The Worst Case of Invisibility

Twilight Sparkle was tinkering with her camera drone, trying to fix it. She tightened a last screw and turned it on. Beep! Beep! Beep! It buzzed into the air, flying in loops around the girls.

“Good as new!” Twilight sighed, relieved. “The Best Friends yearbook photo, number thirty-six A, attempt eight, take two!”

Sunset Shimmer peered through the window of the yearbook office, watching the girls strike a happy pose together. Trixie came up beside her, shaking her head.

“On three, everyone say, ‘Best friends!’  ” exclaimed Twilight. “One, two, three…”

“Best friends!” shouted the girls together.

Twilight checked the photo; it was perfect! She sent it to the yearbook.

In the yearbook office, Sunset Shimmer saw the photo arrive in her in-box. She opened the photo on the yearbook computer.

“Stop looking at that,” ordered Trixie. “You’re just going to wind yourself up. You can’t think if you’re wound up.” Trixie paced back and forth in the office, pretty wound up herself. “Think, Trixie, think!”

Sunset Shimmer flipped through the pages of this year’s yearbook on the table. Here were all her classmates. Which one would want to hurt her so badly? “Who are we missing?” she wondered out loud. “We’ve talked to everyone, from A to Z.”

Trixie looked over her shoulder. “Wait.” She’d noticed something. Or rather, she’d noticed that something was missing.

At the end of the students’ photos was a small line of text, Not pictured… Wallflower.

Trixie furrowed her brow. “Wallflower? Who’s Wallflower?”

“I’m right here, you know,” said a quiet voice from the corner of the room.

Sunset Shimmer blinked. Sitting at a computer was the quiet girl she’d met just a few days ago, or rather, realized that she knew. What was it about her? Sunset Shimmer always seemed to forget that she was there.

“Who are you?” asked Trixie before Sunset Shimmer could stop her.

Wallflower sighed. “I’ve known you since third grade.”

Trixie’s face brightened. “Ahh! I remember third grade. Not you specifically, but what a grade it was. The Great and Powerful Trixie debuted her disappearing frog trick! One of my best. You know, a lot of people don’t know how much work goes into raising tadpoles.”

Sunset Shimmer was just about to say something nice to Wallflower to cover for Trixie’s not knowing who she was when she noticed a gentle glow from her bag. It was her magic journal! Princess Twilight was trying to get in touch with her. Maybe she had figured out what had happened to the Memory Stone and who had cursed her.

She picked up the journal eagerly. Sunset, we think the Memory Stone was buried under this rock formation, she read to herself. And if you don’t destroy the Memory Stone by the time the sun sets today, all those memories will be erased forever.

Attached to the note was a picture of the rock formation. Sunset Shimmer felt more hopeless than ever. How am I supposed to find a rock formation that looks like a rock formation? she thought.

Except that right in front of her was another photo of the same rock formation. It was the screen saver on Wallflower’s computer.

Very carefully, Sunset Shimmer slipped the journal back into her bag. She tried to keep as calm as possible. “Can I ask a silly question, Wallflower?” She hoped Wallflower didn’t hear the tremor in her voice. “Where did you take that lovely photo?” She pointed at the screen saver.

“That’s my garden,” said Wallflower. “Well, the school’s garden, technically. I’m the president of the Gardening Club. I founded it, too. I’m also the only member. And the only one who’s ever been to the garden. Or seen it. Or even asked about it.”

“You’re not really into other people, are you?” asked Trixie.

Wallflower blushed. “I was maybe going to add this picture somewhere in the yearbook. What do you think?”

“Sorry, Sunset doesn’t let anyone put things in her yearbook, no matter how much they deserve them,” answered Trixie, pointedly.

“No, you should do that,” Sunset Shimmer contradicted Trixie. “So don’t let us keep you from working on it.”

Trixie exploded. “What? The Great and Powerful Trixie is annoyed and insulted. Why does this random person you don’t even know get to be in the yearbook, but your esteemed partner…?”

Sunset Shimmer waited and then shook her head softly to Trixie. When Wallflower’s back was turned, she pointed at the computer. “A clue,” she whispered.

Very quietly, Sunset Shimmer snuck up behind Wallflower. She needed to know what she was thinking. All she had to do was touch Wallflower’s shoulder ever so lightly.…

But Wallflower whirled around. “What are you—?”

Sunset Shimmer grabbed her by the wrist. There was no time anymore to be subtle. She had to know what was inside Wallflower’s head. She saw flashes of life at Canterlot High. Students were hanging out in the parking lot and in the gym. There they were at the Battle of the Bands and at Camp Everfree. And there was Wallflower, always in the shadows and a step behind. “Hey, guys, wait for me!” she whispered. She was always the last one picked, the one that was overlooked, the invitation that never got sent, the one kid without a valentine. She was used to it. She expected it.

Sunset Shimmer saw Wallflower walking through the woods all by herself. She was unhappy, like she always was. She was lonely. She came to a clearing, and right in front of her was a strange triangular rock formation. That’s when she first decided to garden. She began planting flowers and succulents and creating a garden. She dug in the dirt with her shovel to plant a baby tree, and the spade hit something hard. With her hands, she cleared away the dirt. Was it a treasure? Wrapped in cloth was what felt like a jewel. Wallflower unwrapped the package. It was the Memory Stone!

Sunset Shimmer saw Wallflower examining the cloth. Drawings on it showed a series of ponies learning how to use the Stone to erase memories. It showed a group of ponies with thought bubbles above their heads. Inside their thought bubbles was another pony. But in the next picture, all that remained inside the thought bubbles was an X. The other pony had vanished from their minds!

But the last thing Sunset Shimmer saw inside Wallflower’s mind was the hardest of all. She saw herself. She was shutting down the yearbook office, turning off the lights and locking the door. She didn’t notice that Wallflower was still in the room. She’d overlooked her again. Laughing, she left with her friends.

Wallflower stood in the dark by herself. Left behind again. “I’ll just finish up in the dark by myself.” She sighed. She sat down at a table and began flipping through an old yearbook. She was upset and grumbling to herself. “Why should you notice me? After all, you’re Sunset Shimmer. Everybody loves you now.”

Wallflower turned to the page in the old yearbook where Sunset Shimmer was the Biggest Meanie. “Why can’t they see you haven’t changed?” she wondered out loud. That’s when she remembered the strange stone she’d found.

Later that night, Wallflower crept out to the garden and dug up the Memory Stone again. She studied the instructions on the cloth. She closed her eyes and placed her fingertips on the magical object. The Memory Stone began to glow. A beam of light began to shine forth from within it. Wallflower kept her hands on the Stone.

The beam of light blasted through the forest, past the high school, and found its way right to Twilight Sparkle’s bedroom. It shone on her forehead. A tiny spark emerged and floated out her window. The same thing happened to Pinkie Pie, to Applejack, and to all the girls. The beam of light from the Memory Stone took away the spark that held all their nice memories of Sunset Shimmer. The sparks drifted through the nighttime sky under the stars. They found their way back to the Memory Stone. Whoosh! The Memory Stone stopped glowing. It had absorbed all the students’ memories. Wallflower lifted her fingers off the Stone and opened her eyes. The curse was complete.

Sunset Shimmer let go of Wallflower’s wrist. “You erased everyone’s memories?”

Wallflower stared at her defiantly. “Yes.”

“Wait, who are you again?” Trixie was confused.