Apple Bloom hummed one of Pinie Pie’s many songs on her way to school the next morning. While the night before hadn't gone as well as she might have hoped, it still turned out better than she could have hoped for. It was quite possible, after all, that she had just lost an enemy and had gained a friend.
For the rest of the previous night, and throughout all of the morning, Apple Bloom's mind could only daydream about all that she, Sweetie Bell, Scootaloo, and now Silver Spoon, would do at their clubhouse after school. Maybe they could paint together, ride bikes, play chess, sing a song, catch frogs (with Fluttershy's permission), pillow fight, the possibilities where endless.
"Hey, Apple Bloom." Scootaloo greeted as she and Sweetie Belle walked over up to her.
Apple Bloom snapped out of her daydream to address her friends with a smile. "Morning, gals, how'd yall’s night go?"
Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle glanced at each other, then back at her before they said anything.
"Oh, well it," Sweetie Belle sighed, "oh it was a disaster."
"Yeah," Scootaloo said, "I actually think I made Rainbow Dash disappointed in me."
"What happened?"
"Well,” Sweetie Belle went first, “I asked Rarity if she could teach me how to make dresses like my greatest grandma use to and become a dress maker like Rarity. She was excited at first, but then I only ended up breaking three oh her sowing machines, and losing some of her favorite needles."
"Yeah,” Scootaloo said, “and when I told Rainbow Dash I wanted to fly to be a cloud hurdler like my greatest grandpa, she was thrilled. She asked me to show her what I could do, and then she said she would see what she could do to help me get off the ground. So we practice all night, but by the end," Scootaloo then fluttered her wings hard, but was only able to get a few inches off the ground before she fell to the ground. "She then said I should just stick to my scooter and then, then… then I just couldn't stick around afterwards, so I ran off."
"Me too." Sweetie Belle moaned. "I just couldn't face Rarity. I didn't just let down my sister, but I let my whole family as well."
"Yeah," Scootaloo sighed, "now I've got a greatest grandparent who's rolling in their grave as well as a sister who hates me."
"Aow y’all stop that!" Apple Bloom snapped. Her friends looked up at her in surprise.
"Now, just because y’all can't live up to what somepony in your family has done, don't mean y’all’s a failure." She was going to show and tell them her secret later with Silver Spoon around, but now felt like a good enough time as any. "If you girls want to know something, I don't want to buck or do anything with apples."
Her friends stared at her dumbfounded. "Come again?"
"I mean it girls." She said as they walked into the classroom. "I mean, I know my family is probably expecting me to one day work the farm or something. But, truth be told, that's not wait I wanna do with my life. Sure, I'd still help out at harvest time, cider season, and with making zap apple jam, but I want to do more than that. I wanna," she pulled out something from her saddle bag. "I wanna build things."
Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo looked in with growing eyes at what Apple Bloom had made. It was a wooden bird that flapped its wings and nodded its head all by itself as it just stood on her hoof.
"That's amazing." Scootaloo gasped.
Sweetie Belle gave it a little tap to make it go again. "When you make that?"
"Had it for a while. In fact, Ah use to make lots of neat things like this, but I never thought Ah was that good at um. So I just stopped making these things for a while. Ah also stopped because I thought I would end up doing something apple related with my life instead of this, but then after I went over to Silver's last night when I got inspired to build again."
"Wait, how'd going over to Silver Spoons house inspire you?"
"Well you see..." As she began, Apple Bloom was rear ended by Diamond Tiara. Her toy flew out of her hoof.
"What do you know, a blank flank’s flank dose feel gross." Diamond Tiara laughed.
The bird slid across the room, unbroken, as Apple Bloom just sighed. She should have known the peace of Diamond Tiara's absence wouldn't last long. As more fillies began to make their way into the class, one particular pair of gray hooves stopped in front of the bird.
"Silver." Apple Bloom looked up at her new best friend. Her expression changed in an instant with what happened next.
As soon as Silver Spoon saw that the bird was made by Apple Bloom, she immediately proceeded to crush it with her left hoof. As it scattered into several pieces, Silver Spoon looked down upon Apple Bloom with a glare of pure hatred.
"What's the matter, blank flank,” she sneered, “you going to cry now?" Nopony, not even Diamond Tiara, had ever seen Silver Spoon so Tartarus bent before. Her eyes were dark, her muzzle tightened, and her hair looked like she just got out of bed even though it was braided.
After getting over her shock, Diamond Tiara resumed her grin as she walked over to her partner in crime. "Yeah, that toy was like, so lame. You should like get your cutie mark in lame toy making."
"You tell them, Diamond." Silver Spoon laughed on as they began to do their signature bump bump suger rump bump.”
As they were laughed, Apple Bloom looked upon at her destroyed toy in a series of emotional stages. At first, she couldn't believe Silver Spoon would deliberately do that. Perhaps she just accidentally stepped on it, and hadn't apologized yet. Then when she called her a blank flank, she was filled with confusion. Why would she do that? Weren't they friends? Didn’t they bond and have fun yesterday? Why would Silver Spoon be so mean now? Then finally, she became angry, very, very angry. She had trusted Silver Spoon, told her own secrets she hadn't even told her sister or friends yet, and now she was turning on her.
"GAH!" In a fit of blind rage, she rammed into Diamond Tiara. She went flying to the far end of the room, and before anypony could react, Apple Bloom went straight for Silver Spoon. She pinned her down to the ground.
"Ah thought we were friends. Whoa!" She cried as Silver Spoon flipped and pinned her down.
"That's what I thought too, blank flank!" Silver Spoon was stronger than Apple Bloom had expected, but she had enough practice wrestling animals to get out of the pin as she bucked Silver Spoon right between the glasses. It wasn’t as strong as she would have liked, and Silver Spoon took the opportunity to deliver a strong punch to Apple Bloom’s shoulder that left her limp, but not defeated. Soon the two fillies where at it as they processed to beat the snot out of each other as the whole class gathered around them to watch.
As they class began to chant, Cheerilee walked into to a full on the riot.
“What’s going on in here?" She shouted as she made her way towards the center to find Silver Spoon mouth locked on Apple Bloom's bow as Apple Bloom jabbed Silver Spoons in the guts. She was trying to put in a last good buck instead.
"That’s enough, break it up!" Cheerilee demanded as she push herself between the two fillies.
"She started it." Silver Spoon huffed all bruised up, hair starting to unbraid as the left eyeglass dangled from her ear.
"Only after she destroyed my toy!" Apple Bloom said as her bow feel on her left eye.
"Alright!" She hated raising her voice, but when it was called for, it did its job. "Now, I want everypony to go to their desk right now, you too Apple Bloom. I want a word with Silver Spoon, in my office, alone. The rest of you, I want quite studying until I get back." She didn't even bother to tell them to actually be quite, for she knew none of them would, and to enforce it would just do more harm than good. Still, everypony did so, but not before Silver Spoon and Apple Bloom could give each other one last death glare before she could usher Silver Spoon into her office.
Nopony spoke a word while Cheerilee and Silver Spoon where gone. In part, because everypony wanted to hear what was going on in Cheerilee's office, and another was just not sure what to say or think about the whole thing. Every filly knew Apple Bloom and Silver Spoon were enemy’s, but they never seen them so hell bent before.
Eventually, somepony's broke the silence with whispers, while Apple Bloom just choice to sit quietly at her desk. She would often looked around the class room, wondering what everypony was saying, but she wouldn’t stare for long thou. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo looked worried, as if they could have done more during the fight. While they hadn't bounded as much with Silver Spoon as she had, she could still tell that they felt just as hurt, if not surprised, about what had happened. Then when she happened to glance at Diamond Tiara, the filly just gave her a look of pure evil that said, ‘I’ll get you for this blank flank.’ Not that she cared that much as she just hoofed her broken toy the whole time, wondering, craving, to find out what was going on in Ms. Cheerilee’s office.
After a while, Ms. Cheerilee and Silver Spoon came out of the office, not looking better, but not looking worse from their conversation. Silver Spoons hair looked better, but her glasses where duck tapped up, and she didn’t look angry anymore, just depressed. As the class looked up in silence as Silver Spoon walked back to her desk, Silver Spoon didn't even bothering to look up to acknowledged any of them as she just struggled to hold her duck tapped glasses together as she quietly made her way back to her desk next to Diamond Tiara.
Apple Bloom wasn’t going to fall for her innocents anymore.
"Alright, class." Ms. Cheerilee broke through Apple Bloom’s train of thought. "Now I want to hear no more about this, or see any more fights today. As for you, young lady." She said glancing at Apple Bloom. "I will see you after this lesion is over during recess."
Apple Bloom shoot up in disgust at her teacher. "But, that ain't fair!"
"Apple Bloom..."
"She broke my hoof made toy, and I have to miss recess?"
"Apple Bloom."
"No, you let her get away with everything! Give extra time in homework, good grades when she doesn’t deserved them. It ain't..."
"Apple Bloom!" Cheerilee said as she asserting her position as teacher over the class. Apple Bloom tense and back down into her seat. "I will hear no more of this, or you'll have recess detention for the rest of the week!” Cheerliee took a deep breath for a moment, apparently just as surprised at her raised voice as Apple Bloom and the whole class had been. After a moment, she collected herself and took a deep breath before she brought her voice down to normal. “Do I make myself clear young lady?" She said with a serious on the edge tone.
Apple Bloom’s whole body fell flat. "Yes, mam."
"Good," Cheerilee huffed, "now, turn you books to page twelve. Today, we will look at the important roll cows played in the defeat of Discord, and why they don't have cutie marks because of it."
******************
With no disrespect to any cows, Apple Bloom couldn't pay any attention in class that day. She had so much going on in her mind that she couldn't have paid attention if her life depended it: how unfair things where, how cruel Silver Spoon was, how could Silver Spoon have done this, how could she have been so dumb to be surprised by it, and just how unfair everything was for her. Why did good ponies like herself get treated unfairly, while rich a spoiled ponies like Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara got everything, and not have anything bad happen to them in return?
The only good thing to come out of her distracting thought was that the class period was able to come and go much faster for her as the bell suddenly range. As everypony else made their way out to recess, they either just quietly made their way past Apple Bloom, or where at least polite enough to give her a sympathetic smile, she even got a piece of Dinky’s muffin. Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara on the other hoof, just readjusted her glass as she gave Apple Bloom and her fiends a hump with Diamond Tiara as the pair held their heads high and headed out to recess.
"You going to be ok?" Scootaloo gave her a pat on the back as Apple Bloom looked on at an impatient looking Ms. Cheerilee.
"We can stay if you want." Sweetie Belle said. “This isn’t fair, and if we have to, well, we’ll do something.”
"No girls,” she said as she shook her head, happy her friends wanted to be there for her, but she wasn’t willing drag them down with her. “I can't expect that of you gal’s. Just go on and try to have fun without me, and I'll tell you how it went later, okay?"
"Ok." Both girls said as they patted her on the back. "But don't be afraid to call if you need us."
Apple Bloom smiled at her great friends. "I won't."
With that being said, both girls gave Apple Bloom a hug as they made their way outside. Once they were outside, they rushed over to the window. Scootaloo climbed up on Sweetie Bell, as Scootaloo glanced into the classroom.
********************
Cheerilee had remained calm and pose throughout that morning after her words with Silver Spoon. She had been able to teach today's lesson, as well as pounder what she was going to say to Apple Bloom. She knew that there was a chance things might get out of control, but she hadn’t expected things to go south so quickly thou. Still, as the miserable yellow filly she called her student made her way up to her desk, she knew just what she had to say, for the sake of both her students.
"Have a seat." She calmly told Apple Bloom. Apple Bloom did so.
The pair remained silent for a moment, neither one sure if they should say something first. After a moment, Cheerilee spoke.
"Now, I understand you might think things to be unfair..."
"Unfair, unfair?!" Apple Bloom said like it was the understatement of the millennium. "She broke my toy first, and I have to miss recess because of it, and you think it’s just unfair?"
"Apple Bloom," Cheerilee sighed, "I didn't let Silver Spoon off the hook as much as you think. She will be missing the next recess, but I just needed a moment alone with you to talk."
"About what?" Apple Bloom spat. "About how unfair it is that she gets everything she wants, including extra time on homework and test’s just because she's rich?"
It would have been a lie if she had said that wasn't true, but there was more to it than Apple Bloom could understand. So, she told her what she could about Silver Spoon’s situation with a heavy heart.
"Apple Bloom, what I'm going to tell you must stay between you and me. If you tell anypony else, or use this information to hurt Silver Spoon, then I will have no choice but to suspended you.” She made sure to make herself loud and clear, for she would have no trouble carrying her promise out, and it looked like Apple Bloom got the message, mostly.
"Oh what could be oh so tragic about her that makes it ok for her to pick on me?" She wined as she crossed her hooves.
"It doesn't give her a right to," she agreed, "but it's because she has dyslexic."
Apple Bloom gave her a confused glance as she titled. "A lex what now?"
Cheerilee wasn't that surprise that Apple Bloom didn’t know what Dyslexia was. Such disorders like dyslexia, ADHD and autism, were fairly new to Equestira. Or at least, newly known to the common pony. She herself hadn't even heard of any such conditions until Silver Spoon parents told her about it when she enrolled. It was a day she hadn't easily forgotten as she remembered her parent’s looks of hope that Cheerilee might have some magical cure for their daughter as the very young Silver Spoon acted embarrassed that her parents were talking about her disorder out loud.
"Well," she began, carefully placing her words, "it's this handicap, much like your friends Scootaloo's short wings, or your other friends Twist's poor eye vision without her glasses. Only, it affects her in a different way. Basically, she can't read or write, or rather, she can, but she can’t do it in the same way we can. Words can get mixed up in her brain, as if somepony's rearranging them like a cruel joke. She could see the letter b, and think it's a d, or a g and think it's a q, or she can read the word star, and think it says rats, or think the word dog says god. Her case isn't as bad as I've heard somepony's could be, but as I've said, it does make learning more difficult for her, so she need’s extra time to study and get ready for a test."
While it looked like her student had understood her explanation, it hadn’t satisfied her angry. "It still don't explain why she broke my toy."
"Well, Apple Bloom," she decided nothing else mattered more anymore. It wasn't that big a secret in town anymore, and if telling Apple Bloom could help Silver Spoon through it, all the better. "I think she was just upset because, when I talked to her, she told me her parents are getting a divorce, and she was blaming you for it because she though your presence at her house last night caused it."
"A, vorce?" Apple Bloom asked even more confused than before, and with quilt to add if it had been her fault.
"Divorce, dear." Cheerilee corrected with a deep breath before she went on. "First of all, it was nothing you, or Silver Spoon did. They were going to tell her Silver Spoon last night anyways, and you just happened to leave before they told her. Secondly, a divorce is, it means," how could she best explain it to a filly, one who lived in a pleasant town where such thing almost never happened? "It means that Silver Spoons parents are not going to be living together anymore, and are getting unmarried."
"But, but why would they do that?” She asked in a very confused and concerned way. “Do they not love each other anymore?"
"I'm afraid that's just it." She said right to the point on that one. “I wish I had a better reason to explain why, I do, but it’s, a complicated matter.”
What Apple Bloom said next nearly broke her heart. "Does… does that mean they don't love Silver Spoon anymore either?"
Cheerilee sighed, knowing that it might have been easier for Silver Spoon if that was true for at least one of the parents. "No, no, they both still love her, but now try want her to choose who she wants to live with from now on."
"But," Apple Bloom shock her head, "it just don’t seem right. Why would her parents even get married then if they would just get unmarried? They would they make her make a choice like that? Why… just why?"
"Oh, Apple Bloom, come here," Cheerilee nodded as Apple Bloom just walked up as she sat down beside her as Cheerilee conferred the crying little filly as she expressed her own opinions about this whole matter. "I know it doesn't sound right, and believe me, I think so to. Even if the Silvers love life isn't my business, I still think it’s selfish of them that they divorce now instead of waiting for their daughter to graduate. But, if just talking about it for us is painful, then imagine what Silver Spoon is going through right now? We adults of this town heard that it might be happening, so that's why I partnered you up with Silver Spoon in the first place."
Apple Bloom’s head shoot up. "You did what now?"
"Oh um, yeah,” it was out of the bag, so she just confessed. “I…purposely rigged that bingo machine so you and Silver Spoon would team up.” She could feel Apple Bloom getting angry. “Despite everything, I honestly believe that she, and even Diamond Tiara, can become good ponies under the right influence. So, I chose you, and ultimately your friends, to spend time with her away from Diamond Tiara so she could be that pony. "
"Some partner I've been then." Apple Bloom grumbled.
"Hey, the project's not over yet." She wrapped a hoof around her. "Tell you what, why don't you go outside, and fill those two friends of yours out that window, on any parts they didn't catch!" She shouted towards the window as they heard of pair of fillies could be heard falling on one another. "Also, don't give up on your other friend either. She’ll need good friends now more than ever. It might be a good idea to give Silver Spoon some space for today, but you should apologize soon. Even if it’s not what you think is fare, I belive you know it’s right.” Apple Bloom didn’t say a word. “I’m sure that once you apologize for attacking her, she’ll apologize for what she did to you. This is going to be a very difficult and rocky experience for Silver Spoon, but with a friend like you, who knows what positive changes she might have?"
Apple Bloom happily nodded. Cheerilee could tell that she was still a bit emotionally, but much better now that she had this talk with her.
"Thanks, Ms. Cheerilee,” Apple Bloom smiled as she wiped a tear away, “you really are the best teacher ever."
"Why thank you, Apple Bloom." Cheerilee nodded, gleeful whenever a student gave her that title. She even kept that giant heart Apple Bloom and her friends made for her on hearts and hooves. Which reminded her of something important "Oh, and tell your brother while I won't be free on Saturday, I'll have all of Sunday afternoon free." What could she say, even if it started out as a way to tease Apple Bloom and her friends for poisoning them, she had fallen for the fine stallion. He was a man of few words, with a macho singing voice to go with him, and he had a gentle soul, and she could even want in a guy.
"Yes, Ms. Cheerilee." Apple Bloom said as her ears and bows dropped, clearly still uneasy about their relationship. "But don't you be thinking about marrying my brother only to unmarry him later you hear?”
Cheerilee tried to hide her blush. "Oh um, well I…I, won't, I promise I won't." She said not really sure how better to address that as Apple Bloom left the classroom. She could tell that she had a lot on her mind, but was confident everything would turn out fine, she hopped.