I sit out in the hall next to the door leading to the Principal’s office. This all feels eerily familiar. I look up and down the hall, dozens of classrooms, each with two dozen or more red, yellow and orange construction paper leaves. Each of the leaves has a different name on it, signifying one of the students contained within. I wonder if I will see one of the ponies names on them.
The door clicks open and a woman with a mass of grey hair steps into the hall.
“Mrs. white will see you now,” she says interrupting my train of thought.
I step into the office and pass the secretary's desk into another smaller office. The room is well organised, with towers of filing cabinets, a wastepaper basket that looks like it’s regularly bleached, and a desk scrubbed to a shine. behind the desk is a woman with a commanding presence, she has sharp rimmed glasses and hair pulled up into a bun so tight her skin on her face is pulled back like some cheap botox.
“Mr. Mason, please sit,” she gestures to a chair, her words are polite enough, but her tone tells me she more use to dealing with disruptive seven-year-olds than adults. I promptly take the chair and offer out my hand.
“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you,” I say offering my hand.
She ignores me….
“I understand that you wish to enroll your daughters in our kindergarten program.”
“Well they’re not really my daughters they’re kind of… adopted?”
She stares at me over the rim of her glasses, then turns and opens a drawer in one of the wall of filing cabinets and takes out a folder, dropping it unceremoniously onto the desk. She then begins rifling through the mass of papers stored within.
“In your application you said you had six… adopted daughters. Is this correct?”
I nod stiffly. Sitting in a principal’s office for so long is bringing back too many horrifying memories!
“Well, if they are all entering kindergarten together as you say, I’m afraid we may not have the space to fit them all.”
“What do you mean?”
She looks at me again as if to say: ‘Are you really that stupid?’
“Well, unfortunately there is a waiting list Mr. Mason. There are only a few spots left for this year. And we only take the best.”
Only the elite in coloring inside the lines, I think. I can’t help but let out a barely contained snicker. The Principal glares at me.
“Did I say something funny Mr. Mason?”
By the gods of Olympus! Jon was right, this woman really was terrifying!
Taking my silence as a message of defeat she turns back to the folder and examines a few papers.
“We will be conducting a lottery on the 14th, we will let you know then if your charges made it into our school.”
I walk out of the school. A lottery? Not unheard of but, really? I throw on my jacket to gain what little protection it provides against the ever colder winds.
I shove my hands in my pockets as I walk over to my car. What will happen if none of them get in? This is the only elementary school within driving distance! NO! SHUT UP BRAIN! That won't happen!
I furiously jiggle the key around in the lock until my car clicks open. I slide into the freezing interior and turn on the heater, letting the car warm up a bit before I drive out of the empty parking lot.
A lottery? Really?
***
I tighten the bow in Rainbow Dash’s tail ignoring her cries of anguish.
“I don’t waaaaaaaaaant it!” She wines squirming in my arms.
“I won’t have you looking like you spend you time in the woods all day!” I reply taking a twig out of her mane.
“But that IS what I do!”
I set her down on the couch and clutch the still unfastened bow in my hand.
“OK, how about this?” i sigh folding my arms in front of my chest. “You wear the bow, and after the lottery we’ll all go get dinner!”
She stares up at me and narrows her eyes.
“Ok….” she replies cautiously. “But I don’t have to wear the earrings!”
“Fine.”
“And I want to chose where we go!”
I laugh, kid’s gonna’ be a lawyer!
“Deal!” I say, then tackle her and strap the bow to her wildly flapping tail.
“Is everyone ready?” I ask to the group gathered at the door of the garage.
“Ready!” They all reply.
Rarity channeled her disappointment at not getting the dress into making clip on earrings for all the ponies. Red apples for A.J., purple stars for Twilight, blue balloons for Pinkie, pink butterflies for Fluttershy and little rhinestone diamonds for herself. She even made Rainbow Dash a pair of rainbow lightning bolts (even I would were them)! But RD seems uninterested.
They clamber into the back seat of my car, scrambling over each other in excitement. I shake my head in amusement, never in all my life have I seen kids so eager to go to school. The drive there is loud and boisterous, the ponies squealing and giggling with excitement like a group of teenagers going to prom.
When we exit the car the six of them bust out and start running towards the big stone school building. They have way too much energy for this.
The lottery will be taking place in the school’s gymnasium, several hundred folding chairs are set up in rows facing the stage where the small device that will decide. when we enter and sign in, I’m given six tickets, each with a number and letter on them on them, the girl at the desk explains that if the caller says the number on the ticket, that means that that person has gotten in.
“Good luck,” she adds as we make our way into the rows of chairs.
“We’re going to need a lot more then luck,” I reply under my breath.
The lottery starts with the same humorless principal coming out onto the stage and explaining what we all already know. There are 126 places in the classes for incoming students, but there were almost 200 applicants. They will decide who gets in tonight, by lottery. Then she begins
“A23.”
YES! That’s Twilight’s number, first pick, first kid, not bad…. Kid?
“F30.”
Nothing.
she continues to call out numbers until almost all the spots have filled up, after all that, only Rarity has had her number called. a small timer on the stage shows that there are six spaces left. I take a deep breath, there’s still plenty of room.
“K12.”
Another miss, this isn’t looking good.
“G21.”
Yes! I look over at Pinkie and smile, three down three to go!
“R11.”
Another miss. I fold my hands in front of my face only three spots left, we have to get all of them.
“K19.”
Rainbow Dash’s number comes up, good, good, almost there!
“L21.”
That’s Fluttershy, just one more.
the small bingo machine seems to move in slow motion as the principal turns it and pulls out the last number. Every muscle in my body tenses, my insides feel like they trying to rip out of me and see what’s going on.
“K09.”
my body goes slack, all sound leaves me except for the pounding of my heart, I slowly raise my head and look at A.J.
She didn’t get in….