Cheerilee let out a weary sigh as she leaned against the door of the schoolhouse, casually overlooking her students at play. Every recess it was the same: they’d all dash out into the field together, only to split up into groups of twos and threes mere seconds later, squirreling themselves away into their little cliques. Cheerilee couldn’t help but find it a little upsetting. She felt that foals were growing up too fast these days as it was, but the sight of her students so evenly divided just made her feel like she was teaching a class full of high schoolers. Snips would pair off with Snails, Twist would pair off with Featherweight, Apple Bloom would go off with Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, and Diamond Tiara…
Cheerilee heaved another sigh from her gullet. It was Diamond Tiara’s behavior that caused her the most concern. After witnessing her butting in on one of the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ daily meetings for the umpteenth time, Cheerilee decided that it was finally time to put her hoof down.
“Are you losers still trying to get your cutie marks?” she sneered at the threesome. “I mean, I almost feel bad for you. Almost.”
“Oh, lay off!” snapped Scootaloo. “Just ‘cause we’re getting ours a little later than you doesn’t mean that-”
“A little later?” she interrupted. “Silver Spoon got her cutie mark when she was HALF your age!”
Moments after she said that, a long imposing shadow was cast over the pink earth pony. She looked behind her to see her schoolteacher looming over her.
“Diamond Tiara, can you come see me privately, please?”
Diamond Tiara gulped. There was something slightly unsettling about Cheerilee’s tone. She sounded more troubled than angry, and in her eyes Tiara detected a lingering sense of pity.
“Um… okay,” she said warily, following her teacher toward the front of the schoolhouse.
“What a jerk,” grumbled Scootaloo, glowering at the bully as she and Cheerilee disappeared into the building’s shadow.
Just as the two were comfortably inside the building’s shadow, Cheerilee turned around to address her student.
“Diamond Tiara, this really has to stop,” she said tenderly. “I know you have trouble making friends, but this isn’t the way to cope with your loneliness.”
“I-I was just joking around!” Diamond cried. “Really, I didn’t mean to hurt any of them! Just ask Silver Spoon!”
She pointed a hoof out towards the center of the field, trying to direct Cheerilee’s attention to the white- maned filly who was eagerly awaiting her return.
Cheerilee sighed and shook her head. “Diamond, this is exactly what I’m referring to.”
“What do you mean?”
Cheerilee reared, sitting on the moist, grassy turf. Once seated, she leaned forward until her eyes were level with Diamond’s, gently laying a hoof on her student’s shoulder. “Diamond… there’s nopony in my class named Silver Spoon.”
Diamond Tiara raised an eyebrow at her teacher. “What are you talking about?”
“Diamond, please,” Cheerilee said sternly. “Enough’s enough. If you had done this for a day, it would have been cute. If you had done this for a week, it would still have been cute. But every day for the past four months I’ve seen you talking to this imaginary friend of yours, and it’s really starting to worry me.”
A chill crept down Diamond Tiara’s spine. “I-imaginary?” she gasped, the gears in her head creaking and sputtering. “But she… but she…”
Cheerilee quickly cut her off with a gentle embrace. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “Believe me, I know how awful being lonely can feel. If you ever need any help, I’ll see to it that you get the counseling you need. But you can’t keep cutting yourself off from the rest of the world like this. Understand?”
“Y…yes,” Diamond muttered as her eyes drifted toward the ground.
“We’ll talk about this some more after school,” said Cheerilee, releasing the hug and standing back up. “For now, I think it’s best for you to come back inside with me. The school bell’s about to ring.”
Cheerilee trotted back into the schoolhouse, leaving Diamond alone after giving her an obligatory pat on the back. Diamond Tiara just stared blankly forward, shocked into a state of speechlessness by what she had just been told. Was the filly she had known all her life never there to begin with?
Impossible! she thought. If she wasn’t real, then she never would have been able to... to...
Her brain started relaying every moment she had ever spent with her companion, scanning each one for something, anything that would validate Silver Spoon’s existence. The afternoons spent on the playground, the first day of school, the months gone by without anypony saying a word...
Suddenly, the silence was broken by a squealy alto voice coming from directly behind her.
“What’s the matter, Diamond?”
Diamond Tiara whipped around and her gaze was immediately met with the bespectacled eyes of her comrade.
“N...nothing,” Diamond Tiara muttered, averting her eyes.
“Aw, c’mon, Diamond. You can tell me. I am your friend, after all.”
As Diamond Tiara’s eyes crept back up to meet Silver Spoon’s, her bottom lip began to quiver. “Silver Spoon... I can always trust you, right?”
Silver Spoon laughed and started to creep closer to her companion. “What in the world are you talking about? Of course you can.”
A knot was beginning to tighten in Diamond Tiara’s stomach. An eerie, stony silence had washed over the normally lively schoolyard, and a brief glance over Silver’s shoulder revealed that everypony had vacated the premises. She was alone.
“Are... are you sure?” she croaked.
Silver Spoon looked at her with the same expression of pity that Cheerilee had shown her earlier. “Are you all right, Diamond?” she asked . “You don’t look so good. I mean, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Diamond Tiara opened her mouth to respond, but before anything could come out, Silver Spoon gingerly draped one of her forelegs around her shoulder. The feeling of Silver’s fur against hers chilled Diamond to the bone. The warmth one would usually feel from another pony’s touch was noticeably absent from Silver’s fur. She felt dead. No, not even that. ‘Dead’ implies tangibility. She felt… ethereal.
“I saw you talking to Cheerilee,” Silver Spoon snorted. “Was that old hag trying to drive us apart again?”
“W-well, she said that-”
"Let her try. I know for a fact that nothing she can do will ever keep us apart. Ever.”
Diamond’s heart started pounding uncontrollably and beads of sweat accumulated on her brow as that last ‘ever’ echoed louder and louder in her head.
Ever. Ever. EVER. EVER! EVER!
With each repetition, Diamond felt Silver Spoon’s omnipresent form looming over her. In a frantic attempt to escape it, she bolted into a sprint away from the schoolhouse, putting Silver as far behind her as she could. Silver Spoon tried to call after her, but she tuned her out.
“It’s all in my head… it’s all in my head…” she whispered to herself, desperately hoping that the words would somehow ease her frantic heartbeat or stop the oncoming flood of tears from escaping her eyes.
Unfortunately, she was more focused on escaping Silver Spoon than on looking where she was going, and she promptly crashed into the tetherball pole at ramming speed.
“OOF!” grunted Diamond as she crashed back first onto the ground below. After landing, she skidded over a sharp, jagged rock jutting up from the ground, which left her right hind leg with a nasty laceration. The searing pain shooting up through her leg had made it even more difficult to keep the tears locked in, but she tried her hardest, clenching all of her facial muscles and keeping her teeth firmly gritted.
While she was still nursing her wound, she looked up to see a certain gray- coated filly looming over her.
“Aw, did wittle Diamey-Wimey get a boo-boo?”
Diamond Tiara gasped in horror and tried to force herself back onto her hooves, but the pain had rendered her immobile. All she could do was cower in helpless fear and beg to be left alone.
“It doesn’t matter how far you run, Diamond,” Silver said menacingly. “You will never escape me.”
“G-go away,” whimpered Diamond, shutting her eyes and shrinking into a fetal position. “P-please…”
“But you need me,” sneered Silver. “Do you really want to lose the only friend you’ve ever had?”
“SHUT UP!” screamed Diamond as tears seeped out from behind her sealed eyelids. She screamed it over and over, in a desperate attempt to drown out Silver’s voice. With every passing second, her words grew more and more unintelligible, until she finally descended into foal-like bawling.
Diamond’s absence from class hadn’t gone unnoticed as Cheerilee caught a glimpse of an empty seat in the front row while taking attendance.
“Class,” she asked, “has anyone seen Diamond Tiara?”
The other colts and fillies looked at each other and shrugged, save Truffle Shuffle, who was lucky enough to have claimed a seat right next to the window.
“She’s out there, Miss Cheerilee!”
Cheerilee glanced out the window to find Diamond’s quivering form under the shadow of the tetherball pole.
Cheerilee gasped. “Oh, dear. Class, wait just a moment. I’ll be right back.”
The Teacher’s Handbook doesn’t prepare you for this sort of thing, she thought as she dashed outside to console the crying filly. Upon reaching Diamond’s body, her matronly instinct drew her attention toward the bloodied gash on Diamond’s leg.
“Sweet Celestia!” she cried. “Diamond, what happened?”
Diamond could only respond with more hysterical bawling. Cheerilee sighed, knelt down, took her by the hoof and gently pulled her up into a sitting position while wrapping her forelegs around Diamond. Diamond returned the hug and buried her face into Cheerilee’s shoulder, letting her tears trickle down Cheerilee’s back. As she felt the warmth of Cheerilee’s body close to hers and felt the faintly audible beating of her heart, Diamond’s crying gradually began to diminish.
“Shhhh,” whispered Cheerilee. “It’ll be okay. The nurse’ll get you fixed up in no time.”
“Mm-hmm,” Diamond Tiara mumbled, sniffling. As Cheerilee hoisted her up onto her shoulder and began to carry her towards the nurse’s office, Diamond reluctantly let her eyes creep open… only to find that Silver Spoon was nowhere to be seen.
You’ll NEVER escape me.
Do you really want to lose the only friend you’ve had?
Diamond Tiara firmly bit her bottom lip, refusing to let Cheerilee see her burst into tears a second time.
Diamond’s scrape, as it turned out, was nothing that the nurse wasn’t used to handling. She only had to carefully wash the area, bandage it up, and instruct Diamond not to put too much pressure on her back leg.
“You’ll be fine,” said the nurse. “But if there’s anything else you need from me, just let me know.”
Diamond Tiara wiped her face dry with her hoof and tilted her neck up to meet the nurse’s eyes. Diamond’s cheeks and lips were thoroughly drenched, her swollen red eyes still looked moist, and her bottom lip was trembling.
“Make Silver Spoon go away.”
"Make what go away?"
"Silver Spoon. She *sniff* won't leave me alone."
The nurse's mind raced furiously as she tried to prepare a response. It was, of course, her job to keep all the colts and fillies healthy, but Diamond Tiara had just utterly baffled her with this request. She wished she could say that she hadn't the faintest idea what Diamond was talking about, but after looking into her tear- moistened eyes and hearing her beg for help so earnestly, the nurse decided that she didn't have the heart to say any such thing. Fortunately, while she was still trying to formulate a reply, Cheerilee popped in to bail her out.
"How is she?" the teacher asked, timidly stepping through the door. Much to her relief, she saw that Diamond Tiara's wound had been neatly bandaged up.
"Well, the scrape doesn't look like anything serious..." said the nurse, her voice nervously trailing off at the end.
Cheerilee eyed her with some suspicion. "...But?" she asked, a hint of tension rising in her tone.
"...but there's something else that's distressing her. Apparently there's this filly called 'Silver Spoon' that keeps picking on her. Would you know anything about this?"
Cheerilee let out a tiny, barely audible whimper of a gasp. "S-she said what?" she asked, her pupils rapidly dilating.
"She told me that she wants me to make Silver Spoon go away and leave her alone. Is Silver Spoon a new student or something?"
"N-no," stammered Cheerilee, whose body was starting to shiver. "She-she's a- she's a...oh, my. Oh, my."
"I *sob* tried to get rid of her, Miss Cheerilee," said Diamond Tiara, "but she won't leave." As she gazed up into her teacher's eyes, the floodgates began to reopen. "Please make her stop, Miss Cheerilee!" she pleaded, newly formed tears dropping onto her lap.
Cheerilee took a long, deep breath and proceeded to give the pitiful filly another hug. "I'll try," she whispered. "I promise I'll try."
Diamond Tiara broke from her teacher's embrace and roughly shoved her away. "I don't want you to try!" she wailed. "I want you to do it! Make her go away!"
Cheerilee sighed. "I'm sorry, Diamond, but all I can say is-"
"Please, Miss Cheerilee!" Diamond cried, clasping her hooves together. "You have to do it! You're the teacher!"
A hard, dense, throbbing lump had lodged itself in Cheerilee's throat, and a mild wave of nausea was passing over her. Diamond Tiara's words had cut through her like a hot knife through butter. She was right; she was the teacher. Was the education and well-being of an entire class of youngsters too big of a responsibility for her to handle?
She had never thought so before, but as she frantically racked her mind for a solution, it certainly seemed like that was the case. She wished she could tell Diamond Tiara that everything would be okay. She wished she could run away from the schoolhouse and never return. She wished she could drag Silver Spoon into the real world and give her the spanking of a lifetime. She wished she could do anything but stand there and stare at this poor, pathetic, despairing little girl that she was powerless to help.
"So what are you going to do?" asked the thoroughly stymied nurse.
Immediately after she asked that, Cheerliee's bottom lip began to quiver. As the gravity of the situation was sinking in, a thin layer of mist began to form on her eyes, turning everything around her into an amorphous blur. Never in her life did she imagine that this could happen to her. She was a teacher, a matronly mare who had trained her whole life to prepare young ponies for the future. Years of practice, years of experience, a decade worth of acquired knowledge and wisdom, all so she could be ready to give her bright young students whatever help they needed.
And now she was failing. Miserably.
Cheerilee just hung her head defeatedly as tears began to trickle down her cheeks. With a substantial amount of effort, she barely managed to choke out the three words that she thought she would never have to say...
"I...don't...know."
Cheerilee's steady breathing pattern was starting to become jerky and erratic as tears continued to run down her cheeks in greater and greater numbers. Every time she looked at Diamond Tiara's sobbing, trembling form, she saw a reflection of herself. What was she? A licensed teacher? A full grown mare entrusted with the lives of the next generation?
No. Just a frightened, helpless little filly in a mare's body, desperately waiting for a grownup to step in and make everything better. What's more, she was keeping a class full of students waiting for her. Her feelings of shame became so overwhelming that all she wanted to do was run home, collapse into bed and spend the remainder of the evening crying into a pillow. But of course, that wasn't an option at this point in time.
She briefly excused herself from the nurse's office to return to her classroom, if only to tell them that they were all dismissed early. As she walked them out of the schoolhouse in single file, she prayed that none of them noticed her red, swollen eyes or her tear- stained cheeks. Diamond Tiara was, of course, in no condition to be sent home alone, so Cheerilee decided that she would call her father and ask him to come pick her up. Surely her own father would know how to help her, right?
...right?
As she sat and waited in the nurse's office, Diamond Tiara held on tight to the faint hope that her daddy would know what to do. Daddy was the one who could always set things right, no matter how dire or hopeless the situation might have seemed. A teacher was one thing, but fathers were meant to tackle problems like these. Daddy, she hoped, would take care of everything in a jiffy when he arrived.
Her hopes were quickly dashed when she saw Filthy Rich burst through the door of the nurse's office with a resounding bang, his suit disheveled and his brow covered with sweat. The stallion that Diamond Tiara saw in front of her was one she scarcely recognized. The Filthy Rich she knew was dignified and confident, maintaining a perfect air of superiority and class that Diamond was constantly trying to emulate. But the Filthy Rich she just saw now was a discombobulated wreck, panicked and fearful. Her heart sank as she struggled to grasp the bizarre, almost surreal spectacle before her.
Filthy Righ gasped with horror upon seeing his daughter's quivering, sniveling form seated on the table; her eyes swollen and red, her fur covered with streaks of dirt, her mane an absolute mess. He hurried over and gave her a massive hug, tears beginning to form in his eyes.
"What's the matter, Diamond?" he asked. "Tell Daddy what happened."
"S... Silver Spoon," Diamond uttered with a sniffle.
"Silver Spoon?!" cried Mr. Rich. "You told me that she was your best friend in the whole world!"
"Not anymore," Diamond sobbed.
Mr. Rich released his daughter and marched up to Cheerilee, with fury welling up in his soul. "I want you to call Silver Spoon's parents immediately," he seethed. "Nobody hurts my baby girl and gets away with i-"
"Mr. Rich," Cheerilee said as gently as she could. "There is no Silver Spoon."
Diamond Tiara cringed as Cheerilee's words cut through her.
"What do you mean, there is no Silver Spoon?!" demanded Mr. Rich.
Cheerilee shrunk away from Mr. Rich, intimidated by his fervor. "I-I mean that Silver Spoon isn't real," said Cheerilee, trembling. "She's...she's just somepony who Diamond made up."
There it is again. Diamond gritted her teeth, determined not to let the floodgates open again. It was bad enough that she let Miss Cheerilee see her cry once, but she wasn't about to do it again; especially not with her father here. Diamond began to tune out the sound of her father bickering with Miss Cheerilee as feelings of abject shame overtook her. She broke down and cried in front of the whole school. And not just a little, but a lot.
"Aw, don't feel bad," said a chilling squeal of a voice beside her. "Babies cry all the time."
Diamond Tiara gasped and looked to her right, only to see Silver Spoon casually sitting on the counter next to her, letting her hooves swing to and fro. She looked over and gave Diamond a malicious smirk, sending a chill down Diamond's spine.
"I-I'm not a baby," Diamond sniffled.
"Of course you're not," Silver Spoon sneered. "I mean, all you did was lie on the ground and throw a tantrum in the middle of the playground."
"I-it wasn't a tantrum," sniffled Diamond. "I was hurt."
"It sure looked like a tantrum to me," said Silver Spoon.
"Shut up!" Diamond cried. "Just- just go away and leave me alone."
Silver Spoon smiled smugly. "Who's gonna make me?" she asked.
"My daddy," Diamond seethed. "He'll take care of you real good. Just you wait."
"Oh, I'm sure," Silver Spoon said, breaking her gaze away from Diamond's. "You know, that's real grown up of you, isn't it? Waiting 'til daddy gets here so he can make everything better. Maybe when you get home he'll change your diaper and give you your bottle!"
Diamond Tiara snapped and gave Silver Spoon a hard punch across the face.
"OW!" she grunted, rubbing her cheek. "What's the matter with you?! Didn't your daddy ever tell you not to hit?"
At this point, Diamond could feel her eyes start to moisten again. Try as she might, she couldn't hold them back this time. In a fit of rage, Diamond shoved Silver Spoon down onto the counter and started throttling her with her hooves. "I'M NOT A BABY!" she screamed, tears streaming down her cheeks. "I DON'T DRINK FROM BOTTLES AND I DON'T WEAR-"
"Diamond, please!" exclaimed Filthy Rich. Before her rampage could continue, her father and her teacher each grabbed her by the forelegs and snatched her off the counter.
"Diamond, sweetheart," cried Mr. Rich, "what in the world has gotten into you?!"
Diamond Tiara meant to say something, but just as she was about to direct her father's attention towards the counter, she noticed that Silver Spoon had vanished without a trace.
"I- she- the- but I- but she-" she babbled, flabbergasted at what had just transpired. All the while, she felt fresh tears drip down from her eyes and a feeling of abject shame washed over her.
Filthy Rich gave her a tight, firm hug and caressed her back with his hoof. "S-shhh. It's- it's okay. D-daddy'll get this all sorted out, I promise." Unfortunately, his promise did nothing to calm Diamond's anxiety, especially as Diamond felt him tremble and heard the wavering in his voice.
"Be strong, Diamond," said Cheerilee. She reached a hoof out towards her pupil, only to have Filthy Rich angrily swat it away.
"This is all your fault!" he snapped. "I don't know what you've done to her, but believe you me, we will be discussing this thoroughly during next week's parent-teacher conference. Until then, I'm going to give my little princess the help she needs."
Filthy Rich hoisted Diamond up over his shoulder and carried her out of the room. As he walked out the door, he craned his head around and gave Cheerilee the most contemptuous glare he could muster.
While her eyes were still moist from her recent crying fit, Diamond managed to crack a small, faint smile as she buried her face into Filthy Rich's shoulder. For all the pain and humiliation she had endured today, Diamond felt something oddly comforting about relinquishing control and letting her father take her home. With his body warming hers, with his hoof wrapped firmly around her waist and her face nuzzled up against his shoulder, she had the chance to truly feel safe; to feel as if nopony could hurt her anymore.
That is, until she heard an all-too-familiar voice echoing in her head:
Aw, now the baby needs her daddy to carry her!
