"Bring your own bags to Sweet Apple Acres and get a free apple!"
"Apple Bloom..." Featherweight facehoofed. "We don't run full-page ads in the Foal Free Press. We just don't have the ink."
Apple Bloom's reply was cut off by the school bell. The picket sign appeared above the editor's desk like it was spring-loaded, making her jump. Featherweight leapt onto the desk and pulled on a balaclava.
"What are you doing?" Apple Bloom said slowly, backing towards the door.
"Ift pwofst doy!"
"What?"
The room was starting to fill with thick black smoke as Featherweight continued to light the wicks on a box of firebombs made from milk bottles.
"It's Protest Day!" He announced, pulling the mask off his face. "The Student Union instituted this twenty years ago. Today only, the editors of the Foal Free Press get a free pass to protest for better benefits, a higher budget... whatever we want!"
"But..." Apple Bloom sat down andtapped her hooves together nervously. "You're the only editor."
"Oy pff!" he said. Frowning, he rolled his balaclava up to his forehead. "I know! And I'm going to make this the best Protest Day ever! I've been watching all the films! I got the history books from Princess Twilight. Did you know: in the Great Railway Strike, griffins used their demolition mines to cause about eleven million bits of damage to Canterlot in one night?"
"Didn't that strike fail, like, really badly?" Apple Bloom pointed out. She was nearly at the door. Her eyes were watering. The flames coming out of the milk crate was blackening the ceiling. "Everyone got arrested, and they didn't get their payout until twenty years later."
"Oh Apple Bloom," the tiny colt said as he picked up a lit bottle, the flames flashing in his eyes. "A protest isn't about getting what you want. It's about sending a message."
She gasped in the fresh air as she made it out of the room. A small crowd of students had gathered as smoke rose from the Foal Free Press office. Cheerilee was sitting in the doorway of the schoolhouse with a hoof over her mouth, shaking her head in dismay.
Featherweight emerged from the smoke, pulling the milk crate behind him on a little red wagon. He looked around at all the shocked faces, and his eyes lingered for a moment on Apple Bloom.
"The editors are out today!" He declared. "Do what you will. You are free!"
"Wait, does that mean..."
"Free," he whispered.
The crowd parted. Covering his face, he made his way towards the schoolhouse, leaving a trail of smoke and everypony coated in soot.
"So... school is cancelled?"
One by one the other ponies left. Only Apple Bloom looked back into the office, now completely black and reeking of white gas and uncomfortably hot. Despite all the smoke there didn't seem to be much damage. Nothing was burning. Even the pictures on the wall could be cleaned up in a few minutes.
Free, you said?
Apple Bloom smiled.
The riot police arrived from Canterlot on the ten thirty train. They circled the smoldering remains of the schoolhouse mailbox, forming a seemingly impenetrable wall of reinforced steel shields.
A fireball rose from the core, and cries of alarm rode up the wind to the Foal Free Press office where a single pale orange filly was hard at work with a rag and a bucket.
The room had never been so clean. The pictures of past editors were all hanging straight, and for the first time in nearly a hundred years of operation the corkboards were cleared. The ink bottles and letters were organized (the ink bottles alphabetically and letters by size).
Finally Apple Bloom turned her attention to big editor's desk. She picked up the name tag and changed the letters.
Interim Editor: Apple Bloom
Sitting down behind the desk, she admired her work. It was a nice office indeed. She could see the protest (Featherweight had somehow relocated to the top of the slide in the playground and was raining down pebbles onto the riot police). Through another window she had a view of downtown Ponyville.
There was nopony to work the press, but it couldn't be that hard to figure out. Apple Bloom made her letters, loaded a roll of paper, and poured a bottle of bright red ink into the slimy black inkbox.
She primed the pump.
She pressed the pedal.
Nothing happened.
It was too late to disassemble the press. If she did that, it would take half an hour to put it together again. Besides, it looked like there was enough room for her to work beneath the press.
But before she tried to fix it, she thought she would give it a few more pumps.
Sometimes a bit of overpressure could blow out a clog.
Fwish.
Fwish.
Fwishfwishfwishfwishfwishfwish.
Creeeeeeak...
The pedal wouldn't move anymore, but still no ink flowed. Apple Bloom grabbed the pipe cleaner from the bucket in the corner and crawled between the lettering and the paper bed below. She could barely see the nozzle under all the caked on ink, but she found it by feel.
The pipe cleaner went in, and hit the clog after about two inches. She twisted it slowly...
"Aaaaaaah!"
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
At the playground Featherweight was flying around frantically just out of reach of the heavily laden police.
His tail was on fire.
"And it is with great regret that I announce that Protest Day for the Foal Free Press will no longer be observed."
Even standing on all the surviving textbooks Pipsqueak was barely visible above the podium.
"In the future, all complaints regarding content, work hours, benefits and ink colors must be submitted via a standardized form, allowing three to five business days for processing.
"I would like to thank Apple Bloom for filling in as our interim editor. Featherweight will be returning as soon as he has recovered from his skin graft, though at reduced availability due to his counseling schedule. Apple Bloom, do you have a few words to say?"
In the front row Sweetie Belle blocked her eyes. Beside her Scootaloo raised a camera to her face.
"Thanks Pipsqueak," Apple Bloom said. She wiped the brownish blotch on her left hoof, but to no avail. Four baths and an hour of hard brushing had done almost nothing to remove the ink. She was stuck with her blotchy look until it shed on its own. "I'm honored to be your new editor. And I would just like to say that Sweet Apple Acres is extending our Bring Your Own Bag promotion. Today only, bring a bag to Sweet Apple Acres and get a free apple!"
