Simple Feelings

Rain tapped on the windowsill of the schoolhouse while the sun hid its face behind a shroud of clouds. Most of the lights were off, save for the lamp set on my desk. I graded homework under the soft light, checking answers and filling in my comments. The students had gone home for the afternoon, leaving me with a pile of their collective work. The amount of effort was consistent and everything seemed normal as I went through. Apple Bloom led the grades with a few others being on par with her. Silver Spoon and Pipsqueak bridged the gaps between the best and the middle of the road students like Sweetie Belle and Diamond Tiara. Taking up the rear were my more difficult students like Scootaloo. When I got to her paper it was at the bottom of the heap, and glancing at the absence of papers beside me, I realized I would be free after this one. The relief only lasted for a moment, as I remembered that I had promised to hand back their reports on famous ponies throughout Equestrian history.

I looked at Scootaloo’s paper and was tempted to just breeze through it, marking each thing wrong as I went. I gave myself a mental slap and shook my head. I couldn’t let myself be that kind of teacher. With a methodical approach, I wrote in the exact methods to find the answers on Scootaloo’s paper. With this, I asked her to come see me for any after school tutoring in the margin. Satisfied that I had done everything I could for her, I pulled the reports out and got started on them. I wondered if my commentation would be enough for Scootaloo as I started into them. With a basic grading checklist at my side I went through and awarded the points for the assignments. So went the rest of my afternoon.

After I was done I set my red pen down on my desk and began to clean up. I swept the schoolhouse, made sure everything was neat, wiped down all the desks, beat the dust out of the chalkboard erasers and finally washed the chalkboard itself for the next day. Once everything was done I put everything in my desk and locked it before putting the key in my coat. I gave my desk a glance before I turned out my lamp and smiled, noticing an apple from Apple Bloom. On the stem was a small tag reading “For being the best teacher ever”. I chuckled and shut the lamp off at the base, leaving the schoolhouse dark as the sun set behind the clouds. It looked like it was already night outside as I stepped out the door. I pulled my coat close and began my walk home.

The smell of mud and the feeling of humidity followed me on the long walk. Ponyville stood frozen in time as the rain fell, the light from the streetlamps leading me back home. The normally bustling streets stood empty. The only motion felt like the falling of my hooves and the drops of water breaking the mirror surface of the puddles. Water spilled from the drainpipes near town hall as I passed it, the fountain outside standing tall and resolute amidst the downpour. I trotted onwards, turning onto my street. I pulled my keys out as I walked up the steps to my front door, how wet my hooves were making it difficult to get a grip on the right one. I eventually sorted through them, pushing the correct key into the slot and turning counter-clockwise. I walked in and shut my door, taking off my coat and setting my keys on the side table.

I looked on the floor near the mail slot and blinked, having gotten something besides an ad for once. I picked it up, setting it on the side table beside my keys. I turned on the floor lamp next, looking down at the note as the rest of my living room came into view. My two couches arranged around a coffee table on top of the brown carpet was nothing impressive and my teaching certifications on the walls were slightly dusty with how little I cleaned up in there. I looked closer at the mail to see that it was a letter from Town Hall. I opened it along the edge with my keys and dumped the note out onto the side table. I set my keys down again and discarded the letter’s packaging, unfolding the note. It was a notice of transfer for a new student.

I held the note lightly in my mouth as I went into my kitchen, setting it aside while I started to cut lettuce for dinner. Eventually I had a tall sandwich with lots of tomatoes and celery, and sat down at my kitchen table to continue reading the note. I added honey mustard to my meal as I read, chewing and thinking about where to set this new pony’s desk. It was hard to re-arrange in the middle of the year, as I’d have to redo the seating chart entirely. I currently had Scootaloo on her own so she couldn’t distract the others, while Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were fine as long as Diamond Tiara or Silver Spoon weren’t near them. I put that out of my head and kept reading. To my suprise it was a colt from Canterlot, a unicorn named Circle Limit. He had been transferred there as a result of him moving to Ponyville. He would be living with his older brother and attending my class starting the following Monday. Alongside the notes, I had received a copy of his permanent record.

I curiously went through the transcript as I ate. It seemed that he was a great student when the topics engaged him, to my relief. I wasn’t one to call myself a perfect teacher, but I had more than enough experience finding what actually interested my pupils and building everything from there. With my small classes it was possible for me to tailor things to them individually instead of try and treat them all the same. I noticed that the colt in question did just fine in subjects like math, and he seemed to adore reading when it came to fantasy and stories, as opposed to dry reference texts. Thankfully I didn’t teach many topics that needed a textbook yet, though in a few years it would be necessary. I did see that he had a history of finding trouble. More than once he’d put himself in the middle of a bad situation by using magic to bother others. Sometimes he even purposefully misplaced objects by placing them in hard to reach areas such as on top of bookshelves and on the school rooftop. I took that as him simply not getting any attention, or perhaps him spiting the ponies he had done such a thing to. If he had actually wanted to cause any real grief he’d have caused a confrontation or permanently stole the things without a trace.

I set the record aside, finishing my meal. In all he seemed like a normal colt. A blemish on his record here and there, a few times acting out. It was nothing I’d never seen before. Scootaloo had been a lot like that before I talked to her about it. Most young ponies weren’t just causing problems for the sake of being a nuisance. They either did it because they weren’t entertained, and thus found their entertainment in causing problems, or they were reacting to something. Seldom were the times that foals acted out of pure malice. Those were the times when I actually resorted to true punishments. Instead of redirecting their attention something productive or resolving the issue with the other party, a foal that was just being a problem for the sake of being a thorn in everyone’s side normally couldn’t be reasoned with or talked to. Instead it was better to treat the behaviour for what it was and bring out the more old, but nonetheless effective teaching tools. On a few occassions I had used them on Diamond Tiara. Writing an apology note of no less than five hundred words to me every single day after class had her being much more careful on school grounds when she was up to no good.

I drank a glass of water and went upstairs, figuring that my weekend would go well. I looked forwards to a long soak in the hot tubs at the spa and a good book. I put the thoughts of school and students out of my head for the time being. I wasn’t a teacher on the weekends in my own mind. Instead I was just a normal mare that lived alone in Ponyville. The photos of all the places I’d been in the past may as well have not existed as I walked by them, intent on going to bed. I walked into my bedroom at the end of the hall, pushing the door open and yawning. A mostly made bed greeted me as I walked in, the dark red blankets being pulled up to the pillows, but not to any degree of neatness. I didn’t bother turning on the light or even going to use the bathroom as I trotted in, focused only on getting some sleep. I didn’t care what time it was; I was tired and that was where I stopped my thoughts from venturing any further. I slid beneath the blankets, pushing my head to the cool pillow beneath me and shutting my eyes. It only took me a few seconds to be asleep, warm and content as the rain tapped on the window beside my bed.