“Come on, guys!  You gotta help me!”

Scootaloo panicked at her friends, her eyes wide and hooves held together in supplication.  Applebloom and Sweetie Belle gave each other an uneasy glance.  “Um,” Sweetie Belle hedged, “We all hate school.  Why should we help you skip?”

Scootaloo dropped her hooves against the wood plank floor of the clubhouse with a frustrated sigh.  “It’s my turn for Family Appreciation Day!  You’ve met my mom—she’s nuts!” she shrieked.  “It’s gonna be a disaster.  Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara have enough stuff to make fun of me about already!”

Applebloom chuckled.  “Aww, come on, Scoots.  Ah thought that, but look how good it turned out for me!”

“Granny Smith is awesome disguised as crazy.  My mom is just plain-ol’ crazy,” the pegasus filly deadpanned.  “She’s never done anything as cool as start a city, or anything as funny as yell at a member of the royal family,” she exclaimed, throwing a significant look at Sweetie Belle.

Applebloom looked around uneasily.  “Ah’m still not so sure...”

“I helped you try to sabotage your turn for Family Appreciation Day.  You owe me!”

“Shoot,” Applebloom said,sulking.  “Okay, but just this once.  Then we’re square.”

“Deal.”

“Hey!” piped up Sweetie Belle indignantly.  “What about me?  I don’t owe you anything.”

“Oh?  Then I took the rap for you ruining one of your sister’s clothes dummies for fun, did I?” Scootaloo accused.  “I seem to remember you wanted to put wheels on it and we ended up riding it down a hill into a tree.”

“How was I supposed to know that Cutie Mark Crusader Jousting would go wrong?” Sweetie Belle said, blushing.  “I’m sure Rarity will let you back in the Boutique eventually,” she muttered.

Scootaloo sat back, glad that her friends were finally on her side.  “Okay.  I’ve never been able to convince my mom to let me out of something before.  I’ve really gotta sell this one.  Ideas?”

Sweetie Belle thought for a moment.  “We could try for pegapox.  We’ll just have to fake a fever, sweating, cough, irritated skin, rash—”

“What are you, the Equestrian Journal of Medicine?” Scootaloo interrupted.  “Besides, I already had pegapox.  Caught ‘em from Featherweight last year.”

The three sat around making thoughtful noises.  “Ooh ooh ooh!  I know, you’ve gotta have a cold, wet nose,” Sweetie Belle piped up again.

Scootaloo scrunched her nose at that remark.  “What would that do?  I’m not a dog.”

“I don’t know,” Sweetie Belle replied defensively.  “It’s just something my mom always commented on when I was sick.  I don’t know why.”

Scootaloo hmmmed quietly to herself.  “Well, I suppose it couldn’t hurt to add it in.  What else ya got?”

“We’ve got lots of syrup left over from making zap apple jam this year,” Applebloom supplied.  “That stuff turns your tongue all kindsa colors!”

“Hey, yeah!  That’s great!”  Scootaloo glanced back at her wings.  “I could tug out a few feathers, make myself look really bad.”

Sweetie Belle gasped.  “Don’t do that!  If you pull out your feathers, then you—won’t... be able...  um.”

Scootaloo looked askance at the unicorn.  “What, Sweetie Belle?  Won’t be able to what?”

“Um.  Nothing...”

The orange filly slapped a hoof over her face with a sigh.  “Okay, that’s a good start, but it needs more.  Think it over tonight.  I’ll leave my window unlocked, and you two will need to be in my room by dawn if we’re gonna get me ready before my mom comes in.”

“Cutie Mark Crusader Con Artists!” the fillies yelled, giggling mischievously as their hooves clacked together in midair.

“Scootaloo, it’s past time to get up.”

Scootaloo stuffed a hoof in her mouth to keep from giggling, settling instead for a good, drawn-out groan.

“Scoots?  You awake?”

The filly sighed and groaned again, this time with enough feeling to really get her mother’s attention.  “Mom?”

The bed shifted as the mare sat on the edge, a hoof resting gently on Scootaloo’s back.  “What’s wrong, dear?”

“I don feel sho gooood,” she slurred in response, dreaming of the acting cutie mark she was sure to receive.

Scootaloo’s mother frowned and put a hoof to her daughter’s forehead.  Scootaloo mentally checked off hot, wet rag on the face from her prepared checklist of fake symptoms.  “Oh dear,” her mother muttered.  She took the filly’s muzzle in her hoof.  “Open your mouth, Scootaloo.”  Scootaloo complied, suppressing the urge to laugh out loud at her mother’s reaction to her multi-hued tongue and deeply bloodshot eyes.  Okay, Applebloom, you were right—chomping raw ginger for the teary eyes was a nice touch.  She coughed weakly to cover her mirth.  “Oh wow,” her mother gasped as the filly’s horrific morning-and-ginger breath washed over her.   “Even your feathers...” her mother said sadly, straightening the errant wing feathers around the obvious gaps.

Scootaloo held her poker face perfectly as her mother gave her a good, hard look.  Nothing to see here, her face said.  I am one sickly filly, and I should be pitied and not suspected of anything at all.

Her mother sighed and stood up.  “I’ll call the doctor—you stay here.”  Scootaloo sat up as her mother left the room, alarmed.  That... was not part of the plan.

Oh no oh no, what do I do now?  Scootaloo’s mind raced with every possible scenario.  She’d be taken in to see Dr. Stable and that would be that!  She’d be caught!  Wait, it’s not so bad, maybe he’ll just say I need bed rest and that’ll be that.  She nodded emphatically to herself and settled back in under the sheets.  Just gotta let this one play out.

Her mother’s voice drifted in from the other room, too soft to make out.  Bed rest, bed rest, Scootaloo mentally chanted.  The murmuring into the phone became steadily louder and decidedly more anxious.  Come on, Doc, I need rest.  Just tell her I need rest!  The filly’s heart began to pound—and then she heard the cry:

“No, you can’t be saying—!  Of course, right away!”

            Oh, ponyfeathers...

Scootaloo felt her blood run cold as her mother came racing back into the room, panic written large on her face.  She quickly tugged the filly out of her bed, urging her to climb onto her back as fast as possible.  Before Scootaloo could even get out a word of protest, she found herself whisked out the front door, on a straight course for Ponyville Medical Center.

Scootaloo whimpered as she was met by a doctor in the lobby and quickly carried to a room in the back.  The doctor and a few assorted nurses were trotting around hurriedly, moving equipment into place and chatting to each other using very complicated words as she was set on the bed and bundled under the sheets.

“Um, mom,” she said quietly, “what’s going on?”

Her mother hushed her softly, trying to keep the frightened look off her face for her daughter’s sake.  “It’s okay, dear.  I described your symptoms to Dr. Stable and he said I needed to get you in immediately.  I think it’s just a precaution.”

“If it’s just a precaution, then—hey!” she said, interrupted as an orderly fastened a patient’s ID bracelet around her hoof.  “Why are they so—OW!”

Scootaloo whipped her head around to see a nurse drawing blood from her foreleg.  She taped a square of gauze over the hole, leaving the room as quickly as possible once it was done.  Scootaloo began to shake softly.  “Moooommm...,” she moaned, her fear growing as the room emptied as quickly as it had filled.

“It—It’s okay, dear,” her mother shushed her gently.  “Try to rest.  We’ll know more in a little while.”

Scootaloo lay back against the pillows, trying to figure out what she had done that had been so convincing.

The morning had been one long descent into madness for the pegasus filly.  She had been wheeled from place to place, asked to perform tests, even had several x-rays taken of various parts of her body, and then wheeled back into her room where the doctor asked her extremely vague questions about how she had felt lately, if she ever had headaches, and what she had been eating.  The doctor had been quite interested in the condition of her tongue, writing some notes on the chart and making thoughtful grunts as he did.

Scootaloo could feel the tension building inside her.  If she broke now, then she would be in more trouble than she had ever been in before, but the longer she held out the worse it got.  She clenched her hooves around her middle and groaned, feeling almost as sick as she was trying to look from the stress alone.

It felt like at least three hours later when the doctor came back into the room, walking slowly with his face cautiously blank.  He pulled up a stool and sat down at the side of the bed across from her mother.

“Scootaloo, ma’am...” he struggled to begin.  “I’m not really sure how to tell you this, but you’re not well, Scootaloo.”

“Wha—what do you mean?” she asked, feathers pricking, not knowing what could possibly be coming.

“We ran your blood and took x-rays, and well,” he sighed, trying to avoid the inevitable.  “It seems that you have a rare form of bone cancer.”

Scootaloo heard her mother gasp and felt her grab onto her hoof tightly.  “Wait, that can’t be,” the filly protested.  “I’m healthy, I promise!”

“I know it’s hard to grasp,” the doctor said, his voice sad and kindly.

“Nonononono,” she insisted.  “It’s not like that, I’m not really sick!”  She tried to grin at the doctor, hoping he’d catch on to the big joke and laugh with her, but the solemness of his expression stole her voice.  She began to deflate, not really looking at anything around her.  “I’m not sick,” she said softly as the gravity of the situation hit her.  “I—I can’t be...”

“I’m so sorry,” the doctor said to them both.

“What’s it called?” Scootaloo demanded.  “What have I got?”

The doctor frowned, uncertain.  “It’s quite rare.  We’ve never come across it before, so it’s likely it will be named after you.  Some of the lab techs have started referring to it as ‘Scootaleukemia’.”

Scootaloo’s mother buried her face in her hooves and shook, gasping for breath.  Scootaloo could feel her eyes starting to burn.  “Am—am I gonna die?” she asked, breathlessly.

The doctor looked at her.  “Eventually, yes.”

The filly swallowed hard.  “Um, how much—” she choked.  “How much time have I got?”

Dr. Stable consulted his chart.  “Well, given what I’ve seen here, I’d say you’ve got 60, 70 years tops.”

“Um... what?”

“Here, see for yourself,” he said, flipping the chart around to face Scootaloo.

On the board there was a blank sheet of paper on top of her charts, with the word GOTCHA! written in large, red lettering.

Scootaloo sat in shock, dumbfounded as her mother finally gave up and burst out laughing.  “Oh, doc, that was awful.  I almost lost it at ‘Scootaleukemia!’” she gasped, wiping tears out of her eyes.  “Where did you come up with that one...”

“Wait just a second!” Scootaloo demanded, leaping to her hooves on the bed.  “You were both just playing a prank on me?  What the hay!”

“Scootaloo, sit down,” her mother demanded, “and let’s talk about who lied to whom first, shall we?”

The filly sat back down, defeated.  “You knew all along?”

“Of course I did.  In the whole of Equestrian history nopony has gotten away with faking being sick, and do you know why?”  Scootaloo shook her head slowly.  “It’s because everypony has tried it to their own mother.  We all know the tricks.”  Her mother chuckled at her.  “Honestly, rainbow tongue?  Granny Smith invented that trick ages ago.  We’ve all eaten zap apple jam, Scoots.”

Scootaloo pointed an accusing hoof at the doctor.  “But you took x-rays of me!”

“Well,” Dr. Stable admitted, holding up an x-ray to the lights.  “It is a week or so early, but still a decent time for your four-month checkup on that wing fracture.  Healed nicely, I see.”

“But you took, like, ten x-rays!”

“We only put film in for the one.  Waste not, even for lab tech practice.”

“You—you took my blood for nothing?”

“I wouldn’t say for nothing.”  The chart flipped a few pages as the doctor consulted it.  “Turns out your blood iron numbers are a bit low.  I think I have to insist on more green vegetables and fewer sweets in the near future.”

“I—I, sweets, I...”  The shock was plain on Scootaloo’s face.  “Mom, h—how could you?”

“It’s about time you figured out that your mother’s not an idiot.”  She climbed up on the bed and put a hoof around her daughter’s shoulders.  “Seriously, though, do you know how much I love you?”  The filly pulled a face.  “Scoots, do you know?  I love you so much that anytime something happens to you it feels like my heart is being torn out of my chest.  When you broke your wing last month, I had to force myself not to cry because I wouldn’t have been able to stop.  I worry about you constantly.”  Her mother put a hoof under Scootaloo’s chin, forcing her to meet her gaze.  “Now, what do you think it feels like to have somepony I love make me feel that bad, especially for a lie?”

Scootaloo looked away, ashamed.  “I’m sorry, mom.”

“I think we can consider your lesson learned then, yes?”

“You really went to all this just to teach me a lesson about lying?”

Her mother smiled gently at her.  “Well, Dr. Stable has been getting on me about your checkup, and he owed me a favor.  When I called this morning I asked him to help me with this, and he agreed.”

“Hey, what can I say?” he said with a grin, deflecting the filly’s glare, “I love a good prank, and it was a great opportunity to run the new nurses through some emergency drills.”

Scootaloo slumped back against the pillow and shook her head in disbelief.  “This—this is crazy.  Nopony’s ever gonna believe me.”  She looked thoughtful for a few moments.  “Hey, mom?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Do you think—maybe you could come tell this story next week for Family Appreciation Day?”

Her mother looked at her oddly.  “You want me to tell your classmates about this?”

“Well...”  Scootaloo blushed, having the good grace to look sheepish.  “It was a pretty good prank.”