Chapter 15: Peripheral Vision
Sunset wound her way around the classroom, happy to see her students hard at work. She’d almost made it back to the teacher’s desk when something caught her attention from the corner of her eye. Somehow she managed to suppress the sigh but not the facepalm.
Subsequently, the entire class looked when her hand smacked her forehead as she halted next to Sprout’s desk. Broken out of his artist’s focus, he slowly turned to look at his teacher with a guilty expression, folded his latest masterpiece in half and handed it over.
Snatching it up, Sunset unfolded the paper far enough that she, and only she, could see it. It wasn’t a drawing of her this time. Rather, it portrayed another subject that seemed to have recently caught his attention. The sketch was of Fluttershy, wearing an open lab coat and a smile … and nothing else.
“Well, at least the shading has improved,” Sunset murmured.
Before some hope for leniency at that comment could make itself onto Sprout’s face, Sunset had already put a detention slip in front of him. “Do you … think I could at least have that back after class, Ms. Sunset?” he asked hesitantly. “It’s actually a commission.”
“Commission?” Sunset asked with a raised eyebrow and no small amount of suppressed amusement. “For who?”
“Uhm, I invoke artist-client confidentiality,” he said.
“Do you now?” Sunset was trying extremely hard at this point not to let her amusement show through. “You do realize that I have a 50-50 shot of getting this right, don’t you?” She cast a quick glance at two more of her students who were trying very hard to bury their noses in their books and look inconspicuous at this point. “You can ask your clients,” she said, stressing the plural S, “for an extension as you start over outside of class. Content creators do it all the time.” As if I’m not gonna keep this. I can’t wait to see Fluttershy’s face when I show it to her. She’s gonna blush so hard that steam’s gonna start coming out of her ears.
“Do you want me to add this to our recycling corner, Ms. Sunset?” Sunny asked in cheerful ignorance, turning and holding out her hand.
Sunset paused long enough for Sprout and his cohorts to actually get the impression that she might consider handing the drawing off to one of their female classmates, then said: “Thank you, Sunny. I can take this one out myself.” Returning to the front of the class, Sunset tapped the blackboard. “Alright, our time is nearly up. Anyone for bonus points this week?”
The assignment on the board read: “Bruttosozialprodukt. Translate into English and explain the concept in a German sentence.”
“Anyone other than Zipp?” Sunset asked when a single arm was raised. She waited a couple moments in vain, then added: “Go ahead.”
Zipp stood up, cleared her throat and read slowly from her notepad. “Das Bruttosozialprodukt ist die Gesamtheit aller produzierten Guh… Güter und Dienstleistungen in ein Jahr.” She looked up and added: “The translation is gross domestic product.”
“In einem Jahr,” Sunset corrected gently, pronouncing the words carefully, “but yes, that is a correct definition. Well done, Zipp.”
Zipp smirked triumphantly and sat back down while the rest of the class simply looked on in defeat, having long given up on the game of one-upmanship the two of them were playing every week.
Sunset marked down the correct answer. She’d almost immediately decided that for Zipp she’d have to implement another rule, only granting an additional A for another five correct answers and then ten for a third one. The bar stood at one for the other students, but Zipp was well on her way to making a run at a clean sweep.
This development was somewhat troubling. In order to constantly challenge Zipp, she ran the risk of alienating her other students. And she hadn’t forgotten the other reasons some of her students had signed up for this class in the first place. She had a solution. She’d even laid the groundwork with her friends. But Sunset had been hesitant to pull the trigger, since it would mean going directly against Celestia. That was a scary proposition, especially right now. Sunset looked at Pipp and Rufus in the back row, the former swiping at her phone with a bored expression and the latter busying himself with knotting some colored handkerchiefs together. That’s when she made her choice.
With ten minutes left in today’s class, Sunset had made up her mind. She pulled a small booklet out of her bag and held it up. “I’ve got another extra credits project for all of you, if you’re interested.” Some heads immediately perked up at the words extra credits. “This is a stage adaptation of Der Schimmelreiter. It’s come to my attention that the auditorium has no big events scheduled after the Fall Formal. We start rehearsing now, we could put on a play in spring. What do you say?”
After springing the idea out of the blue, Sunset allowed some whispered conversations to take place as students turned this way and that, but kept her eyes on one particular corner of the classroom where Pipp and Rufus had gone into immediate conference after the initial shock. Pipp raised her hand.
“Yes, Pipp.”
“Uhm, we wouldn’t have to perform in German, would we?”
Sunset shook her head. “No, this would be mostly in English. If we did the production in German, the possible audience would be limited to the performers. By my reckoning, that would put exactly zero butts in seats. So, what do you say, drama club? Do I have a leading man and lady or not?”
Another look passed between the two students and Pipp nodded. Taking his cue from her, Rufus added expansively: “Indubitably, Ms. Sunset.”
“Excellent,” Sunset said, “but two players doth not a play make. Who else is in?”
Zipp had been regarding her sister throughout the entire exchange. If anyone knew of the woes of the drama club, odds were that she did. “Count me in,” she said to Sunset, “just for a minor background role.”
Sunset nodded and looked over to Sunny and Izzy. “What about you two? Ready to unleash your inner thespians?”
They both considered it for a moment and then affirmed, deciding to put their trust in Sunset.
Okay, Sunset thought to herself, looking around the room, that went about as well as it could have. Now for the holdouts. “How about you, Posey?”
Posey raised an eyebrow while smoothing a wrinkle in her blouse. “I don’t know, Ms. Shimmer. A play? Seems like a waste of time that could be spent studying instead.”
“Extracurriculars look good on a college application,” she pointed out shrewdly.
“… I’m in.”
“Attagirl.” Sunset grinned and turned her head. “What about over here? You’ve been awfully quiet, Windownia. How about you put your artistic skills to some use in becoming our set designer, Sprout?”
Sprout’s face was more easily readable than most. While the idea of performing had registered with an immediate dismissal, now the gears were turning. “You mean, actually creating something that everyone at school is gonna see? Uh, I dunno, Ms. Sunset.”
He was teetering, and he’d accidentally handed Sunset the perfect tool to nudge him the rest of the way just a few minutes ago. “I’ll trade ya for that detention slip.”
“Deal,” he said, holding up the piece of paper.
She took it, ripped it in half and stood in front of Hitch. “Class rep?”
He looked genuinely apologetic as he drew up his shoulders a little defensively. “I’m sorry, Ms. Sunset. I’m not sure I can make this work. I assume rehearsals would be after school?”
“Mostly,” Sunset admitted. She knew this would be a hard sell, but she’d come up with a compromise. “I was thinking we could use some PR. Perhaps someone who talks to a lot of people in town on a daily basis and can maybe put up some posters around the park?”
Hitch met her eyes, sat up straight and nodded. “That I can do.”
That left one. She’d been keeping an eye on her newest student, and there had been a mounting terror of peer pressure on her face. “How about it, Misty?”
Misty Brightdawn looked around the classroom, looking very uncomfortable in spite of the encouraging smiles she was getting from most of the other students. “I … uhm … er,” her voice cracked a little. “I’m not … sure I could stand on stage.”
Sunset looked around the rest of the class and said: “I think we’ve got enough players. But I could use a co-director.”
Misty remained silent.
Sunset decided to ease off the pressure. “Think about it,” she said softly, then addressed the class as a whole again. “Looks like we’ve got enough of a quorum. Anyone who is interested, meet me next Tuesday at 2.45 p.m. in the auditorium for our first rehearsal. We’ll decide on who plays what character then.”
“That’s an oddly specific time,” Hitch pointed out.
“Is it?” Sunset asked innocently just as the bell rung. “Class dismissed.”
As the students packed up and filed out, some already making plans to meet up at Sugarcube Corner and discuss this new development in little groups, Misty stayed behind. When the room was empty except for her and her teacher, she stood up and walked up to Sunset, her face half hidden behind her blue locks. “I’m really sorry, Ms. Sunset.”
Sunset shook her head. “Don’t be. I’m the one who’s sorry. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot like that. I’m not gonna force you to take part if you don’t want to.”
Misty fidgeted for a moment before asking: “Why did you ask me to be co-director?”
Sunset smiled knowingly and replied: “Show me the first page in your notebook.”
The young girl was startled for a moment, but complied.
Sunset looked it over. She’d noticed Misty turning the page over and refer back to it often in class, and she saw exactly what she’d expected to find. It was a list of her classmates’ names, physical descriptions and first impressions which had been steadily added to over the last few weeks. “I know it’s hard to transfer to a new school in the middle of a school year. I think a lot of your classmates would like to be your friends if you give them a chance. I figured co-director would give you the opportunity to get to know them better.”
“… I’ll think about it,” Misty promised after Sunset had handed back the notebook.
Sunset watched her student leave and rested against the edge of her desk, considering her next steps, thoughts going back and forth between how she would deal with Celestia and how to make sure everyone was involved and having fun. Something lightly thumped against her chest, but she ignored it. Misty was another matter. Sunset had built a good rapport with most of her students, but Misty remained withdrawn, and Sunset didn’t want to push too hard too fast.
Again it felt as if something thumped against her chest, and Sunset frowned. Curious, she pulled the geode crystal out from under her shirt and held it in her hand. It felt slightly warm to the touch, but Sunset was unsure whether she was just feeling her own body heat. She waited quietly, and then something pushed in at the edge of her vision as the pendant seemingly jumped in her palm.
Sunset turned towards the window and her eyes went wide. There was a figure, a shadowy black figure with a humanoid shape, all its facial features obscured in darkness except for an inhumanely wide, toothy grin, and it was staring directly at her.
She blinked and the figure was gone. Sunset shot up like she’d been struck by lightning and ripped the window open, leaning halfway out and looking back and forth. Nothing. No sign of the creature that she’d just seen clear as day.
She knew exactly what the thumping in her chest right now was as her heart raced a mile a minute, threatening to leap out of her throat. She felt her hands going as cold as ice, fingers tightly gripping the windowsill until her knuckles went white.
Her knees almost gave out under her as she took a few steps back from the window, and she nearly screamed when she saw her own reflection in the glass of the window, deathly pale, wide-eyed and afraid. Sunset simply stood there, her whole body shaking, and whispered two words: “Shadow Puppet.”
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Another damn fine chapter. Putting lots of guns in the table.
Misty doing recon that Sunset naturally assumes is just a nervous reminder of her class, Sprout getting on that sweet-sweet porn commission grind, and a creepypasta jumpscaring Shimmy ? All great stuff.
11540075
No, just the one. It's called Chekhov's gatling gun.
I am curious as to what a "Shadow Puppet" is. Also why am I not surprised about Sprout getting caught drawing porn again but this time it was a commission. LOL
I see Sunset's settling into the director's role again that she had in one of the Choose Your Own Ending shorts. Wonder how this is gonna go down with Celestia. I mean, using the loophole that it's for a class is allowed, right?
And than magic is returning!
Canʼt wait for more.
Great job on the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up in this chapter. So, Sunset caught Sprout doing another "adult picture" this one on commission (I like how Sunset pointed out the one who paid for the commission HAD to be either Hitch or Rufus because they were the only two in the class other than Sprout who had even met Fluttershy [and, while neither Hitch nor Rufus seem like the type, it would be easy to see a young adult human Fluttershy MAKING most straight guys "the type"]). Also enjoyed Sunset TRYING to give the students other than Zipp a fair chance and coming up with the idea for the play. I particularly liked Sunset offering Hitch the job of setting up PR for the play as well as Misty the role of co-director to give the other students a fair chance to know her better. And Sunset's geode has started warming up slightly again AND that stuff about a "Shadow Puppet"? Well, the latter gives me a bad feeling (implying Sunset just got possessed by something related to Sombra if not the human world version of Sombra himself).
But, anyway, really looking forward to more of this.
Seriously Sprout.
Good girl.
Was she seeing things?
I have... questions.