Chapter Only: Problem Solving Princess.
Princess Cadence wore a tired smile as she stretched her wings. Hours of sitting on her throne had caused her feathered appendages to lock up and her legs to scream as pins and needles danced between the hairs of her fur. But it was finally over, and she would be able to rest.
Trotting through the corridor, Cadence heard a faint series of expletive words coming from her daughter’s room that caused her to stop as several voices shouted at each other. Opening the door revealed her little snowflake sprawled out on a beanbag chair as she stared at two colorful puppets shooting insults at each other on the screen. Resisting the urge to have another conversation/argument about the shows her daughter chose to watch, Cadence gave her daughter a warm smile as she trotted inside.
“Hey, sweetie. Did you get all of your homework done?” Cadence asked, earning a long pause from Flurry Heart as the little Alicorn’s eyes shifted nervously.
“… Pretty much, yeah. It’s all done.”
“Is it ‘pretty much’ or ‘all done’?” Cadence pressed.
“I did everything!”
“Really? So, you wouldn’t mind if I looked in your saddlebags to make sure?” Cadence asked as she trotted over to the lazily tossed saddle bags.
“… No?”
“Alright, then I shouldn’t find, oh, what’s this?”
A blank math sheet floated out of the bags before flying over to Flurry Heart’s side as it was snatched out of Cadence’s grasp. Cadence gave her daughter a disapproving look as the young filly attempted to hide the sheet under one of her wings.
“It’s nothing.”
“You still have homework to do, young lady,” Cadence said sternly.
“I’m a princess, I don’t need to do homework.”
“Just because you’re immortal doesn’t mean you can’t do your school work. Now, get to work.”
“But I hate math!” Flurry Heart whined. “It’s so boring and confusing.”
“Well, I can help you. I don’t mean to brag, but I was the top of my class back in high school. I’m sure I can help with a little bit of middle school math,” Cadence reasoned.
With a flourish of magic, Cadence took the sheet back and planted it on the floor before she grabbed one of Flurry's pencils from her saddle bag. Flurry Heart begrudgingly joined her mother on the floor as Cadence let the tip of the pencil kiss the paper. She wore a confident smile as she looked at the first question and read it aloud.
“ ‘If the Canterlot train is traveling an average of 60 miles per hour, leaving the station at 9:00 am on Thursday, and the Ponyville express is traveling at 90 miles per hour at 12:00 am on Friday, traveling a total distance of 1,240 miles to Canterlot, and 1,480 miles from Canterlot. To the nearest minute, at what time will the train from Canterlot overtake the Friendship Express?’”
Cadence stared at the question, re-reading the hours, miles, and numbers that filled the sheet. She felt her brain physically stop working as it tried to understand the complicated formula.
“Let’s tackle something easier,” Cadence reasoned. If there were other questions similar to this, the maybe she could learn the pattern and apply it to the first problem.
“… ‘Sweet Apple Acers produces 150 apples a day for 2 weeks. If Sweet Apple Acers pays their employees a total of 200 bits per week and each apple is sold for 7 bits, how many apples will Sweet Apple Acers need to sell to make a profit?’… Alright, um… So, there’s 150 apples, times 2 is… is…”
Cadence tapped her hoof as she gnawed on her lip. “2 times zero is zero, and—”
“Isn’t it 300?” Flurry supplied.
“Right! So, 300 apples, and Sweet Apple Acers spends 200 bits. 7 bits per apple, that... That’s really expensive for apples. Aren’t they supposed to be 2 bits?”
“But the problem says 7 bits.”
“I know, it’s just weird… Anyway, 7 bits. 7, 14…. 21, 28, then… thirty….”
“58.”
“No, sweetie, I’m counting by sevens. See, 7 plus 7 is 14, plus 7 is 21. It’s—”
“I know, but the answer’s 58 apples. 200 times 2 weeks is 400. 400 divided by 7 is around 57. If you sell 58 apples then you have a profit of 6 bits. It’s not a big profit, but in the end, Sweet Apple Acers would make close to a thousand bits. The question didn't ask how many bits they'd make in total, so we only need to know when they'll start to make a profit, which is at 58 apples,” Flurry explained.
“Oh… Um… And which question do you need help with?” Cadence asked with a hit of worry.
The paper in her hooves was flipped over, revealing only a single question at the top of the blank sheet. It was a paragraph long, listing numbers and letters where numbers should have been, two negative numbers, a number with a decimal point, division signs clashing with multiplication signs. There was also a repeating decimal under a strange checkmark that created a roof for the long number, stretching over half the line as the problem suddenly introduced angels and degrees.
After blinking several times, Cadence finally registered Flurry Heart’s voice as she explained the problem she was having.
“… But then the root of that number isn’t divisible by negative five, so I tried dividing this by seven and that gave me a number to the power of two, which didn’t fit in for X here, but did fit in for Y here. I tried working backwards to find X by finding the factors of Z but I couldn’t find anything that would work without a repeating fraction,” the little princess rattled off.
Cadence, for the first time in her life, stared at her daughter with a look of horror plastered on her face. Her eyes wandered from the paper to her daughter, flashing between the two as she tried to think about how to help the situation.
After only a moment of thinking, Cadence came up with the perfect solution… The paper was set on fire and the pencil was broken in her hooves, clattering to the floor as the ashes rained down around them.
“… Oh no! Your pet ate your homework and there was no way to get it back! I’ll send you back to school with a note explaining what happened.”
“But I don’t have a—”
“I think you’re old enough for a pet. Hey, why don’t we go see if they have a nice little puppy or something at the animal shelter?”
“Really?!” Fully Heart asked excitedly as her wings suddenly shot out from her sides. With a happy shout, Flurry's wings carried her into the air as she flew around her room in a fit of unbridled joy. “Yes! Yesyesyesyesyesyes! I'm getting a pet! In your smug face Pitter Patter, I'm getting a pet before you! I'm getting a pet~! I'm getting a pet~! In your face, Pitter Patter~! In your face, Pitter Patter~!”
Cadence wore a proud smile at her daughter’s delight-filled cheers. She gave herself a mental pat on the back as Flurry Heart raced out the door to get her first pet. Chuckling to herself, the princess trotted to catch up with her daughter as she thought of what type of pet would be the greatest ~~scapegoat,~~ friend for Flurry Heart.
“Oh, actually, a goat would be perfect! They like the cold, they’re really cute when they’re small, and they’ll help a lot with Flurry’s homework,” Cadence reasoned, giving herself a nod of approval for her problem-solving capabilities.
Who needs math when you have a pet goat? Besides, learning to take care of a pet was more important than learning math anyway.
