Never Work With Children or Animals

“So, why am I here?” asked Lyra Heartstrings. It seemed a pertinent question, seated as she was in the mayor's meeting room with a collection of ponies half made up of prominent figures about the town and half seemingly made up of whoever wasn't busy right now.

“Well, it seemed important to get the town's backing on something like this”, said mayor Mare from somewhere behind an intimidating mountain of books and parchment. “Of course, I can't expect the entire town to drop everything and come to what might be the first of a long series of meetings, so I thought I'd try a little experiment in virtual representation. I've checked the lawbooks, and this is an acceptable substitute for a democratic majority or, preferably, royal approval. As you can see, getting together all the relevant laws involved a little cross-referencing.” The pile teetered slightly.

“But why am I here, though?”

“Well, I thought it would help to have a representative of the law, and around here Guard reservists are about the best we can get our hooves on. Sergeant Thunderlane is tied up today and Caramel – or should I say, Corporal Caramel - is out of town for the week, so it falls to you, Private Heartstrings.” The other ponies looked at Lyra in some surprise. Her role in the reserve Guard wasn't something that tended to come up in conversation.

Lyra considered this for a moment. “You're just getting a kick out of the rank thing, aren't you?”

“A little, yes. Moving on, we also have Doctor Stable Condition to give us a medical opinion, Carrot Top as the voice of the peasant farmers, Mr. Rich as the voice of the town's merchants and Applejack as the closest we get around here to landed gentry. I would have liked to get an artisan in as well, but they were all busy.” Well, busy was the simple way of putting it. In actual fact, at least three of the ones she'd asked had thought she was asking them to join some kind of cult, and another seemed to think it had been a romantic proposition. Mayor Mare had made a note of the stallion's address and moved on.

Applejack leaned over to Filthy Rich “What's a gentry?”, she whispered.

“I think it's something to do with crop rotation”, he replied in a similarly soft voice.

“So”, continued the mayor, “Let's get cracking! We need a new teacher and we need one fast. I've had the children take a week off school, but any more than that during term time could cause a problem. So what we need right now is a plan for finding a replacement for Miss Chalky. Any suggestions from the floor?"

“I've been thinking”, began Doctor Stable. “Do we need to replace her altogether? That is, could we not just explain why what she did was wrong and let her get back to work with a warning never to do it again? It seems like it would be the simplest solution.”

“It would be simple”, replied the mayor, “but my hooves are tied. The relevant law states that – hold on, it's around here somewhere - 'an a teacher or schoolmistress should say unto ye foals perjury or injurious falsehoods, she shall be cast out and another serve in her stead'. In other words, I couldn't keep her around even if I wanted to.”

“In that case”, volunteered Carrot Top, “I think the big question is whether we get a local pony or try to hire out. I mean, I couldn't name any teachers living in Ponyville off the top of my head, but I'm sure there must be some going spare in any of the larger cities.”

“Do they have to be a teacher already?” asked Applejack. “Or can they have another job for the time being?”

“I looked that up too”, came the mayor's reply from somewhere deep in her tower of books. “We can hire anyone we darned well please, so long as they meet a few standards, but it's strongly preferred that they have some kind of experience working with foals.” She poked her head up above the tip of the pile. “Mr Rich, I don't suppose we could all get a father's perspective on this?”

“Well I'm not sure what I have to say as a father, but from a business perspective I find that the best way to make sure you get a quality employee is to keep the field as wide open as possible. The more ponies we see about this, the more likely one of them will be the teacher we need. Though, we might find our ideal candidate being excluded on medical grounds”, he finished with a smirk.

“Aw, yuck it up”, replied Doctor Stable. “I think my being here is just as silly as you do, but the law says we need a medical pony involved for some reason, so here I am. Getting back on topic, I figure we ought to try and find a local pony first, even if they're not quite a teacher, and if we can't manage that then we start looking elsewhere. This is already going to be a tricky thing to handle well, so we might as well not add additional problems on.”

“That sounds good to me” said Lyra. “I mean, I'm hardly going to be giving these ponies the third degree, but I will look into them and that's just going to be so much easier if they're already from around here.”

“Detective Lyra on the case”, chuckled Carrot Top. “That wife of yours will get a kick out of that, no doubt.”

“Heh. Say, mayor Mare, you don't suppose I could get a detective hat? Maybe one of them old-fashioned raincoats?”

“Sorry Lyra, the silly costume budget is tapped out for the year. The parade on National Tea Day really took a lot out of us this year.”

“Well that settles it – next year, I'm gonna vote for somepony else.”

“Who? This is a one horse town, and I'm the one horse.”

“I don't know, maybe that quiet pegasus on the edge of town. She seems like a real 'rule with an iron hoof' type, you know?”

“Alright, I think if we've gotten to this point we're basically done here.” Applejack's voice cut through the room. “So we're all more or less agreed?”

“More or less”, agreed Filthy Rich, to an accompaniment of murmurs. “The branch of Barnyard Bargains in town is next to a printers' shop, so I can get some fliers on my way there today. Either I'll put up the announcement that we're looking for somepony, or else I'll have one of my staff do it.”

“Then it's settled” declared mayor Mare. “This meeting is adjourned. See you all next week, folks – oh! Look out!” Applejack's exit from the meeting room was hurried by the tidal wave of books and parchment that had finally succumbed to the laws of physics. From somewhere in the building, there came the sound of a sighing secretary.

***

Two days later, a notice was put up on the board in the town square, in between a flier from the Carousel Botique and an advert for drawing lessons from a local draft horse service. “SCHOOLTEACHER WANTED”, it read, “To take over from the unfortunately departed Miss Chalky. Interviews Saturday the 15th, all applicants welcome”. The notice attracted a great deal of attention, and soon ponies who had never given two thoughts to ever working in education were wondering if them might sign up for an interview, just to see what it was like.

One of the ponies to stop and consider the advert was a young mare who worked at Ponyville's hospital. Cheerilee was part of the hospital's crèche, which is to say that she was the entire staff of its crèche, from the charmingly non-threatening mare who welcomed parents in and took their foals to the worn-out rag and bone pony who tidied up to the Grand High Poobah of deciding who got what flavour milkshake. Minding little foals was one thing, but teaching them seemed like it would be incomparably harder and more complicated or, in other words, more important and rewarding. Cheerilee smiled softly, and asked the world “Well why the heck not?”