See How the Night Sky Glows

Exactly two weeks had passed since Sky's first day at Canterlot High, and it had been just over one week since that freezing cold Friday when he got Lyra's number. It was now Monday again and Sky's gym class had just begun.

A loud whistle sounded out as about twenty students sped around the indoor track in the gymnasium. "Come on, only two more laps to go!" Coach Spitfire shouted.

Every day at the beginning of class, Spitfire made her class run eight laps of the track, or one mile, to warm up. Since Sky had run cross-country and track at Manebridge High for a couple of years, he never had a problem with it, and so he was always at the front of the pack during the warm-up. The same, however, could not be said for most of the other students in the class. A couple of guys who were a long way behind Sky looked like they were about to have heart attacks. In the middle of the pack, Noteworthy was trying way too hard as usual and looked absolutely miserable. Just behind Sky, the twin sisters Cloudchaser and Flitter were neck-and-neck with each other and were holding up just fine.

Eventually Sky slowed down a bit and the twins caught up to him. Sky chuckled to himself as he sped up again. "Oh, you want to race, do you?" Cloudchaser laughed. She and Flitter picked up speed and soon caught up to Sky. All three sprinted the last lap and crossed the finish line in unison, well ahead of any of their classmates. They slowed to a stop further down the track and took a moment to catch their breath.

"Good race." said Sky.

"Yeah." said Cloudchaser, brushing her spiky silver hair off of her forehead. "Who won?"

"I think it was a tie between all three of us!" Flitter laughed as she pushed her long green hair to one side.

"Yes, it was." Spitfire said with a smile. "Very well done, all three of you."

Sky liked the twins. They were both really cool and funny, and they too ran cross-country and track.

The rest of the class began crossing the finish line, and many looked to be in considerably worse shape than Sky and the twins. Once everyone was finished, Spitfire gathered the entire class together.

"Okay, class." she said. "Now that the warmup is done, we'll be playing badminton singles today."

Sky looked at Flitter. "Oh, crap." he sighed. "I'm dead." Flitter simply nodded in response.

The previous week, they had played badminton doubles. Despite being pretty bad at any sort of racket sport, Sky had managed to be on the winning team in most of the games he played last week, simply because Flitter was his doubles partner, and both she and Cloudchaser were far better at badminton than he was. But now Sky would have to play on his own, and he was fairly certain that he was going to lose badly to whoever he played against.

Noteworthy was still being his usual arrogant self. "We all know I'm the best one here." he said with a smirk. "I don't need a partner to win."

"Oh, shut your big mouth!" Flitter muttered.

What Noteworthy said wasn't necessarily untrue, though. Despite being bad at most other sports, he was actually quite good at badminton, which annoyed Sky and pretty much everyone else in the class to no end.

"I'll just be pairing you up randomly today." said Spitfire. "The first player to reach 10 points wins. First up, Amethyst Star and Violet Blurr!"

A girl with bright purple hair picked up a racket and walked to one side of the court, and a girl with long pink hair and a spiked headband picked up another racket and went to the other side.

"Ready...begin!" Spitfire shouted, tossing the badminton shuttlecock to the purple-haired girl. Amethyst picked it up and served it to Violet, who immediately hit it back. Amethyst dove for it and missed. "0-1, Violet!" said Spitfire.

That was how the rest of class went, with multiple one-on-one games between random students. Eventually there were only two students left who had not played yet, and Spitfire announced the final matchup of the day. "Next up, Sky Scraper and Noteworthy!"

Sky sighed heavily. He couldn't believe that he was going to have to play Noteworthy of all people. Noteworthy smirked as he took up his position opposite Sky.

Spitfire gave the command to begin, and tossed the shuttlecock to Noteworthy. Noteworthy served it to Sky, who ran to hit it but didn't get the chance to swing his racket before the shuttlecock flew past him. Ah, crap. Sky thought to himself. That's a point to Noteworthy already.

But it wasn't. "0-1, Sky!" said Spitfire.

"Wait, what?!" Sky exclaimed.

"It went out of bounds, and you didn't actually swing at it, so that's a point to you, Sky." Spitfire explained. She picked up the shuttlecock from where it had landed and gave it back to Sky. "It's your turn to serve now, you got this!"

Sky nodded, threw the shuttlecock up in the air and served it back toward Noteworthy. It was a high, fast serve, and as Noteworthy jumped up to try to hit it, he tripped and fell. The shuttlecock landed on the line at the back of the court, meaning that it was still in. "2-0, Sky!" said Spitfire. "You all right, Noteworthy?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Noteworthy grunted as he got back up. But Sky could see that he was already getting angry about how the game had gone so far. He chucked the shuttlecock back to Sky, and Sky served it again. This time, Noteworthy successfully sent it back to Sky, who then hit it back to Noteworthy. It was another very high hit, and Noteworthy missed it by a mile. Spitfire announced the score again. "3-0, Sky!"

Then came Noteworthy's first bogus excuse of the day. "Coach, Sky's cheating!" he complained. "He's hitting the shuttlecock way too high!"

Sky rolled his eyes. "Here we go again." he muttered to himself.

"He can hit it as high as he wants, as long as it doesn't go out of bounds." Spitfire replied. She turned to Sky. "You're doing great, Sky! You've got a really strong arm!"

Sky smiled. When he thought about it, the only reason he seemed to be bad at racket sports was because of his tendency to miss the ball or shuttlecock. When he hit it, he could hit pretty far. He got the shuttlecock back and served it again. Once again, Noteworthy swung at it madly and missed it. "Oh, god damn it!" he growled.

"4-0, Sky!" Spitfire announced. She went over to Noteworthy. "Remember, Noteworthy, you have to watch where the shuttlecock is going, you can't just swing at it. I saw you last week, you were really good. Just calm down."

An extremely frustrated Noteworthy nodded. He tossed the shuttlecock back to Sky, who served it once more.

As the game went on, Noteworthy just became angrier and angrier as he kept on either missing Sky's shots or hitting the shuttlecock out of bounds. Soon the score was 9-0 in Sky's favor. Sky needed just one more point to complete a total victory over Noteworthy. He served it with his usual high shot, and it cleared the net easily. Noteworthy watched it with furrowed brows and was about to jump up to hit it when he suddenly threw down his racket. "That's it!" he shouted. "Screw this, I'm done!" The shuttlecock landed at his feet.

"10-0, Sky wins!" Spitfire announced. "Great job, Sky! Total victory!" By now she'd gotten used to Noteworthy's angry outbursts and didn't bother trying to console him.

"Yes!" Sky shouted. It felt really good to beat an arrogant jerk like Noteworthy.

The twins ran down from the bleachers to congratulate Sky. "Way to go, Sky! That was amazing!" Flitter said as she pulled Sky into a brief hug.

Cloudchaser nodded and gave Sky a pat on the back. "Not gonna lie, it feels really good to see Noteworthy get his ass kicked, especially by you."

"Okay, that's it for today's class." Spitfire announced to the class. "All of you have a fantastic day!"

Everyone began getting down from the bleachers to leave the gym. As Noteworthy left, many students were laughing at him.

"So much for being the best!" laughed one of the guys.

"And so much for not needing a partner to win!" added one of the girls.

Sky and the twins laughed too. No on else in the class was very fond of Noteworthy either. Noteworthy walked out of the gym with clenched fists and an angry expression on his face. As he went out the door, he glared and pointed at Sky. Then he turned around and left.

Sky shrugged it off, and as Cloudchaser and Flitter headed to their next class, he headed to the cafeteria for lunch.

When Sky arrived at his usual lunch table, only Sherbert, Wiz and Curly were there. "Where's Emerald?" Sky asked.

"He's ower there wi' a couple o' lassies." Sherbert replied, pointing. Sky looked in that direction and saw Emerald talking to Tree Hugger and another girl. Tree Hugger winked at Emerald as she and the other girl headed back to the eco-kids table. Emerald returned to his own table and sat down next to Sky. He had a big smile on his face.

"You sure look cheerful today." Sky remarked, even though it wasn't hard for him to guess the reason why.

"You bet I am!" said Emerald. "After I finally managed to talk to Tree Hugger last week, I feel like we're starting to become friends!"

"Och, that's great, laddie!" Sherbert exclaimed. "Congratulations!"

"Yeah, we already sort of figured you had a thing for her, even before you told us." said Curly. "But still, good for you, man!"

"Thanks." said Emerald. "I just hope it'll all work out for the foreseeable future."

"Don't worry about it. I'm sure you've got this." said Sky. "Speaking of which, I just destroyed Noteworthy at badminton!"

"Good." said Wiz. "That guy is insufferable."

"Exactly." said Sky. He then told the story of what had happened in gym class, from Noteworthy's claim that he was the best in the class, to him getting completely wiped by Sky when they went up against each other.

"Well done, bro!" said Curly when Sky finished. "Very well done!"

"But you were really bad last week, weren't you?" Wiz asked. "I mean, you said Flitter was basically carrying you. How'd you get so good all of a sudden?"

Sky shrugged. "I guess I just really wanted to beat Noteworthy. And I did!"

"Canna blame ye for that." said Sherbert. "That lad's a dirty bastard!"

"That he is." Sky agreed. "And of course, today he was worse than ever with his excuses!"

"Not that much worse." Wiz remarked. "Sounds like regular old Noteworthy to me. He just can't handle the fact that you're better than him!"

"That is so true!" Sky laughed.

The next day, as Sky left his Art class and headed to History, he ran into Sherbert and Curly at the stairs. "Hey, guys!" he said. "What's up?"

"Well, I found out this morning that I completely bombed my last chemistry test." Curly replied as the three boys walked down the stairs. "I got a 30%!"

"Aw, man, that's rough!" Sky sympathized. "Is your teacher letting you retake it?"

"Yeah, after school on Thursday. I really hope I'll do better, I'm already failing Chemistry as it is."

"Well, is that the only class you're failing?" Sky asked.

"It is, but I still don't have any grades better than a C plus. As you know, I'm no good at math or writing or anything like that!"

"Ah well. You're still one of the top athletes in the whole school." said Sky. "You're way better at most sports than I could ever hope to be!"

Curly smiled. "Hey, at least I'm still good at that!"

"That you are! Besides, I could help you study for Chemistry if you wanted."

"Thanks! I'd really appreciate that! Wiz is already going to be helping me after school tonight, so maybe you could come too."

"Sure! Sounds great!"

At that moment, Sherbert entered the conversation, his set of bagpipes in hand. "Muisic cless wis awesome today. Rainbow's been teachin me some o' the Rainbooms' songs, an' I'm learnin hou tae play 'em on the pipes!"

"That's really cool!" said Sky. "The Rainbooms are a pretty kick-ass band from what I've heard. And I take it you're still on good terms with Rainbow Dash even after you two broke up last year?"

"Aye, we still hang oot fae time tae time, an' all o' her freends are still cuil wi' me."

"Well, that's good." said Sky. They were now on the first floor of the school and near Sky's locker. "Hold on, I just remembered, I need my textbook for History today." He went over to his locker, opened it, and grabbed his history textbook. But as he did so, he accidentally knocked a sheet of paper off the side of the locker. When Sky realized what he had done, he facepalmed. "Oh, sh*t."

The piece of paper that Sky had knocked down was a printed photo of Lyra that he'd gotten from her SnapGab profile. On Tuesday last week, Sky had printed it out, drawn multiple hearts on it, and hung it in his locker because he liked to always have a picture of Lyra to look at, even when he didn't see her all morning. For the past week he'd kept it well-concealed from anyone, but now the picture was in full view of Sherbert and Curly. They knew his secret.

There was a long, awkward silence before Curly spoke. "So... I'm guessing you like Lyra?" he asked.

Sky sighed. "Isn't it obvious?"

"Hey, it's naething tae be embarrassed aboot, laddie." said Sherbert, putting a hand on Sky's shoulder. "I dinna blame ye for likin her, she is verra cute an' nice."

Sky sighed. "That she is. But just be sure not to tell anyone else how I feel about her, okay?"

Sherbert nodded. "Dinna fash yersel, we winna. Besides, ye're awready freends wi' her, sae I'd say ye've got a guid chance!"

"Thanks." Sky grabbed his photo of Lyra and stuffed it into the back of his backpack. "I'll probably throw this out when I have the chance, I don't want anyone else finding out. Anyway, I'd better leave before I'm late to class. See you at lunch."

"Okay, see you!" Curly replied. He and Sherbert headed off to their respective classes as well.

As Sky made his way to Miss Harshwhinny's classroom, he didn't notice Noteworthy going in the opposite direction. Noteworthy had been there the whole time and had overheard Sky's entire conversation with Sherbert and Curly.

Noteworthy smiled. "Very interesting." he snickered to himself. "Well then, we'll see who's more embarrassed tomorrow..."