Midnight Belle (and the Case of the Vanishing Foals!)

The clock showed five minutes to spare as Sweetie Belle slipped into class. The desks were already mostly occupied by ponies who had shown up with a better measure of time, but Sweetie’s usual seat was still empty, along with the desks on either side. A nice little row of three near the back of the class, where she’d sat every day since the beginning of the school year.

Sweetie Belle hopped into her desk and pulled her textbook from inside. She laid it out on the desk and tried to invest herself in the words on the page. They blurred together in a haze of disinterest, despite her best efforts to read.

It wasn’t as though there was anything better to do before class, though.

The sound of last-minute hoofsteps before the impending bell drew Sweetie’s head up from her book. She turned to the classroom to see a familiar red bow and spiky splotch of purple hair bobbing towards her desk through the crowd. She waved at them excitedly as they came closer, and her wave was met with raised hooves from to the two ponies who took up seats next to her—Scootaloo to the left, Applebloom to the right.

“Hey, Sweetie Belle.” Applebloom scrounged for her own textbook as she took her seat.

“Hey, Sweetie Belle.” Scootaloo did the same on the other side, casting a relieved glance at the clock as she did so. Still a minute to spare.

“Hey guys.” Sweetie wished she and her friends had showed up earlier—now there was a whole first period of class to wait before recess, where they could actually talk. As nice as Cheerilee’s teaching was, it was still learning, and therefore ultimately less interesting than what the three girls wanted to do with their spare time: namely, cutie mark hunting.

The bell rang and the murmurs in the class rose to a peak before beginning to die down. Cheerilee was still nowhere to be seen, which meant a minute or two of extra time for everypony to get back in their seats. Sweetie’s three pony group, of course, took the opportunity for conversation.

“Are you guys both going to Bonbon’s after school?” Applebloom asked, picking up a pencil from her desk and setting it on top of her notebook. Sweetie stared blankly at her, while Scootaloo nodded.

“Bonbon’s?” Sweetie asked. She remembered her earlier conversation with Lyra... did that mean she’d invited everypony to come and help out around the kitchen?

Scootaloo nodded more excitedly. “Uh-huh. Bonbon’s making candy for every schoolpony in town. As kind of a... y’know. Like a cheer-up party for ponies who have kids who have gone... missing.” Scootaloo ambled over her explanation without particulars. Her voice sounded uneasy as it skirted around the subject of her avoidance.

Applebloom dipped her head to Scootaloo, then gestured conspiratorially with her hoof for the other two girls to come closer, which they did, until their heads were in a circle, held around by each others’ hooves.

“Did y’all hear anythin’ else about that? About ponies just... disappearin’?”

“Do you mean like Silver Spoon?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Uh-huh. And Twist too. Both of ‘em have disappeared.”

“Can you blame them?” Scootaloo chimed in. Both Sweetie Belle and Applebloom turned their heads to see what sudden callous insight Scootaloo might have to offer on the situation.

“Beg your pardon?” Applebloom said.

“Well, I mean, come on. Twist didn’t exactly have the nicest place to come home to, what with her mom being out of a job and all.”

“Scootaloo!” Sweetie said, quelling her voice below a proper yell.

“It’s true. And Silver Spoon... I mean, it’s not really a secret that her mom is the biggest bit—”

Scootaloo’s swear died mid-sentence as a kick from Sweetie Belle hit her right in the shins. She scrunched her face up, ready to shout, but Sweetie Belle’s pointed stare forward told her doing so would be unwise. Sure enough, as Scootaloo looked to the front of the class, Cheerilee was smiling at the trio, apparently willing to let the transgression of their tiny conversation go, provided they at least pretended to be ready for class, and to avoid the blatant swearing she’d almost caught wind of.

Scootaloo did exactly that. She crossed her forehooves on her desk and stared forward with a sickening sweetness on her face. Cheerilee spared her a smile, then turned back to blackboard where she was preparing her lesson.

Scootaloo held the pose and expression as she whispered sideways out of the corner of her mouth.

“Still... I do think it’s weird that both of them disappeared all of a sudden.”

Sweetie and Applebloom nodded.

“What do ya’ think happened to ‘em? They’ve been missing for almost two whole days now.”

Sweetie had no opinion to venture on the subject, but Scootaloo scanned the room with her eyes and risked a sideways turn of her head, after apparently figuring she was in the clear enough to look away from the lesson plan.

“I have a theory about that, y’know.”

Sweetie perked up a tad, though the particulars of Scootaloo’s ramblings weren’t always rooted in reality. Applebloom did the same, leaning to the side in her desk to get a better earful.

“I heard...” Scootaloo started, letting her friends crane their necks to hear better. “I heard that they’re getting... kidnapped.”

Applebloom gasped, but Sweetie Belle kept her composure restrained.

“Kidnapped? By who?” Applebloom asked.

“I dunno. No one does.,” Scootaloo said. “But, I have a feeling I know who it is.”

Applebloom leaned closer, her eyes wide. “Who do you think it is then?” she asked.

Sweetie Belle tried to avoid an eyeroll.

“I think...” Scootaloo started, lowering her voice further than was necessary in the already closed-up circle. “I think... it’s... griffons.”

“Why would griffons be kidnapping ponies?” Sweetie’s eyebrows turned downward and her face scrunched up like she’d smelled something unpleasant.

“I don’t know. They’re griffons.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It doesn’t mean anything. Just... you know....”

“What?”

“They have talons.”

“So?”

The bitter back and forth found its natural conclusion as a set of louder-than-conversation hoofsteps came across the front of the classroom. All three Cutie Mark Crusaders looked up to see Miss Cheerilee smiling at them. They broke up their huddle without reproach, returning to their desks and looking forward with saccharine smiles.

Cheerilee turned her smile onto the whole of the class and waited a few seconds for the last trickles of conversation to fade away.

“Good morning, Class,” she said after satisfactory silence. “I hope everypony is doing well today?”

“Yes, Miss Cheerilee.” The class’s voices came together like an off-pitch chorus, and Cheerilee beamed at them.

“Wonderful. I’d like to draw everypony’s attention to the blackboard for a moment so we can begin discussing today’s subject.”

Like cats trained on a dangling string, the eyes of every filly and colt in the room moved as Cheerilee did, falling onto the blackboard with a single word written on it in faded chalk.

“Safety,” Cheerilee read, “is going to be the subject of today’s lesson.”

Cheerilee picked up a pointer from the tray beneath the blackboard. She held it in her mouth, squinting as though she was thinking. After a few second, she shook her head and put it down.

“I’m sure you’re all aware that in the past few days, several ponies have gone... missing.” Cheerilee trailed over the word the same way Scootaloo had done, nervous to communicate the full extent of what such an unassuming word might mean. “As a result, I feel—along with one or two other concerned citizens who are taking the recent disappearances quite seriously—that it’s important to have a discussion about safety: what’s safe and what isn’t, who we can talk to, and who we can’t. And, what to do if we see or hear anything that an adult pony should know about.”

Eyes began to gloss over immediately, but Cheerilee ignored them as she drew up her pointer properly this time and gestured with it to a point on the board.

“Now,” she said, “who can tell me one of the most important things...”

Cheerilee’s voice faded away into Sweetie’s ears as she looked forward. A quick replacement for her focus came in the form of a nudge in the side, and Sweetie turned to meet it, finding Applebloom shifting her eyes.

“So are yew comin’ to Bonbon’s after school?” Applebloom asked. Sweetie felt another poke and turned towards Scootaloo.

“Yeah, are you coming? There’s gonna be free candy!”

Sweetie thought on the subject for a moment. After school...

No. She’d been very clear to Rarity that she’d come straight home. Rarity sounded like one of the paranoid ponies that had forced Cheerilee into today’s lecture in the first place, and as a result of not wanting Sweetie out of her sight, had come up with a list of activities and chores she and Sweetie would do together after school.

Which meant no party at Bonbon’s, and no free candy.

Sweetie sighed, keeping herself quiet enough to not draw attention from Cheerilee, who was mid-lecture.

“I can’t,” she said, trying to ignore the mildly crestfallen looks on either friend’s face. “I promised Rarity I’d come right home after school and help her with... stuff.”

“Aw, come on! You can’t give up free candy for... doing stuff. Just tell Rarity you got stuck after school.” Scootaloo grinned as she played the devil, doing her best to tempt Sweetie into the after school shindig.

Sweetie shook her head again.

“I can’t,” she said. “Any other time, maybe, but Rarity’d be really mad.”

Scootaloo turned her head from side to side and groaned.

“Ugh. Fine. Applebloom and I will just have to eat enough of Bonbon’s candy to make up for you then,” she said.

A fourth face leaned in to join the conversation.

It wasn’t one that had ever sat at the small row of three, but it was always one that seemed to be nearby almost all of the time. It was a face with a pink coat and a silver mane with white highlights, and a prissy, fake-looking tiara on top.

“Haven’t you dummies been paying attention? You shouldn’t take candy from strangers.” Diamond Tiara whispered her admonition with a sense of smugness, making it clear at once that she’d been paying attention and was delighting in reminding the three slackers in the back of class of the fact.

Scootaloo rolled her eyes exaggeratedly.

“Bonbon’s not a stranger, dummy. She’s Bonbon. Everypony in town knows her.”

“Oh yeah? And how well do you know her?”

“I know her fine.” Applebloom chimed in with a noticeably less confrontational tone. “She comes by every other month ta’ get apples for makin’ candy apples.”

“Yeah!” Scootaloo added unnecessary punctuation to Applebloom’s rebuttal, which got an exasperated sigh behind her.

“Cut it out, Scoots. Anyway, she’s been in town forever. Always throws parties and gives out tons of great candy on Nightmare Night. Nothin’s ‘strange’ about Bonbon.”

Diamond Tiara glowered the trio. She opened her mouth a fraction as though she had a burning rejoinder on her tongue, but stopped after a second. Her face scrunched up like she’d been stung by something.

“Hmph.”

She turned her head curtly and looked back up at the blackboard, where Cheerilee was drawing a diagram of a questionable looking pony with the word ‘STRANGER’ overtop.

While Scootaloo beamed at her evident victory, Sweetie and Applebloom shared a look behind her back. They both let their eyes wander over to the seat beside Diamond Tiara, which was empty.

Sweetie Belle knew that there was no way what was now a simple discussion would have ended so concisely in the past, even if the Cutie Mark Crusaders were clearly in the right. Diamond Tiara wasn’t the kind to give up so fast.

Sweetie Belle lowered her voice to a whisper as she leaned closer to Applebloom.

“She doesn’t seem the same since Silver Spoon disappeared...”

Applebloom responded with a nod. Whether she was pondering her own response, or if she had more to say at all, remained a mystery—Applebloom’s eyes shifted to the front of the classroom, and the look of partial panic was an indicator enough for Sweetie Belle that she and her two friends were likely in the line of sight of Cheerilee’s teacher-glare. Sweetie snapped herself back to perfect upright posture and stared forward with an oblivious grin on her face.

Cheerilee smiled back at her, then returned to her lecture.

Silver Spoon’s wasn’t the only seat in class that was empty.

Somehow, Sweetie didn’t think griffons were the cause for worry.