Spring In Her Step

The heat was getting to him.

It was a scorching Saturday in May, the first day of sunshine after a week of spring showers. The air at Sweet Apple Acres was tangibly thick with humidity, the kind that made a quarter-hour of work feel like a full hour in the sauna. Macintosh Apple had just finished his morning chores, and sat at the table outside the farmhouse porch with a meal of pork and potato stew and cracked brown bread. His calloused fingers wiped the sheen of sweat on his forehead into his straw-coloured hair, and he undid an extra button on his red plaid shirt. There were sodden patches on his back and under his armpits. It was a well-deserved break, he felt.

“Hey, Mister Apple.”

Big Mac hadn’t noticed the teenaged girl approaching, but didn’t startle. She walked around him, carrying a tall milkshake in each hand. After setting them on the table, she adjusted a strap on her yellow sundress, blew a stray curl of her lush lilac bob from her face, and beamed at the farmer.

He returned the smile. “Howdy, Sweetie Belle.”

“Can I join you?”

He gestured to the empty bench at the other side of the table. Sweetie Belle took a seat.

“Been working all morning, huh?” she asked.

“Eeyup.”

She nudged one of the drinks towards Big Mac. It was home-made vanilla milkshake in a tall soda glass, topped with a generous cone of squirty cream and a maraschino cherry, with a candy-cane coloured thickshake straw jutting out the side. She said, “I figured you’d be thirsty, especially with the weather and everything, so I brought you a milkshake.”

It looked mighty inviting, Big Mac thought. He’d just realised how thirsty he was.

“Well, thank you kindly.”

The moment he grabbed the glass, Sweetie Belle’s hands shot forward, wrapping around both his hand and the glass. Her hands were petite, half the size of his, and her palms and fingers were soft against his rough, tanned skin.

“Wait.” He stayed still, his eyebrows raised. She didn’t remove her hands, but closed her eyes and scrunched up her face in concentration. A mint glow emanated from her palm against the glass, and Big Mac felt a sudden cold against his hand. She relinquished her grip a second later, lilac-painted fingernails grazing the back of his hand as she pulled away.

Sweetie Belle took in a deep breath, blinking rapidly as if there were something in her eyes. “Hahh, that always gives me brainfreeze...”

Big Mac glanced down. The milkshake was now ice-cold. On the glass, droplets of condensation glinted like diamonds in the sunlight. There was a small patch of frost where Sweetie Belle’s palm had been.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Sweetie Belle flashed a corny smile at her corny joke, a cute dimple forming on her cheeks. She’d grown just the same as the other two Crusaders, but her chubby-cheeked baby face had stuck.

The farmer’s face split into a rare grin. He didn’t have much patience for magi trickery, but still, that had been a nifty trick.

“Eeyup.”

Big Mac took a sip of the milkshake. It was sublime; there was just enough sweetness to balance the vanilla, the frozen slush cut through the heat like an ice axe, and was a perfect counterpart to the strong, brothy stew. Realising that Sweetie Belle had no food, he proffered the bread rolls and butter.

“There’s stew in the kitchen if you’d like,” he mentioned, but she shook her head.

“I had brunch with sis before I came,” she said, “I’d love a roll though.”

She took one, cracking open the thick crust and tearing the soft bread within. Taking the knife, she slathered the rich butter on each half, then took a bite. She mumbled a tiny sound of satisfaction as she chewed. A splodge of butter smeared across the corner of her mouth, which she dabbed away with a finger. After washing it down with a sip of milkshake, she took another bite, and Big Mac returned to his meal.

It took him a minute to realise that Sweetie Belle was touching him. Under the table, she was resting one of her ankles over his shin. He could feel the heel of her sneaker through the fabric of his raggedy cargo pants. He twitched his outstretched leg, thinking she had mistaken it for part of the table, but she didn’t move away. Instead, she shifted ever so slightly, getting comfortable against him.

Big Mac looked at her, unsure. She simply smiled at him before returning to her milkshake. He was going to say something, but decided against it the moment he opened his mouth. Instead, he switched to small talk.

“So, uh. How come y’ain’t horsin’ around with Apple Bloom and Scootaloo?”

Sweetie shrugged. “They’re hyped up about the boxing match on teevee tonight, arguing over who’s going to win. It turned into an argument, then they started wrestling and then it turned into some jiu-do practice thing. Not really my thing, so I figured I’d give them some space and say hi. I hardly ever see you in town.”

“Farm keeps me busy.” Her leg was still resting on him. It was strange, how something so light weighed so heavily on his mind.

“Celestia, I can imagine,” she said, “Apple Bloom tells me about it. Cows die if you don’t milk them, weeds can take over your whole farm in a week, birds will eat your crops, so you’ve gotta run around stopping everything from going wrong, and then you still need to head to market and turn a profit. I mean, my sis works crazy hard, but at least nothing tries to eat her dresses.”

A wry grin crept across Big Mac’s face. “Sounds ‘bout right. It’s a good livin’ though.” He dipped a crust into his stew, and took a bite. “Food’s good, too.”

She giggled. “Yeah, the food is pretty great.”

They continued to eat. Sweetie tore into a second roll as Mac dunked his into his stew. It was a few minutes before Sweetie broke the silence.

“You do have some free time though, right? What do you do for fun when you’re not working?”

He looked thoughtful. “Well, most times me an’ mah sisters an’ gran, we’ll find something to do. All sorts, y’know. Family stuff.” He lifted his glass to drink from it, but paused. “Ah like movies,” he added. “When AJ an’ Bloom are busy, an’ gran’s asleep or talkin’ to the trees again, ah put a film on.”

“Oh, cool. Seen anything good lately?”

“Saw a few last month, all duds,” he said. “Last good one ah seen was In Bridles.”

“You’ve seen In Bridles? I love that film!”

“Really?” He raised his eyebrows, “Ain’t that movie kinda...”

She shot him a look. “What, a film about two hitmen on holiday isn’t girly enough or cutesy enough for me?”

“Ah was gonna say depressin’. Didn’t figure you were the type for tragedies, is all.”

Her expression softened. “Yeah, it’s dark I guess, but it’s funny and bittersweet and the soundtrack is incredible. They did everything right.”

“Eeyup. Craftsmanship. Nobody in the film is a good person, but ya feel for them anyhow.”

“And when the hitman and the drug dealing, thieving stagehand start to fall for each other, and they both think that the other person is nice and normal and they don’t deserve them...” She paused for a moment, grasping for a way to finish the sentence. “I like that bit,” she concluded.

“Good film.”

“Yeah.” She nodded, and a comfortable silence passed between them. “Well, next time I have a movie night, I’ll pass you an invite.”

“Much appreciated.” Big Mac mopped up the last dregs of stew with the last of his crust, then ate it. He froze mid-mouthful.

Sweetie Belle’s sneaker had hooked under the hem of his pants, and now the smooth skin of her ankle stroked up against his rough, hairy skin. The toe of her sneaker dug lightly into his calf as she pushed her foot forward. A second before Big Mac realised what she was doing, she stopped and withdrew her foot entirely. For a moment, he thought he might have imagined it entirely.

Then he looked at Sweetie Belle.

She was staring directly at him, her lips wrapped around the milkshake straw. A slurp gurgled from the bottom of the glass as she drained the last of her milkshake. Without taking her eyes off him, her lips left the straw.

Her soft, pink lips parted ever so slightly, just enough to let out a dribble of thick, white milkshake. The liquid glistened in the sun as it crawled over her bottom lip and down to her chin. She swallowed the mouthful, the droplet of milkshake quivering on her chin as her throat moved.

Using her pinky-finger, she wiped up the milk on her chin and let her tiny tongue flit out to clean it off. Then, not once breaking eye contact with Big Mac, she took the entire finger in her mouth and sucked it, her cheeks hollowing out as she slowly dragged the digit past her lips, before finally relinquishing her lilac-painted fingernail with a *pop*.

With that, she collected her glass and stood up. He caught a whiff of her perfume, the kind of cloying, spicy scent that only a teenager would wear. “Well, I’m going to see if Bloom and Scoots are still kung-fu fighting,” she said. “Nice talking with you Big Mac, and thanks for the food.”

He gave a startled cough, and replied, “Uh, sure, uh. Thanks for the milkshake, and the company.”

Sweetie Belle smiled at him. “It’s no problem. I saw you from the kitchen window; you looked a little thirsty,“ she said, brushing her petite fingers over the green half-apple on his upper arm. “And a little lonely.”

And then she was gone.

A breeze swept over Sweet Apple Acres. Macintosh Apple welcomed it. The heat was getting to him.