The sunscreens were lowered as far as they would go, bathing the classroom in a faintly orange light. Despite keeping the glare out, the canvas screens did very little to keep out the warmth, and the room seemed to heat up more with every passing minute. The students in the class all casually leaned back in their chairs. No one had any books out, some were even having conversations.
Their principal, who was addressing the class, had no problems with this whatsoever, because it wasn't a regular class. All the students gathered in the classroom were the ones who had passed their exams and advanced to the next year, which was to be their senior year in high school. Principal Celestia was lecturing the students on the time they were expected to show up that afternoon to hand in their books.
Sunset wasn't really paying much attention to her. Instead, she was looking around the classroom. Every year, the feeling of that last 'class' was an odd one. She sat in the same chair she'd been in all throughout the year, but somehow the air felt different. Maybe it was because of the soft murmur of people talking around her. Maybe it was because the blackboard was empty. Even the heat was different, possibly because today Sunset wasn't feeling the cold sweats of not having bothered to do the homework.
She shot a glance at the clock above the door. It looked like it had seen better days with its crooked hands and dented frame. More than once, Sunset had wondered if the clock was made to deliberately run slow to annoy the students, but today it seemed freed of that spell.
At the desk next to her, Pinkie Pie was doodling on the informative stack of papers Principal Celestia had handed out earlier. Rainbow Dash, another desk over, was doing all kinds of tricks with her pen between her fingers. Rarity was apparently drawing designs for a new dress. Applejack and Fluttershy were looking in the general direction of the Principal, but neither of them looked very attentive. Probably the only person in class who was paying attention to the long-winded story about hard work and whatnot was Twilight. Sunset smiled faintly. This world's Twilight seemed to have even more reverence for any kind of authority than Princess Twilight in Equestria did.
Sunset wondered if Princess Twilight was now holding the same kind of lecture at her own school as Principal Celestia was doing here. Knowing her, she'd probably prepared at least two hours' worth of more or less inspirational material.
"Now, don't forget: you need to hand in your books at three. That's it. Congratulations once again for passing your exams, and I will see all of you next year."
She strode out of the classroom and the students slowly got up and began shoving papers and pens into their bags. When Sunset stepped into the hallway, she breathed a sigh of relief at the draft there. It was a very welcome change to the sweltering classroom.
"Finally we're free," Rainbow Dash said excitedly, just as glad to be in the cool air as Sunset. "I swear, those speeches get longer every year."
"You think?" Twilight asked. "At Crystal Prep they were usually twice as long and contained extra courses to be done over the summer."
Rainbow Dash looked aghast. "Homework in the summer?! I knew Cinch was evil, but I'd never imagined her to be that evil."
Twilight shrugged. "It wasn't that bad, really. It usually only took me a full week to get through everything."
Rainbow Dash shook her head in resignation and Sunset laughed. "Well, there's no summer homework here," she said. "It's just two months of relaxation, and then…" She trailed off as a realization hit her. "And then we'll start our final year in high school," she finished.
Sunset wondered why she considered that to be so significant, but somehow she did. After all, it wasn't like she wouldn't see her friends anymore after that, right? But where would they all end up going. Sunset's friends were looking at each other as well, probably wondering the same things.
"So, I guess this will be our last summer break as actual high schoolers," Applejack said, thinking out loud.
"You know what that calls for?" Pinkie Pie asked.
Applejack smiled, instantly knowing what the answer would be. She decided to play along.
"Well?"
"A party of course!" Pinkie yelled, somehow managing to fire off two confetti cannons at the same time.
"That sounds lovely, darling. Perhaps, since this will be our last summer party as high schoolers, we should make it a big one? Possibly…with some activities?" Rarity said, semi-innocently.
"Fashion show?" Rainbow Dash guessed with a smirk.
Rarity grinned sheepishly. Pinkie Pie, though, gasped like only Pinkie could. "Yes! That sounds perfect!" she shouted.
"I'm not much for fashion shows," Rainbow Dash began, then held up a hand when Rarity wanted to interject. "But why would we let that be our only activity at the party? Why not have some sports as well? I can probably convince the soccer club to let me borrow some foldable goals. We can just make it an all day party, can't we?" she asked with a glance at Pinkie, who had been nodding fervently the entire time.
"Well…if everyone's gonna play sports I should probably sell some cider there," Applejack mused. "And perhaps one of those mechanical rodeo bulls…"
Sunset thought about things she'd like to do, but she couldn't really think of anything off the top of her head. Still, she was excited at the prospect of the party. Knowing Pinkie, she'd probably get the entire school to attend.
"So…when would we have this party?" Twilight asked hesitantly.
"Well…" Pinkie replied, thinking. "I think we should do it on the final Saturday of the break. That way people will have Sunday to rest up for school and we'll have the most time to prepare and look forward to it."
"Look forward to what? Hey, Applejack," Apple Bloom said, adding the greeting as an afterthought.
She, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo had been walking by, and now their interest was piqued. They were infamous around CHS for the many things they'd tried to find out where their talents lay. Eventually, they'd settled for mostly helping other people find their own talents by doing various activities with them.
"We're going to throw a party at the end of the summer because this is our last summer as real high schoolers," Rainbow Dash said. "And it's going to be awesome! We'll have all these activities as well, like soccer and stuff."
Sunset grinned. Just like Rainbow Dash to only mention her own activities.
Apple Bloom's eyes lit up and she looked at her friends. "Cool! Can we come up with things too? We've got a whole list of stuff planned for the summer so maybe it'll be fun to do some of them at the party," she said.
Applejack began to respond, but Pinkie interrupted her. "Of course you can! The more activities the better! This will be the biggest party the students of CHS have ever seen!"
As Apple Bloom and her friends excitedly ran off to make plans, Applejack turned to Pinkie.
"Are you sure that's a smart idea?" she asked. "I mean, it's going to be mighty difficult to fit everything in one day at this rate, especially with the things my sister comes up with."
Pinkie Pie shrugged. "I'm sure it'll be fine," she said brightly. "In fact," she added, looking from Fluttershy to Twilight to Sunset. "Why don't you three come up with something fun for the party as well?"
Sunset stared blankly. She hadn't expected the question, although in hindsight she probably should have.
"I, uh," she said.
Fluttershy and Twilight seemed just as flustered. Fortunately, Rarity stepped in to save them. "Why don't we meet up at the mall tonight and discuss it over dinner? That way, everyone will have enough time to think about what they want to do," she said.
Pinkie Pie quickly agreed with that, and a few minutes later Sunset was walking home to gather her books. She thought about activities to do at the party. For all of Pinkie's parties she'd attended by now, she had never really considered any activities for them. Then again, most parties she'd been to didn't have a soccer field or rodeo bull either.
When Sunset arrived home, she still hadn't thought of anything to do. She absentmindedly opened her desk and began pulling out school books, all of them looking like someone without arms had tried to gift wrap them. Sunset was pretty good at working with her hands, but she cared very little for covering books and accordingly spent about ten minutes on the whole stack. She began tearing off the book covers and grabbed a wrinkled sheet of paper showing her all the books she was supposed to return.
A short while later, all but one of the books had been stacked. The missing book, one about geography, was nowhere to be found. Sunset groaned in frustration and began looking for it. Why would she ever take a geography book away from her desk? And where would she put it? Come to think of it, she wasn't even really aware she even had geography in school anymore. She looked through all her cabinets and shelves, but the book was nowhere to be found.
Eventually, she sat down in her desk chair and sighed. "No activity for the party, and no geography book. Great. Oh, and when they find out I'm missing a book I won't have money anymore, either."
Sunset wasn't sure why she was speaking out loud, but she often did when things weren't going her way. Her eye fell on her computer monitor. At first, she wasn't sure why it had caught her attention, but then she realized it was sitting higher than usual. She blinked a couple of times when she realized what she'd used to prop it up.
"Well," she said.
She sheepishly took her monitor off her geography book, and soon the now-unwrapped book joined the others on the pile. She shoved all the books in her biggest backpack and hoisted it onto her back. She groaned at the weight of it. "At least it'll be good training, I guess…" she muttered.
Since it wasn't time to go back to school yet, Sunset took off her backpack again and dropped onto her couch. Maybe watching TV would give her some inspiration for a party activity.
When Sunset came home from school, she felt like she had run a marathon. The way back hadn't been bad, but the way there, weighed down by what felt like a million pounds of books, had been torture. Sometimes at practice for the fencing club she'd do squats with a weighted bag on her shoulders for warmups, but those bags were much lighter than this.
"Fencing…" she mused. "Maybe I should suggest that for the party. Nothing says 'fun and games' like stabbing people with swords, right?"
She wondered if the fencing club would lend her some material for anyone who wished to try it. They probably would, since it might draw in new members for the club. Although it probably wasn't going to be easy to get a piste set up… Then again, the school had one wireless set, and it wouldn't really matter if the floor was grounded for the purposes of the party.
Sunset nodded to herself, feeling satisfied. She then realized she was also still feeling sticky, and she quickly headed upstairs to shower before heading to the mall.
Sunset met her friends in front of a fancy-looking café-restaurant…thing. The letters on the menu were so cursive Sunset could hardly decipher them, although Rarity didn't seem to have much trouble with it.
"So, Sunset, did you think of anything fun to do?" Pinkie asked once everyone had a drink.
Sunset nodded and explained her plan to let people try out fencing. Rainbow Dash grinned approvingly. "That sounds pretty awesome. Maybe I'll give it a try as well," she said.
Pinkie was excited too. "I don't think I've ever had swords on any of my parties before," she said. "So this should be the perfect time for it! Twilight?"
Twilight looked a bit embarrassed when she replied. "Well…I do have something in mind, but we'd have to have the party on Friday for that to work. There's going to be a meteor shower that night, so I thought, maybe we could just turn off the lights and watch it?"
"That sounds good, but here's something even better," Rainbow Dash said before Pinkie could reply.
"Rainbow…" Applejack said warningly. She clearly thought that Rainbow Dash was going to overrule Twilight's suggestion.
"No, no, I don't mean that we shouldn't watch the meteor shower," Rainbow Dash defended herself. "I mean we should just extend the party. Why don't we just start it on Friday night and keep going all through the night and the next day?"
Sunset liked the sound of that. For some reason the notion of a party that would go on all through the night excited her. It was…out of the ordinary, somehow, yet not in a 'we need to save the world' kind of way. Well, hopefully.
"Fluttershy, do you have any ideas?" Applejack asked.
Fluttershy shook her head. "I don't know. My animal friends probably won't like the noise and the crowd, and I don't like being the center of attention," she said.
"That's okay," Rainbow Dash assured her. "Between us and whatever Scootaloo and the others come up with, we'll have more than enough to fill a day, I'm sure."
That gave Sunset an idea. "Maybe we should ask the rest of CHS to come up with things as well," she said. "Wouldn't it be fun if we could make this party something for the whole school to enjoy?"
Rarity cocked her head. "We'd never be able to fit it in a day and a night, darling," she said.
Pinkie Pie, who was now so excited she seemed to be emitting an ultrasonic squeak, waved her away. "Doesn't matter! We can't pass up an opportunity like this!" She turned to Twilight. "Do you think your old friends from Crystal Prep would want to come as well?" she asked.
Twilight was surprised by the question. "Uh, I don't know, really," she said. She fidgeted with her hair. "I really wasn't very close to them back then. I think they might like it?"
"Good! I'll send everyone a text to send in ideas, then," she decided. "But if we'll do that…this won't just be a party," she went on.
Her eyes widened in excitement. Sunset was amazed that Pinkie had apparently not reached her excitement limit yet.
"It will be a complete festival. If we want to fit everything in we'll need around three full days. So…let's start on Thursday morning and end on Saturday night," she said.
Sunset knew better than to question the number Pinkie came up with. Her ability to plan parties was unmatched. Sunset had once caught a glimpse of the mountain of binders Pinkie used to document all her party planning secrets, and it was only then that she fully realized just how serious Pinkie was about parties.
"Well, if it's going to be a three-day festival, we should probably give it a name," Applejack said. "I'm guessing you've already got one?"
Pinkie nodded, as if that was the most obvious thing in the world. "Of course I do. We'll call it the Summer Sendoff."