//------------------------------// // Sonata's Desperation // Story: Sonata Can't Read // by sonicfan05 //------------------------------// A few weeks had gone by since Sonata’s secret was exposed to the school and that Sonata accepted Trixie’s bet that she’ll learn to read by the end of the week. Despite her friend’s efforts, Sonata wasn’t able to grasp on any of the reading lessons. Even Sunset’s writing assignments from her book couldn’t help her, but because she didn’t want to disappoint Sunset and wanted to have a month worth of tacos from Trixie, Sonata resorted to have her sisters completed the assignments for her. After she had Aria completed every assignments from the second book, Sonata was wise enough to only show her friends one assignment every day instead of the whole book, making it look like that she was progressing. She felt guilty for doing this, but she kept telling herself that she will have to make it up to her friends as soon as she “won” the bet… and getting her tacos. Today, Sonata once again sat at her usual seat with her friends during lunch and showed off “her work”. Sunset and the others looked over the work sheets with their impressed expressions. With her huge smile, Sunset looked up from the work sheets and beamed at Sonata. “You did an amazing job Sonata!” Sunset praised. “I knew that these assignments would help you! All of your hard work is really paying off!” Sonata shyly looked away as she rubbed her neck. “Oh… it was nothing.” “This is more than nothing Sonata!” said Twilight as she adjusted her glasses. “Just a few weeks ago, you couldn’t even read the pepper shaker. Now, you were able to complete all the reading and writing assignments that Sunny gave you so easily!” “Yeah! So now you can read anything like a pro!” Pinkie chirped. “Hold yer horses Pinkie Pie!” Applejack interjected. “Just because Sonata is doing well now, that doesn’t mean she is close to a professional reader just yet.” Rarity shook her head. “While that may be true dear Applejack, but Sonata completed the assignments from two of Sunset’s books. So I say she’s very close of becoming one.” “Awesome!” Rainbow cheered. “As soon as you proved Trixie wrong with her bet, the first thing I’m going to do is giving you my Daring Do books for you to borrow! You totally shouldn’t miss out on this awesome series!” Twilight gave Rainbow her deadpanned look. “You know, there are other books out there for her to read Rainbow.” “Yeah, but they’re not as awesome as Daring Do!” Twilight rolled her eyes at Rainbow’s remark while Fluttershy gave Sonata her sweet smile. “We’re all very proud of you Sonata. The fact that you work so hard was very inspiring.” As everyone was beaming at her, Sonata felt guilty again. Everyone was complimenting her for working so hard, even though her sisters did all the work. Something told her that she couldn’t keep doing this and she has to come clean. She only hoped that they will still talk to her again after this. Sonata turned towards Sunset and cleared her throat. “Um… Sunset, about those activity sheets you gave me—” “Uh Girls!” Applejack interrupted. “We got company!” They all turned just in time to see Trixie and the Illusions walking towards them with smirks on their faces. Sonata felt uneasy from the sight of the magician. While Trixie left her alone since the start of their bet, but she would often heard Trixie and her group snickering every time Sonata walked past them from the hallway. They eventually reached to her table with Trixie giving Sonata her smug look. “Well hello Siren!” Trixie greeted in her mocking tone. “How’s your reading lesson coming along?” “It been going well,” Sonata answered. “And how’s your time in detention with Mr. Doodle?” Trixie’s smug expression was quickly changed to her look of unpleasantness. “Oh yes… Trixie’s time in detention was very… pleasant!” said Trixie as she was gritting her teeth. Sonata tilted her head with her confused expression. “For realsies? I heard that they were terrible!?” Before Trixie could retort, Sunset intervened. “What do you want Trixie?” Trixie breathed through her nose before giving them her smirk. “Well Trixie was just checking up on this Siren to make sure that she didn’t back out on our deal! Trixie was hoping that she’ll win by default!” “Well jokes on you Trixie!” Rainbow retorted. “Not only is Sonata not backing out on your stupid bet, but she was also working hard on her reading lessons and she aced the activity sheets Sunset gave her!” Trixie raised her eyebrow with her skeptic frown. “Oh really?” “It’s true Trixie!” said Sunset. “Sonata did her work for the past couple of weeks and she did an amazing job on them! Right Sonata?” Sonata sweated nervously. “U-uh… well… I didn’t do that well…” “Oh don’t be so modest Sonata!” Pinkie chirped. “You’re a reading champ!” Before Sonata could react, Pinkie took a bunch of Sonata’s completed assignments and showed them to Trixie. “Check ‘em out if you don’t believe us!” Sonata shook her head vigorously. “Pinkie wait—” “Trixie would gladly see those sheets!” Trixie snatched the sheets from Pinkie and looked through each of them very carefully. Sonata nearly gulped every time Trixie shot her a look after look over each sheet. As Trixie went through about half of the pile of Sonata’s worksheets, she became suspicious. The answers Sonata had written down on each sheet were perfect… almost too perfect. Even Sonata’s handwriting was strange. Trixie had seen how sloppy Sonata had used her pencil, especially when she drew her tiny taco people on her desk during class, and yet her written answers were very scriptive and neat. In fact, some of the written styles appeared to be different every time she moved on to different sheet. By the time Trixie reached the last sheet, Trixie look up towards Sonata with narrowed eyes. “She did these?” Trixie pressed. “She actually read and answered all of these questions?” “Sure did!” Pinkie answered with her bubbly grin. “She finished all of the answers from first book in less than a day! While it took her much longer to work her way through the second book, but she did just as good!” “…Is that so?” Based on Pinkie’s response, Trixie knew there was something fishy going on with how that Siren finished these work sheets. She decided to put her theory to the test. Trixie picked a random sheet and showed it to Sonata. “Alright Siren, Trixie wants you to read all the answers you wrote on this sheet!” Trixie expected Sonata to squirm after putting her on the spot like that and then her suspicious activity will be exposed. Fortunately for Sonata, she was already prepared for this. Sonata knew that Trixie will confront her about this when her guard is down, so she asked her sisters to pronounced all the words on each sheet so she can get them memorized. Sonata even drew a tiny taco guy with different article of clothing it wore (tie, hat, scarf, etc.) from the bottom left of the page so she could tell the difference on each sheet. “That’s easy!” said Sonata with full of confidence. She then squinted her eyes at the pages as she pretended to “read” each word. “Um… it said: Dog, Cat, Fish, Bird, Mouse, and… uh… e-guana?” “It’s actually pronounced i-guana, but that was pretty close!” said Twilight. Applejack nodded. “Yeah dat word can be pretty tough to pronounce.” Trixie frowned deeply. She wasn’t fully convinced that the Siren actually worked on any of these sheets. Trixie wasn’t sure how she did it, but she going to investigate this later. Trixie regained her smirk as she handed the sheets back to Pinkie while she secretly stole only two sheets from the pile and hidden them into her back pocket. “Hmph, Trixie is impressed… somewhat!” said Trixie as she leered at Sonata. “So you’re Mrs. Reader now huh?” Sonata blinked. “But my name is still—” Rainbow quickly covered Sonata’s mouth and answered Trixie for her. “Yes Trixie, she can read now, so she won the bet!” Trixie wagged her finger at them in disapproval, making some ‘tsk-tsk’ sound. “Not quite! There’s still one more thing for her to do! This Siren will have to read whatever book Trixie chooses in front of the whole school to win!” Trixie then gave Sonata her haughty smirk. “And since she did so well with those sheets, Trixie decided to push the date to tomorrow, after school, at the school’s auditorium.” The gang gasped while Sunset gave Trixie her look of disapproval. “You want her to read in front of the school tomorrow! Now wait a second—” “If that is what it takes to shut you up, then you can bet that Sonata will show up tomorrow!” Rainbow interjected with confidence, only to blink in confusion when she noticed that all of her friends were glaring at her. “…What?” “Perfect! Then we’ll let the whole school know that we’re going to have our story time, which will be read by that Siren!” said Trixie with a smirk before her expression changed to a thoughtful look. “Unless of course… she’s not really up for it or… turned out that she’s not much of a reader than what everyone else believed.” “You watch it Trixie!” Rainbow snarled. Trixie shrugged. “Just saying.” Applejack held Rainbow’s shoulder to get her to calm down while Twilight spoke up. “What was the book that you’re going to make Sonata read?” “Trixie’s glad you’ve asked!” said Trixie. She snapped her fingers, silently commanding one of the Illusions to dig into her backpack and took out a green book with orange border fame on the front cover of the book. Trixie held it up for everyone to see. “Trixie is choosing this book!” Twilight gasped after reading the title. “That’s… The Tale of Two Cities!” “You know this book Twi!” Sunset asked, not familiar with the title. Twilight nodded. “Yeah, it’s one of Charles Dickens well known books! But… this book is old and a bit too complex for Sonata to read!” Sunset turned towards Trixie with narrowed eyes. “You’re not really going to make her read that entire book are you? Just because Sonata agreed on your terms, that doesn’t mean we’re going let you make her read something that was too—” “Relax.” Trixie calmly interrupted. “Trixie’s not that cruel! All that Siren has to do is to read only one page of that book, specifically the most classic opening of all literature. Is there a problem with that?” The Rainbooms looked at each other with unsure expression before Sunset spoke up again. “Well… I guess that’s much more reasonable. But I still don’t know if she’ll—” “It’s okay Sunset,” Sonata reassured. “I agreed to Trixie’s deal and I’m going to follow through with it! Besides, reading just the first page is going to be a snap!” “You go Sonata!” Pinkie cheered while everyone nodded in approval. “Feeling confident all of the sudden, eh Siren?” Trixie scoffed before tossing the book on the table in front of Sonata. “Well then, here is the book. Better start practicing so you don’t make a fool of yourself in front of all the students in this school, otherwise…” Trixie slowly morphed into her sinister look. “You’re getting a special kind of hat with your name on it!” Sonata stared blankly at Trixie before she formed into a smirk of her own. “Well, if I succeed, then I’ll give you my entire list of tacos that your gonna have to buy for me this entire month!” Trixie simply glared at Sonata for a moment before she scoffed and walked away along with her bandmates. “See you tomorrow… Siren!” Once Rainbow was sure that Trixie and her cronies were out of their hearing range, she slammed on the table with her fists and let out a loud snarl. “Ooooh that Trixie! She always gets on my nerves!” “Forget her Rainbow,” said Sunset before facing Sonata with her concerned look. “Sonata, are you sure you are up for this?” “Of course,” Sonata replied with confidence as she picked up the book that Trixie ‘gave’ her. “As I said, this’ll be a piece of cake, and all of those delicious tacos that Trixie is going buy will be as good as mine!” Applejack frown. “Now don’t count yer chickens before they hatch partner! You need to focus on dat page yer going to read.” Sonata waved off Applejack’s concern. “Don’t worry Applejack, I got this!” It was later in a middle of the day as many students were heading to the next class from the hallway, including the two Dazzlings who were walking side by side. As they were heading to the next class, the middle Siren was in the middle of her heated rant from what she had experience from her previous class, while the eldest Siren was trying to drown out her sister’s words with a blank look on her face. Unfortunately for Adagio, her efforts were for naught, as Aria complaints were getting louder by the second. “And then that student had the nerve to say that Moonlight is a better character than Sunshine!” Aria spat. “I mean, has she been living under a rock this whole time or is she that dumb? Moonlight is practically a poor copy version of Sunshine! With Sunshine, she actually worked through her redemption throughout the movie and then earned it! Moonlight? She was only “redeemed” through a song at the end of season five and then barely appeared throughput the sixth season! And the less I say about her “backstory”, the better! I swear, if the teacher wasn’t there in the room with us I would’ve—” “Aria,” Adagio injected with a dull monotonous tone. “You can’t get all worked up over her opinion about some stupid kids show about some talking colorful hamsters who were preaching about friendship.” Aria glared daggers at her eldest sister. “Hey! That show was not—” Aria was suddenly interrupted when a student bumped into her and her sister, causing everyone’s books and papers to drop on the floor. Arai growled and faced the student who she bumped into. “Hey! What’s the big idea!?” Aria exclaimed with her nostrils all flared up. “Oh I’m so sorry!” the student cried, bending over to the floor to pick up the items. “Here let me get them!” “Yeah you better pick them up!” Aria retorted. “After all it is your fault!” “Calm down Aria!” Adagio scolded. “Let’s just help her out!” “No no, it’s alright!” the student spoke up, waving them away from the floor. “It is my fault. Let me at least make it up to you.” Less than a minute later, the student stood back up and handed the things back to their owners. Once they got their things back, the student then took off and ran down the hallway, away from the sisters. “Sorry again for bumping into you!” the student called out before disappearing around the corner. “You better run!” Aria shouted. “The next time I see you, I’ll mark this floor with your face!” “Aria!” “What? Am I not allowed to blow off some steam?” Adagio sighed heavily as she held the bridge of her nose before she resumed her walking. “We’ll talk about this later, let’s just get to class!” Aria just scoffed in annoyance as she followed behind her sister. Unknown to the two Siren sisters, the student who bumped into them was hiding around the corner, watching them leave. The student smirked as the individual held on to two of the papers she stole from the Dazzlings, which was hidden in between their own schoolwork. This person slowly turned and walked further down the hallway. It was during her free period that Sonata decided to head to the school’s library. She told her friends that she’s going to spend some time in there, just so she practice reading the first page of the book. But Sonata had a hidden agenda. Since she didn’t do her assignments at all, she still needed someone to read the page for her. Asking any of her sisters again were no longer an option and asking one of her friends were out of the question. Sonata knew that this will be tricky to pull off. Nearly the whole school knows about the bet and Sonata was pretty sure that the word had spread about her live upcoming reading by now. Besides herself, she knew that there is one other person who is just as obvious as herself when it comes to the events of this school. She only hoped that she could find her in here. Sonata immediately felt relieved when she spotted the person she was looking for, who was sitting at the table from the far side of the library. This student was a teenage girl with a long blonde hair while wearing a blue shirt with a yellow tie and a long green skirt. She also had bright yellow eyes, but for whatever reason, her eyes were crossed in different direction. Sonata always wondered how that girl could see like that, but decided to put that topic for another day and headed towards her. Once Sonata in within the girl’s hearing range, Sonata cleared loudly her throat and waved at her. “Hey there buddy!” The blonde girl looked up from her book and smiled when she saw Sonata. “Oh hey there Sonata! Do you need something?” Sonata smiled nervously. “Actually… yes. In fact, could you do me a favor?” Sonata took out the book and showed it to the cross-eye girl. “Could you please read me only the first page of this book over and over until I got it all memorized?” The blonde titled her head in confusion. “Why? Can’t you read it yourself?” Sonata’s grin faltered a bit and looked away, while idly scratching her cheek. “Well… I just need some help… to understand the words?” The crossed-eyed girl nodded in understanding. “Oh, well I guess that makes sense. That book looks pretty difficult.” She then frowned unsurely. “But… what do I get out of this?” Sonata faced the girl again with a smirk. “If you help me, I’ll give you a basket of dozen of these fresh baked various flavor muffins!~” Sonata slowly lifted up the basket from behind her, revealing many mouth-watering muffins that she picked up from Home Ec earlier. Each individual type of muffin was different from another; chocolate chip, double chocolate, triple chocolate, white chocolate, blueberry, apple-cinnamon, banana nut, oatmeal, the list goes on. The blonde girl stared at the muffins with a hungry look in her eyes before she looked back up at Sonata with a stern expression. “…is one of these muffins… Lemon Muffin Surprise?” “Um… yes?” Sonata uttered. The girl then smiled brightly. “Then let’s read!” Relieved, Sonata placed the basket with muffins on the table and handed the book to the crossed-eye girl. The girl picked up the book with one hand while picking up one of the muffins with the other. The girl then took a huge bite of the muffin and let out a huge satisfied moan. After she swallowed, she opened up the book as she took a bite of her muffin again. “Okay, here’s the first sentence,” she said with her mouth full as Sonata was giving the girl her undivided attention. “It was the best of times, it was the worse of times.” “It was the best of times, it was the worse of times.” Sonata repeated slowly. As they continued on, they both failed to notice that they were being spied on from a mysterious student who was watching them from behind the bookcase. It was sometime after school that only a few students were sitting in a classroom, serving their time in detention with Mr. Cranky Doodle keeping an eye on them. However, instead of watching them, Mr. Cranky Doodle was sleeping at his desk with his one arm holding his head up. Once she was sure that the cranky teacher was fully asleep, she beckoned the Illusions to come over to her so they can quietly discuss all the dirt they dug up about a certain Siren. “Alright girls, what did you two found out?” Trixie asked in her hushed voice. Lavender Lace glanced cautiously at Mr. Cranky Doodle before she leaned towards Trixie. “I followed that girl as you requested and she’s at the library!” she whispered. Trixie furrowed her brows with a disappointing frown. “That doesn’t sound useful at all.” “But here’s the kicker,” Lavender Lace added. “She was hanging out with that blonde ditzy girl.” Trixie blinked. “The one with the crossed-eyes?” “That’s the one!” “…what about her?” “That Siren had that girl read the first page to her over and over and the Siren repeated them every time!” “…Interesting,” Trixie mumbled quietly before she shifts her focus to the second member of the Illustions. “What about you?” Fuchsia Blush smirked. “It wasn’t easy, but I managed to snatched these from those other two Sirens after I “bumped” into them.” She took out two papers that she stole from her pocket and handed them over to Trixie. “Nice work!” she praised quietly before taking out two assignment papers from her own pocket that she took from Sonata. “Now let’s see…” Trixie placed four papers on her desk; two of Sonata’s reading assignments on the left side and two school works from each of the siren’s sisters on the right side. Trixie carefully looked over the papers between two sides, specifically the writing styles on each paper. After a full two-minute comparison, her hunch was correct. The writing styles between the four papers… were identical. “Well well well… It looks like that the Siren turned out to be a dirty cheater!” said Trixie with a low chuckle before her face formed into her most sinister grin. “This is all turning out wonderfully! Because Trixie already has a plan that will surely crush that good for nothing Siren once and for all!”