Substitute Sanity

Twilight Sparkle hesitated as she reached the front door of the schoolhouse.  She never would have imagined that there would be a time that she didn’t want to spread knowledge and learning to the younger generation.  But then again, she never would have imagined she’d have to teach alongside…

“Twilight?” Pinkie Pie asked, looking concerned at her friend, who was having a staring contest with the door handle.  “Are you alright?”

Twilight was considering every single possible thing that could go wrong today.  Of course, anything she could think of would have to be ruled out as a possibility—Pinkie was quite literally ‘unpredictable.’  Shaking out of her thought, she gave a reassuring smile to the pink mare next to her.  “Of course I’m fine, Pinkie.”  Her horn glowed, as did the door handle, and with a quick turn from her magic, Twilight opened the door and stepped inside the classroom—ready to handle whatever was in store for the day.

The muttering between the kids hushed when their substitute teachers entered.  Twilight took a seat on Cheerilee’s chair at the front of the room, just as the eight o’clock bell rang overhead.  “Good morning, class!” the unicorn announced happily.

“Good morning, Miss Sparkle,” the children replied in a monotonous drone.

The kids waited for Twilight to say something more, to talk about what they were going to do for the day, but instead the mare opened up her large binder and started to flip through the pages.  Twilight was mumbling words under her breath as she glanced over each page; she started to tear them out, sparing only one page for every five or so she removed, and crumpled the papers into the nearby wastebasket.

Confused by Twilight’s actions, the kids looked to Pinkie for some clarification, but the earth-pony was too busy sniffing a discarded piece of chalk lying in the corner of the room.  They waited patiently, watching as Twilight continued to remove more and more papers from the curriculum she had set up the day before.  After another seven minutes of this silent paper-clearing, Twilight finally closed the now-tiny binder and looked back up at her class.  “T—”

“Hey Twilight,” Pinkie suddenly interrupted, “what’re we doing today?”

Sweetie Belle turned from Pinkie back to Twilight just fast enough to notice the unicorn’s eye twitching unnaturally.  “After the little incident we had yesterday,” Twilight began, making the Cutie Mark Crusaders sink into their chairs in shame, “I decided that, for today at least, we’re going to be doing a much simpler learning target.  Also, I’m still a little fatigued, and need more time to rest.  As such, today’s going to be a simple art class.”

Scootaloo shrunk even further into her chair.  “But I stink at drawing…”

“I’ve brought along plenty of materials for different mediums to use,” Twilight continued.  “So you can paint, watercolor, draw—I’ve even got some clay for sculpting if you want.  Just make sure you clean up at the end of the day,” the unicorn stressed.  “I will not allow this classroom to look like a mess.”

“So that’s all we’re doing for today?” Silver Spoon asked.  “No quizzes, or homework, or anything?”

“Nope, none of that,” Twilight replied.  “Today’s just going to be a fun day.”

“YAAAY!” the kids all screamed in unison, making Twilight’s sore brain throb even harder.  Everyone jumped out of their seats and ran to the long tables spanning the walls of the room; paper was already spread around the area to absorb any spillage, and the kids waited patiently for Twilight and Pinkie to hand out the necessary materials.

“Hey, Sweetie Belle!” Diamond Tiara said snottily at the unicorn, “I’ve heard that you’re pretty good at making things.  I betcha I can do better than anything you could draw, though!”

Sweetie Belle’s smile turned into an apprehensive frown.  “Uh…well I…”

“Now, now, girls,” Twilight scolded, overhearing the pink filly’s challenge.  “This isn’t a competition.  Today’s just a fun day, remember?”

“Yeah!” Pinkie added from the other side of the room, wearing saddlebags containing the items Twilight had brought along; each foal would either ask for paint, ink, or clay, and Pinkie would give the corresponding materials.  “Besides—I’ve seen Sweetie Belle’s stuff before!  Nopony’s better than she is at painting!”

Twilight gave the mare a look telling to her shut it.  “Pinkie, this isn’t a competition.  Don’t encourage them!”

“There’s no way Sweetie Belle’s better!” Silver Spoon shot back at Pinkie.  “I bet you haven’t even seen anything Diamond Tiara’s made!  Her dad’s gotten her art classes!”

“Yeah,” Apple Bloom scoffed, “buyin’ yer way through everythin’ like you normally do, huh?”

“Apple Bloom!” Twilight exclaimed.  “There’s no call for—”

“Oh, it is on!” Diamond Tiara said with gritted teeth.  “How’s this sound: a contest—everypony’s invited—to see who the best artist is!  At the end of the day, we all vote for the best one!”

Twilight looked almost offended at these kids’ willingness to compete against each other.  “I am not going to stand by and let—”

“Sounds like fun!” Pinkie interrupted, cutting Twilight off.  “C’mon, Twilight!  No harm done from some harmless amity!  It’ll be fun!”

“I think you mean to say ‘enmity,’ Pinkie” Twilight replied flatly.  Unfortunately, the mass of puppy dog eyes the entire class—and Pinkie—was giving her made it hard to say ‘no.’  The weary unicorn sighed.  “…Do you all promise to play fair?”

Everyone bobbed their heads enthusiastically.

“…and to only say good things about everypony’s project?  And if it doesn’t look ‘good,’ you will complement it anyways?”

Everyone bobbed their heads enthusiastically—Diamond Tiara’s nodding was a bit delayed, though.

“Fine,” Twilight stated.  “I’ll allow this contest to go through.  Of course, during voting, you can vote for any piece but your own.”  Despite not liking it at first, she was already starting to get into the whole idea.  “Pinkie, you and I should come up with a prize or something for the winner.”

Pinkie squee’d in delight.  “Yay, this’ll be fun!  Ooh, I have some ideas for a prize!  Wait here while I’m gone, Twilight!”  Without another word, Pinkie sprinted out the door.

“Oh, this’ll be fun, alright,” Diamond Tiara said evilly, rubbing her hooves together.

“What was that, Diamond Tiara?” Twilight asked innocently.

“Huh?—Oh, uh, I said ‘this is my favorite bun.’”  The filly cocked an eyebrow at her own explanation after saying it.  Twilight’s brow furrowed as well.

“Uh…I see.”  The unicorn promptly walked away, back to her desk to look through her newly-cleaned binder in greater detail.

“You really gotta work on your evil soliloquies,” Silver Spoon whispered to the pink filly.

“Wow, Twilight—”

“That’s ‘Miss Sparkle’ while I’m your teacher, Scootaloo,” Twilight interrupted, not taking her eyes off her canvas as she spoke.

The orange filly rolled her eyes before resuming her amazed reaction.  “I never knew how good you were at drawing!”

“Yes, well, it’s not like a painting or sculpture,” Twilight said sheepishly, not used to such praise.  “I’m only using charcoal—not the most visually attractive of art mediums, what with the lack in color and all.”

“At least you can actually draw something, though…” the filly trailed off.  She looked again at the drawing set up on the easel, made of large thick paper and with a neck-up portrait of a very beautiful-looking mare.  “Wow, she’s really pretty.  She looks familiar; have I ever seen her before?”

“Probably,” Twilight replied, “I’m making a pretty crude recreation of Leonardo da Whinny’s famous painting, the ‘Marena Lisa.’  Honestly, I’m not that good—mine looks nothing like it.”  Twilight looked away from her drawing, having trouble with accepting the praise, and noticed that Scootaloo was staring down at the floor.  “Something wrong?”

“Huh?  Oh, uh, nothing,” the filly replied.  “It’s just…I’m terrible at art.  I don’t want anypony to laugh at me!”

“Scootaloo…” Twilight said supportively, “you don’t have to worry about anything like that.  Everypony is sure to treat you nice…”  Twilight glanced over to Diamond Tiara, who was currently swishing her lips back and forth, moving the paintbrush vigorously on her painting; Silver Spoon was trying her hooves at a lump of clay, but every other second her friend was commanding her to ‘clean out the water cup’ or ‘get some more green paint.’  “…Okay, I understand your apprehension, but just give it your best shot.  I’m sure you’re not the only pony in here that doesn’t think they’re the best artist, but that’s not stopping them!”

Scootaloo looked up at Twilight, confidence coming back to her.  “…You’re right, Miss Sparkle!” the filly said happily, making her teacher smile.  “I bet a lot of my classmates are even worse than I am!  Once everypony sees their garbage, I can just shove all the teasing onto them!”  She ran back to Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom, smiling back at Twilight.  “Thanks for the pep talk!”

Twilight stood still, aghast at how Scootaloo took her advice.  “That’s not what I…”

“Hey Twilight!” Pinkie said happily as she entered the schoolhouse.  She noticed the drawing her friend had made.  “Oh, wow!” she exclaimed.  “That’s such a great picture of me!”

“I—wait, what?” Twilight started.

“It captures my likeness perfectly!”  Tears started to well up in Pinkie’s eyes.  “I’m such a good friend that you wanted to draw an awesome picture of me in tribute!  I’m so touched!  Though,” her emotional attitude changed in the blink of an eye, to that of a critic, “my smile should be larger, my nose is a bit long, and the mane should be really curly—not straight.”  The picture looked absolutely nothing like Pinkie, not that she noticed.  “But you can fix that later, I suppose; what’ve I missed?”

“Not much,” Twilight admitted.  “Just everypony working on their projects.  Did you bring that ‘prize’ you were talking about?”

The party mare’s face scrunched.  “Prize?  What prize?  I went out to grab a bite to eat.”

Twilight wasn’t even phased by this information; she expected nothing less from Pinkie Pie.  “But…I thought you said you were going out to get the prize for the winner?”

“Huh?  No, I said ‘I have some ideas for prizes’ and then said to ‘wait here while I’m gone.’  I never said I had to go get any prizes!”

“…So just where is this ‘prize,’ might I ask?” Twilight asked skeptically.

“Right here,” Pinkie said, knocking her hoof against her noggin.  “The winner gets the privilege of having their theorized machine be built in-class!—If you’re okay with that, of course,” Pinkie added at the end.

Twilight stared blankly at her friend.  “…You’re kidding.  You’re kidding, right?  These kids, they don’t know anything about physics—how could they?  Using cold fusion for an energy reactor…”

“Actually,” Pinkie mentioned, “we weren’t working specifically on cold fusion, though most of kids did.  Sweetie Belle, for example, had this design that would harvest the energy radiated from the gravitational waves of a black hole.”

“What?”  Twilight didn’t even know how to respond to that.  Having had enough of Pinkie’s nonsense, the unicorn called out to the back of the classroom.  “Hey, Sweetie Belle,” Twilight started, catching the filly’s attention, “would you mind coming up here and speaking with me for a minute?”

The entire class went “ooohhhhhhh” as Sweetie Belle nervously walked up to Twilight’s desk.  “Something wrong, Miss Sparkle?”

“Sort of,” Twilight replied, looking back at Pinkie.  “Is this true—all this talk about theoretical physics and construction of energy reactors?”

“You mean about my black-hole-harvester?” Sweetie Belle said proudly.  “It’s not too bad if I do say so myself!  If we could find a small enough black hole—say, one the size of a pony—we could use its own electrical charge to hold it in place within a container that would absorb its gravitational radiation.”

Twilight wasn’t sure what to say to that.  She knew some physics, but had a bad feeling this little filly knew tenfold of what she did—either that, or Pinkie told Sweetie Belle to memorize that line.  Getting skeptical, Twilight prodded for more info.  “Yes…but such a ‘pony-sized black hole’ can’t exist, not yet at least; the universe is far too young for such a small object.  You would have to wait for—”

“—at least a duovigintillion years,” Sweetie Belle finished the sentence, annoyed.  “Ten to the sixty-ninth power; yeah, I’m well aware.  But don’t forget—there could possibly exist primordial black holes that formed during the first few moments of the Big Bang, where the natural laws weren’t in-check; black holes that, by now, would be the size of a pony.”

This was no joke, Twilight realized.  She seriously knew this stuff.  “But how would you even get your hooves on such a tiny black hole?  It’d be near impossible.”

Sweetie Belle grimaced.  “Yeah, that’s the biggest problem with my idea.  Really, it doesn’t matter how far away the black hole is, anyway.  As long as we can find one, we could reinforce a hyperspace tunnel from Ponyville to the black hole.”

“You don’t mean a wormhole, do you?!” Twilight exclaimed.  She had been gone for one hour yesterday—one hour.  How did Pinkie teach this stuff in that time?  And to children, no less?!

Sweetie Belle was staring at the clock.  “Miss Twilight, can I please return to my project?  I’m still not done with it yet…”

Twilight didn’t want to let her go just yet—there were so many questions she had.  Honestly, she still had trouble believing this entire class knew just as much as Sweetie Belle about physics.  “…Yes, of course, Sweetie Belle.”

Pinkie noticed Twilight was staring so hard at the ground, it was a surprise the area didn’t burst into flames.  “Twilight, you okay?”

The unicorn shook her head out of her trance.  “You never cease to amaze me, Pinkie.”

“…And that’s why you drew that picture in honor of me, huh?” Pinkie proclaimed in pride.

“Where did it go?” Silver Spoon whined, her head low to the ground and looking back and forth.  She was glancing around every which way: under desks, under the tables, around the other students.  All the while she was also catching glimpses of the competitions’ drawings and sculptures.  When she reached her own spot next to Diamond Tiara, she stopped.  “Oh, there it is!” she said loudly, picking up her paintbrush on her part of the table.  “Always the last place you look, huh?”

“So, what’d you see?” Diamond Tiara whispered to the gray filly discreetly.

“Not much,” she laughed while patting the floor-dust out of her mane.  “As you could expect, Snips and Snails have little more than a white sheet of paper painted a sickly brown; most of the others are good, but nothing compared to yours.”  She glanced down at the half-made painting of Canterlot Castle, in all its majesty and attention to detail.  “I can’t believe how good it looks.”

“Are you saying you doubted my abilities?” Diamond Tiara accused, narrowing her eyes at her friend.  “Don’t ever say anything like that again, got it?”

“S-Sorry,” the filly apologized.  “It looks like your only opposition is Sweetie Belle.  She’s making this amazing watercolor of a river in the middle of an autumn forest, with a single red leaf floating downstream.  I mean, it looks so simple, but…I don’t know, it makes you really think, you know?”

“That’s twice in a row you’ve insulted me,” Diamond Tiara said angrily.  “Watch it.  I know I’m gonna win because of our teacher.  She’s from Canterlot, and she even knows the Princess personally; how could she not prefer a picture of her teacher’s hometown castle?  I don’t care if we’re supposed to vote; I’m gonna get first place!”

“If you say so,” Silver Spoon replied, tilting her head to get another glimpse of Sweetie Belle’s watercolor painting.  Diamond Tiara noticed this, and it only made her more upset.

“That’s it,” the frilly filly said heatedly.  “Silver Spoon, I’m ordering you to sabotage Sweetie Belle’s picture by any means necessary!”

“What?” the gray filly replied, horrified.

“You heard me!” Diamond Tiara said.  “Now get to it!”  Silver Spoon regretfully obeyed, and started towards her target.

Cutie Mark Crusaders were hard at work on their projects.  Sweetie Belle kept taking a step back from her picture on the small easel, scolding at it as if it wasn’t adequate.  Apple Bloom was trying to draw a picture of her, Applejack, and Big Mac down at the farm—though the ponies she drew looked more like balls connected by toothpicks.  “Ugh, Ah’m no good at drawin’ ponies!” the earth-pony filly complained as she spat out her pencil.  “It’s too hard!”

“At least yours actually looks like something,” Scootaloo replied.  Apple Bloom looked to the right of Sweetie Belle, and at the mass of clay her pegasus friend was squishing and pounding over and over.  “I can’t do anything with these hooves. I wish I had unicorn magic, or maybe fingers like Spike has.”

Sweetie Belle shuttered at the thought.  “Ponies with fingers?  Thanks but no thanks.  Besides, I can’t use my magic yet, but I can still paint…sorta.”  She scolded at her autumn forest again.

“Sorta?” Scootaloo repeated.  “Look at that!  It’s amazing!  And now look at this!”  She threw her hooves up in defeat, looking down at her own warped mass of clay.  “What is this!?”

“You could prob’ly pass it off as ‘modern art,’” Apple Bloom suggested.  “Ah’ve seen it work before.  Just slap on an explanation as to ‘why’ it is what it is, or how it’s supposed to make ya feel, and there ya go.  Modern art.”

“Modern art, huh?” Scootaloo said, taking her hooves away from the form she had made.  “Hmm…”  She thought hard, trying to get an idea for a bogus explanation about her sculpture.

“Heya, girls,” Silver Spoon said as she walked up to the three fillies.  She was met with suspicious looks by Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, both of whom inched closer to Sweetie Belle and her picture.

“How’s it goin’?” Apple Bloom replied in a friendly voice, though still eyeing Silver Spoon hard.  “Ya need something?”

Silver Spoon already didn’t like where this was heading.  “…Actually,” she started, “on second thought, never mind.”  She immediately trotted back to her own table.

“Be on the lookout, Sweetie Belle,” Scootaloo whispered, glancing back at Diamond Tiara.  “I think a certain somepony is out to get you.”

“What!?” the unicorn exclaimed, suddenly getting frightened.  “What do you mean?  You don’t mean…  Oh no—I thought my milk tasted funny!”

“Oh great,” Diamond Tiara said, watching from a distance at Sweetie Belle, who was turning hysterical despite Scootaloo trying to calm her down.  “She’s onto you now.  Looks like you’ll have to ruin that picture another way.”

As Silver Spoon wondered just how to do so, Twilight’s yelling caught her attention.  “Watch it, Pinkie!” the unicorn said at the front of the room, protecting her face and picture with her hooves.  “That brush still has paint in it!”

“En garde!” Pinkie said, giggling madly as she swung the brush around at Twilight, splattering several drops of green paint on her friend while she did.

“Pinkie!” Twilight continued to yell, “STOP IT!”

Something clicked in Silver Spoon’s head.  “That’s it!” she said, getting Diamond Tiara’s attention.  “Hey, I have an idea!”

Twilight finally got a hold of Pinkie’s brush with her magic, plucking it from the earth-pony’s hooves like a mother taking a toy from her child.

“Wait, I haven’t finished painting with it yet!” Pinkie retorted, trying to grab the paintbrush back—only to have Twilight levitate it out of her reach.

“You can use it again once you’ve learned the responsibilities that come with it,” Twilight scolded.

“But that means I’ll never get to use it again!” Pinkie whined.  The mare sighed and decided to walk around the back of the room and check up on the students’ progress.  “Ooh, candy!” she said excitedly when she saw Twist’s candy-cane-heart sculpture.  “I like it!  Makes me hungry…”

“Don’t eat the clay, Pinkie,” Twilight called out, having overheard her friend.  “Remember what happened last time you did that?”

Silver Spoon intersected her pink substitute teacher’s walk around the room.  “Hey, Miss Pie?” she asked innocently, trying to get Pinkie’s full attention.

“Yes, Filly-that-wears-glasses-and-whose-name-I-can’t-recall?” Pinkie replied as casually as though she’d said Silver Spoon’s actual name.

Meanwhile, Diamond Tiara—with her stealth-mode engaged—snuck around the mare, holding a squeezable bottle of yellow paint.  The filly set it behind an oblivious Snails with it pointing straight at Pinkie, grabbed the dense colt’s leg, and slammed it down on the bottle right before making a mad dash away from the spot.

The chatter in the room was cut short by a high-pitched scream in the middle of the room.  Everyone turned to see half of Pinkie’s left side drenched in yellow paint, then followed the supposed line of trajectory to Snails, who was still drawing.  “Huh?” he said, the paintbrush dropping out of his mouth, “Why’d it get so quiet?”  He looked up, saw everyone looking at him, then he looked down and saw the paint bottle underneath his hoof, and finally at the yellow-bottomed Pinkie Pie.  “Uuhh…”

“Oh, it is on NOW!”  Pinkie bellowed, her eyes narrowing at the colt—though her large smile implied she wasn’t angry as much as she was playing around.  Everyone was so focused on their wild-mare of a teacher that they didn’t notice Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara silently scooting back to their table and hiding their own projects in the drawers of the tables.

Pinkie jumped towards a table and grabbed a bottle of pink.  “Looks like you could use a paint job!” she cried, and squeezed the bottle hard at Snails.  The paint splattered right in front of the colt, however—onto a translucent wall of magic formed right in front of him; Snails let out a delayed shout of fear and cowered into a ball.

It didn’t take any thought to know the source of the barrier.  Everyone looked at Twilight, her horn glowing strong, as she walked towards Pinkie angrily.  “Pinkie, you—”

“Supporter of the enemy!” Pinkie cried, and let out another shot at Twilight.  Before the unicorn could react, the paint splashed over her face, mane, and front hooves.  “Gotcha!”

There was a hushed silence over the room, which almost seemed frozen in time.  That is, until Silver Spoon shouted loudly, “PAINT FIGHT!”

The entire class acted up at once.  Everyone grabbed a palette, cup, or bottle of paint and tried to color any and every pony that was unfortunate enough to end up in their range.  Sweetie Belle tried her hardest to cover not only her painting, but also Apple Bloom’s drawing and Scootaloo’s sculpture, while the other two returned any fire that was aimed in their direction.

Twilight wiped the pink out of her eyes and glared at Pinkie.  “You’re asking for it now!” the unicorn declared, grabbed a cup of blue paint on a distant table, and dumped over Pinkie’s face.  Despite not being able to see, Pinkie surprised Twilight with a targeted lunge at the unicorn, holding several paint-filled brushes in her mouth to swipe at her friend with.

The prim, clean classroom was sent into a chaotic mix of paint within a minute.  There was nothing Sweetie Belle could have done to protect her picture—especially with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon targeting it more than they were any pony.

“What’ve I done…?” Twilight said, looking at the mess strewn all over the classroom.  “This is terrible!  Everything is covered in paint, and everypony’s hard work is ruined!”

Sweetie Belle looked absolutely crushed.  “Well, my painting wasn’t the best in the world, anyway…it’s not like it was that important.”  She let out a defeated sigh, as Diamond Tiara smirked in the background.  “I guess everypony’s stuff is ruined…”

“Actually, Sweetie Belle,” Pinkie said happily, standing in front of the depressed unicorn and completely drenched in every shade imaginable.  “Nothing’s ruined!”  Everyone looked at the mare, confused, as she walked up to the slanted easel the paper that had once been the filly’s picture was sitting upon.  “And, like magic…”  Pinkie grabbed the edge of the paper, and with a hard tug, the paint plastered on slipped off in a sheet.  “Ta-dah!”

The painting was in pristine condition, the same as it was before the fight started.   Sweetie Belle gasped at what Pinkie had just done.  “Pinkie—er, Miss Pie!  How did you…?”

“You don’t think I’d start something as messy as a paint fight without taking precautions?”  Still holding onto the dripping slab of art materials, Pinkie showed off the other side, which was slick and shiny.

“Plastic wrap?!” Diamond Tiara yelled in surprise.  “How the heck did you wrap this entire place without anypony noticing?!”

Pinkie grabbed an edge of the classroom wall and started to tug; the paint-covered wrap came off like an invisible, peel-able barrier.  “Well, with everypony so focused on their artworks, I’d have been surprised if somepony HAD noticed me.”

“You almost gave me a heart attack,” Twilight exhaled.

“Wow!” one of the kids said as they looked at Sweetie Belle’s picture in detail.  “That’s amazing!  Everypony,” the filly called out to the rest of the class, “check out Sweetie Belle’s amazing picture!”

Everyone was struggling to get a good view around the picture; Sweetie Belle was starting to blush from all the ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ she was receiving.  “It’s just a simple picture of a forest…” the unicorn passively replied.

“Yeah!” Diamond Tiara said snottily.  “It’s not that great!  Let me show you what I made…”  The filly opened the drawer, and upon looking inside, shrieked.  “Wh-What…?”  She pulled out a piece of paper that was soaked with orange paint—along with the inside of the drawer itself.  Diamond Tiara yelled at Pinkie, who was still working on removing all the paint-covered plastic.  “I thought you said you covered the entire classroom!”

“I did!” Pinkie cheerily replied.

“Then how did paint get INSIDE the DRAWER?!” she screamed.

Pinkie only shrugged; Scootaloo was whistling a tune in the background.

“Sorry about your painting, Diamond Tiara,” Twilight said sadly.  “It’s my fault the fight got out-of-hoof in the first place…”

“Oh, Twilight,” Pinkie laughed.  “It was my fault, not yours!”

“That’s not something you should say with your head held high,” Twilight snapped.

“So Miss Twilight,” Twist said to the unicorn, “what’d Sweetie Belle win?”

“Huh?” Twilight asked.  “Do you mean everypony’s already…?”

“It’s unanimous!—well, ‘cept for Diamond Tiara,” Apple Bloom said, eyeing the pouty pink filly.  “We all agree that Sweetie Belle’s is the best, hooves down!”  Sweetie Belle looked ready to die, she was so embarrassed at the attention her painting was receiving.  Apple Bloom asked again, “So what’s the prize she won?”

Twilight looked at Pinkie; the mare now had a paint-filled ball of plastic rolled up in the corner of the room.  Pinkie gave a ‘zipped-lips’ motion to Twilight.  “It’s a secret!” Pinkie replied to the kids.  “Don’t worry, though.  We’ll let you know by the end of the week!”

When the clock overhead rang for three o’clock, everyone was still out back washing the paint off themselves.  “I personally bought all those bottles, Pinkie,” Twilight mentioned to her co-teacher as she stood under the cold hose water.  “That’s my bits literally going down the drain—or into the ground, rather.”

“But wasn’t the price worth the fun you had?” Pinkie asked with a wide grin.

“No.  No it wasn’t.”  Twilight sat under the hose and collected her thoughts.  “I have to admit, though…while today certainly wasn’t the best, it was much better than yesterday.  So I suppose it didn’t get any worse, did it?”

“You shouldn’t say that, Twilight,” Pinkie advised.  “You’ll jinx yourself saying something like that.”

“Oh, Pinkie,” Twilight laughed.  “Don’t be so superstitious.  Tomorrow will be great, I just know it!”