They say that each new day brings new chances for good things and fun. Of course, that usually only applies to days that start out right. For the colt in this story, today is not a day that he would consider as starting out right.
Lost in slumber, the colt is oblivious to the knocking on his bedroom door. “Regen! Mom says you need to get up!” A small filly stands at the door, waiting for an answer. Getting none, she knocks again. “If you don’t answer, I’m supposed to come in and get you.” Getting a snore in response, the filly opens the door to the room, and heads to her brother’s bed.
Climbing up carefully, she gets onto the bed and shakes her sleeping brother. “Wake up! Mom says you’re gonna be late for school and get into lots of trouble!” The filly keeps shaking her brother, only stopping when she sees his eyes start to open. “Come on, Regen! You need to get out of bed right now!” The filly stares at her brother, waiting for him to finally wake up.
Finally waking up, the colt sits up in bed, yawning in the process. “Ugh… I’m awake, I promise!” He glances at his sister, still on the bed with him. “I swear, you make a good alarm clock, Maci.” Reaching over, he pets his sister’s mane. The filly giggles softly and smiles up at her brother, moving out of the way as he gets off his bed. “I’m up now, so you can go back to breakfast,” he says while stretching out.
Shaking her head, she looks to him. “I can’t. Mommy made me promise not to leave you until you were downstairs as well.” With a sigh, the colt sets about getting ready for the day. “I suppose I couldn’t ask you to break a promise you made,” he finishes brushing his mane as his sister keeps an eye on him.
Giving a last look in the mirror, he turns to his sister. “Okay, little filly, I’m ready to make my way downstairs. I’m certain you’ll be following me down as well.” The filly gives a nod while getting off the bed. “You bet I am. Can’t let you get into any trouble.” She makes her way over to her brother, standing close to him while waiting for him to leave his room.
Shaking his head, the colt leaves his room, a small filly following close behind him. Being careful not to trip over his temporary escort, the colt heads downstairs and makes his way into the kitchen for some breakfast. Dashing around him, his sister quickly takes her seat at the kitchen table once again. “Got him up for you, mommy.” With a smile she quickly focuses on finishing what’s left of her breakfast.
With an annoyed sigh, his mother Star looks over at the colt. “I swear; you could sleep through a changeling invasion. Just grab an apple or a banana for your breakfast today. You’re late enough as is!” Without saying a word, Regen quickly grabs an apple. Focusing on eating it, he keeps himself from saying anything that would only bring him more trouble. “Honestly, you do have an actual alarm clock in your room. Assuming you can actually find it in that mess.” With ears perking up, Maci gives a little giggle, clearly enjoying not being the one in trouble.
Tossing away the apple core, he grabs a glass of juice. “I know, mom. I’ll try to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” Receiving a stern look, the colt sheepishly looks over to his little sister. “And thank you, Maci, for taking the time to wake me up this morning.” The filly simply smiles sweetly as she eats. With great restraint, she holds off the giggles until her brother and mother were out of the kitchen.
Ushering the colt towards the front door, Star quickly hands him his school bag. “There’s no time to check your bag again, I just hope you have everything in there that you need for the day.” Taking his bag; Regen gives a quick nod, “I’m sure I put everything in there after I did my homework last night.” Opening the door, Star all but pushes the colt out onto the front porch. “Just get moving, young stallion. I’m sure your father and I will wish to discuss this with you later tonight.”
With a gulp, the colt rushes out the door, hoping above all hopes that the rest of the day will run far smoother than the morning already has been. Naturally, as is the case, this was not going to be in his favor. Already off to a late start, the colt soon finds himself being delayed on his journey. Some mornings, you wake up feeling like you could take on the world. Other mornings, it feels like the world is trying to find ways to mess with you, it would appear that Regen was getting to enjoy this exact type of morning.
The trip to school on most days was a fairly simple task. Turn left after leaving home, reach an intersection in town and cross the street at the signal. Head straight down the sidewalk and after a few blocks, the school is right next to you. A fairly simple trip that really shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes, when rushing full speed to get to school before being too late.
Of course, on a morning such as this one, a delay would be inevitable. The colt rushes from his home and makes it to the intersection in near record time. All seems as it is going to be a quick trip, up until he gets closer to the intersection and sees traffic and pedestrians all backed up due to some poorly timed road work. He may have seen notices of the impending construction in the days and weeks prior, but when starting out late, that little bit of information didn’t seem overly important.
“Oh come on! What genius thought this was a good time for road work?” Stomping his hoof, the colt looks around, trying to find a quick way out of the jam. Naturally, there would be no such path. “Pony feathers! There’s way too many ponies here!” Turning around, the colt quickly heads back the way he started from and the unfortunate ponies stuck waiting for a chance to cross the street. Grumbling with more than a few choice words that would certainly make his mother unhappy, he quickly spots an open spot, deciding to take a risky course of action.
Securing his bag tightly around him, he flaps his wings and takes to the air. Gaining back lost time, he quickly heads for the school, feeling confident that everything is finally starting to go his way. With a smile, he comes in for a landing on the sidewalk close to his destination. Taking a calming and relaxing breath, he starts making his way towards the doors of the school, though not getting far before hearing some pony calling out to him. Turning around, with an unpleasant feeling, the colt lets out a groan of frustration as a rather unhappy looking local cop walks towards him.
“Fancy flying, kid, but as I’m sure you well know, flying in this district is strictly prohibited during morning business hours.” The officer pulls out a citation book while getting closer to Regen. “It is a rule that is set in place to ensure the safety of the ponies rushing to make important deliveries to the banks and businesses that are getting ready to open. Those ponies are doing important work and don’t have the time to worry about kids like you acting stupid and getting into their way.” With a chuckle, the officer looks at the colt who’s growing more frustrated with each passing minute. “Now, normally this offence would be a small fine, but today, I’m feeling generous. You’re only getting a written warning today, but if we meet again, I won’t be so kind.” Tearing the citation from his book, he hands it over to the colt. “Take this warning and remember what I told ya, no kids flying downtown in morning hours.”
With a sigh, the colt takes it, stuffing it into his bag. “Sorry sir, I promise it won’t happen again.” With a nod and a bit of a smirk, the officer turns and trots away from the school. Shaking his head briefly, Regen turns and makes a mad dash to the doors, his heart pounding rapidly as he tries to get in before being late. Mere seconds before he can get in, a bell rings, making him officially late and making him come close to cursing out loud. Taking a deep breath, the colt calms himself down before preparing for what’s about to come.
As he walks into the school, the assistant principal greets him, shaking her head as she waits. “That was the late bell, Mr. Hooftscastle. That means we expect our students to be here on time and actually in the school before then.” Briefly turning away, she fills out a form before handing it over to the colt. “It looks like you get to join in the fun of our after school detention today. Half an hour after school today to ensure that you won’t forget the importance of being on time.”
“But I have a real excuse! Some cop took like five minutes to give me to just give me a written warning about flying!” The colt quickly digs out the previous warning and hooves it over to the assistant principal, hoping to get some mercy from her. After looking over it, she hands it back to him. “Tardy is tardy, Mr. Hooftscastle. No excuses, no matter what.” Clearing her throat, she continues speaking to the colt. “I expect you to get to your class right away!”
“Yes, ma’am.” The colt takes a breath and looks to the principal. “Uhm… could I at least get a hall pass for my class?” Not saying a word, the principal points a hoof away from her. “Yeah, yeah, I get it.” Biting his tongue, the colt rushes to get to his class, arriving just in time to get a rather angry glare from his teacher. “Before you say it, I’m aware that I’m late. Seems like every pony that could give me trouble for it is doing so.” An angrier glare convinces him to quickly head to his seat.
“Please, just sit down and pay attention! You’ve wasted enough of all our time already.” Going back to the chalkboard, his teacher picks up on the lesson. As he sits taking notes, the colt silently wishes for this class to come to an end. Not soon enough, the bell finally rings to dismiss the students to their next class. Trying to make a quick exit, he picks up his bag and joins in his classmates leaving the room. However, before he could make it out the door, his teacher calls him over. “Enjoy your next detention, Mr. Hooftscastle. Do try to not disrupt my class again as you did when you arrived.”
With a bit of a sigh, the colt reluctantly takes the detention slip and heads to his next class, having been gifted two detentions in under an hour. Heading into his next class, the colt finally smiles as he spots his fillyfriend. Taking the seat next to hers, he relaxes. “Hey Topaz, sure is nice to see you this morning. More than usual, that is.” With a smile, Topaz looks over at him.
“Looks like you’ve had a rough morning,” she gives a little giggle. With a slow nod, Regen shows her his new collection of papers. “Oh wow. This really has been a bad morning for you. Look at it this way, it can’t get any worse can it?” The sweet filly innocently asks the one question that should never be asked. Fortunately for the colt, the bell rang before he could answer. The class quiets down as their teacher takes her place in front of the students, patiently waiting for them to quiet down.
“Okay, my little learners, time to turn in the papers you’ve all been working so hard on.” With those words said, the students all turn their attention towards getting out their papers to hand them in. Joining in his classmates, the colt gets into his bag to get his paper. Feeling confident after having spent a great deal of time on it, he’s certain his paper would earn him a pretty good grade.
After moments of searching, the colt comes to a most unpleasant realization; the important assignment currently is nowhere to be found. Praying for a miracle, the colt gives his bag another quick check, but yet again having no luck. With a nervous sigh, the colt raises a shaking hoof into the air. “Excuse me, Miss Dawn? What happens if one of us, hypothetically, doesn’t have the paper with them today?” Swallowing a nervous lump and tuning out some giggles from the class, the colt waits for a response. Knowing how the day has been so far, he can only expect the worst.
“Should you, Regen, or any other student fail to have the assignment with them today, you will stand to lose ten points off the final grade. Knowing the sort of work you usually turn in, I’m fairly certain those ten points won’t hurt your grade. Shall I be expecting your paper tomorrow?” With a nod, the colt accepts his fate. As the teacher starts her lesson, the colt pays close attention and takes down notes on the important part of what she says. Giving out the homework for the day, the teacher finishes up her lesson as the bell rings, sending the foals to their next classes.
Picking up his bag, Regen heads out of the class with Topaz. The two talk as they walk together, headed for the same class. It is an art class, and fortunately for the colt, there’s very little that can go wrong in that class. It is the first bit of good luck had by the colt since the morning abruptly greeted him. Lost in what passes for a lesson, the colt spends time working on a sketch of his muse, Topaz. Sadly, for him, drawing is not what he got his cutie mark from. Despite his best efforts, the sketch doesn’t live up to the beauty of the filly seated near him. However, it still gets a passing mark from the teacher, and more importantly, a smile from Topaz.
“I’m terribly sorry about how that drawing turned out,” the colt blushes faintly as he looks at Topaz.
With a soft giggle, the filly smiles. “It’s okay, I know you tried your best. Not every pony can be good at drawing or painting.”
Chuckling nervously, the colt glances at the sketch again. “Yeah… but it doesn’t look like you, at all. I… I’m not even sure what this picture even looks like, and I’m the one that did it!”
Topaz giggles again before sneaking in a nuzzle to the colt’s cheek. “Just stick to playing music.”
The colt chuckles and gives her a nod before heading into his next class. Taking his seat, he gets ready for the lesson. The teacher of the class gives the students all a brief lecture before showing a short film on some distant period of Equestrian history. As the film progresses, the colt pays close attention to catch answers needed for a worksheet. The film comes to an end, moments before the bell rings, and the students all hand in their papers as they head out of class and to their lunch period.
Heading to the cafeteria, the colt buys his lunch and heads to a table to join Topaz and some other friends. While eating, the subject eventually shifts to the unfortunate morning that Regen had experienced. After some brief convincing, he eventually tells them how it all started and all the delights that he had enjoyed. Pulling out the detention slips and the warning citation, he hands them around to his friends, getting laughs and giggles from all students at the table. Taking a dramatic bow, the colt accepts their kind words.
Soon enough, the lunch period comes to an end and the students head to their afternoon classes. With a hug, Regen and Topaz part ways, sharing no classes during the afternoon periods. For the colt, the afternoon classes pass with little excitement, which doesn’t bother him too much. Science, a gym class, and a study hall all guide the colt towards his looming afternoon appointment, much to his displeasure. Throughout the study hall, he attempts to find a way to escape the detention, but comes up with no good ideas.
As the final bell rings for the day, dismissing most students home, the colt reluctantly accepts the punishment heading his way. Giving a look at the detention slip, he heads towards the room listed to get the first of the two afternoon sessions over with. Walking into the room, he takes a seat as his much loved assistant principal trots into the room. With an overly dramatic sigh, she looks at the students gathered before taking role, finding all students there. Walking into the center of the class, she clears her throat a few times, getting attention from her captive audience and starts in on a lecture on the rules of the school. With a great deal of effort, all students manage to stay awake as she drones on. Glancing up at the clock, she finally puts an end to her long winded speech. With little else needed to be said, she finally releases the students to freedom and fresh air.
With a good bit of nervousness, the colt begins to head home. Each step towards his destination sends him deeper into thought about what types of trouble he might be in. “Ugh… what I wouldn’t give to have started this day five minutes sooner.” With a sigh, he heads up the sidewalk to the family porch, standing there for a few minutes while trying to get the courage to head in. Reluctantly, he heads into the home, as ready as ever to get into even more trouble.
Knowing his mother would likely be waiting for him, he heads in quietly, looking around as he does. “I’m home from school, I know I’m late, but I can explain.” With a quiet sigh, he puts down his school bag and heads into the kitchen. “It’s a long story, but I did what I could to avoid getting into trouble.” Getting no response from any pony, the colt gets a glass of juice and takes a seat at the kitchen table. Sitting in silence, the colt waits for any trouble that may be heading his way.
With quiet hoof steps, his mother joins him in the kitchen, sitting across from him at the table. “I’m most interested in hearing the story as to why you got home from school so late. You’d better be honest with me, because I’ll know if you’re lying to me.” Regen nods and finishes the juice, briefly thinking over the best way to tell his story.
“Just one moment, mom. Before I tell you, I’ve got to show you some papers.” Getting up from the table, the colt leaves the kitchen to get his bag. Heading back into the kitchen, he takes his seat again with a small sigh. “It all started on the trip to school. There was a point in town where they were doing road work, and no pony could get around. I got desperate in my attempt to get to school, and did something dumb. Even though I know the flying rules, I decided that I should fly to school in an attempt to avoid the massive jam. It seemed like the only way to get to school on time, at that moment.”
With a bit of reluctance, the colt slides the warning notice over to his mother. “This cop pony caught me, but instead of just giving me the warning or a ticket, he spent like five minutes lecturing me. Once he finally got enough hot air out and let me go, I made a mad rush to get to school on time.” Hoofing over a copy of the first detention slip, he continues on. “Because of that first delay, I ended up getting into the school a few seconds after the bell rang, bringing me more trouble.”
“The assistant principal caught me, but wouldn’t listen to what I had to tell her. Even after showing her the warning, she felt the need to give me a detention for today.” Muttering softly, “I swear, that mare needs some serious loving.” Getting a stern look from his mother, the colt coughed before proceeding in his tale. “Anyhow… naturally the whole deal with her made me end up late to my first class. I even tried to get a hall pass from her, but it didn’t do me any good.”
“I was already a bit annoyed with the morning when I got into my first class, and things there kind of went downhill fast. The old goat didn’t want to hear why I was late to his class, and gave me a detention tomorrow afternoon due to what he called disruptive behavior.” Taking a breath, the colt slides the second detention notice over to his mother. “I’m sorry, mom. I got into a lot of trouble today because I was too dumb to set my alarm clock last night. I… I think it’s safe to say that I’ve learned my lesson from all this.”
Sitting nervously, the colt waits for his mother to say anything. From his own history, he knew that the longer she was silent, the worse off things likely were to be. He didn’t care to be yelled at, but knew that it was a better alternative than having her sit in silence. He figures it is like sitting and waiting for a coming storm to hit. You know that something eventually is going to hit you, but until it finally comes, you won’t know how bad things will eventually be.
Finally, after looking over the papers and thinking for a few minutes, Star speaks up, breaking the silence. “I know very well that you that you will have learned an important lesson from all this. I think that your father and I will be able to avoid giving you any further punishment over this.” Getting up from her chair, she trots over to the colt and gently nuzzles his head. “After all, there really is no point in punishing you when nothing we could do would be any worse than the day that you had.”
Heading to the stove, the mare begins to prepare dinner for the family. Pausing briefly in her preparations, she looks over to Regen. “We all have days that are bad. What’s most important is learning from those days and using that knowledge to be better in the future. Now, go get your homework done. I’ll let you know when it’s time to eat.”
With a nod, the colt gets up from the table and leaves the kitchen. Grabbing his bag, he heads up to his bedroom and tackles the homework of the day. With a moment of smart thinking, he picks up the late paper and carefully tucks it away in his bag, not wanting to lose any more points. Getting back to work, he quickly makes his way through it all, checking over everything a few times. Nearly dozing off, his ears perk up a bit when he hears his mother calling out to the family that dinner is ready.
Heading downstairs, the colt joins his parents and siblings at the table. As they talk about the day they had, he gives a brief telling of the events he got into, getting a chuckle from his father. “Sounds like you had a doozy of a day. If you’re lucky, you won’t have another day like this for a while.” The colt nods as he finishes his meal, his siblings laughing a bit. With full stomachs, every pony pitches in to get dishes washed, dried, and put away. It is a task that gets done quickly thanks to all the helping hooves. Everything done, they leave the kitchen and head off to enjoy some relaxation. A few of the family members gather in the living room to watch tv, the others heading off to other points in the house to have a little fun until the time comes to put the day behind them.
As the day finally comes to an end, the family members all head to their bedrooms to prepare for the peaceful slumber that awaits them all. For one member of the family, this means finally getting the chance to put all of the day’s events behind him, once and for all. Heading to his bed from the shower, he thinks over the morning, and wisely makes sure that the alarm clock is set. Not wanting to have any troubles, he double checks it. Confident it’s set, he grabs a book and gets comfy in his bed.
Relaxing peacefully while reading, he begins to get drowsy. Placing a bookmark, he carefully finds somewhere to put the book. With a yawn and stretch, he turns off the light by his bed and lays his head down on his pillow. With eyes closing, he happily puts an end to the miserable day. Sleep soon greets him, guiding him into the world of dreams. As he enters the world of dreams, our story sadly must come to an end. None of us really need to spy on the dreams of a teenage colt.
