sat up, ripped off her helmet and spat out a mouthful of foul tasting liquid. ‘Ooops,’ Cat grinned, as she kicked a giant clump of mud down on to Lyra’s head. ‘Well tootle-pip, I’d better be going.’ ‘I’m gonna get you for this,’ Lyra shouted, as the lump of mud slithered out of her mane and splashed into the water. ‘You wait and see if I don’t.’ THE LAST POST Pancake had to locate the final mailbox and post the tenth letter. He was puffed out, but that didn’t stop him trotting as fast as he could towards the eastern side of the compound. A couple of shots rang out as he trotted. One whizzed by just a few centimetres in front of his chest, but he didn’t stick around to shoot back, because there were only three minutes until Mr Pokey blew his whistle to end the game. With less than two minutes to go, he spotted the last mailbox. It was strung up between two trees, several meters off the ground. The only way to post the letter was to climb up a rope net tied beneath it. Normally, Pancake would have taken a good look around to make sure nobpony was hiding out in the trees, but there wasn’t enough time left to be cautious, so he grabbed the letter out of his saddle pouch, jumped on to the net and began clambering up. His heart thudded as he reached up and pushed the soggy envelope through the metal flap. As the flap noisily snapped shut, another sound erupted and a splat of red paint hit Pancake in the back. A second splat hit his hoof, making him lose his grip and a third whacked his flank as he slid down the net. ‘OK, OK,’ Pancake grinned. ‘Stop shooting, I’m dead.’ He didn’t care that he’d been shot. It didn’t hurt and he’d posted the tenth and final envelope before getting killed, which meant that he and Lyra couldn’t be anything less than joint winners. As Pancake grabbed hold of the net to haul himself off the ground, he heard Mr Pokey blowing his whistle to signal the end of the game. Pancake flipped up his face visor as his friends Stars and Cirrus jumped out of the trees. Their padded suits were caked in mud. ‘So we’re wimps are we?’ Cirrus grinned, giving Pancake a friendly shove. ‘At least we didn’t get killed. How many letters did you post?’ ‘All ten,’ Pancake said proudly. ‘Oh,’ Stars said, sounding a little sad. ‘We only got nine. We thought we were in with a chance of winning.’ ‘Never mind,’ Pancake said. ‘You might have won if you’d killed me a second earlier.’ Stars and Cirrus both nodded in agreement. ‘We won last Friday though,’ Stars shrugged. ‘You can’t win ‘em all.’ ‘I’d better run back and tell Lyra. She’ll be well happy when she hears that I posted the last envelope.’ CAT’S PUNISHMENT When Pancake arrived back at the noisy changing hut, he stepped past all the other colts and found Lyra sitting on a bench with tears streaming down her face. Her hair was caked in mud and she had a big graze down her cheek. ‘What happened to you?’ Pancake gasped, putting his arm around his best friend’s back as he sat on the bench beside her. ‘Your idiot sister happened,’ Lyra said, pointing at Cat. Cat stood at the opposite end of the hut, facing the wall with her hooves on the wall. ‘At least Mr Pokey caught her doing it on the video cameras,’ Lyra continued. ‘Doing what?’ Pancake asked. But Mr Pokey charged into the hut before Lyra could tell him. ‘RIGHT,’ Mr Pokey shouted furiously as he slammed the metal door. He grabbed Cat by the scruff of her muddy vest in his magic, bundled her into his office and shut the door so that nopony could hear what he was saying. But Mr Pokey shouted so loud that everyone heard anyway. ‘What on earth do you think you’re playing at, young mare…? Pushing Lyra into a trench is unacceptable and don’t you dare lie to me. It was not an accident. I saw exactly what you did and you’re going to be severely punished.’ Pancake smiled at the thought of his sister being severely punished, but nothing seemed to cheer Lyra up. ‘Come on, mate,’ Pancake smiled, giving Lyra a squeeze. ‘You’ll be fine once you’ve warmed up in the shower and had some dinner.’ Mr Pokey continued to rave at Cat in the office. ‘You are banned from all paintball activities for two months. You are going to clean the staff toilets over the next week and do you see this?’ Pancake looked through the glass in the office door and saw that Mr Pokey was holding up a grubby towel. ‘When all the others have taken their showers, I am going to give you this rag and make you clean the entire changing room with it,’ Mr Pokey yelled. ‘You are going to scrub every bench, every floor tile and every wall until there is not a speck of mud to be seen. I don’t care if it takes you an hour, two hours, or even if it takes you until midnight. That room is going to gleam.’ Mr Pokey stormed back out of his office and glowered at everypony else. ‘I am now in a very bad mood,’ Mr Pokey shouted. ‘Unless you lot want to join Cat on cleaning detail, I suggest that you take your showers quickly and quietly and then head off to the main building for your dinner.’ Pancake noticed a tiny smirk on Lyra’s face as he rubbed her back. ‘That’s the spirit,’ he said. Stars and Cirrus sat on the bench facing towards Pancake and Lyra. They’d already pulled off their muddy kit and started to go in the shower. ‘Here’s the thing,’ Cirrus said, as he pushed a hoof inside his jacket. ‘None of us likes Cat, and the muddier it is in here, the worse her punishment is, right?’ ‘So, what are you getting at?’ Pancake asked ‘This,’ Cirrus said, as he squished the muddy vest against the wall and used it to draw a thick brown line. ‘Oh yes!’ Pancake giggled. ‘Cat’s got to clean that up, hasn’t she…? And this,’ he added, as he scraped his own jacket across the front of a radiator. Lyra cheered up quite a bit as she swept her hoof through her muddy hair and made brown hoof prints on the wall. There were quite a few colts and fillies in the room who’d been pushed around by Cat and it wasn’t long before they were all rubbing muddy clothes along the walls and scraping them on benches. By the time everypony had showered and headed off for dinner, it looked as if Cat would be lucky if she finished her punishment by midnight. Mischief and TroublesMONEY, MONEY, MONEY Pancake and Lyra had eaten a big dinner in the ESS dining room. Now they were lying on their beds feeling stuffed. Pancake was concentrating on a particularly difficult section of his computer hacking textbook, while Lyra had finished her homework and was flipping through a store catalogue. ‘I want to get your sister back,’ Lyra said bitterly. ‘She’s always pushing us around.’ Pancake rubbed his eyes as he looked up from his homework. ‘Cat’s still over there cleaning up mud,’ Pancake smiled. ‘I reckon it’s a fair punishment for what she did.’ ‘But we’ve got to show her that she can’t keep being horrible to us,’ Lyra said. ‘She cut my face and made me cry in front of everypony.’ ‘She’s bigger and stronger than us,’ Pancake said. ‘You said it yourself: if we go after her, we’ll probably come off worst.’ ‘We will if we just go chasing after her like idiots,’ Lyra smiled. ‘But not if we plan it all out carefully.’ The room went quiet for a couple of minutes as the two youngsters concentrated on their books. ‘Eureka!’ Lyra yelled, as she tore a page out of the catalogue and showed it to Pancake. ‘Look at item C.’ Pancake looked at a picture of the biggest, meanest, water cannon he’d ever seen, before reading the description written beneath it: Item C. Drenchmaster 5000, air powered soaking gun. Holds two litres of water. Exclusive air pump system squirts water up to forty metres. Quite simply the most powerful water gun available. NOTE: This item is unsuitable for foals aged twelve and under. Price 16 bits. Catalogue number 261 272 Lyra tapped on a banner at the top of the page that said, Special offer, buy one get one free. ‘Imagine if we sneaked up behind her with two of those Drenchmasters and… BLAMMO!’ Pancake rolled back on his bed and cracked up laughing. ‘That’s a cool idea.’ ‘Do you know when the best time to get Cat and Gerda is?’ Lyra asked. ‘When?’ ‘They always put on ear rings and fancy jewelry when they out shopping. They walk around the mall pretending they’re all sophisticated, like teenagers or something.’ ‘I’m up for that,’ Pancake giggled. ‘I’d even pay some money towards the water guns if I had any.’ Lyra’s face dropped. ‘I thought you had thirty bits. You were saving up to get the hard drive for your Neighstation.’ Pancake shrugged. ‘I was, but I bought that Stalliongrad Rangers scarf instead, remember?’ ‘Ugh,’ Lyra moaned. ‘I was hoping you’d lend me some of your savings to pay for them.’ ‘Sorry,’ Pancake said. ‘All I’ve got is three bits. Haven’t you got any money at all?’ ‘Fifty-three silvers and a one bit coin left over from our trip to Manehatten.’ ‘I guess that plan’s out of the window then,’ Pancake said, shaking his head. ‘Hearthswarming eve is months away, our birthdays are even further…’ ‘Maybe somepony will lend us the money,’ Lyra said. ‘You could ask Stars or Cirrus and I could mention it to some of the fillies.’ ‘Doubt it,’ Pancake shrugged. ‘Maybe they’d lend us if we were just a few bits short, but nobody will lend us the whole sixteen ninety-nine.’ ‘We could ask our carer for an advance on our pocket money,’ Lyra said. Pancake burst out laughing, ‘You’re dreaming. You’d have better luck trying to rob the bank of Equestria than getting extra money out of Mad Marsh.’ Lyra growled and pounded her hoof into Pancake’s mattress. ‘I’ve got to get my hooves on enough money to buy a pair of Drenchmasters.’ A thought popped into Pancake’s head as he looked at the toys and games scattered around the room. ‘Why don’t we try selling some of our stuff?’ he asked brightly. EVERYTHING MUST GO! Pancake and Lyra crawled around the floor looking for things they didn’t play with anymore. They ended up with a saddlebag stuffed with an odd assortment of Neighstation games, action figures, Lego sets, a couple of DVDs and even a giant pink bunny called Mel that Lyra had slept with every night until she was six years old. They headed out into the corridor and began knocking on the doors of the other foals in the junior block, carefully avoiding rooms where older fillies who were friends with Cat lived. Pancake sold an old push chariot and a big stack of trading cards to a little five year old called Snout. Lyra sold a couple of hits CDs and a Neighstation game, but when they ran out of doors to knock on, they were still short of their 16 bits target. ‘How much have we got?’ Pancake asked Lyra, as they turned back into their room. ‘Six bits sixty-four,’ Lyra said miserably. ‘Even with the pocket money we had to start with, we’re still seven bits short.’ Cirrus stuck his head through the doorway. ‘Did you sell much?’ he asked. ‘Not enough to get the Drenchmasters,’ Pancake said, as he stared miserably down at his hooves, ‘Shame,’ Cirrus said. ‘I’ll take those two Neighstation games if you want, but I can’t pay you until pocket money day.’ ‘No way,’ Lyra said. ‘Everypony will have money on pocket money day, but we want to go to the shops tomorrow.’ ‘Oh well,’ Cirrus said, looking at his watch. ‘It’s nine o’clock. I’d better start getting ready for bed, or Marsh’s gonna do her nut.’ ‘Is that the time?’ Pancake gasped, as he glanced around at his clock radio. ‘I thought it was earlier.’ ‘See yous tomorrow,’ Cirrus waved, but as he headed out into the corridor he had a brainwave and turned back. ‘Here, you know who might be able to help you?’ ‘Who?’ Pancake asked excitedly. ‘Sky Blue,’ Cirrus said. Sky was a sixteen-year-old ESS pupil who lived in the main building. Everypony on campus knew him because he was always trying to earn money by making and selling pirate copies of movies and video games. ‘How can Sky help us?’ Lyra asked. ‘He gets the younger pupils to run errands and do jobs for him,’ Cirrus explained. ‘Green Park made over two-hundred bits copying DVDs for Sky and Windy made a mint selling photocopied Harry Trotter books.’ ‘And you think he’ll give us a job if we go over and see him?’ Pancake asked. Cirrus shrugged, ‘It’s just a thought. But if you want to see Sky tonight, you’d better hurry up. Marsh will be locking up any minute now.’ Pancake and Lyra looked uncertainly at each other. ‘What do you reckon?’ Lyra asked. ‘It’s our only chance of getting our hooves on the money in time to go shopping tomorrow,’ Pancake said. ‘We might as well give it a try.’ As Cirrus stepped back to his room, Pancake and Lyra belted out into the corridor and started running downstairs to the ground floor. Unfortunately, their carer, a chubby mare called Marsh Darko, had beaten them to the door. ‘And where exactly do you two think you’re going at this time of night?’ Marsh asked, as she turned a key in the lock. ‘Miss, we just have to pop across to the main building to see somepony,’ Lyra said. ‘I left my comic over there at dinner time,’ Pancake added. ‘Did you really?’ Marsh said as she tapped on the face of her watch, clearly not believing either excuse. ‘It’s two minutes to nine and I can assure you, you’re not going anywhere except upstairs to the washroom to brush your teeth and then back to your rooms to put your PJs on.’ ‘But…’ Lyra said. ‘No ifs, no buts,’ Marsh said firmly. ‘If you two aren’t in bed in ten seconds flat, I’m going to want to know why. Now move it.’ THE DARKNESS Pancake and Lyra cleaned their teeth, put out the light and climbed into bed. Marsh stuck her head inside their room to make sure they were both behaving, but their heads popped up as soon as she shut the door. Lyra flicked on her torch and pointed it at Pancake. ‘Are you ready?’ ‘Ready,’ Pancake nodded, as he swung out of bed. He pulled his pyjamas off and heading for the door. ‘Quietly,’ Lyra cautioned, as Pancake grabbed the door handle. Pancake poked his head out into the corridor and looked both ways to make sure that Marsh wasn’t around. ‘Looks OK,’ Pancake said, as he crept into the corridor and moved quickly towards the swinging doors that led on to the stairs. The exit door was locked, so they headed down an unlit corridor that had classrooms on either side, turning the knob on each door as they went. The first three doors were locked, but – much to Pancake and Lyra’s relief - the fourth one swung open into a maths classroom with graphs and counting charts on the wall. Lyra placed a chair by the window, then stood on it and reached up to unscrew the catch that locked the window. While she pushed the chair out of the way, Pancake opened the window and swung his leg out over the ledge. He slid his flank off and his hooves crashed noisily on to the gravel path that surrounded the building. ‘Sssssssssh,’ Lyra said anxiously. But there’s no quiet way to jump on to gravel and Lyra made as much noise as Pancake had done. They both looked around anxiously, but there was no sign of Marsh coming after them. ESS campus is big and it was over a kilometre from the Junior Block, where Pancake and Lyra lived, to the main building where all the older ESS pupils who were qualified to work as spies lived. As they crept around the side of the junior block, Pancake and Lyra eyed two carts standing under a canopy. The carts were used by teachers and other staff to move quickly around campus. Foals were only allowed to use them with permission and they’d only get it if they had something heavy to carry, or if they were looking after another foal with a serious injury like a broken leg. ‘Let’s take a cart,’ Pancake grinned. ‘Are you mad? Lyra said, shaking her head, ‘We’ll be made to run about a million punishment laps if we’re caught with a cart without permission.’ Pancake shrugged, ‘But we’ll get to the main building and back so much quicker, which means there’s less chance of getting caught.’ ‘Well I suppose,’ Lyra said. ‘Bagsy I’m pulling the cart.’ Pancake wasn’t too happy about Lyra pulling the cart, but she raced off and was strapped in the harness before he got a chance to complain. ‘Bags I’m taking it back,’ Pancake said, as Lyra accelerated forward. SKY BLUE Pancake and Lyra parked the cart at the rear of the eight storey main building. There was a permanently staffed reception desk in the front entrance, so they had to sneak through the fire doors at the back and walk upstairs to Sky’s room on the sixth floor. They felt nervous as they moved along the corridor. There would be big trouble if any of the staff caught them out of bed. The older ESS pupils lived in the single rooms that branched off both sides. Most of the doors were open because there was a party going on. Loud music thumped out of several stereos and teenagers lined the walls holding cans of soda and paper plates, while a banner had been hung from the ceiling saying, Happy Birthday Snow Rusher! Sky lived in room 616, but when Pancake and Lyra reached the door, they discovered a blonde maneed stallion called Night Vision leaning against it snogging his fillyfriend. ‘What are you two squirts doing up here?’ Night asked. ‘Shouldn’t you be in bed?’ ‘We’re looking for Sky,’ Pancake explained. Night tutted, before knocking on the door. ‘Sky, I’ve got a couple of little customers for you out here,’ he said. ‘Just a minute, Night,’ Sky answered from inside. As Pancake and Lyra waited anxiously for the door to open, three fillies charged out of a room across the hall and began fighting with pillows. ‘Sorry, little dude,’ one of them shrieked, as a pillow skimmed over Pancake’s head. The whole scene of older pupil's partying, snogging and chasing around made Pancake and Lyra uncomfortable. When Sky opened his door, they barged inside without waiting for an invitation. ‘Come in, why don’t you?’ Sky smirked as he pushed up the door. The slender teenager seemed younger than sixteen. Pancake looked all around and marvelled at the neatness. Everything in Sky’s room was tidy, from the stacks of magazines on the bedside table to the polished picture frames lined up on a table near the door. ‘If you’ve come looking for DVDs, I’ve got them all,’ Sky said, as he knelt on his carpet and slid an aluminium case out from beneath his bed. ‘Three bits for movies, five for Neighstation games, two for music CDs.’ ‘Are they pirate copies?’ Pancake asked, as Sky flipped open the box, revealing almost a thousand silver discs. ‘Of course,’ Sky grinned. ‘You can’t get real ones at those prices, but they’re all tested and guaranteed to work.’ ‘Where are the games?’ Pancake asked, as he knelt down excitedly and started flipping through the disks. ‘AHEM,’ Lyra said, noisily clearing her throat. ‘We didn’t come here to spend money.’ Sky looked surprised as he stood up. ‘Well what did you come here for?’ ‘We were hoping you could help us to earn some money,’ Lyra explained. ‘And how am I supposed to do that?’ Sky asked. Visiting Sky had seemed like a good idea when Cirrus suggested it, but now Lyra felt stupid. ‘Somepony told us you give foals jobs to do,’ Lyra explained. ‘Selling stuff and that.’ ‘Green Park said you paid him nearly two hundred bits for copying some DVDs,’ Pancake blurted. Sky suddenly sounded annoyed. ‘Green Park is a big mouth who nearly got me kicked out of ESS. No offence, but I don’t trust little foals to work for me anymore and even if I did, I wouldn’t pick you two. I hardly know you.’ ‘Can I buy this?’ Pancake asked, as he slid a Neighstation game out of the case. ‘Sure,’ Sky said. ‘Five bits.’ ‘No you can’t,’ Lyra said angrily. ‘We’re saving up for the Drenchmasters.’ ‘You might as well give up,’ Pancake said. ‘We’re never going to get the money and this game is a total bargain.’ Lyra tutted and stamped her hoof, ‘Oh go on then. Buy your stupid game.’ Pancake grinned at Sky and hoofed him five bits in change. Sky reached across the room and put the money in his desk drawer. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful,’ Sky said, sympathetically. ‘I tell you what though, seeing as you came all this way to see me I’ll let you have another game for half price.’ ‘Sweet,’ Pancake said, as he started flipping through the pirated games in Sky’s case. ‘Two bits fifty, they’re like forty bits in the shops.’ ‘What can I say,’ Sky grinned, ‘I’m a nice colt.’ Pancake picked another game out of the rack and happily hoofed Sky the money, but his smile vanished when he saw the angry scowl on Lyra’s face. ILL GOTTEN GAINS ‘I’m sorry, Lyra,’ Pancake said, as they reached the bottom of the stairs and headed back towards the cart. ‘You spent all our money on two stupid Neighstation games,’ Lyra growled. ‘You don’t care about my feelings at all, do you?’ ‘I’ll let you pull the cart back,’ Pancake said. Lyra huffed as she strapped into the cart's harness. ‘You know, when I buy the Drenchmasters tomorrow, I’m not sure if I’m going to let you use them.’ ‘Well we’re not getting them anyway, so it doesn’t matter.’ Lyra grinned mischievously. ‘Aren’t we?’ she said, as she peeled a twenty bit stack out of her saddlebag. ‘Where did you get that?’ Pancake gasped. ‘When you gave Sky the five bits I watched him put it in his desk drawer. I noticed that he had about a hundred bits in there. I sneaked in and pinched a twenty while he was selling you the second disk.’ Pancake’s mouth dropped open. ‘You stole Sky’s money,’ he gasped angrily. ‘Keep your stupid voice down,’ Lyra said. ‘Are you insane?’ Pancake spluttered. ‘Sky’s sixteen, if he finds out that you nicked his money, he’ll kick our flanks.’ Lyra shrugged. ‘He had loads of money in there, he’ll never notice.’ Pancake was shaking his head. ‘What’s gotten in to you, Lyra? You’re usually more sensible than me, but you’re acting like a total nutter.’ Lyra grabbed Pancake by the scruff of his neck and pulled him close. ‘I’m sick of the way Cat treats us,’ she snarled. ‘Tomorrow, we’re going to get her back, or die trying.’ THE SHOPPING MALL Saturday is a free day for all the ESS pupils who live in the junior block. They can hang around in their rooms and play, go swimming in the campus leisure pool, play sport, or go on an outing in one of the ESS mini busses. There are usually six choices of outing, which include ten-pin bowling, trips to the cinema, caving and go-carting. But the most popular choice is always shopping, especially amongst the fillies. Lyra and Pancake hadn’t got back to their beds until past ten o’clock and almost overslept. They scooped down bowls of cereal as fast as they could and made it to the mini-bus heading for the shopping centre seconds before Marsh closed the sliding door. ‘Phew,’ Lyra gasped as they stepped along the cramped aisle inside the packed mini bus. They ended up sitting directly opposite Cat and Gerda. The two fillies had both put their mane up. They carried matching hoofbags. ‘Oooh look at the ladies in their fancy clobber,’ Pancake mocked. Cat tutted. ‘We can’t all go around with greasy mane and dirt under our nails like you and your tomcolt fillyfriend.’ ‘Hey,’ Lyra said angrily. Lyra was a bit of a tomcolt, but she had a habit of thumping ponies who said it to her face. ‘Did the little tomcolt wash all the mud out of her mane?’ Gerda asked sarcastically, as Marsh drove the mini-bus through the main gates of ESS campus. Pancake noticed that the backs of Cat’s hooves were all red and sore. ‘How long did it take you to scrub the hut?’ Cat shrugged, trying to make out that the punishment had been easy. ‘Not long,’ she said. ‘You weren’t back when we all went to bed at nine o’clock,’ Lyra said. ‘You two are totally immature,’ Cat spluttered, as she raised her hoof. ‘So talk to the hoof, ‘cos the face ain’t listening.’ It took half an hour by cart from ESS campus to Shopping World. It was one of the biggest shopping centres in the country, with just about every shop you could think of. The only trouble is that Shopping World is always packed on a Saturday. Marsh yelled out instructions as she led twenty ESS pupils across the giant cart park towards the main entrance. ‘Under eights must stay with me,’ she yelled. ‘Eight and nine year olds can go off on their own, but one of you must have a mobile phone and you must stay in pairs at all times. We’ll meet back outside the book store at one thirty sharp. Do NOT be late.’ What is ESS?(This is not a real chapter, but an explanation as to what ESS is) WHAT IS ESS? You’re not allowed to know where the ESS campus is and don’t bother searching on any maps, because you’ll never find it. ESS Campus is so secret that you’re not even allowed to fly over. But if you could, you’d see more than a dozen buildings, a forest big enough to get lost in and lots of neatly trimmed grass. You’d also see tennis courts, hoofball pitches, an outdoor swimming pool and one of the scariest, muddiest, assault courses in the world. If you looked down if you were a pegasus with binoculars, you’d be able to make out some of the colts and fillies who live on ESS campus, Playing sport and walking along the gravel paths between lessons. You might think you were flying over some posh boarding school Only very clever colts and fillies are picked to become ESS pupils and they are expected to work extremely hard in school. As well as normal classes like history, Equestrian and maths, ESS pupils have to do special lessons: karate, kick boxing, survival skills, espionage, and computer hacking. These lessons aren’t always as exciting as they sound. In fact they can be just as difficult and boring as normal lessons. But ESS pupils have to learn tons of extra stuff because they’re training to be spies. WHAT USE ARE FOALS AS SPIES? The most important thing for any spy is that the ponies you’re spying on don’t know that you are one. Because no sensible grown up believes that foals work as spies, ESS pupils can get away with all kinds of stuff that grown up spies can’t. WHY ARE ALL THE ESS PUPILS ORPHANS? Mums and Dads are very protective of their foals. So are grannies, granddads, aunties, uncles, foster parents, or whoever else looks after them. They like making sure that you cross the road safely, they like tucking you into bed at night and always knowing where you are and what you’re up to. Mums and Dads would never let their foals go off on dangerous missions and become spies. That’s why every foal on ESS campus is an orphan. And since it’s impossible to be born without having two parents, it means that every single ESS pupil has a sad story to tell about how they became an orphan. This fan fic starts with one of those sad stories. If you don’t like sad stories, you might like to skip the first part of the next chapter.
ESSTHE BIGGEST HOLE IN THE WORLD! Playing in holes is fun. The biggest hole in the world is in Equestria and it’s called the Galloping Gorge. It’s more than a thousand kilometres long and two kilometres deep, which means that if you fell into the deepest part, you’d have three and a half minutes to regret putting your hooves on that slippery piece of rock before you finally hit the bottom and went KER-SPLAT. Lots of ponies play inside the Galloping Gorge. They climb up the walls, they ride rafts down the river that runs along the base and some ponies even jump off the edge in hang gliders and fly down to the bottom. If you think that flying to the bottom of the world’s biggest hole with a little glider strapped to your back is too scary, a more sensible option is to go down in an air chariot. Lots of ponies do this and during tourist season dozens of air chariots swoop in and out of the canyon, keeping close to the edges. Most passengers get a thrill out of seeing the scenery whiz by, though it has been known to make some of them a bit queasy. The pegasi who fly into the canyon are very skillful and air chariots are very safe, so things never go wrong. Well, almost never… YOU MUST BE THIS TALL TO FLY! Five Years Ago Four year old Cat and her three year old brother Pancake were on holiday in Appleoosa. They spent the night in a motel a few kilometres from the Galloping Gorge. Before setting off to visit the gorge the next morning, the two youngsters were taken out into the desert sunshine and made to stand on the back of their family’s rental cart. Their Mummy, Daddy and older brother Streak stood alongside them and they got a mare who was walking by to take a photograph so that the whole family could be in it. Afterwards, the family got on their cart and set off for the gorge. When they arrived, Pancake escaped. The foal clambered between the metal railings and leaned over the biggest hole in the world before his mother dragged him away. ‘You’re a very silly colt, Pancake,’ she said sternly. ‘Stay away from the edge or I’ll make you wait behind when everyone else rides on the air chariot.’ ‘But I want to goooooooooooo in the chariot,’ Pancake whined. He kicked at the desert sand with a hoof and made a big fuss as his mum grabbed his ear in her mouth and marched him towards the runway. By the time the five members of the family arrived at the runway, Pancake’s fur was a mess: bright red, with snot and tears running everywhere. To make things worse, Pancake’s twelve year old brother Streak wouldn't let him look through his binoculars and his four year old sister Cat was behaving like a perfect little mare and generally showing her brother up. But Pancake forgot about his tantrum when he saw the air chariot coming in to land. It was silver. It had Princess Celestia's Cutie Mark painted on the side and it made such a racket that he held his hooves over his ears. The pegasi crew took off their harnesses, dressed in flight suits, ear protectors and goggles. He trotted over and opened the side doors while the rest of the crew waited patiently to the side and two fat stallions clambered out of the passenger compartment. As the stallions waddled towards the terminal building, the pegasus waved the family towards his chariot. But he frowned when they got close. He leaned inside his craft and pulled out a measuring stick. He lined it up against Cat and Pancake and supplied terrible news to the family: ‘They’re too short to fly, Mrs Gold. You have to be taller than my stick to ride in my Chariot.’ Pancake’s mum looked very upset. ‘But it was so expensive,’ she said. ‘We booked tickets for the whole family as a special treat.’ ‘It’s in the terms and conditions, maam. You should have read them. Our safety belts aren’t designed to hold small foals.’ ‘What if my husband and I hold on to one each?’ Mrs Gold asked. ‘I’m very sorry, but it’s against regulations. I could lose my licence if I let you do that.’ Pancake was too little to understand what was going on as a smiling mare came running out of the terminal building and gave ice creams to him and Cat. ‘I’ll make it up to you both,’ Pancake’s mum said, as she leaned down and gave her two youngest foals the kind of smile she usually saved for injections and trips to the dentist. ‘You’ll have to wait inside, but we’ll only be away for twenty minutes. The mare will look after you and she says they have a play area and a big box of toys.’ Cat looked upset, but Pancake was more concerned with tearing the wrapper off his ice cream, as his parents and older brother climbed inside the chariot. ‘So long, suckers!’ twelve-year-old Streak said, giving his little brother and sister a wave, as the pegasus slammed the door of the chariot and took his place at the front of the air chariot. Cat looked upset, but Pancake was finding his chocolate covered ice cream a highly satisfactory alternative to an air chariot ride, especially when he got inside the big glass terminal building and saw the play area with a giant model chariot and a trampoline. ‘Cry foal,’ Pancake sang to his sister, as he raced up the steps of the slide with his ice cream held in his mouth. As he glided down on his bum, a flash of orange light tore through the window, followed by an earthshaking bang. Everypony started screaming. When Pancake hit the bottom of the slide, he raced outside behind all the grown ups to see what was going on. ‘Mummy!’ Cat screamed, holding her hooves over her face. The air was filled with black smoke and the smell of burning lighter fuel from the exploded air chariot. Chunks of smouldering metal and wood were scattered all around in the sand. ‘Oh Luna,’ a large stallion cried as he stared up at the cloudless sky. ‘I just saw a family get inside that thing.’ ‘Mummyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy,’ Cat screamed again. Pancake felt very strange. He was too little to understand what had just happened, but the hot sun was making his ice cream melt all over his muzzle so he thought he’d better concentrate on licking it up. Pancake’s mum always got cross if he made a big mess with an ice cream. COMPUTER HACKING CLASS Pancake was now eight years old. He lived with the Equestrian Spy School and was training to be a professional spy. He had spent about half a year in an orphanage with his sister Cat, when they were approached by these mysterious mares wearing suits. The mares had offered to take them in and Cat accepted, taking Pancake with her. He didn’t remember much about his dead mum and dad, but he could remember the air chariot crash and hadn’t eaten a mouthful of ice cream since that sad day. Ice cream seemed like extremely unlucky stuff. It was Friday afternoon and Pancake was in computer hacking class with seven other colts and fillies. Each foal had a computer on the wooden bench in front of them. Their task was to unscrew the metal case, remove some of the bits inside, pull out a wire on the back panel, install a special thingy called a key-logger, then put everything back together again. And they were only allowed ten minutes to do it in. ‘Two minutes left,’ Miss Weller said firmly. Pancake felt hot and the tension was making his stomach turn somersaults. He’d pulled lots of stuff out of the computer and fitted the key-logger. But now he had a pile of bits left over and couldn’t work out where they’d all come from. Even worse, three other kids had completed the task and the rest all had the covers back on their computers and were calmly finishing off. ‘Ninety seconds remaining.’ Pancake looked helplessly at the loose wires dangling inside the computer and the green circuit board in his hoof. He glanced pleadingly at the aqua marine furred filly who sat at the next bench, with her task complete and her forearms neatly folded. Her name was Lyra. She was also eight years old and she was Pancake’s room mate and best friend – even though she was a filly. ‘Connect that to the yellow wire,’ Lyra whispered, trying not to move her lips. But Miss Weller was the sort of teacher who could hear someone farting three floors down. ‘Don’t help him, Lyra,’ Miss Weller said angrily. ‘This is not a team assignment.’ Pancake had taken Lyra’s hint and fitted the yellow wire to the circuit board. But he still didn't have a clue where to fit the board inside the computer. Even worse, everypony else had now finished. The room was silent apart from the sound of Pancake’s magic fumbling helplessly inside the computer case. ‘Thirty seconds left, Mr King. You’d better get your skates on.’ As Pancake made a desperate last attempt to force the circuit board into the wrong slot, it made a sharp crack and snapped in two. ‘Nooo!’ Pancake gasped. His hopeless task had now become an impossible one. And to make things even worse, a couple of his classmates sniggered at his misfortune. ‘Time’s up,’ Miss Weller said airily, taking a final glance at her watch. ‘Everyone who has finished their task can leave. Have a lovely weekend and don’t forget to read chapters thirteen and fourteen in time for the next day’s lesson.’ All the colts and fillies except Pancake and Lyra grabbed their saddlebags and filed out of the small computer hacking workshop. ‘You can go, Lyra,’ Miss Weller said. She shrugged. ‘I’ll wait for Pancake. We’re going paintballing together.’ Miss Weller looked surprised. ‘I thought you were both banned from paintballing.’ ‘It was only a three week ban,’ Lyra said. ‘It ended yesterday.’ Miss Weller tutted. ‘I’ll tell the medical unit to expect heavy casualties if they’re letting you two back on the paintball range.’ ‘We’re not that bad, Miss,’ Lyra said, grinning guiltily. Miss Weller now stood beside Pancake and looked at the tangle of wires inside the metal case. ‘A disaster,’ she announced, shaking her head. ‘How old are you Pancake?’ ‘Eight miss.’ ‘Nearly eight and a half, isn’t it?’ ‘Yes, Miss.’ Miss Weller shook her head gravely. ‘In less than a year and a half, you’re going to turn ten and be sent to basic training. You’ve lived here for more than three years already. You’ll be expected to pass first time and qualify as an underage spy. But that’s not going to happen if you produce sloppy results like this, is it?’ ‘No, Miss,’ Pancake said sheepishly. ‘You’ve removed circuit boards and wires that you didn’t need to touch and you snapped that piece by trying to force it into the wrong slot.’ ‘Sorry, Miss.’ Miss Weller tutted. ‘Will sorry cut it when you’re working on a job? What if that computer belonged to a drug dealer or a terrorist? Your life might be in danger if you messed up their computer. Have you even read the chapters in the textbook?’ ‘Of course,’ Pancake lied, as he shot an evil glance at the battered copy of the ESS Guide to Computer Hacking on the desk in front of him. ‘What did the chapters tell you to do with the DVD drive?’ ‘Unplug it?’ Pancake guessed, as Lyra frantically shook her head. ‘Hah,’ Miss Weller said triumphantly. ‘You haven’t read it. Those chapters don’t say anything about the DVD drive. Do you even know what a key-logger is?’ ‘Something to do with, erm … logging keys?’ Pancake said weakly. ‘Once installed, a key-logger records everything typed by the pony using the computer. We can return to the computer a few days later, remove the key-logger and we’ll know every password and security code that the owner typed in.’ Miss Weller grabbed the hacking guide off of Pancake’s bench and pressed it firmly against his chest. ‘Study it properly,’ she said. ‘I’ll be expecting you to repeat this exercise after class the next lesson. If you mess up again, I’ll make you clean the senior toilets. Is that understood?’
Paintball TimeCAT – THE EVIL SISTER! Pancake and Lyra bolted out of the classroom and slid down the banisters to the first floor. They flung their heavy saddlebags into their bedroom, making a noise that startled the two guinea pigs who lived in cages on the window ledge. ‘I’ll just give Chip and McFlurry some carrots,’ Lyra said. ‘There’s no time,’ Pancake gasped, as he grabbed another saddlebag that he’d already packed with a towel. ‘We have to get there first and nab some good equipment.’ Lyra knew Pancake had a point. The ESS paintball shooting range had thirty-five sets of guns and protective gear. If you arrived late, you ended up with one of the tatty old guns that didn’t shoot straight, a battered helmet and a padded suit that smelled worse than feet. ‘I’m faster than you, I’ll catch you up,’ Lyra said, as she grabbed a plastic bag filled with carrot sticks and began sliding them between the bars of each cage. Pancake ran out of the bedroom, scrambled down to the ground floor and raced off across the squelchy hoofball pitches towards the paintball range. Paintballing was all about running around in a helmet and padded suit, getting extremely muddy and shooting at your mates with brightly coloured paint pellets. If there was something in the world more fun than paintballing, Pancake had yet to discover it. And today he was even more excited than usual, because he’d been banned from paintballing for the past three weeks. Getting hit by a paintball doesn’t usually hurt, but it’s dangerous to shoot someone from close range and Pancake had gotten in very serious trouble for shooting his big sister Cat from less than the two meter minimum shooting distance. Even though Pancake couldn’t run as fast as Lyra, he was still quick and there was some good kit left when he arrived at the changing hut on the edge of the paintballing area. The mud splattered room had three long wooden benches. A bunch of noisy eight and nine year olds were excitedly changing into protective gear. Some had only just arrived and were still peeling off their boots, while others had already zipped themselves into thickly padded suits, strapped on protective helmets, pulled down their face visors and slid on gloves. Pancake happily grabbed the last two really good guns and rummaged inside a plastic crate until he found overalls for himself and Lyra. All the overalls were muddy and disgusting, but he’d found a couple that were slightly less disgusting than some of the others. ‘Thanks, mate,’ a filly growled from behind him. Pancake turned to see the grim faces of his sister Cat and her half Germane best friend, Gerda. Cat was only a year older than Pancake, but she was much bigger. She looked more like an eleven year old, with a beefy neck and powerful shoulders. Gerda wasn’t quite as scary, but was still bigger than Pancake. Pancake backed up to the wall and shook his head. ‘This stuff is for me and Lyra,’ he said. ‘I got here first.’ ‘I got here first,’ Cat squeaked, mocking her brother’s voice as she gave him a shove and snatched the gun out of his mouth. Gerda quickly grabbed the other gun and the two suits. ‘Danke,’ she growled, using the Germane word for thank you, but clearly not meaning it. Pancake was upset, but he’d never let it show in front of his sister. He screwed up his face and tried to sound fierce. ‘I don’t care what guns me and Lyra have got,’ Pancake said. ‘We’ll still wipe the floor with you two.’ ‘Oh, I’m sooo scared of little Panky,’ Cat giggled, as she gave her brother another shove. ‘You sad little shrimp.’ WHEN I GET HOLD OF THEM… Ten minutes later, fifteen pairs of colts and fillies stood eagerly at the wire gate of the paintball compound, with their visors down and pockets stuffed with ammunition. Pancake scowled at Lyra. ‘I’m gonna get my sister so bad,’ he said. ‘I don’t care if I’ve got a rubbish gun. When the gates open, I’m gonna follow her and…’ But Lyra shook her head firmly. ‘We’re not here to go after your sister. We’re here to have fun and win the game.’ ‘But we’ve got to get my sister back,’ Pancake said indignantly. ‘She ripped off our guns.’ ‘Cat and Gerda are bigger, faster and older than us. If we pick a fight with them we’ll lose,’ Lyra said sensibly. Lyra usually acted a bit more grown up than Pancake and he realised that she was right, as usual. ‘Us getting banned from paintball was totally bogus,’ Pancake moaned. ‘Cat shot me from close range before we shot her, but we were the only ones who got done for it.’ ‘Forget Cat,’ Lyra said. ‘There’s nothing you can do about her.’ ‘Why does Cat always have to pick on me?’ ‘You’re almost as bad as she is,’ Lyra reminded Pancake. ‘You broke her CD player, you poured water on her school books, you even put itching powder in her underwear drawer that time.’ Pancake cheered up enormously as he relived one of the happiest moments of his life: ‘Oww, oww! Miss, my private bits have gone all red!’ The paintball game was being run by a fearsome looking instructor called Mr Pokey. He stomped his giant hooves on the ground to get everypony’s attention. ‘OK you horrible brats,’ Mr Pokey yelled. ‘The rules are simple. You must obey the safety code at all times. The game lasts for forty minutes. Each team has ten envelopes and there are ten letterboxes hidden around the paintball compound. Whichever team posts a letter in the most boxes wins the game. If you get shot three times by a member of another team, you’re dead. As soon as you’re killed, you must raise your hooves above your head and leave the training compound by the nearest exit. ‘Today we also have one extra rule. We’ve had a lot of rain over the past week and some of the trenches are very muddy and waterlogged. Therefore, all trenches are out of bounds.’ Mr Pokey raised a whistle to his lips as he opened the gate of the compound. ‘Spread yourselves out and don’t start shooting until you hear my whistle.’ The thirty youngsters all cheered as they raced into the compound. Lyra watched to see which way Cat and Gerda went before dragging Pancake in the opposite direction. UNDER FIRE ‘It’s so good to be back playing paintball,’ Pancake grinned, as his hooves slipped and squelched across the muddy ground. It was spitting with rain. The canopy of dripping leaves over their heads made it dark and creepy as they jogged past tree trunks splattered with brightly coloured paint from hundreds of previous battles. As well as the trees, the compound had a number of ponymade features designed to make paintball games more exciting: small wooden forts, climbing nets, rusted carts with all the glass removed and pitch black tunnels full of mud and rats that only the bravest colts and fillies dared venture in to. Lyra stopped running when she spotted a red plastic box nestled between two trees. It was lucky to find one of the mailboxes before the exercise had even started. As Lyra crouched down to post one of the ten letters, Pancake twisted his boot deep into the soggy ground. When Lyra turned around, Pancake flicked his leg forwards and splashed her with mud. ‘Aaarghhh!’ Lyra giggled, as she retaliated by skimming her hoof through a deep puddle. A great wave of muddy water pelted Pancake’s protective suit. The mud fight might have turned more serious, but Mr Pokey blew the whistle to start the game. Within a second, Pancake and Lyra heard the distinctive pulse of air from a paintball gun and ducked down as two green pellets whizzed between their helmets and splattered into the tree trunk behind their heads. ‘Ambush,’ Lyra shouted. ‘That was too close,’ Pancake gasped as he and Lyra ducked down and started running. More paintballs whooshed through the low branches and soggy leaves around their heads. After trotting twenty metres, they reached a wooden fence and dived behind it, but not before Pancake felt a distinctive stinging sensation in his flank. ‘I’m hit,’ he yelled, as he looked over his shoulder at a splat of yellow paint stuck to his fur. But there was no time to stand around worrying. Pancake and Lyra both raised their guns into firing positions and peered through slits in the wooden fence. ‘Can you see them?’ Pancake whispered, knowing that his companion had a knack for spotting tiny movements in the darkest places. Lyra nodded. ‘See the branches moving between the two trees over on the left?’ ‘I see ‘em.’ Pancake nodded. ‘You move around that way,’ Lyra said, pointing towards a line of shrubs. ‘I’ll blast them out and you can nail them as they try to escape.’ ‘Good thinking,’ Pancake nodded, as he crept away. He crawled through the undergrowth on his belly, to a position twenty meters away between two prickly bushes. He gave Lyra a wave to signal that he was ready and eyed his opponents – two friends of his called Stars and Cirrus. As Cirrus crept towards the little red mailbox to post his letter and score a point, Lyra jammed the muzzle of her paintball gun between a broken section of fence and began rapid firing. The first shot hit Cirrus on the flank and Lyra’s blaze of paintballs forced him and his companion to retreat. Unfortunately for Cirrus and Stars, they ran directly into Pancake’s line of fire and he showed no mercy, blasting Cirrus once and Stars twice before they made it into the trees. ‘Run and hide, you wimps,’ Pancake yelled triumphantly as the two colts scrambled away. ‘Two hits on each of them,’ Lyra smiled as she walked towards Pancake. They made a hoof bump with their mud covered hooves. ‘Nice shooting,’ Lyra said. ‘This is the greatest game in the world,’ Pancake said, as he grinned from ear to ear. Lyra spoke breathlessly, ‘Let’s go find another mailbox.’ HALF AN HOUR LATER… After thirty minutes of paintball action, Lyra and Pancake were exhausted. Their legs ached, they had sweat pouring out of their manes and they could hear their hearts banging in their chests. But they didn’t care because they were having so much fun. ‘Do you think they’ve gone?’ Pancake whispered, as he lay flat on the ground behind a line of shrubs. Brown water dribbled down Pancake’s visor as he pulled his face out of the mud and looked up for an enemy that had shot at them a few moments earlier. ‘Only one way to be sure,’ Lyra said. She sat up, half expecting a paintball to come flying out from behind a tree and explode against her helmet. But it didn’t. ‘Whoever they were, it looks like they’ve cleared off,’ Pancake said. The pair stood up and looked around cautiously. They each had two splats of paint on their suits, meaning they’d be dead if they were shot one more time. ‘It was definitely around here somewhere,’ Lyra said as they started walking. ‘Right there,’ Pancake grinned, as he spotted the red mailbox hidden in a bush. They’d seen the box before they’d been shot at, but hadn’t been able to post their letter because they’d come under attack as soon as they got close. ‘Now we’ve got nine points out of a possible ten,’ Lyra smiled, as Pancake slotted the envelope into the box. ‘Eight or nine points usually wins the game, so we must be in with a chance.’ ‘Seven minutes to go,’ Pancake whispered, glancing at his watch as they scurried up a small hill. ‘Where do you think that last mailbox is? If we get to it, no one can beat us. They can only draw at best.’ Lyra shrugged, ‘We’ve hardly been over the east side, I bet it’s over there.’ ‘Oh wow,’ Pancake gasped, as he looked over the top of a hill into a meadow. Lyra thought he’d spotted a mailbox, but then saw that it was Cat and Gerda. Gerda was leaning against a tree, holding on to her forehoof like she’d twisted it or something. Cat had her back to them, with a distinctive blob of green paint across her flank. It was perfect. Within a second of seeing his sister, Pancake raised his gun up to eye level and blasted off three well aimed rounds. Each one splattered into Cat’s back between her shoulder blades, making her stumble forwards. ‘You’re dead, fat head,’ Pancake hooted. Lyra had shot Gerda in the side, but Gerda dived forwards and managed to crawl away into the undergrowth, despite clearly having something wrong with her forehoof. Cat spun around angrily with her gun and almost pulled the trigger. But the rules of the game said she was dead, which meant she wasn’t allowed to shoot back and there were surveillance cameras all over the compound to make sure nobody cheated. ‘Flank head,’ Cat yelled sourly, as she stood up. But Pancake and Lyra had allowed their triumph over Cat to interfere with their concentration and Gerda had slipped out of sight. Despite being injured, Gerda managed to scramble up the hill through the undergrowth and rattled off a shot that hit Lyra in the thigh. ‘Now I’m dead,’ Lyra complained, as she scrambled behind a tree and gave the final envelope to Pancake. ‘Take it, try and find the last mailbox.’ Pancake gave Lyra a friendly pat on the back. ‘There’s not much time, but I’ll do my best.’ CAT’S REVENGE As Pancake raced off between the trees towards the eastern side of the compound, Lyra trotted downhill towards Cat and thought she’d try being nice. ‘Good game today,’ Lyra smiled. Cat looked Lyra up and down stiffly, trying to decide if she was worth talking to. ‘Wasn’t bad I suppose,’ Cat said, as she unscrewed the ammunition clip from her paintball gun. The two fillies headed towards the gate together, eyeing each other warily while holding a forehoof in the air to show that they were out of the game. ‘We posted eight letters,’ Cat said. ‘I reckon we’re in with a chance of winning.’ ‘We’ve got nine already,’ Lyra said brightly. ‘I don’t suppose Gerda will get any more with her dodgy forehoof.’ Cat didn’t like the idea that she wasn’t going to win and gave Lyra a mean look. ‘You were out of order, shooting me when Gerda was injured.’ ‘Oh give over,’ Lyra said acidly. ‘It’s not against any rules and it serves you right for stealing the guns off Pancake in the changing room.’ Cat held her chunky hoof in Lyra’s face. ‘Maybe you should shut that mouth of yours, before I cram this in it.’ ‘It’s sad that you and Pancake don’t get on,’ Lyra said thoughtfully. ‘I mean, I know most brothers and sisters have fights, but you two really hate each other.’ ‘Shut your gob,’ Cat said. ‘It’s none of your business.’ Lyra didn’t fancy pushing her conversation any further. Cat was tough, clever and would probably make a very good spy when she passed basic training. But she certainly wasn’t a very nice pony. A few seconds later, Cat proved that she wasn’t very nice by grabbing Lyra around the neck. She dragged her away from the path and into a giant boggy puddle. ‘What are you doing?’ Lyra screamed, as Cat’s beefy fore arm crushed her windpipe. ‘Leave me alone. I can’t breathe.’ ‘You think you’ve got problems now,’ Cat sneered, as she stopped walking at the edge of one of the trenches that had been declared out of bounds. ‘See how you like it down there.’ Cat let go of Lyra’s neck and gave her an almighty shove. Lyra skidded down a slippery embankment, before splashing head-first into thirty centimetres of runny mud. The freezing sludge blinded Lyra as it poured inside her helmet and filled her nostrils. She coughed violently as she sat up, ripped off her helmet and spat out a mouthful of foul tasting liquid. ‘Ooops,’ Cat grinned, as she kicked a giant clump of mud down on to Lyra’s head. ‘Well tootle-pip, I’d better be going.’ ‘I’m gonna get you for this,’ Lyra shouted, as the lump of mud slithered out of her mane and splashed into the water. ‘You wait and see if I don’t.’ THE LAST POST Pancake had to locate the final mailbox and post the tenth letter. He was puffed out, but that didn’t stop him trotting as fast as he could towards the eastern side of the compound. A couple of shots rang out as he trotted. One whizzed by just a few centimetres in front of his chest, but he didn’t stick around to shoot back, because there were only three minutes until Mr Pokey blew his whistle to end the game. With less than two minutes to go, he spotted the last mailbox. It was strung up between two trees, several meters off the ground. The only way to post the letter was to climb up a rope net tied beneath it. Normally, Pancake would have taken a good look around to make sure nobpony was hiding out in the trees, but there wasn’t enough time left to be cautious, so he grabbed the letter out of his saddle pouch, jumped on to the net and began clambering up. His heart thudded as he reached up and pushed the soggy envelope through the metal flap. As the flap noisily snapped shut, another sound erupted and a splat of red paint hit Pancake in the back. A second splat hit his hoof, making him lose his grip and a third whacked his flank as he slid down the net. ‘OK, OK,’ Pancake grinned. ‘Stop shooting, I’m dead.’ He didn’t care that he’d been shot. It didn’t hurt and he’d posted the tenth and final envelope before getting killed, which meant that he and Lyra couldn’t be anything less than joint winners. As Pancake grabbed hold of the net to haul himself off the ground, he heard Mr Pokey blowing his whistle to signal the end of the game. Pancake flipped up his face visor as his friends Stars and Cirrus jumped out of the trees. Their padded suits were caked in mud. ‘So we’re wimps are we?’ Cirrus grinned, giving Pancake a friendly shove. ‘At least we didn’t get killed. How many letters did you post?’ ‘All ten,’ Pancake said proudly. ‘Oh,’ Stars said, sounding a little sad. ‘We only got nine. We thought we were in with a chance of winning.’ ‘Never mind,’ Pancake said. ‘You might have won if you’d killed me a second earlier.’ Stars and Cirrus both nodded in agreement. ‘We won last Friday though,’ Stars shrugged. ‘You can’t win ‘em all.’ ‘I’d better run back and tell Lyra. She’ll be well happy when she hears that I posted the last envelope.’ CAT’S PUNISHMENT When Pancake arrived back at the noisy changing hut, he stepped past all the other colts and found Lyra sitting on a bench with tears streaming down her face. Her hair was caked in mud and she had a big graze down her cheek. ‘What happened to you?’ Pancake gasped, putting his arm around his best friend’s back as he sat on the bench beside her. ‘Your idiot sister happened,’ Lyra said, pointing at Cat. Cat stood at the opposite end of the hut, facing the wall with her hooves on the wall. ‘At least Mr Pokey caught her doing it on the video cameras,’ Lyra continued. ‘Doing what?’ Pancake asked. But Mr Pokey charged into the hut before Lyra could tell him. ‘RIGHT,’ Mr Pokey shouted furiously as he slammed the metal door. He grabbed Cat by the scruff of her muddy vest in his magic, bundled her into his office and shut the door so that nopony could hear what he was saying. But Mr Pokey shouted so loud that everyone heard anyway. ‘What on earth do you think you’re playing at, young mare…? Pushing Lyra into a trench is unacceptable and don’t you dare lie to me. It was not an accident. I saw exactly what you did and you’re going to be severely punished.’ Pancake smiled at the thought of his sister being severely punished, but nothing seemed to cheer Lyra up. ‘Come on, mate,’ Pancake smiled, giving Lyra a squeeze. ‘You’ll be fine once you’ve warmed up in the shower and had some dinner.’ Mr Pokey continued to rave at Cat in the office. ‘You are banned from all paintball activities for two months. You are going to clean the staff toilets over the next week and do you see this?’ Pancake looked through the glass in the office door and saw that Mr Pokey was holding up a grubby towel. ‘When all the others have taken their showers, I am going to give you this rag and make you clean the entire changing room with it,’ Mr Pokey yelled. ‘You are going to scrub every bench, every floor tile and every wall until there is not a speck of mud to be seen. I don’t care if it takes you an hour, two hours, or even if it takes you until midnight. That room is going to gleam.’ Mr Pokey stormed back out of his office and glowered at everypony else. ‘I am now in a very bad mood,’ Mr Pokey shouted. ‘Unless you lot want to join Cat on cleaning detail, I suggest that you take your showers quickly and quietly and then head off to the main building for your dinner.’ Pancake noticed a tiny smirk on Lyra’s face as he rubbed her back. ‘That’s the spirit,’ he said. Stars and Cirrus sat on the bench facing towards Pancake and Lyra. They’d already pulled off their muddy kit and started to go in the shower. ‘Here’s the thing,’ Cirrus said, as he pushed a hoof inside his jacket. ‘None of us likes Cat, and the muddier it is in here, the worse her punishment is, right?’ ‘So, what are you getting at?’ Pancake asked ‘This,’ Cirrus said, as he squished the muddy vest against the wall and used it to draw a thick brown line. ‘Oh yes!’ Pancake giggled. ‘Cat’s got to clean that up, hasn’t she…? And this,’ he added, as he scraped his own jacket across the front of a radiator. Lyra cheered up quite a bit as she swept her hoof through her muddy hair and made brown hoof prints on the wall. There were quite a few colts and fillies in the room who’d been pushed around by Cat and it wasn’t long before they were all rubbing muddy clothes along the walls and scraping them on benches. By the time everypony had showered and headed off for dinner, it looked as if Cat would be lucky if she finished her punishment by midnight.
Mischief and TroublesMONEY, MONEY, MONEY Pancake and Lyra had eaten a big dinner in the ESS dining room. Now they were lying on their beds feeling stuffed. Pancake was concentrating on a particularly difficult section of his computer hacking textbook, while Lyra had finished her homework and was flipping through a store catalogue. ‘I want to get your sister back,’ Lyra said bitterly. ‘She’s always pushing us around.’ Pancake rubbed his eyes as he looked up from his homework. ‘Cat’s still over there cleaning up mud,’ Pancake smiled. ‘I reckon it’s a fair punishment for what she did.’ ‘But we’ve got to show her that she can’t keep being horrible to us,’ Lyra said. ‘She cut my face and made me cry in front of everypony.’ ‘She’s bigger and stronger than us,’ Pancake said. ‘You said it yourself: if we go after her, we’ll probably come off worst.’ ‘We will if we just go chasing after her like idiots,’ Lyra smiled. ‘But not if we plan it all out carefully.’ The room went quiet for a couple of minutes as the two youngsters concentrated on their books. ‘Eureka!’ Lyra yelled, as she tore a page out of the catalogue and showed it to Pancake. ‘Look at item C.’ Pancake looked at a picture of the biggest, meanest, water cannon he’d ever seen, before reading the description written beneath it: Item C. Drenchmaster 5000, air powered soaking gun. Holds two litres of water. Exclusive air pump system squirts water up to forty metres. Quite simply the most powerful water gun available. NOTE: This item is unsuitable for foals aged twelve and under. Price 16 bits. Catalogue number 261 272 Lyra tapped on a banner at the top of the page that said, Special offer, buy one get one free. ‘Imagine if we sneaked up behind her with two of those Drenchmasters and… BLAMMO!’ Pancake rolled back on his bed and cracked up laughing. ‘That’s a cool idea.’ ‘Do you know when the best time to get Cat and Gerda is?’ Lyra asked. ‘When?’ ‘They always put on ear rings and fancy jewelry when they out shopping. They walk around the mall pretending they’re all sophisticated, like teenagers or something.’ ‘I’m up for that,’ Pancake giggled. ‘I’d even pay some money towards the water guns if I had any.’ Lyra’s face dropped. ‘I thought you had thirty bits. You were saving up to get the hard drive for your Neighstation.’ Pancake shrugged. ‘I was, but I bought that Stalliongrad Rangers scarf instead, remember?’ ‘Ugh,’ Lyra moaned. ‘I was hoping you’d lend me some of your savings to pay for them.’ ‘Sorry,’ Pancake said. ‘All I’ve got is three bits. Haven’t you got any money at all?’ ‘Fifty-three silvers and a one bit coin left over from our trip to Manehatten.’ ‘I guess that plan’s out of the window then,’ Pancake said, shaking his head. ‘Hearthswarming eve is months away, our birthdays are even further…’ ‘Maybe somepony will lend us the money,’ Lyra said. ‘You could ask Stars or Cirrus and I could mention it to some of the fillies.’ ‘Doubt it,’ Pancake shrugged. ‘Maybe they’d lend us if we were just a few bits short, but nobody will lend us the whole sixteen ninety-nine.’ ‘We could ask our carer for an advance on our pocket money,’ Lyra said. Pancake burst out laughing, ‘You’re dreaming. You’d have better luck trying to rob the bank of Equestria than getting extra money out of Mad Marsh.’ Lyra growled and pounded her hoof into Pancake’s mattress. ‘I’ve got to get my hooves on enough money to buy a pair of Drenchmasters.’ A thought popped into Pancake’s head as he looked at the toys and games scattered around the room. ‘Why don’t we try selling some of our stuff?’ he asked brightly. EVERYTHING MUST GO! Pancake and Lyra crawled around the floor looking for things they didn’t play with anymore. They ended up with a saddlebag stuffed with an odd assortment of Neighstation games, action figures, Lego sets, a couple of DVDs and even a giant pink bunny called Mel that Lyra had slept with every night until she was six years old. They headed out into the corridor and began knocking on the doors of the other foals in the junior block, carefully avoiding rooms where older fillies who were friends with Cat lived. Pancake sold an old push chariot and a big stack of trading cards to a little five year old called Snout. Lyra sold a couple of hits CDs and a Neighstation game, but when they ran out of doors to knock on, they were still short of their 16 bits target. ‘How much have we got?’ Pancake asked Lyra, as they turned back into their room. ‘Six bits sixty-four,’ Lyra said miserably. ‘Even with the pocket money we had to start with, we’re still seven bits short.’ Cirrus stuck his head through the doorway. ‘Did you sell much?’ he asked. ‘Not enough to get the Drenchmasters,’ Pancake said, as he stared miserably down at his hooves, ‘Shame,’ Cirrus said. ‘I’ll take those two Neighstation games if you want, but I can’t pay you until pocket money day.’ ‘No way,’ Lyra said. ‘Everypony will have money on pocket money day, but we want to go to the shops tomorrow.’ ‘Oh well,’ Cirrus said, looking at his watch. ‘It’s nine o’clock. I’d better start getting ready for bed, or Marsh’s gonna do her nut.’ ‘Is that the time?’ Pancake gasped, as he glanced around at his clock radio. ‘I thought it was earlier.’ ‘See yous tomorrow,’ Cirrus waved, but as he headed out into the corridor he had a brainwave and turned back. ‘Here, you know who might be able to help you?’ ‘Who?’ Pancake asked excitedly. ‘Sky Blue,’ Cirrus said. Sky was a sixteen-year-old ESS pupil who lived in the main building. Everypony on campus knew him because he was always trying to earn money by making and selling pirate copies of movies and video games. ‘How can Sky help us?’ Lyra asked. ‘He gets the younger pupils to run errands and do jobs for him,’ Cirrus explained. ‘Green Park made over two-hundred bits copying DVDs for Sky and Windy made a mint selling photocopied Harry Trotter books.’ ‘And you think he’ll give us a job if we go over and see him?’ Pancake asked. Cirrus shrugged, ‘It’s just a thought. But if you want to see Sky tonight, you’d better hurry up. Marsh will be locking up any minute now.’ Pancake and Lyra looked uncertainly at each other. ‘What do you reckon?’ Lyra asked. ‘It’s our only chance of getting our hooves on the money in time to go shopping tomorrow,’ Pancake said. ‘We might as well give it a try.’ As Cirrus stepped back to his room, Pancake and Lyra belted out into the corridor and started running downstairs to the ground floor. Unfortunately, their carer, a chubby mare called Marsh Darko, had beaten them to the door. ‘And where exactly do you two think you’re going at this time of night?’ Marsh asked, as she turned a key in the lock. ‘Miss, we just have to pop across to the main building to see somepony,’ Lyra said. ‘I left my comic over there at dinner time,’ Pancake added. ‘Did you really?’ Marsh said as she tapped on the face of her watch, clearly not believing either excuse. ‘It’s two minutes to nine and I can assure you, you’re not going anywhere except upstairs to the washroom to brush your teeth and then back to your rooms to put your PJs on.’ ‘But…’ Lyra said. ‘No ifs, no buts,’ Marsh said firmly. ‘If you two aren’t in bed in ten seconds flat, I’m going to want to know why. Now move it.’ THE DARKNESS Pancake and Lyra cleaned their teeth, put out the light and climbed into bed. Marsh stuck her head inside their room to make sure they were both behaving, but their heads popped up as soon as she shut the door. Lyra flicked on her torch and pointed it at Pancake. ‘Are you ready?’ ‘Ready,’ Pancake nodded, as he swung out of bed. He pulled his pyjamas off and heading for the door. ‘Quietly,’ Lyra cautioned, as Pancake grabbed the door handle. Pancake poked his head out into the corridor and looked both ways to make sure that Marsh wasn’t around. ‘Looks OK,’ Pancake said, as he crept into the corridor and moved quickly towards the swinging doors that led on to the stairs. The exit door was locked, so they headed down an unlit corridor that had classrooms on either side, turning the knob on each door as they went. The first three doors were locked, but – much to Pancake and Lyra’s relief - the fourth one swung open into a maths classroom with graphs and counting charts on the wall. Lyra placed a chair by the window, then stood on it and reached up to unscrew the catch that locked the window. While she pushed the chair out of the way, Pancake opened the window and swung his leg out over the ledge. He slid his flank off and his hooves crashed noisily on to the gravel path that surrounded the building. ‘Sssssssssh,’ Lyra said anxiously. But there’s no quiet way to jump on to gravel and Lyra made as much noise as Pancake had done. They both looked around anxiously, but there was no sign of Marsh coming after them. ESS campus is big and it was over a kilometre from the Junior Block, where Pancake and Lyra lived, to the main building where all the older ESS pupils who were qualified to work as spies lived. As they crept around the side of the junior block, Pancake and Lyra eyed two carts standing under a canopy. The carts were used by teachers and other staff to move quickly around campus. Foals were only allowed to use them with permission and they’d only get it if they had something heavy to carry, or if they were looking after another foal with a serious injury like a broken leg. ‘Let’s take a cart,’ Pancake grinned. ‘Are you mad? Lyra said, shaking her head, ‘We’ll be made to run about a million punishment laps if we’re caught with a cart without permission.’ Pancake shrugged, ‘But we’ll get to the main building and back so much quicker, which means there’s less chance of getting caught.’ ‘Well I suppose,’ Lyra said. ‘Bagsy I’m pulling the cart.’ Pancake wasn’t too happy about Lyra pulling the cart, but she raced off and was strapped in the harness before he got a chance to complain. ‘Bags I’m taking it back,’ Pancake said, as Lyra accelerated forward. SKY BLUE Pancake and Lyra parked the cart at the rear of the eight storey main building. There was a permanently staffed reception desk in the front entrance, so they had to sneak through the fire doors at the back and walk upstairs to Sky’s room on the sixth floor. They felt nervous as they moved along the corridor. There would be big trouble if any of the staff caught them out of bed. The older ESS pupils lived in the single rooms that branched off both sides. Most of the doors were open because there was a party going on. Loud music thumped out of several stereos and teenagers lined the walls holding cans of soda and paper plates, while a banner had been hung from the ceiling saying, Happy Birthday Snow Rusher! Sky lived in room 616, but when Pancake and Lyra reached the door, they discovered a blonde maneed stallion called Night Vision leaning against it snogging his fillyfriend. ‘What are you two squirts doing up here?’ Night asked. ‘Shouldn’t you be in bed?’ ‘We’re looking for Sky,’ Pancake explained. Night tutted, before knocking on the door. ‘Sky, I’ve got a couple of little customers for you out here,’ he said. ‘Just a minute, Night,’ Sky answered from inside. As Pancake and Lyra waited anxiously for the door to open, three fillies charged out of a room across the hall and began fighting with pillows. ‘Sorry, little dude,’ one of them shrieked, as a pillow skimmed over Pancake’s head. The whole scene of older pupil's partying, snogging and chasing around made Pancake and Lyra uncomfortable. When Sky opened his door, they barged inside without waiting for an invitation. ‘Come in, why don’t you?’ Sky smirked as he pushed up the door. The slender teenager seemed younger than sixteen. Pancake looked all around and marvelled at the neatness. Everything in Sky’s room was tidy, from the stacks of magazines on the bedside table to the polished picture frames lined up on a table near the door. ‘If you’ve come looking for DVDs, I’ve got them all,’ Sky said, as he knelt on his carpet and slid an aluminium case out from beneath his bed. ‘Three bits for movies, five for Neighstation games, two for music CDs.’ ‘Are they pirate copies?’ Pancake asked, as Sky flipped open the box, revealing almost a thousand silver discs. ‘Of course,’ Sky grinned. ‘You can’t get real ones at those prices, but they’re all tested and guaranteed to work.’ ‘Where are the games?’ Pancake asked, as he knelt down excitedly and started flipping through the disks. ‘AHEM,’ Lyra said, noisily clearing her throat. ‘We didn’t come here to spend money.’ Sky looked surprised as he stood up. ‘Well what did you come here for?’ ‘We were hoping you could help us to earn some money,’ Lyra explained. ‘And how am I supposed to do that?’ Sky asked. Visiting Sky had seemed like a good idea when Cirrus suggested it, but now Lyra felt stupid. ‘Somepony told us you give foals jobs to do,’ Lyra explained. ‘Selling stuff and that.’ ‘Green Park said you paid him nearly two hundred bits for copying some DVDs,’ Pancake blurted. Sky suddenly sounded annoyed. ‘Green Park is a big mouth who nearly got me kicked out of ESS. No offence, but I don’t trust little foals to work for me anymore and even if I did, I wouldn’t pick you two. I hardly know you.’ ‘Can I buy this?’ Pancake asked, as he slid a Neighstation game out of the case. ‘Sure,’ Sky said. ‘Five bits.’ ‘No you can’t,’ Lyra said angrily. ‘We’re saving up for the Drenchmasters.’ ‘You might as well give up,’ Pancake said. ‘We’re never going to get the money and this game is a total bargain.’ Lyra tutted and stamped her hoof, ‘Oh go on then. Buy your stupid game.’ Pancake grinned at Sky and hoofed him five bits in change. Sky reached across the room and put the money in his desk drawer. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be more helpful,’ Sky said, sympathetically. ‘I tell you what though, seeing as you came all this way to see me I’ll let you have another game for half price.’ ‘Sweet,’ Pancake said, as he started flipping through the pirated games in Sky’s case. ‘Two bits fifty, they’re like forty bits in the shops.’ ‘What can I say,’ Sky grinned, ‘I’m a nice colt.’ Pancake picked another game out of the rack and happily hoofed Sky the money, but his smile vanished when he saw the angry scowl on Lyra’s face. ILL GOTTEN GAINS ‘I’m sorry, Lyra,’ Pancake said, as they reached the bottom of the stairs and headed back towards the cart. ‘You spent all our money on two stupid Neighstation games,’ Lyra growled. ‘You don’t care about my feelings at all, do you?’ ‘I’ll let you pull the cart back,’ Pancake said. Lyra huffed as she strapped into the cart's harness. ‘You know, when I buy the Drenchmasters tomorrow, I’m not sure if I’m going to let you use them.’ ‘Well we’re not getting them anyway, so it doesn’t matter.’ Lyra grinned mischievously. ‘Aren’t we?’ she said, as she peeled a twenty bit stack out of her saddlebag. ‘Where did you get that?’ Pancake gasped. ‘When you gave Sky the five bits I watched him put it in his desk drawer. I noticed that he had about a hundred bits in there. I sneaked in and pinched a twenty while he was selling you the second disk.’ Pancake’s mouth dropped open. ‘You stole Sky’s money,’ he gasped angrily. ‘Keep your stupid voice down,’ Lyra said. ‘Are you insane?’ Pancake spluttered. ‘Sky’s sixteen, if he finds out that you nicked his money, he’ll kick our flanks.’ Lyra shrugged. ‘He had loads of money in there, he’ll never notice.’ Pancake was shaking his head. ‘What’s gotten in to you, Lyra? You’re usually more sensible than me, but you’re acting like a total nutter.’ Lyra grabbed Pancake by the scruff of his neck and pulled him close. ‘I’m sick of the way Cat treats us,’ she snarled. ‘Tomorrow, we’re going to get her back, or die trying.’ THE SHOPPING MALL Saturday is a free day for all the ESS pupils who live in the junior block. They can hang around in their rooms and play, go swimming in the campus leisure pool, play sport, or go on an outing in one of the ESS mini busses. There are usually six choices of outing, which include ten-pin bowling, trips to the cinema, caving and go-carting. But the most popular choice is always shopping, especially amongst the fillies. Lyra and Pancake hadn’t got back to their beds until past ten o’clock and almost overslept. They scooped down bowls of cereal as fast as they could and made it to the mini-bus heading for the shopping centre seconds before Marsh closed the sliding door. ‘Phew,’ Lyra gasped as they stepped along the cramped aisle inside the packed mini bus. They ended up sitting directly opposite Cat and Gerda. The two fillies had both put their mane up. They carried matching hoofbags. ‘Oooh look at the ladies in their fancy clobber,’ Pancake mocked. Cat tutted. ‘We can’t all go around with greasy mane and dirt under our nails like you and your tomcolt fillyfriend.’ ‘Hey,’ Lyra said angrily. Lyra was a bit of a tomcolt, but she had a habit of thumping ponies who said it to her face. ‘Did the little tomcolt wash all the mud out of her mane?’ Gerda asked sarcastically, as Marsh drove the mini-bus through the main gates of ESS campus. Pancake noticed that the backs of Cat’s hooves were all red and sore. ‘How long did it take you to scrub the hut?’ Cat shrugged, trying to make out that the punishment had been easy. ‘Not long,’ she said. ‘You weren’t back when we all went to bed at nine o’clock,’ Lyra said. ‘You two are totally immature,’ Cat spluttered, as she raised her hoof. ‘So talk to the hoof, ‘cos the face ain’t listening.’ It took half an hour by cart from ESS campus to Shopping World. It was one of the biggest shopping centres in the country, with just about every shop you could think of. The only trouble is that Shopping World is always packed on a Saturday. Marsh yelled out instructions as she led twenty ESS pupils across the giant cart park towards the main entrance. ‘Under eights must stay with me,’ she yelled. ‘Eight and nine year olds can go off on their own, but one of you must have a mobile phone and you must stay in pairs at all times. We’ll meet back outside the book store at one thirty sharp. Do NOT be late.’
What is ESS?(This is not a real chapter, but an explanation as to what ESS is) WHAT IS ESS? You’re not allowed to know where the ESS campus is and don’t bother searching on any maps, because you’ll never find it. ESS Campus is so secret that you’re not even allowed to fly over. But if you could, you’d see more than a dozen buildings, a forest big enough to get lost in and lots of neatly trimmed grass. You’d also see tennis courts, hoofball pitches, an outdoor swimming pool and one of the scariest, muddiest, assault courses in the world. If you looked down if you were a pegasus with binoculars, you’d be able to make out some of the colts and fillies who live on ESS campus, Playing sport and walking along the gravel paths between lessons. You might think you were flying over some posh boarding school Only very clever colts and fillies are picked to become ESS pupils and they are expected to work extremely hard in school. As well as normal classes like history, Equestrian and maths, ESS pupils have to do special lessons: karate, kick boxing, survival skills, espionage, and computer hacking. These lessons aren’t always as exciting as they sound. In fact they can be just as difficult and boring as normal lessons. But ESS pupils have to learn tons of extra stuff because they’re training to be spies. WHAT USE ARE FOALS AS SPIES? The most important thing for any spy is that the ponies you’re spying on don’t know that you are one. Because no sensible grown up believes that foals work as spies, ESS pupils can get away with all kinds of stuff that grown up spies can’t. WHY ARE ALL THE ESS PUPILS ORPHANS? Mums and Dads are very protective of their foals. So are grannies, granddads, aunties, uncles, foster parents, or whoever else looks after them. They like making sure that you cross the road safely, they like tucking you into bed at night and always knowing where you are and what you’re up to. Mums and Dads would never let their foals go off on dangerous missions and become spies. That’s why every foal on ESS campus is an orphan. And since it’s impossible to be born without having two parents, it means that every single ESS pupil has a sad story to tell about how they became an orphan. This fan fic starts with one of those sad stories. If you don’t like sad stories, you might like to skip the first part of the next chapter.
