Chapter 10: Perspective
“Oh, Izzy, Izzy, Izzy. Why?” Sunset grumbled as she sat at the table in the teachers’ lounge after classes were done for the day, grading papers and shaking her head.
“You know, mumbling doesn’t help,” Ms. Harshwhinny, the sole other person present, said from the couch, not taking her eyes off her phone.
“What?”
“If you’re gonna complain about your students, you really need to let it out. Mumbling to yourself is the same as keeping it in.”
Sunset frowned and put down her red pen. “It’s just so frustrating. She aced all the multiple choice questions, but it’s like she didn’t even read the essay question I put on the blackboard.”
“Mm-hm.”
Sunset watched her fellow teacher who still hadn’t taken her eyes off the phone and shook her head. “What’s the point in me spelling it out? You don’t care.”
“Izzy Moonbow,” Gladys sighed, “seems to be a total airhead, but is actually really smart. Grasps new and difficult concepts quickly during class, so you get the feeling that you don’t have to worry about her. Then, out of the blue, she totally biffs on a test and you don’t know why.” Now she actually looked up and straight toward Sunset. “That about sum it up?”
“Yeah,” Sunset said in amazement. “Pretty much. Why is she like this?”
Gladys shrugged. “I can only tell you what it isn’t. I nagged Cheerilee until she gave that class a standardized aptitude test during homeroom at the end of last semester. I thought it was word problems, but Izzy’s reading comprehension is actually above average, and while she’s a bit of an airhead, I’ve had her long enough to recognize that she doesn’t have any attention disorder. She’s perfectly capable of keeping focus during class.”
Sunset simply looked at her and began to grin.
“What?” Gladys asked in an annoyed tone while narrowing her eyes.
“You care,” she replied. “You put on the grumpy teacher act, but you actually do care about your students.”
Ms. Harshwhinny rolled her eyes. “Of course I care,” she sighed. “Didn’t give up on you after that Fall Formal fiasco, did I? That’s the diabolical thing about this job. You don’t get into it unless you care about kids, even if they end up breaking your heart by turning away from the natural sciences and go into the humanities.” She gave Sunset a pointed look.
Sunset had the sense to look a little sheepish at that. “Then shouldn’t we try to help them at every opportunity we get?”
“Sunset, you can’t help them all, especially if you don’t know what the problem is. If you try, this job will kill you. At some point, you gotta call it quits.”
Sunset snorted. “Well, I’m not ready to give up on Izzy just yet. The answer has to be in here somewhere. It just doesn’t make any sense.” She went quiet, staring at the pop quiz in front of her and wishing right now to simply be able to touch Izzy’s arm and get a vision of why she was struggling. “You have 2-A in math, right? Did you have them last year?”
Gladys groaned. “You’re not gonna let this go, are you? Fine!” Actually putting her phone away, she stood up and made her way to a bookshelf, finding an old class book marked 1-A. She leafed through it for a moment to find a certain page and put the book down in front of Sunset. “There, those are Izzy’s grades in math for the last year. Read ‘em and weep.”
“Yikes,” Sunset remarked, going over the numbers, “that’s a roller coaster.”
“Tell me about it. She actually does well in the big exams, you know, mid-terms and finals. But it’s like her brain checks out for pop quizzes, which is weird. You’d think if it was something about test anxiety, it would be the other way around.”
Sunset put her head in her hands and went quiet. There had to be a reason for this inconsistency, and it didn’t seem to be the subject matter. She just seemed to flake on certain questions or tests at random, even though she should have been able to ace them. What else was there? There was her weird habit of running into the wall when checking the class schedule, too. Then Izzy’s face flashed in Sunset’s mind, of her squinting while looking at something she’d written on the blackboard. “Gladys, what do you do when you give them a pop quiz?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you print the test out and give each student a sheet?”
Harshwhinny scoffed. “On the copy budget we get from Principal Penny Pincher? Hell, no. Only for the big tests. You should remember how I do it. For a pop quiz, I just come in five minutes early and write the problems out on the back of the blackboard. Then I just flip it around when it’s time for the test.”
Sunset stood up abruptly and pulled out her phone. “I gotta go.”
Gladys shook her head and closed the book in front of her. “Yep, the lot of a teacher. You try to help them out, then they just get up and leave.”
Hearing that and stopping on her way out the door, Sunset turned around. “Gladys?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Remove crochet from your list of hobbies and for pity’s sake, delete that swimsuit picture from your gallery. It makes you look desperate.”
Ms. Harshwhinny pulled out her phone and gave Sunset a stern look. “You gotta put out some honey to catch flies, Sunset.”
“Just trust me on this and don’t say I never did anything for you.” With that, Sunset dialed a number from her contact list and walked out the door.
Fifteen minutes later, Sunset was standing in the Principal’s office in front of a large file cabinet, her cellphone held in the crook of her neck while she fiddled with her key chain. “So you still got them? Do you mind if I borrow them?”
Suddenly, she could hear someone clear their throat from behind her and turned around, finding Principal Celestia standing there with a raised eyebrow.
“Uh, I’ll call you back, Twi. Better yet, I’ll swing by campus later to pick up the item. … ‘Kay, thanks.” Hanging up the phone, she looked at the principal who had just walked in. “Hi.”
“Hello, Sunset,” Celestia greeted flatly.
“Um, the door was open. I just needed to have a look at student file, but I can’t seem to find the key for this blasted file cabinet,” she said, frowning as she went through her keys one by one.
“That’s because you don’t have one,” Celestia replied and moved around to stand between Sunset and the cabinet. “New privacy protection laws. Only the principal and vice-principal have access to the permanent student records.”
Sunset pursed her lips and put away her keys. “I need the home address and contact information for one of my students, Izzy Moonbow.”
“And you need that information because?” Celestia asked, not moving.
“I need to talk to her parents about something important.”
“Hm, and this can’t wait until the next PTA meeting?”
Sunset shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. The longer we wait, the more this could end up hurting Izzy.”
“What’s this about?”
Sunset opened her mouth and closed it again, grimacing. “I don’t wanna say until I’m sure. But I need to talk to her parents to confirm it.” When Celestia remained silent, she added: “I know I haven’t been a teacher for long. But you should know me well enough to know that I wouldn’t ask unless I thought it was important.”
Celestia gave her a long look before pulling out her keys to unlock the cabinet. “Moonbow, you said?” she asked as she rifled through the folders. “I should warn you. Parents can get a little prickly when a teacher comes calling unannounced.”
“I think I’ll have to take that chance.”
Pulling out a manila folder, Celestia nudged the cabinet drawer shut with her hips and began reading as she went over to her desk. “Moonbow. Moonbow. Oh yes, I remember them. The old hippie couple from downtown. A little odd, but they were lovely people.”
“Were?” Sunset asked carefully.
“Tragic accident a couple years ago,” Celestia said matter-of-factly as she transcribed something onto a post-it note. “Guardian’s name is Alphabittle Blossomforth, he’s listed as Izzy’s godfather.” She folded the note in half and held it up.
When Sunset moved to take it, Celestia pulled it back out of her reach.
“You’re sure this can’t be handled by a phone call or by talking to Izzy herself?”
Sunset shook her head. “I need to confirm something, and I think I need to talk to both of them in person to do it.”
Celestia looked down, seemingly deep in thought. “I spoke to my sister the other day, you know. So let me confirm something first. Is this about Izzy, … or is this about someone she reminds you of?”
The realization hit Sunset in the chest like a truck and she swallowed hard while holding eye contact with Celestia, a woman who was just as sharp and insightful as her pony counterpart. Sunset licked her lips and found them dry as sandpaper. “Maybe it’s a little of both,” she admitted upon reflection. “But this is something I might actually be able to fix. I need to try.”
Celestia sighed and wordlessly handed over the note with the address.
Sunset took it and nodded before leaving the office. “Thanks.”
Sunset was already having second thoughts when she pulled into the dark driveway in her Fiesta. The sun had already set by the time she’d made the round-trip between Canterlot U and the downtown address. Celestia’s words kept playing inside her mind. There was probably a better way to do this, but Sunset had never been one to take it slow when she could do something right now. And yet, hadn’t that gotten her in trouble as many times as it had helped? Perhaps she was about to make a grave mistake and actually make things worse, for Izzy, for herself, for the school. She shook her head and got out of the car. She was committed now.
The broad, wooden house looked like an arts and crafts project gone oversize, with bits of additional structures added on over the years at odd angles and in different wood, some mismatched solar arrays bolted haphazardly to the roof. In some ways, it looked inviting, full of years of love and care. But then in stark contrast stood an empty lawn, empty except for a single sign with the words “Solicitors not welcome” painted on it. Still, there were lights on, so she marched up to the front door and pressed the doorbell.
It took a few moments before she heard a shuffle on the other side and the door opened slightly, but only as far as the door chain bolted to the inside would allow. A dark eye looked at her from beneath a bushy eyebrow and said nothing.
“Uh, hello. My name is Sunset Shimmer.”
“Not interested,” a gruff voice replied and the door slammed shut again.
Knocking on the door quickly, she shouted. “Wait! Mr. Alphabittle Blossomforth? I’m Izzy’s teacher. I need to talk to you about something important!”
The door once again opened just enough for the occupant to glare at the intruder and look her up and down. “A likely story. Can you prove it?”
Sunset spread her hands. “I’m a teacher, not a cop. I don’t carry a badge that says History Department on it.”
The door slammed shut again and she could hear heavy footsteps walking away from the door.
“Wow, Celestia wasn’t kidding about the prickly part,” Sunset muttered and banged on the door with more insistence. “Mr. Blossomforth! Please, I need to talk to you and Izzy!”
With no answer forthcoming, Sunset considered turning around. But she’d come too far to be stopped now by a stupid door, so she continued ringing the doorbell and knocking until she could hear two voices arguing briefly on the other side, followed by the clinking of a door chain being undone. When the door opened this time, it opened all the way to reveal a nervously smiling Izzy. “Ms. Sunset! Hi! It’s a surprise to see you here.”
“Hello, Izzy,” Sunset said in a level voice. “I’m sorry for dropping by so late and without warning, but I need to talk to you.”
Izzy glanced over her shoulder before answering. “Sure, how about we talk in my room?”
“Actually, I need to talk to both of you, you and your godfather.”
“Alright. Come in, I guess,” Izzy said after a moment of awkward silence and led Sunset towards the living room. “Have a seat while I get us something to drink,” she said quickly before snapping in the direction of the living room: “Be nice, uncle!”
Looking around the living room, Sunset noted that the owner of the bushy eyebrow had an equally bushy white beard and was wearing cargo shorts and a tie dye shirt. He was also wearing a frown as he resolutely ignored Sunset, busying himself by topping off a food bowl for what looked like two pet armadillos in a cage in the corner of the room.
Again, the room itself looked warm and inviting, all in earth tones and oddly no television set, but a lovingly handcrafted coffee table from a single wood log. Sunset sat down in a nearby beanbag chair, glad that she managed not to fall over. “You have a … very unique home,” she said awkwardly to break the silence. “You build a lot of it yourself?”
Alphabittle didn’t turn around and took a while to answer. “Used to. Her parents and I built this place together when we were part of the same commune.”
“Commune, interesting.”
He glared at her over his shoulder and Sunset did her level best not to look judgy, which she wasn’t. But her brain was drawing a blank on how to actually convey that without sounding insincere.
“Hope you like chai tea!” Thankfully, Izzy came in just then to save Sunset from the awkward silence and she took what seemed to be a handmade cup from the offered tray.
“That’s really good,” she said with a smile after taking a sip from the beverage.
“If you like that, you should come by Uncle Alphabittle’s tea shop sometime,” Izzy said brightly and motioned her uncle over to sit on the sofa next to her with a nod of her head and a glare.
Alphabittle grumbled something to himself, but eventually joined them. “Why are you here?” he asked Sunset directly.
Taking another sip from the genuinely nice beverage, Sunset began: “I’m here because Izzy’s grades have been a little … erratic, and I’m worried that there’s an underlying problem that will make her fall behind if it isn’t addressed.”
Izzy looked down. “I’m trying my best, it’s just sometimes I …” She trailed off.
Noticing that, Alphabittle grunted and narrowed his eyes at Sunset. “Ah, it’s very easy to blame others and not take responsibility for yourself, isn’t it? Maybe it’s not Izzy who is the problem. Maybe you’re just not a very good teacher.”
“Cut it out, uncle,” Izzy said, “Ms. Sunset is a great teacher.”
“Well, I don’t know about that. I’m still very new at this,” Sunset said in regard to Izzy’s remark before turning to Alphabittle. “But I agree with you. I don’t think Izzy is to blame, at least not entirely.”
That elicited a raised eyebrow from him, but no verbal response.
Sunset turned back towards her student. “Izzy, I’d like to conduct a little experiment if I may.” She pulled out her phone, pulled up a picture with a single word written on it and turned it toward Izzy while sitting about five feet across from her. “Can you read out this word for me?”
Izzy shrugged and said without hesitation: “Abendessen.” She pronounced the word carefully. When she got a look from her uncle, she added for his benefit: “It’s German for dinner.”
Sunset swiped to the next picture, the word on this one being written in smaller letters. “How about this one?”
Izzy narrowed her eyes, seemingly in an effort to remember the correct pronunciation. “Landfrieden,”she said eventually.
“What’s the point of this?” Alphabittle asked, annoyance obvious in his voice.
“Humor me,” Sunset said and swiped one more time to the next picture in the gallery she’d prepared, this one in even smaller print. He looked at it, grimaced and opened his mouth to say something. But Sunset shook her head slightly while giving him a hard stare that matched some of the ones he’d thrown at her and held it. “Izzy?”
When she didn’t answer, he finally looked over towards her and his own eyes widened. Izzy was frowning and squinting her eyes, a bead of sweat standing on her forehead. She laughed and shook her head. “You’re not playing fair, Ms. Sunset,” she accused in a voice that was trying just a little too hard to play things off. “We’ve only started German. That’s an entire sentence. I don’t know how to pronounce half the words in that.”
“… That’s English, Izzy.” Sunset could see the color drain from Izzy’s face out of the corner of her eyes, but her main focus remained on Alphabittle.
For the second time that day, she wished that she could simply reach out, touch someone and read their thoughts. But she could see the journey his face had taken, and that proved just as telling. Stubbornness had turned into defiance, then given way to confusion and finally turned to realization. Sunset exhaled a breath she didn’t realize until now she’d been holding since she’d left Harshwhinny sitting in the teachers’ lounge. It hadn’t been neglect, not deliberately anyway. Just ignorance and miscommunication.
Sunset pulled out a pair of black horn-rimmed glasses, slightly scuffed, that she’d picked up before coming here. “Try these on,” she said, handing them to her student. “They belonged to a friend of mine when she was about your age.”
Izzy glanced over at her uncle, took the glasses and blinked a couple of times after putting them on. When she looked at the phone Sunset was still holding up, a dry chuckle escaped her throat. “’If you can’t read this, you probably need glasses,’” she read out loud before taking them off again.
Alphabittle looked at Izzy while Sunset put her phone away. “Izzy,” he said softly. “How long has this been going on?”
She shrugged and replied meekly. “I dunno. I guess it started a year or so ago. It was just really far away stuff in the beginning. Didn’t even notice it at first. I thought maybe if I gave it some time, it’d go away on its own.”
“Why didn’t you talk to me, kiddo?”
She shrugged again and shook her head. “I dunno. You’re always telling me that you can’t rely on anyone, that we all have to deal with our own problems. … I didn’t wanna bother you.”
In that moment, he looked like a man who had been ignoring every storm siren and now the waves were crashing down around his ears. “Izzy, this is the kind of stuff you should be bothering me with. You can always come talk to me.”
“Really?”
“Yes, Izzy,” Sunset said softly, still managing to startle the two of them by reminding them that she was in fact still present. “And you can talk to me, too. You’re a smart, independent young woman. But we all need a little help sometimes.”
She looked over towards Alphabittle who gave her a reaffirming nod and then back at Sunset, a smile finally working its way back onto her face as she held out the glasses.
“Keep them for now. They’re a loaner. You can give them back when you get your own pair.”
“You sure?”
Sunset nodded and turned to Alphabittle. “But you should take her to an optician as soon as possible. She needs a pair with the right prescription before things get any worse.”
“I’ll take the day off tomorrow,” he replied gravely, as if to make a solemn vow. “We’ll go to an optician first to get her a proper pair of glasses, and I’ll make an appointment with an ophthalmologist to make sure this isn’t anything more serious than myopia.”
Slapping her knees and breathing a final sigh of relief, Sunset stood up. “Sounds like my work here is done. Sorry for dropping in unannounced and disturbing your evening.” She smiled at Izzy. “I’ll see you in class, Izzy.”
“Bye, Ms. Sunset.”
Alphabittle also stood up. “Uhm, let me walk you to your car, Ms. Shimmer.”
The difference in attitude was quite stark, but Sunset took the awkward silence from the man over having a door slammed in her face repeatedly.
She opened the car door and they both stood there for a moment until they both turned in reaction to a light coming on in the house. They could see Izzy through the window, standing in front of a mirror while trying on her glasses repeatedly, smiling every now and then.
“I’ve really fucked this one up, haven’t I?” Alphabittle sighed heavily.
“Oh yeah, big time,” Sunset replied.
He looked at her. “Harsh, but fair. I can see why Izzy respects you.”
Sunset shook her head and spoke more softly. “Mr. Blossomforth, I didn’t come here to pass judgment on you.” Not if it turned out to be an honest mistake anyway, she added silently. “We all make mistakes. Trust me, I’ve made some fine ones in my time, and I’m just glad tonight wasn’t one of them.”
He looked up into the night sky, watching the first stars twinkle with a forlorn look on his face. “Her parents would have noticed. They were saints. Never hurt a fly, never spoke an unkind word to anyone, even those who deserved it. When she was born, they got rid of their gas guzzling VW van, you know. Started taking the bike everywhere. Said they wanted to make sure the world their daughter grew up in was still worth living in.”
“Sounds like a noble sentiment.”
“Yeah, they were real noble,” he said darkly, “right up until some drunk asshole in an SUV ran a stop sign. And just like that, they were gone. Where’s the nobility in that, I ask you. I lost my two best friends that day, and I still get angry thinking about it. Been angry at the world ever since. Angry at them too for leaving her sometimes. So I tried to teach her to stand on her own two feet, never rely on anyone so the world can’t hurt her.”
“I meant what I said earlier,” Sunset said in hopes of turning the conversation around, “Izzy is smart and independent and creative. No doubt you taught her that.”
He shook his head. “Maybe, but that lesson backfired something fierce, didn’t it?”
“What happened to the guy? In the SUV?”
He laughed ruefully. “Oh, they got him. Yanked his license obviously. No jail time, though. Izzy got a bit of money for emotional damages. I’ve been keeping it in a savings account for her. But it doesn’t bring them back, does it? They should be here for her, not an angry old man like myself. I was so bitter. I still am. If I could bring them back by taking their place, I would.”
Sunset nodded. “I get it.”
Alphabittle opened his mouth as if to ask how she could possibly know, but Sunset simply held his gaze while memories of Pinkie Pie threatened to overwhelm her from the back of her mind. Seemingly recognizing that look, he simply said: “Yeah, I see that you do.”
After a long moment of silence, Sunset said: “You know, you may have lost your best friends that day, but she lost a lot more.”
He nodded, turning to look back at Izzy who was still happily modeling her new glasses in front of the mirror with a huge smile. “I know. She’s just like them, way too good for this cruel world. I don’t know how she does it, how she kept that … spark of cheerfulness alive in her heart. But she must have done it in spite of me, not because of me. I could never be a real parent to her.”
“Have you tried?” Sunset asked simply.
Alphabittle took one more look at Izzy, stood a little bit taller and turned to face Sunset again. “I’m going to, starting right now. … Well, starting tomorrow by taking her to an optician.” He held out his hand towards her. “Thank you, Ms. Shimmer. It’s good to know someone else is looking out for Izzy.”
Sunset smiled and shook the offered hand. “That makes two of us. Goodnight, Mr. Blossomforth.”
As she got into her car and drove off into the night, the lights of the small house slowly fading into the distance in her rear view mirror, Sunset couldn’t help but hum to herself. A smile and a song came to her lips that she hadn’t been able to bring herself to sing in two years. But now it was coming back to her, and she couldn’t resist the urge to sing it in her car as she drove through the quiet night with Izzy’s smiling face still fresh in her memory.
“Come on everybody smile, smile, smile
Fill my heart up with sunshine, sunshine
All I really need's a smile, smile, smile
From these happy friends of mine”
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EMOTIONAL CRIT!
Holy mackerel. Another REALLY well done chapter. Excellent work on the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up. REALLY appreciated Sunset's chat with Harshwhinny toward the beginning as well as the interrupted check-up with Twilight. Sunset's meeting with the human world Alphabittle was also, quite appropriately, really great emotional stuff. Loved how Sunset figured out that Izzy had vision problems as well as Alphabittle reflecting on Izzy's parents and how they were taken from the world MUCH too soon by a careless driver. And, yeah, Sunset, I don't blame you one bit for being reminded of Pinkie Pie.
REALLY looking forward to more of this.
THE FEEEEEEELS!
Another home run chapter
Fantastic
I love this world building and eeee. I can't wait to see more of Misty later on as well.
Izzy's so cute...
Interesting. They found out I needed glasses as a kid because I kept standing up and walk towards the blackboard to be able to read what was written on it. The teacher did, my parents didn't realise. I was pretty young so I didn't either. So yeah, very recognizable.
For the record, love my parents.
Ooof...this chapter hits hard right in the feels. Excellently written, and really good characterization all around. ...but these two lines...
"I get it."
"...I see that you do."
Hoo boy did that hit hard. And the song coming back to her at the end...I'm crying here...
Very good looking forward to more!
Pinkie Pie would be so proud of Sunset right now...
So here are the clues about the incident at Maritime Bay
1. Sombra's Horn
2. Pinkie Pie's death
How are these two linked?
But either way...DAMN! RIGHT IN THE FEELS! Wonder if the others go to her grave?
Wow. I just... wow. The way you set up for emotional payoffs is truly spectacular.
It's kinda funny, this is exactly how I learned I was getting nearsighted. A teacher that saw a mystery and arranged a test.
How dare you do that at the end
It fits perfectly 😭😭😭
seriously though loving this fic so far and I'm def going to be binging the rest of it tonight
Well, that confirms Izzy is an orphan in this headcannon.
She's right.