//------------------------------//
// 39-First Day 
// Story: The Life of a Non-Brony 
// by BronyWriter 
//------------------------------//

I'm alternating between wishing that there was still time between the advisement day, and glad that my first day of high school is finally here. I have a bunch of interesting classes, and some not so interesting ones, and they should at least, on the whole, be fun, I guess.

I take a deep breath and walk into Ponyville High, sparing one last glance to Mom and Dad, who are waving me off and saying encouraging things. Hopefully they won't do that every day. It probably won't be more than a few weeks or so before this all becomes routine, and I can just fly to school like the pegasi.

I adjust the strap of my saddlebag before opening it up and checking my school schedule. It occurs to me that I probably should have spent a day actually seeing where all of my classes are, but there's also a map on the back of my schedule. That's nice. Looks like my first class of the day is chemistry with Professor Beaker in room 115-B. Alright. I look up at the signs leading to each of the hallways which are helpfully labeled with which pod of rooms they lead to. I find the one with "100-120." Looks like I have my destination. A quick glance of the clock tells me that I have fifteen minutes. Easy.

I know that I have a locker, but all of my books are in my bag, so I won't need to drop them all off right this second. I'll probably try to find it after school so that I'm not wasting time getting to class. It's not like my locker is going anywhere, right? 

As I walk through the crowd of high-schoolers, I note that none of the pegasi are flying to their classes. Darn. It would definitely get me around much faster if I could just spread my wings and fly where I needed to go, but it was kind of a faux pas to fly indoors in some place that wasn't a gym or something like that. Plus a bunch of rowdy teenagers flying around where most of the staff couldn't get to them would be an issue. 

Turning right at the 100s, I begin glancing at the room numbers. All of them seem to be A. Let's see. B. Where are the B rooms? Hmm. Did I miss something? I reach 115-A and look around just in case I missed it. Nope. No B rooms. I glance at the clock nearby. Still ten minutes. It shouldn't be an issue. I turn away from the room and continue walking around the pod. My ears perk up when I see a set of stairs. Of course! That should be where all of the B rooms are. I quickly go down them and see that my suspicions are correct, and it isn't more than a minute before I find my room. 

Alright. Piece of cake. Upon entering, I see that most of my classmates are already there. Instead of regular desks, the room is filled with long black tables that seat four ponies apiece. Uh... do I have an assigned one, or is this kind of a "pick an empty spot" kind of thing?

"Ah, good morning, Miss Screech," a voice beside me says. I turn around to see a thirty-something stallion with a yellow coat and powder blue mane and a bubbling beaker for a cutie mark smiling at me. I could ask how he knew my name specifically, but, heh, I don't think that he's had many bat ponies in his class.

"Hey." I nod to him. "How's it going?"

"Quite well, Miss Screech," he replies. He motions to one of the tables which already has two ponies sitting at it. One is an orange unicorn mare, and the other is a light silver pegasus. "You can sit at that table with Miss Silver Shine and Orange Peel"

"Sounds good." I walk over to the two of them, and a little stress goes away when they both smile and wave at me. At least the two of them shouldn't be catty jerks, or something like that. I sit down at the empty seat and put my saddlebags next to my chair.

"Hey, my name is Silver Shine!" Before I can respond, she throws her forelegs around me and hugs me tight. "I'm a hugger! We're going to be the best of friends! You, me, and Orange Peel!"

Orange Peel sighs and rubs under her horn. "Silver, we talked about this. You have to at least know her name before you start making her uncomfortable with your hugging stuff."

"I already know her name! It's Comet Screech!" 

She lets go of me, and I feel like I've just gotten out of a vice. I gasp as I can finally breath again and start rubbing my sides. She's got an iron grip. "Uh, I me--"

"Come on, weren't you paying attention?" Silver asks with a frown. "Professor Beaker just said so."

Orange Peel grunts and shakes her head. "Forget it." She extends her hoof to me like a normal pony, and I shake it. "I'm Orange Peel."

"Yeah, like, Professor Blackboards just said that!" Silver says.

I frown. "But you introduced yourse--"

"This is so exciting!" Silver squees, clapping her hooves together. "I love meeting new ponies!"

If this chick and Pinkie Pie ever get together, I think Ponyville might explode. I need to keep them apart however I can. 

Before I can say anything else, she frowns and tilts her head at me. "So, like, you're a bat pony and stuff, right?"

I exchange a look with Orange Peel whom I can already tell is the sane one of the group. She only rolls her eyes and shakes her head as I look back at Silver. "Your observation skills are on point."

"Huh, yeah." Silver taps her jaw. "So, like, you're a bat pony, then. Don't you guys sleep during the day or something like that? But since you stay awake during the day, how come you're a bat pony?"

Orange Peel groans and double facehooves at this idiotic lunatic. "Holy Celestia, Silver you can't just ask somepony why they're a bat pony."

"Oh, sorry," Silver replies, flattening her ears at me. Before I can get in another word, she perks up again. "So hey, we swear to Celestia and stuff, right? Do you guys swear to Luna?"

"Uh... yeah, sometimes, I guess." No need to tell them that my swearing tends not to involve princesses.

"Cooooool!" Silver replies. "You're, like, so exotic! With the eyes and the wings and stuff!" She grins and nudges my shoulder. "I'll bet you could get any colt or filly in the school if you wanted."

I flinch back. "Well, not fillies. I'm straight."

"I am in pain," Orange Peel moans. "Why am I friends with you, again?"

"Because I get better grades than you and we've known each other since before we got our cutie marks," Silver replies with a wave of her hoof before turning to me. "Anyway, so do bat ponies--" Silver gasps and puts her hooves up to her mouth. "Oh no! Oh no, I'm sorry, but I didn't even think about it! The PC term for you guys is thestral, right?"

"Bat pony is fine," I say through gritted teeth.

Silver lets out a loud, exaggerated sigh of relief and pulls me into another hug. "Yay! I didn't offend you!" She releases me and tilts her head with a frown. "Or should I call other bat ponies threstrals, but since we're bestest friends I get to call you a bat pony?"

"No, we're all fine with the term bat pony." I'm beginning to sympathize with Orange Peel. 

I'm starting to wish that I got here a little faster so that I could sit next to Orange Peel. Either that or get a different table entirely, since that would mean Silver Sine would be on my other side, but I could ignore her and talk to Orange Peel. Maybe I can still do that. I lean forward past Silver. "So, uh, your cutie mark is about oranges?" Orange Peel smiles and nods, no doubt happy to change the subject. 

"Yeah. I'm from Dodge Junction originally. My family competes with the cherry business there. I think we do alright."

"Great," I reply with a smile. "My mom's family grows oranges, too."

"So wait, bat ponies grow o--"

"It's the orchard right outside of Baltimare," I continue as I shove my hoof into Silver's mouth. 

"Oh, yeah, I know that one." Orange Peel's eyes narrow and she gives me a fake glare. "I know which one you're talking about. What's it like growing sub-par oranges?"

I scoff and buff my hoof against my chest. "Wouldn't know. My grandparents grow the best oranges in Equestria."

"Still not sure how bat ponies grow oranges," Silver says after taking my hoof out of her mouth. 

"I'm adopted, alright?" I growl. I don't fucking care what my fake parents are doing. Sure, they can grow oranges. Whatever. "My mom is an earth pony and my dad is a human."

You know, maybe I shouldn't have said that specifically. Again, Orange Peel is taking it rather well, looking at me with interest, but Silver's eyes are wider than I've ever seen them, which is currently saying something. Somehow I feel like I haven't even seen the extent of her madness quite yet.

Instead, she surprises me. 

"Cool!" she says in a still energetic but relatively normal tone. She puts her saddlebag on the table and pulls out a well-worn copy of Dad's book. "Your dad is pretty awesome! I especially liked the bit with Chrysalis." She doesn't notice my flinch. "I had some family in Canterlot during the wedding. My mom did some of the bridesmaids' jewelry. But I got lucky when I got the book and was in Baltimare when your dad was doing a signing." She opened the book up to the first page and showed me. Definitely my dad's handwriting.

To Silver. In this life you can be oh so smart, or oh so pleasant. I tried smart. I recommend pleasant.

Okay, I'm not sure why she's talking like a normal pony now, but I'm not going to argue against it. She seems nice enough as long as she stays relatively calm. Living in Ponyville for as long as I have means that I deal with Pinkie Pie a lot, so I know about crazy ponies. Maybe Silver is better when she's calm. She seems like it at any rate.

"Yeah, definitely like the part with Chrysalis," Silver says, running her hoof down the cover of the book before sliding it back into her saddlebag. 

"Okay, class, now that you've had some time to get to know your table buddies, it's time to get going!" Professor Beaker says from the front of the room. We all turn to face him, with only a few ponies still whispering to each other. A quick look from Professor Beaker stops that. "Thank you. Now, we're actually going to start out today with a little experiment. Something to show you what kinds of things we'll be getting up to over the course of the school year." He motions to the table next to him, which has several boxes on it. They seem to be filled with beakers and bottles of some kind. "If one pony from each table could carefully take one of these boxes back to their group, we can begin."

Orange Peel decides that she's going to be the one who gets it, which is fine by me because she's the closest to the table. She's not gone for more than a few seconds. When she gets back, the three of us start taking the various materials out of the box and setting the beakers into the black holder. Orange Peel also takes a laminated sheet out of the box, as well as a couple of dry erase markers. 

"Alright. So this is pretty simple," Professor Beaker says once everypony has their boxes. "You just need to follow the basic formulas on the sheets, and once that's all settled, you should have the correct chemical reaction, but be careful!" Professor Blackboard smirks at us. "If you use the wrong chemicals, or the incorrect amount, you won't get any reaction at all. Don't worry, though: all of these chemicals are perfectly safe. If by any chance you spill some on yourself, you can just go to the water station over there." He motions to something that looks like a water fountain. Guess that's to make sure that ponies who stupidly pour hydrochloric acid on themselves. 

Well since he seems to be done talking, the three of us crowd around our sheet. Hmm. Doesn't look terribly complicated. Actually, maybe we don't even need it. I guess for the measurements, but outside of that, we should be fine.

"Okay, so the first chemical we need to use is--"

I don't let Orange Peel get any further before I grab all four bottles and pull them over to myself. I take the caps off of them and lean in for a sniff. Hmm. One of them is definitely water, so I doubt that it's one of the bottles he wants us to use. The other three actually smell like something that you'd use for something like this. 

"What are you doing?" Silver asks, tilting her head at me. "You're not going to figure out what's in there just by smelling them, are you?"

"Sure I am." I push the bottle of water over to them. "This one is water." I tap on the middle bottle. "This one smells like vinegar, and I'm not quite sure about the other two, but if I had to guess..." I push the far left bottle aside and pull the beakers closer. I glance at the sheet for the measurements, pour the required amount in each beaker, then dump them both into the third beaker. It instantly starts bubbling over to the surprise of my tablemates. 

"Whoa! That's so cool!" Silver says, scooping up a hoofful of bubbles. 

"Wait, how could you tell what was in the bottles?" Orange Peel asks, staring at the bubbles which had already started to putter out. 

"Yes, I am quite curious about that myself," Professor Beaker says as he walks up to our table with a slight frown. "Students usually take longer than about, ah, thirty seconds to figure this out. 

I shrug and poke at the remaining bubbles. "What can I say? I'm a bat pony. We have really good smell, vision, and hearing." I turn around to the table next to us with a smirk. "For example, I can already tell that they're about to make sludge." The three ponies at that table freeze with two beakers in their grasp. They were about three seconds from messing this up. My guess is that they didn't want to actually do the work, so they just picked some random chemicals and decided to go with it.

"Very impressive, Miss Screech," Professor Beaker says, tapping his jaw. "I can foresee you doing well in this class." He points to the laminated sheet that we've been given. "As long as you also learn the science behind it. Your admittedly impressive sense of smell will only get you so far."

"Yeah, yeah, I used the sheets for measurements. I'm not completely dumb."

"I look forward to what you'll do here, then." Professor Beaker turns back to walk up to the front of the room, but stops at the table I had pointed at. "Oh, and Miss Screech is correct. That combination will just make sludge."

I chuckle and lean back in my chair wile my two table partners, and a bunch of other ponies, probably, stare at me with open-mouthed shock. 

"Oh. Em. Celestia!" Silver squees. "You have, like, the best sense of smell ever!"

I smirk and quickly glance around at the other tables in the room. Most of them are glancing in our direction, probably disappointed that I didn't pick their table. In any case, I think I did a good job.


*  *  *  *


Science ends and the three of us walk out of our class. I pull out my schedule and see that gym is next on my list.

"Oh, you have gym next, too?" Silver says, glancing over my shoulder to see my schedule. "Neat. I guess we're going in the same direction, then."

"I've got Ponish class in 206A, so I'll catch you two later," Orange Peel says, motioning to the nearby stairs. Dang. I was kind of hoping that it would be the opposite. Silver is kind of... chatty. Oh well. I don't want to be rude, so I follow alongside her. She seems to know where the gym is, after all, so no reason not to stay with her. 

"So is your dad the coolest guy ever?" Silver asks with her usual massive grin. "I mean, just reading his book and the stuff with the death match and the griffins and the changelings is totes mind-blowing!"

"Yeah, he's pretty cool," I reply. "I know that teenage fillies aren't supposed to think that their dad is all that awesome and yeah..." I roll my eyes. "He's got his problems with that. I don't think he knows that I'm not a little filly anymore."

"Pshhh." Silver waves her hoof at me. "That never goes away. I've talked to a few of the seniors around here and even some college freshmares about it, and they say that their dads aren't any better about that. My dad sure isn't."

"Is he the kind of dad who likes to say how pretty and wonderful his beautiful filly is?" I ask with a grin. 

Silver rolls her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. He dotes on me, though. A little possessive, really, not that I can blame him all that much. I'll bet your dad spoils you too, right?"

I shrug. "Not really."

I mean, unless you count going into combat to save me spoiling me. Most dads don't do that for their daughters. 

"So you're a sophomore, right?" I ask. "What's it like here?"

"It's super awesome!" Silver replies, hopping into the air in a way that reminds me a little too much of Miss Pinkie. "I mean, it's like a normal high school, I guess, but there isn't anything too crazy. You've got your cliques and stuff. Normal. But I don't know if the school has ever had a bat pony go here before!"

Oy. 

"I'm sure I'm not the only bat pony that's ever gone here," I say with an eye roll. Sure, of all of the four pony tribes there are far fewer bat ponies than the other three, but that doesn't mean that we all live and work in Canterlot for Princess Luna. I mean... a lot of us do, but not all. There has to have been another bat pony that's gone to Ponyville High at some point. Or lived in Ponyville at all. 

The two of us make a turn into a long hallway, and my heightened sense of smell can already pick up that this is the gym. I can smell the locker rooms five doors down. Granted, even if I wasn't a bat pony, I still think that I'd be able to peg where they were.

We enter the gym to see a half-dozen of our classmates already sitting on the floor in front of an aquamarine pegasus mare holding a clipboard with a whistle around her neck. She glances at us as we walk in, followed by another half-dozen classmates. The bell rings, and the mare's gaze briefly flicks up to the ceiling before she waits for the last of us to take a seat. 

"Morning, students," she says, glancing down at her clipboard. "Name's Miss Rapids. River Rapids. But I'm your teacher, so you're going to call me Miss Rapids. As you can all guess, I'm one of the gym teachers here. I'm also the swim coach, in case any of your ladies want to try out for the swim team." She sets the clipboard down and begins pacing back and forth in front of us. "So, welcome to your Sports and Conditioning class. Not gonna lie, this isn't some cupcake course were we just toss a hoofball between all of us. Over the course of the school year we will be going through various activities such as hoofball, tennis, track, swimming, bowling, buckball, and so forth." She turns to us and gives us a nasty grin. "Only the strong will survive." 

Wow, this one seems like a real class act. 

"Don't mistake me, though..." She holds up a hoof. "I'm also going to make sure that you're all taken care of and such. I'm not going to be the kind of gym teacher that pushes you so hard that you collapse from exhaustion and dehydration. I'm not here to kill you. I'm just here to keep you in shape and help you see the limits you can push yourselves to." Her eyes narrow. "But I'm not a fan of quitters. I've been doing this for fifteen years, and I know the difference between a pony who is at their limit and one who is quitting. I can't abide quitters."

Well, at least there's that. I don't quite fancy myself as a quitter. I was raised by a man who walked around the world for six years trying to get home. He did not quit until literally everything was exhausted. My dad didn't raise me to be no quitter. 

"Alright, so I'm just going to get a feel for how you fillies do and give you a bit of a warmup." She points a hoof at me. "You Miss Screech?"

Oh brilliant, Miss Rapids. You figure that one out all on your own? Seriously, I think the only reason I'm getting pointed out today is, well, I'm a bat pony. 

"Head over to that locker." She motions to one on the opposite wall. "Inside you'll find a bag full of soccer balls. Bring them to me, if you don't mind."

I shrug and stand up, fully intending to get the soccer balls. "Oh, sure."

Miss Rapids smirks at me. "Oh, so you do mind?"

I screech to a halt so fast that I have to flare my wings out to prevent myself from tumbling forward. I slowly turn in her direction, my eyes narrowed. 

"Well I do now."

With that, I plop down on the floor and cross my forelegs. As I expected, Miss Rapids doesn't take too kindly to my quip at all. 

"You wanna run that by me again?" she growls. 

I shrug again. "Sure. You asked me if I minded getting the soccer balls, I said sure, like a dickweed you said that cliche thing everypony says about 'oh, so you do mind', then I found out that I do, in fact, mind getting the soccer balls." I barely hold back an amused snort. "That about sums it up."

Miss Rapids slowly walks up to me and stands over me, trying to look intimidating by towering over me. It actually... kind of works. I get the feeling that in another life she was a drill sergeant. 

"Fifty pushups." She bares her teeth at me. "Now."

As fun as it was to quip, and as much as she frankly deserved it, I get the feeling that I shouldn't fight her on this. I roll over and begin doing pushups. She watches me for a solid minute, then turns to the unfortunate colt next to me. "Would you mind getting the soccer balls?"

"N-no, Ma'am," he squeaks before scampering over to the locker to get the soccer balls. 

Now, I'm a pony who is decently in shape. Mom and Dad make sure that I eat healthy, and flying tends to burn off a lot of calories. Having said that, about twenty pushups in, I'm starting to feel the burn in my forelegs. Uh-oh. Definitely don't want to piss this teacher off. If she's starting at fifty for a minor cheeky comment, then I'm not sure what she'll do if I show real defiance. All of the soccer balls have been passed out and the groups have formed when I'm at forty. Silver is standing next to me idly tapping on the soccer ball she has in front of her. I guess she's my partner, then. 

Forty... one. 

Forty... two!

Forty... th... three!

"Are you okay?" Silver dumbly asks. "We're partners for kicking the soccer ball around, by the way." She tilts her head. "Are you almost done?"

I glare at her and grit my teeth as I try to do the last hoofful of pushups. Forty... seven.

F...f...forty... eight!

Forty... nine!

With all of the limited strength that I have left, I slowly push myself up. Fifty! With a loud groan, I collapse onto the ground and groan. Okay, definitely not getting on her bad side again. Before I can say anything to Silver, Miss Rapids walks up to me with a slight frown. 

"You gonna talk back like that again?"

For a moment I desperately want to. Seriously, not cool. I mean... yeah, teachers generally don't like it when you talk back to them in general, but I guess it's best to not piss off a gym teacher. The Ponish teacher probably won't have me drop and giver her fifty if I snark at her. For the moment, though, I just giver her a little nod. She nods back and motions to a nearby water fountain. 

"Take ten. Get a drink of water. Rest for a bit." She extends a hoof, and I gingerly take it, allowing her to pull me up. I'm a little wobbly, but I don't fall down again. I start limping over to the water fountain before she puts a hoof on my shoulder, stopping me. "You respect me and I'll respect you, Miss Screech. I don't care who your dad is or what he's done, you can't talk to me like that."

"I'm not some spoiled little rich girl," I growl through gritted teeth. 

"If you say so." She flicks her hoof to the water fountain. "Take ten."

I limp over to the water fountain and instantly begin sucking water down the second I press down on the pedal. I instantly feel a little rejuvenated, but I can already tell that I'm going to be sore for the rest of the day. I hear what sounds like somepony kicking a ball in my direction, and I turn around to see Silver trotting up to me, expertly kicking the soccer ball around. Huh. Hidden talent, I guess. 

"Let me know when you're done so that we can start." She motions to the other colts and fillies around us. "Miss Rapids wants us to just practice kicking the ball back and forth. 

"Right," I groan before taking another sip of water. I motion to Miss Rapids as Silver begins bouncing the ball off of the wall. Seriously, is she on the school team? "What's her problem?"

"Dunno. She's kind of a private pony," Silver replies as she kicks the ball into the wall with her left hind hoof, then, as it bounces back, she jumps and twists in the air, allowing herself to kick it back with her right hind hoof without missing a beat. "I've heard that she was married to one of the teachers here a few years back. Mister Blaze, or something like that. Or maybe they weren't married, but they were just together. I don't know." She frowns and tilts her head. "No, they were married. Yeah, I think that's it. Either way, they split up and he moved to Manehattan to teach... something. Miss Rapids was pretty torn up about it." 

She gently kicks the ball one more time, allowing it to roll over to her after it hits the wall. She puts her hoof on the ball to stop it. "'Least that's what the seniors said happened when they were freshmares. She doesn't talk about it that much." 

"Huh." I take a deep breath and stretch out a bit. Yeah, I'm going to be sore, but I don't feel like I'm about to collapse and die anymore. I glance back at Miss Rapids and see that, yeah, she looks like she's got this... weight on her back. Dunno. She looks a little world-weary for a pony of her age. 

Maybe she isn't the best pony to snark to, and not just because of the pushups thing. In any case, I guess me and Silver should kick the ball around like Miss Rapids said. Although, I feel thoroughly warmed up.


*  *  *  *


The rest of the day is pretty uneventful. Silver and I don't have any more classes together, but Orange Peel and I manage to snag the same math class. Not looking forward to that, if I'm being honest. I don't know when I'll ever need to use geometry! I mean, if I'm going to go into medical school then it's probably good for me to know some math, but physics? Egh. Biology is probably going to be more my speed. It doesn't help that the stallion teaching it is the most boring thing to have ever lived. In Ponish class the teacher has us write up a little one page paper on our favorite book and why we like it. 

She says that I can't do mine on Wanderings of a Headstrong Human.

Dick. 

Social Studies looks like it's not going to be the best either. A lot of it is going to be recap, especially since I have a teacher as a mom. I mean, she teaches elementary school, so it's going to be a little more advanced, but I know the history behind a lot of this stuff. Although, I idly flip through the syllabus we've been given as the teacher talks and see that one of the last topics covered is... 

The latest Griffonian civil war. The one that has Dad smack-dab in the middle of it. Heh.

I wonder what he'll think about that. 

I finish my day with economics. As the teacher goes through the syllabus, I can see that we're going to do stuff on the stock market. Then there are some case studies we'll be looking at, one of which is... the minotaur death match that Dad was in, and the effect that it had on Schunie's economy. 

Wow. So I'm pretty sure that that little section is going to be pretty easy. 

Thankfully economics is the final class of the day, so once we're done, I put the econ syllabus into my now heavier saddlebag and follow the mass of students toward the school's front entrance, though I can see that there are some side exits. I'm pretty sure that Mom and Dad will be waiting for me at the front entrance, though. As we near the entrance, I actually see some of the pegasi take to the air just to get out of the building. Not a bad idea. I spread my wings and hop up, allowing myself to just glide out into the fresh air of Ponyville. 

Freedom! 

Only four more years of this to go. 

Ugh.

I hover a bit so that I can spot Mom and Dad, and I can see them in a group of other parents. I angle my wings and land next to them. 

"Hey, Comet," Dad says, ruffling my mane. "How was today?"

"Did you have fun?" Mom asks, throwing a foreleg around my shoulders for a hug. "Are you excited for the school year?"

I groan and drape a foreleg over my eyes. "I dunno. I don't think this is going to be very easy."

"Eh, you'll get the hang of it soon. You're smart," Dad says as the three of us walk away. "What's say the three of us head down to Sugarcube Corner for some end-of-day milkshakes?"

I manage a weak smile as the soreness from gym class starts to catch up with me. My legs wobble a bit, but I don't stumble. I'm going to take the longest nap ever when we get back from Sugarcube Corner. Maybe I'll even sleep until I need to get up for school tomorrow.

"So Dad, you are not going to believe some of the things that they're going to teach in my econ and social studies class..."