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// The end 
// Story: It's time for a Field Trip! 
// by musicman722 
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	Cheerilee couldn’t prove it, but she knew that damned draconequus was responsible for it. She raced for the school house the moment she could stop blowing her nose every minute. All the way, she hoped and prayed that the school wasn’t in shambles, or worse, like she imagined every second that she was sick. If it wasn’t for the annoying care her sister had given, she would have marched up to her desk, cold or not.

“But I would have done the same to her or any of my students.” she said with a sigh, rounding another corner. “A sick student can’t learn properly, after all.”

A fence jump and cut across the park later, Cheerilee skidded to a halt in front of the steps to the school. She took a moment to compose herself and slow down her thumping heart. 

‘Just go in, assess the damage, and then return tenfold to Discord. Per student.’ she thought. With a deep breath, she pushed the door open and was greeted with probably the strangest sight in her entire career.

“I’m out of glue!” 

“There’s some over here.” 

“Can you pass the tape?”

“Did I do this right?”

“It’s leaning too much!”

Cheerilee had to smack herself to make sure she wasn’t asleep, or still sick. Each one of her students were sitting at their desks working on a small project. She wasn’t quite sure on what as the constructions varied from biology to geology to even astronomy. The weirdest thing was the creature standing on her desk to hang stars from the ceiling with the help of a lizard. If Cheerilee had to guess, that was Discord’s substitute.

“What is going on here?” Cheerilee said.

That got the substitute’s attention. “Oh look, class. It seems your teacher taught her terrible flu a lesson!” The substitute leaped off the desk and extended a hand. “Pleased to meet you, I’m Ms. Frizzle. I would have met you earlier but we got a little distracted.” 

For reasons Cheerilee couldn’t understand, the whole class burst into giggles. She extended her hoof in greeting. “Not a problem.” she said with her most polite smile. “I’m glad somepony could come on short notice. If I may ask, what’s going on? This wasn’t in the curriculum I had delivered.” She had sent Twilight over with the papers, and also to check on the new teacher, but that turned up with little result.

Ms. Frizzle laughed. “Oh, that thing? I read it, but I felt that the students could use a bit of interactive learning.” 

“We went on a lot of field trips!” Applebloom said as she tried to tape another leg on her ant model.

“It was so cool! Did you know friction is what keeps us from sliding all over the place?” Rumble said.

“And stars are huge balls of hot gas packed like a snowball! They take, like, forever to make!” Diamond Tiara held up her cross section model of the sun.

The other students added in their own facts and tidbits about various things. Needless to say, Cheerilee was stunned. She would count herself lucky if everypony would pay attention for most of the day. But to show this much enthusiasm? It was unheard of.

“Settle down, class.” Ms. Frizzle said, and which the class obeyed, returning to their work. “As you can see, my methods have yet to fail me. After all that learning, I figured it was best to have them show you everything they know.”

“This is incredible. Here I was worried that they were in danger. I guess Discord really did pull through.” Cheerilee said, then turned to Ms. Frizzle. “Thank you again. I don’t suppose I can call you up again if I need to?”

“Anytime, dear. Anytime.” As Ms. Frizzle headed towards the door, she waved to everyone, Goodbye class.” 

“Goodbye, Ms. Frizzle!” they all said in unison. And with that, the strange teacher was gone.

Not missing a beat, Cheerilee stepped forward. “Now, class, will anypony like to explain what’s going on?”

“Ms. Frizzle said we should try to show what we learned on our field trips!” Featherweight said.

“I see. How many field trips did you all go on?”

“So many!” he said.

“It felt like a year since we’ve seen you!” Sweetie Belle said.

“I suppose it has.” Cheerilee looked over the various projects again. “Alright class, for the rest of the day, I want you to work on your projects and we will start presenting them in three days. Make sure you have a good report for me and the class too. I want to hear all about what you learned on these field trips.”