Scootaloo has to do her math homework... Yeah, it's basically Scootaloo doing her math homework.
There is an old tale passed from class to class that there is a masked mare, Supermare, that will help you if, for some reason, you happen to be stuck with your homework.
Or it so happen that Scootaloo has to do a math homework about addition and is pretty much desperate as everytime she adds up numbers, her answers happens to be wrong. She wouldn't mind Supermare to come help her, but sometimes things get more complicated than they need to be...
This is how Scootaloo happened to do her math homework.
Inspired by the fact I never liked working at home and by that story from mesu-no-TORA (he or she seems to have left the site... too bad, I love that story): Her Tutor
This was the worst, most dreadful, incredibly terrible and out of this world ugliest day in Equestria, from all the days that had been as well as all the days that were to come. And yes, the sun may have been shining that day. And yes, I’ll admit that, with some hindsight, it was actually a pretty casual day, even maybe a beautiful one as it happens so often in that magical land.
But Scootaloo was certain of it: this day, between all days, was the very worst.
Because Cheerilee had given them a new homework to do.
…
“Okay, we get it, you don’t like doing your homework.” replied Applebloom with a sigh. “So what? Nopony does anyway. You’re not alone sister, after school I’ve got to go help Applejack make Twilight stop drinking so much coffee! Imagine that…”
“Well… I like doing my homework.” suddenly said Sweetie Belle, who liked learning new things and testing her abilities.
Applebloom turned and looked very deep into Sweetie Belle’s eyes to see if she could find some sort of mental illness or the traces of an alien robot having replaced her dear friend. But having found nothing of the sort, she went back to Scootaloo and corrected herself as follow:
“Alright, except for Sweetie Belle here who is probably the only living creature to crave for more work and less play time, nopony in Equestria likes doing her homework.”
Cheerilee passed before the trio and Applebloom gave her best smile hoping the teacher hadn’t heard a word from what she had just said. But Cheerilee soon disappeared behind her desk, answering the questions of a foal while all the others were going out as the class was over.
“It’s not really that I don’t want to do my homework.” explained Scootaloo, obtaining only a very shocked look from Applebloom and a big smile from Sweetie Belle. “It’s just that it’s mathematics. I just don’t understand numbers at all.”
Sweetie Belle, who liked arithmetic, immediately proposed:
“Hey, I could help you. Additions are really easy.”
“Really?” asked Scootaloo. “It never works for me, my answers are always wrong. How do you do it?”
“Well, you add up numbers, that’s how you do it.” replied Sweetie Belle with her best smile.
“Right… and how do you add up numbers exactly?” responded Scootaloo, still hoping she could get some help.
“By adding them up of course.” explained Sweetie Belle, without understanding why Scootaloo had so much trouble with such an easy concept.
The filly pegasus soon gave up, as her friend had absolutely no idea how to explain something that seemed so natural. As for Applebloom, it was clear there was no real help to be awaited there.
“Don’t look at me.” the little earth pony told Scootaloo, “I don’t understand mathematics either, I don’t even care about that stuff: it’s useless.”
The truth was, Applebloom already mastered the multiplications, the divisions and most of the current geometrics calculus because of her work on the farm, but she just didn’t know there was a relation between what she was using every day and what she was learning in class, at least not yet.
“I guess you’ll have to rely on supermare then.” said Sweetie Belle.
Scootaloo looked at her with two very big surprised eyes.
“Supermare? Who is that?” she asked.
“Well, my big sister told me she was originally named Sciremare. I understand why she decided to be named supermare instead.” explained Sweetie Belle, completely out of subject as was to be expected.
“Okay, but who is she?” asked Scootaloo once again, as it really was the first time she had heard about such a character.
“You really don’t know?” said Applebloom. “Supermare is the mare that comes to help you with your study when you need it, just like how Santapony brings us gifts, well, presents, when the time of Hearth's Warming Eve comes.”
“Yeah, Supermare came to help me once. But unlike Santapony, I think it was actually Rarity who had dressed up so that I wouldn’t recognize her.” Sweetie Belle explained.
“Unlike Santapony?” replied Applebloom, who couldn’t believe her friend still believed in such a filly tale.
The very quiet and rational debate between Applebloom and Sweetie Belle that ensued might eventually have had caught the attention of Cheerilee who might have been force to separate the two fillies and might have scolded them and then might have sent them home after they might have apologized. Who knows?
Be that as it may, Scootaloo ended up on her way home after having said goodbye to her two friends. The filly began to think about the idea of a Supermare that would come to help her with her homework…
“Come on Scout.” she told herself, “There is no way such a mare exists.”
She let her imagination wander off nonetheless and, as her math homework was constantly coming back to her, she added:
Let me ask you a simple question. How much makes seven plus five? If you reply that you don’t have all the necessary information to answer that question, my deepest felicitations, you are a mathematician and you should know that I hate mathematics. If you said that seven plus five makes thirteen, there is a very high probability that you are feeling as frustrated about that question as Scootaloo was at that very moment.
The piece of paper was on her desk, covered with all those mysterious signs that ponies had to invent in order to torture the fillies minds. It was taunting Scootaloo by making fun of her lack of mathematical skills.
She wrote thirteen on the sheet, thought about it very hard, made the whole reasoning all over again and, having found no flaw whatsoever, sighed deeply as she could remember having answered the same thing in an old homework for the exact same calculation and having been proven wrong.
“I don’t get it!” shouted the filly with anger, throwing the piece of paper away and sulking for a bit, as there was not much more she could do.
Then, as she was about to give up, write random numbers on the answer sheet and call it a night, Scootaloo heard the sound of a hoof on her window. She looked and saw a unicorn mare wearing a mask that was knocking, clearly asking her to open so that she might enter.
“Supermare?” asked out loud Scootaloo with hope, realizing the tale she had been told was maybe more than just a filly tale.
She decided to go open the window, as would have any other pony, big or small, of any age, because Equestria was still the safest land one could imagine and the fear of a stranger was almost unknown to all.
“Good evening to you, young learner.” pompously said the masked mare on the top of her ladder. “Do not worry anymore about your homework as I, Supermare, have arrived to help you overcome it!”
“Really?” asked Scootaloo with joy.
“Yes.” gently replied Supermare with a kind smile. “Really.”
At that moment, Scootaloo knew all her problems would disappear, as she could see in the eyes of the mare the deep will to help and the upmost competence to do so. But a new voice suddenly rang out:
“Watch out everypony!”
The masked mare looked behind her, a little bit too late as Rainbow Dash crashed through the open window, making Supermare lose her balance and fall with her ladder on the bushes below in a loud scream of distress.
“Rainbow Dash?” said Scootaloo, both surprised and overjoyed to see her most favorite big sister in the whole universe. “What are you doing here?”
The multicolor pegasus shook her wings to make sure she hadn’t hut herself and then answered:
“Well, I came across Sweetie Belle on her way home and she told me you needed help with something, and I had some free time, so I came to help you.”
She consciously decided to hide the fact that she was supposed to meet Soarin for some more training he had accepted to supervise in prevision of a future race. She didn’t want Scootaloo to realize how much she counted for her.
“Really?” said Scootaloo, who couldn’t have been happier with the turn of the events. “That’s great!”
And she immediately took back the piece of paper with all the arithmetic problems she had to solve and showed it to Rainbow Dash, certain that the mare would know how to explain it to her.
“You are doing additions?” observed the new teacher with some apprehension.
Scootaloo realized that asking Rainbow Dash of all ponies to help her with school stuff wasn’t probably the best idea ever. But to her surprise, the pegasus told her that she actually was pretty good with math:
“I was top of my class!” Dash bragged. “It’s actually very easy.”
“Yeah? So how do you do it?” eagerly asked Scootaloo, more ready to learn than ever if it was to be from the teaching of the one she had put above everypony else.
“All you have to do is count in Wonderbolts.” Dash said.
…
A silence ensued.
“Seriously?” asked Scootaloo, not sure if she was being ironic or really ready to believe it.
“Of course I’m serious.” replied Rainbow Dash with a smile. “For example, five plus seven makes twelve, because Spitfire has won the annual Canterlot Derby seven times and Wingflare has won it five times and together they have the most outdoor victories of Cloudsdale in Canterlot, which is twelve total, making them the overall best there is!”
Believe me or not, but Scootaloo was kind of lost.
“Huh…” the filly said for all response.
“It’s easy I tell you” continued Rainbow Dash with enthusiasm. “I even won an arithmetic competition with that system. I remember I was asked to divide seven by two, and I knew that Firefly was number three on the top ten best flyers list that year and because Soarin was half as good as Firefly, he was number four, so Firefly could count for a good zero point three and Soarin for zero point four and the mean between them would therefore had been zero point thirty five. Of course it was all calculated from the top ten best flyers list, so the answer was three point five.”
“Who is Firefly?” asked Scootaloo, who was too young to have known that particular flyer and didn’t really understand what it all had to do with adding up numbers.
“Oh she was one of the best! You should have seen her fly through the sky! It was magical.” Rainbow Dash remembered with passion. “Hey, I know!” she suddenly added. “I’ll bring you some of the old stuff I’ve got about her to show you who she was. During that time, you practice counting in Wonderbolts, okay?”
Caught up in her “brilliant” idea, Rainbow Dash didn’t notice that Scootaloo would have needed some more explanation about the whole counting system and took off through the window she had use to come in order to get the souvenirs she knew she had stashed somewhere in her house.
Left alone, Scootaloo looked at the window and then at the homework sheet, unable to even remember how much points Spitfire was worth and how she should use it to make Rainbow Dash happy.
By chance, a knocking on the room’s door interrupted her.
The masked mare appeared behind Scootaloo’s door when the filly opened it. Supermare was standing there, covered in slight bruises, branches and leaves all over her costume. She probably wasn’t a unicorn after all, as her cardboard horn had broken because of the fall. The mare sighed.
“Well, let’s forget about that incident and let’s get to work, shall we?” she proposed to Scootaloo, as she was as decided as she was before to bring all the help she could to the filly.
But as she began to enter Scootaloo’s room, a very weird wheezing, groaning noise began to reverberate all over the two ponies. Before she could even react, Supermare found herself trapped inside an appearing blue box and disappeared from Scootaloo’s view as the telephone police box finished materializing. The door of the blue box opened and a light brown pony with an hourglass cutie mark came out.
“Yes, this is it!” he shouted. “Hello Scootaloo. Missed me? I told you I would only be away for a second. Time travel and all…”
Scootaloo looked at the strange stallion without knowing how she should react and how he could know her name.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I’m the doctor of course!” he answered with his joyful tone. “And not the professor as you thought I was when we met. Just the doctor. You know, with the monster in the wall and all?”
The adjective “confusing” sometimes loses most of its ability to accurately describe a situation. This was one of those times. Nonetheless, the good thing with children is that when they are confused, their curiosity takes the relay and Scootaloo began to bombard the poor stallion with a whole load of questions about the blue box, the doctor himself, what he was doing here, if he had been sent by Rainbow Dash, where Supermare was, if he knew Rainbow Dash, how awesome Rainbow Dash was, where Rainbow Dash was, if something had happened to Rainbow Dash and a whole lot of questions about how one should be able to count in Wonderbolts.
“Alright, calm down, all in good time.” responded the doctor, completely overwhelmed by the young filly’s enthusiasm. “You weren’t like that when we met. Maybe you’re not Scootaloo after all. Are you her twin sister by any chance? I didn’t know she had a twin sister, this is… actually quite common, but I’m glad to meet you nonetheless.”
And “confusing” lost all of its meaning once again. That stallion was just too weird to be described or understood, but Scootaloo found him quite funny in his behavior and the way he was saying stuff.
“Look.” began the doctor, eager to avoid any new questions’ avalanche. “I just came back to give you this.”
And the stallion gave Scootaloo a piece of paper. The filly looked at it and saw the very homework sheet she had been working on for so long and was unable to answer. The difference was, that sheet had all the answers already written and had even already been corrected by Cheerilee as there were all the green marks to say the answers were correct that she used to make.
“You see, now you don’t have to worry about your homework anymore, it’s all already done.” the doctor said victoriously. “No need to thank me, I just did my job as a time traveler.”
He made his way back to the tardis, said one last goodbye to Scootaloo, said that it had been fun to see the filly again, that she was weird, but fun anyway and that she should give her twin sister his salutation in his name if she happened to actually have a twin sister.
Then he shut the door, the wheezing, groaning sound rang out once again and the blue box disappeared completely, only leaving behind the masked Supermare, still covered with the bruises, branches and leaves from her earlier fall, but also completely soaked.
“I was in a pool!” almost shouted in panic the masked mare. “What was a pool doing in your room, what happened!?!” she asked Scootaloo as if the filly would have been able to explain something that crazy.
“We have a pool?” asked back Scootaloo with both incredulity and some excitement as she would have liked to have a pool in her room.
Supermare looked around, saw no pool, nothing at all but the eyes of the little filly in front of her and the quiet of the night. She took a long, good breath, simmered down, snorted, which projected water all around, and then sat.
“Alright.” she said, mostly to make sure she was still sane. “The important thing right now is you, I’ll figure out what happened later.” she told Scootaloo as she was more determined than ever to give the filly all the help that was required.
Scootaloo smiled in gratitude. There was something in that mare’s dedication that was making her wanting to believe in her. The more the filly was looking at her, the more she was convinced she would be able to help her.
“Well, let’s begin, shall we?” the mare said.
She never got a chance to. A bright flashed lit the whole room, blinding Scootaloo for a few seconds, and when the filly opened her eyes again, Supermare was gone and in her place was standing Twilight with the wildest mane ever, big shadows under her crazy eyes and a cup of coffee lifted into the air by her magic.
“Here you are!” almost shouted the alicorn. “You wouldn’t believe how many teleportation I had to do in order to find you.”
Twelve. The princess of friendship hadn’t counted, of course, but she had teleported twelve times, counting one trip to the mayor’s bedroom who thought Equestria was under attack, one trip that woke up Zecora who just went back to sleep and one trip to Vynil Scratch’s house where she had accidentally turned on the music and woken up the entire area.
“Applebloom came to my castle and told me you wanted to learn about mathematics!” Twilight explained with a tone that was making her sound like she was living in another dimension. “I came to help as soon as I heard the news.”
For some unknown reason, Scootaloo’s instinct told her not to put too much hope into the princess, as something seemed to indicate Twilight wasn’t feeling very well. Another part of Scootaloo’s mind, however, said that nopony better than the smart Twilight could help explain how those mathematic thingies could work. So, taking the opportunity that was offered to her, Scootaloo said:
“It’s true… I’ve got some difficulties to make additions.”
It was like a lightning had touched the alicorn. She took Scootaloo by the hand, put her on a chair and then made a board appear through her magic.
“Okay. The first thing to know when it comes to addition in mathematics is in which base you are calculating.” Twilight quickly explained. “because even if the thinking structure is exactly the same whatever base we use, the result can vary greatly between each base.”
Scootaloo was only wondering if Twilight was explaining baseball and why she would do so.
“You see, we usually use a base ten, which is why the numbers ten, hundred, thousand etcetera have such a great importance in the casual way to view mathematics.” the princess said. “However!” she added in a sudden burst, “It is a great mistake to think those are the only one we use. We actually count with a base sixty when it comes to seconds and minutes, and in a base twenty four when it comes to hours. I must add that the base sixty also comes from a base twelve which we still struggle to explain as we only have two front hooves.”
Scootaloo was wondering what time it was and if she shouldn’t be sleeping already.
“Now, if we are to add up thirty and thirty together, in a base ten, we would obtain sixty, because those are two times three and three of the second level of aggregation units, which makes six times the second aggregation units, the second aggregation unit being ten, which makes six times ten and therefore sixty.”
Scootaloo was thinking this was all pure genius. Not that she could understand one tiny bit of it, but it sounded very smart at least.
“Now in base twelve, thirty plus thirty would make five times the second level of aggregation units. As we have no name for such a unit, we could call it a dozen and therefore thirty plus thirty would make five dozen, a fizen if you want to make the same contraction as sixty is for six times ten.”
Now Scootaloo was bored. And somewhat scared, as she was beginning to realize Twilight wasn’t to stop. Even more, the alicorn was drinking sip after sip of coffee and her cup seemed to never empty itself as the flow of words from the princess’s mouth was increasing by the second.
“Now, you’ll ask, what if we were to count with a base one? Well, it’s very simple you see, we would have to create a new level of aggregation unit for each new number we add up.”
It was becoming very scary for the poor filly who began to seek a way out of that predicament.
“But what if we were to count with a base zero point five now? Well, that’s a very good question that I haven’t really thought about… but we can do it together!” Twilight almost exploded in the insurance she had that Scootaloo and her would be working all night to solve that particular problem.
“Actually, Twilight, I don’t need help with my homework like Applebloom told you…” tried to say Scootaloo.
The alicorn stopped, considered the new data that she had to compute, and came to the conclusion that she must have had misheard what type of help she was supposed to give, but that she was supposed to help with something nonetheless.
“So… what is it you need my help with then?” she asked Scootaloo with the same tone of passion and madness. “Tell me, tell me, tell me!” she added, expected something really challenging.
“Well…” began Scootaloo, having no idea what to say at that point. “I need you to…”
She was stuck. She looked around, saw no way out, so she made a quick prayer to find an idea to make Twilight go away solve any problem she might want to invent for herself. And then she remembered a pony she had heard while walking in the streets of Ponyville who was complaining about the plumbing.
“I need you to go help with the plumbing.” she said.
“The plumbing?” suspiciously asked Twilight, due to the big gap there was from homework to plumbing.
“Huh… yeah! Sure. There is something stuck in one of the pipe, I think. Something like that.” Scootaloo said with her best smile, hoping it would work.
And it worked. Twilight decided that it she wouldn’t close her eyes until she would have found what was clogging the pipes, drank her cup of coffee that magically filled itself, then left Scootaloo’s room to go to the basement and study the plumbing of the house.
Scootaloo sighed out of relief. She liked Twilight a lot, but she was slowly understanding what Applebloom meant by “she was drinking too much coffee.” The filly thought that something that dangerous should probably be made illegal to consume. On the other hoof, there was no way to prevent ponies to drink whatever they wanted to drink, so that was making the whole illegal idea pretty much useless.
The filly pegasus sat down and breathed. She was tired, which her current thought was proof enough of. It had been a crazy night. By chance, it was probably over. Still, Scootaloo would have loved for Supermare to have been able to try to help her.
“A… little help… please.” said a voice from the window.
Scootaloo jumped there and helped the masked mare that was hanging from the roof to come in her room. Supermare lay on the floor and breathed until she could finally simmer down.
“I don’t understand. I was in that pool, then in your room again, and then I suddenly found myself on the top of your roof!” she said. “Is this some sort of nightmare?” she asked. “Luna be my witness, if this is a dream it is by far the craziest I’ve ever had!”
It actually wasn’t. Supermare had had way crazier dreams. But this is hardly the time and place to speak about those.
As she recovered, the mare remembered how much Scootaloo needed her help and how much she wanted to help her. So, as soon as she felt able to, she stood up and told the filly that she would give her the needed support.
Scootaloo smiled and began to move to take the homework sheet to show it to Supermare, when a way too well recognizable wheezing and groaning sound rang out in the room.
“No, not that again!” shouted Supermare in panic mode.
She began to run everywhere in the room to escape the appearance of the blue box, jumping on the bed, over the shelf, running under the desk and found herself in the very place where the blue box began to materialize.
“No!” she shouted in despair before disappearing into the mass of the telephone police box.
As had happened the last time, the door opened and the weird stallion came out, this time holding a very strange machine in one of his front hooves, made with antennas, a few electric cables and a toaster.
“Professor?” Scootaloo said, recognizing the stallion from before.
“Oh… hello there.” the stallion replied. “Do we know each other? I'm the doctor actually. Sorry to be rude, but I’m a time traveler you see, so for me we haven’t met yet.”
This was way too abstract for the young filly who just wanted to know why the stallion was back and also wanted to tell him that the answers to the homework sheet were useless as it wasn’t explaining to her how to find those answers.
“No time!” the doctor said, preventing Scootaloo to tell any of the thing she wanted to tell him. “There is a monster in your walls.” he explained.
“A monster in my walls?” Scootaloo rhetorically asked with a sudden feeling of fear. “Are you sure?”
The doctor pointed to his weird contraption and said:
“Yes. You see, this is a monster detector and my monster detector says there is something in your walls, something alive.”
The doctor looked at Scootaloo and smiled.
“But don’t worry, I’m here, I’m very good with monsters. Well, maybe not very good, but I’ve met quite a few and that still makes me sort of a specialist, doesn’t it?”
Now Scootaloo was reassured. Not because the doctor was there, but because there was a very high probability that there had been no monster in the walls to begin with and that it was just that weird stallion’s imagination creating some sort of a game or something.
Then the machine made a loud “ding!”.
“Ah ah!” the doctor said. “Here we go, we found it.”
He was facing one of the walls and, weirdly enough, there seemed to be some kind of sound coming from it. Scootaloo went behind the doctor’s legs, just in case, and watched as he began to advance.
“Come out now.” the doctor said with courage. “We don’t have all night and it is hardly the time and place to play hide and seek. Aren’t you ashamed to terrorize a poor filly?”
“Hey!” responded Scootaloo who didn’t want to look like she was afraid, even if she had went behind the tardis just in case.
“Come, show yourself. We can solve this peacefully. You can trust me, I’m the doctor.” the stallion said.
And suddenly, the wall responded. Or more precisely, the wall exploded as a big creature the size of a pony burst out of it in a magical light, knocking the doctor over and preventing him to get up again.
“Run, run out of here!” the stallion shouted for Scootaloo by pure reflex.
“I’ve got it! I found it! I knew I would find it!” said the pony shaped creature, holding a clogged pipe in her hoof. “And you thought you could escape me, did you!”
“Twilight?” asked Scootaloo, recognizing the alicorn.
“You know the monster?” asked the doctor. “Very interesting. Is it a ghost, some ancestor of yours?”
It took some time for Scootaloo to explain who Twilight was and why she was holding that pipe. And even more time for both Scootaloo and the doctor to understand how Twilight had, through the use of magic, been able to go inside the walls to look for the clogged pipe. As for how she had happened to find a clogged pipe, nopony there could explain it and Scootaloo certainly didn’t say it wasn’t supposed to exist to begin with.
“Is that so.” laughed the doctor. “Well, all is well that ends well I guess.”
But as he had said those words, Twilight fell on the floor, happy to have accomplished her task and completely exhausted after thirteen nights and days of sleep deprivation.
“Hello Rainbow Dash.” were her last words as an awakened mare.
And those words were directed at another mare, a multicolored pegasus standing on the edge of the window while holding a whole box full of souvenirs of Firefly and some other great Wonderbolts from the old times.
Threats ensued, then explanations, then some smiles were exchanged and in the end, Rainbow Dash agreed to take Twilight back to her castle where she could get all the sleep she needed.
“You don’t mind too much, do you?” she asked Scootaloo, as she was feeling guilty not to be able to stay at the filly’s side to help her with her homework problem.
“No, I’ll be fine.” the filly answered, before adding: “Not that I didn’t like your help, I really liked it, and it was great, but it wasn’t really useful… well it was, I just didn’t know how to use it and… well…” the filly saw the gentle look of her sort of big sister and explained, with a sigh: “It’s just that I think I’ll never be able to count in Wonderbolts.”
“That’s alright.” replied Rainbow Dash. “You’ll figure a way. I know you, you’re the kind of filly that will always prevail in the end, right?”
Rainbow Dash had clearly no idea if Scootaloo would find the solution to her problem in the end. She only wanted to comfort the filly. And it worked.
“Right.” Scootaloo replied with confidence.
Rainbow Dash took off with a sleeping Twilight on her back and left Scootaloo and the doctor alone.
“What was she talking about?” asked the doctor, whose curiosity wasn’t his least characteristic.
“She came to explain how to make addition earlier.” Scootaloo told him. “But I didn’t understand anything and now I’m never going to be able to reply correctly to the problems in my homework.”
The doctor’s face lit up as an idea came to him.
“Don’t worry, little filly. I know exactly how to solve your problem.” he said. “Just stay here and wait, I’ll be back before you even know it with all the answers to your homework.”
And before Scootaloo could reply anything, he went to the tardis, opened the door and found himself facing with a very tired and almost angry soaked supermare.
“Who are you?” the doctor asked her. “And what are you doing in my tardis?”
The mare thought of letting the rage take the best of her, but she found a way of controlling herself, breathed and just replied:
“I don’t care who you are or what you are doing here. All I want to know is why I always end up in that pool of yours…”
It was a reasonable request. And she was too tired to think of something else than why fate had decided she wouldn’t stay dry for more than a few minutes. But to her surprise, the doctor answered in a very unexpected way:
“What are you talking about? I took the pool away years ago!”
And then he entered the tardis, shutting the door behind him a leaving the mare with Scootaloo to wonder what in all of Equestria was happening there.
“Who is he?” she finally asked Scootaloo.
“The doctor.” replied the filly.
“He is a doctor?”
“I don’t know…”
There wasn’t much more to say. They were fixing the blue box in the middle of Scootaloo’s room, expecting to wake up but having to slowly accept it wasn’t a dream. And suddenly the tardis’s door opened once again, letting the head of the doctor come out.
“Hey, you won’t believe this: I’ve actually still got a pool! Who would have known?” he joyfully shouted.
“Go figure…” replied the mare with a bitter tone.
“Alright, I’m off now. See you in a second!” the doctor shouted, shutting the door behind him.
The wheezing, groaning sound of the tardis rang out once again as it slowly disappeared, leaving no trace whatsoever that it had been there at any point in time.
“I…” began Scootaloo.
“No.” replied the mare. “Later. We will talk about all of that later.” she said.
Then she turned to the filly, looked at her in the eyes and, with her very gentle and caring voice, said:
“Now, all that matters is that homework of yours, agreed?”
Scootaloo agreed, as she saw no real way to make any sense of all the rest that had previously happened. She showed the homework to Supermare and asked how she was supposed to make those additions.
“Why don’t you show me how you actually do them?” the mare asked Scootaloo.
The proposition surprised the filly.
“How I do it?” she asked. “But I do it wrong…”
“Well.” replied the mare. “Doing things wrong is the best way to learn. And I will need to see how you think if I want to understand why your thinking doesn’t lead to the expected answer.”
Scootaloo accepted and began the first problem, which was five plus seven. She answered thirteen, explained that five plus five was making ten and that she had taken what was left to go to thirteen as Cheerilee had explained to the class. She waited for Supermare to explain what was wrong, but the masked mare just asked her to answer to the next problem.
It was eight plus six. Scootaloo thought about it, made sure she had checked her answer several times and finally answered twelve.
“Is it right?” she asked Supermare.
“It isn’t the expected answer, but it might very well be right by your logic.” she replied. “Don’t be afraid of giving the right or wrong answer. Just do your best, okay?”
Scootaloo accepted to try, even if it was a way of seeing things she didn’t really understand. As the mare asked her to make the next problem, she read it out loud and began to think about the answer. It was four plus seven. She made sure to apply what she had learned in class and wrote “thirteen” on the piece of paper. To her surprise, the masked mare smiled. Not sarcastically, or with any ill intent. It was a very gentle, caring and victorious smile.
“Scootaloo.” the mare addressed the filly. “How do you calculate how much you must add up to ten once you have already reached ten?” she asked.
The filly didn’t understand the question, so the mare took the time to break down the whole calculation process into tiny bits and made Scootaloo progress through them until it was time to take what was left to add it up to ten.
And only then, when the mare explained to Scootaloo what everypony else understood by “what is left”, did the filly had her epiphany.
She tried the new way a few times, failed sometimes because she was used to think with her old way, but eventually came to the point where she had mastered that new way of adding up numbers. And all the answers she was coming up with happened to be the expected answers as Supermare assured her it was.
“You have done very well Scootaloo. You shouldn’t have any problem anymore with adding up such numbers anymore.” told her the mare.
The filly would have wanted to hug the masked mare, but she decided not to, just because, well, she didn’t want to look like she was weak or something. But in her heart, she was very grateful. Even if she was feeling tired.
And for a good reason, as it was almost midnight on Scootaloo’s alarm clock.
“Go to bed now.” Supermare told the filly. “You’ve got school tomorrow.”
The filly would have objected, but she was literally already sleeping while standing. The mare took her to her bed and then left by the window after having said goodnight, disappearing into the night with only a gentle smile and the great feeling to have helped somepony learn something.
“It’s like I’m telling you guys!” Scootaloo told her two close friends. “Supermare was there, and then Rainbow Dash came, and Twilight, and that weird pony in his blue box, and he came again, but sooner, and then Twilight came out of the wall and…”
She noticed neither Applebloom nor Sweetie Belle were believing her.
“I’m telling you, it’s true!” she tried to persuade them.
“Yeah, sure.” replied Applebloom. “I might be able to believe the part about Twilight, because she sure was very weird yesterday, but a pool in your room, seriously?”
Scootaloo still wasn’t certain what the whole deal with the pool had been and so she didn’t know what to reply. She wasn’t even sure anymore if it served any purpose replying.
“Here you are girls.” said Cheerilee’s voice behind their back.
The trio turned back to face their teacher who gave them the corrected math homework back with all the green and red marks she was used to draw to tell which answers were correct and which were not.
“Thanks.” said the three fillies.
“Thanks a lot!” added Scootaloo when she discovered that all the answers of her homework were correct, except one where she could see she just hadn’t been focused enough.
Cheerilee smiled and began to walk away, when she stopped and decided to add, on her side:
“By the way, Scootaloo, you look tired today. Did you go late to bed? You know you should sleep plenty before school, don’t you?”
Scootaloo smiled. She was tired. And she had gone late to bed.
“I’m sorry. I had a rough night. You have no idea.” she tried to explain.
Cheerilee smiled for all response. With a very gentle caring smile and finally walked away to take care of the other fillies and foals in her class.
“She really is the best teacher we could hope for.” said Applebloom. “I wonder what she wouldn’t do to help one of us.”
She had to push Scootaloo a little to take the little pegasus out of her sudden daydream. But to her surprise, Scootaloo just said:
“Yeah, I wonder…”
And then went back to daydreaming about blue boxes, clogged pipes, Wonderbolts and numbers. And a whole lot of now friendly numbers.
