Chapter 3

Mixed Signals

  Cold Heart wasn't always cruel to her daughter. Sometimes for a period of time she'd actually be quite nice to her.

  She'd read her stories at bedtime, even giving each character a different voice. She'd take her out to eat lunch. She'd give her something nice after they had a particularly nasty argument.

  All this was confusing to Scootaloo. Sometimes, just as she thought her mother was starting to change, she'd go back to being nasty again. Each time it caught her off guard and broke her heart.

  And of course, there was plenty of times that she promised to take her somewhere then changed her mind at the last minute. Her life was full of excuses, lies, and broken promises.

  Scootaloo sighed as she thought of that this morning, and she accidently bumped into her dresser, causing one of her Wonderbolts figurines to topple off and fall to the floor, breaking on impact.

  "Oh no!" She looked down at it in dismay, and then her bedroom door was flung open by her father.

  "What was that crash?" He demanded, before he spotted the figurine, his eyes narrowing.

  "Scootaloo! What did I tell you about being more careful with your things?!"

  "It was an accident Dad! I just accidently bumped - "

  "I don't want to hear it."

  Her father left the room and Scootaloo's lower lip trembled. She was used to her mother being rough on her, but her father was usually kind to her. Suddenly her father reappeared with a hammer.

  "If you're going to be so careless with your things, then you shouldn’t have them at all!” He grabbed the rest of the figurines off the dresser and placed them on the floor, then he started to smash them to pieces one by one with the hammer.

  “No Dad! Please stop!” Scootaloo cried, but he ignored her. Once all the figurines were shattered, he stalked out of the room without another word. Crying, Scootaloo cleaned up the mess. If her father was going to start being cruel to her as well, she just didn’t know how she was going to cope.

  To comfort herself, Scootaloo drew a picture of her family, making them all smiling and happy in front of their home, coloring in the scene with her crayons.

  After school she went to play with her friends. She listened enviously as Apple Bloom talked about how her and her sister had fun plans that weekend. She wished her family was like her friend's.Thinking of what had happened that morning, she stayed with her friends as long as she could, crusading as they always did.

  That night after dinner, she couldn’t find her picture anywhere. She left her room and went into the kitchen. “Has anyone seen my picture?”

  “I threw it away,” her father said. “You just left it lying on the floor and we told you to keep your room clean.”

  Something inside Scootaloo suddenly snapped.

  “How dare you go into my room and throw away my things?!” Scootaloo yelled. “How would you like it if I did that to you?!” She kept yelling as she got into her father’s face. Her head suddenly snapped to the side as her father slapped her and she staggered backwards. Her father had never hit her before.

  Suddenly, bubbling rage crashed over her. She wasn’t going to let her father get away with hitting her too! She slapped him back, but being too little to reach his face, she slapped him across the shoulder.

  “Scootaloo!” She heard her mother scream at her before she was whirled around. Her mother slapped her across the face several times. “Go to your room!”

  “Screw you!” Scootaloo screamed back.

  Her mother grabbed her and threw her on the couch, holding her down as she furiously slapped her face, forelegs, chest, and everywhere else she could reach. Scootaloo tried to push her away, but her mother was too strong. It wasn’t long before she was crying, then screaming at the top of her lungs.

  "Cold Heart that's enough! Let her go!" Her father shouted.

  “What the buck is going on here?!” A voice suddenly yelled.

  Scootaloo would know that voice anywhere...

  Rainbow Dash.

  To Be Continued…