Twilight Sparkle gets an F
It was just a usual day at Celestia’s School of the Gifted Unicorns. Well, that’s what
Twilight thought.
“ Well, Animals can adapt to changes well. For example, Dolphins have blubber because
the water they swim in cold water, so the blubber keeps them warm.” The teacher, Ms Shores,the science teacher, scanned the classroom. “ Now would anyone explain how egasi have feathered Wings?”
Twilight eagerly raised her hoof. Ms Shores smiled when she saw the purple hoof in the air. Twilight was one of her favorite students. Hardworking, attentive and Eager to learn. She knew Twilight would get the answer right.
Ms Shores nodded in Twilight’s direction. “ Why yes, Twilight Sparkle?”
“Pegasi used to have wings without feathers, like flaps of flesh, bone and skin on their sides, which makes it difficult and almost impossible to fly. They used to live in forests, where fruit is high up in the trees, where it is hard to retrieve it without being able to fly. So decades later, Pegasi adapted and grew feathers. Feathers on a bird’s wings provide a lightweight but solid surface to push against the air. As the wing flaps downward, the feathers mesh together, then part to allow air through as it sweeps upward again. So then, It was a ease for Pegasi to fly up to high grounds.” Twilight recited, memorizing the answer exactly by the textbook.
Ms Shores nodded, Satisfied with Twilight’s answer. “ Very good, Miss Sparkle.” Turning
to face the class, She added, “ You should all learn from her.”
Twilight’s eyes shone with delight and beamed. She felt like she was walking on air. Nothing beats a teacher’s praise. Ms Shores, one of the strictest teachers in the school, said that she was a role model. That does not just happen to any Unicorn in the school.
“Now, Does anyone know has oldern unicorns in the past learn how to master their magic?” Ms Shores snapped Twilight out of her thoughts.
As Ms Shores rattled about the evolution of Unicorn magic, Twilight could still feel the glory of pride stirring in her heart as she jotted down notes. Ms Shores looked at her watch. Five more minutes till she had to dismiss class. She took out a thick stack of papers under the table.
“Class, I have last weeks’s exam papers here. Please have them signed by your parents by next Monday.” Ms shores placed the stack of papers on Twilight’s desk. “ CLASS DISMISSED!”
Before Twilight could to react, The rest of the class galloped over, rushed to fish out their Exam paper and canter out of the door. Twilight shut her eyes and winced as the Unicorns pushed and squeezed to grab their papers. When Twilight opened her eyes, She was alone in the classroom with a lone exam paper sitting on her desk. She glanced down and the first thing that she was a big red F.
....................................................................................
Twilight felt like she had a heart attack. Air was knocked out of her and she stood there in shock, mouth agape. After a few seconds, Twilight snapped out of her thoughts and blinked as she cleared her fuzzy brain.
“ AN F?” Twilight screamed in her head.” HOW COULD I GET AN F?” Twilight could not believe it. All her life, even when she was a filly in foalgarden, she had never failed a single subject in her life. Twilight had studied hard for the test. Memorizing the Star Swirls theory, Evolution of Ponies and griffons and even the Equestrian topics she was supposed to only learn next year. She couldn’t understand. She never struggled with the test, and even finished it early and checked it over five times for any careless mistakes.
“Excuse me.” A smartly dressed turquoise Unicorn with a sky blue mane poked her head through the classroom door and looked sternly at Twilight beneath her thick glasses. “ You should get going. You shouldn’t stay in class without a teacher after School hours.”
“Oh, ummmm.....” Twilight shoved the exam paper to the back of her saddlebag, and dashed out of the door, her cheeks turning red.
“Hmph! Ponies these days,” The teacher huffed, shaking her head as she watched Twilight gallop off in a distance. “ She didn’t even greet me.”
Twilight realized she had another problem. She had to let her parents sign her paper. Which means they would know she failed Equestrian Science! What would they say? She did not want to disappoint them.
BUMP. Twilight was so deep in her thoughts that she had not realized she had reached her dorm and walked head straight into the door. Twilight groaned in frustration and
rubbed her now sore head.
The door opened. “ You knocked?” The purple dragon with green spikes asked.
“Um spike, can you get me the advanced textbook on Equestrian Science and The Universe?” Twilight said as she tried to regain her composture, hoping Spike would not notice her dampened spirits nor the embarrassing incident.
“ Um, Ok. But didn’t the exam end last week? The next major exam is in three months, why do you need to study it suddenly?” Spike asked curiously, handing her the book.
“ Doesn’t hurt to revise it some more, does it?” Twilight snapped, levitating the book away from spike’s grip so fast he almost got a paper cut. Not that he EVER gt a paper cut, with that thick hide of his.
“ Okay okay.....If you won’t mind, I’ll take a nap!” Spike grumbled. “Miss grumpy pants.” He muttered under his breath as he stomped off.
Twilight sighed. She did not want to anger spike but she was having a bad day. A REALLY bad day. If this was just any normal day, She would have teased Spike for having his fifth nap of the day and being one haystack of a lazy baby dragon. However,Twilight decided she needed to be alone before it takes it out on anyone else. Twilight tried to concentrate on studying, but it seemed like her mind was blank, everything she read couldn’t get stored into her brain. After an hour of studying, Twilight couldn’t learn anything. She stared at the text for a while, before finally giving up and plopping herself onto her bed. She looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath.
Everything is just fine. Celestia might give you a second chance and I’m sure your parents would forget about it after a while. She thought, trying to sound reasonable.
You barely got into the school. Another voice argued. The voice was frantic and thick with anxiety. And do you think you would be her apprentice? She would probably replace you with someone who is better in studies.
No, you did well for your other exams, it will pull your grades up.The other voice fought back.
Yeah, and it will also pull you out of being top in class.
Twilight gasped. Since she got into Celestia’s school for the gifted unicorns, she had topped her class every term. This F may cost her her position. Even-
'Knock knock knock.' Twilight woke up from her trail of thoughts and answered the door.
She instantly smiled when she saw the colt standing outside the door.
“Twilie!” The blue streak maned colt pulled Twilight into a hug and ruffled her mane.
“BBBFF!” Twilight laughed as her brother messed around with her hair, delighted by his surprise visit, for a moment forgetting about all her worries.
“What are you doing here? I thought you have training!” asked Twilight. Shinning Armor shrugged. “ I did. But it was canceled because one of the training grounds was flooded from last night’s rainstorm. So I have an hour to myself today.” “ So why are you here?”
“Here to bring you out for ice poppies!” Shinning armor grinned. “ It is baking hot outside and some ice pops are what we need. Cadance is waiting for us in the park.” Shinning armor knew Twilight loved ice poppies. Before Shinning armor became the captian in training, they would go out to have those fruity treats every sunny afternoon before heading out to the library.
“Did someone say ice poppies?” Spike trudged out of the door, yawning.
Twilight gave Spike a devilish look. Out of all the times She tried to wake the lazy dragon up, he only woke up at the sound of food.
A part of shinning armor’s sentence caught Twilight off guard. “ Cadance? As in my best ever foalsitter in Equestria?”
Shinning Armor ran a hoof through his mane and gave a sheepish grin. “ weeeell, I ran into her and she wanted to tag along, ya know?”
Twilight swore she saw his cheeks turned light pink. She was about to agree but hesitated.
"You failed an exam. What would Celestia think when she hears you and running around eating ice poppies instead of studying?"
Twilight ignored her craving for a groovy grape ice pop and declined.
Her brother raised his eyebrowns. Twilight would never want to miss a chance for an ice poppie. He narrowed his eyes at the purple mare. “ Are you sure?”
“YES. I mean, yes. I need to ummmmm STUDY! That’s right. You go with Cadance and have a good time.” Twilight said nervously, beads of sweat forming on her forhead. She faked a grin.
“Ok then.” Shinning armor was not convinced, but did not question her further. “ Are you coming Spike?”
“Oh yes! I’ll love the Cherry ruby Pop!”Spike perked up and the two went off.
Twilight spent the late afternoon lazing around her dorm, picking up a book but then putting it back again as it did not interest her. Not even her favorite book, 'Mystic and the magic orb', could cheer her up.
Twilight lay on her bed, giving up. She closed her eyes. Will this day be the last day at the school? Or will she last another day without being kicked out? Twilight drifted off into a restless sleep.
The doors of the halls opened, and everypony turned their heads to see who had entered. When they laid their eyes on the unicorn, They cracked up. Twilight panicked. Why are they laughing at her? One yelled, “ EPIC FAILURE!!!!!!” And the whole hall of ponies roared with laughter again.
“ Stop it!” Twilight heard the laughter echo in her ear. “ What’s so funny?”
Nopony answered but kept on pointing at Twilight, Their faces twisted into evil grins. Twilight head for the restroom, tripping over a dust bin on the way, adding on to the laughter.That is when Twilight saw it.
A giant F grade stamped on her forehead. The bright red mark practically yelled “ I am a loser! Make fun of me!” Twilight took a hoof full of soap and water and tried to scrub off the mark, but the colour of the mark did not even fade a little, instead it
turned neon red, making it stand out more. Now Twilight’s face and mane was dripping wet, with soap running down her cheeks. And mane was now stuck up in all directions.
Suddenly,The bell rang and two burly janitors dressed in green grabbed Twilight firmly by her two front hooves. One was a indigo maned unicorn with a spear as a horn and the other was a deep blue pegasus with bony wings.
Twilight tried to escape but like quicksand, the more she struggle, the tighter the grip it has on her.
“LET ME GO!” Twilight yelled furiously, kicking her back hooves wildly. The guards just snarled in reply.
The guards dragged her to a classroom and threw her inside. Twilight surveyed the room. It was different from other classrooms in the school. The walls were sky blue and had a barn painted on it, instead of the sophisticated cream white walls of the other classrooms.
The door swung open and a crowd of noisy five year old unicorns of all colours piled into the classroom excitedly. The door was swung shut before Twilight could reach it. Twilight pulled the handle of the door with all might, but it would not budge.
“Twilight?” A magenta unicorn with a violet mane and light purple highlights approached her. “ Would you have a seat?” The tone she used to talk to twilight was how a pony would use to calm down a startled bunny.
“Um you don’t understand. I am not in this class.” Twilight backed away. “ If you could so kindly unlock the do-”
“ Nope. You are in this class. Your name’s on the list. Princess Celestia moved you to this class.”
“But-”
“Please sit. I have a class to start.”
Twilight gave up and squeezed into a mini chair. The desk where so small that Twilight couldn’t put her legs under the table. The unicorn started the lesson.
“ My name is Amethyst star. You can call me teacher Star. Today, we would learn how to levitate a small object.” She placed a marble on each desk, including Twilight’s. “ Now-”
“Why do I need to learn this? I mastered levitation two years ago!” Twilight interrupted angrily. She could even levitate an obkect as heavy as a sofa or levitate a bucket of water without spilling a single drop.
“ Why why.” Amethyst star crossed her arms. “ Someone is being a smart aleck. If you know everything, why not show the class and levitate this marble by yourself.”
"I’ll show you." Twilight thought. She pointed her horn at the marble and felt her magic building up and the marble was covered with a brilliant raspberry aura. However, When Twilight tried to lift it, the marble felt like it weighed a thousand kilograms. Her magic sizzled out.
As Twilight hung her head, exhausted from her magic, Amethyst wore a smug look on her face. “ Not as smart as you think, aren’t you?”
Then the room started to shake and the ground Twilight was standing on gave way. Twilight let up a yelp and grabbed onto the edge of the pit, hanging on with all her might. Amethyst walked up to her with a solemn expression on her face. She looked
down her nose and her face broke into a devious grin. “ You can’t learn if you don’t fall.” She pointed her horn and Twilight and a burst of energy hit Twilight on her neck. Letting go of her grip, Twilight started to fall.
Exam papers fluttered down with Twilight as she fell into the bottomless pit. The skin on her throat was burnt and it felt like it was on fire. Celestia’s voice then rang in Twilight’s ears, filled with disappointment. “Twilight, why have you have let me down?"
Credit to AthiyahTA who help me edit and correct my grammatical mistakes. :)
