“Now, can anypony tell me where rainbows come from?” Miss Cheerilee set a picture of a rainbow on the board and looked upon the class.
“And then I was like, whatever.”
“Diamond Tiara!” Miss Cheerilee thumped a hoof on the floor. “How many times do I have to say it? No talking during class! But since you’re in a chatty mood, why don’t you tell us the answer to the question I just asked?”
“Um,”—Diamond Tiara scratched her head and looked upon the chalkboard—“Er, rainbows are sometimes in the sky?”
The whole class burst into laughter.
Cheerilee raised a foreleg in the air, and silence engulfed the room. Her gaze was fixed on Diamond Tiara.
She obviously didn’t know what to say, but Miss Cheerilee kept pressuring her. Couldn’t she see that Diamond Tiara probably didn’t even know what she was being asked? I, on the other hoof, knew both the question and the answer. With that knowledge, I hoped to impress miss Cheerilee and the rest of the class. I raised a leg high in the air.
“Sweetie Belle!” The teacher announced while keeping her gaze on Diamond Tiara.
That was my cue. “Rainbows are made by Pegasi in Cloudsdale.” I knew that because Rainbow Dash had told Scootaloo, and Scootaloo had told me. “They make them in a Rainbow factory.” Rainbow Dash even worked there for a while. But I couldn’t reveal that to Cheerilee. Scootaloo had said Rainbow Dash made her promise not to tell that confidential information to anypony. I had only shared the secret with Rarity and Apple Bloom because I was trustworthy like that.
“Very good, Sweetie Belle.” Her eyes still hung on Diamond Tiara.
Yay! Her compliment inspired me so much that I felt as if I could move mountains if I just tried hard enough. The things I could achieve seemed endless. A wave of imagination hit me, and I knew exactly how to channel it through my work for the good of all ponykind. I drew out my crayons.
“I wish I could say the same for you Diamond Tiara.” Miss Cheerilee thumped a hoof against her desk. “Proper education is more important than you think. Next time I catch you chatting, I will grade you for the answers you give me; or the lack of them if that should prove to be the case.”
After the first curve on a paper, I glanced at the herd of unsuspecting ponies. It was then that I caught a stare from Diamond Tiara. Perhaps she wanted to thank me but was afraid to say anything aloud. I smiled at her. She showed me her teeth.
It was lunch break and most ponies were outside. Scootaloo and Apple Bloom waved me over from the doorway to join them.
“I’ll be right with you,” I muffled with a pink crayon in my mouth. Before going out, I wanted to put the last touches on my drawing. The flower in the scene was still missing a few pedals, and I didn’t want to leave it incomplete. I needed to finish the picture as quickly as possible, so I could join my friends outside.
There was the sun in the upper corner. Suddenly, it got overshadowed. I looked up and saw Silver Spoon towering above me.
“What do you have there, Blank Bell?” She leaned on my desk with both forehooves.
I put down my crayon and opened my mouth to tell her, but she interrupted me before I could. “You’re really good at drawing, aren’t you?” Her words were uttered through gritted teeth.
It was out of character for her to compliment anypony. I also didn’t deserve so much praise since I wasn’t that proficient with artsy stuff yet. I just liked to draw. Although, one time, I did use Rarity’s gems in my art. I had never seen anypony else do that before. “A daisy,” I whispered to answer at least one of her questions.
“Quite an artist, I’d say.” Diamond Tiara walked in an arch around me. “Maybe even at the stick figures level.”
“Maybe.” I shrugged my shoulders.
“You’re so good at scribbling, you might even get a cutie mark for it.” Silver Spoon grinned.
“You think?” I looked up at her.
“Most definitely,” she responded. “Anytime now.”
“Oh!” Diamond Tiara raised her voice from behind me. “What’s that?” She pointed a hoof at my flank. “Did you get a cutie mark just now?”
“Did I?” I leaned on my desk with both forehooves, scattering all the crayons around. “Oh my gosh, did I, really?” It was important to look at my flank right away, so I dared to step on the chair with both hind legs. Miss Cheerilee would scold me if she saw where my hooves were. We weren’t allowed to stand on furniture because grown-ups didn’t like hoof scrapes in the wood, for some reason. What I had going on was an emergency, so it was okay for me to break the rules. I raised a hind leg and twisted my body to inspect my flank.
There was a crayon under my other hoof. It rolled, taking my leg along for the ride. I tried to grab on the table to anchor myself, but I just slid off it because I couldn’t grip it. My chest hit against the seat, and I yelped from the pain. The chair and the table trapped me in place. I just wanted to spot the cutie mark, but I couldn’t twist enough to see it.
When I managed to turn my head a little, I caught Diamond Tiara with a corner of my eye. Her forehoof was raised, and she observed it for some reason. I lifted my tail up, so she could better see my flank. “What does my cutie mark look like?”
She focused on the hoof again. “It looks like a blank flank. You get that for being an imbecile at everything.” She dropped her hoof and smiled. “But maybe that’s your specialty.”
Silver Spoon leaned both forehooves against my head pressing me down. “Poor Sweetie Belle, forced to walk around with her ugly blank flank. If only there was a way for us to help her out.”
“Maybe we could give her a temporary cutie mark.” Diamond Tiara snickered while the crayons cracked under her hooves. “Something colorful, perhaps.”
Silver Spoon pushed my head under the chair. “But what would the symbol look like?”
I could hardly breathe from the pressure. I saw a hoof trampling my tail.
“It might look something like this!” Diamond Tiara cheered just before a barrage of hoof stomps bombarded my flank. The pain spread out all over my bottom. It wasn’t stopping. The beating increased in speed and strength along with her laughter.
I tried to scream, but my neck was pressed against the chair, hampering the airflow. Besides choking and gasping I couldn’t do anything.
Diamond Tiara stood on my tail. My croup wouldn’t move more than a hoof length because the tail stretching hurt my dock. I had to stop or risk losing some of my delicate hair.
I tightened all the muscles in both forelegs, but I couldn’t lift myself because Silver Spoon leaned on my neck.
She put even more weight on my body and kicked my forehooves to the sides. “We’re just trying to help you out, Sweetie Blank. You should be grateful.”
The pressure on my neck choked me, but I had no way to fight against their aggression. They had an upper hoof over me. The situation was out of my control.
I just wanted everything to stop, but it didn’t. The strikes kept descending on me. I wasn't ready for them, but nopony cared. The onslaught continued, and there seemed to be no end to the torture. The pain and I merged into one.
“All done.” Diamond Tiara breathed heavily. “I think that ought to suffice for now. Aren’t you happy now, Sweetie Belle? You got yourself your very own cutie mark. Don’t look so shocked! It was well deserved, I assure you.”
A quiet squeal was all I could muster among the episodes of sobbing. My body shook in distress. I thumped a forehoof on the puddle of tears.
“Yes, you’re right. It still needs one last touch.” Diamond Tiara smirked and dropped on all fours. She stepped off my tail. I hoped that meant the horrible nightmare was over. It was then that the whole Tartarus opened up from behind me. Both of her hind hooves impacted my flank. The tremendous force of the kick launched me off the chair. As soon as I hit the floor, I hugged my tail with one foreleg and covered my flank with the other. It radiated pain.
My body froze when Diamond Tiara’s head joined me under the table. “And don’t worry if your cutie mark comes off. We’ll draw a new one on you tomorrow.”
“Let me throw this atrocity in the trash for you, cryfilly!” Silver Spoon crumpled my picture in her mouth and slapped my face with the tail while she walked off. She spat the paper ball in the can by the door and turned to me. “Daisies aren’t pink, you moron!”
My mouth was agape even though the sobbing subsided. I was just breathing really fast. My eyes were wide opened, but I wasn’t looking at anything in particular. I just stared at a distance.
“That’ll teach her not to interrupt me when I’m speaking,” Diamond Tiara said.
“Do you think we overdid it, though?” Silver Spoon asked.
“What else were we supposed to do? She kept picking on me. First, she violated my tail, then turned Cheerilee and the rest of the class against me. I’ve been patient with the meddling brat to a point, but I couldn’t just let her walk all over me, now could I? The sooner she learns not to be mean to us, the better it will be for her.”
Something inside me just wanted to snap and burst out. I felt as if I was losing myself; drifting away. The stable world I lived in thus far cracked. I was no longer connected to the surrounding world. The room was distorted, distant and grand. Tables and chairs towered above me like giants. I was no longer seeing them as the tools that made my life easier. Authority radiated from them and everything else around me. I felt as if I was becoming smaller. My mind was filling up with—something.
I fought to stay in control and eventually managed to calm down a little. A single thought kept me anchored. I, along with my best friends, had a Cutie Mark Crusade planned in the afternoon after school. A worthy goal I could wrap the last remains of my focus around. The last shred of hope. A mission that could change everything for the better.
I curled up on the chair and hugged both hind legs. The ugly blank-flank was quickly covered by my trusty tail. Too bad I only had one and couldn’t hide the lack of amounting on both sides. I kept crying. Everything felt wrong, and I was the center of wrongness.
The hope that I would finally earn my cutie mark that day was the only thing I could think about. It would end the pain of being a blank flank once and for all. Without that plan to fix it all, I wouldn’t be able to stand another hour of being in the same class with those two bullies.
“Can anyone name me one of the beings that live in the Everfree Forest?” Cheerilee looked for volunteers but found none. “Sweetie Belle?”
I knew the answer. I could name at least three creatures: cockatrice, Zecora and timber wolves. When my eye caught a glance from Diamond Tiara, I instinctively said, “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? But I remember you naming one yesterday,” Cheerilee persisted.
“I forgot.” I curled even tighter. “I didn’t hear the question.”
“I asked if you could—” she gazed at my neck “—Sweetie Belle, did you hurt yourself?” She slid a hoof under my chin.
Diamond Tiara menacingly gazed at me from the front row. She clapped her forehooves together without taking her eyes off me. “It’s from the chair; I fell on it,” I said so she would leave me alone.
Silver Spoon also turned around.
“By accident,” I explained so I wouldn’t provoke her.
She slid a hoof across her neck as if she was making a cut. With the other hoof, she pointed at me.
“By myself.” I elaborated further so that Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara would stop paying attention to me. I didn’t have the energy to deal with anypony.
“Does it hurt?”
Of course it hurt! The injury pinched me every time I swallowed saliva. But it was nothing compared to the pain I felt on my flanks. I could hardly sit straight because of the throbbing. “No, I don’t even feel it at all,” I said, so she would go away. I just wanted to be left alone!
“It looks as if you gave your neck a beating. You really should be more careful, Sweetie Belle. If it starts hurting, make sure to pay Nurse Redheart a visit, okay?”
I knew Nurse Redheart hated me since nopony believed her that my horn was broken after it wasn’t anymore. She probably wouldn’t even want to see me in her office.
“I will,” I lied.