Farm Diamond
Chapter 5
EVERYTHING FILTHY RICH TRIED in order to fix the little money problem he had accidentally thrown himself in was all done in constant vain. In short of arriving in Manehattan and after getting settled in, he and Cash Banks went to the stock brokers in order to get things sorted out. What he thought would last a few days at least continued to draw on with little-to-no progress. He had managed to get back a few thousand bits; the remainder of his money, however, was still gone and his bank accounts frozen. The counterfeiters, the ones whose products he had invested in, were nowhere to be found.
The counterfeiters, the ones whose products he had invested in, were nowhere to be found. Because the investments he made were counterfeit, illegal, and he was one of those directly responsible who hadn’t gone into hiding to avoid the authorities, it was obvious that he would have to take the brunt of the backlash. That answered the question as to where most of his money went: reparations to those affected, which, unfortunately, numbered in the thousands.
Cash Banks offered any support he could offer to help Filthy Rich, but even that was not enough to change the situation significantly. Simply by glancing in his direction, one could tell Filthy Rich was on edge. His silky black mane, which was usually clean and kempt, became incredibly disheveled and it looked like he had not slept in days. His cutie mar, after all, was three money bags, which meant his skill with business and other matters of the economy. Having to go through this type of situation was incredibly stressful.
“Why don’t you take a seat?” Cash Banks led his friend over to a nearby bench. It was some time in the early afternoon. The air was perfect, yet it did little to ease the amount of worry Rich was currently showing.
Filthy Rich could only bury his face in his hooves. Everything he had, from Plan A to Plan M, failed, which made him doubt any other alternatives would succeed in the long run. “How long have we been at this?” he asked.
Cash Banks replied, “About ten days, exactly. I would’ve expected some serious changes to have been taken out by now.”
“I don’t think that’s coming for a long time,” said Rich.
“Was there any progress in finding the ponies responsible?”
Rich shook his head. “Not a trace,” he stated. “It’s like they up and disappeared out of existence. Wherever they might be, I sure hope the Royal Guard manages to find them.”
Cash Banks sat down. “Dare to dream.”
There was a brief moment of silence between them. Cash thought of their next plan of action, but it became apparent that Filthy Rich was ready to throw in the towel. “I’ve tried everything.”
Cash nodded. “Yeah, you sure did.”
“If I hadn’t been so overzealous with the investments, none of this would have ever happened.”
Cash agreed, again.
“And now, because of that, things might never go back to normal.”
Cash nodded again. “Yeah, you screwed up.”
Filthy Rich looked over at the green earth pony in irritation. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“Just throwing words out. Nothing personal,” Cash said, giving a sympathetic grin. “You know I’m sorry that this happened to you.”
“It’s not your fault. I’m just wishing things played out differently.”
“You must still have some tricks left, right? Any at all that you could use?”
“I do,” Rich replied, “But I don’t see any of them working out. They’ll probably backfire like the rest of them. We might as well just give up.”
Never in Cash Banks’ life would he ever expect to hear those two words—give up—coming out of his mouth. The last thing Filthy Rich ever did was give up like that, and throwing in the towel here, right in front of them, was shocking to the green earth pony. He responded: “Ponyfeathers!” His sudden outburst garnered the attention of Filthy Rich, as well as an offended mother covering her foal’s ears.
Ignoring her and her disappointing glare, Cash continued to try and convince his friend otherwise. “Never in my life have I seen you quit like this. It’s just too unnatural for a pony of your caliber.”
“You know I’ve tried everything,” said Filthy Rich.
“And…?” It became obvious that Cash wasn’t taking no for an answer, “Listen, you helped me when I was down and out and the last thing I’m gonna do right now is abandon you when you need it most. You know what I say to you giving up at a time like this? I say horseapples!”
A growl came from the mother. “Seriously,” Cash snapped, “if you see a couple of grown stallions talking like this and you have a foal with you, wouldn’t it be smart to leave?”
The mother left after casting another disappointed look, and after she was gone, he continued, “I know you must still have something left to use, right? Whatever it is, I’ll help see it through.”
Filthy Rich put a hoof to his chin and contemplated on his next plan. He looked back at Cash who was eagerly awaiting his response. “You know what; actually, I might have one more.”
“Good,” said Cash, “Let’s do it!”
Rich nodded. For once, things might have a chance of going his way. “Good, but first we’ll need to contact Fancy Pants for this to work.”
Cash froze at the mention of that name. It was one that struck him in the nerve as he hesitated to take another step. “You mean the unicorn Fancy Pants… from Canterlot?”
“Yes…?” Filthy Rich confirmed.
“You sure you don’t have any other solutions that might work. Really, you must have something else, right?”
“Quit stalling and come on.” Before another word could be said, Filthy Rich was off, galloping down the street. Cash Banks gazed after him, watching the rapidly departing earth pony with worry.
“I know I’m going to regret every minute of this,” he said before following after Rich, sprinting to catch up with him.
Having Silver Spoon around to hang out with again took away much of the anxiety that Diamond Tiara normally felt ever since moving in with Applebloom and her family. Now that she had her best friend to hang out with once again, she would no longer have to sit around Sweet Apple Acres all day. With Silver Spoon back, Diamond could look towards the positives again. She could see things were beginning to look up in this bleak time she was facing.
In no time at all, her father would return from Manehattan, their unfortunate economic problem a thing of the past, and she could finally forget everything that’d transpired thus far. The filly looked forward to it with anticipation. In no time at all, she would be kicking back in her mansion, free from “hard labour” that came with working on a cheesy farm and free from Applebloom and Granny Smith. Although, before there was even a remote chance of this happening, she’d have to wait patiently—or as patiently as she possibly could—until this time came.
In the meantime, she would spend most of her days with Silver Spoon, and even though the temptation of teasing Applebloom and her Cutie mark Crusader pals was rising with each passing day, she was still residing under the Apple Family’s roof, which meant that she would still have to hold off on the ridiculing, unless she wanted to disappoint her Dad and possibly invoke whatever punishment Applejack would have in store.
“You’re back early,” said Applejack. She let Diamond Tiara in after she was done waving farewell to Silver Spoon.
“We have a ton of homework to do,” replied Tiara, “We decided it’d be best to get at least some of it done before tomorrow.”
Applejack shut the door once Tiara was inside. Granny Smith was awake in her rocking chair, reading over the local Ponyville Newspaper. The sight reminded Tiara of her Gabby Gums article she used to be in charge of, though she tried hard to forget about it. She quit the school newspaper soon after, but often times she wondered if she could have changed things if she had the chance.
Tiara emptied the contents of her saddle bag onto the living room table. The stuff that was inside included her homework and a textbook in algebra. “You an’ m’ah sister haven’t been talk’n to each other for quite a while,” said Applejack, “Is someth’n wrong? Would have expected you to at least—”
“There’s nothing wrong,” said Diamond, nonchalantly, as she got started, or tried to get started, on her work.
“You sure…?” asked Applejack.
Diamond waved the cowpony off and reassured her. “I’m sure. Believe me. I just rather hang out with Silver Spoon.”
Despite having an answer, even if it wasn’t something she wanted, Applejack decided to keep pressing forward, hoping to try and get Tiara to reconsider her thoughts and actions towards her sister. The only thing she wanted out of Diamond Tiara staying with her and the rest of her family was for her and Applebloom to get along for once, and not get series of reports from Cheerilee about their arguments at school. In fact, the fight she had been informed days before was the first time she realised what their petty differences were evolving into.
“Listen, Diamond, I get you still don’t wanna get along with Applebloom, but maybe—just maybe—things can change between you two.” The orange mare surely hoped that she was going somewhere with this. Trying to convince the spoiled filly was the best she could do at the moment. “You know, I think she’s still off with her friends try’n to find out what their special talents might be. Perhaps you could go an’ lend a help’n hoof.”
At that, Diamond Tiara scoffed. “Are you serious? Like I’d ever, in a million years, want to help those blank-flanks with anything.”
Applejack was extremely shocked that Tiara had said that—and her to face, too! She was losing patience with the uptight, stubborn filly in front of her (those were two qualities of somepony that Applejack hated the most). Since agreeing to take her in at the discretion of Filthy Rich, she had tried being the polite one, civil and hospitable, even with having to deal with her attitude, but now she was that it was leading her nowhere but in a dead-end.
She did not like it—and she really didn’t want to—but she saw now that the only way to get through to her was taking another approach; a more direct approach.
“Applejack!” Interrupted from her thoughts, the cowpony looked over at Granny Smith. “Leave her alone. Jus’ give her time, hun.”
Applejack glanced down at the young pony doing her homework and back at the elderly mare sitting in her rocking chair. She was shaking her head, which told Applejack not to go through with what she was thinking. What was she thinking? Usually Granny Smith’d be all over a pony if they acted like that in front of her.
She trotted over towards the olive-green mare. “Granny, I’m not entirely sure you heard what she jus’ said.”
“Oh, I heard. Every word of it, too,” said Granny Smith.
“An’ you’re jus’ gonna let her get away with it? Jus’ like that?” Applejack stood frozen in disbelief for a brief moment. “You’d smack me silly if I ever went off talk’n like that.”
“That’s because you were never supposed to be like that one over there. I never intended to raise you to be a spoiled pony, did I?” Granny Smith looked over her grandaughter’s shoulder at the pink filly. “Trust me, dear. I know exactly what I’m do’n.”
Applejack wasn’t too sure. Even though she wanted to take her word for it and expect to be alright between Applebloom and Diamond Tiara, Applejack couldn’t help but outright doubt her granny’s methods. Just letting a pony like Diamond Tiara go off acting like she was now wouldn’t solve anything. At least that’s what she thought. Whatever her Granny Smith was thinking, she could only hope it worked.
The orange earth pony trotted upstairs, casting a look of suspicion at Diamond Tiara as she passed. Diamond sighed. She didn’t mean to say those things about Applebloom and her friends, especially in front of Applejack! She and Big Macintosh were nice enough to let her stay with them while her Dad was out of town. She was always taught by her father that no matter whom the pony was, or what their relation was, she’d always have to treat them with respect as long as she was under their roof.
She had no idea was possessed her to do that in the first place, but now, as she continued with her homework, she could only silently thank Granny Smith for calming down
Don’t know… Don’t know… Fell asleep during that one… This one’s too hard… Can’t even begin to figure this one out… Diamond sighed, Geez, Miss Cheerilee, why don’t you assign us collage homework next?
She reread the questions over and over again, but she still couldn’t quite get it down. No matter how much she read over it, skimmed over it, there was still no understanding. Next to her was her algebra book and past homework assignments and guides, some of them weeks old and already graded. She skipped over the questions in front of her that she had no answer to, which was actually most of them.
In her days of sheer boredom due to Silver Spoon’s absence from class, she ignored nearly everything Cheerilee had taught them over the past few classes, leaving the filly unable to produce any answers. She looked over at Applebloom. The scarlet-maned filly was seated next to her on the couch; she’d returned home from “Crusading” an hour earlier, and she was already nearly finished with her assignments. Comparing her work to the work done by Applebloom, it became apparent that she wouldn’t be passing this semester.
Immediately, one option came to mind. She turned her gaze towards Applebloom. There was no way she would ever ask for her help in anything, but now, seeing the amount of progress done on her own homework in comparison to the work done by the pony next to her, she simply became desperate.
“Applebloom…” she muttered. The yellow filly looked at her. Tiara sucked up her pride and asked, “Could you… help me with a problem?”
“What’s so hard about it? It’s just math,” replied Applebloom.
Tiara was about to regret her decision and go back to trying to do it herself, but decided against it. In retrospect, it wouldn’t be a very wise decision. “I’m not good at math,” she said, “If you saw my grades, then you would know why I’m asking you for help.”
Applebloom understand what she was talking about. She took a glance down at Diamond Tiara’s paper and analysed her progress. Not much was done; only about a quarter of the page was finished and most of the answers on that small section were wrong either from answering them incorrectly or simply trying to guess the answer, a tactic which even the young cowpony knew was a bad move.
She read one of the questions: 4(x) + 16 = 272.
“This one’s easy,” she said, “The first thing you should do is take sixteen and subtract it by both sides of the equal sign.” She showed this by placing two more 16s on the page, one under the first 16 and the second underneath 272. The answer for the small equation came up as 256. “Now that you have that answer, all you have to do is divide both sides by four and you’ll get your answer.”
Tiara tried this. Her answer came up as 64, though she was still slightly uncertain about it. “Are you sure this is the right answer?”
“Positive,” said Applebloom, “If you’re not sure about it, then switch X with the answer you got then go from there.”
Tiara wrote the 64 down in the parenthesis. She did the math, getting 256 by multiplying 4 and 64 before adding 16 to get the same answer that was on the equation.
“See?” said Applebloom, “Easy as pie!”
There were similar questions presented in the small section that Diamond had been stuck on the entire time. She followed the instructions Applebloom gave her for each one, using the plug-in method to ensure that she had the correct answer. As she moved down the paper, the questions generally got easier to solve, mainly due to the fact that she asked Applebloom for assistance the entire time.
What in Equestria are you doing? Diamond Tiara found herself internally conflicting with her conscience. Are you really asking that blank-flank for help? What ever happened to your pride? Don’t let her get the best of you.
“Need any more help?” Applebloom asked. She seemed happy and slightly content with assisting Tiara with anything she needed.
The lavender-maned filly, however, despite how much she desired her assistance, denied her offer. She glanced down at her homework. She was almost finished; just a few more questions left to answer and then she’d be done and have it out of the way. “No thanks. I think I have it from here.”
Applebloom shrugged. “All righty, then… Seeya!” She stood up.
“Where are you going?” asked Diamond, confused.
“Upstairs,” answered the cowpony, “I’m already finished with m’ah homework.”
Hearing this had left Diamond Tiara in shock, her mouth agape. Applebloom finished so quickly, and Diamond Tiara was still working on her homework, trying hard to figure out the winding equations that were left unfinished. She eventually noticed that Applebloom had forgotten her homework on the table.
Tiara took a quick peak and read the answers. It’s technically not cheating if you don’t get caught, she always told herself, especially during tests and quizzes when she would have some “help” when she had difficulties answering a question. She copied the answers Applebloom had written down onto her paper.
Next morning during school, Diamond Tiara turned in her finished homework. The day after, she received a B. Cheerilee found out she had cheated, copying from Applebloom’s work, though that was only towards the end. The rest of her paper was done on her own, albeit with a little help, but she wouldn’t admit it.
The rest of class went off without a hitch. They had a test today. Diamond knew much of the material that’d been on it from studying with Applebloom the day before. Her pencil scratched against the paper, leaving her final answers under every question that had been asked of her. She finally finished after a while, being the next-to-last student to turn in her paper only before Snips. Even in that circumstance, she felt confident about her progress, about how she managed to apply so much that she learned.
The final school bell rang to signal the end of the day. The foals were left the school house into the afternoon. “Diamond Tiara, Applebloom; can I see you two for a minute?” The two fillies were called over by Cheerilee.
They looked each other in confusion before trotting over. “I just wanted to say that I’m glad to see you getting along,” said the teacher in a relieved tone, “…or, at least tolerating each other’s presence.”
“We jus’ thought we’d give it a try for once,” said Applebloom, “Right, Diamond?” She elbowed the pink filly.
Diamond wanted to say something in protest, but instead, to put on a show for Cheerilee, nodded in agreement with her enemy. “Sure… We’re both just getting along perfectly. There’s nothing to worry about here, Miss Cheerilee. We’re becoming great friends.” She added this by putting a “friendly” hoof around Applebloom.
Cheerilee smiled warmly at the sight in front of her. For once, she could look forward to not having to lecture them. “Applejack told me yesterday how Applebloom helped you with your homework, Diamond Tiara,” she admitted, “You must be getting along better than I thought. I’m so glad to see that.”
Sometimes, I really hate Applejack, Diamond thought to herself, suppressing the urge to say that aloud.