Starlight Glimmer done nothing and said nothing. Even the pregnant looks were gone. As a replacement, a complete and cold indifference had taken over. In the eyes of her own class, Pinkamena Diane Pie didn't exist. She was like a fly flitting in the corner of a wall, as insignificant as that. Everybody knew she was here and acted as if she wasn't.
Staring at her lunch box on the desk, Pinkie Pie couldn't eat anything. Her apetite was ruined. She was now controlled by her biggest fear - loneliness. Why did it have to be that way?
It probably was no help to wallow in self-pity but motivation had deserted her. She wanted nothing anymore. She didn't even realize someone was pulling a chair to sit by her side.
All eyes, skeptical, were on her.
"You'd better eat something. If you don't, you're going to be tired all day long. Your brains need calories to function correctly, don't you know that?"
Pinkie Pie looked up, unable to believe what she yet saw. Rainbow Dash was on the chair next to hers, opening her own lunchbox. It felt as awkward as a scene from an experimental movie. She blinked in order to see if that wasn't an optical illusion. Maybe she had turned insane... But it was real.
"Why do you pull such a face? Is what you got to eat that bad? Yet this sandwich looks tasty."
"No, it's not... Just... Are you really talking to me?"
"Yeah, I've been thinking. It's clear you're a bit silly but you're not a mean person. Actually... You remind me of puppies with tearful eyes. When you see them, all you want is to kick their butt yet in the end, you always start to stroke their little heads."
Coming from someone else, this comment would have hurt her. But Pinkie Pie thought, coming from that person in particular, it probably was some sort of a compliment. So, she displayed her biggest smile and stretched out a hand in front of Rainbow Dash, who blinked from surprise.
"Let's be friends, then!"
"You fuddy-duddy... Lower your hand, will you?"
Pinkie Pie immediately lowered her hand. Her smile faded away for a very short while, before cracking up her face in two.
"And you remind me of Jo March!"
"Who?"
"It's true," a girl from another desk said, meddling with the conversation. "She's brash and a tomboy like her!"
"Yes, it would be a good nickname for her," another one said as well.
A small restlessness started to boil around them. All it had taken was one small little comment, supposedly private, and indifference sinked into the oblivion of spontaneity. Of course, Startlight Glimmer looked at that scene unfavorably and forbade her friends to take part in it, before she left the room. And no one paid attention.
Pinkie Pie was happy. Seeing them together, they looked as solid as the girls from that other class, the one that had her fantasized of unity. It was a radical change that had operated within the scope of a couple of minutes. Life was like that. All it took was a small push to get things moving.
"Who the hell is that Jo March?" Rainbow Dash repeated, a little tensed from the sudden attention.
Ever since Pinkie Pie had said this name that sounded familiar but that she couldn't quite place, the girls surrounding her had started to speak in a foreign language made of names and anecdotes which she was completely clueless about.
"She's the main character from Little Women. You know the book, come on, it's a classic. Or at least the movie."
"Do I look like I'm watching sappy movies for sappy little girls?"
"They really are the same! She's so Jo March! And she has a little something of June Allyson too!" one girl claimed and all the others nodded and laughed.
Pinkie Pie laughed too and for the very first time, she wasn't ashamed that she laughed out loud. An overwhelming feeling of happiness was growing inside her chest. Something light and bubbly, like apple fizzy cider. She knew it - this was what school was supposed to look like. No differences, no quarrel, no bullying. Only harmony and bliss.
***
At first, when Rainbow Dash asked Pinkie Pie to bring Little Women to school so she could read it and see who she was being compared to, she was angry at her. The young girl arrived with the a collection of the two novels.
Bored to death in her bedroom, she took the first one and thought she would never like it but quickly, she was so wrapped up in the story she wasn't able to put the books down until she was done with both.
She thought she had nothing left to discover and suddenly, she became acquainted with a whole world that was unknown to her. When she tried to fall asleep that night, Rainbow Dash whispered, looking at the pale moon through her window, as if she were speaking directly to Soarin. "See? I still have things to learn. You were right. The world is huge, I haven't been all around it yet."
It was a conversation they once had, when they were hanging around together for that common work. They often had discussions about the meaning of life, debating while doing all sorts of simple things, like sipping on a common vanilla milkshake.
Yes, she regretted this period. But she knew it, if Soarin remembered, everything would be possible again. Maybe differently, maybe in brand new unprecedented ways, but it would be there anyway. Wishing for it to be true one day, she finally fell asleep.
The books were heavy. Rainbow Dash only wanted one thing, that was to put down this damn bag. So she hurried more than usually to get to her classroom. The other girls looked at her in an unsettled manner - she had never been seen walking so fast through the corridors of CHS.
She put the bag on the desk in an abrupt fashion and Pinkie Pie jumped from the scare.
"Here, I've read all two books."
"What? You read that... in only one weekend?"
"Yeah... Sounds crazy, right? I really like Jo. She really is a lot like me."
"I'm glad you liked it. But you could have taken your time, you know."
"I couldn't put them down at all. There's just one thing... I wish Teddy hadn't been in love with Jo at all. It ruined what I liked about their friendship."
"You truly are a Jo March!"
"If Rainbow Dash is Jo, then Pinkie Pie is Amy..."
This sentence came from Starlight Glimmer. She spoke from her chair, her back turned on them, as if addressed to the atmosphere. A dark shadow of silence weighed on the classroom and the air suddenly turned electric. Quickly after, her two friends went farther.
"You betcha! They're both really stupid."
"But wait, Amy has to be played by Jayne Mansfield. For the breasts."
They burst out laughing. Everyone had heard the comments but no one dared to protest. The other girls still were very much afraid of Starlight Glimmer, no matter how they now felt free to talk to the two outsiders of the class. They would ever try to contradict her, even a little bit.
Rainbow Dash looked at Pinkie Pie. She was looking down again, as if all the weight of the world was now crushing her shoulders' bones. Each time she acted that way, she was so unbearable! Why couldn't she say anything? Her name and her virtue were stamped on and she found nothing to reply...
"The only future that miserable tart will have is stripper in her damn country. Or the cover of Playboy, at best. It's a miracle that she's still at school."
Pinkie Pie was still mute, looking down and at each insult, her head hid between her shoulders like a turtle on the verge of hibernation. Rainbow Dash was boiling inside. How could she let anyone damage her reputation without a word of reply? It was as if she were saying to this b*tch of Starlight Glimmer that she was right about her.
She leaped on her feet and hit Pinkie Pie's desk, making her jump. Thankfully, Starlight Glimmer and her vipers stopped spitting venom at the same time.
"Why aren't you saying anything? Don't you have dignity? Don't let her say such things about you without defending yourself! I didn't know you were that stupid!"
"But I can't defend myself. What would I say? I know I'm not smart."
"This isn't a reason to let her humiliate you. Fight, for goodness sake!"
"I'm sorry, Dashie. I can't do that."
She burst out crying. Her own cowardice inspired her pity with a mix of deep disgust. She was right, she had no dignity. No strength to fight.
Rainbow Dash, on the other hand, didn't know what to do with these tears. Here she was standing, wondering what she had to do next. Clumsily, she patted her friend's head.
"Come on, stop crying. It's not such a big deal. I could teach you that, you know. Everything could be taught. Life's an endless lesson."
Pinkie Pie looked up with eyes drowning in tears. What exasperating eyes! She definitely looked like these puppies which Rainbow Dash had compared her with. However, she was feeling some sort of sympathy for her. That's how foolish life was.