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// Supermare prevails! (sort of) 
// Story: Supermare or how Scootaloo did her math homework 
// by TwiwnB 
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“What was she talking about?” asked the doctor, whose curiosity wasn’t his least characteristic.

“She came to explain how to make addition earlier.” Scootaloo told him. “But I didn’t understand anything and now I’m never going to be able to reply correctly to the problems in my homework.”

The doctor’s face lit up as an idea came to him.

“Don’t worry, little filly. I know exactly how to solve your problem.” he said. “Just stay here and wait, I’ll be back before you even know it with all the answers to your homework.”

And before Scootaloo could reply anything, he went to the tardis, opened the door and found himself facing with a very tired and almost angry soaked supermare.

“Who are you?” the doctor asked her. “And what are you doing in my tardis?”

The mare thought of letting the rage take the best of her, but she found a way of controlling herself, breathed and just replied:

“I don’t care who you are or what you are doing here. All I want to know is why I always end up in that pool of yours…”

It was a reasonable request. And she was too tired to think of something else than why fate had decided she wouldn’t stay dry for more than a few minutes. But to her surprise, the doctor answered in a very unexpected way:

“What are you talking about? I took the pool away years ago!”

And then he entered the tardis, shutting the door behind him a leaving the mare with Scootaloo to wonder what in all of Equestria was happening there.

“Who is he?” she finally asked Scootaloo.

“The doctor.” replied the filly.

“He is a doctor?”

“I don’t know…”

There wasn’t much more to say. They were fixing the blue box in the middle of Scootaloo’s room, expecting to wake up but having to slowly accept it wasn’t a dream.
And suddenly the tardis’s door opened once again, letting the head of the doctor come out.

“Hey, you won’t believe this: I’ve actually still got a pool! Who would have known?” he joyfully shouted.

“Go figure…” replied the mare with a bitter tone.

“Alright, I’m off now. See you in a second!” the doctor shouted, shutting the door behind him.

The wheezing, groaning sound of the tardis rang out once again as it slowly disappeared, leaving no trace whatsoever that it had been there at any point in time.

“I…” began Scootaloo.

“No.” replied the mare. “Later. We will talk about all of that later.” she said.

Then she turned to the filly, looked at her in the eyes and, with her very gentle and caring voice, said:

“Now, all that matters is that homework of yours, agreed?”

Scootaloo agreed, as she saw no real way to make any sense of all the rest that had previously happened.
She showed the homework to Supermare and asked how she was supposed to make those additions.

“Why don’t you show me how you actually do them?” the mare asked Scootaloo.

The proposition surprised the filly.

“How I do it?” she asked. “But I do it wrong…”

“Well.” replied the mare. “Doing things wrong is the best way to learn. And I will need to see how you think if I want to understand why your thinking doesn’t lead to the expected answer.”

Scootaloo accepted and began the first problem, which was five plus seven. She answered thirteen, explained that five plus five was making ten and that she had taken what was left to go to thirteen as Cheerilee had explained to the class.
She waited for Supermare to explain what was wrong, but the masked mare just asked her to answer to the next problem.

It was eight plus six. Scootaloo thought about it, made sure she had checked her answer several times and finally answered twelve.

“Is it right?” she asked Supermare.

“It isn’t the expected answer, but it might very well be right by your logic.” she replied. “Don’t be afraid of giving the right or wrong answer. Just do your best, okay?”

Scootaloo accepted to try, even if it was a way of seeing things she didn’t really understand.
As the mare asked her to make the next problem, she read it out loud and began to think about the answer. It was four plus seven. She made sure to apply what she had learned in class and wrote “thirteen” on the piece of paper.
To her surprise, the masked mare smiled. Not sarcastically, or with any ill intent. It was a very gentle, caring and victorious smile.

“Scootaloo.” the mare addressed the filly. “How do you calculate how much you must add up to ten once you have already reached ten?” she asked.

The filly didn’t understand the question, so the mare took the time to break down the whole calculation process into tiny bits and made Scootaloo progress through them until it was time to take what was left to add it up to ten.

And only then, when the mare explained to Scootaloo what everypony else understood by “what is left”, did the filly had her epiphany.

She tried the new way a few times, failed sometimes because she was used to think with her old way, but eventually came to the point where she had mastered that new way of adding up numbers. And all the answers she was coming up with happened to be the expected answers as Supermare assured her it was.

“You have done very well Scootaloo. You shouldn’t have any problem anymore with adding up such numbers anymore.” told her the mare.

The filly would have wanted to hug the masked mare, but she decided not to, just because, well, she didn’t want to look like she was weak or something. But in her heart, she was very grateful. Even if she was feeling tired.

And for a good reason, as it was almost midnight on Scootaloo’s alarm clock.

“Go to bed now.” Supermare told the filly. “You’ve got school tomorrow.”

The filly would have objected, but she was literally already sleeping while standing. The mare took her to her bed and then left by the window after having said goodnight, disappearing into the night with only a gentle smile and the great feeling to have helped somepony learn something.