A slightly strange method

The Doo’s house sat on the outskirts of the village.  The house had the unfortunate location of being too far away from the center of town to be fashionable, yet too close to be desirably rustic or rural.  Unlike almost all of the buildings in ponyville, the Doo’s was a squatish, brown brick building with shingles upon the roof.  Soon after the original owner had built the house, their 3 month old unicorn had an accident involving a candle. Said accident had the happy result assisting in the discovery of the 5th law of thermodynamics.  Unfortunately the owners did not see this leap forward the same way as the local physicists, only seeing the 6 figures worth of property damage resulting from the fire. The roof was rebuilt, using shingles on the roof instead of thatching it.  In the ensuring 50 years, the house had literally fallen apart under the ownership of over 30 families.  Through tax audit, fire, flood, fleas, baby unicorns and frog invasions, the house had been slowly reduced to a 3 bedroom cottage on about five-hundred square meters.  The only ponies to which the house had any significance were the two occupants:  Ditzy Doo and her daughter, Dinky Doo.

Ditzy opened her eyes.  Instead of seeing the peeling plaster of the ceiling, all she could see was a thick inky darkness, swirling in upon itself.  Ditzy soon arrived at the seemingly logical idea she was dreaming.  From the dark came a voice she knew:

“Mummy? Can I see Scootaloo today?  I’ve been very good.  Mummy?”.

Ditzy instantly recognized the voice as Dinky Doo’s, her daughter.  Ditzy groped out in the darkness, helplessly trying to find her little filly.  Her flailing hooves found nothing.  She fell, hitting something hard.  Her purple quilt fell from her face, the sudden light blinding her.  Ditzy blinked on the floor, completely confused.  Dinky giggled, “Mummy, you’re a very silly pony.  You always fall out of bed.”

Ditzy stood up, stretching herself.   Dinky mimicked her mothers stretch as best as she was able. Ditzy flexed her wings, almost hitting the young unicorn.  She hated work mornings, they usually meant she couldn’t spend much time with Dinky.  This was not to say, as she was quick to say, that she did not enjoy working as the mailmare and meeting all the ponies in the town, it was the requirement of her to actually turn up to work which she disliked.

“Wont Scootaloo be at school today sweetie?”

“But you’re here, that means that today is a weekend!  Weekend means no school, so Scootaloo won’t be at school.  Can I go see her?”

Ditzy smiled sadly down at her daughter.

“I'm only here because I haven’t left for work today sweetie, I need to deliver letters to everypony.”

Ditzy walked through their small house to the bathroom. Dinky trotted behind her trying to keep up.  Ditzy tried to whistle, contorting her mouth and blowing. She shook her head, grinning and content.  Once inside the bathroom, her new shoes clicked on the tiles. She grasped the manebrush, promptly dropping it upon the floor.  She Clicked her tongue in irritation as she bent to pick up the offending brush before pulling it through mane. Dinky flopped on the chipped tile floor, frowning.

“But mum, its too late for you to go to work, Its almost ten. And if you don’t go to work, then it’s a weekend!”

Ditzy blinked. Ten. Ditzy paused mid stroke, her eyes lost focus as electricity sparked in her brain.   The number seemed… too big.  Ten was a dozen muffins if she had eaten two, the number of bits for a bag of apples from the apples, the smallest Noncototient, ten was the number of fillies in Dinky’s class, ten was one more than nine.  In her mind, the time of ten meandered until it bumped into the time of nine.  Funny that, she thought, work started an hour ago.

“Oh.”

Ten was later then nine.  By an hour.  She was an hour late.  Miss Black would have her head.  On a pointy stick.  Probably.  Ditzy trotted into the kitchen as fast as her daughter could manage and started to shove food (including a jar of mustard) into her daughters school bag.

“I… we… You have to go.  We are a teensy-tiny late.  You need to go to school.  Your a big filly now, you will have to go alone.  Can you do that for mama? Here, take this.  ”

Ditzy hurriedly put the school bags over her fillies shoulders.  Dinky smiled knowingly up at her mother.

“oh, so it is a weekday? Then I'm… late.  Can you write a note to Cheerilee to tell her I’m late?”

Ditzy looked up at the kitchen clock.  Ten past ten.

“sorry sunshine, gotta fly.”

Ditzy placed a kiss on Dinky’s forehead, almost poking herself in her eye with Dinky’s horn.  She quickly galloped outside and took off towards the post office.  Dinky sighed.  No note, again.  She slowly followed her mother out the door, hoofs dragging on the floorboards.  Her mother was very forgetful. Cheerilee would understand.  Hopefully.  If not, well, there were only ten desks she could hoof clean.