Chapter 8: Guten Morgen, Fräulein Sunset
It was Wednesday, or as her colleagues often referred to it, hump day. But it wasn’t the feeling of the week being only half over that had Sunset staring moodily into the grey morning through the window of the teachers’ lounge.
“Hey, kid.”
When Ms. Harshwhinny sat down next to her at the table, Sunset simply sighed. “Gladys, I’m really not in the mood to backseat swipe your Tinder backlog today.”
Harshwhinny gave her a penetrating gaze and nodded, and to her surprise she wasn’t shoving a phone in Sunset’s face. “I can see that. I actually wanted to check in with you. I know it’s hard, and you’re feeling down right now.”
“What?” Sunset blinked. Had she been that obvious? She hadn’t told anyone. Then the thought occurred to her that Luna might have tipped them off after seeing her.
“Hey, Mr. Acting Vice-principal! I think our newbie needs a pep talk!” she shouted over towards the couch.
Cranky grumbled under his breath and folded up the newspaper he was reading, but made his way over regardless, clapping Sunset on the shoulder and sitting down with the two women. “Tough break, kid. You’ve got my condolences.”
“Thanks,” Sunset replied somewhat subdued. It had been hard to keep the overflowing memories at bay.
Cranky nodded. “Yep, I don’t blame you for wanting to jump out a window the other day. It sucks that you gotta teach an elective your first year.”
Sunset blinked, confusion taking a hold of her as she looked into the sympathetic eyes of her colleagues. “What? I’m stoked about that! My entire history class signed up, plus a couple extra students. That more than meets the quorum. I was worried that I wouldn’t get to teach the class.”
Cranky and Gladys looked at each other and then back at Sunset, their expressions turning from sympathy to pure pity. “Oh, Sunset,” Harshwhinny said, “no teacher actually wants to teach electives.”
“It’s true,” Cranky said, backing her up. “I actually broke open a fine bottle of Scotch in celebration when I saw that not enough students had signed up for my woodworking class this year.”
Sunset leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Is this gonna be another one of your lectures on why it actually sucks to be a teacher?” She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Alright, lay it on me, sensei. Why is teaching an elective so bad?”
“Sunset,” Cranky began while taking a bite from an apple, “electives attract two kinds of students. The first kind are those that are failing one or more of their regular classes. So they look for the class with the lowest requirements and the most gullible, bleeding heart teacher to get some extra credits. The second kind are those who don’t need the extra credits, but are required to take at least one elective anyway. So they look for the class that requires the least amount of effort to just coast through and possibly catch a nap once they’ve worn their teacher down enough to stop caring about more than their physical presence with sheer disinterest.”
“What about the third kind?” Sunset asked flatly. “The kind that is actually interested in the subject being taught and wants to have a fun and engaging learning experience based on their own preference?”
Cranky and Gladys stared at Sunset as if she’d suddenly grown a second head. Then they burst out laughing. “Sunset,” Ms. Harshwhinny said, “I taught you statistics and probabilities. What do you think are the odds of a student like that being in the school to begin with and signing up for your class at the same time?”
“Yeah,” Cranky concurred. “Look, I’m not categorically denying the existence of students like that. But they’re like Bigfoot. They might be out there hiding in the woods somewhere, but I’ve never seen one.”
Sunset slammed her hands on the table and stood up abruptly. “You know what? Thanks for the pep talk, seriously. I was actually feeling a little blue, but you two lit a fire in my belly.” Standing up straight, she pointed towards the door. “Cause I’m gonna go out there today and teach a bunch of kids how fun and awesome German literature can be. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
“Remember to take a plaster cast and a hair sample if you find that Sasquatch student of yours,” Cranky hollered after her as Sunset stormed out of the teachers’ lounge, picking up a stack of books along the way. “Or else nobody’ll believe you!”
Sunset slammed the door shut behind herself. Making her way through the hallways in record time, she stopped herself short of opening the door to the classroom. Closing her eyes, she drew in a deep breath as she brought her free arm across her chest, held it there for a moment and slowly breathed out as she moved it back to her side before opening the door. “Guten Morgen, alle miteinander,” she greeted her class with a bright smile. “That’s good morning everyone in German, and welcome to Intro to German.”
Students took their place and conversations stopped as Sunset picked up a clipboard with the names of the students who had signed up to check attendance. By now, she knew most of the names and faces, but she decided to go through the list properly for the first lesson. “Posey Bloom.”
“Present,” said a girl wearing a prim and proper white blouse and black skirt with stockings.
“Misty Brightdawn.”
“Here!” The voice squeaked from a girl with curly blue hair. She’d transferred in a couple weeks into the school year and was now a part of class 2-A as well.
“Sprout Cloverleaf.”
“Awesome as always!”
“Not according to that last pop quiz,” Sunset said without looking up, paused for the inevitable chuckle of the 2-A students and went on. “Rufus Lulamoon.”
“Present and prepared,” said a boy with dark teal hair in a far more grandiose manner than his simple looks let on while rolling his Rs in a way that did make Sunset look up with a feeling of nostalgia.
“How’s your cousin, Rufus?”
“Great and Powerful as always, Ms. Sunset. She just sold out a show in Baltimare.”
“Hm, tell her to set a ticket aside for me next time she’s in Canterlot. Moving on, Izzy Moonbow.” Silence. “Izzy?” Sunset looked towards Hitch who gave her a shrug in return. Frowning, she moved on in quick succession. “Pipp, Sunny, Zipp, Hitch all present. Alright then.”
Sunset took her preferred teaching position, half sitting on the corner of her desk, and looked over her students. “You know, I always like to manage expectations for the start of a new class. Let’s start with a little test.”
“A test already? We haven’t had a chance to study.”
“Not that kind of test,” Sunset told Posey who had spoken up. “You know, some people believe that students fall into two categories when it comes to electives. First category are those who need extra credit for failing other classes. Anyone here identify with that group?”
Sunset’s smile immediately dropped when several hands went up. Sprout and Zipp, whose talents lay more in the physical rather than the academic, she could understand. Misty needed to make up for lost time. The one that surprised her was Hitch.
“Okay,” Sunset said and stood up. “As Rufus’ cousin would say: Come one, come all! We got something for everybody!” Finding no chalk near the blackboard, she cast a quick glance over her shoulder at Sprout who was looking all too innocent and produced some chalk from her pocket, writing the word Kirchturmwendeltreppengeländerschonbezug on the board and underlining it. “There, first student to translate the word correctly gets an easy A on day one. No phones! Dictionary only,” she added, pointing at Pipp without even looking, which was followed by the pouty clatter of a cellphone on a desk.
“The hell?” Sprout gawked. “What even is that A with the little dots in there? And that’s one word?”
“It’s called an umlaut and yes, that is one word. At least in German it is,” Sunset said and went on. “Now, the other group supposedly consists of those who are looking for an easy time because they take the elective that looks like the least amount of work. Any Easy Riders in my class?”
The urge to facepalm rose as Pipp and Rufus raised their hands with an apologetic look, followed by one more hesitant hand.
“Et tu, Sunny?” Sunset asked in mock hurt.
“I did have another reason to sign up, but, er … you know. Still excited to be in your class, Ms. Sunset.”
Sunset dead-panned and picked up one of the books she brought. “Alright, all I ask is that you don’t drool on these when you use them as pillows. That comes out of my paycheck otherwise.” She turned to the one remaining student with a smile. “Well, Posey. It looks like I’ve got at least one student who comes with a genuine passion and interest in the subject.”
Posey looked directly back at her. “Oh, no. I just thought another foreign language would look good on my college application.”
Pretending like she’d been shot, Sunset clutched her heart and doubled over. “You’re killing me here, Posey. You’re a sophomore. You should be thinking about boys, not college.”
“Excuse me?” Posey replied in shock.
“Or girls,” Sunset added. “I don’t judge.” As most of the class had a good laugh at the expense of the rapidly blushing Posey, Sunset thought to herself: Just you wait. I’ll make you all believers in Bigfoot before the year is over. Everyone suddenly turned at the sound of a loud bang outside the door. Sunset dropped the stack of books on Sunny’s desk. “Pass these out to everyone, please.”
Opening the classroom door, Sunset had a case of Déjà-vu when she found a girl rubbing her forehead. “Oh, Ms. Sunset. Hi!”
“Izzy,” she replied flatly, “you’re making it a habit to be late to my introductory lessons.”
“Sorry.”
“Grab a seat and a book,” Sunset said after letting her in and closing the door behind her. Holding up her own copy of the book that was being passed out, she said: “Now, I’m personally not a fan of how most language courses teach the beginnings. An entire year’s work, all so you can order a Wiener Schnitzel at a restaurant. Don’t worry, you’ll learn that, too. But we’re going to be reading this over the course of the year: Der Schimmelreiter by Theodor Storm, The Rider on the White Horse.” She flipped the book open to a random page. “Now, don’t worry. This is a bilingual edition, so you’ll always have the English translation right next to the original. I don’t expect you to be fluent by the end of the year, but I expect you to be able to read a page and get the gist of what’s going on. I always found practical application to be the best way to learn.”
Raising her hand, Sunny asked: “Is this the book that you used to learn German, Ms. Sunset?”
“Heck no,” Sunset replied flatly. “I learned most of my German by binge-watching the German adaptation of The Office. But Principal Celestia wouldn’t spring for ten DVD box sets of Stromberg plus overseas shipping as course material, so here we are.”
While most of the rest of the class chuckled at that, Zipp crossed out something in her notebook, wrote something else and eventually looked up to raise her hand.
“Yes, Zipp? Question?”
“Church tower spiral staircase railing protective cover,” she said haltingly but confidently.
Izzy turned her head to look around the classroom. “What? Where?”
“On the blackboard,” Zipp added, and Sunset now noticed that there was an open dictionary next to Zipp’s notebook. “The translation is: Church tower spiral staircase railing protective cover.”
Izzy squinted at the word on the blackboard.
“Oh, right,” Sunset said, having nearly forgotten her little challenge and not really expecting someone to work it out, let alone this quickly. She turned to the blackboard, went through each constituting word in her mind and nodded. “Correct. I’m a woman of my word. Zephyrina starts us off right by getting an A on the first day.”
Zipp grinned triumphantly while Sunset could feel her own lips curl into a grin to match.
Holding up a piece of chalk and giving it a twirl between her fingers, she said: “Well now, detective. You don’t seem sufficiently challenged by working that one out. Looks like I’ll have to up my game, won’t I?”
Cracking her knuckles, Zipp narrowed her eyes and replied: “Bring it on, teach.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.018 seconds
Total duration
813 users online
696,394 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Oooh new characters!
Is Rufus meant to be the Hoofdini dude from Tell Your Tale? Misty also raises some interesting possibilities, is Opaline a legitimate villain here? 'Merely' an abusive parent? Or completely unrelated!
Love the Ras Al Ghul vibes from Sunset with "The Detective" remark.
11399169
Yes, Rufus is his offical name as far as I can tell. No last name, so I thought making him related to Trixie would be kinda fun and make sense.
Well done, Zipp! Now collect some samples to prove she exists to the other teachers.
All I can say is really good job on the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up here. So Sunset is teaching an elective in her first year, huh? And it's teaching German. And, yeah, I could see the more experienced teachers warning Sunset about the two types of students that typically sign up for electives and Sunset trying to think optimistically about the third type (and Sunset would know; I'm pretty sure Twilight would have fallen under the third type in her teenage years [and Sunny will probably become an equal mix of the second and third if she isn't already, which she probably is]). Also liked how you worked in this universe's versions of Posey, Rufus and Misty (even if Misty showing up gives me a bad feeling that Opaline [most likely a teacher or principal at a rival school or the superintendent] isn't far behind [though also a bittersweet feeling that magic will be returning relatively soon]) as well as how Sunset learned German in the first place. Particularly loved Zipp stepping up and doing so well on Sunset's first German lesson.
Definitely looking forward to more of this.
I still like the idea of Zipp being an intellectual jock. Can't resist a challenge, be it physical or mental.
Und ich hatte so was wie Dampfschifffahrtsgesellschaft erwartet. Klassiker.
Aja, und hier ist mein Handtuch. Diese Kommentarsektion ist nun Deutsch
Looks like we now see a total of five types of students that sign up for electives.
Type one, those who need the extra credit.
Type two, those who have to take an elective but aren't enthusiastic.
Type three, overachievers who try to learn everything.
Type four, those who can't resist a challenge.
Type five, those who sign up because of who's teaching it, regardless of the course material.
Y'know, with magic probably coming back and Sunset mentoring as a veteran magic user, I can't help but think of how it's similar to Tommy Oliver in Power Rangers Dino Thunder. In fact, Sunset kinda reminds me of Tommy in a way, with how they were both villains, became good and joined the team as an extra member, then took the leadership role after the original leader left. heck, Sunset's magic changes from a greenish colour to red, and they both become teachers.
11399712
Sie konnen das nach ein mal gesagen!
I have a Copy of that book somewhere i think . .
I remember my mother reading it to me, when i was still a little boy and sick.
11457545
...That's a bit of downer to read to a sick kid, at least the ending.
I had to read Der Schimmelreiter in school, 7th or 8th grade, I think. For some reason, it's stuck in my memory more than any other book we ever had to read.
Consider yourself lucky, Sprout. At least Sunset didn't give you Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft to translate.
Oooo. Looks like Zipp has offered a challenge,
Ok?
Was wondering if she'd be in this.
Huh.