The Golden Apple
“Legend has it that in this very forest lies the Golden Apple.”
Sweetie Belle gave Scootaloo a very wan look at Apple Bloom’s words, only to find Scootaloo was giving her a wan look in return. In front of them, a young redhead known as Apple Bloom knelt down, pushing aside the bushes with her hands, and forging a way forward through the dense brush. The night air was cool, despite the approaching summer, and only moonlight lit their way through the forest surrounding the Apple Acre farm.
Scootaloo was as eager as Apple Bloom to go hunting after this legend, even so late at night. Sweetie was less eager, but if what Apple Bloom said was true then they might really find one of the seven secrets of Canterlot High. The bracken scraped at the white girl’s forearms, where she was sure little welts would be forming. Her coiffure as her sister would put it was already full of leaves and debris. But she honestly couldn’t be happier to be exploring the dark woods together with her friends.
Scootaloo was trying to remember the way they came, but wasn’t having much luck. The light from the farm house could be seen from here but only if you stood up straight and looked for it. It wasn’t like she was scared or anything, no no. Scootaloo didn’t get scared. She just was being cautious, and making sure that they wouldn’t get lost. Apple Bloom was the one of the three so determined to find this, of course, apple related legend. Hopefully it would just be some prank, or trick of the light, and they could find out the truth and get out of the embrace of these spooky trees. It wasn’t like the trees had faces that were glaring at Scootaloo. She was just checking, to make sure that they just seemed to look that way in the moonlight.
Apple Bloom stood up again, “I found the path, girls!” she exclaimed excitedly, brushing off her coveralls and jogging forward into the darkness.
“Hey wait up!” came Scootaloo’s voice from behind her. Apple Bloom didn’t want to lose the path, so she couldn’t turn around, but she just waved her hand behind her saying,
“Over here Scootaloo!”
The two eventually joined her and they traveled down the deep path, as it curved around tall living trees and dipped under huge fallen trees. It was almost like the forest was egging her on. She had searched for this for so long, she couldn’t even remember when she started, but she had a hunch that tonight was the night. If she just stuck to the path and kept putting one foot in front of the other, then she’d have her hands on a real live treasure. Some said it would grant immortality. Some said it would grant you a wish. Really Apple Bloom didn’t take truck in much superstitious nonsense, but she really wanted to find it, just to reassure to herself that the Golden Apple was real.
The path finally opened out to a clearing. The almost perfectly circular grassy meadow was silver in the light, and danced against Apple Bloom’s shins as she stopped short at what she saw on the edge of it. She didn’t even want to say herself because maybe it was just her imagination. Maybe she just wanted it so bad that she was dreaming it up. But if her friends said,
“There it is!” whispered Sweetie Belle. Apple Bloom heaved a sigh of relief. She might not have been a high schooler yet, but she liked to think that she had good judgement, sense and tact. And her tact led her right to this very clearing, looking like the moon on the earth for its silvery circumference. And in the center of that clearing was a small tree, completely separate from all the other trees. It wasn’t much. It looked like it might have just been a sapling. It even bent forward, with the weight of the one large fruit it carried.
The Golden Apple wasn’t silver in the moonlight. No light from anywhere in the world should have made it glimmer as brightly golden as it did. It wasn’t just a golden delicious; it looked like it was made of smooth, solid gold. It was like a song, welcoming her home.
“I’m gonna try to get it,” she said eagerly.
“Are you crazy??” Scootaloo hissed to her left.
“It could be dangerous!” Sweetie Belle said, “Maybe we should wait, and come back some other time with a grown-up.”
“It don’t appear any other time!” Apple Bloom declared, “This is the only chance we have! I just wanna take a closer look, okay?”
“Okay Apple Bloom,” Sweetie said uncertainly. Scootaloo just scuffed her shoe on the ground.
When Apple Bloom started moving forward, the three of them started moving forward, the other two hesitantly backing her up from behind. They could see each other clearly in the moon meadow, albeit in shades of blue and white. Apple Bloom’s bright red curls looked black, and her skin was as white as Sweetie’s, while Scootaloo was a two toned grey. Sweetie’s hair was the only part of them that was dimly blue. It was like they were washed out in a technicolor landscape, like a painter had gone to stroke out reality with his brush, only to find he had only three colors to work with.
Three colors, and Gold.
The light reflecting off the apple actually brought more color to Apple Bloom’s features as she neared it looking down at the tiny bent sapling. The apple wasn’t reflecting anything around them, though in its distorted curve you couldn’t rightly tell what it was reflecting. Nothing moved in that reflection. The apple wasn’t swaying in the breeze on the bent bough that held it. Only the grass was softly whispering, and the girls were flanking Apple Bloom protectively.
“It’s beautiful!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed in a captivated tone.
“It sure is something,” Scootaloo admitted, “And I thought you were joking all this time, or crazy!”
Apple Bloom was already reaching forward.
“What are you doing Apple Bloom?” Sweetie hissed harshly.
“Ahm just,” Apple Bloom said hesitating, “Mah family name has Apple in it. It don’t make sense that we’re herdin’ cows. We should be pickin’ apples. I just, ah feel like I really wanna just...”
The sapling shrank into the ground like it was growing in reverse when the Golden Apple fell off its bough all on its own and landed lightly in Apple Bloom’s outstretched hands. It was... it wasn’t metal. It was a real, living apple. It was cool to the touch, but its light was warm and welcoming. The two beside her inhaled sharply, but she just brought it to her face fascinated, trying to discern what was reflected in its surface.
After a moment of silence, Apple Bloom looked up at Sweetie saying, “Okay, we got it. Now let’s pack this away and get—” the apple exploded in a shower of light. Three screams pierced the night. Then the light dimmed, and descended back to darkness, leaving Apple Bloom fallen back on her back, with no apple to be seen anywhere.
She picked herself up, sighing disgustedly and saying, “...or that. Gosh darn it. I thought ah had it this time!”
“A-apple Bloom.....” Sweetie’s quavering voice came from above, Apple Bloom on her left. She looked, and immediately fell over again.
“Sweetie?!” Apple Bloom exclaimed scrambling back and looking up at the giant version of her best friend, who knelt there looking down at her in terror. “How’d you get so big?!”
“Apple Bloom, look at yourself!” Scootaloo said urgently behind and... above her. Apple Bloom’s head snapped to her right where Scootaloo was crouched, grown just as huge as Sweetie Belle. Then Scootaloo’s words sank in, and she looked down at herself. Now, the lighting wasn’t so good, so her furry coat was still whitish looking, and her tail was the black of red in moonlight. Her forelegs started shaking as she looked at them in complete shock.
“Ahm a... ahm a...”
Apple Bloom shot up in her bed. She was breathing hard in big gulps, at the intensity of the dream. She didn’t even know what she’d been. Some kind of... some kind of animal, though! She pulled off the blankets—it felt like she had hands, but, but after that?
Apple Bloom swung her feet off the edge of the bed, and threw the blanket aside, standing up and padding quickly on her feet, to her nightgown on the hook. She was just going on automatic at this point. She shoved it around her, then fumbled around with her fingers for the light switch.
The electricity came on, her overhead light illuminating the room brightly enough to make Apple Bloom squint and cover her eyes with a hand. A hand! It was a hand! She checked over her unflattering torso, her strong but small arms, her legs lean from running around with her fellow Crusaders. There wasn’t an inch of fur anywhere on her. She didn’t even have hair on her legs yet like her sister, not anything besides her usual baby fuzz. Considering her hair and skin color, Apple Bloom was really not looking forward to having to shave her legs. Or anywhere else for that matter, but that part you could cover up.
The important point is, there was no fur. No tail, no hand... paw... things. And she was just as tiny as she always is, which is to say not as tiny as in her dream. Apple Bloom breathed a sigh of relief. It had been such a vivid dream, she really thought that for a second there... well, it was just fine then. She flicked off the light, and padded back to the comfort of her bed. She still had an hour or so before the cock crowed, which she was determined to spend sleeping off that weird dream. It was going to be a long day today, another long day of high school and trouble. Only thing she had to look forward to was the one hour of freedom she had with her friends called lunch period.
“Oh man you guys,” Scootaloo said inaccurately, “I just had the craziest dream!”
Apple Bloom choked on her juice box.
Scootaloo continued to describe with arm motions, “It was a real dream I swear, and I actually remembered it for once. We were looking for this, well you guys were there I mean, and we were following Apple Bloom who was looking for the—”
“Golden Apple,” Apple Bloom interrupted.
Sweetie Belle looked silently from Scootaloo to Apple Bloom and said, “I had the same dream too,” in a somewhat haunted voice, “And we found it. The Golden Apple I mean.”
“Wait, so you two both had the same dream?” Apple Bloom asked not really wanting to go where this conversation was going.
“You were in it too, Apple Bloom!” Scootaloo declared. “And you went and grabbed the apple! And it exploded! And turned you into a um...”
Scoots looked to Sweetie Belle imploringly, but Sweetie just shrugged and said, “I don’t know what animal that was.”
Apple Bloom folded her arms, and lay her head down on them. The cafeteria was bustling in lunch hour, so the three of them had relative privacy in the sense of the ambient noise keeping anyone from hearing them. Still, she wasn’t sure she wanted to even remember that. Not because it was horrifying, but because she just felt so comfortable about it, it was scaring her.
“Ah had the same dream too,” she mumbled, hopefully loud enough that Sweetie and Scootaloo could–
“What was it?!” Sweetie asked Apple Bloom eagerly. “What did you change into?”
Apple Bloom blinked, then laughed, lifting her chin up and saying, “Ah have no idea. I didn’t do it; that weird apple did. Why were we even searching for it?”
“It was one of the school’s seven secrets, I think...” Sweetie trailed off. “It’s not really, I mean, I don’t know what the secrets are, but in the dream I knew it was one of them.”
“Never mind that,” Scootaloo said, taking a hearty bite of her complimentary, school provided hamburger. “What did it feel like?” she asked somewhat messily.
“Well, you saw right?” Apple Bloom ventured. “I didn’t even notice until you pointed it out. So I guess it didn’t feel like anything. But you two were huge!”
Scootaloo laughed at that, “You did get a lot smaller I didn’t think about it the other way.”
“I guess it was just one of those dream things,” Sweetie Belle suggested thoughtfully, “Where you don’t feel any different, and you just look like you do.”
Apple Bloom paused enough for the two to almost go right back to eating quietly, but then she blurted out, “It felt different. Way different.” Her friends stopped, looking at her inquisitively. “Ah had a tail I mean. My hands were gone. I had to check myself when I woke up to make sure ah wasn’t covered in fur!”
“I thought you said it didn’t feel like anything though,” Scootaloo said confusedly, “But it did?”
“Sorry Scoots I, uh I just don’t know what I was feeling exactly,” Apple Bloom shrugged apologetically. “It felt way different,” she reasserted.
“But you didn’t even notice,” Sweetie Belle pressed her from behind, “If it felt different then you would notice!”
“It felt different,” Apple Bloom said slowly, with difficulty, “...even though it didn’t feel like anything special. It was like, normal. Nothing you’d notice riding by on a gallopping horse. Like it was all... familiar-like.”
In the ensuing uncomfortable silence the three friends regarded their food without looking at each other, until Scootaloo just blurted out, “Dreams are weird!”
“You said it!”
“Yeah!”
...the other two pitched in. Then they got to eating their lunches more dedicatedly, and that was the end of that.
It was so troublesome for Apple Bloom, being a Freshman in high school. For one thing it made going to and from class an exercise in acrobatic ballet. When you were a head shorter than everyone else you never knew what was around the next shoulder or pleated butt. Didn’t help that they changed periods the same time as the upper class students. It was troublesome being ignored because everybody thought she was just a little kid and also because of the noodle incident, even though they were only like a year older than her. She hated being all the way at the bottom of the pecking order and having to fight to earn what other kids just got handed to them, just because they were older.
But really, it was high school itself that was the problem. High school just plum sucked. Apple Bloom was sure there weren’t anything good about it that didn’t have three bad things to imbalance it out. Her afternoon today offered a good description of that, in fact.
Her very first class was Geometry, and Apple Bloom thought she knew math pretty good before she got to that class. She still thought she knew math pretty good, but Geometry was hardly about math at all it seemed. You had to just eyeball half the exercises and mark off the equivalent angles and such, trying to walk your way through a problem that didn’t have an obvious set of steps to reaching a solution. She couldn’t figure out when a triangles angles had to be the same, and when they didn’t, it just seemed so arbitrary. You could draw it like they were the same, but then you drew it wrong, and they were actually a tiny bit different. The teacher was enthusiastic enough, but he wasn’t real good at explaining things, so Apple Bloom spent a lot of days just lost as he whizzed through the intuitive leaps that led him to the area of a polygon or something.
Then there was History. And man, you couldn’t learn a thing about history in history. The textbook was just a bunch of meaningless wars and conquests, with so-and-so marching on such-and-such, and about how terrible feudalism is because the system we have now is so much better for some reason. And the professor Berry barely even covered the source material. She just spent the whole class talking about her family problems and road trips and stuff. Apple Bloom felt like the class was a joke, and she suspected that the teacher might be partaking of illicit substances. At least Sweetie was in her class there, not that they could do more than give each other meaningful looks and pass notes silently.
Apple Bloom got Geometry and History done with before lunch, along with her elective which was metal shop. That sounds a lot funner when you sign up for it, until you learn that Freshmen aren’t allowed to use the arc welder or the rivet gun or anything cool like that. So you get the lovely task of learning how to make stamps, and cut pipes that are already forged, and maybe bend a pole into the shape the upper class student wanted. But it wasn’t too bad even though it was disappointing. No it was the afternoon after lunch what really sucked.
English class was alright. If by alright you meant that there was only one good way of talking and anyone who might have a different way of expressin’ themselves got put down and told they were wrong, even if it was an ancient family tradition and she’d been talking this way since she could first remember. Apple Bloom liked the idea of learning to write and stuff, but all the stupid rules that didn’t make no sense to the students who weren’t a backwoods hick were entirely lost on a hopeless case like Apple Bloom.
Then came Physical Education. You couldn’t possibly make going outside and running around any more clinical, soulless and academic. They counted how many pushups you did, and they assigned you to what you were going to be doing, and it always ended with a team sports game that had assigned teams, not ones made from friends, with complicated rules like when you could tear off a flag or how long you had to wait before you could hit the ball. She was so sick of being called out by the coach for a “hand ball” when she wasn’t even trying to and it just hit her hand on accident. Why couldn’t you just grab the ball and run with it?
Already hungry from lunch, then she had to go to her next period, which was a foreign language, and she hated it. Learning French was so hard, it killed her every lesson why they couldn’t just speak the same way that they always do. And the stuff were were taught to say was... well the teacher was assuming they were all going to be stupid tourists wandering around in France trying to find romantic landmarks and such, so it was all about learning how to say how can I find the Louvre and what is on your menu, and stuff that Apple Bloom would never even ask even in English. What about the stuff like adventures and talking about what you’re doing with your life, and asking important stuff like telling someone how to cook a recipe or build a house? She didn’t even know the word ‘recipe’ in French, and she suspected recipe was already in French, in English!
And finally was her stupid Biology class. There wasn’t really anything especially wrong with this class, though the teacher did have an unnatural affection for slime molds, but by this time she was too exhausted to enjoy just about anything. She sort of paid attention, sometimes. Wasn’t doing very well though, and was finding it really hard to summon enough gumption in herself to care. She liked the idea of Biology in theory, but in practice there was absolutely zero invention or discovery, no creating new forms of life, no deeper understanding of the body’s inner workings. No, it seemed like 90% of it was memorizing the categories that ancient biologists thought up to sort all the animals into. Recognizing plants and animals, the properties already known about them. And nothing else.
So after 8 grueling hours of nothing but being told what to do, and never asked what to do, the day was almost over, and Apple Bloom now had the exciting task of shoveling cow poop to look forward to. The worst thing is, she didn’t mind the cow poop half as much as she did some of the bullshit she had to deal with during the day! Applejack and Granny and her guidance counselor all told her that it seemed hard now, but if she put up with it she’d look back on it one day and be grateful that she had.
It was so hard to ruin her life now though, on the pure assumption that she’d suddenly start finding it worthwhile a lifetime away. People told her that if it seemed like everything else sucked, then it was her that was the problem, but there were plenty of good things she could see in life; she just wasn’t allowed them anymore now that her whole life had to be about high school. High school was nothing like her old school, and she missed that school so much. Miss Cheerilee had been so nice, and they had learned so much, and had so much fun and, now?
High school didn’t even have a homeroom class. Apple Bloom hadn’t believed it at first. They were just so delighted to hand her that class schedule, and tempt her excitement with the novelty of being able to choose an elective, from a limited selection of course, with special caveats for being a Freshman, and no good idea what the class was going to be like. But once she started school, it hit her that teachers had more than one class, loyalty to none of them, and she had no one teacher. So soon there she was, in that hallway, every day, every hour, running sometimes to get all the way across school, a little girl lost in a hall of giants.
Did it matter that she and Sweetie and Scootaloo were such fast friends for so long, and through so much? Not a bit to these administrators. They just randomly decided what classes you were going to be in. She was lucky as heck to get Sweetie in her history class, and of course the teacher preferred to lecture and prattle on rather than get her students working together for anything. The three of them only got to meet during lunch, but Scootaloo was even more lost than they were, doing really poorly in her classes and... well she didn’t like to show it, but Scootaloo was hurting inside from being all alone. And all this, because there was no homeroom.
Apple Bloom’s teachers were now these unapproachable strangers, people who talked at her and not to her, because they couldn’t get to know her. She was with them for an hour, and then she was gone, one of hundreds, thousands shuffled off to the next stranger trying to teach her stuff. It made her feel worthless, like she was just some playing piece in some demented god’s chess game, and it made her work five times as hard just to get by.
She couldn’t blame them really. How could eight teachers communicate with each other effectively, to keep from assigning homework that didn’t leave their students feeling overwhelmed? The answer is they couldn’t, and Apple Bloom found she was doing nothing but homework where she used to have free time to do what she wanted. No, her teachers couldn’t possibly coordinate, except for testing periods which they all had timed to be simultaneous, so you couldn’t ever be ready for all of them to hit you at once.
The faculty didn’t say they hated her, but you couldn’t argue with the evidence. That kind of treatment is not something you do for someone that you have any regard for as a human being. Or at least, that’s what Apple Bloom wrote in her diary, angry after she had to cancel a sleepover because she got a C on that math exam. It was just terrible in every respect not having a single teacher, or even a homeroom. And that, that wasn’t the worst about high school. The worst, most unbearable wrong that this place was cursed with, the one thing that convinced Apple Bloom the universe just hated her was... recess.
Recess was becoming a forgotten memory.
That was it. That was what the worst part about high school was. No recess. They took away your recess and gave you P.E. instead. There was no time to play, no chance to get together with her friends and make big plans for the future, no time she wasn’t under strict supervision, except the all too short lunch hour. Recess had become regimented physical assignments. Apple Bloom felt more like a prisoner than a student, cooped up in this high school place.
There was no recess for Apple Bloom, no time to have fun, just class after class. She missed the old days when all she had to worry about were the lessons from Miss Cheerilee. Now she had 8 different teachers breathing down her neck, and they never checked with each other to make sure they weren’t collectively assigning too much work.
To make a long story, and a very long day short: high school sucked. It sucked the life right out of living. Apple Bloom couldn’t wait for it to be over, so she could just shovel cow poop and have some gosh darn time to play outside with her friends.
In retrospect, she probably should have been careful what she wished for.
The only other thing of note that day was the dinner that she and her family shared. Granny Smith was a lunch lady by trade, which is a considerable step down from a cook and totally wasted her amazing cooking skills, but that just gave the old lady more motivation to make delicious dinners. She fought to at least give them one square meal a day. Mashed potatoes and steak with a hearty gravy drizzled over both of them three heads of bright green broccoli, expertly steamed to where it was both sweet and savory. As exhausted as Apple Bloom was she had to thank Granny every single time for the great meals she cooked. It was the brightest highlight of Apple Bloom’s day.
Or it was, until that dream started getting to her again. What kind of animal had she dreamed herself as? Those hadn’t been paws on the end of her arms, well, forelegs they probably would be called. They weren’t cat paws, or dog paws, but maybe Winona’s, or... or Mooella’s. Really, they looked kind of like...—and maybe it was a silly thought but—looking down at the delicious half eaten slice of animal meat, suddenly Apple Bloom wasn’t feeling so keen on eating it no more.
“Something wrong with your steak?” her big brother asked, in that chocolatey soft voice of his.
“Yeah I’m just... I’m just kinda full,” Apple Bloom said, pushing her plate away. “Ah think I’m just gonna go do mah homework.”
Now, if that were Scootaloo, everyone would have bugged their eyes out in shock and demanded to know where the body snatching alien had hidden their friend, but Apple Bloom was diligent with her homework, as diligent as she could be considering every Freshman was the Sysiphus pushing the boulder of homework up the hill, only to have it assigned again the next day. But for now, she could hold out, and that meant her family trusted her, so Granny smiled at her and said, “Get on then, sooner you get done the sooner you can relax.”
Apple Bloom just wished ‘relax’ didn’t mean do homework then fall bone dead asleep. But after a quick tooth brushing, she just had to doggedly struggle so long through all those darned geometry diagrams that she just ran outta time for anything else. Dinner, homework, bed. There was literally that much homework to be done.
She wondered, as she lay in bed with her hands cradling behind her head, if she would dream again. Maybe she’d start the dream where it left off. There was something magical about the dream that had her suspicions raised, that her two best friends somehow shared it. That wasn’t normal; there weren’t no way for the dream in her head to jump all the way into town, where their heads were dreaming away. It could have been coincidence, but it could also have been something more significant. Apple Bloom resolved to find out tonight, if when she slept she could dream together with them again.
Her dreams were confused and scattered, something about standing in the farmhouse with a chicken, and a giant geometry monster stomping on students who couldn’t answer the math questions, but not a sight of Scootaloo nor Sweetie Belle, no golden apples, and no transforming into a tiny little calf. When Apple Bloom woke up, she actually felt a little disappointed. The sun was filtering in through the cracks in the wall... needed to weatherize that, before it next rained. The light was good for getting her up, though. She sat up in bed, thinking about the events of yesterday. She’d have to ask her friends if they saw her in their dreams.
What Apple Bloom finally concluded that morning, was that the reason the three of them shared a dream must have been something the three of them were talking about, some time in the past, and it just stuck in all their heads until they slept which made them dream the same thing, pretty much. That made good sense to her, and as Apple Bloom devoured a stack of apple pancakes drizzled in syrup and butter, she was actually starting to feel confident about today. She had her math homework done and she was making good progress on her book report—sorry, “literary analysis” in English. There was that math quiz coming up tomorrow, but she’d probably find time to study for that too, sometime.
Apple Bloom grabbed her backpack and ran out the farm house after her sister. It was too far for a little girl to walk from the farm to the high school, but it sure wasn’t too far for Applejack’s truck. The beat up old green thing had been inherited from Applejack’s parents apparantly, the ones Apple Bloom had been too young to meet. Applejack might have only had her learner’s permit but she was responsible enough, and responsible for enough that the police knew not to give her a hard time. It was a contentious issue among Applejack’s friends apparantly, because although she was the one among them who could drive, she had to play it safe or she’d endanger the ability of not only herself but Apple Bloom too, to get to school.
Frankly Apple Bloom wouldn’t have minded not having to go to school. She loved learning and she loved school, but, well... this just wasn’t the school she loved. She didn’t understand how Applejack got so much out of it, but it was probably another upper class thing that Freshmen didn’t get to enjoy. They got off the dirt road and the truck’s carriage smoothed out as they rode down along the pavement. AJ was sitting next to Apple Bloom, with her hand on the wheel, and Apple Bloom was just looking forward at the approaching scenery.
“Yer bow’s a little crooked, Apple Bloom,” Applejack said to her, so Apple Bloom leaned forward to look in the side mirror, tugging and teasing it with her fingers, before finally undoing it entirely, and wrapping up her bouncy curls the right way this time. She smiled when it was arranged right. She might wear jeans and shirt one day, and coveralls the next, but this bow was kind of her signature mark, like how Applejack’s boots had apples stitched into them. And Big Mac’s jacket had... apples stitched into them.
What was it with her family and apples?
Once they arrived at school, Apple Bloom jumped out, then jerked back as her pants started to slip off. Applejack was getting out herself but looked across the cab at her sister’s yelp. “S-sorry sis,” Apple Bloom said blushing hard, tugging her belt secure. “Ah must have left mah belt unfastened, heh, heh heh.”
Applejack just headed off right away, and from the look on her face it was clear she was doing so to avoid busting out laughing at her sister’s near disaster. Taking a frantic look around it didn’t look like anyone else in the parking lot had noticed, and thankfully no boys. She would have just died if the girls at school started giving her a hard time for showing off her underclothes to a boy, however accidentally. Shouldering her book bag, Apple Bloom tried to look nonchalant as she headed away from the truck and walked toward that boring old math class. She managed to stay alert for that at least, but History class was something else entirely.
“And tha’s when I broked down, right inna middle of the Ozarks. You wouldn’ believe it I hhad to wait for the police to come, an’ give me a jump start for the entire night! Met my friendsh in Arizona and lemme tell you that was quite a party...”
Apple Bloom risked a glance at Sweetie Belle, whose eyes were also glazed over from trying to get something significant out of Ms. Berry’s uh, “history” lesson. Apple Bloom doubted the curriculum called for the teacher’s trip to Arkansas to be on the test. She looked at the teacher again, just... sighed, and pulled out the history textbook on her own, flipping through it idly trying to find something she hadn’t read yet, something about the Battle of Hastings, hm. Oh right, the Domesday book. Heh, that sounded like Doomsday book. Man those Nords were total jerks. Helping your friends is well and good, but pushing other people over to give their stuff to your friends just wasn’t right. And that was supposed to be the foundation of modern land rights legislation?
“I said eschuse me!” Ms. Berry said in a loud tone, putting one pink hand down on Apple Bloom’s desk, making Apple Bloom snap her head up. The teacher was right there, glaring at her.
Apple Bloom shrunk before her gaze, saying, “Ah was readin’ history! I didn’t mean to ignore you I was just, ah mean the test and...”
Ms. Berry gave her a thin lipped smile then and staring above her head said to Apple Bloom, “I bet Voishey set you up to thish.” Then, she straightened up and staggered back over to her desk, where something that smelled like alchohol from halfway across the room was certainly not waiting for her.
“Tell her it wassa good joke!” the teacher cheered loudly, then went right back to her diatribe. “Sho the rocks were stacked up in a pyramid shee, but the wallll wasn’t leanin the right way...”
Apple Bloom just blinked, and looked at Sweetie Belle, who just gave her big eyed confusion and shrugged.
Later at lunch, the Cutie Major Crusaders were all laughing at Ms. Berry’s antics that day, when a familiar voice approaching got Apple Bloom’s attention.
“Hey, you three!”
“Well look who it is,” Apple Bloom declared, turning and pulling back her chair to see the new girl better. “How you been?”
Sweetie Belle paused from her health shake thing, long enough to add shyly alongside Apple Bloom, “We haven’t talked in a while.”
“Well, duh,” the girl said to Sweetie, “Your sister is like, a total slave driver!”
Sweetie Belle actually laughed at that, just a little throaty giggle.
“Teaching you all about clothing design, huh?” Apple Bloom asked amiably.
“Well, what do you think?” Diamond Tiara said, posing jauntily with her lunch tray in hand. She was still clinging to the idea of pink, but it looked like she’d figured out how good a light lemon chiffon looked in contrast to her rosy pink skin. The pink she chose for highlights was a darker shade more of a magenta really. It added up to what amounted to a simple sundress worn over a long sleeved white blouse.
“Hmm,” Apple Bloom said, stroking her chin critically, “The tiara is a bit much.”
“Whatever you say, Bow Girl,” Diamond Tiara said with a half smile. She was still familiar enough with Apple Bloom to know that was a complement, it seemed. If there had been a problem with her ensemble, she sure could trust Apple Bloom to say it straight, without any forced politeness or distrust.
“Where’s Silver?” Scootaloo asked abrasively, earning a glare from Apple Bloom. Taking a drink of her milk, the orange girl tried not to show interest.
Diamond Tiara’s self assured expression faltered at Scootaloo’s remark though. “Study hall,” she said in a dismissive tone, looking aside.
“Again?” Apple Bloom exclaimed in surprise, “Doesn’t that girl ever stop to eat?”
“Hey it’s not my fault she took all those AP classes!” Diamond shot back hotly.
“Wasn’t sayin’ it was,” Apple Bloom said raising her hands defensively. In the awkward silence Diamond started to walk away, so Apple Bloom called after her, “Hey uh, you wanna sit with us today?”
Diamond paused, a long time before turning around. “It beats sitting alone again,” she said darkly, plopping down beside Apple Bloom, with Sweetie and Scootaloo peering at her from the other side. The three of them had been fighting with Diamond when they first met, but circumstances thrust them together, and now that they were all going to the same school Apple Bloom had learned the less horrible side of Diamond. Her friends weren’t quite so convinced yet, but Apple Bloom suspected they would warm up to her. Diamond was just a really passionate girl who tried to do everything perfectly, and got upset when she found herself less than capable of doing so.
“You and Silver Spoon used to hang out so much,” Sweetie Belle ventured cautiously. “What happened between you two?”
“What happened is this stupid school!” Diamond Tiara exclaimed making Sweetie squeak and retreat back behind Apple Bloom. “Now she has to spend all her time with those stupid mluhh technies and there’s just no time left for me! Why couldn’t she have been a fashionist?”
“You think you got it so hard,” Scootaloo said at Diamond bitterly.
“Can it, Scoots,” Apple Bloom said to her harshly.
“At least you know what you’re going to major in!” Scootaloo outburst, then looked at Apple Bloom guiltily. Not the least bit of a repentant look at Diamond Tiara though. Fortunately Tiara had the thick hide of a yak when it came to insults.
“So?” she sneered back at Scootaloo snidely, “If you cared so much about it, you can decide any time you like. I bet you would fit right in with the jockheads!”
Apple Bloom was beginning to suspect bringing them all together for lunch might have been a bad idea after all.
“Are you calling Rainbow Dash a jockhead?!” Scootaloo said starting to stand up.
“Scootaloo!” Apple Bloom shouted tensely, pinching her forehead with her fingers. “Diamond Tiara just literally told you she thinks that you’re as cool as Rainbow Dash. Nobody is insulting no one.”
“Wellll,” Diamond said temptingly, but Apple Bloom said,
“Diamond, please.”
Scootaloo frowned, sneaking sideways glances at Diamond Tiara, before saying in a sullen tone, “I would decide, if I was good at anything.”
Diamond surpsingly didn’t jump on that, just poked at her food with a fork in her hand, eating daintily.
“You’re good at lots of things!” Sweetie Belle admonished Scootaloo.
“Oh yeah?” Scootaloo rolled her eyes, “Like what? I can’t kick a football to save my life. I can’t pass these stupid classes. I don’t have a farm,” she said, with an acidic look at Apple Bloom, “So I’m no good at that.”
“You are really good at your scooter,” Sweetie responded without pause.
“Nobody ever heard of a scooter major,” Scootaloo grumbled, squeezing more ketchup on her burger.
The candy curled girl continued, “You are good at the jungle gym, and gymnastics, and machines and repairing, and you really like dancing and ballet and–”
“Okay okay, enough about what I’m good at Sweetie!” Scootaloo said frantically. It was too late though, a slow smirk was starting to spread across Diamond’s face.
“Ballet?” she said like she just found a juicy plum she was going to bite into.
“It’s a good elective!” Scootaloo protested hotly, “I can try it out if I want!”
“She’s amazing at it,” Sweetie said dreamily. “She already can do a whole song all the way through.”
Diamond’s smirk faltered again, and she exclaimed, “Wait, you were serious?”
Scootaloo didn’t answer, and her naturally pumpkin colored skin tone was unusually rosy this afternoon as she buried her face in her hands.
“That’s a fashionist class!” Diamond continued in a flabbergasted tone, “You are going to be a fashionist? You?”
“I’m not going to be anything!” Scootaloo shouted back. “It’s just a class.”
“But—”
“Now hold on Diamond Tiara,” Apple Bloom said sticking her face in between them to glare at the purple haired beauty. “Before you go making mah friend talk about something she doesn’t want to talk about, maybe you should take some time to earn her friendship, first?”
“Just want a nice quiet lunch,” Apple Bloom grumbled, biting into the cheese sandwich she prepared for herself this morning. “No teasing, and no fighting. She’ll talk about it when it’s important to tell you, and if she never does then too bad because that means it ain’t important anyway.”
Scootaloo looked like she was going to shout something, either at Diamond or at Apple Bloom, but she just said, “Thanks Apple Bloom,” turning to her burger again, finishing it off and going for the fries.
“...just tell me you aren’t majoring in costume design, Sweetie Belle,” Diamond Tiara said flatly.
“Nope!” Sweetie Belle said to DT with a smile. “I was thinking about trying cooking!”
Thunder rumbled overhead in a clear blue sky.
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You're sure there, AB? Sure sure?
Wait, DT and Silver Spoon arn't bullies? ... well hit me on the head and call me Cadence.
well played, Apple Bloom!
The fundamental problem with the public school system IRL is that it is the Prussian model--- which was not designed to produce educated, independent people, but to produce disposable peasants, factory workers and cannon fodder for the aristocracy to rule.
The fundamental tragedy is that every generation of children has told their elders how horrible school is, and only now when it is too late does anyone believe them.
Fashionista
Also, high schools don't have majors. That's college, and maybe 1 out of every 200 high school freshmen know what they want to major in in college.
A lot of things in this chapter have little logic faults, and it's such a drag of a boring chapter I have no real interest in reading more.
Now this is an interesting story I've stumbled across, but I gotta ask, what's with those tags?