Diamond Cutter Anthology Entries

by Yukito

Prompt #11 - Diamond Tiara Gets An A

Prompt: Diamond Tiara does something that Diamond Tiara would never do.

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Thursday was Silver Spoon’s favourite day of the week, if for no other reason than it was always the day that Cheerilee would return the results of the test they would always take on Tuesdays. The reason why this was so fun for Silver Spoon resided in the fact that she always scored an A, pleasing her parents and earning her the maximum allowance for the week, and also for one other reason: it was the one thing that Diamond Tiara could never beat her in.

To Silver Spoon, Diamond Tiara was the superior pony in almost every aspect. She was cuter, she was richer, she was younger – which meant she would be the last of the two to worry about wrinkles – she was braver, she was more determined… even her cutie mark, if given physical form, would be worth more than her own.

But there was one thing that Silver Spoon would always hold over Diamond Tiara’s head: her smarts. No matter how cunning Diamond Tiara may have been, when it came to schoolwork, she was on the same intellectual level as Scootaloo.

The highest grade Diamond Tiara had ever achieved was a C, and even though Silver Spoon tried her best not to rub her superior smarts into her friend’s face, just the knowledge that she would always be the smart one of the duo was enough to satisfy her.

“Silver Spoon, excellent work as always,” Cheerilee said as she reached Silver Spoon’s test paper, leaving it on the side of her desk with the other papers for students to collect if they wished. “You got an A. Keep doing what you’re doing.”

Silver Spoon smiled and cast a quick glance to Diamond Tiara sitting beside her. The pink filly was checking her hoof with a bored expression on her face as Cheerilee continued to read out the results to the class.

“Diamond Tiara,” she said as she got to said pupil’s paper, “I don’t know what you’ve done lately, but I’m very impressed. You got an A!”

“Uh-huh,” Diamond Tiara said with a nod. A few seconds passed before she realised what the teacher had said to her. “Excuse me?”

“What did you say?” Silver Spoon asked with a look of utter disbelief.

“I told you that you had it in you,” Cheerilee said with an encouraging smile. “You should never doubt yourself, and that goes for the rest of you, too.”

“I got an A?” Diamond asked.

“Diamond got an A?” Silver Spoon reiterated.

“Wow! That’s so cool!” Alula cried, clapping her hooves together. The two fillies to either side of Alula joined her, which spread to a few more foals, before soon the entire class was applauding Diamond Tiara’s accomplishment.

Diamond Tiara’s confusion didn’t last long before it was replaced with smugness. “Yeah, well, what exactly did you expect?” she asked with a proud look on her face. “That test was like, a cinch.”

“Diamond got an A?” Silver Spoon repeated, eyes still wide as she simply stared at her friend.

“Okay, class, let’s settle down,” Cheerilee called out, bringing her class steadily to silence. “We still have some more tests to get through and then we have to start of lessons.”

‘No way did Diamond Tiara get an A!’ Silver Spoon thought to herself, eyeing her confused-looking friend suspiciously. ‘I smell foul play! This looks like a job for… Detective Spoon!’

---

When recess came, all of the students rushed out of the classroom to race towards the swing set, knowing that whoever got there first would have first dibs. In their rush to beat the other foals, nopony had noticed that a certain silver sleuth had slunk off stealthily to start her secret investigation.

“There’s no way that Diamond Tiara of all ponies could have gotten an A on that test,” Silver Spoon said to herself as arose from behind her desk. “A C maybe, a B if it were a blue moon, but an A? This was no miracle. There are dark forces at work here, and I intend to prove it.”

Silver Spoon approached Cheerilee’s desk, where the majority of the marked test papers still lay. Only a few students ever actually took their papers back: Silver Spoon, Twist, Apple Bloom and Featherweight were those few students.

Silver Spoon shuffled through the papers until she found the one with Diamond Tiara’s name on it. She checked the answers herself, ensuring that the teacher hadn’t made a mistake when doing so. “It can’t be… Seventy-eight percent! That’s almost my score!”

Silver Spoon looked over towards Diamond Tiara’s seat and wondered if she could have copied anypony. “I was the only one sitting near enough for her to reach this high a score, but she even got a few questions that I missed.”

‘Perhaps she had somepony else submit the test under her name?’ Silver Spoon thought to herself. ‘I’ll just use my trusty detective magnifying glasses to check her hoofwriting.’ Silver Spoon reached up to the frame of her glasses and moved her face closer to the paper. “Beep beep beeeeeep.”

After studying the hoofwriting closely enough, and even comparing it to a sample of Diamond Tiara’s hoofwriting from a note she had passed to her in the previous lesson, she was shocked to find that it was a complete match. “How can this be?! There must be some explanation. Maybe she had somepony slip her the answers during the test? Maybe she saw the test beforehoof?”

“Maybe she’s a ninja!” Silver Spoon turned to her side to find Pipsqueak standing beside her. “You know, like in that show where the ninjas had t’ take a test, and they used their abilities to cheat wi’out being caught!”

“What are you doing here?!” Silver Spoon demanded as she placed Diamond Tiara’s paper back.

“I saw you playing detective and thought maybe I could play, too! I could be your Watson I could!”

“I’m not playing! Get out of here, dweeb!” Silver Spoon shouted, flames rising up behind her and her hair becoming snakes in young Pip’s eyes. The young colt turned around and ran out of the classroom at top speed. “What a loser.”

Silver Spoon turned back to the test paper and put a hoof to her chin. “Well, I doubt that Diamond Tiara’s a ninja, and I don’t see how she could have had somepony slip her the answers during the test. This case is too tough for me to solve in secret. I guess I have no choice. I’m going to have to ask the culprit directly what happened.”

---

“What d’you mean you don’t know?!” Silver Spoon shouted, surprised by the answer she had received. She had waited until school had ended and she was in Diamond Tiara’s room before interrogating her subject, thinking that Diamond Tiara would only cooperate if they were in a safe haven. “C’mon, Di, you can tell me. I won’t, like, grass on you or anything.”

“First of all, ‘grass’ on me?”

“Pip’s stupid Trottingham language is getting to me,” Silver Spoon grumbled.

“Second, I really don’t know how it happened,” Diamond Tiara said, falling back onto her bed and staring up at the ceiling, as though it would provide the answer that both fillies were looking for. “I just put whatever down and I got an A.”

“But that’s not possible. It’s not like it’s multiple choice or anything.”

“Maybe I just got really lucky,” Diamond Tiara suggested with a shrug. “Anyway, what does it matter how I got an A? Daddy’s giving me a higher allowance, everypony’s paying attention to me, and I have one thing to hold over Apple Bloom’s head.”

“I guess… It just kinda sucks to think that, one day, you might be smarter than me.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Diamond Tiara sat up to face her friend.

“Well, being smarter than you is the only thing I have going for me,” Silver Spoon said as she stared at the floor and twirled her hoof into the carpet.

“That’s not true. You’re older than me-”

“So I’ll age before you do,” Silver Spoon scoffed.

“But you’ll also be able to see an ‘adult movie’ before I do,” Diamond Tiara returned. “And you can cook better than me.”

“But we can just pay ponies to cook for us.”

“Well, you can read better than me.”

“We can also pay ponies to read for us.”

Diamond Tiara put a hoof to her chin and hummed in thought. “You… can argue better than me.”

“… Is that a good thing?”

“Er… maybe? Oh! I know what you can do better than me, that you can’t pay anypony else to do!”

“What’s that?” Silver Spoon asked, looking up at Diamond Tiara with genuine curiosity.

A pair of pink forelegs wrapped themselves around Silver Spoon. “You can make me happy, and you can make me feel better when I have a stupid day!”

Silver Spoon smiled and returned the embrace. “I guess I can do that.”

“And nopony’s a finer detective than you.”

Silver Spoon blushed. “Y-You know about that?”

“You don’t exactly hide it very well,” Diamond Tiara teased as she pulled away from the hug with a giggle.

Silver Spoon giggled too, though was still a little red from embarrassment. “I feel really stupid, getting all jealous over a stupid grade.”

“Well, I’ll try not to outshine you too much with my brilliant new mind,” Diamond Tiara said with a grin. “Besides, just look at it this way: I’m taking over Daddy’s business as soon as I’m finished with school, but you’re going to get a degree at Canterlot University.”

“Well, hopefully,” Silver Spoon said.

“No ‘hopefully’ about it! If they were as smart as they say there are, they’d enrol you right now!”

“Okay, let’s not get carried away here.” Silver Spoon turned her attention to the clock on Diamond Tiara’s wall. “It’s getting late. I think I should head home before Mum starts to worry.”

“I suppose,” Diamond Tiara said as the two fillies rose to their hooves and walked together towards the door. ‘Still, I do wonder how I managed to get that A…’

---

It was quiet in the Rich manor, and indeed all of Ponyville, as the darkness of the night washed over the small town and everypony in it fell into a peaceful slumber.

The door to Diamond Tiara’s bedroom creaked open quietly, and a dark hoof stepped into the room. Slowly, gently, they creeped over towards the bedside of the pink, sleeping filly, and the owner of those hooves smiled.

“I knew this wasn’t a waste of money,” Filthy Rich whispered as he placed a cassette tape into the player on Diamond Tiara’s bedside and hit play. He then turned around crept back out of the room, closing the door behind him. “I knew she had it in her. Now let’s see if we can’t get those English grades up, too.”

Back inside Diamond Tiara’s room, the pink filly rolled onto her side and groaned as a new voice entered her head. “Hello, and welcome to Twilight Sparkle’s English for Beginners. Chapter one: Grammar and Punctuation!”

Comments

[Masterweaver]

Awwwww.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

Heh, I guess Filthy Rich finally got some smarts when it comes to parenting.

[Grtgfbll]

Now all she needs is a copy of "How to be Superior Without Being a Bully by Trixie, Iron Will, and Fluttershy"

[DerpedRainbow]

Since when was Seventy Eight percent an A? Also, I am finally going through my read later list!