//------------------------------// // Chapter 7 // Story: Princess Twilight Sparkle's School for Fantastic Foals // by kudzuhaiku //------------------------------// Much to Sumac’s surprise, there was nothing apple related in the ice cream. It was watermelon flavoured, a simple, sweet and creamy treat with big, juicy tidbits of frozen watermelon. He sat in the kitchen, doing his best to avoid brain freeze, which would make him drop his spoon from his telekinesis and embarrass himself. One simply did not drop their spoon if one was a unicorn. Poor telekinesis was bad form. The kitchen had the blinds drawn, which made it cool and dark. Applejack was eating in near silence, she looked a little tired, but she was smiling. Hidden Rose and Ambrosia had eaten their ice cream before Sumac and Pebble had arrived and were now having a mid afternoon nap with Granny Smith. Apple Bloom was working on a windmill that would generate electricity and power the cider press she was working on. It was, without a doubt, an ideal afternoon, or was until Pebble opened her mouth. “Sumac needs glasses,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice. “I think he’s nearsighted.” “Do not!” Sumac almost dropped his spoon and it took all of his effort to keep levitating it. “Am not!” He stared at Pebble in disbelief, wondering why she had betrayed him. He felt embarrassed, he felt awkward, and maybe even a little angry that she had brought it up. It was bad enough that he was an egghead, but the fact that he needed glasses—he wasn’t sure if his Apple cousins would understand. He had a strange fear of being shunned for being weaker, for being lesser, for having less than perfect eyes. He already felt inadequate. He couldn’t applebuck a tree to save his life and all of his insecurities bubbled up within him. His spoon clattered to the table and Sumac let out a pained groan as he realised that he was now a failure as a unicorn. He slumped down in his chair, folded his forelegs over his barrel, and began sulking. Dropping his spoon was almost unbearable. He was glad that Trixie wasn’t here. At least earth ponies didn’t understand or comprehend what he had just done. “What in tarnation has come over you, Sugarcube?” Applejack asked as one eyebrow elevated into a graceful arch. Reaching over, she prodded Sumac with her hoof. “Ya look like ya done bit into a sour apple. Don’t be like that.” Sumac’s lower lip protruded into a pout. Now he was being lectured. And this had been a perfect day up to this point. His ears splayed out sideways and he avoided looking at Applejack, keeping his green eyes focused upon the half eaten bowl of watermelon ice cream in front of him. He did, however, manage a brief glare at his betrayer, who was still eating her ice cream and showing no signs of remorse. Boomer let out a smoky belch and continued to snooze on Sumac’s horn. “Shucks… glasses… why are you so upset, Sumac Apple?” Applejack asked. “Because he’s poor and doesn’t want to ask for help. Trixie is scrimping and saving for a house. Sumac doesn’t want to cause a problem.” Pebble took a quick bite, swallowed, and then looked Applejack in the eye. “I was going to talk to Pinkie, but I thought that you should know too. He can’t do his best in school if he can’t see.” “I can see just fine,” Sumac grumbled as he glowered at Pebble. “Nuts and gum.” Applejack brushed her mane out of her eyes, blinked once, and then looked over at her brother. “Mac?” “Eeyup?” “We can cover this, right?” Applejack asked, looking a little worried. “Eeyup.” Big Mac paused and looked down at his bowl of ice cream. “Won’t be a problem at all.” “Well, a’ight then. We just need to make an appointment and get him to the eye doctor and we need to do it before school starts.” Applejack rubbed her chin and became thoughtful. “I bet I could get a walk in today. We might have to wait a while, but I’m thinking we could get a walk in. That first day of school needs to be perfect.” Sumac sighed, realising that he was doomed. He pondered escape, but realised that Applejack would just lasso him, truss him up, and drag him to the eye doctor. Escape wasn’t an option. He felt the hot sting of tears burning his eyes and he just knew that Olive was going to make fun of him for being a four eyed dork. The eyeglasses would probably be whatever Applejack could afford, which Sumac worried would be something cheap, which would make him look even worse. But it wasn’t like he could just refuse her help or complain about whatever pair of glasses he was given; it would make him look like an ungrateful cuss. Ungrateful cusses were just about the worst thing ever. Applejack said awful things about ungrateful cusses. Having worked himself into a tizzy, Sumac reached a point where he didn’t even want to go to school. He wanted to crawl under the table and die. It was bad enough to be poor, it was bad enough to be humiliated by Olive, but to have something that was going to paint an enormous bullseye on him, something right on his face, that was almost too much to bear. “Sumac, you look upset,” Pebble deadpanned. So distraught was Sumac that he couldn’t even reply. He just glared at Pebble, his eyes shimmering with tears that he struggled to hold back as he imagined the harassment he would be getting. He could almost hear Olive’s voice even now. He felt his neck grow hot and it was getting harder to breathe. He thought about how he had launched himself at Olive, intent on giving her a good thrashing, and now, on top of everything else, he felt ashamed. He was acting like such a foal at the moment, and he knew it. But for whatever reason, he couldn’t make it stop. He had long passed the emotional point of no return. It wasn’t a tantrum, but it was a meltdown and he was powerless to prevent it from happening. When the first hot, salty tears began to fall, Sumac, infuriated with himself for not being able to hold everything in, began bawling and bit down on his lip hard enough to draw blood. “Aw, shucks,” Applejack said as she began to pull Sumac from his chair. He kicked and struggled, not wanting to be comforted, not wanting to be held, but Applejack was much, much stronger than he was and larger as well. She overpowered him with ease, pulled him into her embrace, and sat in her chair, holding him in her forelegs as everything bottled up inside of him came pouring out. “Just let it all out, Sugarcube… I know it’s rough and there’s no shame in just letting it all out. There there.” After speaking, Applejack stroked Sumac’s neck and pressed his face into her neck. Boomer, who awoke with a smoky snort, let out a worried honk, then a shrill trilling sound, and then climbed up on top of Applejack’s head, so that she could have a higher perch. She clung to one of Applejack’s fuzzy ears and her tiny fingers clenched Applejack’s mane for grip. “Aw, Mac, he’s just like how you used to be as a colt,” Applejack said to her brother. Sighing, turning a little redder, Big Mac nodded and pushed his bowl of ice cream away. “Eeyup.” The big stallion sighed again and shook his head. “I’d keep everything all bottled up until there was no more room and then everything would come spilling out at the worst time.” “How did you make it better?” Pebble asked as she too, pushed away her now empty ice cream bowl. “I went to my sister and she’d help me,” Big Mac replied in a low voice, sounding just a little embarrassed. “She’d hug me and talk to me and whisper in my ear and she’d make everything better.” Blinking, Big Mac looked over at his sister, Applejack, and saw that she was whispering into Sumac’s ear, hugging him, and doing her best to make Sumac feel better. Big Mac felt another case of the sniffles coming on. The only thing keeping his sniffles in check was how silly Applejack looked with a dragon sitting on top of her head. Still, there was a powerful urge welling up inside of Big Mac. Unable to cope with his own rising emotions, he reached out, and with blinding speed he grabbed Pebble, snatching her from her chair, swept her up, and held the tiny filly close to him as if she was a small doll. Pebble’s face had a blank expression as Big Mac gave her an affectionate nuzzle. She blinked, sighed, and resigned herself to her fate. The little filly thought about having a sibling, a brother or a sister, and after a moment of thought, realised that she did not like the idea, not at all. She didn’t want to go to a sibling to feel better, she wanted her mother or her father. Especially her father. He always knew just what to do, where to kiss her, when to hug her, he knew all of the right things to do and when to do them, just like he knew what to do to help her mother. Miserable, Pebble went limp in Big Mac’s embrace. “After you cry this out, you and I are going to walk to town, the walk will make ya feel better, ya know, and we’re going to see what we can do about getting you some glasses. Everything’ll be okay, Sumac, I promise. We Apples look after our own.” Applejack gave Sumac a firm squeeze and then settled in to wait for the storm to wear itself out. Feeling more than a little ashamed of himself, Sumac Apple followed along after the kind orange mare, staying almost on top of her fetlocks as she trotted ahead. Boomer was riding on Applejack’s hat, now wide awake, alert, and perky. Behind him, Pebble followed, her mood unknown, as he could not figure out what she was feeling from her blank expression. He was still feeling sulky and unsettled, but he did nothing to protest his fate, accepting that he was going to get a pair of glasses and that was going to be it. He accepted the fact that Olive was going to make his life miserable. He accepted the fact that this was going to make Trixie sad because she wasn’t able to do this for him. He knew that Trixie was going to take this hard. He hoped that she wouldn’t cry in her sleep again, because in the close confines of the wagon, he couldn’t bear to listen. But he understood that this was necessary. He needed every advantage in school. Good eyesight was an advantage. He was just going to have to look like a dork and work extra hard so he could make everypony proud. Being praised for good grades would make everything worth it. Sighing, Sumac could see a giant pair of eyeglasses sticking up from the roof of the building up ahead and off to the right. The building was kind of small, had a big picture window in the front, and while he could see almost everything else just fine, he realised that he had trouble seeing the text on the window. He had thought that this was normal, that text was just hard to read from a distance, but apparently, he was wrong. Following Applejack, Sumac summoned up all of his courage that he could muster. “You look scared.” Sumac looked over at the filly speaking to him. She was sitting in a chair beside him. She was almost a mare. She was a silvery grey colour, wearing glasses, and she seemed nice enough. He glanced over at Applejack, who was talking to the receptionist, and Boomer was still perched on her hat. “It’s just an eye exam. No reason to be scared. It’s not so bad.” The filly’s voice was calm, kind, and gentle. “He has other worries,” Pebble said in a flat voice. “Oh.” The silver grey filly nodded in a knowing manner. “Worried about being teased?” Scowling, Sumac nodded. “Try not to worry about it. When somepony teases you, it is usually because they feel insecure about themselves.” The silver grey filly sighed, blinked, and then gave Sumac a friendly pat. “I used to be a very insecure filly… I worried far too much about what others thought about me.” Sumac looked up at the filly, and saw that she looked a little sad. “I made some mistakes. But I learned something important.” “What’s that?” Pebble asked. “It’s never too late to go back and make things right,” the older filly replied as she smiled. “Cheer up… I think a pair of glasses will make you look handsome. Well, one day anyway—” “Why not now?” Sumac asked. He felt the older filly touch his cheek and lift his head and he found himself looking into her eyes. “Well, for right now, you are far too cute to be handsome.” The filly began to giggle and the corners of her eyes crinkled in merriment as she filled the waiting room with joyful laughter. Ugh. Sumac hated being cute. “If a little filly teases you, it is probably because she likes you. We do that, even though it makes no sense. We’re silly like that.” The filly, still grinning, was trying very hard to make Sumac smile and feel better. And truth be told, Sumac did feel better. The door opened and a mare wearing pink eyeglasses poked her head out into the waiting room. She coughed, cleared her throat, and then said, “Silver Spoon, the doctor will see you now. Please come with me.” “I gotta go, Cutie,” the filly said as she stood up. “Try not to worry so much. Everything will be okay, I promise.” Unable to help himself, Sumac smiled, now feeling just a little bit better.