Pinkie Pie woke up before the crack of dawn as usual. Baking sometimes requires a lot of lead time, and she was aware that some customers would be coming in to Sugar Cube Corner on their way to work for their tasty treats, and the Cakes, being the owners, were privileged to sleep in and let their assistant handle getting up so early.

As she got the first pastries in the oven, she heard a gentle knock at the door and then the sound of paper slipping under. Trotting over she saw that somepony had slipped a note into the building. She read it.

“Please alter order number 96 for today. Remove item: one dozen assorted muffins. Replace with: three croissants, two bear claws, five danishes (three prune and two cheese), a linzer tart and a baklava. I apologize for the inconvenience.”

Pinkie opened the door and saw pale gray pegasus flying away, clearly the only pony other than her around, or indeed awake. In the moonlight she could just make out the bubble cutie mark. She wondered why Derpy Hooves had slipped in this note instead of just coming in to tell her.

“Probably she thought that everypony was still asleep. She doesn’t know that I make all these so early. But I haven’t gotten to the muffins yet, so this is no problemo!” said Pinkie to herself.

*********

A few hours later, Rarity was walking around town carrying a few completed dress patterns with her magically. As she looked into various stores she noticed the mail-mare coming the other way. She interrupted her window-shopping and approached the gray pony.

“Oh, excuse me, Derpy. I know this is unorthodox, but since you’re heading toward the post office anyway, would you mind terribly taking this package? It’s already stamped, and if I didn’t have to bring it myself it would relieve me of another errand and give me more time to shop.”

“Mm-hm,” said Derpy, and she balanced the package Rarity had indicated on her back. The unicorn then continued.

“Darling, may I ask why you’re wearing those black sunglasses? Is it some sort of fashion statement? Because if you’re looking for something chic I could do wonders for you with some Hay-Bans.”

Derpy just shook her head and pointed a hoof at the rising sun.

“Oh, I see,” said Rarity, “You’re flying east and the sun bothers your eyes. Well, then I guess it’s good you have them then. Ta, and thanks again for the favor!”

Rarity trotted off, and Derpy started to fly in the other direction. As soon as she was out of sight she dumped the package in a trash can.

*********

Back at Sugar Cube Corner, the Cakes had risen and were filling orders while Pinkie Pie cleaned up. The bell rang and everypony looked up to see Derpy coming in.

“Oh, hello, dear!” said Mrs. Cake, “I have your order all ready. I’m glad to see that you’re expanding your horizons!”

“Huh? I hope the horizons don’t expand, that means I have farther to go to deliver mail!”

“Oh, no, I meant trying new things.”

She brought forth the box with the various pastries that Pinkie had made. Derpy looked down in the box, then up at Mrs. Cake. Then she looked at both at the same time.

“I don’t think that’s the right one. I ordered a dozen muffins.”

“You did, but didn’t you come by this morning and change it?”

“No. I don’t know what half of these things are!”

“Pinkie! Are you pulling another prank?”

Pinkie Pie put down her washcloth. “Honest, no! I like to play pranks, but I’d never mess around with your business. I like my job too much! Derpy, you slipped in a note here telling me you wanted this.”

“I never! I want my muffins!”

Pinkie put on a sad look. “But I worked so hard on these. I hate to see good tasty food go to waste.”

Derpy felt awkward, or at least, more awkward than usual. “All right, I guess I’ll try them.”

Mrs. Cake said, “Although, they are actually 47 more bits than what you ordered, so. . . “

“No problem,” she said, reaching into her mailbag for the little pouch she kept her money in. “Hey, can I see this note? If somepony is pranking me I’d like to know who.”

“Oh, sure, I think I saved it,” said Pinkie Pie.

She came right back with the paper. Derpy was nibbling on a prune danish and finding it rather nasty, but she didn’t want to upset Pinkie even more. But when she saw the note, she dropped the confection and was shocked, her pupils shrinking and moving even farther apart.

“OMC! I know this mouth-writing! This is bad! Really bad!” And she rushed out of the store, leaving the box behind her.

Pinkie Pie called after, “Hey, Derpy! If you really want these and don’t want me to eat them, let me know! No? OK, thanks!”

*********

Derpy had run off to the smartest friend she knew, Twilight Sparkle. “You gotta come quick, Twilight! There could be some real bad things about to go down!”

“What’s going down? Where?” But before Derpy could respond a small silver object on Twilight’s desk had started to emit a rising whine. “Oh my gosh! That’s my Evil Alarm! It goes off when some unicorn is preparing a strong dark spell! There is something bad going down. Come on, Derpy, I have a spell to track it!”

Both ponies rushed out, Twilight’s horn aglow. They galloped hard, finally reaching the Ponyville town hall. There they saw another gray pegasus and a brown unicorn holding a blue costume.

“Be careful, Twilight!” said Derpy. “That’s my evil twin sister Ditzy!”

“Ditzy Hooves?”

“Well, that was her maiden name, but then she got married to an equally evil unicorn who’s a distant, thought male-line, relation to Daring Do named What-eye! You’ll also notice that her eyes, while slightly out of alignment, don’t have my beautiful derpiness, and her voice is much higher.”

“So you’re Ditzy Do!”

“That’s right!” said the other gray pegasus. “I tried last year to disrupt your winter wrap-up by not bringing back the southern birds and making up some ridiculous excuse about flying north by accident, but you foiled me with your organization skills, Twilight Sparkle! But this time nopony can stop me! Ha ha ha!”

“Tell us your nefarious plan!”

“Never!”

The brown unicorn, What-eye Do, tapped her on the shoulder. “Actually, you have to now, since you did the maniacal laugh. It’s an Evil Union regulation.”

“I do?” said Ditzy, “Does that mean that they’re going to stop me?”

“No, not necessarily, unless you tell them that they’ll never stop you.”

“OK, got it.” Turning back to Twilight and Derpy she said, “My husband has figured out a one-time spell that will erase everypony’s memory of the last day, during which we can re-write their memory of one pony’s name, voice, and facial features, if we do exactly what she did. We’re going to get everypony to remember me as their mail-mare and forget you, Derpy!”

“How will you do what I did? I was with other ponies and they won’t co-operate with the likes of you!”

“Oh, silly. What-eye here will disguise himself as your friends until the memory sticks. He’s getting into his Rainbow Dash costume right now.”

“You won’t get away with this, Ditzy Do!” said Twilight.

“And who’s going to stop me? You? Never! Oh, wait. What-eye, does that count?”

“I’m not sure. We might still make it if you keep to exactly what Derpy did.” he said.

“OK, but don’t call me by her name, it’ll throw me off.”

“Got it.” A flash appeared

*********

Above the town hall, What-eye in costume was hanging up a banner. Lightning struck his flank.

“Now, careful! You don’t want to do any more damage.”

“I just don’t know what went wrong,” said Ditzy.

“Yeah, it’s a mystery.”

Ditzy flew over to her husband. “Nice work, ‘Rainbow Dash’!”

After that everything went wrong for the evil co-conspirators. Twilight had cast a reversal spell that took hold moments later. Everypony in town was made aware of the plan, and Ditzy Do was kicked out of town, never to return. They all had a big party for Derpy Hooves, where they told her how happy they were that she was their friend, and how much better they liked the name Derpy, and how they thought her eyes were prettier than her sister’s, and how her voice was nicer too. And everypony lived happily ever after and no one ever considered that the gray pony with the bubble cutie mark was anything other than Derpy Hooves ever again.