THUD!
"Twilight Sparkle."
Twilight let out a snort and sat up. She wiped at her mouth, catching a bit of the drool that had escaped from her.
"I would like you to stay a moment," Miss Feather Bloom said. "As for the rest of you, have a good day. Dismissed."
"We'll wait for you," Pound said before grabbing his stuff. He and his sister joined the other ponies in leaving the room.
Soon only Twilight and the teacher were left. The teacher stood at the front of the room, using a wing to hold the eraser as she cleaned the chalk board. Twilight watched a moment, with a feeling of dread in her stomach. Her second day of school and she was now in trouble. She had never been in trouble at school before. What was going to happen? Was she going to be flunked? Arrested? Chained up and forced to stand before the rest of the class the rest of the year? What if her parents find out, have her taken from Ponyville, put in a cage and banished to some uninhabited region in one of the farthest corners of Equestria?
"Twilight!"
Twilight jumped, nearly falling out of her chair. Heart pounding, she got up and moved toward the front of the room to see Miss Feather Bloom. She tried to stop herself from hyperventilating before reaching the teacher. It would be bad to pass out from lack of oxygen before being forever banished to the furthest regions of Equestria after all. Passed out ponies are easy prey.
"Yes, Miss Feather Bloom?" she managed to squeak out.
"I would appreciate it if you did not doze off in my class," Feather Bloom said as she turned to look at Twilight. "Since this is the start of the school year, I'm willing to let it go with a warning, but I don't want to see it happen again. Understood?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"That being said, I would like to add that all my students are important to me." Her features softened as she smiled down at the filly. "So if you are having problems with the work, or at home, you can come talk to me. Understood?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Good." She turned back to the chalkboard. "So unless there is something you want to talk to me about..."
Twilight stood there and said nothing.
"You can go," Feather Bloom finished.
Twilight let out a sigh of relief and left. Looked like she was not going to be banished after all.
Outside, she found the Cake twins waiting for her.
"Everything okay?" Pound asked as Twilight reached the two of them.
"Fine," Twilight answered as she stifled a yawn. "Miss Feather Bloom just wanted to make sure I was okay I guess."
"Are you?" Pumpkin asked, raising an eyebrow. "I noticed you kept nodding off."
"I'm fine. Just didn't get enough sleep last night, that's all. First I tried to read about cutie marks, but there's nothing I could find about getting one..." She rubbed her chin. "Although, there were some interesting theories about the possible origins of how we first started getting them and why.
"After that I kept having these weird dreams and they kept waking me up. In one I was chased by these giant blank flanks," she turned to look at her friends, "and I mean just the flank. There were no ponies attached to them. They were just giant flanks as big as Big Macintosh with no cutie marks. For some reason they were chasing me and shouting 'One of us! Make her one of us!'"
"How would they do that?" Pumpkin asked.
"I have no idea. I mean they were just huge flanks running... hopping?... however they were moving."
Pound said nothing. He found his gaze drifting to look at Twilight's flank.
"In another," Twilight continued, "I met a grown up pony that looked like me, but a princess. But before I could find out-"
Twilight stopped as she saw three other ponies. Not far ahead of them were Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle. Two of them, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, were both just walking along, with their heads low to the ground. Scootaloo was resting her head on her handlebars as she slowly pushed the scooter with one foot.
"Hey!" Twilight shouted as she started running to catch up with them. Apple Bloom stopped immediately, turning toward her friend. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle stopped a little further when they saw that it was Twilight that was running toward them.
"Wow," the filly said as she approached the three of them. "You don't look happy. What's wrong?"
"Diamond Tiara got her cutie mark," Apple Bloom explained, "and is inviting everypony in class to her cute-ceañera this Friday."
"And you should have heard how she did it too," Sweetie Belle groaned.
"'I guess I could, like, totally invite you,'" the unicorn filly said, trying to mimic Diamond Tiara, "' though I don't see why. I mean, guh, what would some boring blank flanks do at my totally cool cute-ceañera? I suppose you could hang out with the other losers. Or maybe you could, like, get your cutie marks before then.'" She let out a snort. "'Like that would ever happen.'"
"Wow," Pumpkin said. "She doesn't sound nice at all."
"Maybe we can," Twilight said, suddenly hopping up.
"Can what?" Scootaloo asked.
"Get our cutie marks by this Friday." The filly nearly danced in place. "I bet we can even get it today. Shining probably knows a spell that could give them to us." She turned to Pumpkin and Pound. "You want to come?"
"Okay," Pound said with a nod.
"I guess," Pumpkin sighed.
"Great. Come on."
With that, Twilight turned and started running for the library. The other five ponies started chasing after her, trying to keep up with the excited filly.