“Miss Cheerliee! Miss Cheerilee! Ya gotta come quick!”
Cheerilee nearly dropped the red pen in her mouth from Apple Bloom’s frantic cries. The filly was cantering in place, glancing between her teacher and the playground. The urgency of her clattering hooves would usually fill Cheerilee with dread, but there was a certain forced cadence to the filly’s voice that gave her pause.
“What’s wrong, Apple Bloom?” If recent patterns held, Cheerilee knew the answer already.
“It’s Dinky! She got in a fight with Scootaloo!”
And her guess was correct. Another recess incident involving Dinky, though “incident” was probably too strong a word for the little pony’s new mean streak. She looked down at her stack of unchecked homework. Even if it was elementary level, grading was time-consuming. Still, she was the only adult at the schoolhouse, so she needed to ensure there wasn’t something actually wrong this time.
Cheerilee took a short, bracing breath and crammed the ungraded papers into her folder to follow Apple Bloom. Standing up from the back patio, she could see the students had made a circle near the slide. As they approached, the others stepped away, making room for their teacher to see the scene.
Dinky Doo, the smallest student at the school, stood on the bottom lip of the slide, overlooking a fallen Scootaloo. The little mauve unicorn was still trying on different threatening facial expressions when she noticed her teacher’s arrival. She settled on a tiny, tough frown caught between self-satisfaction and nervous fear. Meanwhile, her victim was splayed across the ground below, tongue lolled out of her mouth and limbs going in every direction. Scootaloo was seemingly unconscious from something, but there were no apparent signs of a physical altercation on the larger, stronger pegasus.
“Ha! Take that, Scootaloo!” Dinky shouted with rehearsed confidence, her eyes darting between her target and the teacher.
Apple Bloom gasped. “Oh no! We’re too late! She’s already killed Scootaloo!”
The dead filly’s ear flicked. “The pain…” Scootaloo softly moaned to remind her friend.
“—Hurt Scootaloo!” Apple Bloom corrected, to the exasperation of her friend Sweetie Belle watching from the sidelines.
“Y-yeah! And you’re next, Apple Bloom, if you dare tattle on me to Miss—” The diabolical Dinky paused her evil tirade and gasped dramatically. “Miss Cheerilee! When did you get here?”
The teacher didn’t answer, and instead opted to perform a quick headcount.
“Umm, Miss Cheerilee? The fight?” Apple Bloom called softly with a nudge, trying to recapture her teacher’s attention.
All sixteen were present and accounted for. Just in case, Cheerilee turned back towards the door to make sure none of the students were trying to sneak back into the school while she was distracted.
“M-Miss Cheerilee?” Dinky asked again, having lost all confidence in her act.
Cheerilee couldn’t figure out for the life of her why this was happening. The class didn’t have any tests coming up, so there were no answer keys to copy. Everypony had turned in their homework for once. She had nothing worth stealing like Nightmare Night candy or some other prize. There must’ve been some reason for this strange behavior that she wasn’t seeing.
“Miss Cheerilee? Are you okay?” Dinky asked again, her voice cracking in worry.
“Dinky!” Scootaloo whispered harshly. “You can’t start crying! You’re a tough bully, remember?”
“B-but…”
Cheerilee sighed. “Get up, Scootaloo, before I give you detention.”
A shock of panic shot through the pegasus as she popped back up in a blur of orange. “Woah-ho-hoh! Would you look at that? I think I suddenly feel better through the magic of friend—”
“Not another word.” She looked between everypony to see if any of them were playing along with this. With no evidence against the third crusader, she turned her attention to the ones in the middle of the confused circle of students. “Apple Bloom? Scootaloo? Dinky Doo? Come inside with me.”
The trio of ponies flinched at the curt command of their teacher and followed her back inside. Scootaloo grumbled the entire way while Dinky leaned against Apple Bloom for emotional support. Once inside, Cheerilee signaled to the three of them to pull their stools around to her desk.
“Could one of you explain to me what is going on? This is the third time this week I’ve had somepony tell me about something Dinky has done.”
“Dinky’s a bully now!” Scootaloo answered with misplaced pride.
“That’s what I’ve been told.” Cheerilee shot a glance over the sniveling filly. “I’m finding it a little hard to believe.”
“But I’m a bad filly! Honest!” Dinky shouted in a struggling defense. Her eyes searched her memory for what she was supposed to say. “It’s a phase!” Scootaloo whispered into Dinky’s ear. “I mean it’s not a phase! Also, you’re not my real mom!”
Cheerilee narrowed her eyes at the two older fillies. “Are you the ones feeding her this nonsense? I know you’ve started helping other ponies find their cutie marks since you got yours, but I can assure you that ‘schoolyard bullying’ is not a talent! Do I need to talk to your guardians and ask them about what they think of this new development?”
Apple Bloom’s eyes widened in fear. “Please don’t do that! Sis’ll make me do all the chores for a month!”
“Great. My aunts already grounded me this week,” Scootaloo moped in defeat.
“Yes, please!” Dinky answered with hope in her eyes.
The final, earnest plea took Cheerilee aback. “What?”
The filly’s excited tail swishing stopped as she realized what she’d said. “Oh, wait. I mean, go ahead! I diamond-dog-dare you! I run this school, and you can’t scare me! Please talk to my mom!”
This had to be a prank. Some sort of elaborate joke to try her patience. She’d worked with troublesome students before, seen young foals on their road to discovering themselves start down a troublesome path. However, nothing in her all of her years of teaching had prepared her for encountering such a polite, studious, well-behaved bully. The levels of reverse logic almost made her reconsider calling on Dinky Doo.
On the other hoof, her training and experience told her that such behaviors almost always started at home. Cheerilee had known Ditzy for years and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was a great parent. However, the poor mare was raising Dinky all on her own. It’d been so early in the beautiful mare’s life too. Cheerilee couldn’t even imagine being a mother herself, and she was only a year older than Ditzy. She had nothing but respect for the young mother. Meanwhile, Dinky’s useless father had flown the coop when he found out Ditzy was pregnant and disappeared. If Cheerilee ever saw that no-good deadbeat loser again, she was going to deliver a solid buck to his jaw.
In any case, Dinky was acting up, or was trying her best to do so. Downplaying it would be accepting it, and the last thing Cheerilee wanted to do was let it grow into something real. If she was going to get to the bottom of this, the only way to do that was to give in to Dinky’s demand.
“Then that’s what we’ll do, Miss Doo,” Cheerilee said. “I’ll talk to your mother about your behavior when she comes to pick you up.”
“Wait, today?” Dinky asked in concern.
“Yes. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
The crestfallen filly tapped her hooves together nervously with the consequences of her actions finally becoming real. Cheerilee reminded herself to hold firm. Plenty of her students could be cute as buttons, but the smallest ones like Dinky really pulled at her heartstrings. At least the mere threat of speaking to her mother was having the intended effect.
Finally, the filly broke her silence. “Can it be tomorrow? Maybe during lunch?”
Of course Dinky wasn’t going to make it easy. “I only need to ask her a few questions.”
“No! You can’t do that!”
“Why not?”
“B-because, umm… Mommy is always too tired after work.”
Cheerilee suppressed a giggle at the supposedly bad pony’s kindheartedness. “Ok then. Tomorrow at lunch it is.” She leaned down next to the filly. “But you have to promise me that you won’t try to bully anypony else until we’ve spoken to your mother.”
The filly nodded happily and raised her hoof to her head like Ditzy did for her mail salutes. “I promise!”
“Good. Now come along, you three. There’s still ten minutes left in recess.”
“Okay! Thank you Miss Cheerilee!” Dinky led the charge outside with a skip in her step while wearing a grin from ear to ear.
“You’re welcome, Dinky.”
When the coast was clear, Cheerilee allowed herself a little chuckle before stepping back outside. All things considered, at least Dinky was a considerate hellion.
The rest of the school day had passed just as Dinky promised. The budding bully returned to being the diligent and lovable angel Cheerilee knew she was. When the final bell rang, ending the school day, Cheerilee walked out with Dinky to meet her mother. Ditzy Doo’s smile strained at their approach, looking ready to bolt any second. However, when Cheerilee requested meeting her for a parent-teacher conference, Ditzy nearly panicked.
Dinky was the first to try consoling her mother, saying it was going to be okay, but her mother was too distraught. She admitted that Dinky told her that she was acting bad at school, but she didn’t want to believe her sweet muffin top could do such a thing. Between her fretting and stammering apologies, Cheerilee could barely get a word in edgewise. After one final apology and agreeing to the meeting, Ditzy took Dinky into her forelegs and darted into the skies towards the post office to finish her shift.
Seeing Ditzy Doo frantically worrying was almost too much for Cheerilee’s heart to take. Her thoughts had been consumed by it for the rest of the night as old memories reared their ugly heads. When they were students, the others had endlessly ridiculed the poor pegasus. She lacked coordination thanks to her exotropia, and being a slower learner didn’t help. Their classmates called her "Derpy Hooves" so much that some ponies were still getting her name wrong after all of these years. While Ditzy didn’t seem to mind the mistake as much anymore, it still bothered Cheerilee to no end. It reminded her too much of who she should’ve been. The idea that Dinky wanted to be a bully herself must’ve been tearing Ditzy apart inside.
“Miss Cheerilee?”
The sound of a question brought Cheerilee back to the present. Shaking off the intrusive thoughts, she turned to see who had asked as she threw on a smile. “Yes, Silver Spoon?”
“Is this the right order for natural evaporation?” she asked while pointing to a diagram of the weather cycle.
“Let’s see. The sun heats up the water. Good. Water vapor rises and accumulates—oh, you’re close!” She pointed to the pegasus in the picture that didn’t belong. “Now think back to yesterday’s lesson about natural weather patterns. What does ‘natural’ also mean?”
The filly curled her lip in thought. “Wild?” After pondering the hint for a moment, Cheerilee could see the spark behind Silver’s eyes. “Oh, right. Thanks, Miss Cheerilee.”
“You’re welcome, Silver Spoon.” Looking up at the clock, she’d gotten lost in her thoughts for a little too long. “Now, I think that’s enough time for that worksheet. Everypony pass your papers forward and get ready for lunch! If you’re not done, it’s homework.”
A mix of groans and cheers arose from the class. As Cheerilee waited, her eyes were drawn to Dinky, who was skipping around with a smile on her face and collecting worksheets in her frail magical aura. No bully worth their saltlick would happily help their teacher without even being asked. Why such a sweet little pony claimed to be a bad pony now baffled her to no end. She had a long way to go to reach Diamond Tiara at her worst or Strawberry Sunrise back when Cheerilee was in school.
If she felt this confused, Ditzy must’ve been completely blindsided. Cheerilee could only imagine how upset the mare was as a mother, especially given her history. Though everypony had grown up and buried the hatchet years ago, those early scars were likely still there. The events themselves might’ve been inconsequential in retrospect, but the memory of those emotions could burn just as intensely as any adult problem. All Cheerilee had to do was think back to those days and the shame would echo with a vengeance.
Cheerilee had never picked on Ditzy herself, but she’d never helped either. Her little self had simply gone with the flow of the rest of the students to fit in. She was guilty of laughing at the jokes at Ditzy’s expense, saying nothing when Strawberry Sunrise bullied her, and ignoring her crying alone on the schoolhouse’s patio. When she needed a friend the most, Cheerilee kept her back turned. After all, if she stood up, she’d be next.
“Ready, Miss Cheerilee?” Dinky asked while carrying a large sacked lunch on her back.
Cheerilee blinked. “Oh! Yes.” She cleared her throat and turned to the rest of the class. “Everypony? Please go outside for lunch today.”
“What? But it’s hot!” Diamond Tiara complained.
“Don’t worry, Diamond. I’ll give you my apple juice,” Apple Bloom said as she started to corral the other students along with Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle. “Teach’s got very important stuff to do today.”
Seeing the Cutie Mark Crusaders stepping in so quickly and specifically was raising Cheerilee’s suspicions in every way possible. She almost wished the three were better liars so their failed attempts at subtlety wouldn’t spike her heart rate. If those three were up to something with Dinky, she’d need to speed through the meeting as quickly as possible before acting on whatever cockamamie scheme they’d concocted.
Cheerilee pulled several adult-sized cushions to the table of the Book Nook, a small library with a reading area in the far corner of the room. Dinky grabbed her desk stool to sit down with her lunch bag at the table. It was the first time in the teacher’s professional life she’d ever had a student actively helping set up a conference. Before she could ask Dinky about it, there was a quiet knock at the door.
Cheerilee steeled her nerves and took a deep breath as she opened the door. “Good afternoon, Ditzy.”
Ditzy’s head hung low, as if she was the one in trouble rather than Dinky. The mare barely lifted her head to acknowledge the greeting. “Hello Miss Cheerilee. I’m sorry about this.”
Cheerilee sank seeing the mare so disheartened. “I promise that whatever is wrong, it’s not nearly as bad as you think. Come inside and we’ll get this all ironed out.”
Cheerilee led the sorry mare inside, but the entire way Ditzy refused to make eye contact out of shame. Dinky’s smile fell away almost immediately when she saw her mother’s face. She looked more confused than anything when Ditzy sat down next to her.
Dinky looked up to Ditzy’s eyes. “Mommy?”
“Hi, muffin top. Have you had a good day at school today?”
“Mhmm. Why are you sad?”
“Because I’m worried about you.”
“But Miss Cheerilee is here.”
“And so are you. It’s just…” Ditzy frowned, at a loss of what to say. “I’m sorry if I messed up. I know I’ve been taking you to work a lot, but I promise it’s only for a little longer. You must want to play at home or with your friends more than hanging around a boring, old mailroom.”
“But… but…” The filly looked at Cheerilee in confusion.
Not wanting to see Ditzy put herself through needless heartache, Cheerilee cleared her throat to get the other mare’s attention. “You’ve been busier than usual?”
“Yes. Mister Part’n Parcel retired two months ago, and we’re still looking for another mail sorter. We’ve all been trying to help out, and I’ve sometimes had to take Dinky with me on my route.” Ditzy sighed to herself as she dug around in her saddlebag. “I barely have time to help her with her homework. It’s probably why her grades have been slipping.” Finding her target, Ditzy pulled out a short stack of papers and put it on the center of the table. “She showed me these last night.”
Cheerilee pulled the curious papers closer and immediately recognized the worksheets and tests she’d given out over the past few weeks. What she didn’t remember was the italicized F’s at the top of each one.
“What is this?” Cheerilee asked Dinky.
“Umm…” Dinky’s eyes widened and she rocked back and forth in her stool. “I’m sorry. I’ll try to do better.”
Cheerilee looked closer at the papers, focusing on the most recent Equestrian history test she’d given. She knew for a fact that Dinky was a straight A student. Why in the name of Celestia were Dinky’s grades—
Klink!
Cheerilee’s ears perked up as her troublemaker senses shot to attention. “What was that?”
“What was what?” Ditzy asked, looking up from her moping.
“I thought I heard something.” Cheerilee looked around for the source of the noise, quickly checking the playground door to see if anypony had sneaked back inside. She turned to Dinky who was busy looking between the two older mares with worried glances.
“Are you okay, Cheery?” Ditzy asked.
Cheerilee’s thoughts came to a screeching halt. Nopony but her friends used that nickname, and she hadn’t heard it in years. She never expected to hear it from Ditzy.
“Oh! Sorry.” The mother covered her mouth and backed away. “I mean Miss Cheerilee.”
Cheerilee quickly shook her head. “It’s alright, Ditzy. I was just thinking how I hadn’t heard that name in a while.” She threw in a small, placating giggle for good measure. “How nostalgic.”
Ditzy tilted her head. “You haven’t? But what about Strawberry Sunrise and Bonbon?”
Sunrise and Bonny? Cheerilee couldn’t remember the last time she’d spent much time with either of them, or really any pony. They used to invite her out all the time, but work always managed to get in the way. If those two were still spending time together, they’d given up on extending invitations to her. It made sense. She would’ve likely stopped trying too if she was always being told no by her friends.
“I still see them around town when we’re not busy, but they don’t call me Cheery these days.”
“Why not? Do you not like it anymore?”
Cheerilee shook her head. “It’s nothing like that. I guess I’m just not that cheery these days.”
“But you always cheer me up when I see you.”
Cheerilee couldn’t help but smile. She’d forgotten how endearingly earnest Ditzy could be. It was a wonderful quality that she was glad Dinky had picked up too. “Thanks, Ditzy, but let’s refocus on the matter at hoof, shall we?”
The mare nodded and slunk back down in her seat. Dinky watched her mom and frowned in disappointment. Looking between the little family, their roles almost seemed reversed. She felt the urge to be Cheery again and pick the somber pegasus back up.
“About these grades. It seems somepony has been playing a prank. Dinky is a straight A student.”
“What?” Ditzy grabbed one of the papers and began looking it over. “But there are so many X’s!” She turned the page over and pointed at the top. “And the F!”
“Are you sure that’s an F?”
Ditzy furrowed her brow in confusion and turned the paper back around. She tried to focus her eyes on the paper, holding it up to get a better look. The page caught the light and Cheerilee could see a thicker streak of white running perpendicular to the long side of the F. Ditzy must’ve noticed it too as she put the paper down and scratched the whiteout away with her hoof, revealing the rest of the A underneath.
“What is this?”
“I’m sure the others are like this as well.” Cheerilee took one of the homework assignments and looked over it as she stood up for her cushion. “In fact, I think these X’s were drawn over with red pencil. Let me just grab you an eraser and—”
Dinky’s ears flopped as she jumped out of her seat. “Wait! Don’t!”
“Don’t what, Dinky?”
The filly quickly levitated her pencil bag from her desk and plucked her eraser out of it. “You can borrow mine, Miss Cheerilee!”
The teacher blinked and sat back down while eying her suspicious student. Dinky squirmed under the pressuring gaze, but Cheerilee took the eraser in hoof anyway. With careful strokes, she began erasing the colored pencil marks from the test, revealing a series of correct check marks all the way down along with the top line of the F. She then followed Ditzy’s example and scraped the whiteout away on her paper as well.
Cheerilee nodded and showed her work. “This looks more familiar. A perfect score.”
Ditzy blinked in confusion as she tried to focus on all of the makings in front of her. “I don’t understand. Why would somepony do this?”
“I honestly have no idea, but I think somepony at this table does,” she said as her eyes went back to Dinky.
“I cheated,” Dinky admitted hesitantly.
“How does making your grades worse count as cheating?” Cheerilee asked.
Having called her bluff, Dinky rubbed her hooves together nervously as she tried to find a different excuse. “I opposite cheated?”
Ditzy turned to her daughter with a deep frown. “Now Dinky, you shouldn’t lie to other ponies. Why did you lie about your grades?”
Dinky looked down at her hooves. “I’m a bad pony now, so I should get bad grades.”
“But you didn’t get an F, muffin top.”
“Because Miss Cheerilee would be sad. I didn’t want to make Miss Cheerilee sad,” Dinky whined.
“But seeing bad grades makes me worried about you too.”
“I-I know, but…” Dinky looked to Cheerilee and then back to her mother. “You didn’t believe me!”
Cheerilee sank into her hooves and sighed. Dinky was proving to be a terrible bully, but not in the way the filly wanted to be. “Do you really want to be a bully, Dinky?”
“Yes,” Dinky mumbled as she kicked her legs.
“It doesn’t sound like you want to be.”
“But I do!” she pressed. She looked between the adults. “I-I beat up Scootaloo yesterday.”
Ditzy gasped in shock. “You did what?”
Cheerilee shook her head. “No you didn’t. Scootaloo was perfectly fine when I checked her. Not a feather out of place.”
“Well, the day before yesterday I kicked down somepony’s sandcastle!” Dinky argued. “That’s bad!”
“Peppermint Twist told me that you built it.”
“No I didn’t! She’s lying!”
“Dinky?” Ditzy lowered her head to the table, trying to catch her daughter’s eyes. “Did you really kick down somepony else’s sandcastle?”
“Y-yes. I did a bunch of other mean stuff too,” Dinky swore as she stared down at the table. “Honest.”
“Okay,” Cheerilee said, backing off from the talking point. She didn’t want to shut the filly down, so she tried a different approach. “Why did you do mean stuff to your friends?”
“Because I’m a bad pony.”
“Do you want to be a bad pony?”
Dinky nodded, but kept her eyes locked on the table in front of her.
“But why, muffin top?” Ditzy asked with increasing worry. “Why do you want to be bad?”
Dinky closed her eyes and shook her head.
“Are you mad at me?”
Dinky’s eyes shot open. “No! I love you, mommy! I love you so much and I want you to be happy! But, why are you sad? You’re not supposed to be sad now!”
“What? What are you talking about?” Ditzy asked, completely lost in the conversation.
Instead of answering, she slammed her hooves down on her stool and turned to Cheerilee. “Why is she sad, Miss Cheerilee?”
Cheerilee was at an utter loss, but she didn’t want to push the filly any further and risk shutting her down. She was obviously confused by something, but was still clinging to her bullying idea. If Dinky started crying, then her mother might not be much further behind. She needed to talk to Ditzy and refocus their efforts. “You must be hungry, Dinky. Why don’t we go outside and eat with the others?”
“Umm…” The filly stole a few glances around the room. “Okay,” she muttered warily.
“Great. While you do that, I’ll take a second to talk to your mom.”
“Will that make her feel better?”
“Of course. We’re good friends. Just don’t bully any of your friends, okay?”
“I won’t,” Dinky promised. She hopped down from the table and grabbed her lunch bag with her mouth waiting for the adults to follow her out.
Cheerilee took Ditzy Doo by the hoof and led her out. She could feel her trembling, likely wracked with worry. Once they were outside, Dinky trotted off to the picnic tables alone. Ditzy watched her daughter run off as she sat down on the end of the back porch. She leaned against the post like she used to years ago. Unlike when they were fillies though, Cheerilee joined her side.
Ditzy hugged the old pole as she leaned into it. “I just don’t know what I did wrong.”
“Let me make this absolutely clear before we move forward: Dinky is one of my best students,” Cheerilee stated firmly with no reservations. “I can assure you that Dinky has done absolutely none of those things she’s told you at home. I would’ve spoken to you before she did or sent a note home with her at the very least.”
A little smile wormed its way into Ditzy. “I know. She’s always been my sweet, little muffin top. I’m just worried why she’s trying this. I can’t help but feel like this is my fault. I’m her mother.”
Cheerilee put a supportive hoof on Ditzy’s shoulder. “Well, I’m her teacher. And I can tell from the way she behaves in my class that she has a wonderful home life.”
Ditzy’s tender smile widened. “Thanks, Miss Cheerilee.”
“I wasn’t lying to Dinky when I said we were friends. You can call me Cheery if you want.”
A brief moment of shock was followed by one of Ditzy’s signature sweet smiles. “Really? That’d be okay?”
“Only if you’re okay with it. I haven’t always been a good friend to you.”
“That was a long time ago.” The mare waved her hoof. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Everypony is different now.”
“You’re right.” Cheerilee sighed as she tried to gather her thoughts. “The truth is, it still bothers me when I remember how I treated you. Maybe it’s because I’m around children all of the time, I don’t know. It doesn’t do much good now, but for what it’s worth, I’m sorry for not being there for you when you needed somepony.”
Ditzy went quiet as she let the surprise apology sink in. Somehow the smile turned even sweeter as the comforting words enveloped her. “Thank you so much, Cheery.”
“You’re welcome, Ditzy.” Cheerilee cleared her throat to get back on topic. “And I don’t mean to assume, but I can only imagine how worried you must be that Dinky might be trying to bully somepony else.”
Mentioning her daughter brought the mare back down to reality. “I didn’t believe her, but I don’t think any parent wants to hear that their child is picking on somepony else. Not my little muffin top.”
“Don’t worry. I know Dinky has a bright future ahead of her. I’m sure that if we put our heads together, we can figure out what this attempted mean streak of hers is about.” Cheerilee looked over towards the table Dinky had sat down at. “First we should…”
Ditzy straightened up. “We should what?”
Cheerilee stood up and did a quick headcount and came up four students short at twelve. “Where are—”
Before she could finish her question, a sensual saxophone blared from inside the schoolhouse. Both mares shot looks over their shoulders and then back at each other.
“Why is Careless Warbler playing in the school?” Ditzy asked.
“That is a very good question.” George Mellowlark’s smash hit was incredibly popular back in Cheerilee’s glam days, but it wasn’t exactly appropriate for primary school students.
Both ponies rushed back inside and saw what Cheerilee had feared all along. Dinky had been joined by Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle in the middle of something, she wasn’t sure what.
The papers from earlier had been stacked and put aside on Dinky’s desk and in their place was a flower vase filled with white peonies—Cheerilee’s favorite flower. A large picnic blanket had been rolled over the table. Dinky was in the middle of pouring cold pizza slices out of her brown paper bag while Sweetie Belle set the table. Meanwhile, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were off to the side wrestling with the classroom’s record player that was playing one of the most stereotypically romantic songs of Cheerilee’s generation.
Through it all, Cheerilee kept her cool. She calmly trotted over to the record player and lifted the needle by hoof. She breathed through her nose and looked over the fillies who’d been caught with their noses buried in the proverbial cookie jar. She said nothing. She didn’t need to. Her glare was enough of a demand for an explanation.
“I told you we should’ve waited until they got back to mess with the record player!” Scootaloo hissed to Apple Bloom.
“No.” Cheerilee shook her head. That was not what she wanted to hear. “Is this what I think it is?”
Sweetie Belle tapped her chin as she looked over the table. “There’s no love poison this time?”
The teacher smacked her forehead, her patience having completely run out. “That isn’t the point! We’re in the middle of a very important meeting and we don’t need whatever it is you expected to happen! For peat’s sake, it’s not even Hearts and Hooves Day!” She firmly put her hoof down. “I am very disappointed in you.”
While the crusaders grimaced and looked away in shame, the scolding was too much for Dinky. She immediately buckled under the pressure with little sniffles that crumbled into sobbing. “I’m a bad pony!”
Ditzy immediately went into mother mode, swooping in to wrap her child in a warm wing hug. “No, no. Don’t cry, Dinky. Mommy’s got you.”
Cheerilee bit her regretful tongue and waved the other girls over. The three fillies quietly shuffled off to the front desk with their teacher to give Dinky and Ditzy some space. She took her seat with a stern look and ordered the crusaders to stand next to her.
“Okay you three. Explain. Now,” Cheerilee demanded.
“Hey, don’t look at us. This wasn’t our idea!” Scootaloo said.
“I don’t care whose idea it was. I want to know why.”
“But that’s the thing. We don’t know, Miss Cheerilee. Honest!” Apple Bloom cried. She gently kicked her hoof across the ground. “Dinky just asked us to help set up a dinner date at school for y’all, but she never told us why. This was all her idea.”
“Actually, the pizza was ours,” Sweetie Belle admitted. “I tried to cook spaghetti, but it didn’t go well.”
Cheerilee tilted her head in confusion. “A dinner date?”
“I just wanted you to be happy again, and I didn’t know what to do!” Dinky sniffled, trying to get control of herself. “I knew Miss Cheerilee makes you so happy, and I thought I could—I could trick you and… and…” Dinky wailed into her mother’s chest.
Ditzy went quiet, patting her daughter on the back to soothe the muffled cries. However, the pegasus herself was fighting back a blush. “It’s okay, Dinky. Of course she makes me happy. We’ve been good friends since we were your age,” Ditzy clarified as her eyes darted between her daughter and Cheerilee.
Dinky lifted her head. “But that’s not what your picture books said.”
“Picture books?” Ditzy said under her breath as she stroked her daughter’s mane. “Oh! The ones I drew of all my friends? You’re right, muffin top. They did make me happy. It’s why I drew them.”
Diny shook her head. “No, not those. The other ones.”
“Other ones?” Ditzy froze and paled from the shock. She slapped on a strain smile and kept her eyes focused on Dinky. “D-don’t be silly, I didn’t have any other picture books.”
“What about the ones with the pretty words? Miss Cheerilee was in a lot of them and how happy she makes you and how much you like her and how you wish you could be together.”
Ditzy’s eyes widened in mortified shock. “Those were…” The mare blanked as she looked around, her mouth scrunching up from embarrassment. Cheerilee was fairing no better having locked up upon hearing Ditzy’s second-hoof confession. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were both blushing and suppressing a giggle while Scootaloo was gagging to herself.
Dinky tapped her mom’s chest in concern. “Mommy?”
Reading the room, Ditzy cleared her throat and forced a smile. “You know what? We can talk about those later, along with your reading level. Thank you for trying to make me happy.”
Dinky sank into her mother’s fur with a small smile. “You’re welcome. I’m sorry for lying to you.”
“It’s okay. I forgive you. I love you, my little muffin top.”
After giving the two a moment, Cheerilee approached the little family. “Excuse me, Dinky?”
“Yes, Miss Cheerilee?”
“If all you wanted was for your mother and I to,” she paused and cleared her throat, “go on a date, why did you do all of this?”
Dinky gripped her mother’s fur tighter for support. “Mommy’s books said she likes you, but she’s too scared. Then I remembered you talking to Snips’ mom when he got in trouble. I thought if I got into trouble too by being bad, you’d have to sit down and talk to my mom.”
The plural books didn’t slip unnoticed by Cheerilee, but she set that idea aside. “So, all the bad things you said you did was just so I’d call your mother in for a parent-teacher conference?”
Dinky nodded. “And then after I was in trouble, you could eat lunch together.”
“And while you two weren’t looking, we were gonna help Dinky make it more romantic with all the fancy stuff and spaghe—I mean pizza,” Apple Bloom added.
Sweetie Belle grumbled to herself.
“Yeah, but we couldn’t even get set up with you watching everything all the time. We barely managed to sneak back in behind Ditzy Doo!” Scootaloo complained. She buzzed her little wings and popped her legs. “Your desk is really cramped, by the way.”
The teacher furrowed her brow. “That’s because it’s not meant for three fillies to hide underneath.”
“We’re sorry,” the Cutie Mark Crusaders said in unison.
Cheerilee sighed to herself. She had all the answers she’d been wanting now, but had no idea what to do with them. Her students were always finding new and inventive ways of getting into trouble that she’d never even imagined. “It’s alright. I forgive you, but you should’ve known better than to try something like this again.”
“B-but it was for a good reason this time, right?” Apple Bloom suggested. “We just wanted to help Dinky and Ditzy.”
“While you may have had good intentions, you shouldn’t have gone along with her idea. And Dinky?”
The filly flinched at her name. “Yes, Miss Cheerilee?”
“I know you wanted to help your mother, but you made her worry by lying to her about your behavior at school. That’s no way to make her happy.”
Dinky sniffled again and hugged her mom. “I’m sorry I made you worry.”
“It’s alright, Dinky. I already forgave you.” Ditzy lovingly kissed the top of her daughter’s head and smiled softly. “But we’re going to talk about your lying when we get home, okay?”
Dinky nodded and smiled back. She knew she was in deep trouble, but Cheerilee could see the relief in her face as she savored her mother’s warmth. She then turned to the teacher with a small, uncertain frown. “Does that mean you won’t have lunch with mommy?”
Cheerilee cracked a smirk of her own. “Now, I didn’t say that.”
Ditzy’s enveloping, maternal aura was shattered in an instant as she popped up from her hug. “Wait, what?”
“I’d love to have a proper lunch date with you sometime, Ditzy. Maybe I could even grade those pretty books of yours.”
“O-oh! Well.” The mare tittered nervously as her wings twitched in embarrassment. “It’s just some bad poems. You wouldn’t like it.”
Cheerilee laughed. “Ditzy, I’m constantly checking sentences written by ten-year-olds. I could stand to take a break and read something written by somepony my age.”
Ditzy burned even brighter and she buried her face in her daughter’s mane trying to hide. “Actually, I wrote some of them when I was ten.”
Cheerilee balked. “That long ago? But what about that—” she stopped herself just in time before she blurted out something insensitive. “You know.”
Ditzy lifted her head and stroked her daughter’s hair to keep her jittering occupied. “I thought I liked a lot of ponies. I even got hurt really bad once because of it. I never regretted who came along because of it though.” She nuzzled Dinky’s mane and squeezed her with a loving hug. With renewed strength, she looked back to Cheerilee with her beautiful, golden eyes filled with nerve-wracked bravery. “But still, even after everything, I always liked you the most, Cheery.”
Cheerilee was glad she was already a darker coat color, otherwise the flushed feeling in her cheeks might’ve been noticed. “Then, how about we have dinner this weekend?”
Ditzy’s tail swished back and forth as she beamed with joy. “Really?”
“Sure. How’s Saturday sound?”
“I think I could do that. I’ll have to see if Amethyst is available to watch Dinky first, though.”
Cheerilee hummed to herself. “I don’t mind if Dinky goes with us, just as long as she doesn’t mind tagging along with her mother and teacher.” She leaned down to her student and smiled. “And she must promise to be a good little pony from now on.”
Dinky sparkled with excitement. “I’ll be good! I’ll be good!”
“Wonderful.” Cheery smiled at the pair. “It’s a date.”