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“Sweetie, could you please try to come back home right away this time?” that familiar voice blared from the kitchen. “I need you to water the garden and--”

 

“And fold laundry, I know!” Scootaloo replied while she hefted her bags. Then she headbutted the front door open, snatched her scooter from where she always left it leaning against the front of the house, and trotted quickly out into the not-quite-daylight. For the last few years, escaping her mom's worry and suspicion had been as much a part of the morning as brushing her teeth. “It'll all be done by the time you're home!” She yelled back at the open front door. “Bye mom see you tonight I'll tell you all about school!”

 

Maybe her mom didn't feel the need to say anything extra this time, or maybe Scootaloo was just too fast out the door to hear it. Both ways suited her just fine. She came to a stop on the sidewalk, jumped onto her scooter... and just stood for a moment. Her street was always quiet around this time; it was too early for ponies to be going to work, and anyway not many other children lived so far from the school. The silence was perfect for the most important part of the morning ritual. A gentle breeze tossed her tangled mane at the perfect angle. She'd forgotten her helmet again, she realized. Good. Rainbow Dash didn't need a helmet, so neither did Scootaloo.

 

Scootaloo untucked her wings from beneath her saddlebags and flapped as fast as she could. She couldn't manage wide, majestic strokes like the older pegasi she'd seen, but her way worked well enough for this. Her wings buzzed so quickly that they started to make a fluttering sound, like a floor fan, and from two wheels and one hoof she lifted off just enough so that she  could balance on only the wheels of the scooter, at a complete stop. The smirk that Scootaloo's friends knew her for spread across her face as she leaned forward—and flew.

 

Whenever there was a particularly straight, smooth section of sidewalk, Scootaloo jumped so that she could feel what it was like to glide along without the rattle of the scooter under her hooves. She only did so on smooth sections because of a few unfortunate incidents, only one of which had ended up with a trip to the emergency room. When she jumped, she kicked her rear hooves out and lowered her head in order to be more “aerodynamic,” as Rainbow Dash called it. She wanted to believe that she looked the way stunt flyers did when they were trying to push their maximum speed, except that her front hooves were still resting on the handlebars of her scooter.