I don’t think I’ve ever been nervous before. Not this nervous, anyway. Sure, I had a pretty straightforward lesson plan, and the other teachers had assured me that, while still children, the students were easy to deal with for a little less than an hour at a time. However, there was still that little voice in my head who was significantly more confident that I’d screw this up than I was in getting it right.
You see, beyond my current capacity as Prince Blueblood’s walking child safety lock, I had never been that great at holding jobs for long periods of time. Mostly due to my winning personality. More than once due to my inability to suffer the raw entitlement of the average consumer. There also might be a nonzero number of jobs I’ve lost because the Princess had to come fire me herself.
None of those jobs, however, had ever put me in charge of somepony else. Even in my current position, I do still work for Blueblood. Just with… provisions. But instructing an entire class of children to follow directions, impart life lessons onto them, and maintain my composure for an hour at a time, six times a day, five times a week? I was starting to feel a little out of my depth. For buck’s sake, I only got certified as a substitute so I could help Derpy finish her GED.
I did, however, have a plan. In a rare moment of consideration from Twilight (Rare in that it applied to me. She was very considerate of other creatures.), she had given me a solid piece of advice: your first lesson should be simple, nonspecific, and require no take-home. She was very insistent that I not be the teacher who gives his class homework on the first day.
So it was with that thought in mind that, after having entered the class, and trading morning greetings with my homeroom students, I had a question. “Alright class, as I’m hoping you remember, my name is Schadenfreude.”
“Kind of hard to forget,” said the blue griffin. Gallus, I believe.
“That’s one,” I said, not looking at him. “Now, as you may also remember, my name means ‘malicious glee’. Which, from some creature’s point of view,” I raised an eyebrow at Twilight, sitting in the back of the class with a pen and more than one pad of paper, who raised an eyebrow back, “Means I am both uniquely qualified and distinctly unqualified to take over Laughter Class. So I thought about what that means. There’s a lot of reasons to laugh. I happen to have a special talent that encourages creatures to laugh at each other, and, hopefully, themselves. So, while I can understand your reluctance to learn from somepony like me, let me tell you a secret.”
Twilight raised both eyebrows at this, as ‘let me tell you a secret’ was typically my code for ‘you are absolutely not supposed to know this but there are no rules preventing me from informing you’. “This is… well, not my deepest secret, that might actually kill you,” I mused, only half-joking. Having a social life even tangentially involving the Princesses on a regular basis led to some rather terrifying life experiences, even if they did their best to fix it.
Gallus, who had simply scoffed at me in response earlier, interrupted with “Yeah, right. Are we gonna die of laughter?”
“That’s two. No, this isn’t my deepest secret, but it is one only three living creatures outside of this room know. One is my girlfriend. One is my best friend, Discord-” a statement that roused quite a bit more attentive ness out of a class that was slowly fading, “- and the last one is Princess Celestia.”
“Hold the phone,” Gallus almost yelled. “You’re best friends with Discord?!”
I didn’t answer immediately. Instead, I trotted up to his desk, which was in the front row, left corner, sat down in front of it, and stared at him for a second. “That’s three, kid.” I said quietly. He gave me a concerned look. “CONGRATULATIONS!” I shouted, throwing a good half pound of confetti in the air above his head. After which I immediately returned to my podium at the front of the class before any of it could settle on me. Gallus, however, had no such reflexes.
“BLEH! PTAH! Oh for cluck’s sake it’s freakin’ EVERYWHERE!”
“And that, class, is what happens when you don’t raise your… foreleg to be called on,” I explained calmly, with a rather typical-of-me-smile. Twilight hadn’t moved from her seat in the back, looking as though her entire body was fighting between hysterical laughter and yelling at me. She settled for excusing herself from the room for a moment.
The rest of the class, however, had no such reservations. There was quite a bit of chortling, guffaws, and hollers at Gallus’s expense. I waited about half a minute for the roar to die down, and raised a hoof. “Class!” I exclaimed. “I have way more where that came from, and that’s before dipping into Miss Pinkie Pie’s reserves. Settle down, please.”
The noise died down a bit, although there was still some murmuring and giggles. Unavoidable, but tolerable. Like me. “Gallus, next time it’s glitter. Now, class, this actually leads directly into my first lesson, and the secret I was going to tell you.” I saw the door open just a crack, and heard some barely stifled giggles from the hall. Apparently Twiggles’ curiosity overcame her desire to not laugh in her student’s face, just a tiny bit.
“Now,” I continued, brushing a lone bit of confetti off my shoulder. There’s always one. “I’ve been telling creatures all my life that my special talent is finding what most annoys a person and pressing that particular button till it almost breaks, to great comedic effect. This is… only partially true. That’s how I choose to manifest my talent, a distinction I will be teaching you about later. But my first lesson to you is also my most personal secret: my special talent is actually teaching ponies to laugh at themselves; to not take themselves seriously; and to teach them when it’s appropriate to laugh at, or with, others. Like many of your teachers, and at some point, many of you, either past or present, I have been known to take my own interpretation of my talent too far.
“This will be the lesson you’ll be learning this week. Take, for example, Gallus here,” I said, gesturing at the distinctly not-just-blue-anymore griffin, who had slowly given up on getting the last traces of shredded paper out of his fur and feathers. “It’s biodegradable, kid, by the way,” I told him. “A blowdryer will get rid of most of it, and a hot shower will do the rest. Don’t worry about what’s on the floor, I’ll clean that up between classes.”
Turning my attention back to the majority of the room, and just in time for Twilight to open the door and come back, I continued, “I didn’t stop you all from laughing at Gallus because he brought that upon himself. A quick, harmless prank in reaction to breaking a class rule. Yes, I have read the class rules, yes, I have memorized them, yes, Miss Smolder, that means taking your feet off the desk. That’s one AND two.”
The young dragon looked a bit sheepish, and gave Gallus a wary glance before putting her feet down. “What I would not have tolerated, however, is if Gallus had hurt himself somehow, and you had laughed at that. I understand that, given the absolute melting pot this school has become, there are some distinct cultural differences you all are still addressing. What is a harmless joke to a yak might be a terrible insult to a pony, and vise-verca. We have all lived very different lives, and have all experienced the world in different ways. While I can’t teach you everything about everything, I will be doing my best to help you pick on on general social cues and décor that will help you tell the difference between a genuinely harmless joke and malicious teasing or insults. A fine line that I have spent the greater part of my life learning to tightrope walk with great efficacy. While I absolutely do not encourage you all to do the same, just knowing where the line is will make a huge difference.”
The room had become a bit more solemn after my little speech, but that didn’t stop Yona from raising her hoof. “Yes, Miss Yona?”
“So Yona should not call Princess Celestia spider-hooves?”
“Yona that is objectively the funniest thing I have heard in months and you should absolutely NEVER EVER DO THAT.”
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I had finally reached the end of the day, and was shoveling the small pile of confetti that had accumulated in the corner of the room over six class periods into a bucket. I heard a familiar hoofstep behind me as I worked, and said, without looking up, “What up Twiggly-Wiggly?” I grunted around the tiny shovel in my mouth.
“Oh for buck’s sake I will never ever get past that name,” Twilight sighed. “I just came by to say you did a decent job today. Although I was a bit surprised at you. I mean, I know you have an honest, earnest side, and know when to take yourself seriously, but I didn’t think you’d get so… personal so quickly. But I have to ask, is that really your true special talent, or were you just making stuff up to get the class to focus?”
I dumped the last bit of confetti into the bucket, save for a tiny pile in the corner, and turned my attention to Twilight. Spitting the shovel out into a nearby box, I replied, “Nah, that’s real.”
“So if it’s such a big secret, why did you tell all of your classes?” she asked, tilting her head.
I shrugged, then rolled my shoulders. Didn’t realize how stiff standing on one place chin-wagging for six hours would make me. “Because kids are kids. If I told one class, and made a big deal out of it, eventually the entire school would know, and none of the other classes would take me seriously. All of the other students would have found out eventually, and I like to think it lends to my credibility that they heard it from me first. At this pint it’ll just become common knowledge. That has a lot less power in a schoolyard or classroom than rumors and secrets do.”
Twilight gave a sigh that indicated she knew exactly what I was talking about. “Yeah, that’s true. Good luck trying to keep a secret from any of your students, let alone asking them to keep it for you. I gotta be honest, though, when you started talking about what is and isn’t appropriate between cultures, I thought you were gonna teach them all interspecies swear words or something.”
“As much absolute joy as it would give me to hear a six-year-old pony yell the Hippogriff equivalent of ‘fuck off’ at the top of their lungs in a school hallway, it just would NOT be worth the sheer volume of trouble I would land in if any of you learned it came from me. Now,” I said, gesturing to the door. “Faculty lounge?”
Twilight smiled. “Sure. Although, I do want to talk about that spider-hooves thing.”
“Hey, you know the Rules. It can only be prohibited if I’ve already done it once,” I said sternly.
“Oh, I know. But I absolutely need to be there when you do.”
“I’m so proud of you.”
“SHUT.”