Chapter Four
After Diamond had changed out of her uniform, Mal took her down to the common room, a place where Periwinkle had hardly given a glace to on the tour. It was 6th grade recreation time, and most of the fillies in their grade were already there, chatting, studying or just goofing off in general. Diamond noticed that most of the girls were divided into little cliques, with an occasional loner here and there.
The common room was well furnished, with cream-colored plaster walls with mahogany sidings. There was a set of small, dark wood bookshelves pushed against a wall, and several tall windows with dark green curtains. A few dark wood study tables were pushed off to the side, with several students reading or doing homework on them. On top of the mahogany floorboards there were several soft, thick rugs in a maroon variety. There were several large, cushy, burgundy sofas scattered around the room, many with mahogany coffee tables in front of them. And right in the heart of the room was a red brick fireplace, not lit now but surely to be put to use in the winter months. Students walked around, socializing with their neighbors. All in all, a thoroughly normal common room.
Diamond looked at Mal. "Am I supposed to intimidated?"
Mal didn't even give Diamond a glance. "You'll see."
Mal gestured towards a couch in the back. Diamond followed her friend, and when they sat down she said "Okay... Now what?"
Mal just stared ahead. "Now we start. Get your thinking cap on, roomy, 'cause we gotta lot of teaching to cover. Madame Roseberry's 101, the groups. A few kids are off on their own or in small circles of friends, but some of the students have formed their own larger cliques, and the majority of the student body is a part of at least one. You're inevitably going to run into them sooner or later, so it's important you learn who they are and what they do as soon as possible. Now look over there."
Mal pointed to a table full of fillies playing table hoofball and talking loudly. The loudest and rowdiest girl was a off-white pegasus with a ginger mane pulled back by a light green headband. Her eyes were a darker green, and her face had no makeup unless you counted a million freckles. Diamond supposed that she was pretty in her own way, but most definitely not a knock out.
"Group number one, the Athletes. They're just what they sound like; they eat, drink, and breathe sports. Don't even try to challenge them in Phys Ed, from the look of you, you'll probably lose. That said, they can be cool people to hang out with, as long as they don't think you're too stuck-up. Needless to say, they hate the Prep's guts and the feeling is mutual, so if the two groups are in the same room together, don't be surprised if ya' see sparks fly."
"The... Preps?" asked Diamond, a little confused.
"Group number two," said Mal, gesturing over to a group of wealthy-looking fillies gossiping to each other and applying makeup. "You won't see too many of them that are here 'cause they got in trouble, they're here because they've got rich daddies who wanted their kids to spend time learning some manners. But don't underestimate them- they got razor sharp tongues and can make you the laughingstock of school in an hour. I wouldn't test them if I were you."
"Group number three: The Prefects." Mal full-on gagged when she said their name. "Unlike the other groups, they're actually school-sponsored. You have to be nominated by a teacher and approved by the headmistress to join. They're like the preps, but with more power and better acting. They're also able to hand out punishments, though they need teacher approval for anything big. In a nutshell, they're professional tattletales. Just stay out of their way and you might be able to skip out on the Ice Box experience."
"Are there any others?" asked Diamond, still seeing clumps of unclassified fillies scattered around the common room.
"Yep. Meet Group number four, the Nerds." Mal pointed to a table near the bookshelves, full of fillies reading, studying, or browsing the shelves. Many of them wore glasses similar to Twist's, and one, who seemed to be leading a study session and was most likely the leader of the group, was by far the nerdiest-looking one. Diamond looked to Mal for explanation.
"They're the kids in class that always have the right answers, and they can be total teacher suck-ups. Most of them have no social skills, but having one as a friend can be handy if you're in a technical jam. They get manipulated and blackmailed a lot by the other cliques because just a peek at their schoolwork can bump your grade up."
Diamond remembered how she used to threaten Twist and Silver Spoon into doing her schoolwork for her. These geeks will be easy targets. thought Diamond smugly.
"But like the preps, you shouldn't underestimate these guys." said Mal, again giving the impression that she could read minds. "Your Potion ends up doing the opposite of what it's supposed to? You know that it's a nerd seeking revenge. The homework you copied has all the wrong answers? That means they've outsmarted you. Knowledge is power, and these guys memorize textbooks for fun. You do the math."
Yet another bubble burst, thought Diamond, sighing slightly. Oh, well...
"Let's move on to group five." said Mal. "The Bullies." She pointed over to a small group of girls chatting and gossiping about whoever walked by. "They're the smallest of the groups, but they can cause you some serious grief if you're not careful. Try not to become one of their victims; they'll torment you until the end of the year or whenever you get out of here."
Some of the girls Mal had pointed out as the bullies didn't seem so threatening to Diamond. One group of three in particular looked fairly normal. The first was a very light lavender earth pony, with a pure white mane, spring green eyes and a cutie mark of a heart-shaped flower. Another one was a bright white unicorn, with red-and-orange mane and bright red eyes. Her whole form seemed to radiate heat, and her cutie mark of a bolt of flames only helped that. The last one, clearly the leader, was a golden-brown earth pony with a warm brown mane and tail. She had a spray of brown freckles across her muzzle and warm brown eyes, and her hooves and ears were adorned with gold bracelets and small gold hoop earrings. Diamond guessed that she was moderately wealthy, and wondered what she could have done get herself here.
"Group Six," said Mal, motioning over to a corner of of the common room where a crowd of shifty-looking fillies sat close together, some of them playing a not-so-friendly game of poker, others messing around with small switchblades and lighters. Many of them had ear or nose piercings, and a few wore dark lip liner and eyeshadow. The mane styles varied, some's being as scruffy and unkempt as Mal's, others sporting brightly highlighted mohawks and cornrows. Diamond spotted one of the girls sneaking over to the Prep's area and snatching a light blue purse from one of the seats.
"These are the Troublemakers." said Mal. "They're the kids who were sent here by their parents or the court or whoever because they broke the law, or their folks broke the law and the cops don't want the kids to take after their parents. A lot of these fillies are from big cities, like Las Pegasus or Manehatten, and they know that life ain't fair. Some are kleptos, like me, but others are things like connivers or pyromaniacs or pathological liars. They generally don't target other students 'cept to steal stuff, but I don't think I need to tell you how dangerous they can be when provoked. Just steer clear and don't snitch on them and you'll be fine.
"And last but not least is group seven," said Mal. "The Weirdos."
Diamond looked at Mal, sure she was joking. "The... weirdos??"
"Yep. These kids aren't technically a group, they've just gotten kicked out of everywhere else and been forced to stick together. Some of them have mental disorders, but most of them got kicked out of school for being disruptive." Mal gestured over to a corner of the common room.
Diamond saw two almost identical pegasus twins were playing a hoof-clap game, a unicorn that was sitting in a corner (on... were those napkins?), and wringing her hoofs nervously, and a bright yellow earth pony, sitting perfectly still and not making a sound. The said pony had a messy, unkempt mane and tail style, and her light green eyes stared directly at the wall, as if the structure was the most interesting thing in the world. After a moment, Diamond noticed that the filly's eye color kept changing, first from green then to pink to yellow to red.
Mal looked over at the wall clock above her. "Speaking of disruptive, wait for it..." she said, making Diamond feel very confused. She pointed over to the filly staring at the wall, then started counting to herself. "5...4...3...2...1..."
All of a sudden, the psychedelic-eyed filly started screaming.
"SQUIRRELS!!!! SQUIRRELS EVERYWHERE!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Diamond nearly jumped out of her skin, she was so startled. What kind of kid starts screaming 'squirrels' at random moments, anyway?
"That's Quirky, by the way." Mal stated dryly. "And no, that wasn't done randomly, though it definitely would seem like it. She does that everyday at exactly 5:42 pm on the dot. We tried nicking the clock once so she wouldn't know what time it was, but even that didn't stop her. She just waited and, at 5:42 exactly, she did it again just like everyday, no one knows how she knew what time it was. We even tried gagging her and stuffing her in a broom closet once, but the teachers wouldn't let us."
Big surprise. thought Diamond, rolling her eyes sarcastically.
"So who are the major leaders of the groups?" asked Diamond.
"In order?" said Mal. "From the Athletes, that ginger-maned filly. She's Skyward Wind, but everypony usually just calls her Chel. The story goes that on her first year here, one of the teachers called her a challenge when she forget to turn in her homework. The teacher had a weird accent, though, and it came out sounding like 'chel-lange', and the name stuck."
"The prep's leader is Sugar Spice, over there." Mal pointed to a snooty looking lavender unicorn with a rose colored mane and tail with lighter pink streaks. Her mane and tail were both styled to perfection, and her icy blue eyes gleamed attractively. She wore glittery, hot pink eye shadow and lip gloss, making her look less like an eleven year old and more like a fifteen year old.
"This is her third semester here." said Mal. "She came right in the middle of last year and sort of took over the preps. Don't mess with her; the last kid to do that woke up the next morning with an outbreak of acne on her forehead that spelled out 'LOSER'. Later that year, that same kid had a nervous breakdown and, last I heard, has been homeschooled ever since."
"The Head prefect isn't in this grade." said Mal. "She's in 8th grade, but is pretty friendly with just about everyone in any grade. If you're lucky, you'll never have to meet her, although, you'll probably meet her anyway."
"Who is she?" asked Diamond.
"This really stuck-up goody-goody prat named Periwinkle."
Diamond perked up at the name. "Periwinkle? Minty hair, light blue coat, green glasses?"
"You met her?" Mal asked, surprised.
"Actually, yeah." said Diamond, "She gave me a tour of the grounds earlier."
"Really..." said Mal, her tone making Diamond unsure of what to think. "Interesting." Diamond wondered what she meant, but at this point was too overwhelmed to care. Back in Ponyville, there was hardly enough kids per grade to fill the desks, let alone a whole common room.
"Moving on." said Mal, this time gesturing back to the nerds and pointing to the filly leading the study session. The filly in question was a light green unicorn and had a candy-apple red mane, cut unfashionably short. She wore a pair of clunky, purple horn-rimmed glasses that she was constantly pushing up her usually large muzzle. When she spoke, Diamond could see a mouth full of plain metal braces without any of the usual embellishments that most fillies got. Diamond sneered, the filly's appearance reminding her strongly of Twist, and not in a good way.
"That's Brainy." said Mal.
Diamond lifted an eyebrow. "Brainy? Seriously?"
"Well, not exactly." said Mal. "Her real name is something different, but since she's so smart everypony here just calls her Brainy, even most of the teachers. They say that she passed the senior's final exams three weeks after she came here, but has to finish out the year due to school policy. Rumor has it that she tried to break into the Canterlot archives to read their books, and that's why she's here."
"Whatever." said Diamond, not really caring much about Brainy. "What about the trouble makers? Who's their leader?"
"See, the thing about the Troublemakers," said Mal, smirking a bit. "Is that there's so many of them that there's more than just one leader. In every grade, there's about three or four kids who everypony else looks to to know what to do. I'm not gonna bother with introductions this time around, because the leadership changes about once a month depending on how tough the new kids are or how many prefects you can piss off without getting sent to the headmistress. But just so you know, the current ones are the girl with the blue switchblade, the girl who just nicked that prep's purse, and that girl with the scar on her left cheek."
"Why are there so many of them?"
"Because half the school is composed of kids who got sent here 'cause they're delinquents, me and you included."
Diamond was slightly taken aback by this. "I am not a delinquent!"
Mal raised an eyebrow. "Said the filly who sent a classmate to the hospital and got expelled."
Diamond's face burned. "Let's move on now, shall we?"
"All right then, on to the Weirdos." said Mal. "They don't really have an official leader, but everypony just agrees that Quirky is the leader 'cause, well... ya' know..." Mal shook her head in the direction of Quirky, who was currently having a riveting conversation with the wall and giggling creepily at random moments.
Diamond took a step back. "Yeah, I see what you mean... but who are those other kids near Quirky?"
Mal nodded her head as if she had expected this question. "They're the other weirdos, of course. The twins," Mal gestured over to the two fillies playing the hoofclap game. "They came right in the middle of last year. Nopony really knows what they did because nopony's crazy enough to try and talk to them."
"Why's that?"
"Because they only ever sing, and at all the wrong moments."
Diamond just stared. She had guessed that Mal had been pulling her hoof before, but now she was sure of it.
"You're kidding, right?" said Diamond in disbelief. "Right?"
Mal gave her a look that said she wasn't joking. "As I was saying, nopony's ever heard the twins speak except in song form, and that's why they have been grouped into the weirdos, capiche?"
"And who's that over there?" asked Diamond pointing over to the filly sitting on the napkins.
"That's Germy." said Mal.
This was the last straw. "Brainy, Germy, what kind of names are these?!" said Diamond, frustrated. "Who the heck even thinks up these stupid nicknames, anyway(1)???"
Mal shrugged. "Hey, I don't make the news, I just report it. But like I said, over there is Germy. That's just a nickname, mind you, her real name is Honeysuckle. But everypony just calls her Germy because she's such a germophobe." Mal gestured over to Germy, where the filly was in the process of trying to change her napkins without touching the floor.
"And now onto the leader of the weirdos, Quirky." said Mal. "Ya' see the way her eyes change color? I think those eyes are the reason she was called Quirky by her parents, but the rumors go as far as to say that when she was being born, she yelled 'Squirrels' and the doctor accidentally dropped her on the head. Of course, if her first word was squirrels, the bonk on the head wouldn't have done much, would it?"
"And on to the last group, the Bullies." said Mal, looking around the common room. "They're mostly break offs of the Troublemakers, but way more intense. Like the Troublemakers, there's a lot of them, so there's a bit of a power struggle sometimes, but unlike the Troublemakers, the positions of leadership usually stay between the same three ponies. Now look-" Mal pointed to a filly on the side, the lavender one with the pure white mane. "Over there is Lily. I don't know why she's really considered a bully; she's too nice. I've never seen her really join in when the rest of 'em are targeting somepony, she only speaks when she has to."
"Seems like a pushover to me." said Diamond.
"She kinda is, actually." said Mal, shrugging her shoulders in a 'so what' kind of way. "But it might be because she's real persuasive, especially when she's getting somepony out of trouble. The teachers love her, but just think she's in a bad crowd of kids. She's practically best friends with the secretary, Lavender, and the librarian, Miss Scrolls, so she's got connections. I can see why she's useful, but she's not really bully material. Oh well."
"Next up is Flicker." Mal gestured seriously over to the filly with the bright, vivid red mane, who was playing keep away with one of the nerd's textbooks and laughing at the girl's struggle to retrieve it.
"Near the end of last year, there was a gas fire in the science lab. Luckily, there wasn't any classes going on, but Flicker was in there serving detention while the teacher had gone out to get something from her office. The door was locked so that Flicker wouldn't try to leave, but while the teacher was gone, one of the gas pipes exploded, causing a huge fire. Flicker was locked inside, but nopony could open the door because the handle was too hot. By the time the fire had died down some, everypony thought she was a goner. But when they finally broke down the door, they found Flicker sleeping on her flaming desk as if nothing had happened."
"Nopony could understand it. Flicker should've been burned to a crisp, or at least come out with some pretty permanent scars. But she showed no signs of burns, not even her mane was singed. But the weirdest part was that she had been sent here for arson. To most this was just too big a coincidence, and everyone just gave her a wide berth after that."
Diamond didn't know what to say, a familiar feeling by now. She wanted to pass the story off as a rumor, but the look on Mal's face was too serious for that.
"Let's move away from that topic for now and get to the leader: Gingersnap." said Mal, her muzzle crinkling in a disgusted manner.
"Gingersnap is by far one of the most dangerous students at this school. She's been here for around a year and a half, and she practically founded the bullies. Nopony even knows what she did, but whatever it was, it must have been really bad because when she arrived it was by police escort."
Diamond went pale. "Feel free to say 'just kidding' any time now."
Mal ignored this. "My guess is that she probably hired the officers for show. She's definitely rich enough, with her dad owning like five different sugar plantations in Dodge Junction. It's also why she's got all that fancy gold jewelry and expensive mane style. Don't mess with her- she will destroy you if you do. Gingersnap is vicious. The only reason that she isn't a prep is because unlike the other she prefers to solve her problems 'personally' instead of using the signature prep gossip. Blackmail is her specialty, with physical harassment being a close second. If one doesn't work, she uses the other."
"The last thing I need to tell you about her is more like a warning than anything else. Be prepared- Gingersnap always tracks down the new kids and give them a hazing."
"Hazing?" asked Diamond, a little confused.
"As in she'll corner you to see how tough you are." said Mal. "Which means I can't be there 'cause it'll make you look like a wuss and me like a poser. So you'll just have to do this on your own."
Diamond went silent. Before, she had only ever been on the giving end of physical activity, and she didn't like the idea of being on the receiving end. She and Mal sat in awkward silence for a few minutes until the bell rang.
"That's dinner, we'd better get going." said Mal, getting up from her seat. "You coming?"
Diamond gulped. "Yeah, I'm coming. Wait up!"
***
(1)- An author with slight writer's block, that's who.