//------------------------------// // Sonata's Hidden Skill // Story: Sonata Can't Read // by sonicfan05 //------------------------------// After her time reading different books to the kids at Canterlot’s public library with Fluttershy, Sonata rented out several different children’s books from the library including “Pet the Kitty” (after she applied herself a library card) and took them home to she can read them herself. Both Adagio and Aria’s were baffled with Sonata bringing in a huge pile of children’s books, but after Sunset explained to them about what happened at the library, Adagio decided to let Sonata be. Those books may be childish, but at long as they help Sonata improving her reading skills, Adagio had nothing to complain about. Aria on the other hand, just rolled her eyes and disappeared into her room without a word. Since then, Sonata read a few children’s books a day after school and then worked on Sunset’s worksheets. Thanks to these books, Sonata’s reading skills improved significantly. Sonata was able to recognized words more quickly than usual and was able to finish her worksheets on her own much more easily. She still struggled on a few words from time to time, but it was only minor compared to how she struggled last week. Heck, compared to how she struggled several weeks ago! It was now the middle of the night on Tuesday and Sonata was working on her tonight’s worksheet, specifically, circling all the words she couldn’t read with her red marker so she can show it to Sunset tomorrow. To put lightly, there was a lot of red circles on her worksheet. As she was finishing up circling the words, her phone rang, startling her in the process. Curious as to who was calling her (and not wanting to anger Aria for the loud noise her phone was making), Sonata immediately picked up the phone and answered it. “H-hello?” Sonata half-whispered. “Hey Sonata, it’s me!” Sonata’s smile widened from the sound of one her friend’s voice. “Oh, hi Applejack! What’s up?” “Ah was just checking up on you partner,” said Applejack. “How was yer lessons?” “They were really helpful, thanks to Sunset and Fluttershy!” Sonata answered brightly before letting out her somber sigh. “But even after Sunset’s easier worksheets and the children’s books I borrowed from Fluttershy, I am still struggling a little. There are still many other words that weren’t even in the children’s books, especially the long and complicated ones. I’m only a few days away and I’m not even close to learn everything about reading.” “…ah see.” There was a long silence from Applejack’s end, made Sonata wondered if her friend accidentally hung up on her until Applejack spoke up again. “What are you doing tomorrow?” Sonata blinked and then scratched her chin in thought. “Well… aside from working on a worksheet or two from Sunset, I don’t have anything planned for tomorrow.” “Well in that case, how about you come visit to mah farm tomorrow after school," Applejack offered. "Ah got somethin’ that may help ya on yer reading.” Sonata was very curious with Applejack’s request. What did Applejack have that will help her out further with her reading skills? Sonata assumed that her farmer friend was more of a field worker than a book reader, but she was proven wrong many times before. Still, if her friend offered her help to her, then there’s no reason for Sonata to take up on that offer. “Alright, I’ll be there,” said Sonata before hanging up her phone. The next day after school, Sonata was walking down the neighborhood, heading her way to Applejack’s family farm. Throughout the day, Sonata was curious about what her farmer friend is going to do to help her with her reading skills further. Every time she asked Applejack how she’s going to help her, all of Applejack’s responses was giving her a wink and simply said, “You’ll see.” Sonata eventually spotted Applejack’s home, which had red sidings, light purple roof and a white porch with plants hanging from the ceiling. There was also a barn/garage on the left side of the house. There was even a mailbox with the exact replica of the barn, but smaller. Applejack herself was sitting on a chair on the porch, waving Sonata over with a smile. Sonata rushed herself over to her friend until she reached the porch and took a seat next to Applejack. “Thank ya for comin’ Sonata,” Applejack greeted as she tipped her hat. “Thank you for taking your time to help me Applejack!” Sonata responded with a smile on her own. Sonata then glanced at the items next to Applejack with a puzzled look. There were two books right next to Applejack’s chair. One was a normal size hardcover book and the other ‘book’ was more of a square shape and made of hard plastic for some reason. But those two items was not what confused her. What really confused her was a small bulky device, which was right next to the book. It had built-in two small speakers, a few knobs on the front, a few buttons on top, a small screen on the front with some numbers, a long silver antenna and a handle for carrying purposes. There was also two slots; a rectangle shape on the bottom front and a round slot on top. Sonata blinked in confusion. “Um… why is there a CD player? Are we gonna listen to some music?” “Not exactly,” said Applejack before giving Sonata her serious look. “Do you remember that you tried to cheat yer bet by memorizin’ the words after you have someone else read the first page for ya?” Sonata winced from that terrible memory that she nearly destroyed her friendship with the Rainbooms and her relationship with her sisters. “Gee… how can I forget that?” Applejack gave Sonata her apologetic look for bringing it up and then she continued. “Whelp, it got me thinkin’, maybe you can use dat same memorizin’ skills to help you to read!” “…wait, what?” Sonata exclaimed, not sure if she heard it right from her friend. Applejack cleared her throat with her sheepish grin. “Sorry Sugarcube, let me clarify. Based from what you did, it seems to me that you are an auditory learner, meanin’ that you learned things just from listening.” Applejack explained. “Tell me, what have you learned after hearin’ the first page of Tales of Two Cities over and over?” Sonata placed her finger on her chin in wonder, never actually thought of that before. When Sonata asked the muffin-loving girl to read the first page over and over to memorize the words, she only did it so she didn’t have to read it herself. But even after she got that all memorized, she recalled a few times of how interesting that paragraph was even though she didn’t technically read those words herself. After a long pause, silently thinking back on that memorable paragraph, Sonata finally answered. “Well… from what I picked up from that first page of the book (that I heard), that there was a constant struggle between good and evil based on the key words that was used within the paragraph which were opposite to one another; like ‘best and worse,’ ‘wisdom and foolishness,’ and ‘light and darkness.’” Applejack nodded with a grin. “Exactly! Since you managed to learn one of the basic ideas from the first page of dat book, you might be able to learn many new words and how they pronounced from that too!” Sonata’s titled her head. “I can do that?” “Eeeyep!” Applejack answered. She looked around to make sure no one is looking before she leaned in closer to Sonata. “Now this is just between you me, but I used to have trouble reading too!” Sonata widened her eyes in shock. “R-really?” Applejack nodded solemnly. “Ah’m not much of a fancy reader mahself, but even Ah know that it was required to read many books just to learn how to do things with farming, as well as many other things for school. It was a real struggle Ah tells ya and Ah wasn’t sure how to do it.” Applejack then let out a soft sigh. “But then… mah pa, rest his soul, taught me a way that really helps me to this very day and Ah’m sure this’ll help ya too!” Applejack reached down to the side of her chair to pick up one of the books and then handed the book over to Sonata. “Here ya go partner, Ah picked out a book for you!” With an arched eyebrow, Sonata takes the book and then looked it over. The book itself had an image cover of a boy with glasses and a lightning bolt scar on his forehead while riding on his broomstick. It even had a nice background of the school ground and some mystical creatures. She then open up a book and then went through the pages. Unlike the children’s books that has a few words and many pictures, this book was filled with nothing but words and no images at all except on each of the chapter title page. While she can easily read some of the words, but there were also many other words she wasn’t familiar with. Sonata looked back up to her friend with her concerned expression. “Um, this looks like a fun book and all,” said Sonata. “But this one had a lot of words in it. Heck, I don’t even know half of these words. I don’t think I could read them as easily as the other books I read to the kids the other day.” “Dat’s where this comes in!” said Applejack as she held up a rectangle package with the same book cover on it. “Ah made sure that there is also an audio version of the book Ah’m giving you now.” Sonata blinked. “An… audio book?” Applejack nodded. “Eeyep, there are actually a lot of recorded media for most books out there that someone reads the book for ya.” “Huh… if I had known that, then I wouldn’t have to asked that girl to read the first page to me over and over,” Sonata mused, but then she froze when she saw Applejack giving her a blank expression and her raised eyebrow. “I-I’m just kidding! I’m not gonna do that again! Honest!” Sonata pleaded, while waving her hands around in defense. Thankfully, Applejack expression changed to a teasing smirk, letting Sonata know that she was only kidding as well. Sonata let out a relieved sigh before continued with her confused expression. “Still, wouldn’t that defeat the purpose of me learning to read if I had someone else reading several books for me?” “Not if you read along with the reader,” Applejack pointed out with a knowing smile. “Let me demonstrate.” Applejack opened up the CD case and took out one of many CDs from the case. Then she opened up the CD lid of the portable CD player, placed the CD in it and then closing the lid. “Are you on your first page?” Applejack asked. Sonata flipped through the pages until she reached the first page of the first chapter of the book and then nodded to her friend. “Alright, let me start the CD,” said Applejack before she pushed play on the CD player. Shortly after that, there was introduction music with a male voice reading the title of the book Sonata was holding before the person started reading the first paragraph of the page. The reader began describing some proud higher-up couple who lived in some fancy neighborhood who doesn’t believe in magic. Sonata was listening along to the narrator’s voice while reading the same lines as he does. Before the narrator started reading the next paragraph, Applejack pressed stop on the CD player, cutting off the male’s voice. “Now… re-read it yourself,” Applejack instructed. Sonata nodded and did as instructed. As she read the same lines as the narrator, she was surprised with herself that she was not only able to read the words with ease, but was also able to pronounced the words as well thanks to the narrators voice. Sonata only mispronounced a couple of words but overall, she was able to read the entire paragraph. Sonata eyes widened and smiled excitedly from her accomplishment. “Wow… it actually works! I just learn a few words after listening it!” Applejack chuckled. “Ya see? By reading along with the audio reader, you picked up words you weren’t familiar with. And after seeing each word and know how they were pronounced, you’ll recognized them the next time you see them!” Applejack took out the CD from the CD player and put it back in the CD case. She then handed both the audio book and the CD player over to Sonata. “Since this method is working so well for you and that you looked really interested in the story, I’ll let you borrow these until you’re done with them!” “For realsies!?” Sonata asked eagerly. Applejack nodded with a smile. “For realsies.” Sonata squealed happily and gave Applejack her bear hug. “Oh thank you Applejack! I’ll definitely give them a try! Plus, this book sounds amazing! Kinda reminds me of Equestria… only without the wizards.” Applejack chuckled. “Ah hope you like it. It’s actually the first of seven books of the series.” “There’s seven of them!?” Sonata shrieked in surprise. “Eeyep!” Applejack answered simply, unfazed with Sonata’s reaction. “When you finished with this one, Ah’ll let you borrow the next book if you want! The series is so good, they almost put Daring Do books to shame!” Applejack chuckled and then whispered, “Don’t tell Rainbow Ah said that.” Sonata giggled before giving Applejack her warm smile. “I’ll take your word for it! Thank you again Applejack!” Applejack smiled back and then winked. “Anythin’ for a friend Sugarcube.” Somewhere on the other side of town at the Canterlot Mall, Sunset was sitting by one of the tables near a food court, waiting to meet with someone. While Sonata was doing well with her lessons and improved with her readings, Sunset was still concerned with the whole bet thing. No doubt that Trixie will try to pull something just to humiliate Sonata again for her own entertainment. Despite that it nearly cost her friendship with Sonata from last time, Sunset does not want to let that happen to Sonata again. Earlier from one of her classes, she passed a note while a teacher wasn’t looking, just so she could send that person a message to meet with her here alone at the mall. She could only hope that person accepted her request and show up so they can have a somewhat civilize conversation for upcoming Friday. As Sunset was checking her phone again for time, she heard someone chuckling in front of her. “Well, well, well. Trixie wasn’t expecting that it was you who wanted to speak to me privately!” Sunset looked up from her table and spotted the very person she was waiting for, Trixie Lulamoon. Trixie hovered over her table with her arms crossed and a half smirk on her face. “Seeing that none of your loser friends are around and only ask for Trixie alone, I suppose this has something to do with the upcoming test for that certain Siren tomorrow?” “You are correct Trixie,” said Sunset before giving Trixie her serious face. “I want to just talk to you about the upcoming final test for Sonata without anyone interfering. Not with my friends, not with your bandmates, just you!” “Normally Trixie has better things to do,” Trixie said nonchalantly before taking a seat across from Sunset. “But, since you went through the trouble of getting Trixie’s attention, then Trixie will humor you.” Trixie then changed to her serious expression as both she and Sunset ready to get down to business. “Now, what do you want to talk about Shimmer?”