Sparky

by Listie The Scribe Maid

Ch.2 - Mittag Für Beinlinge (Und Klasse, Auch)

SPARKY
Chapter 2: Mittag Für Beinlinge (Und Klasse, Auch)
By That Gamer!

"And here we are, room number 21," Tara said when the two arrived.

"Already?" Felicia asked, disappointed.

"I guess so," Tara replied with a nod. "So is this your class?"

"Actually, no, I just remembered that my first class is in room 52," Felicia told Tara with a sheepish smile.

"It's OK," Tara said. "Now you run along now. You don't want to be late."

"That depends," Felicia mumbled. "So I'll see you at lunch, then?"

Tara nodded and Felicia went off, speed-walking because running still wasn't allowed. She ended up walking into a few people, but nothing much amounted from that.

Anyways, Tara went into her first class, Creative Writing & Censorship, and was surprised to see that a few people were already there, most of them females. The notable ones included a very white skinned one, with purple hair and a dress on almost as white (and transparent) as the one wearing; a noticeably darker skinned one that seemed a lot older, who seemed to have a holes motif, because the clothes she was wearing had obvious tears in them and, heck, even her aqua green haired seemed to have holes in it; then there was the one who had skin between the purple haired girl and the holey woman, was a man, wearing glasses and was trying to balance books on his head, probably out of boredom; and, finally, there was another girl, who didn't really seem to have a color scheme (her hair was green/yellow-green and the rest of her clothes were gray and dark blue), but oh man, she... Well, to quote The Legend Of Zelda, "Wow! What a nice chest!" Pinkie was there, too, along with somebody who looked a lot like Tara, but I'll get to her.

"Um... Hello?" Tara said aloud, catching the attention of most people in the class for a second.

"HEY, TARA!" Pinkie exclaimed. "There's an empty seat next to me!"

"Actually, I was thinking of sitting one seat in front of that," Tara said, going to said seat.

"Oh! Well, that's alright!" Pinkie laughed. "It's kind of like you're sitting beside me, but you're in front of me! So you're technically diagonal from me, which, in a sense means you are beside and in front of me! This is kind of like a paradox, you know? You what crazy stuff could happen because of that?!"

For the most part, Tara ignored Pinkie's rant, mostly because the purple haired girl from I mentioned went over to Tara and said, "Darling, leg warmers went out of style forever ago."

"Hey, I like wearing them..." Tara muttered, leaning over a little to get a look at her legs.

"I mean the rest of you is fine, but..." the girl sighed and shook her head. "You need my help, I can tell. The name's Belmont. Rachel Belmont, Hubbard High's resident fashion guru, minus all that tacky stuff actual gurus and mystic have." She held her hand out for Tara to shake it.

"Like a crystal ball?" Pinkie suggested, holding up a crystal ball from out of nowhere.

"I... I do suppose," Rachel replied awkwardly.

"Um... Well, thanks for the offer," Tara said, shaking Rachel's hand. "If I do ever need help, I'll let you know."

"Mm-hm." Rachel gave Tara her card and went her seat, where exactly zero guys surrounded her. She could be heard sighing, "I wish there were more males in this school... Stupid Principal Faust..."

"Hey, I don't know who Principal Faust is, but..." Tara started to lecture Rachel on proper etiqute, but then she noticed the person sitting directly next to her looked exactly like Tara (right down to the leg warmers), with the only small exception being the purple skin. "Um... Well, you look remarkably like me."

"I can say the same to you," the second Tara agreed, leaning on the desk. "Well, you know what they say. Somewhere out there, there is somepony who looks exactly like you."

"Now, I wouldn't say exactly," Tara told her twin, eying the skin. "Wait, did you say 'somepony'? Are you one of those pegasisters I keep hearing about?"

"Uh..." the second Tara didn't reply right away. She thought for a few moments before screaming "BAIL!!!" and running out of the room.

"That girl ain't right," the holey woman commented.

There was a general mumble of agreement through the class, Tara protesting, followed by the teacher coming in. The teacher, like most people, had a motif with her clothing, this one seeming to be white. In somewhat of a contrast, the hair was pink and seemed to be almost flowing.

"Good morning, my somewhat small class," the teacher greeted her class.

"Good morning miss... Who ever you are," the class chorused.

"Yes, I should tell you my name," the teacher said with a chuckle. "Anyways, my name is..." Instead of just saying her name, she picked up a piece of chalk and began writing it on the board, but erasing each letter after wrote it. "Anyways, I pre- Yes, you?"

Tara put her hand down and said, "First of all, my name's Tara. For those of you who don't know, I'm an exchange student from America. My name's Tara. Second, um, speaking of names, what's yours?"

"I just wrote it on the board," the teacher told Tara. "Are you trying to be smart and pretend you can't read?"

"No, no, you just erased your name, that's all!" Tara retorted quickly.

"I hope you aren't trying be smart on your first day," the teacher threatened.

"...So can I call you Ms. _______?" Tara asked hopefully.

Ms. _______ didn't say anything, opting to just get on with her lesson. "So I presume you all know each other, save for Tara, so no need to introduce to each other."

There was a mumble of agreement through the room, like before, and Ms. _______ smiled.

"Good!" Ms. _______ smiled. "Anyways, this is Creative Writing & Censorship. So can anybody tell me what that is?"

Pinkie raised her hand and started making some grunting noises.

"Tara, do you have anything?" Ms. _______ enquired.

"Huh? Um, sorry, I got nothing," Tara admitted. "I knew I should have studied for another hour..."

Pinkie started straining her hand a lot more and tried to make herself louder.

"Wendy, you take a shot at it," Ms. _______ said to the nice chest girl, apparently named Wendy.

"Er, I have no idea," Wendy answered with a shrug. It's of note to say that her voice sounded like her voice had been autotuned and computerized about a dozen times, making her sound very sick. You would feel sorry for her if you heard it.

Pinkie got on her desk, crouching like a baseball player, now sounding constipated.

"OK, stop doing the Wayside thing," Ms. _______ said. "What do you want to say?"

"Well, first of all, there have been very strict rules that've been put upon some authors just trying to make their work be out there so people could enjoy it..." Pinkie began, everybody's hearts sinking as they knew this was going to go on for a while.

AND IT DID. When Pinkie was done, so was second period.

"...And in conclusion, I have one thing to say," Pinkie finally concluded. "All in all, nolo dicere, quod sicut in universo-alogia est Fasciculumque mauris. Totalis et perfecta stupri purgamentum. Tempus autem, qui ascenderunt cum volo palmis caedebat elit. Stultius videtur esse quaedam, quoddam, id est huiusmodi, sed ut sit meus sensus et assistant. Irrumabo."

"Err... T-thank you, P-Pinkie... T-t-that was v-very informative..." Ms. _______ managed to stammer out, waking up shortly after Pinkie finished her speech. "You could talk about politics. Oh, class is over... No homework, I guess?... You can go."

So, with that, everybody woke up, got their stuff and left, Tara staying a minute or two longer to take down a few notes, as she actually listened to a few minutes of Pinkie's speech. Afterward, she got up and left, Ms. _______ waving to her. But she then sat at her desk, stared at the ceilings and sighed.

"Luna..." whispered Ms. _______, all depressed like.

"Aaaah, what?!" Wendy shouted, suddenly waking up. Yeah.

"Urh... You can go now," Ms. _______ told Wendy.

"Oooh, right!!" Wendy exclaimed, running- er, speed-walking out as fast she could.

"That was close," Ms. _______ said to herself. "Anyways, where was I? Oh, yeah, whispering to myself as thinly veiled foreshadowing. Anyways, Luna..."

Meanwhile, Tara was hurrying down to the cafeteria after quickly stopping at her locker for the $27 she had taken out of her bank account last week in preparation (and a book). On the way, she could smell the distinct smell of apples. Stopping to take a quick look, she noticed a girl standing at her locker, eating an apple. Unlike the previous females Tara ran across, this girl's theme seemed to have to do with cowgirl stereotypes. They were all there, right down to hat she wasn't supposed to wear inside.

Tara thought for a second about whether or not she should introduce herself. On one hand, the last she tried to make friends, she turned out to be a Russian who seemed like she wanted nothing to do with her. On the other hand, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

"Hey, you," Tara greeted.

"Yeah?" the Western girl grunted, looking all bored-like at Tara.

"Um... I noticed you're eating an apple," Tara said, looking about as awkward as she sounded.

"Ah see yah got a good eye there," the Western girl drawled Southerly. Seemed like she was being sarcastic, too. "Yah want one? Ah got about a dozen."

"Um... Sure!"

The Western girl nodded, reached in her locker, got an apple and tossed it at Tara. She only barely caught it.

"Looks a little bruised," Tara commented, inspecting the apple.

"That's because you suck at catching things," the Western girl mumbled, mouth full of apple. "In case yah're wonderin', mah name's Jacqueline Apel. You can call meh 'AJ'."

"Well, I'm, Tara," Tara told AJ. "Tara Sparks. And, please, don't call me Sparky."

"Why?" AJ asked with a teasing tone. "It suits yah."

Tara groaned and took a bite of the apple AJ gave her. It was surprisingly good.

"This is good. Did you grow this?" Tara enquired.

"E'yup," AJ responded. "Ah'm an apple farmer, yah know. Mah whole family is. We've in this business since ah think about 1838 and probably will be until 2738, which ah assume will be the 521st anniversary of the business starting."

"Actually, it'll be the 900th anniversary," Tara pointed out, swallowing before she said anymore. "And, really, assuming something will go on forever is a little pretentious. Take this My Little Pony I've heard a lot of people talking about. Sure, it may be good, but that doesn't mean it'll survive for forever. People are gonna lose interest at some point and it's going to die off, being forgotten with a lot of other things that people assumed were going to last forever. Like The Beatles. Not that people lost interest in them, far from that, but even they couldn't go on forever and I'm-"

"Hey!" AJ snapped. "Don't try to fool me with your fancy mathematics!"

Tara couldn't come up with an appropriate response to that, so she instead decided to ask something: "Do you want to come to the cafeteria with me? I'm going to meet some people there and maybe they'd like to meet you, too."

"Eh, ah don't see why not," AJ shrugged. She finished her apple, tossed it at a nearby garbage can (missed), shut her locker and went with Tara to the cafeteria.

"So they have apple farms here in Canada?" Tara asked incredulously. "I just assumed most of this country's income came from filming The X-Files."

"For somebody who looks so smart, yah sure are stupid," AJ said. "First of all, The X-Files ended 10 years ago."

"Oh."

"Second of all, ah come from the Prairies," AJ continued, "and, out there, we do have farms. Why mah family moved us here is beyond me, but ah can assume it's... Actually, ah don't know f***ing why ah'm here. And did yah here that beeping?"

"What beeping?" Tara asked back.

"Yah wouldn't understand," AJ grumbled as they reached the place Tara wanted then to go to.

The cafeteria was kind of small, seeing as how only characters who had some kind of influence on the plot were here, so Tara had no trouble finding Felicia sitting all by her lonesome, save for that holey woman I mentioned earlier.

"Ah, Felicia's over there," Tara told AJ, pointing at said place.

"So?"

"I'm gonna sit over there once I get my lunch," Tara explained. "You can sit there, too, if you want."

"Ah don't need lunch; I ah had mah apple," AJ said. "And ah guess ah'll over there."

"Good!" Tara said with a smile before going to get her lunch, AJ going to the table with Felicia and the holey woman.

Naturally, Tara went there, too, after getting her lunch, sitting to the left of the holey woman (who was left of Felicia). AJ had to move over a little, so she was to Tara's left.

A brief silence followed, broken by Tara saying, "So has your day been going, Felicia?"

"Oh, it's been going wonderful!" Felicia answered cheerfully. Still kind quiet, but cheerful. "Chrystine is in both of my first two periods and I didn't have a lot of attention drawn to myself. I'm always happy when that kind of stuff with people I don't know." When she noticed AJ, she added, "No offense."

"'s OK," AJ said. "Name's Jacqueline, by the way. Call my AJ."

"Felicia Shay," Felicia introduced herself, I guess deciding that AJ seemed nice enough. "And this is Chrystine."

"Charmed," Chrystine said.

"Same here," AJ said, leaning back in her chair a little. A few moments later, she said, "No swiss?"

"Oh for the love of..." Chrystine grumbled. "Just because I like having holes in my clothes, doesn't mean I like Swiss cheese! GOT THAT?!"

"Fine, fine, ah was just..." AJ tried to apologize, but then changed the subject by saying to Felicia, "Ah notice you don't have a lot of meat, Felicia."

"Oh, I'm a vegetarian," Felicia explained. "I feel awful about eating animals, so I don't eat anything that comes from a living being."

"Plants are living things, too," Tara pointed out.

"Yes, but I don't feel as sorry," Felicia told Tara.

There seemed to be a few logistical flaws in Felicia's thinking. So a minute or two later, Rene and Pinkie finally showed up, the latter dragging the former to the table.

"Hey!" Pinkie exclaimed with a grin plastered on her face so thick, it seemed like she could never have another emotion. "Tara, it seems you've made some friends!"

"Yeah," Tara said happily. "This is-"

"Oh, I know everybody," Pinkie interrupted, making Rene sit next to her.

"How so?" Tara enquired.

"Facebook!"

"I don't have one," admitted Tara.

"Then MySpace!"

"I told you, Pinkie, I wasn't having lunch today," Rene grumbled.

Pinkie patted Rene on the head and cooed, "Aw, you know you wanted to hang out with me and Tara! You like us!"

"Yes, but not this much," Rene snapped, swatting Pinkie's hang away, making the pink haired one giggle. "I was talking to Sylvia, you know!"

"You can talk to her anytime!" Pinkie argued, still sounding like she was joking. "Enjoy our company for a little while!"

Rene didn't say anything. She just leaned on one arm and sighed heavily in annoyance. Pinkie obviously payed no mind. She just opened her very childish lunchbox, which let out an explosion of air and confetti.

"That seems like a little much," Tara remarked.

"But lunch is more fun this way!" Pinkie retorted. "Sure, it doesn't leave a lot of room for anything else, but it does make it less boring!" She pulled out a cupcake, which Tara assumed was the only thing in there. Through a mouthful of cake, Pinkie asked, "So, did you make anymore friends?"

"Well, there is this girl called..." Tara took out Rachel's card for a moment. "Rachel Belmont."

"Rachel?" Pinkie repeated.

"Yeah, her," Tara confirmed. "I should start eating my lunch..."

Ignoring that, Pinkie was looking around the lunchroom. When she saw what she wanted, she shouted, "HEY, RACHEL, OVER HERE!"

Tara looked up just in time to see Rachel, a table or two away, cringe noticeably. She came over and hissed to Pinkie, "There is no need to shout, darling."

"Sorry, it's my fault," Tara told Rachel, embarrassed.

"Well, you could have just asked," Rachel said, sitting at the table, making Rene audibly groan. "Oh, hello. I didn't see you sitting there."

"What's wrong?" Felicia asked.

"She's the one who spread the rumor about me being gay," Rene answered angrily. "She doesn't need to be here."

"Darling, it was just a slip of the tongue," Rachel explained calmly. "I didn't even know you when I said it. In fact, I still don't know who you are."

"It's still no excuse!"

"She was a lot nicer before, I swear," Tara whispered to Felicia.

"Um... I guess..." Felicia whispered back.

"Something must have happened, methinks," Tara continued. "Though I think I can tell why." She then said in a much louder tone, "Rene, if you're embarrassed or frustrated about your sexuality, there's no need to be."

"It's not that!" Rene snapped, standing up. "It's the lies she has spread about me!"

"Rene, you don't need to hold me to that," Rachel sighed. "It happened, what, 6 years ago? Darling, let it go... For goodness sake!"

"No, you started that lie!" Rene snarled. "And how can I forgive the person who caused me several years of torment?!"

"Nobody's been making fun of you," Tara pointed out. "Besides, nobody would be making fun of you if you would just stop pointing it out."

Rene blinked. "What?"

"People would stop making fun of you," Tara said slowly, "if you stopped say you were. If you constantly keep claiming that you're not gay, people will assume that you are and just denying it."

"...F***..." Rene swore under breath.

"I think you owe Rachel an apology," Tara stated.

"Sorry Rachel," Rene said, starting to lose the anger she displayed earlier.

"'Tis OK, darling," Rachel said back.

"Well, that's one chapter of my life over," Rene laughed, pulling an iPod and headphones out of nowhere. "So, if you'll excuse me, I have some Maiden to listen to."

"That's OK." Tara nodded and turned to the others. "Well, since we're all here, tell me about yourselves."

"Well, I've been on a diet for some-" Rachel started, but Rene interrupted with her music. "Oh, for goodness sake..."

"HEY, RENE, COULD YOU TURN THAT DOWN?!" Tara shouted. However, Rene seemed to bear no mind. So, resorting to her last resort early, she took Rene's headphones off.

"Yes?" Rene asked, still chill, pausing her music.

"Do you need to have your music so-" Tara began, but then she had another flash. And here it is:

FLASH!

"...bill goes up," Tara muttered to herself, then saying to Rainbow, "So how are you doing? Why'd you crash through my window again?"

"D... D... D-D-D-D-D-D-Daring D-D-Do author!" Rainbow spluttered, getting up. She looked really excited. "Autob-b-b-b-biography! R-r-read it to me!"

"OK... Why do I have to do?" Tara asked. "I mean, I don't have any problem with it FrIeNd, but can't you get somepony else? Like Fluttershy, she could do it!"

"She's busy with Chrysalis," Rainbow replied.

"So? Can't she stop for a little while to read it to you?" Tara asked.

"She's BUSY with Chrysalis," Rainbow repeated herself.

"Oh, it's that kind of busy," Tara said, more to herself then anything else. "What about anypony else? Did you ask them?"

"No, I can straight to you," Rainbow admitted. "And you owe me for earlier. And why are you trying to get me to go away?"

"I'm not, trying, FrIeNd!" snapped Tara. She swallowed and said, "Sorry, Dash. You know how I am with ponies like you accusing me of things. Paranoia and all. Anyways, I did have this report to do, but I guess I can do what you want. So where's the book?"

Rainbow opened her mouth to say something, but then an orange-peach pony came in then, drawling like AJ, "Rainbow Dash, yah dropped yer book after yah crashed though mah place. Scared the livin' daylightd outta all 'a us. Ah really-"

FLASH!

"...Loud!" Tara finished after her flash was over, still being loud.

"First of all, do you need to be?" Rene asked back. "And second, why'd ya pause for so long?"

"Oh, sorry," Tara muttered, putting a hand to her head. "I had this flash. It happens sometimes, right Felicia?"

"Yeah... I-I think," Felicia confirmed.

"Oh really?" Rene chuckled. "Flashes? Tell me, Sparky, what did you see in your 'flash'?" Air quotes were out around "flash", BTW FYI.

"I'm not Sparky," Tara huffed.

"Whatever you say, Sparky."

"And, to answer your question," Tara continued, "you were there, like the last flash I had a couple of hours ago. But then there was this pony that sounded like-"

"Wait, wait, wait!" Rene interrupted. "Ponies? Your 'flashes' have ponies? Are you a Brony or something?"

"No, no, no," Tara replied quickly. "I-I'm not... So anyways, back to the topic we were on, do you have to listen to your music so loud? I think people on the other end of the cafe could hear it."

"Of course!" answered Rene with a laugh. "How can you not? It's really the only way!"

"Y-y-yes, b-b-b-but i-it's k-k-kind of startling for some," Felicia stammered, cowering against Chrystine.

"It's her, in case you couldn't tell," Chrystine added. She was stroking Felicia's hair all cross-like.

"Oh, yeah, I just remembered!" Tara spoke up. "The Rene sounding pony mentioned somebody who has a name that sounds a lot like yours, Chrystine!"

"So what was it?" Chrystine enquired flatly.

"Chrysalis," Tara answered. She shrugged.

"So it's just taking the 'tine' out of my name," Chrystine deduced, stil in a bored tone.

"I guess."

"How unoriginal," Chrytine sighed. "So, as you were going to say-"

"I actually think that the Rene sounding pony implied you two were screwing," Tara mused.

"You were going to say, Rene!" Chrysalis continued a lot louder then before

"I was going to say: Well, live with it!" Rene exclaimed. "It's my music and I can listen to it as loud as I want to!"

"Now that's something I can get behind!" a voice agreed. Then, up came this really slutty looking girl, putting her hand on Rene's shoulder.

"Right on Violet!" Rene said, high-fiving the person in question.

"Oh, you're Violet?" Tara enquired. "I think I met your sister earlier... What was her name?"

"Olivia?" Violet suggested.

"Yeah, that's her," Tara confirmed.

Violet nodded. "She's a real sourpuss," she said. "Thankfully, she got all the Russian genes. I call all the ones that made me awesome."

"But not as cool as me," Rene said.

"You're cool," Violet told Rene, "and I'm awesome." She looked at Tara and said, "Anyways, I can't hang for long. I got a few mixes to work and I gotta also lay down some piano tracks. I'm a piano-and-bass playing DJ, ya know. During the day I'm in a jazz band and at night I DJ. In the afternoons, I DJazz, but that's another topic all together. Anyways, see you all later!" She then began to leave, but briefly stopped the say to Tara, "I'm older, by the way!"

Tara blinked. "What?"

Then the bell rang and Tara bolted out of the room.

"...And I thought I was fast!" Rene commented, getting. "Put I gotta go, too. See ya later!"

So Rene left and, as she was leaving, Rachel noticed something.

"Rene, darling, I think you forgot something!" Rachel called, point at Rene's rear.

"What?" Rene asked, looking at Rachel. "What about my..." She looked at where Rachel was pointing. "AAAAH, F***!" She then ran off, embarrassed and frustrated.

"Surprised she didn't notice it earlier," AJ remarked, the group agreeing before splitting off.

Author's Note:

And that flash will never appear anywhere else. Just remember xenografi for later.