At first glance, Ponyville looked like any other hamlet on the edge of the Everfree Forest. The train station was a busy stop on the track from Canterlot out to the Appleoosan frontier. It had a bowling alley, a dress boutique, and three florist shops.

But Ponyville was different from other towns. Nopony, foal or stallion, got away with being unfriendly to anypony else. Constables all over Equestria wondered, how did they do it?

Mayor Mare would love to tell all Equestria her secret, but who would believe her? The constabulary was in a broom closet in City Hall on the town square, but the true cause of all the peace and harmony in Ponyville was a bakery shop at Sugarcube Corner.

There lived Mr. and Mrs. Cake, their two children, and a tenant named Pinkamena Diane Pie. Pinkamena was an aspiring baker, apprenticing under the Cakes to earn her room and board. Only her parents and sisters back on the rock farm where she was raised called Pinkamena by her given name. Everypony else in Equestria called her Pinkie.

Pinkie’s friend Twilight Sparkle had read more books than anypony, and never forgot what she read. But Pinkie knew more facts than Twilight Sparkle ever could, because she could make them up as she went along.

When she wasn’t working in the bakery, Pinkie Pie set up a detective shop in the garage she built behind Sugarcube Corner. A garage is a building used to store automobiles when they aren’t being used. Nopony knows what an automobile is. Just outside the garage Pinkie Pie had hung up a sign:



Pinkie Pie sat behind a folding table in the garage sharing a cupcake with her helper, Fluttershy. Fluttershy was the prettiest pony in Ponyville, and she had done something that nopony else in town had managed to do: She had gut-stomped famed athlete Rainbow Dash right into the ground! At the time Fluttershy was attempting to run away from a dragon migration, but it was still kinda impressive.

Pinkie was about to bite into her half of the cupcake when she felt her nose twitch, her left back knee wiggle, and her tail flip. “We’re about to get a customer!” she exclaimed. About that time, she and Fluttershy saw their friend in the cowpony hat cantering toward the garage door, almost breaking into a full gallop in her hurry to get there.

“Oh my,” remarked Fluttershy, “She looks like she’s been startled. I hope this case isn’t anything dangerous.”

“So what can we do ya for, pardner?” Pinkie giggled as Applejack slapped two bits onto the top of the gasoline can on the folding table. Nopony knows what gasoline is, either, but Pinkie liked to keep her bits in the empty can.

“I think I found Equestria’s most perfect apple, the one that’s going to win this year’s Ponyville Produce Producers Pageant,” said Applejack.

“You mean the contest that Carrot Top wins every year?” asked Pinkie.

“I thought her name was Golden Harvest,” said Fluttershy.

“It don’t matter what you call her,” Applejack grumbled, “She wins every year! She brings in flawless carrots, and no matter how carefully I buck my apples down, I wind up in second place! They always find a bruise, or a spot that’s not shiny enough, or even a spot that’s too shiny! But this time I was bucking out in the back forty, up against the edge of the Everfree Forest, and found a tree that is growing the shiniest, most perfectly shaped apple with a brilliant golden color.”

“So what’s the problem?” asked Pinkie.

“I want you to help me decide whether to pick it,” said Applejack.

Fluttershy blinked, confused. But Pinkie Pie just smiled, donned her deerstalker cap, and filled the cup of her bubble pipe with a little soap and water.

“Lead the way, Jackie!,” Pinkie bubbled, both figuratively and literally, thanks to the pipe, “C’mon, Fluttershy, the game is ahoof!”

---

Applejack’s orchards and farm were on the outskirts of town. They passed the farmhouse and--after spending a moment good-naturedly teasing Fluttershy about the way she blushed when she walked past the window of Applejack’s sturdy older brother Big Macintosh--continued to walk on into the fields with the trees. Lots and lots of trees. Pinkie Pie was dismayed to find that Applejack’s “back forty” was probably more like the “back four thousand”. They walked past countless rows of trees, all filled with apples of the same appealing red color and plump juicy roundness.

It had been almost five minutes since Pinkie Pie’s last snack, and her blood sugar was getting low. She was about to ask Applejack if they could stop for a break and get a treat from the treetops, when they stepped into a clearing and saw it.

A field of saplings, spaced far apart to accommodate how big the young trees would eventually get. The saplings ran right up to the dark foliage of the Everfree Forest. The Forest was the edge of pony civilization. Nopony went in the Everfree Forest without a really good reason; there were all sorts of dangerous wild creatures and mysterious magics there. In the middle of the field was a sapling that had grown twice as tall as any of the surrounding trees, and hanging off one of the branches was a single apple, an apple like nothing in all the orchards they had just trudged through.

It was brilliant gold, glinting in the light like the flickers of flame from a candle. As if they were moths, the ponies were drawn closer the apple so they could appreciate the perfect shape, a shape that seemed to radiate a sense of crispness and juiciness. Unable to resist its allure, Pinkie reached out to the apple, only to feel Applejack firmly slap her hoof back to the ground. Applejack then looked up and spoke to the tree:

“Alright, I brought my friends. Go ahead and tell ‘em what you told me.”

“Ahhhhhh, felt the need to bring in some...devil’s advocatesssss, did we?” replied a voice, which then let out a soft chuckle. Or was that a hiss?

The ponies searched the tree for the source of the voice only to suddenly realize that it had been there on the branch the whole time, less than a hoof’s reach from their faces. In more relaxed circumstances, Applejack would have remarked to Pinkie, “You were so close that if it’d been a snake, it would’ve bit ya.” But in this case, she simply tensely watched the voice’s owner, which in this case actually was a snake.

It was a dull brown, with flecks of brighter copper scattered amoung the scales that graced its length, a pattern that made it almost invisible against the bark of the apple tree. The snake’s face was armored in dull grey scales pierced by two eyes that glowed green with intelligence and...something else. As it lifted its neck higher in order to address them, Pinkie and Applejack retreated back a step or two despite themselves. Fluttershy disappeared.

“It really is a simple thing. I was congratulating you on your accomplishment in raising this wonderful tree and encouraging you to partake of the fruits of your labo-”

The snake came to an abrupt stop as it felt something tugging on its tail.

“OH MY! I’ve never seen a talking snake before! How WONderful!” cooed Fluttershy, who was beating her pegasus wings to softly float at the snake’s level in the tree. She lifted the tail and peered underneath, “And it’s a female! If you don’t mind my asking, Mrs. Snake, are you ovoviviparous?”

The snake coiled tightly around the branch and yanked her tail away from Fluttershy’s grasp. She glared coldly at the pegasus, before suddenly glancing at the ponies watching from the ground and relaxing her grip on the branch. In the sweetest tones a snake can manage, she finally replied, “I’m quite sorry, my dear, but my cloaca, my businessss. And rather than ‘Mrs. Snake’, you may call me Beelzebub.”

Pinkie loved introductions. “Hi, Bubba! I’m Detective Pinkie Pie! Welcome to Ponyville! You already know Applejack, and I see you’re getting to be close with my detective’s assistant Fluttershy! We’ll have to plan a welcome party!”

The snake closed its eyes for a moment, and brought its tail around to its face, trying its best to rub its temples while the pony in a deerstalker cap launched into a song medley and fired cake batter out of a cannon. Beelzebub had been doing what she did for a long time, and this was far from the way these engagements usually happened. But this time the prize was too great to abandon out of annoyance.

“It is a pleasure to meet you all, I assure you,” the snake stated tersely. “But back to the business at hand. Applejack has been granted the opportunity of a lifetime. Years of sweat and toil and back-breaking labor has expanded her farm to the edge of the Everfree Forest, where one of her trees has been pollinated by a tree I am very familiar with: the Tree of Knowledge. Hence I am able to live in this tree, free of the darkness of the Everfree Forest and basking in the glorious sunlight of what you call Equestria.” Bubba stretched out above the tree, where both she and Fluttershy could see over the hills toward town. The snake’s green eyes again gleamed with that intelligence and...something else...as she regarded the spire of Town Hall visible in the distance.

“All Applejack needs do is partake of the fruit of this tree and she will know truths and wisdoms that have been lost to the ages. She will become as one of the goddesses!”

“And I can take that shiny apple to the Ponyville Produce Producers Pageant and finally win that trophy instead of Golden Harvest!” beamed Applejack.

“I thought her name was Carrot Top,” said Fluttershy.

“It doesn’t matter what her name is,” hissed Bubba. “Your paltry contest at the fairgrounds is but the beginning! Applejack! The power of this fruit will be sought by all, and you shall be the one that wields it! I will help you raise more of these wonderful trees and your orchards shall spread far and wide. Your trees will be everywhere! In the hills in the distance! In the town! Perhaps even in the gardens of that castle on the far-off mountain! And all you need do is reach up and take this beautiful apple!”

“My apple trees growing in the Princess’ garden in Canterlot Castle! Fancy that!” Applejack mused, with a far-off look. Then she shook the wonder out of her eyes with a toss of her golden mane and looked to Pinkie.

“OK, Pinkie, you’ve heard the sales pitch. But this isn’t the first time I’ve come across plants and critters from the Everfree Forest. It’s taken my Granny a lifetime to understand all the ins and outs of raising Zap Apples to make Zap Apple Jam, and for all the good it does the farm it’s one heck of an obligation. You hafta do what the Zap Apples want, when they want it.”

Pinkie eyes lit up, “Yeah, and that’s just a Zap Apple that doesn’t do anything but taste good! Remember what happened that time we ran into Poison Joke? You shrunk to the size of a chipmunk and Fluttershy’s voice got really deep and my tongue swelled up where I couldn’t talk! Omigosh, what if you ate the golden apple and you couldn’t talk anymore? You’d have to go to the Ponyville Produce Producers Pageant and have to write notes to the judges and when you won and everyone would be shouting, ‘Speech! Speech!’ you’d have to stand there not talking and ponies would think you’re being rude and you wouldn’t get invited to next year’s Pageant and all you could do is write a note that said you were glad you weren’t the size of a chipmunk! Well, maybe a little bigger than a chipmunk. Fluttershy, do you have any chipmunks at your cottage we could measure? OH! we could have a Pre-Ponyvile Produce Producers Pageant Chipmunk Measuring Party so we’d know what Applejack would have to write on her note!”

Bubba rolled her eyes while Applejack and Fluttershy waited patiently for Pinkie to wind down. Then Applejack concurred, “Exactly! It sounds like a good deal, but I don’t take anything from the Everfree Forest lightly. So, Detective Pinkie, do you think I should I should pick this here shiny apple?”

Detective Pinkie Pie closed her eyes for a moment. In the silence of the sapling orchard all anyone could hear was the rustling of leaves in the gentle breeze and a faint squeaking sound that Fluttershy associated with the wheels in her hamsters’ cages.

She slowly opened her eyes and took one last puff into her pipe, watching the bubbles float into the air, rising to the level of the snake’s head as Bubba stared longingly at the spire of Town Hall in the distance. Then the bubbles finally popped.

“There’s no way you’ll win the Ponyville Produce Producers Pageant with that apple.” Pinkie Pie announced. “It’s obvious if you think about it.” Then she leaned forward and whispered in Applejack's ear.

“I reckon you're right,” replied Applejack, at which point she put a bucket under the branch and bucked HARD against the trunk of the tree, dropping the snake into the bucket. She quickly snapped a lid on the top.

The snake thrashed around in the bucket. The muffled voice sounded like it was wailing, “NO! I was ssssssssssooooo closssssssssssse! Why?!”

“Would you like to take Bubba home as a pet, Fluttershy?” asked Applejack.

“I’d love to,” Fluttershy grinned, “But ever since that time the boa got loose and there was that...misunderstanding, Angel Bunny doesn’t want me to keep a herpetarium anymore. But Twilight Sparkle knows the princess! Maybe Princess Celestia knows where Bubba belongs. Besides, I bet Twilight would love to keep this beautiful animal in her library for a while.”

“Sounds like a plan,” smiled Applejack as she bucked the tree again, uprooting it. She crushed the golden apple into the dirt under her hoof and asked the detective, “What do you think, Pinkie?”

“I think I have two bits back at the garage we can use to throw a party!”

How did Pinkie Pie know the apple wouldn’t place at the Ponyville Produce Producers Pageant? Scroll down for the answer.

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The golden apple was in a tree with a snake in it. Snakes eat critters like mice and chipmunks. If the snake was in the tree, it was probably chasing mice and chipmunks. And nopony wants to eat an apple with chipmunk footprints all over it, silly!