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"Excellent. Hopefully everything will be in order. Thank you for showing me the way."

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"You're welcome!" His tummy rumbles; he glances down an upcoming fork that leads away from the orchard and into some rocky hills. "Now I really better go grab lunch. See you later, Clarity!"

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"Bye!"

Clarity trots sedately towards the cherry trees, looking for somepony who appears to be working on catering the celebration.
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Joy takes wing and heads into the hills.

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There is one pony standing among the cherry trees close to the road; she appears to be having a conversation with a raccoon. The raccoon's end is not audible to bystanders, and the pony breaks off as Clarity trots up.

"Hey there!" she says affably. "Cherry Cordial, at your service. What's your business in Ponyville?"
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"I'm Clarity Bell, and I'm here because the Princess asked me to oversee the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration. My list suggests you're in charge of food; how's that coming along?"

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"Perfectly," Cordy assures her. "I can show you my checklists if you want."

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"I'd like that, thanks."

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"Sure. Hop on, Seb."

She kneels down so the raccoon can climb onto her back. He does that, then waves cheerfully to Clarity as Cordy straightens and turns up the path towards the farmhouse.
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Clarity waves a forehoof at the raccoon and then follows Cordy. "Do you prefer Cherry or Cordial? I'm guessing Cherry is a family name?"

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"Good guess! I go by Cordy," she says. "Cordial's fine too. My aunt Cherry Crash goes by Crash. And this is Sebastian, my secretary." The raccoon smiles.

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"And I usually go by Clarity, but I'll answer to Bell and it's not a family name. Is there a lot of secretarial work around a cherry farm?"

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"I like to be organized. And I'm not just a cherry farmer; I also take census for all the miscellaneous creatures around Ponyville."

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"That would take a lot of paperwork, yes. How did you wind up with both jobs?"

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"One's the family business; the other's my talent," she explains. "I can communicate with anyone and anything. So it just makes sense that I should be the one to count them all."

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Clarity nods. "What are the numbers useful for?"

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"Statistics. Records. If there's a hundred new bunnies born every year for three years and then one year it's only fifty, that probably means something's affecting the bunnies, and it might be a good idea to find out what. Things like that."

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"That makes sense. Can't have depleted bunny populations."

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"Bunny depletion can be a big problem!" agrees Cordy. "Here we go."

Just outside the farmhouse, a neatly arranged grid of trestle tables stand covered in neatly arranged food. Clarity might be relieved to note that not all of it appears cherry-based. The table nearest to the house has a clipboard hanging on a short string from one end; Cordy gestures at it with a hoof. It has a chart of all the available kinds of food, with projected and actual quantities recorded; there are three fewer cherry tartlets than the goal of 50, but all other discrepancies are positive. Only two rows at the bottom remain unfilled: cherry chocolate truffles (goal amount: 80), and chocolate chip muffins (goal amount: 60).
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Clarity peers at the checklist. "The muffins and truffles will be finished by the time the celebration starts, yes?" Spinach salad, daisy sandwiches, watercress fritters, biscuits, looks good. Drat, now she's hungry.

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"Yep. The last batch of muffins is in, and my aunt is working on the truffles. I was just getting Seb's report on how Streak and the birds are doing with their rehearsals, by the way, and everything seems to be coming along fine there."

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Clarity peers at her list. "Oh, you're pulling double duty, I see."

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"In a sense! Silver Streak helped with the cooking earlier, and I introduced her to the choir and got everybody started."

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"I'm glad to hear they're doing well, though I'll still want to look in on them personally. Is it all right if I sample one of the extra cherry danishes?"

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"Knock yourself out," says Cordy, with an inviting gesture to the relevant table.

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