Rarity was on her way to the Ponyville Schoolhouse, mildly annoyed at having to come down here. She had never been called into the school, and as she approached the building, she was more and more questioning what was so important as to have her meet the teacher after school. After all, she’d not been there before, aside from the monthly guardian-teacher meetings.
As Rarity entered the small one-room schoolhouse, Cheerilee was already waiting for her. Apparently, from what she’d gathered from the note Sweetie Belle had brought home, she had done something to invoke the disapproval of the usually easy-going teacher. “Please, have a seat,” Cheerilee spoke, her tone not as friendly or light as it usually was.
As Rarity sat down, across from her was a clearly very unamused Cheerilee, who was taking a second to gather her thoughts, thinking about how she was going to explain what had happened. Her usually cheery green eyes were narrowed in what seemed to be annoyance, a magenta hoof softly tapping on the desktop.
“So, whatever is the meaning for you calling me here? Surely my little sister didn’t do anything too bad? She’s always acted sophisticated and proper.” Rarity asked to break the uncomfortable silence, before hearing a soft, disappointed sigh from Cheerilee. Disappointed that one of her students, who had always been so well-behaved before, would pull something like this.
“As this is the first time Sweetie has ever done something like this - within school grounds, at least - I am unfortunately obliged to have called upon you for a guardian-teacher meeting, and I really hope that this is not going to become a regular occurance,” Cherilee replied, before softly shaking her head, “Apparently Sweetie, as well as her friends Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, spoke with Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash, and got the idea to pull a page from their book. They pulled a prank aimed at today’s class.”
As Rarity glanced around the room, when Cheerilee had mentioned a prank, she noticed that there seemed to be parts of the varnish gone from the fairly-scuffed wooden floor around all the desks for some reason…as well as a few chunks of the floor itself missing. “Did they vandalize the classroom? Surely not! Neither my Sweetie, nor her friends, would ever do something so…base! She’s much more couth than that!” Rarity stated, before Cheerilee softly shook her head in disagreement.
“No, nothing like that, though it did lead to needing to sand the floors, and we still have to replace several boards of it from the damage that the adhesive removal caused. You see, the three fillies came in during lunch break and, after pulling the benches so far from the desk as to be unusable, they used some fast-drying wood adhesive to…glue the desk benches to the floor. Even mine.” Cheerilee explained, clearly more than a bit peeved by the recounting. She was none too amused as Rarity gave a soft chuckle. “I’ll have you know, it took the three of them - yes, I made them scrape it off as punishment, in detention - over an hour to use a chisel to peel each chair off the floor, rather then just ripping them away, in order to minimize the damage. But, nonetheless, even the careful peeling led to some minor damage. However, and worse, it led to disruption of the class, since everypony had to sit on the floor instead.”
“Oh come now, there was nothing so harmful in that! I think that was a pretty good prank, if I do say so! I would have loved to see the look on the students’ and your faces when they…” Rarity started, before trailing off as she saw Cheerilee’s withering glare, “..and besides, I believe that perhaps them having to undo it and detention was punishment enough?”
“They disrupted an entire class session, and ultimately led to damaging school property to undo their ‘prank’,” Cheerilee explained, looking somewhat perturbed by Rarity’s lackadaisical response to the, to her at least, rather serious infraction that had occurred, “And as this school isn’t rich, as well as not wanting to pay for vandalization like this, we have to figure out who is going to pay for this.”
“I can give you a few bits to replace the damages. Surely a few pieces of lumber couldn’t cost much, correct?” Rarity said, before getting a soft shake of the head from Cheerilee.
“That would help with the financial part of the problem, but it doesn’t account for the disruptive and destructive behavior of Sweetie Belle and her friends. I’ll be discussing this matter with the others’ guardians after we’ve finished here, too. I think a few days’ suspension would suffice as an appropriate punishment.”
“Suspension!?” Rarity said, honestly shocked by the suggestion, “B-but Sweetie has never been suspended before! That would mar her perfect record! Couldn’t just them having to take the glue off be a sufficient enough punishment, if I pay for the repairs?”
“Unfortunately, I think that is how it needs to be. They damaged school property, and they should be heavily incentivized to not do it again. I…” Cheerilee said, then was cut off by a knock at the door of her classroom, “...I’m sorry, that must be my next appointment with Applejack. We could discuss this more later, perhaps, when I’ve had a chance to…cool off some? Maybe at a cafe, or somewhere like that?”
Rarity, meanwhile, was thinking. She knew this couldn’t stand as it was. Sweetie was such a good filly, and one small prank shouldn’t be the cause of her perfect record being tarnished, even if it did lead to some unintended damages. “Well, perhaps we could meet at my place of business when you’re free? Carousel Boutique, located on Saddle Way? Surely you’ve seen it before?”
As Rarity said that, Cheerilee’s eyes lit up. “Oh! Of course I’ve been there! There are so many beautiful outfits and gowns there, some of which I’d love to buy. Unfortunately, a teacher’s wages aren’t the best, and they’re a bit too…rich for me. I didn’t know you were the owner!”
“Yes, indeed! I’m the owner, and the designer and seamstress too!” Rarity said, feeling a small bubble of pride as her life’s work was mentioned, as well as called beautiful. “So, would it be agreeable to meet there then? Perhaps tomorrow afternoon, after school?
“Sure!” Cheerilee responded, with an enthusiasm previously missing in the conversation, “I’d love to see all of your new, undoubtedly beautiful creations!”
“Why, thank you! I do work quite hard on them,” Rarity said, giving a genuine smile as her art was appreciated.
Another knock came at the door, a bit firmer, as though making sure the knocker had been heard now, if not before. “Well, I would love to continue this conversation, but it sounds like my next appointment is getting a bit…” Another door-rattling knock. “...impatient. So, I’ll see you tomorrow, around three-thirty or four?”
“Sure, sure, that sounds like a good time for me. I’ll be sure to set some tea on.” Rarity responded, giving a soft smile.
“Alright, I’ll see you then. Goodbye, Miss Rarity!”
“Ta-ta, Miss Cheerilee!”
As Rarity opened the door to leave, a very peeved-looking Applejack all but charged into the room, followed by a glum-looking Apple Bloom, looking like she’d gotten quite the talking-to from her already. “Good luck,” Rarity whispered to the filly, before going on her way.
Apple Bloom noticed that Rarity was all on her own, no Sweetie Belle in sight. “AJ, Ah thought me ‘n’ the girls had to come with our guardians, you said, why would you say ‘at? I can’t believe it!”
“Ah thought so, but Ah guess not. Still, Ah wanna get yer side’a thangs too,” Applejack replied, before opening the door and nodding inside, having Apple Bloom go in first to face her fate.
On the way back home, Rarity was thinking to herself how to achieve the best outcome for Sweetie Belle. She considered how to make it not so obvious that she had planned to persuade Cheerilee into letting the consequences resulting from her prank slip, so as to not ruin her sister’s perfect score. She also needed to think of how to explain this to Sweetie Belle, still keeping her manipulation of the situation a secret.
In fact, Rarity was so occupied in her thoughts that when she came back to the boutique, Sweetie Belle was already worriedly anticipating a heavy talking-to, so much dreading it that she was nearly cowering behind some furniture upon Rarity’s arrival. Instead, to her surprise, she was completely ignored by Rarity. Sweetie Belle had mixed feelings about being passed by without so much as a word from her sister about the incident; was she just to be treated like thin air now? Was Rarity really that mad at her? Sweetie’s eyebrows furrowed in concern, worried about when Rarity would explode at her. Perhaps, she thought, this was merely the calm before the storm.