A/N Thank you once again for all the reviews. It is so exciting to read them.

Chapter 5. Searching for Clues

After two hours of searching the whole, stinky Tannery in the hot sun, the ponies had found nothing. Nothing! Not one single thing. They were hot, tired, sad and dirty.

"Eew... pigeon poop! On my hoof-a-cure," said Rarity in horror. "I never knew they used pigeon poop to soften leather!"

The ponies looked at each other in dismay. They were covered with this stinky goo.

"How are we going to get clean?" said Rarity, looking around for a bucket of water or, even better, a place to shower.

"Let's hope it rains," said Pinkie Pie.

"More importantly," chipped in Twilight Sparkle, "What are we going to do now? The old lady is gone. We have searched the Tannery for the ingredients and found nothing. This is hopeless!"

The ponies decided to go back to the old lady's house. As they were trying to find the exit, a worker came jogging over to them. The worker had been expecting them, but he had only just got back from an errand. It turned out he was related to the old lady; she was his grandmother. "My gran asked me to apologise for not being able to meet you. She was called away on business. I know she is going to be very pleased when I tell her you followed her instructions to get here and found the Tannery." said the worker.

The ponies felt uneasy. There had been no instructions in the house. Was the worker lying to them? Twilight Sparkle stared at the worker, "If you are who you say you are, then you have something to show us!"

"I do have something to show you," the worker said grinning. He reached into his pocket and got his phone out. Then he showed the ponies a picture of the old lady wearing one of Zecora's badges.

Twilight Sparkle chewed her lip. She was feeling trapped. The worker didn't seem to be lying; however, there had been no instructions and no directions. Somebody must have broken in and stolen the instructions and that meant they could be in danger.

"Come with me," the worker's voice interrupted her thoughts, "I will show you where you can get cleaned up. And while you are washing, I will let you know what my gran asked me to tell you."

The ponies were so excited at being able to wash the gooey mess off themselves, that nobody noticed the beggar watching them.

TBC

I don't own the MLP characters.