Scootaloo arrived at school early and tried to play it cool. Diamond Tiara should be showing up any moment now, and she had lost ninety percent of her fur, mane, and tail when Scootaloo did a fiery sonic boom near her.
Sure enough, a smooth, pink pony and Silver Spoon walked up to the school. Rumble, Twist, Snips, and Snails were but a few of the fillies present to witness her arrival. The fellow crusaders came up along side Scootaloo to watch.
“Snails, is that a mole?” Snips asked.
“Duh, I don’t know, Snips, aren’t they s’posed to be wrinkly?” he replied.
“Hah, who is the blank flank now, Diamond?” Twist shouted.
The fillies and colts began laughing, as she walked onto the playground. She had a tuft of mane holding her tiara in place, and just enough tail to identify her as a pony. Her neck to her flank and hooves were absent of hair, with a few scorched black clumps that had been scrubbed clean to resemble peach fuzz.
“Smile!” Feathweight clicked his camera. “This will make an excellent article in the foal free press!”
Silver stayed close to Diamond as they walked towards the school house, as her bald friend choked back tears.
“Serves her right,” Sweetie said. “Making fun of us all those times.”
Scootaloo didn’t feel happy like she thought she would. Instead she felt something else for her. Perhaps it was guilt or pity, but all she could think about was why nopony ever stood up for the crusaders when they were being teased. Now, everyone was teasing Diamond and no one stood up for her.
Part of her wanted to do nothing, and call it justice, but this seemed more like revenge.
“Blank flank, blank flank, Tiara is a blank flank!” the students chanted.
“Hey!” Scootaloo shouted, walking over to Diamond. Everypony turned to look at her. “Who you callin’ blank flank?”
Diamond wiped her muzzle on Silver, as Scootaloo stepped up alongside her.
“Scoots, what are ya doing?” Apple Bloom asked.
“You always talk about how unfair it is we were made fun of for blank flanks? Are you just gonna stand there and let everypony else make fun of her now?” she asked.
“Well, she deserves it,” Apple Bloom said.
“No, she doesn’t. I thought she did, and I thought it’d be fun to make fun of her, but look at her. She’s just as sad as we were all those times nopony stood up for us blank flanks, well I say it stops now. If anypony else makes fun of her, they’ll answer to me!” Scootaloo shouted.
Sweetie and Apple Bloom looked around, and then walked up to join their friend at Diamond’s side.
“T-thank you,” Diamond muttered. She started to say more, but quickly hurried inside with Silver Spoon. The filly felt naked without her fur and mane, and even worse without her cutie mark.
“Are you feeling okay, Scootaloo?” Sweetie asked.
“Yeah, I just realized something.”
Apple Bloom turned around and tilted her head. “What’s that?”
“All that time I spent angry at people picking on me, or at Gerda, or wishing somepony would come along and protect me. . . The only way to keep that from happening again is if I’m not afraid to be that pony that helps other ponies out. Maybe now that somepony was nice to Diamond, she won’t be mean to us anymore.”
“Ah’ll believe it when I see it,” Apple Bloom said.
“Yeah, Scoots, it’s sounds nice but I’m not so sure it’ll work,” Sweetie replied.
“Today’s class is on long division,” Cheerilee announced.
Several fillies groaned and Scootaloo slumped her head on the desk.
“Oh, don’t give me those looks, I know a perfectly fun way to do it!” the teacher stated. “To start we’re just going to get our pencils and paper out.”
Scootaloo turned to Sweetie and noticed Rumble staring at her. He quickly looked away when she saw him. “Hey, Sweetie, got any extra paper?”
“College or wide ruled?” she replied.
“Huh? We’re not in college.”
Sweetie sighed, and tore a piece of paper out of her notebook.
“Thanks! And uh, got a pencil?” Scootaloo smiled.
“Didn’t Dash buy you school supplies for the new school year?”
“She must have forgot on account of us being too awesome.”
“Scootaloo, is there something you’d like to share with the class?” Cheerilee asked.
“No ma’am, I just forgot my pencil,” she replied.
“Here you go.” Diamond tossed a pencil over onto her desk and quickly averted her gaze back to her own paper.
“Thanks, DT.” Scootaloo looked at Cheerilee and smiled. “All set!”
“Right.” Cheerilee turned her attention back to the board. “So, first we see how many times three goes into two, and it goes in zero times so w—”
“See, Sweetie? She’s like 20% nicer already,” Scootaloo whispered.
“Pfft, maybe, but I bet when her cutie marks grow back in she won’t be so nice,” Sweetie said. “I’ve been trying everything and I still can’t get mine! How’d you do it?”
Scootaloo glanced back, noticing Rumble staring at her again before looking away. “I uh—I don’t know, I was just being myself. Like, if you were home right now what would you be doing?”
“I would b—” both fillies quickly focused on their papers when Cheerilee glanced back. The entire class pretended to be paying apt attention. Once she turned around, several hushed conversations resumed. “I’d probably help Rarity with some dresses, sometimes she’ll let me sing while I do. She won’t let me cook anymore, but she loves to make me go crusading with you.”
“Okay, so let’s do that! We’ll make some dresses and crusade!” Scootaloo erased some of the work she had done on her paper and tried to copy Cheerilee’s steps.
“If it were that easy I’d have one already,” Sweetie said.
“It is that easy.” Scootaloo turned to copy the answer off her paper and noticed Rumble staring again. “Okay, Sweetie what’s up with Rumble? He keeps staring at me when I’m not looking.”
Sweetie turned to look at him, and he slid further down into his seat to hide from the two fillies gazes. “Oh.” She turned back around and leaned towards Scootaloo. “Didn’t you know? Every time you’re off on some adventure all he talks about is you. ‘Is Scootaloo okay? Did ya find Scootaloo?’ I think he likes you.”
Scootaloo cocked her head to the side. “Huh? Why would you think that?”
Apple Bloom leaned in and began to sing. “Scoots and Rumble sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S—”
“Apple Bloom! Since you have time to sing perhaps you’ll do this next question on the board. What is 372 divided by 16?” Cheerilee asked.
She grunted and walked up towards the board, having been caught red handed. Scootaloo and Sweetie muffled their giggling.
“So do I tell him to stop?” Scootaloo asked.
“No!” Sweetie squeaked. “You’re supposed to ask if he likes ornithology or entomology.”
“Who with what now?”
Sweetie rolled her eyes. “You are supposed to go watch birds and bees with him. Rarity says all the ponies who like each other go to the park to watch birds and bees. Then, they go home and check if there are any birds or bees in their bedrooms.”
“Oh, but if there were bees in my house wouldn’t I already know?” Scootaloo asked.
“Rarity says that’s why you have to move all the furniture and check, and it can make lots of noise. She said to be safe, I should stay in my room when she’s looking for bee nests at night.”
“Cool, I’ll totally ask Dash if she has a net I can borrow.”
“Yeah,” Sweetie said. “And then you just take Rumble to the park to practice, and you can go help him and Thunderlane get all the bees and birds out of their house.”
“Awesome! That’ll be so much more fu—”
“Scootaloo, your turn,” Cheerilee said.
With a loud moan, she hopped out of her seat and went up to the board. She grabbed the chalk and hovered in the air in front of the math problem.
“Really? 372 divided by 13? This is the worst lesson ever,” Scootaloo complained.
“Well, it’s three easy steps if you paid attention.” She smiled and stood back.
“Fine, I guess that um... fifteen?”
“Scootaloo, you did pay attention?” Cheerilee frowned.
“I was, but then Sweetie was telling me about the birds and the bees—”
The whole class began giggling and it took a minute for Cheerilee to calm them down. “Children, now, joking aside Scootaloo, do you need a hoof with the question?”
“Well, yeah.”
Cheerilee smiled and helped Scootaloo work her way through the problem.
After school, Scootaloo found Dash sleeping in a cloud over town hall. She flew up under the cloud, and with a quick buck, Scootaloo vaporized the cloud.
As Dash woke up, plummeting towards the ground, her instinct kicked in. She flipped over and flapped her wings, catching herself in the air. Then she landed on the ground.
Scootaloo was giggling and finally managed to stop and land next to Dash. “I guess it’s true, a Pegasus always lands on it’s hooves!”
“You better watch it, Squirt, I know where you live. You ever wake up inside a snow cloud?” Dash taunted.
She gulped. “No. . .”
Dash grinned wickedly “Well then, aren’t you in for a treat? So, how’d school go?”
“Boring.”
She put a hoof in Scootaloo’s mane and rubbed her head, messing it up. “Looks like someone has a case of th—”
“no!” Scootaloo tried to interrupt.
“—e Mondays!” Dash finished.
“Ugh.”
“Come on, let’s have a little race to cheer you up then.”
“I can’t, I need new school supplies,” Scootaloo explained.
Dash raised an eyebrow in confusion. “What’s wrong with the ones from last year?”
“You mean the ones that got buried in the avalanche when the crusaders went spelunking at the end of the last school year?” Scootaloo said. “I don’t know, if I find them I’ll let you know.” She stuck her tongue out at Dash.
“Fair enough. So, you want to go buy some more? You could sell Equestria’s quickest haircuts to make enough bits to pay me back.” She laughed and took off towards the center of town.
“You better watch out or I’ll give you a haircut!” Scootaloo took off chasing her. “I bet I could totally turn you into a bald pony too!”
“There’s my sis, ready to get in a fight with Equestria’s toughest mare. I’d beat you in a race in ten seconds flat.”
The two flew down towards the general store owned by Filthy Rich and went inside. They headed over to the school supply section, and began looking for paper, pencils, and other items.
“Hey, Squirt, what’s this one do?” Dash lifted up a semi-circle with a ruler.
Scootaloo glanced over from the pack of flavored erasers in her hoof. “I don’t know, it’s called a prolapser or something. Sweetie has two of them.”
“It says on here it’s for protracting. Do you need one?”
“Nah, but this one looks neat!” Scootaloo pulled an abacus down from the shelf. “It says the ancient Egyptstallions used it for math.”
“It looks more like a board game.” Dash walked over and lifted it up. She used the protractor to slide the beads around. “Yeah, this is lame. Hey, how about this?”
She pulled an eraser shaped like a baseball out of a bin. “Quick, Squirt, go long!” Dash chucked it into the air across the store, laughing.”
Scootaloo shot into the air after it, managing to catch it on the way down. She knocked over a few rolls of toilet paper on the next aisle. “You’re turn!”
She chucked it back past Dash, who backflipped and zoomed after it. The whoosh of air from the grown mare shook the shelf, causing more erasers to roll off the shelf, and several pencils to spill over the floor.
After Dash caught it, she shouted out, “Four!”
Scootaloo zoomed forward and dove to catch the ball. After catching it, she put her hooves on the ground to stop, but stepped on the pencils and lost her balance. She toppled forward into a nearby shelf, causing cans of split peas to spill all over her.
“Ohmygosh! Scootaloo, are you alright?” Dash flew down and began pulling cans off.
Scootaloo was upside down with her hind legs in the air, as Dash unburied her. She began laughing until she saw a stallion walk up behind them.
“Can I help you two find anything?” Filthy asked.
“Oh, sorry about that Filthy, you see, there was this um—gust of wind that came out of nowhere!” Dash threw her hooves up. “I’ll have it cleaned up in ten seconds flat!”
“Well, if you don’t need help finding anything then I’d like you two to leave so I can clean up.”
“Daddy,” Diamond said. She stepped out from a desk behind the register where she had been doing her homework. “Scootaloo doesn’t have any paper or pencils for class, that’s all they needed.”
“Uh yeah,” Dash quickled added. “And we’ll take a protractor too, how much?”
Scootaloo brushed herself up as she stood up and hoofed a pack of flavored erasers to Dash. “And these too!”
“Squirt, you don’t need those. You’re not supposed to eat erasers!”
“Then why are they flavored?” Scootaloo pouted.
“It’s—because—” Dash sighed. “Fine! But if you eat your erasers before supper I’m not letting you have any ice cream.”
“Yay!” Scootaloo hopped in the air and landed on Dash’s back. “Okay, Filthy, we’ll take ‘em!”
Filthy Rich sighed and looked back at his daughter, who smiled. “Fine, ten bits for paper, three pencils, and the flavored erasers.”
Dash got the bits out of her saddlebag and hoofed them over. “You sure you don’t want a hoof cleaning up?”
“That’s fine, Rumble works here part time to earn some extra bits. Celestia knows what for.”
The two mares turned to the right where sure enough, Rumble was watching them. He quickly resumed sweeping the floor with his dustpan.
Scootaloo suddenly felt embarrassed and hopped off of Dash. She looked over and smiled at Rumble, who smiled back.
“Well, all done then. Let’s go, Squirt.”
The two Pegasi walked out of the store as the sun was setting.
“Hmm, strawberry? Mind if I try?” Dash asked. She began to pull one of the erasers out and nibble on it.
Scootaloo was lost in thought as they walked forward.
“Hey, Squirt, what’s up?” Dash rolled the eraser over to the other side of her mouth. “Hey, these are pretty tasty.”
“Dash, how do I ask Rumble to help get all the birds and bees out of my bedroom?” Scootaloo asked.
Dash tried to gasp, and succeeded only in choking on her strawberry eraser. She slammed her hoof on the ground a few times before managing to spit it back out.
In a raspy voice, she asked “What’d you say?!”