The Teamwork Exercise
"What is that?" asked Silver Spoon, interrupting our conversation to point toward the school.
Only slightly annoyed, I looked in the direction that she was indicating and immediately saw something out of the ordinary. There was some sort of giant arch thing with a rope hanging in the middle of it. The end of the rope looped back up a ways and then wrapped around itself in a knot.
"Hmm," I said aloud. "It must be some sort of swing that Miss Cheerlie had put up for the school."
"A swing?" replied Silver Spoon doubtfully. "Why would a swing need to be so huge? Somepony is just going to get hurt!"
A mental image of a certain trio flashed through my mind, causing me to snicker. "That sounds about right," I replied. "Come on, let's get to class. This is boring, standing around outside."
Silver Spoon agreed and we began speaking of more interesting things than playground equipment as we entered the schoolhouse and found our seats. As usual, we were among the first to show up.
As our other classmates eventually came filing through the door, I was able to pick up pieces of their conversation. In particular, the word "swing".
"Everypony is talking about that stupid thing outside. Is that all anypony here can talk about?" I asked Silver Spoon in annoyance.
"Well," said Silver Spoon. "I would like to know what it's there for."
"As would I," I assured her, "but there's no way that we'll find out before Miss Cheerlie gets here, so until then, there is no point in guessing."
After a while, the last of our classmates finally came inside.
"Late again!" I shouted over to the blank-flanks. "Just like almost every other day!"
"We made it on time," complained Sweetie Belle. "Miss Cheerlie isn't even here yet."
On cue, Miss Cheerlie walked into the class room. "Good morning, class!" she cried cheerfully.
"Good morning, Miss Cheerlie," we all replied in a rehearsed, yet bored tone. It was enough for our teacher though, who ignored our less-than-enthusiasm.
"I have a special announcement!" declared Miss Cheerlie. "We're going to be doing something a little bit different today!"
Apple Bloom's hoof shot into the air and I rolled my eyes. Typical. The dumb filly needed to ask questions all of the time instead of just waiting for Miss Cheerlie to explain for herself.
"Yes, Apple Bloom?" said Miss Cheerlie without showing a trace of annoyance. I don't think I could ever be a teacher like her. Not that I would want to.
"Miss Cheerlie," Apple Bloom began. "Does this have ta do with that rope-swing doohickey outside?"
"Why, yes, it does," confirmed the teacher. "I will explain when we are outside. Everypony grab your things!"
The students who had already laid out supplies on their desk in preparation for actual learning (including Silver Spoon and myself) groaned and proceeded to return them to our packs.
"Cool!" I heard Scootaloo cry. Of course, those three did not have anything to pack away since they had only just come through the door themselves. "I wonder what sort of neat activity Miss Cheerlie has planned?"
I rolled my eyes again and looked toward Silver Spoon. One look into her eyes and I knew that we were thinking the same thing: Neither of us were going to enjoy this.
After everypony had followed Miss Cheerlie outside and to the rope thing, she stopped and said "Alright everypony! I want you all to use your imaginations! Pretend that the area between the white lines is gorge and that you all have to use the rope to get from one side to the other!"
I raised my hoof.
"Yes, Diamond Tiara?" said the teacher.
"What is the rope supposed to be hanging from if this is a gorge?"
"I... I hadn't thought of that," admitted Miss Cheerlie. "Maybe it's hanging from a tree on the edge of the gorge? Just go along with it."
"So all we have to do is get to the other side? That's it?" I asked, not believing that it could be that simple.
"That's it," confirmed Miss Cheerlie. "But there are a few rules."
There was groaning from several of the students.
"The first rule is that nopony is allowed to touch the ground between the white lines," continued Miss Cheerlie. "It is supposed to be a gorge."
"The second rule is that nopony is allowed to fly or to use magic."
"We're not allowed to fly or use magic?" I repeated. "Why not?"
"We're trying to be even teammates, Diamond." answered Cheerlie. "And besides, this activity certainly wouldn't last for very long if somepony were to fly or to use magic."
Apple Bloom raised a hoof.
"Yes, Apple Bloom?"
"Then how're we supposed to do this?" complained Apple Bloom. "That rope must be nearly eight feet away!"
"I'm afraid I can't help you with that," responded Miss Cheerlie. "You will all have to figure this problem out on your own."
"Now then," the teacher continued. "The last rule is that nopony is allowed to leave the area until either it's time for school to be over or you all manage to make it to the other side."
There was more groaning.
Scootaloo raised her hoof.
"Yes, Scootaloo?"
"What if do we finish before school is over. What happens then?"
"Well," said Miss Cheerlie, "if you are able to finish early, then as a reward, you may all go home early!"
A cheer was let out from all of the students except for from Silver Spoon and myself.
"There's no way we're getting out early with this group," she whispered to me. I simply nodded back.
"Now," said Miss Cheerlie. "Are there any further questions?"
There were none.
"Alright then!" she continued. "I'll just get out of your manes and leave you to it! If anypony needs me, I'll be over there!"
I watched in annoyance as Miss Cheerlie walked away carefree and stopped some distance away and sat down in the grass. It irked me even further when I watched her pull a book out of her saddlebag and begin to read it.
"This is a waste of time!" I declared to the others.
"But Diamond Tiara," said Apple Bloom, trying to sound reasonable. "What if this was happening in real life?"
"If this was happening in real life," I said, "then we would do the sensible thing and have a pegasus or unicorn take care of it the easy way! I don't understand why Miss Cheerlie says that we're not allowed to take advantage of our natural abilities! Oh, sure, we're trying to be equal teammates. What is even the point of being a unicorn or a pegasus?"
"But that's not the point, Diamond," said Sweetie Belle. "What if we were all from an earth pony tribe, long ago?"
"If we were all earth ponies," I cried, "and if this was really a gorge, then we would just have somepony climb the tree that the rope is hanging from and get ahold of it from there! But we can't do that in this case, can we? Or, better yet, we would do the safe thing and construct a bridge across the gorge, and it would be a permanent and comfortable solution! Or even better yet, we should just be happy with this side of the gorge and not succumb to thinking that the grass must be greener on the other side!"
"Diamond," said Scootaloo. "You're overthinking this. It's just a game! This is supposed to be fun!"
"You think that this is a game? We're not allowed to leave until school is over!"
"Just ignore her," said Apple Bloom. "We don't need her."
I silently agreed, but said nothing. Instead, I led Silver Spoon slightly away from the group and stopped when we had some privacy.
"Ugh," moaned Silver Spoon. "I would rather just be back in class."
"Me too, Silver Spoon," I assured her. "But at least we can hang out until school is over."
I had been conversing with Silver Spoon for a short while when we were suddenly forced to stop abruptly by the strange sight of our classmates carrying rocks and sticks toward the rope-swing.
"What are you doing?" I asked them incredulously.
"It was Scootaloo's idea," one of them answered back. "We're going to try throwing stuff at the rope and try to make it swing far enough where we can catch it!"
"That's your plan?" I demanded. "You know that there's no way that that is going to work!"
"Well," retorted Scootaloo, "it's at least worth a try, isn't it? Do you have a better idea?"
"No! I don't have a better idea! Because this task is impossible."
"I don't think it's impossible," said Scootaloo. "I mean, there's gotta be some way that it will work. There's always a way."
"Whatever."
Scootaloo huffed and walked away. Silver Spoon and I didn't continue our conversation just yet however. Watching the others fail would promise to be amusing.
For some reason, it seems that everypony else had unconsciously elected the Cutie Mark Crusaders (and yes, I remember the name of their stupid little club perfectly well, but I like to pretend that I don't) as their leaders. That meant that those three got to throw first. Everypony watched as three sticks went flipping through the air like boomerangs that wouldn't come back.
They all completely failed to even touch the target.
"Hey!" shouted Silver Spoon. "The objective is to hit the rope, isn't it?"
"Not that it would do you any good even if you did hit it," I reminded them.
That resulted in several angry looks from my classmates, but nopony said anything. They all knew better.
Everypony except for the blank-flanks of course.
"It aint like we don't have time to kill," said Apple Bloom in annoyance. "We'll get it eventually."
I groaned to myself. Another reminder that I had several hours of this to get through.
The others threw sticks and rocks and who knows what at that stupid rope for I don't even know how long. Even after a few of them actually managed to hit it, all it did was just swing back and forth mere inches. I couldn't believe that they couldn't figure out that they were wasting their time. They just kept going. I didn't say anything about this to Silver Spoon though. We were both trying to keep our minds off the stupid game.
Our conversation suddenly ceased when we had both run out of things to say about the topic at hoof, but neither of us had decided what to say next. It was enough time for me to take notice of what was being said by the Crusaders.
"What if we just toss somepony onto the rope?" said Scootaloo.
I cringed and clenched my teeth at that. Please tell me that even the other blank flanks know that that is a stupid idea.
"I don't think that's going to work, Scoot," said Sweetie Belle. "You know that we're not nearly strong enough to do that."
"Plus," added Apple Bloom, "even if we were, what if we missed? Then that pony would fall into the gorge and get hurt!"
I let out a groan.
Some time later, no progress had still been made and Silver Spoon and I were beginning to scrape the bottom of the bowl for interesting things to talk about.
That was when I saw all three crusaders run past with an enormous tree branch.
I didn't even bother asking where they could have found a branch that size around the school house, but it only took a couple of seconds of examining it to know that it still wasn't long enough to do what I was sure they intended to do with it.
Sure enough, those fillies worked together to hold it out over the 'gorge' and try to snag the rope with it. Those three must have something wrong with their depth perception because-
Suddenly, I stopped that train of thought and looked over toward Silver Spoon. Especially at her glasses. Fortunately, she didn't notice.
Well, at least Silver Spoon had done something about her problem.
"Aw, darn it!" cried Apple Bloom. "Even this one aint long enough."
"Of course it's not!" I cried back at them. "There is nothing here that is long enough to reach that far! What you need is another rope, but none of you have one, do you? All we have is a bunch of school books and paper and pencils! And the 'rules' say that we can't leave, so we can't just go and get one, can we? So, unless one of you happens to have a rope with you, you should forget about the whole thing!"
"Hey," said Apple Bloom suddenly, apparently unaffected by my speech. "Outta everypony here, other than Miss Cheerlie, who would you say has the longest mane?"
"What?" I asked incredulously. "Where did that come from? What does that have to do with anything?"
"Well," said Sweetie Belle thoughtfully. "I guess that would be Silver Spoon, right?"
At the mention of her name, Silver Spoon took further interest. "Wait, what about me?"
"I had this idea," explained Apple Bloom with a grin that I didn't like. "You're right, Diamond. We don't have a rope. But we could make one. Sorta. Outta hair from Silver Spoon's mane."
"WHAT!" shouted Silver Spoon, understandably upset. "You foals aren't touching one hair of my perfect mane!"
"It won't be that much hair," said Apple Bloom, grinning like a devil. "It's not like it needs to be an actual rope. We just need enough to tie together so that we can reach the other rope."
"If you're so sure that that will work," I shouted, "then why don't you rip out your own manes instead! There's no way Silver Spoon is going to do something so ridiculous when all of your ideas so far have ended in failure!"
Apple Bloom hesitated, but not for long. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Hey, Scootaloo!" she called, waving at her with a hoof. "Come help me out."
"Huh?" asked Scootaloo.
"Just pluck a hair outta my mane. But just one! I don't want it to hurt too much."
Silver Spoon and I just stared at the farm filly. I couldn't believe that she was going through with this.
"Okay then," said Scootaloo. "Here it goes..." Then, too my horror, she carefully bit down on a stray strand of Apple Bloom's hair.
"Gross!" Silver Spoon cried out. "I bet she hasn't washed her mane at all today!"
Scootaloo hesitated, then released the stray hair strand without trying to pull it out.
"Have you washed your mane today, Apple Bloom?" she said suspiciously.
"Well, Ah... No, Ah haven't. But I do it before Ah go to bed!"
"Eh, whatever," said Scootaloo. "I've put worse things into my mouth."
Scootaloo quickly bit down on Apple Bloom's mane again and swiftly yanked back.
"OW!" cried Apple Bloom.
"Got it!" said Scootaloo, proudly displaying the red strand.
"That hurt!" complained Apple Bloom.
"Well, yeah," said Scootaloo. "What did you expect?"
"It's your turn next!" declared Apple Bloom, vengeance in her eyes.
"Huh?" said Scootaloo. "I thought you were volunteering to use your hair!"
"No, that would be too painful," said Apple Bloom. "Ah think that everypony should make a contribution."
"Oh, alright," said Scootaloo, slightly unhappy. "It's just one hair after all."
Silver Spoon and I simply stood and watched in shock at this madness. Eventually, everypony did volunteer to contribute to the pony-mane rope. With the exception of Silver Spoon and myself of course.
"There!" cried Apple Bloom after she had finished tying all those hairs together into a barely visible multi-colored strand. "All done! Now then, who wants ta try throwing it?"
To my amusement, everypony around her gave her a stare.
"What?" she asked in annoyance. "Just because I live on a farm and... participate in the rodeo every year doesn't mean that Ah'm good at this sorta thing!"
They continued staring. I burst out laughing, with Silver Spoon following my lead.
"Fine!" cried Apple Bloom. "Ah'll show you ta laugh at me!"
She took the end of the hair-string into her hooves and began whirling it around her head. And then she released.
I started laughing even harder when the flimsy string didn't move any distance to speak of and simply fluttered down around her.
"You naïve little filly!" I cried. "It will never work like that. You have to anchor the other end with something. Even just a rock would do."
"Oh, ah guess yer right," said Apple Bloom hesitantly. If I didn't know better, I would think that she was doubting my wisdom, but I had proven to be right far too many times for that to be the case. She just didn't want to acknowledge that I was, as usual, correct.
As I watched the farm pony find a suitable rock and tie the string around it, I realized that there was a chance that the plan might actually work.
But only because I helped to come up with it.
"Alright," said Apple Bloom now that the rock was securely in place. "Here goes nothin',"
She swung the string around her head for a moment, then released.
The rock got close to hitting the loop in the rope.
Apple Bloom immediately looked back toward me and Silver Spoon with a humiliated expression on her face. She was obviously expecting us to belittle her.
"Well?" I demanded. "Aren't you going to try again?"
"What?" asked Apple Bloom in surprise. "Of- of course I am! Buuuuuut..."
"But what?" I asked in annoyance.
"The string isn't long enough."
"Yes it is!" I cried back in exasperation. "We all just saw it go past the rope!"
"It is long enough to hit the rope," agreed Apple Bloom, "but think about it. Once we have the rope, we have to have somepony swing across the gorge."
I huffed as she said this. I hate the way they kept referring to it as though it was actually a 'gorge'.
"And then," she continued, "somepony on this side has to be able to pull the rope back again. That means that we need more slack."
"Well then," I said, "get on with it then. Start tearing more of your mane out!"
Apple Bloom made that evil grin again. "Welllll... Everypony here has already given up one of their hairs. Except for you an' Silver Spoon."
This again.
"I told you already!" cried Silver Spoon. "You're not getting a single hair from my head!"
"Well," said Apple Bloom smugly, "I guess we can do it by ourselves..."
Of course they could.
"But..." she continued. "We'll have to leave you behind."
"What?" cried Silver Spoon. "You can't leave Diamond Tiara and I behind! You can't make us stay behind!"
"Yeah we can," countered Apple Bloom. "When the last of us makes it across, we'll just take the string with us and leave you behind. And the rules say that you can't step hoof past the white line."
I was about to tell her how stupid she was for thinking that Silver Spoon and I would actually allow ourselves to be the last ones left, but then I thought of a far more convincing argument.
"The rules also say that if everypony doesn't make it across, then we don't get to go home. Not one of us!"
"Yes," agreed Apple Bloom. "But it will be your fault."
I didn't have time for this.
Silver Spoon's expression turned enraged. "Why you insolent little-"
I could barely believe I was about to do this.
"Hold on a second, Silver Spoon," I said as I put a hoof on her shoulder to calm her down. She gave me a confused look.
"Arguing with these foals is just giving me a headache," I continued. "And nopony is accomplishing anything. If the price of getting to go home early today is just one hair from my mane, then... Then I say that that is more than a profitable deal."
Silver Spoon looked at me in shock.
I turned around. "Pull a hair from my mane," I said, hoping I wouldn't regret this. "I promise that I washed it this morning. Just make it quick." I clenched my eyes closed.
"If you say so, Diamond," said Silver Spoon slowly.
A needle of pain stabbed my head.
But it only lasted for a moment.
Suddenly, a burst of cheering surrounded me.
Silver Spoon (holding a long violet hair in her mouth) and I looked around in confusion.
"Yeah Diamond!" shouted somepony.
I couldn't even begin to fathom why they were doing that. On the other hoof, I don't even pretend to understand fools.
The cheering quickly died down. "Now it's your turn, Silver!" said Scootaloo enthusiastically.
"I said no!" Silver Spoon spat back. "Just because Diamond Tiara decided to let you have a hair doesn't mean that you're getting one from me!"
"Silver Spoon," I appealed, "maybe you should reconsider. You wouldn't want me to do this alone, would you? It's just one hair out of millions. I promise nopony will even notice. And I want to be able to go home early! Do it for me?"
"...Fine."
There was another burst of cheer, albeit much shorter.
"But you owe me one," whispered Silver Spoon as I carefully separated a hair from the rest of her mane.
I didn't respond. I was hoping that she would forget ever saying that when this was over.
'I can't believe I'm doing this,' I thought in my head as I took the hair into my mouth and yanked.
"AH!" cried Silver Spoon. I held up the silvery strand for all to see.
There was applause from around us.
Silver Spoon looked around at our classmates for a few seconds, and then turned to me. It was subtle, but I could see sourness in her expression: She was jealous of the stronger reaction that I had gotten.
Well, it wasn't my fault. I didn't even do anything worthy of admiration when they all cheered. And yet, every time that I do do something worthy of their admiration, they refuse to acknowledge it.
All of these ponies are insane.
Silver Spoon and I grudgingly hoofed over the hairs over to Apple Bloom.
"So, you have enough now, right?" I asked warningly.
"Yep, that should be good," she answered.
I watched as Apple Bloom tied our precious hairs to those of our classmates.
Unbidden, an image appeared in my mind. Silver Spoon and I with joined hooves as well as with our class mates, forming a circle of colts and fillies holding hooves and laughing and singing and dancing around a mulberry bush-
"No!" I cried, shaking my head in an attempt to evict the imagery. "No, no, no, no no!"
Everypony had stopped to stare at me.
"Um, are you okay, Diamond Tiara?" asked Silver Spoon.
"...Yes, I'm fine," I answered grumpily. "It's just that all of this waiting around is making me stir crazy. Now hurry up and get that rope."
Apple Bloom turned toward the rope and gave it a determined stare. Then she took the string and began spinning it at her side once again, then released.
"Oh, come on!" I moaned at her.
"Hey, I'm trying!" she complained.
"Well, try harder!"
Once Apple Bloom had reeled the string back in, she repeated the process again, including the part where she missed.
"Again." I commanded.
"I know!" said Apple Bloom.
The next try, she got it.
"Yes!" Apple Bloom exclaimed as the weighted end of the string flew through the loop of the rope.
"Finally!" I said. "Now be careful as you pull it back. You don't want it to fall back out."
"I know, I know!" moaned Apple Bloom in annoyance as she pulled the string back. The rope slowly followed.
At last, she was holding the rope itself in her hooves.
"Alright!" she said happily. "Who want's to go across first?"
I wasn't about to volunteer. There was no telling that this whole structure was actually sound.
"You're the one holding the rope," I said. "You go first."
"Well," replied Apple Bloom. "I guess that's as good as anything. You got a hold of the string, Scoot?"
"Yep!" answered Scootaloo, who was in fact holding the end of the string in her mouth.
I remembered that the very last hair to be included was Silver Spoon's.
"Here I go!"
Everypony watched as Apple Bloom pushed off and swung across.
There was cheering as Apple Bloom officially became the first one to make it to the other side.
I had not added my own voice to the cheering. However, a certain thought was running through my head: 'We can do this after all.'
"Alright, shall I go next?" asked Scootaloo, who had apparently pulled the rope back while I was thinking to myself.
"No!" I declared. "I shall go next, followed by Silver Spoon, so that we can get this over with. We've been waiting around all day!"
I saw as Scootaloo rolled her eyes, but she didn't object as I seized the rope.
Swinging across wasn't actually much of a big deal. It only took about two seconds to get across, and then my feet were firmly planted back on the ground.
"Aw, common Diamond!" I heard Scootaloo cry. I looked back at her. After a moment, I realized that she was pulling the string back, but the rope was hanging directly in the middle and it wasn't moving any closer toward her side.
"It's not my fault!" I shouted over to her. "Somepony didn't tie everything together tightly enough!"
"Hey," cried Sweetie Belle. "Leave Apple Bloom alone! The reason that it broke is because it just couldn't take your weight!"
There was a very audible gasp from everypony.
"Really?" I asked, almost not believing the filly's audacity. "Really? Did you just call me fat? Do I look fat to you?"
I was almost of a mind to be really angry, but I knew that there was absolutely no way that the filly could be serious.
"Um, um..." Sweetie Belle was clearly panicking. Everypony around her was staring at her, including her friends. "No? Diamond Tiara, I'm... I'm sorry!"
Yeah, you better be.
"Good!" I called back. "Now somepony fix that string and grab that rope!"
Fortunately, it turned out that the string was fine. The rock had simply fallen away. All that needed to be done was to find a replacement.
In the meantime, I realized that I was stuck on the other side without Silver Spoon.
And with one of the blank flanks.
I groaned inwardly.
But then suddenly I had an idea.
I waved over to Silver Spoon, who saw me quickly. Then I looked over at Apple Bloom with a grin.
When I looked back at Silver Spoon, she was grinning too.
"Hey, blank flank," I said to Apple Bloom.
"What do you want Diamond?" asked Apple Bloom in annoyance.
"Look over there," I said, indicating the rest of the class.
"Yeah? So?"
"Look at how happy your friends are over there. Without you."
Apple Bloom didn't answer for a few seconds. Then she said in a low voice, "Ah know what you're up to, Diamond. There's nothing wrong with them bein' happy together. They don't need me to be happy."
"That's right," I said back to her. "They don't need you. They are only friends with you because there is nopony else for you three to be friends with. But what do you all have in common?" I let the question hang in the air for a moment. "Nothing."
"That's not true!" blurted Apple Bloom. "We... we all love searching for our special talents together!"
"Yes," I admitted. "but you three seem to expect that when you do find your cutie marks, all three of you will have the exact same one. Have you ever asked yourself what the odds of that really is?"
Apple Bloom gave me a look that I couldn't quite translate, but I didn't let that stop me.
"Face it. Whatever their cutie marks wind up being when they finally manage to find them, they will be as different from yours as yours will be from mine."
I turned away from her to check on the progress of the others, feeling confident that my work was done.
"They'll still always be my friends."
"What was that?" I asked, turning back to Apple Bloom.
"It doesn't matter how different we are from each other," Apple Bloom said. "It'll never stop us from being best friends."
I looked at her for a moment, uncertain how to respond. Finally, I settled on saying "Whatever," and turning back to everypony else.
"Okay!" called Scootaloo. "I've fixed it. So, since Apple Bloom isn't over here, who wants to try throwing this time?"
"I will!"
Uh oh. I hope Silver Spoon knows what she's doing.
I pushed that thought away. Of course she knows what she's doing. No matter what happens, she won't allow everypony to think that she is inferior to Apple Bloom.
Silver Spoon missed the first throw.
"Argh!" she growled loudly.
She missed again. She didn't make a sound as she pulled the string back in.
Another miss.
A hit.
"Yeah!" cried the ponies behind her.
Silver Spoon allowed a small smirk to cross her face as she pulled the rope in. She wasted no time in swinging across.
"Hey Diamond Tiaria," she said casually after landing.
"Hey Silver Spoon," I said back.
"That was pretty good, Silver," said Apple Bloom. "You managed to get the rope in the same number of tries as me!"
Silver Spoon scoffed. "You just got lucky."
Apple Bloom didn't say anything further. Instead, we all settled for watching as the rope was pulled back once again.
"Alright," said Scootaloo. "Who's next? How about you, Sweetie Belle?"
"Um, no thank you," answered Sweetie Belle. "How about somepony else?"
It took a few minutes, but one by one, everypony eventually swung across and was at our side.
Everypony except for Sweetie Belle.
"Come on!" I shouted at her in frustration. "Now you're afraid of a swing? You do this sort of stuff every day, for Celestia's sake!"
"Ugh," muttered Scootaloo. "Actually, she's always like this," she told me. "She's always the one getting nervous any time we want to do something cool."
"Well, big woop!" I said back. "She has to do it anyway, right? What makes this any different?"
"Just let me go back over and talk to her."
"How?" I demanded. "The string is on her side!"
"Hey, Sweetie Belle!" shouted Scootaloo.
"Yeah?"
"Throw the rope over this way as hard as you can!"
"Um, okay?"
"Wait!" I cried. "If she messes up and it doesn't make it all the way over here, we'll lose the rope again and we won't have the string!"
Sweetie Belle threw the rope forward.
And- thank Celestia- Scootaloo caught it.
"Be back in just a second," Scootaloo said as she tossed the string to Apple Bloom before pushing off and swinging back to the other side.
Everypony watched in anticipation as Scootaloo landed and put a hoof on Sweetie Belle's shoulder. Nopony could hear anything that either of them were saying to one another, but we could see them moving their mouths.
After what felt like twenty minutes (even though I'm pretty sure it couldn't have been more than two minutes. At least, I hope it wasn't any longer than that), Sweetie Belle nodded at Scootaloo and they both stood up.
Scootaloo took ahold of the rope.
And then Sweetie Belle grabbed ahold of it too.
They both stood there for a moment. And then, finally, Scootaloo pushed off.
I wanted to cover my ears at the shrieking coming from that banshee named Sweetie Belle, but it was over before I had the chance.
Everypony was now standing on the other side of the swing.
The entire class burst into cheer for a final time. This time, Silver Spoon and I joined in.
"I'll go tell Miss Cheerlie that we're finished so that we can all go home!" I exclaimed.
There was some murmuring among my classmates, but nopony tried to stop me as I ran to where Miss Cheerlie was laying belly down in the grass and reading her book.
I noticed that it was a romance novel.
"Miss Cheerlie!" I cried.
She looked up in surprise. "Oh! Diamond Tiara! Do you need something?"
"We're finished!" I declared.
"What? You all made it across?" she asked. She looked over toward the group and saw that everyone was on the other side.
"Well, congratulations!" she said happily. "How did you all manage it?"
"We built a really long piece of string out of pieces of our manes and anchored the end with a rock. And then we used that to get ahold of the rope and swing across."
"Hold on," said Miss Cheerlie, suddenly concerned. "You made a piece of string out of your manes?"
"...Yeah. I didn't want to at first, but since it was only one strand of hair from everypony, the others decided to do it anyway."
"Diamond Tiara!" cried Miss Cheerlie.
And then she began laughing. "I know that this was a little bit frustrating, but there was no need to go pulling out your manes over it!" She continued to laugh at her own joke. "Well, I suppose it didn't harm anypony."
"Wait!" I cried as I suddenly realized something. Miss Cheerlie stopped laughing and looked at me. "If we weren't supposed to make a string out of hair from our manes, what were we supposed to do?"
Cheerlie let out a quick laugh. "You weren't supposed to do any one particular thing," she said. "It doesn't matter what solution you found. The point is that you worked together as a team!"
"What?" I cried, a little upset. "Are you telling me that you didn't even know if there was a way that actually worked?"
"Well," said Miss Cheerlie a little hesitantly, "I did have several ideas, but I never actually put them to the test. But remember, there's always a solution!"
I sighed. "So, we can all go home now, right?"
Miss Cheerlie smiled.
Then she called out in a voice loud enough that everypony could hear, "Class is dismissed!"
"Hey," called Apple Bloom just as I was coming back to ask Silver Spoon to come to my house for the afternoon. "Uh, does anypony else want this?" she asked, indicating the pony-hair string which now lay discarded in the grass.
"What do you want that for, Apple Bloom?" asked Sweetie Belle.
"Yes, why would you want that thing?" I said to Apple Bloom. "It's a wad of other pony's hair. Don't you know what happens to pony hair after it falls out?"
"Ah was going to keep it some place special," retorted Apple Bloom. "It aint like Ah'll let it get dirty. Ah just want somethin' to help me remember how us and the rest of the class solved this problem by working together!"
"Whatever," I answered back. "Remind me to never let you touch me ever again."
"Wait," said Apple Bloom slowly. "So all ah gotta do..." suddenly she started hoofing at the ground and all I could think to do was stare at her stare at her in disdain. "To make you... leave me alone... is..." Suddenly she threw her hoof up and pointed at me with it. It was mere inches from my face and quite visibly covered in dirt. "get a little dirty?" Apple Bloom finished smugly.
"Ugh!" grunted Silver Spoon and myself as we backed away from her.
"Gross!" wailed Silver Spoon.
"They should throw ponies like you in prison for being so disgusting!" I hissed at her.
"Um, Apple Bloom?" said Sweetie Belle. Apple Bloom turned to look at her, still grinning. "That really is pretty gross. You should stop," Sweetie Belle finished, causing Apple Bloom to drop her grin like a rock.
"For once, I think you should listen to your friend," I said to the filthy foal.
Turning to Silver Spoon, I said to her, "Come Silver Spoon. Let's get away from these freaks."
"Hey!" I heard Scootaloo cry. "We're not all freaks. It was Apple Bloom who started digging in the dirt! Oops! I mean..."
We didn't bother sticking around to listen to the pegasus drum up an apology for her friend.