Scene 1: Car
I sat in the back of my parents’ car, chewing on my blue rope bracelet that my father gave to me when I was younger. I was ten years old and I was starting school. My parents said that when they were fillys, children always started school around age five or six. Looking up, I saw my father and mother exchange serious looks.
My father said, “Son, when you are in school, don´t always believe what they say. I know that we have talked about this before, but they will teach you horrible things.” Because I had heard it many times before, I started drifting off, thinking about what the kids at school where going to be like, would they be mean to me? When I started listening to my dad again, he was finishing his speech about the Crazy Crooked Canadians mate’.
“You are having to grow up fast, which wouldn’t have happened before the war,” My mother muttered, shaking her head sadly. My parents always went on about the war and it annoyed me. “When they try to teach you to not to love your parents, remember that we love you more than anything. They will teach human technology things, but they sneak propaganda into it.”
My mom reached back and touched my hoof; her hoof was wet for some reason.
“You won’t have to endure it that long,” my dad added. My mother glared at him with wide eyes.
Ignoring whatever was going on, I interrupted their exchange. “But why is the government doing this? If they wanted us as slaves, they could just build robots. They have magical sciences! The C.C.C could just have us build a couple thousand robots.”
My father, shaking his head, muttered, “They think what they are doing is good…”
We were just pulling up to the school. My parents went from looking grim to forcefully happy. The school had a large green lawn, though it was turned red with all the ponies dressed in their in C.C.C. uniform. I had never seen so many people before, except in films.
Part of the school was being rebuilt. My parents told me it was because the Campaign had bombed part of it in the war. Laborers, skinny in their red uniforms, were removing the leftover slate and replacing the roof with rusty sheets of corrugated tin.
While I was getting out of the car, my mom talked to me in a sing-song voice, “Now have a good day at school now. Obey the teachers and make friends. It was a brilliant idea to turn the old Ponyville school into an education school!” A teacher walked by smiling, obviously pleased with my mom’s behavior, shouldering her saddlebag. They were acting like they typically did when around C.C.C. officials.
“Moooom!” I groaned, even though it was an act it still embarrassed me, another kid might think that she was actually a crazy parent.
“John! Don’t forget to put on your nametag and get your room number card. Your father went through a lot of trouble getting them this morning,” she continued, causing me to look around and make sure none of my peers heard that.
My dad reached across the passenger seat, gripping my hoof silently. He let go and got ready to go again. My mom, almost breaking down into sobs, waved goodbye as I blended into the sea of red.
Carrying only my pencil bag and the note, I felt unprepared in many different ways. When I got out, I saw my peers and teachers walking around. They were all silent and tense, observing their surroundings with wide eyes.
I took the note in from my saddle bag that my mom had just given me. It read, ‘Room Fifteen’. Room fifteen? How was I going to find that?
As I walked towards a building another pony walked toward me, calmly strolling. “Yo! Do you need any help?” He had yellow short hair and black and blue ovular glasses. He had a small smile on his face which, added with the fact he was not nervous, unlike the other kids, caused him to stand out in the crowd.
He looked over my shoulder at my card and said, “Follow me, I know where it is.” He led me past the bathroom and into a classroom.
I finally catching a glance at his name tag which he had been hidden by his arm, I puzzled over his name tag, reading ‘L-U-C-I-U-S’. Having my friend might help me ignore the Canadian communist campaign. He laughed at the way I said his name, interrupting my thoughts. “It is pronounced Lue-she-as. It is the Old-Fashion way of spelling my name. Nice to meet you Jo-hn, John! I am in your class too, lucky, lucky,” he said, talking coolly. Leading me down the hall and stopping at a door that read ‘room 15’, we walked in.
There were plenty other fillies in the class and all of them were boys, some were shouting hello to each other or punching other on the side of their LEG playfully. Others were sitting at their desks twiddling their tapping on the table. Waving hello, another kid walked up to me talking, “Hey! Nice to meet you. I’m Larry.”
“Ignore him! He just wants you to join his gang,” a small kid sitting in a chair politely, called to me.
“Ah, shut up Billy!” Larry walked away from me and Billy, greeting Lucius.
The teacher walked in, causing everyone to run to their seats. The fillies who ran, silently combed their hair with their dirty hooves to show they were behaving once they arrived.
“OK everyone, take a seat. I am Mrs. Coleman, nice to meet you. This is your first day at PV educational school, and we hope you enjoy. This will be your homeroom, a place where you go to start off your day. Let us learn about your fellow peers let us go in a circle and say our names.” Her voice was soft and gentle and she had long light brown hair. Wearing a regular uniform with a black coat overtop, she did not seem evil as my parents described.
“For our first lesson, I will tell you the rules,” Mrs. Coleman pronounced, letting the whole class hear. She wrote this on the black board:
• No talking in classes unless given permission
• Do not touch other students or teachers
• Do whatever is said over the speaker
• Do not throw things
• Speak quietly
• Always listen
• Do not undo what the teachers do, for example some disciplines
• Do not do what your parents told you, unless it is a basic order (will be described in the 3rd period)
“Class, to the tune of ‘Mary had a Little Lamb’, we have to sing the rules. Now, No tal-king in cla-as un-les gi-ven per-mis-sion…” Mrs. Coleman started, all of us singing like dying goats. My parents taught me my letters already, like most other fillies. The fillies who didn’t know what the alphabet was had no clue what was going on, they were the orphaned. My mom and dad told me that most educated fillies under the age of six to knew the alphabet back in the past and then they would talk about how this would never happened before the war, when I was four. Then after that we sung terribly, we learned the alphabet and learned how to spell our names. Some kids cheated and looked at their name tags that we received and just copied it onto their paper.
Mrs. Coleman started talking about the discipline for not obeying the rules. “If you break one of the rules that day your name tag will be marked yellow. You miss lunch and we will deduct points from your grade,” Mrs. Coleman said, with a smile, scaring the wits out of me. My mom always said you should never discipline a child by not giving him food, what’s going on?
“If you break another rule, you will get a red name tag, then miss an hour after school, and we will inform your parents.”
“Wow that is haa-rrsh!”A tall skinny kid in the back exclaimed, yelling exactly what I was thinking. Looking at him, I saw it was Larry Diaz. Taking a yellow marker out of her pocket, Mrs. Coleman walked over to Larry Diaz, grabbing his arm roughly, she striped his name tag yellow.
Lucius called out to the teacher. “Mrs. Coleman, why are you marking him? He was just stating something?” Lucius had not seen what she had wrote on the board for he was looking outside. As Lucius exclaimed this, she turned around. She walked over to Lucius and marked him too.
“Because this is your first day,” she said, a small, sly smile crossed her lips and then quickly disappear. Mrs. Coleman was starting to scare me, “I need to educate my students.”
Scene 2: Lunch
Arriving at the cafeteria for lunch by following other students, I looked around the Lunch room. Blue square chairs where connected from underneath to large plain grey tables, surprisingly clean after a whole grade of kids already ate in here. Walking up to pick up my Hay in a can’ off the trays, portioned in the same brownish amounts.
I saw my peers who were marked walk in, hanging their heads. They all spread out and sat at different tables, not allowed to get their lunch, including Lucius. I walked over and sat next to Lucius.
Deciding to talk to him, I racked up courage. “What is your favorite movie?” I pondered, trying to be nice.
“King Kong,” Lucius quoted, a smile barely peeking over his face.
“Ooo-Kaay.” Lucius seemed really sad about getting in trouble, though lightning up. Trying to continue to make conversation, I spoke again “My favorite movie is Miracle on 34th Street. One good thing that the humans brought, eh? I’m John Desmond Morrow, I’m ten years old and I was born in Williamsburg. My mother works at home and” as I said ‘and’ Lucius looked at me curiously, making me wonder why, but I continued cautiously. “My father wor-“ I stopped and looked at Lucius
He looking at me with a stare I had never seen before, it scared me. His mouth in a disappointed frown, but his eyes where sad and surprised. What did I do wrong?
He whispered harshly, “Your father isn’t dead? He isn’t taken away, doing heavy labor?”
I worried about telling him that my father worked for the government because the war is what killed their fathers. If the other kids found out he worked for the government they would sick me. However, it would not be out of jealousy, they need someone to blame that their fathers are dead. Even most of the parented children did not have a father. I often was trying to be more like my dad because he is the best guy ever.
Luckily, none of the other kids where paying attention to us to pick up on anything; they were busy talking to their friends. The people in Equestria had hardly communicated with the outside when the war started, the government called it “total war”. Us ponies were either piecing together weaponry for the army, hiding in a bomb bunker, or sleeping.
Other kids in this school never met their pops due to the fact that they were killed or their fathers were hauled off to be a laborers. “I don’t have a dad, John. Almost everyone’s dad is dead”, Lucius said, in tune to my thoughts.
To try to be kinder to Lucius and restore our bond, I silently signaled to Lucius that I was going to pass some of the food to him. The two human teachers on lunch duty stood, looking at us and frowning, up against walls. One of them left, heading for the restroom, I took it as an opportunity. Knowing that I would lose tomorrow’s lunch if I was caught, helping my friend was worth it.
The cafeteria lady almost saw me, but I made it look like I was stretching, and faced her. When she looked away I slid one of the cans across the table to Lucius. She turned back to face us as the can slid across the table, filling my heart with dread.
She walked over and marked my name tag yellow. “And that is for tomorrow.” Then she colored Lucius’ red. She left us sitting dumbfounded.
Trying to continue our conversation, I kept talking, “Do you want to do a study group tonight? It gets us extra credit.”
“Sure, why not. It will make up for the points we lost for getting in trouble.” I smiled at him, gratefully.
The lunch bell ringing, I went along to my next class, which Lucius was not in. I felt sorry for him and all the other kids missing their parents, unlike them I was privileged.
•
After lunch I had a class on how and why the C.C.C changed all of our coats red and eliminated all unicorns and pegisi. To mark us as equal, they even made us use human names. Then, I had the next class, brainwash defense
•
I had the same teacher, Mrs. Coleman, who started talking, “In this class we will learn ‘Brain wash defense’. It is to make sure Celestia or Luna didn’t try to brain wash you, which would be terrible. I will ask a question; ‘Do you do what your parents tell you to do?’” No one raised their hand expect for Billy, jumping up and down, the teacher ignored him. “John. Will you answer this question for us?”
“Well, uh, you are supposed to do what your parents tell you. I try to, but sometimes I will not listen.”
“That is the WORST answer you could have given!” the teacher yelled so loud that my peers in the back cringed.
She and I sighed as she marked my name tag red.
“Billy! I hope you give a better answer than John.” Now her face turned back to a smile instantly as she called Billy’s name. The few fillies who noticed something was wrong were hiding it; I was alone and embarrassed.
“Well, you should only do it if it is a basic command! I learned that in study,” my fellow student Billy cried, the teacher smiled and nodded, Billy smiling exited to be correct. Then Mrs. Coleman wrote this on the board:
A basic order is the following:
• To eat or drink a certified beverage or food
• Government approved commands
• Certain government approved disciplines
A strange thought occurred to me, was it possible that the royal family and my parents are wrong? Or was the C.C.C. trying to brain wash me like the speeches said? Could my parents be trying to brainwash me like the C.C.C says? Dismissing the thought, I listened to the teacher.
Erasing the previous words, Mrs. Coleman drew this picture:
“This was in one of the most famous American movies, even before the C.C.C. came to be.” She said with a smile. “We don’t think that. You can be close to and love your parents. The government and the C.C.C. love you just as much, or more. What if your parent’s where rebelling against the government though? They might be deceived by other people, when the government is really trying to help you.”
Listening to what she was saying, most of my peers where nodding intently or were bored. A few where hiding their disgust, and I was with them. Even though I didn’t trust Mrs. Coleman, it was still confusing. I wanted her to be wrong. Then, what if the C.C.C was right? Is it better if we all are on an equal level and no one dominates? However, wouldn’t they be hypocritical by having a dictator, attacking other countries, or even having jobs’ like my own father’s?
Then in America, from their world they would have people starve to death on the streets or become hoboes and beg for money? Were my parents really too soft in disciplining me or was the C.C.C. to cruel? Were my parent’s or the C.C.C. trying to brainwash me, or both?
Distracted by the onslaught of questions, the teacher picked me to take the assessment. I walked up to the board and realized what they wanted me to do. I could see how they were trying to brainwash me. Though I don’t believe in their correct answer, the school would punish me severely if I didn’t’ do the test correctly. I went up to the board and erased the parents from the child’s hoof.
