Diamond usually didn't think of herself as having real enemies: just minor inconveniences which could typically be rather easily dealt with. But when her daddy had refused to intervene following the desk switch, she had finally acquired a true one. Not Cheerilee: she still felt there had to be some way of getting around the teacher, if only her daddy would...
...there was too much else to think about right now, and that was because of her true enemy: time.
When she thought about it (and there seemed to be endless seconds for thinking about anything which wouldn't help her, which somehow left absolutely none for saving herself), the rivalry had truly begun at the moment she'd failed to break her vaguely food-scented new bench. And while she'd known she was under attack, she hadn't felt the individual kicks. She'd noticed days going by. Sometimes hours, especially as they continued to dwindle. But the truest, most constant impacts had come from the seconds. They were passing. They were bringing her steadily closer to the moment when the Gastropes and Bradels and Cheerilee and Diamond would all be in the same room, and Diamond would have to... explain herself.
"If you do get caught, that's when you get to explain things." That's what she had told the colts. And it was something which had always worked out for her, because the ultimate explanation was delivered to her daddy, who would always believe her no matter what, who had wanted to believe her right up until that first double-hind-kick bone-cracking moment of...
...was.
It was easy to sell to somepony who wanted to buy. A customer who stomped into the store, deliberately lashing their tail in such a way to jar merchandise and forever ready to claim that somepony else must have knocked the item to the ground before quickly asking if a scuffed floor model could be had for free... making them part with their bits was somewhat more difficult. One who actively hated the owner, somepony forever looking to slip something into their saddlebags and, if caught, claim that the store's employees had put in there to frame them... unless you had their lone gift resort with the party minutes away and absolutely no way to claim illness added to a full assortment of theft prevention measures, effectively impossible. Diamond felt Mr. Gastrope was somewhere beyond that. And then there were the Bradels. She had no prior evidence for what the Bradels would be like during the conference, but given what Snips' mother had done, she suspected they wouldn't be much of an improvement.
She'd taken too many risks. They could have been caught the first time Diamond had come to pick Snails up, with the paper necklace still wrapped around her throat. (It was not there now, and she could still feel it choking her.) It hadn't happened, and she'd just kept taking more risks, when her daddy wasn't there to save her, wouldn't save her, and when somepony had tried to step in and tell her there was a giant risk looming ahead, she had...
Time was the enemy. And in the last hours before the conference, it was a particularly active one. Cheerilee led the class in reviewing for the upcoming exams, and Diamond heard none of it, spending every fleeting second of class time in the much more important pursuit of searching for a way out. But whenever she tried to do so, time sped up. She would concentrate, focus, delve within herself for anything approaching an answer -- and before she could complete anything faintly resembling the first step of a plan, the recess bell went off.
But the trot outside... the one when she was thinking about failures, and having been caught, and what her daddy would say and do when he found out, when she had already been through was... it took years.
She didn't even know why she trotted around the corner, following the colts to the bug-hunting grounds. Snips and Snails seemed to have done it purely out of habit. They reached their favorite spots, and then the shuffle-hoofed, limp-tailed walk had shifted into a slow slump forward, leaving each boy huddled low in the grass.
They were silently looking at each other through half-closed eyes, and neither would look at her.
She needed words. For Cheerliee, for their parents, for... everything. She needed words to give ponies who didn't want to believe her. She didn't have any.
It should have been quiet, and it was not. With the colts silent, with Diamond voiceless, they could hear the others at play. Galloping, flying, laughing. Diamond knew what they were laughing about. If it had been happening to somepony other than her, she would have laughed.
Things did look different from the back, and at the side of the schoolhouse. They were more shadowed. Oddly cold, with nearly all of approaching summer Sun seemingly blocked out.
Diamond lowered herself into the grass. It wasn't particularly soft, or tickling, or... anything, really. It was just grass. And she felt her tail curl against the right side of her body, something she passively realized was a move made by ponies trying to put up a final futile barrier against the world: she'd seen that with the one ultimately dumb cousin. It was something only weak ponies did. She was doing it now. And she didn't care.
"...hello?"
They all looked up, although not by much. After all, the hesitant voice had been a familiar one, although it wasn't a voice which generally spoke to Snips and Snails, not unless it was backing up Diamond's.
"I... thought I'd better come back here," Silver said, slowly trotting forward. "I tried to send about a dozen notes during class, but nopony would make the relay for me, and... I just waited for recess. Come on, Diamond. We can go talk over --"
"-- no," she said. And didn't move.
Silver stared at her, eyes wide behind those stupid glasses.
Total confusion, with a hint of very audible fear. "Diamond?"
"We can talk in front of them," Diamond quietly said. "It doesn't matter. You just want to know what happened, right?"
Her friend forced a nod. "And -- if there was anything I could do to help you."
That got a bitter laugh from Snips: a short, sharp bark with no humor in it. "No," the smaller colt finished, and let his ears dip down again.
"We got caught," Diamond said. "Together. They got caught together. Their parents don't want them together outside of school, at all, and Mrs. Bradel saw them leaving the mansion."
Silver, whom Diamond was starting to realize was lacking in pretty much all of the backstory, looked more confused than ever. Her glasses nearly fell off her face three times as her snout wrinkled, visibly trying to find a first question, and she finally went with "But... it would have been night. She went out there at night? Was she walking Snips home?"
"No," Diamond said, her volume feeling oddly low. "She just went out to see if they were together."
"But that's stupid," was Silver's automatic response. "Doesn't she trust --"
"-- no." Snails said. It was his first word in hours. "She doesn't trust anypony. Not when it comes to us. Not after she saw Cameo."
Silver blinked.
"Who's --"
Diamond didn't know why she broke in at that point, especially with those words. She was fairly certain she'd said the words more times since the desk switch than in every moment of her life which had led up to it. She had no true idea why she was saying them now. Just that... they needed to be said, and if words needed to be said, then Diamond was logically the perfect one to say them.
"I'm sorry."
"Whatever," Snails instantly said, and his tail splayed across the grass.
No, he didn't want to believe her. Perhaps only two ponies ever had.
"Snails... I'm sorry. You tried to warn me, I know that. I know... what you two were talking about before I came in. Snips saw Cameo, didn't he? And he knew his mother might have seen her. 'It'll happen or it won't.' That's what it means, right? Seeing Cameo or not, whether she'd do something or not. And it..."
Her eyelids felt oddly heavy.
"...happened."
Silver was staring at both of them now. More worried than ever. And even for the one pony who might still listen to her, Diamond had no words.
"Why did you run away?" Snails asked. There was no anger in his voice. Diamond felt anger would have taken strength he no longer had.
Time kicked her. She couldn't insult it into stopping, couldn't threaten a lawsuit, couldn't even go so far as to dodge. She just lay in the grass and took it. Over and over again.
"Diamond?" Snails asked. "Why --"
"-- you wanted her back."
"Just for a few minutes. You didn't let me finish. You just --"
Even her words felt heavy now. "-- she liked me. She liked my tiara. She didn't have any reason to say that. She didn't get anything for saying it. She just said it. And you wanted her back."
There was no point in fighting that weight, and so her eyes closed. There really wasn't anything at the side of the schoolhouse worth looking at anyway.
It wasn't quiet. She wished it had been.
Hoofsteps in the grass, slow ones. Familiar breathing. A slight pressure, sliding down her left flank so as not to trap her tail. Silver resting next to her.
Time passed, and continued to do so no matter what she did.
"What's going to happen?" Silver eventually asked.
"We all have to stay after school," Snips placidly said. "Our folks will show up. They'll still be mad. My mom, this morning, before I left for school... she was saying all kinds of things, and... it sounded like she thought Diamond was assigned to tutor us. By Miss Cheerilee. Which is kind of weird. But... if she'd just gone to Miss Cheerilee first and asked for separate tutors, I don't think we would be in much trouble. Because she thinks Miss Cheerilee put us together, and Miss Cheerilee..."
Up until that moment, Diamond had never realized it was possible to hear a frown.
"...I guess she doesn't really know about stuff," Snips eventually continued. "Not that stuff, anyway. But Mom just... kicked the hurdle instead of leaping it. When she saw a bug... and then Snails and me, we were kind of kidding around a little when we left Diamond's place, because we'd sort of been expecting her or my dad to show up while we were supposed to be studying, and if we'd gotten that far without them, then maybe we were safe."
"We were... doing stuff," Snails provided, and Diamond's closed eyes easily allowed her to see it. Insults, mockery, shoves, and maybe a little rough-and-tumble after the first three deliberately went too far. Boy stuff.
"We were stupid," Snips quietly said.
"Yeah," Snails agreed. "Too many trees out by Diamond's place, on the road going back. Too many places for an adult to hide. She saw us having fun, and... that's what they hate. Us not just being together anywhere, but having fun, and..."
He stopped talking.
There was nopony speaking at all, and time viciously rang the bell.
They all got up. Diamond didn't feel as if there was anywhere else to go. And the first few hoofsteps back were taken with closed eyes.
Softly, on her left, "Is there anything I can do?"
"No." And that was it. Just... no.
"Do you want me to wait outside for you? Until it's over?"
She wanted to go home.
She wanted to talk to Cameo.
I want my daddy.
"Yes."
Lunch. Afternoon break. Time dragged and rushed, sometimes simultaneously. Diamond was simultaneously curious about how it was doing that while not really caring about anything other than the results.
They didn't really talk, because there didn't seem to be anything they could talk about. Diamond couldn't give them a plan to follow when she didn't have one. The deadline had been called in early, and it turned out that she responded to it by freezing. She considered that it would make her a horrible employee, was briefly grateful that she was destined for a management position -- and then wondered, for the first time in her life, whether she should have been leading anypony. Because she hadn't been able to motivate the colts into truly studying, not to the point where they would make a true effort to pass their tests and so bring her along with them. She hadn't been able to negate what Cheerilee had done, for in the end, those battles had been fought by her father, and all she'd ever done was direct a weapon which was no longer interested in wounding anypony other than her.
She... couldn't do anything on her own. Not without getting it wrong. She had delegated nearly everything, including every last one of what she'd falsely seen as her previous victories. Leaving her with nothing except failure.
It was a thought she didn't want to have, and it also turned out to be something she couldn't get rid of, even when she so desperately needed a plan and they were all lying in the grass, listening to laughter while the boys did nothing, because there was nothing to be done.
They also didn't blame her. Not with anything other than their eyes.
Cheerilee spoke. Cheerilee moved, wrote things on the blackboard, asked and answered questions. Diamond heard none of it. The only thing she truly noticed was when they all came in from afternoon break and found the teacher frowning at a piece of stationery, one with a familiar letterhead, and Diamond easily guessed what it said without ever reading a word. But that wouldn't save her, and she doubted it would even buy extra time.
She needed time.
She hated time.
She had to think of something.
She couldn't seem to think at all.
And then the final bell rang.
They wound up with one parent from each colt's family, as in both cases, somepony had to stay behind and mind those respective shops. Mr. Gastrope arrived first, slamming his hooves into the floor as if testing each board for defects, and Diamond silently placed him among the tail-lashers. Mrs. Bradel was a rather small mare in some ways: for height, she was just a little larger than the stupid librarian, but in build, she was more than a little overweight, and Diamond briefly wondered how she'd found a tree to hide behind before belatedly coming up with several suspects. Her horn was oddly short, and strangely blunt at the tip. A horn meant for poking and prodding.
Diamond had a good view for their entrances, because they'd all switched desks again. For this, she and the colts had been placed in the front row, and she wondered if they'd ever seen the view from this close. She had, during kindergarten. It had inspired her to subsequently find something with a little more cover.
Cheerilee was behind her own desk, as usual. Waiting. They'd waited about two minutes for Mr. Gastrope, who had tried to start things early over and over, with Cheerilee asking him to wait each time. The insistence was steadily increased on one side, the frustration seemed to build on the other, and forty endless and student-silent minutes later (for Cheerilee would not allow them to talk until the conference began), Mrs. Bradel had come in.
She'd glared at Snails nearly all the way in. Openly. The first of the three breaks was used for the brief furious glare delivered to his father, who returned it with interest which compounded by the second. (Diamond was completely sure that was illegal.) The second glare went to Diamond, who couldn't return it -- and the last went to Cheerilee.
"Where am I supposed to sit?" Mrs. Bradel demanded.
"I'm sorry for the lack of benches," Cheerilee patiently offered. "I don't have adult company very often. You can try a desk if you like, or just take part of the floor."
"Not even a place to sit," she huffed, and stomped off towards a desk. "That's too small..."
"For your rump," Mr. Gastrope immediately supplied.
Diamond considered it to be a completely worthless effort. Striking at an obvious target, with the recipient clearly enraged by the remark: that was usually worth some points. But under one of the other hooves, he'd just done it in front of a teacher.
"Mr. Gastrope," Cheerilee steadily said, using the time granted by Mrs. Bradel's deep inhale (and of course time had chosen to ally with her), "I had quite enough of that in my house last night, thank you. This is a conference, not a third round."
"Make him apologize," Mrs. Bradel said.
"Or what? She'll keep me after school?" Mr. Gastrope snickered. And the words had been something very close to singsong...
Cheerilee didn't say anything for a few seconds, and then the only words which emerged were "We can start now."
Mr. Gastrope frowned. "No. We can't, not when you wouldn't let me start before. Where are her parents?"
"Mr. Rich," Cheerilee replied, "is on a business trip." She nodded towards the familiar stationery on her desk. "His staff is doing their best to let him know about what's going on, but he won't be back for a few days, and there's really nothing which could have brought him back in time in any case. I'll talk to him about this once he returns, but I wasn't willing to postpone. Both of you want this cleared up immediately, and so do I. So we'll proceed without him."
Mrs. Bradel looked at Cheerilee, briefly at Diamond, and then went back to the teacher again.
"What about her mother?"
Diamond had been having so much trouble keeping her eyes open during the day, and when they had closed, it had naturally blocked sight. And similarly, her perfect ears had spent so much time drooped that she had almost managed to spare a little concern for long-term damage... but when they dipped, it did nothing to block hearing.
Cheerilee's voice was... gentle. Patient. Steady. None of that mattered.
"Gone."
Mr. Gastrope snickered. "Probably broke into a full gallop right after she saw what she'd birthed --"
-- and stopped, for few words could have survived the onslaught of Cheerilee's gaze.
"Her mother," Cheerilee softly said, "is gone. You say interesting things in front of children, Lyon Gastrope, even when you aren't one any more. Diamond?"
It seemed to require a response. "...what?"
"Do you need a minute?"
She'd had hours. They hadn't done any good. But it would be a minute without the conference going on. "Yes."
A small nod. "Go into the bathroom. Take a fresh towel from the linen closet and wipe your eyes. Come back whenever you're ready."
Diamond got up. It wasn't following Cheerilee's orders. It was just... getting a minute.
She hadn't even known she'd needed tears, and they had shown up anyway. It didn't exactly make up for being late during that last dinner with her father, but at least it was progress.
It wound up being more than a minute in the bathroom: her churning stomach seized the opportunity and while she hadn't been able to make any attempt at her lunch, she still needed to rinse the strange taste of emptiness out of her mouth. But she took care of herself, as much as she could under the circumstances. Rejected a last-minute scramble out the window, just as she'd earlier rejected all thoughts of galloping for the Everfree. And when it was over, she didn't feel clean at all. She felt... oddly warm. As if there was a little fire burning inside her, just looking for something to catch, and it grew hotter every time she thought about Mr. Gastrope.
Back to the assigned desk. The adults watched her. The colts didn't.
"Diamond?"
"...yes?"
Cheerilee's dumb voice sounded even stupider when the teacher was trying to be gentle. "Are you ready?"
"I guess so," was all she came up with.
"All right. Mrs. Bradel, you go first -- wait your turn, Lyon."
"I think," the stallion slowly said, "that's Mr. Gastrope to you."
"I'll remember that," Cheerilee replied. "Mrs. Bradel?"
The mare took a deep breath, one which briefly pulled Snips' attention in that direction. "Fine," she said. "You heard most of what I had to say last night, Cheerilee. I really don't have that much to add -- except for this: I am going to the school board and requesting your immediate removal from this posting." With a small shrug, "I'm probably not going to get it. I won't be surprised if they decided to keep you on through the exams, so the children won't be disrupted." And with a open satisfaction Diamond personally hadn't felt for days and could almost be jealous of, "But don't expect to be back here after the break. Not after I speak with some of the other parents, and tell them what a failure you are."
Mr. Gastrope snorted, and it seemed to be one of surprise.
"Well, how about that?" he said while Cheerilee's head was still tilting quizzically (and, it seemed to Diamond, sarcastically) left. "We agree on something. I've wanted Mr. Guffey in here for years. Since the end of my son's second year with you, Cheerilee, when I started to wonder if those daisies on your flanks are trying to make a statement about gardening."
Snails looked up at that, perhaps because he'd just heard somepony questioning a mark.
"Go on," Cheerilee slowly said. "Why do you both think I deserve to be fired? Mrs. Bradel?"
"You assigned my son a tutor," the mare said.
Diamond waited for it.
"Yes," Cheerilee said. "I told Diamond to tutor your son. And Lyon's son."
Instantly from the stallion, "I told you to call me --"
"-- I said I would remember it," Cheerille interrupted. "I didn't say I cared."
He was staring at her, and Diamond gave him company.
It was... very hot in the schoolhouse. Hotter than she'd ever felt.
"I can get you fired," Mr. Gastrope said.
"Possibly," Cheerilee admitted. "But here's the thing, Lyon. I heard you last night. I heard you just now. I heard you say something that made a filly cry, and I heard the pleasure in your voice as you said it. And right now, I think being somepony you hate is just about the best thing to be. So do your best, or your worst. From what I remember from school, even watching from a few terms away, they're pretty much the same thing anyway. But right now, I am still their teacher. And what I want to hear is why I shouldn't be."
"He's failed," Mr. Gastrope said. "Every year from his second on. With you, he fails. With Mr. Guffey, he passes. Between the two of you, Cheerilee, who's the actual teacher? Because as far as I'm concerned, nopony with an actual teaching mark would ever have a student fail. Their talent would prevent it, and your talent, whatever that is, doesn't."
"And Snips fails too!" Mrs. Bradel added about half a second after Diamond spotted the growing need to interrupt: she was very familiar with the look of a pony who wanted to get a word in, especially when Diamond wasn't letting them. "If we can't agree on anything else, we can agree on the evidence. You're not a good teacher, and the children deserve better than you. He fails with you and passes with him. Who's always been around every time he fails? You. It's you, Cheerilee. At this point, what else could it be? And having them tutored together --"
"Yes," Cheerilee quickly said, and the ice in her voice didn't cool the rising fire in Diamond's heart. "Together. Let's talk about that. Because that's the part I truly don't understand from last night. Why don't you want them together?"
He blinked. So did Mrs. Bradel.
"I guess she really doesn't know about stuff. Not that stuff, anyway."
Snips and Snails were looking at their parents. At their teacher. Diamond could easily spot ponies under stress, especially when she was causing it --
I did this, I did
-- no. This hadn't been her. The families had decided to keep the boys separated long before she'd been unfairly forced to switch desks.
But I started this part.
It wasn't her fault. It...
...was very hot...
Cheerilee wasn't sweating. Like the boys and parents, Cheerilee didn't show any signs of the heat at all. Cheerilee didn't know.
"Have you seen what happens when that one is with my son?" Mrs. Bradel abruptly shouted. "The trouble he gets Snips into? Do you happen to recall an Ursa Minor moving through our streets? Who lured it in? The Gastrope boy, with my poor son pulled along on the gallop! Just because that one was trying to impress some traveling show charlatan --"
"Miss Trixie is a great magician," Snails softly said.
She instantly turned on him. "Well! Now I understand why this one flunks! Everypony saw what she did the first time, what she failed to do! And then when she came back...!"
"That was our fault," Snips whispered.
"Your fault," Mr. Gastrope immediately decided, with a strategic sneer which officially opened the third round.
"I saw the inside of her caravan," Snails went on, not seeming to care if anypony was listening, and it was hard to hear him over Mrs. Bradel's fresh yells. "We both did. She writes on the walls. I think it's because she spends so much time on the road that she runs out of paper and still needs to take notes. She bought about a hundred notebooks after her first show, and I thought she'd have them filled before she left Ponyville. And because she's on the road so much, maybe even going through wild zones, she had a spell, just over her bed, which was supposed to be for beating..." A long pause. "Just in case. Maybe... maybe she can't cast everything she comes up with. But she's still strong. Not as strong as Miss Twilight, but just as smart, and... if you can think of things all the time, but you can't do them..."
"We're not great with magic," said the other colt in the room, the one who'd invented a working which Diamond had never seen before. "But we know how to tell when somepony is. She's great, in her own way, and she's..." Stopped.
"You were gonna say pretty," Snails said with the faintest ghost of a grin, completely missed by his now-screaming father. "We all know it."
"You're the one who said you liked her mane!"
"I like white streaks," Snails answered, and the words were almost casual. "They make mares pretty. But we thought... anypony who could write all that stuff down had to be capable of beating an Ursa. She could -- show off. So we remembered some things ponies had said about hearing growling, and... we found out that just because you can dream it doesn't mean you can do it."
"We made her feel bad about herself," Snips quietly finished while their parents continued to fight with each other. "So bad that she had to prove she could cast her own stuff, no matter what it took. She found the Amulet, and... I don't think that was her, after she put it on. It was something which thought it was her. The real Miss Trixie was the one who did the fireworks after, because she was sorry, and she didn't know how to say it -- so she made fireworks instead."
"You have to be careful, what you say to girls," Snails concluded. "And we're careful now. Because with girls, it's really personal."
And before Diamond could truly take all of that in, Cheerilee reared back -- and then earth pony strength slammed both forehooves into the floor.
The adults instantly stopped yelling. Both slowly looked at her.
"The next step," Cheerilee said, after the last of the echoes had finally faded, "is sending Diamond out to fetch the police." There seemed to be a hint of Diamond's internal fire in the teacher's eyes. "But I think I've heard enough to see the essence of it. Lyon blames Snips for anything that happens when the boys are together. And Lexi is blaming Snails, with both of you insisting on your own viewpoint. Rather loudly. Neither of you is truly objecting to my having assigned Diamond to tutor one colt: you're both angry that she's working with two."
"They get in trouble!" Mrs. Bradel pointed out. "All the time! And it's the Gastrope boy who --
"They've had a couple of incidents," Cheerilee declared with what Diamond felt was a truly false calm. "One of which came to them. I can think of three students who've done considerably more in the chaos department."
"If I didn't keep Snails away from that colt," Mr. Gastrope nearly hissed as flickers of dark red corona danced around his horn, "who knows what could happen? We all know how dull he is, don't we? It's no wonder he flunks. You can hear his stupidity every time he laughs, those idiotic grunting noises which a pig wouldn't even bother to voice..."
"Cheerilee," Mrs. Bradel softly said, her left foreleg beginning to scrape at the floor, "you may want to send the Rich filly out for the police now."
It would put her outside. It might be cooler outside, even under near-summer Sun. Diamond felt as if her fur was about to catch fire, and it was getting harder to hear everypony, with her own heartbeat so loud in her ears.
Mr. Gastrope ignored her. "My son is simply the victim of an inferior teacher who doesn't know how to explain that he can't get his future entomology degree without passing this level of school first, and break session grades aren't something colleges are going to respect. He needs to start bringing his average up now, and as long as you're here... You can't teach, Cheerilee: their failure proves it."
"Hearing you say that," a pre-charge Mrs. Bradel stated as Cheerilee began to move out from behind the desk, trying to get between them, "almost makes me want to automatically disagree with it. But the proof is still there. Mr. Guffey can reach Snips -- but under your supervision, he fails. You're the only possible --"
" -- IT'S YOU! THEY FAIL ON PURPOSE! BECAUSE OF YOU!"
And then nopony was talking any more.
Diamond was glad for that, because every stupid parental word had just made feel her hotter, and now the fire got to come out. She was sick of adults. She was sick of stupidity. She was sick of everything, and the anger which had built in the presence of so much sheer dumbness sent her out from behind the desk, across the schoolhouse floor, past a startled Cheerilee, and when her legs pushed off for the jump to the top of the teacher's desk, the fury gave her extra height on the leap.
She spun around to glare at them all the second after she'd landed, and decided she liked having the height advantage. Thankfully, there was still a chance for that major growth spurt to show up.
But that was for later. Right now, she wasn't going to look at the colts' faces, the slow-crashing horror moving across both sets of features. The boys weren't what she was mad at, not this time, for the thing about insulting the water at the dam for being cold and wet was that you were standing on the shore when you did it. Cheerilee had pushed her in, and so she'd found out that to her complete lack of surprise, it was cold and wet. But the dumb adults hadn't been pushed, they hadn't found out about the third thing, and since she was supposed to be the tutor and they clearly weren't going to learn it on their own --
"-- you keep them apart! You won't let them play together! They're going to get into trouble, because they're boys and boys get in trouble! It's what they do! They'd get into trouble if they were by themselves all the time, just without somepony to go for help! The only place you'd let them see each other was in school -- so they decided to have school all the time, and they made that decision together! Would you think of that? Would anypony? They came up with that, and they learn a whole term's worth of stuff during break, and you think they're dumb? They're smarter than you!" Admittedly, that wasn't saying much. "If you let them see each other -- if you just let them be boys -- they'd pass every time! But you think boys shouldn't ever get into trouble, when trouble is what boys are, and you made them do this! They live with you, all the time, your work doesn't make you travel, they both have a daddy and a mommy each and you're there all the time and you don't see who they are..."
Diamond considered the implications of that, thought hard, nodded even harder. Because it didn't matter that she had witnesses, that her father wouldn't save her, and while was remained important enough to hurt, somepony had to say it. So she took a breath, and somehow managed to glare at both adults all the harder.
"You're lousy parents," she told them, and decided that no matter what happened, when looking back on that moment from the depths of whatever punishment was surely coming, she would still be satisfied.
They were staring at her. She didn't care. Cheerilee was staring at her, and that didn't trigger a single regret. Snips and Snails looked as if Sun and Moon had just landed on their heads, crushing their entire world, and... that felt like it mattered. But the words had needed saying. And since none of the adults would ever see the obvious and the employees weren't up to the task, then the manager had to take responsibility for their welfare in order to finally create a proper working environment.
She even felt cooler.
Mr. Gastrope found his voice first and judging from the expressions around the room, just about everypony else wished he hadn't.
"I..." This to nopony in particular. "You..." That was aimed at Diamond, who stood her ground (or rather, desk). "I'm... if this is true... if this is being done on purpose... then there's only one thing to be done."
He turned his attention to Mrs. Bradel.
"You have to move out of town."
Diamond felt the response from Snips' mother was justified. "...what did you say?"
"Leave. Find another settled zone. Or send your son to a boarding school." With open sarcasm, "The Gifted School, if he's so smart. Keeping them apart after their classes isn't enough. They have to be permanently separated."
The colts stared at each other. And then, unnoticed by their furious parents, both started to move.
"I have to move? I have a business here! I have customers! Why doesn't your family leave?"
"You have one customer! Why don't you move to Canterlot and work for the Archives?"
"They ship to me! It just looks like Twilight's my only customer because she's in and out so much! And then there was that time I caught her hiding crouched down outside my window, trying to feel what I was doing, I had her send Spike for a moon and I nearly put a restraining order -- look, you can move! Or send your son away!"
"Well," Mr. Gastrope yelled, "one of us has to go --"
Two thumps. Eight hooves landing on the desk, which was now very crowded. Diamond felt more than a little squeezed, but was unwilling to use Cheerilee's bench. She had to stay out front, after all.
"We'll run away," Snails told his father. And the words had been steady. Serious. Sharp. "The first chance we get."
"I'll find him," Snips informed his mother. "Maybe we'll get together at Diamond's house. Maybe we figured out someplace else to meet while you were yelling at each other. But I'll run away and find him, because I'm not leaving him, and you can't make me leave him."
"You'll have to keep us locked up," Snails continued. "All the time. And..." Looking directly at his father. "...I can find him, no matter where he is." He switched to Mrs. Bradel. "It's easy enough to spot me. And you could stop me from getting close, I guess. But not every ant and bee and anisoptera. All I have to do is ask. Ask my friends to pass the word through the air and the hives and all the tunnels. Someone will see him eventually, and then it'll come back to me, and..." Back to Mr. Gastrope. "I will find him, Dad. And then no matter where I am, where he is, I'll go."
Mr. Gastrope took a slow breath.
"Then," he said, and Diamond could feel the heat in his voice, "if locking you up is what I have to --"
"-- oh, Lyon..." Cheerilee sighed. And then she smiled. Diamond knew that smile, for she had so often displayed it herself, and it personally gave her pleasure every time, as long as it was on her own face.
This one was being worn by somepony else. But somehow, it still felt good.
"...what?"
"You love your son," Cheerilee shrugged. "It takes a pretty understanding father to host an insect colony in his house. And I know you from school, and I know that when you're angry, you say stupid things. Hurtful ones. Some of them you take back, and some of them you don't. I'm not sure which category this falls into -- but I do know something else."
And the smile widened, for it was the smile that came from watching a pony fail at life.
"I know," Cheerilee said, "that I'm not going to let you take it back. Not until long after it's been repeated to other ponies, and maybe not even then." Without looking at her, eyes still fixed on the stallion, "Diamond? Please gallop to the police station. Ask for a child welfare officer and backup, then bring them to the school."
Diamond, who would later regret following what had so clearly been an order immediately, jumped down from the desk.
Mr. Gastrope's hind legs went out from under him.
"You can't."
"I just did," Cheerilee said. "Lexi, given that it'll get Lyon in trouble, can I count on your testimony?"
With a smirk Diamond nearly missed as she trotted for the door, "Yes. But I still don't want --"
"-- which doesn't make you a whole lot better."
"Don't," Mr. Gastrope said. (Diamond was no longer able to see his face, and so wondered if the begging was there as well.) "I just got -- mad. I can explain --"
"-- that you were mad, yes," Cheerilee presumably nodded. "Lyon -- are you willing to breathe a little now? To keep your horn dark for a change and listen? Because Diamond -- hold up for a moment, Diamond --" It stopped her at the door. "-- said a lot of things there, and I suppose most ponies would automatically take issue with hearing those words said to their faces. None of which means she wasn't right about more than a few of them. Including the fact that they're boys. Loyal, dedicated, intelligent friends who've been fooling all of us for a long time. Boys... get into trouble. It's what they do. Girls get into trouble. Our colts bring in a single Ursa Minor: our fillies... well, that's a much longer list. They all get into trouble, and as long as they look after each other, they generally come out of it. Two colts roaming Ponyville together can guard each other. One colt apiece striking out across all of Equestria in search of the other has nopony watching his flank. And so they're going to stay together, for their own safety. All right, Diamond. Straight to the station."
"But," Mr. Gastrope protested as Diamond opened the door, "I'll listen! I nodded, you saw me...!"
"I know," Cheerilee replied just before it closed again. "I just want the negotiations to have some extra witnesses."
And it was cooler outside, becoming more so with every step Silver took towards her.
Diamond spent most of the supervised portion of the negotiations fuming, mostly because she'd been forced to wait outside when she clearly should have been doing the supervising. The adults had let Snips and Snails stay...
"Are you okay?" Silver asked her as they waited in the schoolyard grass (at the front, not the side), for what was probably the fiftieth time.
"Yeah," Diamond lied. Some of the ramifications of speaking like that in front of credible witnesses were starting to sink in, although she still felt good about the actual words. "They're just taking a long time in there."
"There's a lot to talk about," Silver replied, and could say that with loaned authority because she'd accompanied Diamond to the station, which finally provided the chance for a full briefing. "Diamond... their parents could still move. No matter what they tell everypony, they could just pack up --"
"In an hour? I saw their houses. It would take a few days, unless they just abandoned all their stuff." Not that it was the greatest stuff: by Diamond's standards, some of it could stand for a little abandoning -- and now that she thought about it, how long would the mansion take to pack up? She was guessing at least four moons of full-time effort. Maybe that was what was keeping them from moving to Canterlot. "And they'd have to do it without anypony noticing, which includes Snips and Snails, then get that colt out of town... I don't think they could get away with it. Besides, Mrs. Bradel won't try it, and Mr. Gastrope... says dumb things. Really dumb. Ponies who can't do things say stupid stuff to make themselves look more important, and then they can't do anything they said either."
"You're sure?"
Diamond was mildly offended. Of course she was sure.
"If you can't pick out the fool at the negotiation table within five minutes of sitting down, it's probably you."
She wasn't a fool. Diamond knew an empty bluff when she heard one. And besides, being in a house with a locked-up Snails who could give careful instructions to every insect that wandered by probably wasn't the best idea --
-- she'd told Cameo she'd be home earlier than this. She'd have to explain what had happened.
"I'm sure."
The schoolhouse door opened. Mrs. Bradel stepped out first. She briefly glanced at Diamond and Silver, snorted, and made her way past them, heading up the road.
Mr. Gastrope, however, came right up to them. Or rather, right up to Diamond.
He stared down. She stared up. She wasn't afraid of him. And besides, the police officers had emerged directly behind them.
"You're the worst filly I've ever seen," he finally said, even with the police watching, because he was just that stupid.
The words which went through Diamond's mind were Lousy parent says what? But she didn't say them, because it was best for the police to see her as somepony who was unwilling to fight back. And after a while, Mr. Gastrope gave her the victory as he silently trotted up the road, with the officers following him. Just in case.
And then it was Cheerilee and the colts. Diamond got up, with Silver matching the motion, and they both trotted closer to the smiles. Diamond knew what those smiles meant, and that knowledge would have normally made the teacher's words both stupid and redundant. But she listened.
"Nopony's moving," Cheerilee told them. "The Gastropes and Bradels have agreed that if Snips and Snails pass their classes and don't purposefully bring any more monsters into the settled zone, they can get together outside of their classes." The colts beamed all the wider. "Not at each other's homes, though, at least for now: their parents need some time to... get used to this. Just out and about, or -- at somepony else's house. And with that said -- Diamond, you're late for your tutoring, so I suggest that you take them to your house and get started."
Diamond nodded to the boys, who trotted closer. They all began to move away, Silver included --
"And," Cheerilee added, "I still expect them to pass. This year."
Diamond stopped. So did everypony else.
"Their parents are now all right -- somewhat -- with their being together, even with summer school lurking," Cheerilee said. "They're personally not expecting a bump in the grades until the next term. But I remember what I said to you, Diamond, and what you said to me. All of it. So make sure they pass. Oh, and two more things. First, before you ask: I'm not switching your desk back. I think the new location is... good for you. And I will be speaking directly to your father about all of this, just as soon as he returns. Good luck, boys, and study hard. I'm not expecting top marks -- but with Diamond in charge, I do want to see each of you at least hoof-scrape a bare pass. Let me know if you need any review materials, Diamond: I'm sure you know where I live and I'll be there all weekend. Now get home."
It took a few seconds for Diamond to realize the others had gotten ahead of her, and three more before she could make her legs work again.
It didn't take long for the celebration to begin. Just enough for everypony to put the school well behind them, although the festivities didn't open in the way Diamond would have expected.
"I thought," Snips said slowly, "we were dead."
"I thought we were worse than dead," Snails slightly disagreed. "And then... Diamond, why did you try that? I know it worked out, I can't believe it worked out, but... I thought... what I said just now. Why that?"
Because she'd been hot. Because of Mr. Gastrope, who had made her feel that way. And...
...she didn't really want to think too much about it right now. There were other things on her mind.
"Because of something my daddy told me," she partially lied.
"What's that?" Snails asked first, with Snips close behind.
"'There are times when the strongest weapon you have against other ponies is the truth,'" she quoted. "'They generally don't know how to deal with truth, because they're not used to hearing it.'"
"Your dad sounds kind of cool," Snips wistfully decided.
...was.
"Yeah," Diamond admitted. "So what are we doing first?"
"We're gonna hit the blocks!" Snails instantly declared. "Finish that bridge! Silver, you haven't seen the bridge, it's really cool -- and then dinner. Maybe dinner first: that took a while. And after that, I saw this game on a shelf which --"
Oh no.
"But we've got to study!" Diamond broke in. "Your parents --"
"-- they only checked on that to make sure we were with you!" Snips grinned. "They're not going to quiz us any more. They don't need to! And I heard what Miss Cheerilee said about expecting us not to go to summer school at all, but there's a lot of stuff to go over."
"Yeah," Snails agreed. "I don't mind one more time with Mr. Guffey, and since I can seriously tell him I'm never going to be back, I just bet I can get him to bring me something great. A friend for Cameo to come and visit, just to start, and then..."
He rapidly moved into fantasy as they trotted along, saying a large number of names in Griffonant which Diamond couldn't translate, and she suspected most griffons couldn't either.
She'd gone through all that. She'd done so much. And she was... exactly where she'd begun, only now she was looking at that starting gate in a mirror. They'd had no motivation to pass, because they wanted to stay together -- and now they had no motivation to pass, because they were together.
Her legs were slowing down, even as her tail drooped and her ears dipped, she was going to need so much ear care later and the others had just noticed that they'd passed her, they were looking back...
"Diamond?" Snips. "You okay?"
"I'm fine." She wasn't.
"Are you sure?" Snails checked. "Does that board game stink or something?"
"I..."
Silver was looking at her. Worried again, and the stupid glasses slipped accordingly.
Exactly where she started, only with less days and no way to change anything, there was nothing...
"But your plans should only be told to those who absolutely need to know them, the ponies who can help you carry them out and be trusted not to bring the words back to those who can use them against you. Don't offer that trust casually. But --"
...and finally, she let herself remember the rest of it.
"Don't offer that trust casually. But eventually, you will have to offer it. Nopony goes through life completely alone. If it wasn't for ponies trusting in me, we wouldn't be where we are, Diamond, and I work hard to be worthy of their trust. One of the ways I do that is through giving it back. So when you find a pony you can trust... try to trust them."
"...I'm going to flunk."
Silver blinked. The colts stared. Diamond didn't know what they all did after their initial reactions, because she found herself looking at the road.
"I haven't studied," she heard herself say. "All semester. Nothing at school, no homework. I've been copying off Silver the whole time so I could just have fun in class. But then I had to switch desks, and you two hadn't studied anything, so I couldn't copy off you, and..."
Nopony was moving.
"...I'm going to summer school, and my daddy... he's... I get good grades, I always get good grades and he's been... he hasn't been..."
There wasn't any rain scheduled for the late afternoon: she'd checked the calendar. Having the ground under her tired gaze becoming wet clearly meant somepony had messed up.
"...is Mr. Guffey nice?"
The sound of ponies trotting. Trotting away from her.
Of course they were trotting away. She'd just told the boys about how she'd just been trying to use them the whole time, and Silver... Silver followed, she followed a pony who was in the lead, and Diamond was now at the back of the pack, the last to cross the line if she even finished the race at all...
The hoofsteps stopped, and other sounds replaced them.
Were they whispering? Or was it just laughter?
Trotting again.
"We've got the weekend," Snails said. "We can get a bunch of stuff reviewed in a weekend."
"More if we stay over," Snips considered. "I can tell my folks I'm doing a study sleepover. You've got the spare bedrooms. You've sure got everything else!"
Silver's right forehoof touched damp soil. "There's still time, Diamond."
She looked up, and didn't understand why they were there.
"You're... not mad?"
The boys shook their heads. Silver just looked as if she didn't understand the question.
"But I --"
"-- you did a lot of stuff," Snails said. "A lot of stuff, and..." He took a deep breath. "I don't know how I feel about the reasons. Not right now. But you were scared, and -- ponies do dumb stuff when they're scared." Carefully, "And -- when they feel bad about themselves."
"We're together," Snips said. "No matter how it started, you got us together. And as for how it started... I've gotta think some too, Diamond. Maybe a lot. But I can do that after the exams."
Silver smiled. That didn't surprise Diamond. But the boys...
...boys were supposed to be simple. At least, that was what their parents had chosen to see. Because water was cold and wet, and there was no real point in telling it so.
But it was also deep.
"I can't do this."
"Next book," Snails countered.
"Nopony can learn a whole term of classes in a few days. I bet even the dumb librarian couldn't --"
"-- why do you think Miss Twilight's dumb?" Snips asked.
"Because she's got the strongest magic in the settled zone and she mostly uses it for stupid stuff."
"That's not necessarily dumb," Snails decided. "Sometimes what ponies think is the stupid stuff is just what nopony else wants to try doing."
"And you're not dumb," Snips told her. "You came up with all those things just so you didn't have to study. I bet if you'd actually -- well, it's kinda too late to try it that way, so this is what we've got left."
"You've got history," Silver pointed out. "So you know there's one down, and that's a seventh of the final grade. We just have to push you up enough in the other six to pass. Even if it's just barely."
"But my daddy's going to see the grade. Cheerilee's going to speak with him personally. She'll probably show it, which means I can't change it, he'll know I barely passed, if I pass at all. And she said she was going to tell him... everything. Plus you said you wouldn't let me copy, because if I get caught, I'll flunk." But she'd never gotten caught, and they hadn't listened to her...
It produced a long silence, deep enough for Diamond to hear her own stomach churning again. She was starting to wonder what it had against her. Hadn't she always tried to supply it with the best food?
"Yeah," Snails finally agreed. "But that's later. And... that's when you get to explain yourself, right?"
The words would only surprise her later, strongly enough to shock her out of the nightscape. "You can't explain yourself when somepony doesn't want to listen any more. When you've explained yourself too much." She would repeat the line to Cameo after waking up, even though the scarab had been on her tiara when she'd said it, and received no extra insight on what it meant.
"He's your dad," Snips said. "Try. Come on -- literature?"
The churning intensified.
"Bathroom," she declared. "So when I get back." She started to race for the study's door -- forced herself to pause. "Snails?"
"What's up?"
"Read it out loud?"
"...okay."
"And do voices. It's better with voices."
There was a line from one of the stories they'd reviewed that stuck in Diamond's head, perhaps because of the overly-solemn voice Snails had given it: 'It was the worst moment of her life, and it kept right on happening.' Diamond wasn't sure she understood the story, but that line had engraved itself into her hooves. It was the line which described nearly every second of her life from the end of the conference through the start of the exams.
They ate (although for Diamond, that had been just barely). They slept (and same). They studied. They arranged blocks for fifteen minutes out of every four hours, mostly to keep from screaming. There were bathroom trips, and more frequently than she would have liked. And books, endless books and questions and stupid stuff which was really stupid when you tried to learn it all in a few days, with that effort possibly being the stupidest thing of all.
There had also been fifteen minutes set aside for complaining before going to bed, although those had been private ones. She needed to tell Cameo about just how stupid the whole attempt was, because while the scarab was present for the torture, Diamond felt she personally had to provide the true pony perspective, and that was something best done away from the other three.
She didn't know how much she truly remembered. She was pretty sure she was going to forget nearly all of it at the instant she put the final quill down or, worse, at the second she picked the first one up. But it was exam day.
The papers were in front of her. Quills. Ink. She'd wanted to bring a bucket just so she wouldn't lose any time to vomiting, but Cheerilee would have wondered what it was doing there.
The papers were in front of her, and had been for at least two full minutes. She still hadn't tilted her head towards the quill.
Diamond looked left. Right. The boys were writing. Fieldwriting instead of mouthwriting: both horns had partial coronas lit, and the quills hesitantly shifted across the papers. Each had also planted a foreleg across the desk. It made for an awkward position, and might be painful to hold long-term. It was also keeping her from making out a single word.
She lost another minute to fuming about stupid boys. And then the taste of the quill in her mouth made her want to throw up again. Stomachs were tyrants.
Slowly -- wondering if it was too slowly -- Diamond began to write.
She only looked up when the door opened, saw the private courier come in and put the sealed envelope on Cheerilee's desk. Diamond tried not to think about that too much, because the thoughts seemed to block memories from getting through. And she wrote on. But it was hard not to hear, and one by one, the sounds of trotting reached her as the other students brought their completed papers up to the teacher's desk.
Cheerilee graded them, then and there. She graded fast: Diamond supposed that was part of her mark. And once the grading was done and you found out what the result was, you could leave. Or you could go back to your seat, if you were waiting for somepony else to finish. Waiting outside was also fine. Unless Cheerile asked somepony to stay, they could do anything, because as soon as the grading was finished, it was summer.
Or it was summer school.
Silver finished early (at the time when Diamond should have finished): she waited at her desk. Snails delivered his papers just after the halfway mark in the count, Snips was two students later, and both returned to their benches as well. (She knew all of that only on sound, because she could no longer afford to lose a single second to looking at anything other than the paper.) And Diamond... was last. The Blank Flank Maintainers had waited for each other, with the pegasus finishing further ahead in the herd than Diamond had ever seen, and... after that, it was down to her. And those who seemed to be waiting for her.
She stood in front of the desk, watched Cheerilee's head move. Diamond couldn't really see all of her exam papers from that angle, but the quill seemed to be doing a lot.
Time was her enemy, and so it made sure the whole thing took forever.
Too softly to reach the student desks, "Go sit down, Diamond."
The bathroom was close. If necessary, she could make it on a gallop. "How did I --"
"-- your father," Cheerilee said, "is coming in soon." She nodded to the courier envelope. "We'll discuss your exam grade, especially how it compares to those from the rest of the term -- along with everything else -- when he arrives. It shouldn't be too long after the final bell, and that's just six minutes away. So go sit down."
She didn't want to ask the question, because she'd never needed to ask it before and it would tell Cheerilee something was wrong, even when it sounded like the exam had done that already. She didn't even want to ask it in front of them. But...
"Did I pass?"
Cheerilee looked at her. Just -- looked, and Diamond couldn't find anything in her expression.
"Did... did they..."
She couldn't hold the position, because her intestines didn't seem to be holding theirs. She had to run...
...Cheerilee nodded.
A tiny nod. The smallest one possible. But it was a nod.
She bolted. And it took her several dry heaves before she realized that the teacher could have been answering either question, or both.
Eventually, she managed to reach the bench between the boys. Cheerilee nodded. "Go home, you three," she smiled. "Or go play. I'll see you around Ponyville before the next term starts, I'm sure, and I'd appreciate it if you at least occasionally admit to seeing me. Now get out of here."
Snails exhaled, and it came across as something very close to an explosion of laughter. Snips didn't bother with any attempt at concealment and simply allowed his mirth to flow. But Silver just quietly looked behind her -- and then the colts focused as well.
"What about Diamond?" Snails asked, with Snips close behind.
"Her father and I have a conference after school," Cheerilee told him. "One Diamond will be attending. She has to stay."
Slowly, they both nodded and got up.
"Want us to wait?" Snips asked. Silver left her bench, trotted closer, listened for the answer.
Diamond shook her head. It seemed to be just about all she had left in her to do.
"Are we gonna see you later, after the conference?" Snails asked. "Find out what happened?"
And as it turned out, she had enough remaining for a single word. "Maybe."
They were staring at her again. It was really annoying, the way they did that.
"Maybe later," Snails slowly asked, "or maybe never?"
Diamond sat on her bench. She thought about her grades, about her daddy, what might be said or what could even be said at all, and the entirety of the past week.
They were waiting for her to say something. And there weren't any words, because she didn't know.
The bell rang. The door opened. Familiar hoofsteps came into the schoolhouse, and she felt sad eyes resting on her dipped head.
"Go home," Cheerilee quietly told the other three. "Or go play. This is going to take a while."
Silver left. The colts slowly trotted out. And to Diamond, it looked as if the filly was following them.
Two adults. Two adults and her, at the very start of summer, still in the schoolhouse.
"Diamond," Cheerilee said, "I'd like you to sit a little closer to the front, please. Move up."
She started to stand. Looked for excuses and found none. Sought explanations and came up empty. Tried to find anything while under the scrutiny of that endless patience and the sad eyes of what felt so much like was. Only one thing surfaced.
"Ultimately, what every business invests in is the future. And because nopony knows their future, there is nothing more terrifying."
Slowly, forcing tired legs to work, pushing herself into the unknown, Diamond finally reclaimed her desk.