It was the middle of yet another day of school. The early morning lessons had reached their climax, and the students had been released for their hour-long lunch break. Other than eating lunch, most of the students were taking the time to socialize, play on the playground, or just prance around like wild loons. Normally, the trio of fillies who called themselves the Cutie Mark Crusaders could be found eagerly amidst the crowd of frolickers, but today they happened to be caught up in a discussion with their special guest from Manehattan.
“Okay, but if there’s five classrooms, then how does the teacher teach all of them at once?” Scootaloo asked as she finished off the last bite of her sandwich.
“I told ya, Scoots. We got more than one teacher. That’s just how it works in Manehattan,” Babs said, trying to be patient with her rural friend.
“Can you imagine a school with five Miss Cheerilees?” Sweetie Belle asked, imagining the idea as she flipped onto her back.
“That’d be five times the fun!” Apple Bloom said with a small, jubilant hop.
“And five times the homework,” Scootaloo said, crossing her forelegs as she leaned against the wall of the school.
“I don’t think you guys are following me,” Babs said, frustration permeating through her tone. “We got five teachers ‘cause a how many students there are to teach. We don’t get taught by all five-”
Babs mouth went still as her gaze got stuck on the opposite side of the playground. Her eyes narrowed, her eyebrows furrowed, her mouth curved downward, and she dramatically rose back onto her hooves, her attention no longer on her three friends.
“Is everything okay, Babs?” Apple Bloom asked as she turned to see what had so powerfully caught her cousin’s attention. It didn’t take half a glance for her to realize what did.
On the other side of the playground, right next to the slide, were two familiar fillies who Babs had spent quite a bit of time with during her first trip to Ponyville. One was pink and wore a tiara, and the other was gray and sported glasses.
“Looks like the sugar lumps are making their daily rounds,” Babs said as she observed them making conversation with some of their classmates. “Are those two still making trouble for you guys?”
“A little, but it’s really not that bad anymore,” Sweetie Belle said, noting her friend’s sudden souring of disposition.
“Yeah, now it’s just sort of like going to the dentist...you know, every day,” Scootaloo said, receiving two chastising glares from her friends.
Babs blew her mane out of her eyes. “I’m gonna go see what they’re up to.” She made her advance across the playground, her friends apprehensively watching her leave.
“Does it really matter what kind of produce they serve at something like that?” Diamond asked with a single raised eyebrow to the two young pegasi in front of her. “I mean, what difference does it make if they serve oranges instead of apples?”
“I heard that kumquats were the in fruit right now,” Silver Spoon said with a knowledgeable grin.
“You see?” Diamond said, basking in the attention from her small audience. “I’d say don’t even worry about those dumb apples. I don’t even think it’ll matter-”
“You just can’t stop puttin’ my family down, can ya?”
Diamond’s temperament descended into frustration as the sound of that accent struck her eardrum. Wondering if she'd heard it correctly, she casually shifted around to validate the presence of the one that had just accosted her, and Silver Spoon promptly followed suit.
“Well, if it isn’t the two-faced city slicky herself,” Diamond greeted with a healthy dollop of mockery. Noting a well-sized puddle of mud on her immediate right, she took a large step to her left. “Just so you know, if you came back to apologize, we’re expecting two copies, in writing.” Silver Spoon nodded in agreement.
Babs rolled her eyes. “My whole family came here to help pitch in to help rebuild the Apple family barn that got crushed by that meteor last week. I thought I'd come visit my cuz at school, and the way I hear it, you two are still giving her and her friends some grief.”
“We don’t tell them anything they don’t already know,” Silver Spoon chimed in with a snicker.
Diamond joined in on her friend’s mild laughter. “And besides, don’t you think it’s about time you just got tired of them already?”
Babs felt slighted at that remark. “What are you talking about? I didn’t get tired of nopony. I just realized who my real friends were.”
Diamond’s scowl came rushing back. “Your loss. We would have been better friends than those three would ever be. Come on, Silver Spoon.” The two started to walk away, Silver Spoon sticking out her tongue at Babs as she followed.
“What, you late to get your eyeballs polished or something?” Babs challenged as the CMC finally worked up the nerve to approach the battlefield.
Diamond turned her head as she continued walking forward. “I’m going to the swingset, Appleflakes. You want to tell my mother on me?”
“Come on, Babs,” Apple Bloom said. “We only got ten minutes left until our break’s over.”
“Yeah,” Scootaloo agreed. “Let’s not waste them poking the dragon queen.”
Diamond’s ears sprung up on her head like a pair of uncoiled snakes as her pace came to an immediate stop, causing Silver to run into the back of her. Unfazed by her friend’s collision, she turned her head halfway back towards the quartet of fillies with an eye almost red with scorn.
“What did you just call me?” she asked as her friend quickly recovered and straightened her glasses as she joined in on glaring.
“Hey, we don’t tell ya anything ya don’t already know,” Babs mockingly said.
"We're not going to make it to the swingset, are we?" Silver asked, her friend too distracted to hear.
“First of all, if I’m a dragon, I’m a dragon princess,” Diamond said as she stomped back toward them. “Second, I’d much rather be a dragon than a rat.”
“Whaddya mean by that?” Babs asked as she mirrored Diamond’s approach.
Diamond smirked. “I’m sorry, I thought it was obvious. Can your little mousy brain just not handle that many words at once?”
Babs’s frown held firm. “No, I just don’t speak dragon breath.”
The two rammed their heads together the moment they got close enough, each of them ready to explode at a moment’s notice. The spectating audience could only watch as the two glared at each other like they were each ready to bite the other’s head off. Then, Diamond abruptly pulled away, disgustedly shaking her head and vigorously brushing her mane with her hoof.
“Is that grease in your mane?” she asked. “What is wrong with you?”
Babs ran her hoof through her mane, which slicked back as she did so. “Hey, where I come from, ponies without grease in their mane are the weird ones. Anyway, it’s better than the mayonnaise you got running down yours.”
Diamond gasped, then resumed her aggressive stance. “There is absolutely nothing artificial about my mane!”
“Well, I guess all of you can’t be!” Babs shouted, once again mimicking Diamond’s anger.
“Uh, Babs,” Apple Bloom whispered, momentarily distracting her cousin. “I think yer takin’ this a bit too far.”
“Yeah,” Scootaloo agreed, also in whisper, “if you make her too mad, who do you think’s gonna be paying for it later?”
Babs hesitated. “But I’m trying to get her to stop-”
“You should listen to your real friends, Greasy,” Diamond said as her smirk came back. “Now why don’t you put that ratty tail of yours between your legs and scamper off before you make me angry?”
Babs felt her anger swelling up again, but she felt conflicted now that her friends were asking her to stop. Then again, if she backed down now, she’d be giving Diamond a lifetime supply of arrogance to use against them. She kept shifting her eyes between her opponent and her friends, trying to decide what was the right thing to do. Eventually she sighed and turned around.
“All right, you guys. Let’s just go.” Babs began to walk away with the CMC, trying to keep her head up high without sticking her nose up.
As she felt a wave of victory wash over her, Diamond felt obliged to laugh, so she did. It was a very quick, simple laugh, but it was the most satisfying one she'd ever felt flow out of her mouth.
However, it was that very laugh that broke Babs’s commitment to taking the higher road. She suddenly whirled around, dug her hooves into the dirt and shouted, “Because I can’t stand looking at this dragon’s ugly mug for one more second!”
Every eye was opened, every jaw was dropped, and every bet was placed at the utterance of that sentence, every one, that is, except for Diamond and Babs. Diamond had narrowed her eyes and firmly locked them on her opponent, staring her down like she was wearing plaid. Babs stepped forward so there was only about a foot in between them, much to her friends’ discomfort. The standoff continued for about a minute as Diamond contemplated how to respond. After that minute had passed, Diamond finally opened her mouth to say something.
“Don’t you just hate it when this happens?”
“Boy, I’ll say. It’s like a rude frenchpony. There’s no merci.”
Diamond and Babs ended their staring contest to turn to their left in confusion. Curiously, standing in front of them were two pale yellow unicorn stallions in vaudeville hats and striped vests. They were facing away from the two, but they were very clearly talking about them.
“It’s such a shame to see our little ones calling each other ugly, isn’t it Flim?”
“A great tragedy, Flam. Foals today don’t know where the making up starts and makeup ends.”
“Hey!” Apple Bloom shouted, alerting the attention of the two stallions. “Ain’t you the salesponies who tried to run my family out of business?”
Flim chuckled nervously as he looked away from her. “Isn’t she a cutie? Here, have a carrot,” he said as he shoved a carrot into her mouth. She annoyedly muffled something and walked off with the carrot in her mouth.
“You know, Flim, it’s a real shame all little ponies can’t be that innocent.”
“Sure is, Flam. What do you think goes wrong with some of them?”
“I think it’s a sickness, Flim, and I’m not a doctor.”
“That’s too bad, Flam. If only there was a way to help foals everywhere stop fretting about who looks more like the scaly potato chip that’s been shoved under the sofa.”
“Wouldn’t that be a dreamsicle in a world without ice cream?”
“But wait, Flim, what if I told you there was a way we could turn that dreamsicle into a realitysicle?”
“I’d say the mental ward’s been duly informed, Flam.”
“Then you better pull out the straight jacket, Flim, because I’ve got the invention that’s going to bring all the senseless bickering to an end.”
“You don’t mean...”
“That’s right! The Flim Flam Brothers Magic Magnifying Mirror 7000.” As he said its name, the unicorn held up a shiny, two-sided, purple hand mirror in the face of his companion.
“Did I hear that right? Did you say you have the true, genuine, one-of-a-kind Flim Flam Brothers Magic Magnifying Mirror 7000?” Flim waved his hooves around the article without touching it as he restated its name.
“Why, I do believe you did hear right, good sir.” Flam raised the mirror high into the air. "The Flim Flam Brothers Magic Magnifying Mirror 7000.”
“Now hang on just a second!” Flim asked in a slightly lower pitch, now wearing a false mustache and standing over by two very confused pink and orange fillies. “What are you trying to pull? Isn’t that just a regular, ordinary hand mirror?”
“Well, random customer, I suppose you might be right if this weren’t the Flim Flam Brothers Magic Magnifying Mirror 7000. You see, this mirror has been specially and magically designed, modified, and caricatured to be the single most revealing hand mirror that ponykind has ever seen. Just one glance at yourself in this beauty, and you’ll be able to see each and every little, bitty flaw about your appearance down to the last nose hair.”
Flim stroked his false mustache with his magic in contemplation. “Well, Flim Flam Brothers, if I came across that kind of information, I'd be too ashamed to call a swamp monster in the summertime ugly. But how do I know it really works?”
“I’m glad you asked, unpaid spectator.” Quickly sliding in behind Babs, Flam held up his purple mirror and vigorously rubbed her mane with his hoof. “Take this little boy here. I’ll bet he has no idea about the series of embarrassing warts starting to grow on his neck.” Flam held the mirror up to Babs’s neck, revealing a series of red dots on the mirror's opposite side.
“What?” Babs asked, stretching her neck to get a better look in the mirror.
No longer wearing his fake mustache, Flim grabbed the mirror and held it up to Diamond’s mane, looking through it like a magnifying glass. “And this little cupcake here’s wound tighter than my great aunt’s antique violin collection. Looks like she’s got three years before she’ll be needing to borrow daddy’s toupee.”
“L-let me see that!” Diamond exclaimed, swiping the mirror out of the stallion’s grasp and fervently checking her mane with it.
“Hey, I saw it first!” Babs argued, taking it away from Diamond to get another look at her neck.
“Excuse me, but I didn't hear anything about you going bald!” Diamond said, pushing Babs aside to take it back again.
“And I didn’t see you getting called a little boy!” Babs tackled Diamond to grab it back, sending them both into the large puddle of mud.
"There's nothing wrong with your neck!" Diamond shouted, jerking the mirror out of Babs's mouth. "Now let me see my mane!"
"Your mane looks fine!" Babs retorted before catching Diamond's back leg to send her plummeting onto her belly. "It's just kinda muddy now."
As the two continued to fight over the mirror with increasingly more vitality, Flim and Flam once again faced away from the two as they continued.
“So, Flim, do you see what I see?”
“Sure do, Flam. Looks to me like the insult well’s gone dry.”
“Can’t argue with that one, Flim. These two don’t have one nasty thing left to say to each other.”
“And how could they? They’ve got the Flim Flam Brothers Magic Magnifying Mirror 7000.”
The two simultaneously took off their hats as Flim stated, “So act fast while they’re still in stock. Don’t miss out on your chance buy your very own Flim Flam Brothers Magic Magnifying Mirror 7000 today!” The two each held up their own individual purple hand mirrors and smiled directly in front of them.
“Who are you talking to?” Sweetie asked, standing between the two stallions and looking in the same direction as them.
“She’s on to us, Flim. Let’s skedaddle.”
“Way ahead of you, Flam.”
The two dashed away, grabbing their camera they had set up and disappearing from sight as quickly as they appeared, leaving behind their spare mirror in the constantly shifting clutches of their marketing representatives.
Her mane now disheveled and muddy, Diamond commanded between gasps of air, “Give me that mirror...right now...or your family’s going to have to pitch in to rebuild you!”
Also messy, Babs replied, “You want it?” She shoved the entire thing into her mouth, letting her saliva encompass it as she smoothly dragged it back out and extended it toward her aggressor. “Here ya go.”
Disgusted, Diamond backed away, giving Babs a frustrated scowl. “Fine! Keep your stupid mirror! I’ve got plenty of them!”
“That don’t surprise me!” Babs barked back.
“Come on, Silver Spoon. I don’t want to catch the crazy bug that’s going around out here.” Diamond turned away and began heading off towards the classroom along with her friend.
As she watched the two storm off, a switch flipped in Babs’s mind, and she felt the need to shout, “Hey, dragon princess! Whose tail’s between her legs now?”
Diamond dragged her hoof into the ground as she came to a stop, and she looked back at Babs with an expression of exhausted malice. Anticipating her friend's reaction this time, Silver Spoon leisurely stepped to the side before running into her again.
Now it was Babs’s turn to feel victorious. She beamed and confidently said, “Maybe next time you’ll think twice before-”
Before she could continue, Apple Bloom shoved a carrot in her mouth and Scootaloo assisted in pushing her away from the danger zone while Sweetie Belle insisted to Diamond that Babs didn’t mean it that time.
Diamond let out a deep sigh, half in relief and half in annoyance, before continuing back towards the classroom. As the two reached the door, Cheerilee made her way outside to let her students know it was time to come back in. Seeing the two in front of her, Cheerilee immediately noted Diamond's messy appearance and asked, "Diamond Tiara, what happened out here? Why are you such a mess?”
Diamond and Silver looked at one another, then up at their teacher, their expressions blank and emotionless. The two struck a pose and unenthusiastically replied in unison,“The Flim Flam Brothers Magic Magnifying Mirror 7000.”