With sunlight beating down through the large window directly next to his desk, Gaston tried to his best to focus on what the graying, matronly old hen was saying. She had introduced herself this morning as Gionna and had immediately started trying to decipher the notes old Dr. Grant had left for their substitute.
Standing at the old Chalk board that sat at the front of the room, Gaston couldn’t help but think that he had much better things to be doing at this moment. His seat, second to last row and pushed flush against the wall to make room for another column, was placed at just the right window. He could see the rolling hills that the schoolhouse was placed above, as well as the cloudless weather.
When he had first been assigned the seat, he had been thrilled, but during the long and utterly boring school work that followed. He could even see his favorite tree, the large beech tree he used to read in at his own leisure, confident that its isolated location and concealing branches and leaves would afford him some peace and solitude as took part in his guilty pleasure.
When he had initially volunteered to attend the newly built school when it was mentioned by his parents, he thought he would learn about marvelous stories of distant lands, the deeds of the past, and the way the world works.
Just like Grandpa Gatsby had described it to him, when he managed to ply stories of old Griffonia out of vain old owl.
But after coming home after the first week, the saddlebags he brought filled to the brim with assignments and instructions, he reached a conclusion.
School was not what he thought it was, and Dr. Grant was a sadist.
Dr. Grant, the foreign Gryphon that had been the driving force behind starting up the schoolhouse, taught every single class that occurred in the small one-room schoolhouse he had paid the Gaston’s father and a few other Grpyhs to construct for him.
When the Doctor had first swept into town and proposed his idea, he was met with not a small amount of skepticism and derision, but upon flashing a few coins and proving himself to be a generous sponsor, the new schoolhouse had become the talk of the town, before it had even been built Dr. Grant had put a notice on the taverns cork board, stating that he was looking for any and all students that would be willing to attend his school, with classes for all ages.
And slowly, in part because of his rather large advertising campaign, his schoolhouse was filled with Curious Grpyhs of all ages. The largest class, however, ended up being Gaston’ own. Many a younger Gryphon had volunteered for the class, either for the sake of getting out of chores, to hang out with their friends, or both. This ended up with a very full school house every other day, when nearly every ten-year fledgling of the small-town Empire’s Edge.
As Gaston listened to the substitute shuffle around the front of the classroom, he slumped his head against the wood of the desk, letting the end of his hooked beak clunk against it. School wasn’t anything like he had hoped, but it wasn’t all bad. While the mind-numbing boredom of the classes were torturous, especially with the view of freedom just to his left, there was a silver lining, the reason he hadn’t begged his parents to let him drop out like a few of the other students.
Glancing down to his book bag, before casting a analyzing glance at the hen still taking her time to read through the entire lesson plan Dr. Grant had left. Judging it to be safe, he slowly dipped his talons into his book bag before withdrawing the thick text within.
On the first day of classes, on top of giving out a frankly obscene amount of homework he had call “pre-exams” the Doctor had also given each student a two-and-a-half-inch thick paperback book titled A Brief History of Everything.
As the books were passed around, Dr. Grant, in once of the few instances where he appeared one hundred percent serious, had said;
“Be sure to keep these books in good condition, they cost a good amount of money. If something happens to your own, you’ll be sharing,”
That statement had stuck with many of the students, none of them wanting to be forced into the awkward situation of sharing with another student.
The mention of money had also helped to give weight to his warning, money was something that every Gryph had taken seriously.
Still, just keeping the book safe didn’t mean it was used, Gaston knew at least three of his classmates didn’t even take their books out of their bags outside of school, the tomes looking new every time they came onto the other Gryphons desks.
Placing his own copy onto his desk, being mindful of the slightly ripped cover from when he had almost dropped the book, only to catch it by said cover, he flipped to one of the many dog-eared pages and picked up where he left off, keeping half an eye on Ms. Gionna as she began to slowly write out on the Chalkboard their agenda for the day.
So far, they had only covered two chapters of the book, but Gaston had, in his enthusiasm, read ahead. Ever since the Doctor had handed out the book he had been thoroughly enraptured by, it being the first new reading material he had received since his birthday, when his parents had just given him thirty bits and taken him to the market the yearly trading caravan had set up.
He had been able to get three books then, originally only buying two, but the one manning the stand, a minotaur with a wide grin and three golden hoops through one ear, had let him have a third, tossing it on top of the other two with the words;
“Stone Heart finds your enthusiasm impressive. Consider it a birthday gift.”
When he had originally tried to return, it mortified at the thought of receiving something for free from a stranger; the merchant had laughed before returning;
“Then consider it a challenge. It is Stone Hearts' favorite. Next year, Stone Heart will quiz you too, to see if you had read it. If not, Stone Heart will take it back.”
Gaston had continued protesting to the amusement of the Minotaur, only stopping when the Bull had threatened to give him another book for free.
The terrified look was evidently hilarious to the Stone Heart, because for the rest of the time the caravan was in town, the bull had taken to threateningly waving a book in his direction whenever he saw him.
By the fourth day after the caravan had left, Gaston had already finished the book the Minotaur had gifted him. By the end of the month, he had finished all the other two.
By the time he received the new textbook from Dr. Grant, he had already finished all three books twice over. Suffice to say, he was thrilled to have the new reading material.
Beginning where he left off, he let himself once more get lost in the interesting world of words the text offered. Last night he had started a new chapter, this one covering the formation of the Dragonlands and the subsequent leaders, the Dragon Lords.
The name alone made him shiver from how cool it sounded.
As he was reading over the reign of Dragon Lord Spire and the monolithic towers he constructed to mark the borders of the Dragon Lands, he was interrupted when something hit the back of his head.
Turning around, he was met with another ball of paper bumping right into the tip of his beak before falling down to join its fellow on the floor. Glaring at the perpetrator and ignoring the surrounding giggling, he sucked in a breath before glancing at the teacher, making sure she was still distracted.
“Stop-“
A third ball.
“Buck off”
Gracy, a gryphon hen at bigger than him by half seated right behind him, gave a smug smirk before leaning in until her beak almost touched his.
“What are you going to do about it, fish hook? Read me to death?” She asked, not at full volume but loud enough so the other gryphons around her could hear her not-so-subtle jab at the pronounced curve of his beak, setting off a wave of giggles.
He could feel his face burn before he responded quickly, not wanting to get caught.
“At least I can read. Last I heard, weren’t you failing every class?”
He wasn’t actually supposed to know that. The only reason he did was because he had been reading in his beech tree when Gracy and her parents had left the schoolhouse, loudly scolding the hen as they went.
It was news to everyone else to because as the words left his mouth another, louder wave of giggles and jeers this time rippled over the gryphons nearby.
Gaston quickly turned around, content to leave to Gracy with a burning face of embarrassment, and making a note to himself to fly like hell once he was out of the schoolhouse.
She wouldn’t take that laying down after all.
But as he turned around to continue reading, hopefully for the rest of the class, he was interrupted.
“Ah, don’t worry Gracy, everyone knows the little nerd cheats.” Dangling the textbook open in one hand, Gandle had decided it was time for him to inset himself into the conversation.
It was ironic here the word little coming from Gandle, who was, unlike Gracy, not much bigger than him at all. In fact, Gaston was reasonably sure that in a fight the brownish green gryphon would be the only one he could probably take.
Unfortunately, Gandle wasn’t a problem he could solve by beating. Gandle’s physical prowess, or lacktherof, wasn’t what gave the other Gryph his spot at the top of Gaston’s list.
It was that he was perhaps the single most insufferable Gryphon Gaston knew. Gandle followed Gracy around sycophantically, agreeing with everything she said and, sometimes, taking it a step further. Most Gryphons assumed it was because of the crush he had on the female Gryphon, but Gracy seemed to only ever tolerate his presence at most, often shoving him around as she did other Gryphons.
As he held Gaston’ textbook with one hand, the weedy Gryphon laughed uncomfortably loudly before pointing with a single talon.
“I mean look at this, he wrote notes all in this thing ‘Where is Dragon Lord Spike’ like he thinks he’s smart of something.”
“It’s Spire, Gandle, not spike. And give that back!” he snapped, snatching at the book, only for it to be yanked away again.
“What? You dumb or something, nerd, it says Spike right there.” He said, pointing to the note that clearly said Spire. He was sure that Gandle wasn’t doing much better than Gracy in his literature assignments.
Gaston only gave him an unimpressed look before snatching at the textbook again, this time catching the end not held by Gandle and yanking, the other Gryph not letting go.
“Let. Go.” He hissed, on the verge of punching the other, but still not willing to risk getting out of his seat.
Gandle had been opening his mouth to respond before someone else beat him to it.
“Drop it, Gandle,” Gracy said, not looking at the two male Gryphs, merely staring hard at her desk, feathers still slightly ruffled from the earlier reveal. Her talons were scratching slightly into the desk from her tight grip, but she didn’t look at either of them.
A series of look passed over Gandles face, flashing surprise and sadness before settling on something angry.
“But Gracy, look, we can stop the little nerd from cheating right here.” As if to demonstrate, he began digging his talons into the textbook, ruining the cover further and ripping some pages.
The sight of this set Gaston off. Taking a deep breath, he stood up from his desk.
“I said, let go!” Punctuating the shrill statement with a hard yank and driving his hand into the others arm, the only part of him close enough for Gaston to reach.
Gandle let out a shrill cry at the hit before letting go, the text book swinging back towards Gaston, his grip on only one side of the book causing the already damaged cover to rip off entirely, leaving him with a piece of the cover and the rest of the book falling to the ground.
Breathing heavily, he finally realized that he was now standing, as well as how loud he had gotten. Before he sat back down, a shrill voice interrupted.
“Mister Gaston! Fighting in my classroom, detention, after-school with Dr. Grant. Sit down right now young man, before I decide to come over there and make you.” The Substitute, Ms. Gionna, who had been oblivious up to this point, and decided that moment to finally notice the ongoing conflict under her watch, at the worst possible moment for Gaston.
Sitting down roughly, wilting under the glaring eyes of the sub, as well as the realization of what had happened to his textbook, he finally tuned into whatever Ms. Gionna was saying, unable to get back to reading now that she seemed laser focused on him in particular.
“As I was saying before that interruption, Dr. Grant, bless that Gryphon, has set up a ‘pen pal’ program with another school. Your assignment, along with your assigned pen pals, will be to provide a paragraph long report to Dr. Grant on how your pen-pals home differs from our own.” As she read off what you expected the Doctor had written word for word, Gionna reached below Dr. Grant's desk, and pulled out a small bowl filled with slips of paper, before brandishing an impressive stack of colorful envelopes, tied together with a piece of twine.
“Each of you will take a slip from this bowl. You’ll then read off your number, and I will hand you the letter from the pen pal assigned to that number. You’ll need to have this done before next class, so Dr. Grant suggests you take the rest of this class to begin.”
Ms. Gionna then called each gryph up by name, had them draw a number, then handed them the sealed envelope. As this was done, excited whispers filled the class as Gryphons discussed who they thought they would be writing to, what they were going to write about, or expressing how “freaking lame” they thought the assignment was.
When it came Gaston’ turn, he tucked his book bag underneath his desk, out of reach of Gandle, before quickly making his way to the front of the class. When prompted, he drew out a slip of paper before opening it.
“Seven,” He stated, dropping the number with the pile of others on the desk. Ms. Gionna wrote the number on a sheet of paper before shuffling through the letters and withdrawing a lavender envelope. Handing it to him, she gave him a stern glare before gesturing him back to his desk.
Sitting down, Gaston took a moment to look at the other Gryphons. Most had already opened their enveloped but none were writing, rather the classroom had devolved into chatter thinly disguised as relevant to the letter whenever Ms. Gionna neared the group.
Deciding to get on with it, Gaston used a single talon to gently slit open the envelope and withdraw a single piece of paper. Curiosity now filling him, along with his willingness to read anything and everything, he scanned the letter.
Dear Pen Pal,
My name is Twilight Sparkle, and I am a Unicorn that lives in Canterlot. I am 10 and ¾ years old. My favorite color is blue and my favorite food is Hayburgers (My parents don’t know that my brother takes me out to get them on the way home sometimes). I live with my parents and my older brother, he’s trying to become a guard, but he’s having trouble. I think he just needs to study more, but he keeps going to the gym instead. My brother is weird, but that’s ok, because he’s my B.B.B.F.F. (Big Brother Best Friend Forever).
My favorite thing about school is the books! I love reading a lot. Recently I finished Mulberry’ Color Changing Compendium by Mulberry Berry. I spend a lot of my time reading. Do you like books? If not, what do you enjoy doing?
Mrs. Meadow says that our Pen Pals are going to be from very far away, and that we are going to have to write a report talking about how our homes are different from one another. I wanted to include more, but Shiny (my brother) says that I shouldn’t go over a page for the first letter, so I condensed a lot.
One unique thing about my home is that Princess Celestia is here, if you get up really early you can even go to the square and watch her raise the sun.
What’s your home like?
Singed,
Twilight Sparkle
Having got home late due to detention, Gaston had lit the small lantern in his room and was reading over the letter again at his desk.
He had thought that Twilight Sparkle and his own shared love of books would have made things easy for himself; however, he couldn’t place the ink on paper without it feeling incredibly awkward. Leaning back in the chair he glanced around his room hoping something in the room would give him the inspiration he needed to finish this assignment.
The little knick knacks he had gathered didn’t stand out as particularly inspiring, and his small shelf full of books, while promising, put little on the page.
I also like books felt awkward to put down alone, but he really didn’t do much else.
Letting out a groan, he closed his eyes and thought for a bit. Why did writing about himself seem so hard. It was so much easier just to talk about the books.
His eyes opened as the inspiration hit.
What if you wrote about the books?
Grabbing his pen, he began to write.
Dear Twilight Sparkle
My name is Gaston and I am a Gryphon that lives in Empire’s Edge. I am eleven years old. My favorite color is red, like my feathers. My favorite food is smoke salmon, although we don’t get to have it much.
I also like books, just today I was reading through A Brief History of Everything, by Orion Lulamoon. The specific chapter was 16, and it talked about Dragon Lord Spire and his…
He was writing well into the night; having found he was more comfortable writing about what he knew than who he was.