As Silver Plateau swallowed her seventh daisy, she became aware of the curious cloud that had obscured the noonday sun. Its shadow wandered and weaved, bobbed and bounced, swayed and swerved. Silver swallowed again, but this time all that slid down her gullet was a sticky, sickly mixture of saliva and dread.

The shadow moved in for the kill.

“Hellooo! I haven’t seen you around before! You’re new in Ponyville, huh? Well? Are ya?”

Silver nodded awkwardly, spotting an eighth daisy sheltering beneath a particularly large dandelion leaf. She reached out with a gentle, ginger forehoof to pluck it from its hiding place.

“Aw, just boring old flowers? How do you feel about cake?”

A thrush called in a nearby tree. Silver stuffed the new daisy into her mouth, then listened with rapt attention, ears up and head down. There was a sudden commotion in the branches and she looked up reflexively. The bird took off, wings beating smoothly as it disappeared southward.

“What’s your name?”

Silver slowly raised her head. Teeth. So many teeth. She shuddered.

“Mm?”

She cringed. There was nothing else for it. “Silver Plateau.”

“Oh, wow, that’s such a nice name! I’m Pin—”

Silver gulped down the daisy and was immediately seized by a fit of coughing. Her eyes bulged and rolled in her face; her long auburn mane flopped and flashed in the sunlight; spittle flecked the teeth and gums of her wide-open mouth. In seconds, Pinkie was with her, thumping her hard on the back. Silver stopped coughing and rolled away hurriedly.

“Thanks, Pinkie Pie.” She got unsteadily to her hooves.

“Oh, it was nothin’. But now you owe me for it!” An avaricious light flashed in Pinkie’s eyes.

Silver sighed and reached for her saddlebags, but her hoof was quickly swatted away.

“Don’t be silly, silly! I don’t want any bits! All you have to do is to come to the bakery at six o’clock tonight. Be there or be an éclair! Which reminds me...”

“What?”

“See ya later – gotta cater!” Pinkie bounced off, whistling a cheerful three-part harmony. Silver sighed again, returning her attention to the daisies.

---

There was no answer to Silver’s knock, so she pressed her hoof against the bakery door. It yielded and opened smoothly: there was no scrape or creak, simply the sudden rush to the young mare’s nostrils of a hundred captivating confections. She closed her eyes tight, but that just made the scents even harder to ignore. Opening them again and taking a deep, broken breath, she entered, leaving the front door ajar behind her.

The long hallway was dark and shadowy. A cool breeze filtered in from somewhere above and there was a faint bubbling sound in the distance. There was another door at the end of the passage; this one was firmly shut. Silver approached it warily. She reached out to turn the knob, but then abruptly dropped her hoof and bent down to listen.

Nothing.

Muffled and distant behind her, the Town Hall clock chimed six times. She waited for the echoes to die away.

Nothing.

Well, she’d kept her part of the bargain by coming when she’d been told. If nopony else had, that was their problem. Letting out the stale lungful she hadn’t realised she’d been holding, Silver turned to leave—

Pinkie Pie was leaning against the wall of the hallway, silent and still. She was munching on the remains of a small white flower.

“You!” Silver straightened up suddenly. “You startled me! I didn’t know you were even here!”

Pinkie swallowed her snack and beamed. “Then you, Silver Plateau, have your head screwed on right.”

“I do?”

Pinkie put a hoof to her temple. “Or was it left?”

Her smile wavered fractionally. Silver’s followed suit.