Summer. The endless lazy days of summer. When the world is full of possibilities and there is nothing to do but run, swim, and be with friends. To be out in the world for a hundred different reasons and sometimes none at all, except the sheer joy of life and living. For three of Ponyville’s closest friends, summer had come at last, and with it a release from the tedium of the classroom.
“What do you gals want to do?” Scootaloo asked, trotting along beside her friends. “If you ask me, I think we should see if I can jump Ghastly Gorge on my scooter!”
“Rarity wants me to sort the ribbons in her ‘Inspiration Room’ again,” Sweetie Belle replied, making a face. “It’s not my fault Opal got in there and messed everything up.”
“What did ya think was gonna happen, after you put that bag of cat treats in there?” Applebloom said, shaking her head. “‘Sides, you think you got work? Applejack’s got a list of chores for me on the farm that’s longer than a timber wolf's tail. An’ that’s just for today!”
“Sorry, didn’t realize you two were going to be so busy,” Scootaloo replied, chastened until a thought came to her. “Hey, I could help Sweetie with her chores and then we could both go over to Sweet Apple Acres and help you out!”
“That’d be great!” Applebloom declared. “Applejack’s been really on a tear ‘bout getting all the chores done, an’ I could really use the help.”
“Hey, what’s with Miss Cheerilee?” Scootaloo asked, in a sudden aside and looking intently through the open window of Ponyville’s schoolhouse.
“Huh?” Sweetie replied, before turning her attention to the school herself and spotting their teacher inside. “She looks sad. I wonder what’s wrong?”
“We should go find out,” Applebloom stated, and setting actions to words, turned her hooves onto the short path that led from the road up to the main door of the building.
The other two Crusaders didn’t need to be asked to help, because where one Cutie Mark Crusader went, the others would inevitably follow. It was as immutable a thing as gravity, or rain being made out of water.
“Hey, Miss Cheerilee,” Applebloom said, a few moments later as she entered the classroom. The older mare was sitting at her desk, leaning her head on one foreleg with a wistful look on her face. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh! Hello, Applebloom,” the teacher replied, lifting her head up as half her mouth twisted up into a lopsided smile. “Nothing really, just feeling a little down, is all. Why aren’t you out enjoying the day?”
“Well, we were walking by and we saw you looking kinda sad,” Sweetie Belle explained, taking up a flanking position with her friend. “And we wanted to see if we could help you out.”
“The Cutie Mark Crusaders are always ready to help a friend,” declared Scootaloo, taking up position on Applebloom’s other flank. “And you are more than our teacher. You’re our friend too.”
“That— that is very kind of you to say,” Cheerilee replied, eyes glistening slightly. “I’m not really sad. I’m just sort of missing all of you.”
“Aww,” the three said in unison, moving up to give their teacher a hug.
“This time of year is always bittersweet for a teacher,” Cheerilee explained, gladly accepting the triple embrace. “We spend so much time with our students, getting to know them almost as much as their parents do. We get to watch your minds and bodies grow strong, see you make new discoveries and new friendships. We watch you start to become the next generation of Equestria.”
“But why’s that make you sad?” Applebloom asked, letting go of her teacher and looking over to the teacher's desk. “Me and the Crusaders are goin’ to be here for awhile yet.”
“For a while, yes,” Cheerilee confirmed, reaching out and straightening the earth pony’s bow. “But soon enough you will leave here forever, and take your place in the world. And though I know that the three of you will be wonderful adults, I can’t help but wish you and your classmates would stay just a while longer.”
“You’ll always be our teacher,” Sweetie Belle said, taking a look around the room that she and her friends had once thought of as a prison, but now seeing it in a different light. “And our friend, too.”
“Thank you,” Cheerilee replied, wiping a bit of moisture from one eye. “And I will always be proud to have been your teacher, but now—”
Whatever Cheerilee had been going to say, was cut off as the door to the schoolhouse burst open to admit a lavender coloured blur that darted about the room. The blur moved in rapid succession from desk to desk, slowing as it began to visit some of the bookshelves around the room. It was only when various textbooks began to levitate off the shelves, did the form slow down enough to reveal the wings and horn of a very frazzled looking Princess Twilight Sparkle.
“Books, books, books, books,” chanted the mare, examining one school book after another in quick succession. “Got to find the right book. Where is the book? I need the book.”
The other four ponies in the schoolroom looked at each other in bewilderment, before Cheerilee piped up saying, “Excuse me, Princess. Can we help?”
“YES!” Twilight shouted, zooming over and clutching the teacher to her chest. “Textbooks! Where are your textbooks?”
“Stored away for the summer,” the earth pony mare managed to squeak out. “Why?”
“Nooooo,” howled the distraught Princess, collapsing to the floor. “No. No. No, not again!”
“Beggin’ yer pardon,” Applebloom ventured, “but what’s wrong?”
“I need to find something to compare this to!” Twilight exclaimed, holding up what looked like a normal, if somewhat drab looking, hard bound book.
“That’s a book,” Scootaloo said, looking at the Princess of Friendship with a confused look on her face. “Don’t you have a bunch of books in your castle?”
“This isn’t a regular book,” Twilight sighed, manic energy oozing away from her. “It’s a textbook from Canada.”
“A what from where?” Applebloom demanded, before shaking her head to correct herself. “Ah mean, Ah know what a textbook is. But who’s Canada?”
“Canada isn’t a ‘who’ Applebloom,” Cheerilee explained, being somewhat more in tune with larger events than the Crusaders were. “Canada is a ‘where.’ Another world, to be precise.”
“Wait, what?” Scootaloo asked, confused. “A whole other world? Like another Equestria?”
“We haven’t really made it common knowledge yet,” Twilight responded, still holding onto the book. “But several weeks ago we made contact, actually re-contact with another world through a mirror portal.”
“‘Canada’ is a funny name for a world,” Sweetie Belle supplied. “It does sorta rhyme though. ‘Caw.’ ‘Nah.’ ‘Dah’,” she continued, exaggerating the syllables.
“It’s only the name of one nation of that world,” Twilight corrected, with a small laugh. “The one where the other side of the portal comes out. The actual name of that world is ‘Earth’.”
“‘Earth’?” Applebloom asked, eyes lighting up. “As in ‘earth pony’? Is that why Granny Smith was at your castle last month? Wow, a whole world of earth ponies!”
“Well, sort of,” Twilight replied, not noticing Cheerilee taking notes as she unobtrusively moved to one side in order to let Twilight become the focus of the Crusader's attention. “There is a sort of pony there, but they’re related to us about as much as fish are related to seaponies.”
“What do you mean by that?” Sweetie asked, the curiosity of the Crusaders blazing bright.
“I mean they have equines there, but they are just animals,” the alicorn explained, taking a seat and putting her precious book beside her. “They can’t talk, or read, or think, or do anything like us.”
“But I remember Granny Smith said something about a pony called, ‘Lee Ung’,” Applebloom interjected. “An’ she was gonna help him an’ his kinfolk.”
“Do you remember me telling you about my friend, Sunset Shimmer?” Twilight prompted, waiting for the Crusader to nod before continuing. “Well, this ‘Earth’ is sort of like Sunset’s world. The people there aren’t ponies.”
“Oh,” Applebloom replied, looking a little crestfallen.
“Princess,” Cheerilee interjected, “you haven’t really said yet why you are here. Or what had you in such a state. Or why that textbook is so important.”
“Oh,” Twilight responded, echoing the filly from moments ago. “Well, this is a textbook from that other world.”
“Go on,” Cheerilee prompted, beginning to see where the princess was going.
“If I could find one of your textbooks to compare it to, I can tell what kind of education system they have,” Twilight explained, regaining some of her previous enthusiasm. “And this isn’t just any textbook.”
“Is it a textbook about flying?” Scootaloo asked, eyes lighting up.
“Sorry Scootaloo, but no,” Twilight replied, opening up the foreign book so that the others could see inside. The other four ponies made murmurs of appreciation at the glossy pages, up until Applebloom realized what sort of textbook the tome was.
“It’s a math textbook,” Applebloom groaned. “Ah hate arithmetic.”
“You help Zecora all the time,” Sweetie Belle protested. “Doesn’t that use a lot of math for when you measure stuff?”
“That’s workin’ math,” Applebloom shot back. “This, this is just numbers...Lots an’ lots of numbers.”
“What’s so important about it being a math textbook, Twilight?” Scootaloo asked, defusing the argument before it had a chance to get going.
“Math is a ‘universal’ language,” Twilight gushed, clutching the volume to her breast once more. “All thinking creatures use math. It might be different or a little strange, but for any creature that knows numbers; one plus one always equals two.”
“Perhaps you should explain to the class why that’s an important concept,” Cheerilee prompted, falling easily back into her role as teacher and mentor to young minds.
“That’s a good idea,” agreed Twilight, nodding. “You see, unlike the portal to Sunset Shimmer’s world, the spell that created the portal to Earth wasn’t made to make one.”
“What was it made fer, then?” Applebloom asked with a tilt of her head. “Seems like bad craftsponyship to make somethin’ that’s different from what you started tryin’ to make.”
“The pony who made the portal wasn’t trying to make one in the first place,” Twilight explained. “But through a combination of spells, mistakes, and pure chance, a portal was made. And a very special one, at that.”
“Was it because it was made in olden pony times?” came the question from Sweetie Belle.
“I wouldn’t call Granny Smith’s younger years ‘olden pony times’ if I was you,” Twilight said, as Cheerilee covered up a grin. “No, what makes it special is how so many forms of magic came together to create it, and to give it a translation overlay.”
“A what?” the four other ponies in the room chorused.
“A translation overlay,” Twilight repeated. “It’s a spell that translates everything that goes through the portal so that everypony can understand everything on the other side. The only problem is that the spell is old, and it tries to make everything sound and read like the best version of things.”
“Looking and sounding the best you can be is a good thing,” Sweetie Belle declared, briefly offended on behalf of her sister. “Isn’t it?”
“Not when it changes things that have to be exactly as they were intended to be,” Twilight replied. “And that’s why this book is so important. Math is universal, so the translation overlay doesn’t change it.”
“So yer sayin’,” Applebloom replied, scrunching her face up a bit as she framed her thoughts. “That it’s like a set of plans fer a barn. Stuff goin’ through gets made to look like how it is at the end. But this is like seeing all the measurin’ lines an’ stuff that get covered up by the picture of how the barn looks when yer done.”
“Exactly,” Cheerilee praised, “Well done, Applebloom.”
“T’weren’t nothin,” the filly shyly replied, scuffing a hoof. “Just some thinking is all.”
“Well, you got it exactly right,” Twilight added, beaming at the trio. “This book lets me see exactly how the ponies of Earth use math. Which helps me understand how they think. But I really need to do a side by side comparison to one of our textbooks of a similar grade to get a really good feel for it.”
“So that’s why you came here,” Cheerilee said, understanding Twilight’s purpose. “You wanted to borrow one of the schoolfillies textbooks and see what it looked like compared to the one you have.”
“And now I can’t because you don’t have any here,” Twilight groaned out. “Sorry, I should have realized that with school out for the summer you would have packed up all of your supplies.”
“That’s okay, Princess,” Cheerilee assured her local royal. “But why don’t you just go to the school book depository?”
“The what?” Twilight asked, tilting her own head in confusion.
“The depository, where we deposit and store all of Equestria’s school books for the summer,” Cheerilee explained. “We ship them there at the end of every school year. The books are cleaned, repaired, and updated if needed. They send them back here by train the week before school starts.”
“Where is this depository?” Twilight demanded, leaping up and grabbing the teacher by the shoulders. “And why don’t I know about it?”
“Didn’t you learn about it when you went to school?” Scootaloo asked, putting a hoof on Twilight’s foreleg. “I mean, I thought you went to a big school in Canterlot.”
“Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns is not a big school,” Twilight replied archly, before letting out a deep sigh and setting Cheerilee down. “We had the entire Royal Canterlot Library to use, so we didn’t use or need standard textbooks.”
“But ya had to know that other ponies had textbooks, right?” Applebloom asked, a bit of a sad look on her face. “Ah mean, it’s not like you just figured everypony used the same library.”
“To be honest, Applebloom, “ Twilight said, facehoofing, “I never really thought about it before. And I should have. Or at least have known to ask first.”
“It’s okay, Princess,” Sweetie Belle assured Twilight. “You know now, and you can get all the textbooks you need.”
“I just need the one,” Twilight answered, looking even sadder now, to the puzzlement of the Crusaders.
“Is somethin’ wrong?” Applebloom gently asked, looking up into Twilight’s eyes. “You look more down than Rainbow Dash after cider season.”
“I only have the one book,” Twilight replied, morose. “Princess Celestia sent it to me as a gift, but she won’t let me come get more until she and Luna finish settling who’s in charge on that side. And she can’t do that until she finishes her negotiations there, and until she finishes that I’m stuck here and can’t get to any more Earth books!”
“We could get you more books,” Scootaloo offered. “I mean, it’s just a portal, right?”
“Thank you, Scootaloo,” Twilight said, with a sad little smile. “But the portal is too small to fit ponies. Celestia and Luna had to turn themselves into breezies just to fit through. This book barely made it.”
“Why don’t you just make the portal bigger?” Sweetie Belle immediately countered.
“It’s impossible,” Twilight replied, slumping down against the teacher’s desk. “It’s completely utterly impossible.” At which point, Discord must have rolled over in his nap and gave Applebloom’s mind a nudge.
“Why?” came the question from beneath earnest eyes.
“Because no pony has ever been able to move, let alone create a portal to another world,” Twilight answered. “Except by accident.”
“Starswirl did,” Applebloom pointed out. “An’ you know everything about Starswirl.”
“Yes, but—” Twilight began.
“An’ didn’ you become an alicorn when you finished a spell he couldn’t?” Applebloom asked, as she pushed the issue further. “An’ aren’t you like, the Element of Magic.”
“It’s not that sim—” Twilight replied, only to be interrupted again.
“And don’t the Tree of Harmony listen to you an’ the others?” pressed Applebloom, challenging one of her personal heroes to rise to the occasion. “And didn’t you say that you were one of Princess Celestia’s best students, ever?”
“You might have —” Twilight started to say.
“An’ don’t you have all your fr—” Applebloom pounced, only to be interrupted herself this time.
“Okay! Okay, I get it,” Twilight replied, grinning as she stuffed a hoof against the Apple’s mouth. “You’re right, if anypony can make the portal bigger it’s me. But it still doesn’t solve the problem of me being stuck here until Luna and Celestia get back.”
“Cutie Mark Crusader Book Retrievers,” all three Crusaders chimed in chorus, while snapping out a salute that would have done a parade ground proud. Both adults in the room couldn’t help but giggle at the earnest trio of expressions facing them.
“Okay Crusaders,” Twilight replied, enfolding her three new novel champions. “Go talk to your guardians. As soon as I can make that portal bigger, I’m sending you to Earth!”