//------------------------------// // Meeting the teachers // Story: GTVS: The Great Teacher Vinyl Scratch // by Mariacheat-Brony //------------------------------// Celestia's Royal Academy's teachers' parking was on the other side of the block compared to the students gate. Vinyl drove into it around one minute after having dropped Octavia. She found a free parking spot right next to the building entrance. She got off her bike to open her trunk, revealing the most formal set of clothes that Rarity had ever offered her: a white suit with trousers. Basically the only piece of clothing she had never worn since she had it. While Vinyl was busy taking off her helmet and jacket, a purple sedan stopped behind the spot she was in. The driver, a dark skinned woman in early thirty with dark straightened hair with a purple-pink highlight, pulled her head out of her car window. "Excuse me, Miss!" she called. "It's the teachers' parking, the one for the students is on the other side of the street, in front of the gate!" Vinyl looked at the woman for two seconds before turning back to her trunk. "Thanks for letting me know!" The woman blinked in confusion. "Huh... What I meant was that you can't park here!" she explained softly but firmly. "You said it was the parking for the teachers, didn't you?" Vinyl asked, grabbing her laptop from the trunk before closing it. "Yes!" "Then, I don't need to move my bike!" Vinyl chuckled, her laptop and formal suit under her arm. "Sorry, but you'd have to find another spot." Vinyl bowed and scraped jokingly before going to the building's entrance. "Hey! Get back here!" the woman shouted in vain. Vinyl walked inside the building before finding the signs that indicated where the staffroom was. After a good minute long walk, she entered the staffroom inside which she only saw a woman with pinkish fair hair. She looked a bit older than the one from the parking and was wearing a mulberry suit with skirt and a white blouse. The woman looked up from her desk when Vinyl entered and smiled warmly at the DJ. "Can I help you, dear?" she asked politely. "I think so," Vinyl said with a nod. "I'm supposed to meet a certain Ms Cheryl Lee, do you know where she is?" "You're looking at her." Cheryl giggled playfully. "I don't remember receiving a note about a meeting student at this hour though." she added with a small frown. "I must've missed the memo. Anyway, what can I do for you?" "I'm the new music teacher, Vincenza Scratch." Vinyl introduced herself with a polite tone. "Mr Philharmonica said you would be the one to show me around." "It's you?" Cherly asked with eyes wide from surprise. "Wow! The headmistress informed me that you were a bit younger than the average of teachers here, but I wasn't expecting you to be so much young looking," she said with a small smile. "Well, I'm only twenty-two, so it's kinda normal." Vinyl chuckled with a small grin. "Wow, only twenty-two and already a teacher here!" Cheryl blew out an impressed whistle. "You must be real..." The staffroom bursted itself open before Cheryl could finish her sentence. The woman from the parking entered in fury, glaring at Vinyl the second she came into her field of vision. "You!" she shouted, pointing an accusatory finger at Vinyl. "Students have no rights to park in the teacher's parking! Nor they have the right to have piercings." she pointed a finger at Vinyl's ears. "...Nor dyed hair!" she added with anger waving toward Vinyl's electric blue hair. "And, if that wasn't enough, you're not even wearing the school uniform!" "Yes, I know all that!" Vinyl answered casually. "I just don't see what's the problem given that I'm not a student....." "Oh!" the woman with the purple-pink highlight let out sheepishly. "In that case, sorry about my outbur...." "...but a teacher!" Vinyl finished her sentence with a wide grin, causing the woman to freeze from shock. "....What?" "Ms Sedgwick, she's the new teacher of the music section's seniors," Cheryl chimed in slowly. "....What?" Sedgwick repeated slowly with an incredulous expression on the face. "That's not possible!" "Well, Mrs Lee here..." Vinyl started slowly. "Ms Lee, please!" Cheryl interrupted her with a giggle. Vinyl raised her hands casually. "Sorry! Ms Lee here seemed to know about the fact I was coming and..." "Cheryl, do you have her application file?" Sedgwick asked, interrupting Vinyl abruptly. "If you knew she was coming, you must have read it, mustn't you?" "The headmistress had already approved her application, so...Um ... Well, I didn't read it," Cheryl confessed slowly. "Give it to me!" Sedgwick ordered Cheryl who obeyed after a few seconds of searching on her desk. "Something's wrong! There's no way a girl like her would have been hired for this job." she opened Vinyl's file. "What's the problem with a girl like me, exactly?" Vinyl asked with an offended tone. "Well, it's indeed her, if her CV's photo is of any indications," Sedgwick commented slowly, completely ignoring the DJ. ".... She has no degrees.... She didn't even graduate from high-school....." she let out with a dumbstruck tone as she read through Vinyl's curriculum vitae. "What?!" Cheryl asked with surprise. "She dropped out during her junior year...." "Hey! I'm right here, you know?" Vinyl groaned in anger. "Wait! Ms Heliopolis said to me that she was in the music business before!" Cheryl interjected. "Maybe that's why she was chosen for the job!" "You're probably right....." Segdwick sighed in relief before stumbling upon Vinyl's work history. "No, you're wrong!" she said with a small gasp. "She wasn't a musician, she was a DJ!" "OH! Per carita!" [OH! For crying out loud!] Vinyl shouted in annoyance and anger. "DJs are musicians too!" "How come the headmistress accepted?" Cheryl asked herself in bewilderment, still ignoring Vinyl. "Ma ché cazzo sono Io? Trasparente e muta?" [What the hell am I? Transparent and mute?]" Vinyl groaned to herself. "Imagine the reaction of the parents council..." Sedgwick said with worry, not paying much more attention to the DJ than her colleague. Vinyl had had enough of being ignored like that. She pulled out her cellphone out of her pocket, searched through the music playlist she had, before stopping on a tune labeled 'Drop Test'. Vinyl put the volume of her cellphone's speakers to the maximum before positioning it between the heads of the two women who were leaning over her CV. When the speakers were inches away from the women's ears, she started the tune. "Kyaaaaah!" the two women shrieked with a start after a loud 'wub' exploded between them. "What the hell's wrong with you?" Cheryl shouted angrily at Vinyl, her hand placed on her left ear. "Oh good, you can hear me!" Vinyl said sarcastically. "Now, we can talk!" "Talk?" Sedgwick shouted. "I should fire you for what you just did!" she added in an angry groan. "Who're you to say that?" Vinyl asked defiantly with a cocked eyebrow. "I'm this school's Vice-principal," Sedgwick explained. "And I'll not tolerate such behavior from you." "Mannaggia la....." [Damn the....] Vinyl exhaled a deep breath to keep herself from outbursting at the Vice-principal. "You are speaking about tolerating my behavior?" she asked with cocked eyebrows. "When it's the two of you who are totally disrespecting me?" Vinyl added with a dark glare. Cheryl didn't answer that question, she simply started to look at the ground in shame. The Vice-principal Sedgwick kept a straight face against the young teacher's glare. "Listen," Sedgwick started slowly. "I don't know how exactly did you manage to get this job, but there's no way the headmistress would have approved your application. Because you're clearly not fit for it." "Sure!" Vinyl whispered sarcastically, rolling her eyes at the vice-principal. "And you know that because....?" "Because you're undereducated!" Sedgwick expressed her point by hitting Vinyl's CV with the back of her hand. "We're trying to get our students prepared for their professional life here! That requires a teacher that has academic training, experience with teaching, who knows what the musical world is in this case!" "You think I don't know what the musical world is, Lady?" Vinyl snapped vigorously. "Don't you know where I come from?" "I know where you come from!" Sedgwick glared at Vinyl. "It's said right here!" she tapped the DJ's CV again. "Well, you clearly don't get it, so I'll explain where I come from!" Vinyl said with a shrug. "I come from five years of intense work in and about the music industry!" "It says on your CV that you started to DJ three years and half ago." Sedgwick remarked. "Because you think I woke up one day and said: 'From this day forth, I'll be a professional DJ'?" Vinyl growled. "That, after I dropped out, I've been spending more than a year lazying around, drinking myself drunk, smoking or doing drugs before doing something of my life?" she asked rhetorically. "Huh... Well,..." Sedgwick started with embarrassment. "Sta zita! In ogni tanto, me ne frego un cazzo de le tue pensieri a proposito di questo!" [Quiet! I don't give a shit about what your thoughts on that matter, anyway!] Vinyl snapped loudly. Cheryl looked at Sedgwick who bore a shocked expression from being interrupted, tinted with an obvious incomprehension. Just like Cheryl did, she didn't understand a single word of what Vinyl had just said. "I spend the year after I dropped out preparing myself: studying different styles of music to be able to blend them together correctly, learning how to do my electronics by myself and other specificities that you probably won't understand a single thing about!" Vinyl explained with anger. "Only then, I tried to break through the music business. The first couple months were just some amateur works or parties for friends in order to polish my skills until I get my first official contract a bit after my eighteenth birthday! After my first real gig, it had been three years and a half of constant work. In six months only, I was standing on the top of Manehatten's club life and I remained there for three fucking years!" Vinyl caught her breath before speaking again to the two teachers who were looking at her in a religious silence comparing to their previous rantings about the DJ's Curriculum Vitae. "The music business is a though one! Even more when you're just a kid freshly out of school," Vinyl said in a much softer tone. "If you want your students to go out there and try to make it in the biz, right after they graduate, 'might as well take a teacher who's been in their shoes recently enough to actually remember about it and give them pointers that matter." A soft sound of hands slowly clapping together came from the staffroom's door. "Very nice speech, Ms Scratch," a motherly voice said with a pinch of pride. "I'm glad I decided to follow Vito's advice about you." "Ms Heliopolis!" Sedgwick snapped her head toward the voice along with Vinyl and Cheryl, before gasping with widened eyes. "What happened to your hair?" A tall, tanned woman stood almost regally on the doorstep. She was wearing a white tailor suit with a knee long matching skirt. Her face was happily smiling but her gaze was full of authority, Vinyl interpreted that as a 'I'm nice but don't mess with me!' expression. Although the effect was sort of messed up by her long, wavy, multicolored hair. "Oh! That?" Ms Heliopolis asked innocently, pointing her finger at her teal, azure and pink locks. "I lost a bet to Dimitri and Selene yesterday afternoon. I have to keep my hair dyed like that for a week." "I would keep it like that longer if I were you," Vinyl chimed in casually. "It looks good on you." "Why, thank you!" Ms Heliopolis smiled. She turned her head to Sedgwick and Cheryl who were gawking at her. "Cheryl, Theresa, please stop staring like that." "I'm sorry, Madam Headmistress!" Cheryl said, quickly turning her gaze away. "What are you doing here?" Theresa asked sheepishly. "Aren't you supposed to be in the main lecture hall to set the Welcoming Ceremony up?" "I was but you were late so I checked the parking," Ms Heliopolis said softly. "When I saw this white and blue bike on your parking spot and your car double-parked behind it, I put two and two together." "OH!" Theresa blushed in embarrassment. "I'll go there as soon as the matter with our young teacher here is closed." "It already is, my dear." Ms Heliopolis said softly. "I got Ms Scratch's application through Mr Philharmonica. After hearing his advices on the subject, I decided to hire her as a teacher for the senior-students from our musical section," she explained. "The matter's closed." "But, ..." "Are you questioning my judgement, Theresa?" Ms Heliopolis asked playfully, but firmly. "No! Not at all!" Theresa said quickly. "Bugiarda!" [Liar!] Vinyl muttered under her breath. "It's just that I'm worried about what the other teachers and the parent council might think about us hiring a DJ as a music teacher." Theresa continued, oblivious to Vinyl's mumblings. "We'll cross that bridge when we have to." Ms Heliopolis shrugged. "Besides, they're likely to argue about my hair before even noticing Ms Scratch's presence." "If you say so...." Theresa turned to Vinyl. "Well, I guess it's welcome on board then. Sorry about ...earlier," she said apologetically while sheepishly extending her hand for Vinyl to shake it. Vinyl eyed the vice-principal's hand with caution before sighing. "Great to be here, I guess." the DJ shook the offered hand slowly. "Let's try to avoid the kind of episode we had earlier in the future." "Fine by me!" Theresa nodded. "Now, would you mind moving your bike to another spot, please?" Vinyl blinked. "....Why would I move my bike from where it is?" she asked in confusion. "Because it's my spot!" Theresa explained while Ms Heliopolis face-palmed. "Care to explain why I should care about that?" Vinyl asked before seeing Cheryl fervently signing her to not ask. "With pleasure!" In the end, Vinyl reluctantly accepted to move her bike to the spots reserved for motorcycles, at the other edge of the parking. Not because she had been convinced by Theresa's arguments, but only to make her stop talking. The vice-principal had demonstrated in full detail, with a frantic use of two of the staffroom's blackboards, why she had the right to use that parking spot and what points of the school's rules forced Vinyl to comply. Vinyl had listen to the first fives but had given up when Theresa stated they were still thirteen left. After being back from the parking and having changed in her white formal suit in the staff restroom, Cheryl toured in the school's building. Vinyl had spotted Octavia when the DJ passed in front of the cafeteria during her tour. But the young woman didn't noticed the DJ, as she was busy telling something to her friends. The tour ended by Cheryl showing her her allocated classroom. "And, here's where you'd be giving classes!" Cheryl said happily before unlocking the room 303. Vinyl let out a slow impressed whistle as she entered the classroom. Well, a smaller version of concert hall would be a better definition than a classroom. There was a stage that occupied more than half of the room, about fifteen one person desk displayed in arc of a circle front of it and a large desk at the right of the stage, with a mixing console, probably connected to the stage's sound system, on top. At the sight of the mixing console, Vinyl's whistle became sharper. "Ciao, Bella!" [Hey there, Beautiful!] Vinyl whispered in an almost amorous tone as she walked to the mixing table. "Awww, yeah! That's some good stuff!" Vinyl commented happily while she examined the console. "The soundproofing of the room had been remade during the summer," Cheryl explained with a smile. "As for the sound system, it's brand new! They put it up only two weeks ago." "You're telling me this baby hasn't been used already?" Vinyl asked eagerly. "Huh...Yes," Cheryl answered. "Why do you ask?" "Time to change that!" Vinyl said happily, ignoring Cheryl's last question. Vinyl took her laptop out of his protective jacket and plugged it to the mixing console before powering both of them up. She played a random track from her vast library of tunes. As the music started to play, her excited grin was replaced by a puzzled frown. She changed multiples settings of the console to no avail, the song sounded completely out of tune. "Something wrong?" Cheryl asked as she noticed Vinyl's frown. "Yeah..." Vinyl said slowly. "I don't know what they did when they installed it, but the settings are completely messed up." she kneeled down to look under the desk. "MA QUALE GRUPPO DI DEFFICIENTE!" [WHAT A BUNCH OF RETARDS!] she yelled in anger before powering the console down. "None of the plugging was done properly. I'll have to redo it entirely!" Vinyl growled before starting to unplug every wire connected to the console. "Do you have to do that now?" Cheryl asked. "The welcoming ceremony's about to start!" "The ceremony lasts what? Half a hour, forty minutes top?" Vinyl asked, still busy unplugging the console. "Forty minutes of hearing a fancy speech that most students don't even listen to. It's no problem if I miss it!" "You're supposed to guide your students from the hall to your classroom," Cheryl said. "You're supposed to be introduced as well." "They can find it on their own, can't they? I mean, it's not their first year in this school. They don't need a chaperon to find a classroom." Vinyl shrugged casually. "Vabbè, tutto e staccato adesso!" [Ok, everything's unplugged now!] the DJ said to herself. "Just gotta sort everything now!" Vinyl sighed in annoyance. "Vincenza, I don't think Sedgwick and Madam Headmistress are going to approve you ditching the welcoming ceremony." Cheryl warned softly. "Tell them it's either I miss this ceremony to set this thing right, right now..." Vinyl said, pointing at the console. "Or, I go to the ceremony and do it when the students are here with me!" "You don't have to do it, you know?" Cheryl tried to convince her. "We can always call those who set the sound system in the..." "Cheryl', after the sloppy job they did in the first place, I suggest to never contact them again!" Vinyl retorted with a shrug. "Fine!" Cheryl sighed in defeat. "Good luck with your class when they get here," she added before going out of the classroom. "Ok, thanks!" Vinyl turned her gaze on the pile of wires and plugs at her feet. Her gaze followed the wires up to the stage where it took notice of all the speakers on stage. "I'll have to see which wire is for which speakers.... Might take me more than forty minutes.... Better get to work immediately." she unbuttoned her white suit jacket and put it on the hatstand near the door. "Se caso mai faccio una macchia su questo, Rarity mi ammazzera!" [If I ever stain this, Rarity'll kill me!] Vinyl whispered before heading on stage. "That was a strange welcoming ceremony," one of Octavia's friends, the boy with short blond, nearly white, hair, commented softly as the group of six students was slowly climbing up the stairs to get to their classroom on the third floor. "What was the strangest, Frederic?" Beatrice asked with a small chuckle. "Heliopolis with her tricolored hair? Or Sedgwick freaking out when Ms Lee whispered her something right before the ceremony started?" "Easy answer!" Another boy of the group, with short, wavy brown hair this time, answered, giggling softly. "Octavia with a biker jacket!" "Henry, would you please get off my back with that jacket?" Octavia asked in an annoyed frown, Vinyl's jacket resting on her shoulders on top of her uniform's black sleeveless pullover. "I wonder what happened for our new teacher to be absent at the ceremony." the last girl of the group, a tall pale girl with dark curly hair as long as Octavia's, pondered. "I think Ms Sedgwick mentioned something about the new sound system they installed during the holidays, Viola," a caramel color skinned young man with dark short hair said with a calm voice. "You know, 'Parish', I wonder why they have even installed it," Frederic muttered with a small frown. "It's not like they needed it during the previous years." "I told you that I don't like to be called by my surname." Parish said calmly. "Oh, right! Sorry, I've spent too much time with Henry during the summer," Frederic said in a genuine apologetic tone. "Well, we can't pronounce your first name and you don't like that we call you 'Harsh' so we got to call you something?" Henry chimed in. "Boys!" Viola said impatiently before Parish could reply. "I'm not hearing this discussion again! You've been through that one at least a hundred of times." "GUYS! GUYS! Wait up!" a girl with short nearly white hair with slightly teal ends shouted as she was running from the floor below to catch up the group of six. "Hello, Laura!" Octavia smiled politely as she stopped to face the newcomer. "Where were you during the ceremony?" "I was ..... saying hello to my.... friends from when I ... was in Classic Literature," Laura explained, panting a bit because of her running up the stairs. "Apparently, they've seen our new teach'. They say she looks cool!" "That's very useful to know, Laura," Viola sarcastically said. "Thank you very much!" "Ignore her, Laura!" Beatrice said, rolling her eyes at Viola's comment. "Anything else?" "No, they've only seen her for a couple of seconds when Ms Lee was giving her a tour," Laura replied softly. As the group started to climb up the stairs again, she noticed the white and blue biker jacket. "What's that jacket, Octavia? You got a bike during the holidays?" Laura asked with curiosity. "No, I didn't get a bike during the holidays." Octavia chuckled softly. "It's a long story, I'll tell you after class." "Ok!" Laura nodded. "Anyone has seen Diana, Fiona or Nathan yet?" she asked as they reached the third floor. "I think they're in front of the class room already," Frederic said, extending his neck forward to search for the others. "There!" He pointed at the group of three in front of the room 303; a tall, well built, young man with messy shoulder long blond hair, a small girl with short light-blond hair and another girl with long dark brown hair with an orange scarf wrapped around her neck. The group of seven joined the one of three and, after having bid their hello, they entered in the classroom, spotting a white suit jacket on the hatstand and an open laptop on the mixing console. But they didn't see any sign of an their actual new teacher. Viola quickly walked up to the suit jacket before examining it with attention. "Viola, what are ya doin'?" the student with the orange scarf, Fiona, asked in a whisper as Viola was picking up the jacket. "Guys, this comes from Carousel Boutique!" Viola let out excitedly. "Oh, our new teacher must be so refined and...." "Finalmente, ho finito! Spero ché funziona adesso, altrimenti vado a trovare quelli installatori di merda per gli spaccare il culo in due!" [Finally, it's done! I hope that it works now, otherwise I'm gonna find those shitty fitters to break their ass apart!] All the students blinked in confusion at the italian outburst coming from the stage. Well, all the students beside Octavia whose eyes snapped wide open when she heard that voice. No... It can't be her, right? Octavia thought, her eyes refusing to look elsewhere than her feet. She heard the footsteps coming from stage toward her and her friends and classmates. She heard someone make a small jump from the stage to land a couple of feet in front of the small group of students. She started to look up. No sneakers at her feet. That's good! Octavia thought as she looked up to the teacher's waist. No ripped, low-waisted jeans... but simple and elegant white trousers! So unlike her! Octavia's gaze went higher. No white tank top .... but a black, cotton, strapless bustier. Octavia smiled internally. No tattoo on the.... Oh God the tattoo is there! .... This means it's her.... Octavia's face fell when her gazed on the teacher's left shoulder on which the word 'PON-3' was tattooed. Ocavia looked up to her teacher's face level and saw Vinyl's face grinning at the young students in front of her. "Hey, kids! I'm your new teacher for this year! My name's Vicenza Scratch!" Vinyl shouted happily to a dumbstruck Octavia and her confused classmates. "......Mannaggia!" [Damn!] Octavia let out in a slow whisper.