The night had, in all manners of speaking, been a success. Her five closest friends had shown up at Sugarcube Corner in order to attend Pinkie Pie’s “Thousandth Party Party,” which she had of course thrown to celebrate the previous nine hundred and ninety-nine parties.
Three hours after it began, the night had grown late for everypony. The five girls had all left to get back to their own homes, leaving Pinkie to deal with some matters before she could go upstairs to her bed. The Cakes were a generous couple for letting her live at their store and to use it to throw her parties, but there were also rules to obey. One rule was to clean up after herself and her guests, so Pinkie trotted over to the closet to do just that.
She opened the door and the broom fell out. Catching it, she laughed before reminding it that “Silly broom! It’s not your turn yet!” After propping it up back up against the wall, she pulled out a roll of trash bags and a small hoof broom. “First, I gotta clear off the tables!”
As she walked back into the parlor, she eyed the record player that stood on a table against the far wall. The record had run out as the party was dying down, so nopony had bothered to turn it back on. Pinkie thought about starting it up again; a little cleaning music would do the mood good!
At the last second, she decided against it. That music had been there for the party; it didn’t feel right to play it when she was getting rid of the party.
The various bits of trash and dirty plates told a story, Pinkie realized. Everything that had happened at the party had left a little bit of a mess, no matter how courteous her friends had tried to be. For example, there were still chips spread out over the table from when Rainbow Dash had been a bit too enthusiastic during a game of Hot Potato. It had boiled down to an intense showdown between her and Applejack; near the end, they were hurling the beanbag overhoof at each other until Rainbow Dash missed Applejack and hit the bowl of chips.
Everypony had laughed at it, and an apologetic Rainbow Dash had cleaned up most of the mess she made. The best part of it all was that, while nopony “won” the game, no one really “lost,” either, so it was purely fun for everypony.
“I guess this is what a potato fight looks like!” Pinkie giggled as she brushed the snack debris into her bag. A quick scan of the tables told her that they were clean; the most important thing left was to take care of the dirty dishes.
Pinkie stacked all of the snack bowls on top of each other, crowning the tower with the punchbowl. Twilight had spent most of the party standing by the punchbowl and talking to her little dragon assistant, Spike. She was a good friend, but she was still kind of awkward when it came to hanging out, so she usually only hung out with her oldest friend. Luckily, Rarity had picked up on it, and she had spent most of the party making conversation with Twilight.
“That’s what friends are for!” Pinkie sang as she made her way to the kitchen with her pile of dishes. She emptied the snack bowls into the trash before setting them by the sink; they had been sitting out for long enough for their contents to get stale. However, there was too much punch to just throw it away, so she put it in the fridge. The Cakes could have some of it with her lunch tomorrow. “Punch, lunch, munch, hunch,” she chanted as she bounced back into the parlor.
Back at the now-defunct refreshment table, Pinkie started gathering up the paper cups and plates that hadn’t found their way to the trash. Out of all of them, none of them belonged to Rarity; that sort of inattentiveness would be “unbecoming of a lady of my stature,” like she said one time. She was pretty picky when it came to things she did and didn’t enjoy, but she always ended up having a good time by having conversations with the rest of the guests.
“Well, maybe not Rainbow Dash!” Pinkie corrected me.
All right, fair enough, maybe not Rainbow Dash.
Anyway, Pinkie... uh...
“I’m gathering cups, remember, Mr. Narrator?”
Right.
She put the paper cups and plates that she had gathered into the trash bag. With that taken care of, the only thing left on the tables was the small green form of Gummy, her pet alligator. The mare at the pet store said he had a rare disease where he didn’t grow any teeth, so his mom had just abandoned him. He’d been so little and helpless when she saw him, so Pinkie had to take him home with her. The Cakes hadn’t been thrilled by the idea at first, but they seemed to warm up to Gummy when they learned he wouldn’t ever grow any teeth.
Fluttershy had always taken an interest in him, and that night hadn’t been much different. She had spent most of the party doting on and playing with him. Between her pet bunny, Angel, and all of the other animals she took care of, Fluttershy seemed to prefer animals to ponies. Pinkie knew she was a good mare and an even better friend—she was just, well, shy.
As she thought back to the events of the nights and all of the fun that her friends had, Pinkie Pie couldn’t help but think that, just like always, she’d missed out on some of the fun. She smiled in spite of her regret; it was good enough to know that her friends were having fun with all of the preparations that she made.
Pinkie went back to the closet and brought out a stepladder. The streamers and balloons were all up by the ceiling, so she couldn’t reach them on her own. “Rainbow Dash is already asleep, I bet!” she commented as she climbed up and grabbed hold of a balloon. She bit the knotted end to make a hole, and she sucked out a little bit of the helium before letting it fly around the room. “And so is Fluttershy!” she squeaked in her now high-pitched voice.
As she went around the ceiling taking down streamers and biting balloons, she felt sad to see the parlor of Sugarcube Corner looking so... plain. The room definitely looked better when it was full of bright decorations and ponies, but as quick as it was to take everything down, it always took a lot of work in order to get things ready for her friends.
Her ears shrunk down as she complained, “But it’s always me on a ladder gathering balloons.” It wasn’t that she doubted they really liked her—all the confusion around Gummy’s first birthday party had proved that they did really care. At the same time, birthdays were supposed to have a party; sometimes, she wished that her friends would throw her a party without any real reason for it.
It wouldn’t fix anything to get upset by it, though. Besides, friends did nice things for each other without expecting anything in return! That was what Granny Pie had told Pinkie, back in her days on the rock farm, and Granny Pie always knew what she was talking about.
When the ceiling and walls were clear, Pinkie didn’t need the stepladder anymore. She thought about hopping over to the closet, but she was starting to get tired, too. After walking to the closet, she put the ladder back inside and consoled the broom, “Now it’s your turn, silly!” She got the dustpan, too, and swept up the last remnants of her party.
After that, she realized everything was taken care of except for the trash bag. It had taken less than a half hour to clean up everything; behind Sugarcube Corner, Pinkie finished the job by putting bag in the trash can.
There wasn’t really a clear view of the village from back there, so she couldn’t see any of her friends’ houses. Still, it was good to be done cleaning, and she let out a sigh of relief that the job was done. It was a lot of work for one pony; it would have gone by faster with one or two friends helping. There had been exactly one thousand parties, but they had only ever offered to help with that part once. It wasn’t that Pinkie was lazy or didn’t want to follow the Cake’s conditions for letting her throw a party, it was more that, well, cleaning up a party by herself was lonely.
“First the party, now the Pinkie,” she said through a yawn. She carefully scooped up Gummy to bring him upstairs with her, and after taking one last look at the empty room, she turned off the light.
Upstairs, she put Gummy in his own little bed. With that taken care of, she drew a bath to get herself ready for her own night’s sleep. As she climbed into the water, she mumbled, “No peeking, Mr. Narrator!”
I... wasn’t... that doesn’t even make... GAH!
Chuckling, Pinkie set about cleaning herself, focusing mainly on her bright, curly mane. Once she was finished, she dried off, noting how her still-damp hair was straight and long now. With one giggle, though, her mane popped back up into its usual puffy style.
She finished getting ready for bed by brushing her teeth. Licking the now-extra-smooth surfaces of her teeth, she walked into her bedroom. Ashamed, she wrinkled her nose a little as she turned on her little night light that helped her sleep in a room that, even after six years, was scary to her in the complete dark. She had even tried her granny’s advice to laugh at it, but, the darkness didn’t really become less scary.
Pinkie turned off the overhead light and climbed into bed. She missed Granny Pie’s bedtime stories, Mother’s cooking, and Father’s big strong hugs; her eyes stung a little as a few unwelcome tears forced their way into them. She hadn’t known some of the bigger words that the big, mean stallion who came to visit one fateful day—words like “subsidiaries” and “foreclosure.” All she knew was that, later that night, Mother and Father had spent almost an hour yelling at each other before they broke down into tears.
She wondered if they knew that, at the top of the stairs, three scared, young fillies had been listening and trying to figure out what was going on.
“And then I threw my first Ponyville party.” She tried to smile at the memory. It had been sad to say goodbye to her parents, but they told her that she’d have a better life in the village than on their farm. The farm was far away enough from Ponyville that her family couldn’t visit very often, but they still wrote almost every month.
It wasn’t the same. Pinkie had grown up in a small house with four other ponies, so even as small a city as Ponyville felt really big sometimes. She had a lot of friends, but even still, she always seemed to end up alone. She tried being extra friendly when she was lonely, but most of the time, it had the opposite effect on her friends and they seemed to push her away.
As she drifted off to sleep, she hoped her friends had also found sleep well. They were good ponies, each and every one of them, and thinking about them made Pinkie feel slightly less alone.
Her last thought that night was spent on remembering some of Granny Pie’s stories, ones about ponies who lived through sad times. The thing she liked best about those stories was that, even when times were bad, everypony always lived happily ever after.
