Ask not who the school bell rings for...
“Welcome, welcome everyone! Thank you so much for coming to today’s Family Day!” Cheerilee called warmly, smiling to the gathered room of foals and their chosen family members. “I’m so glad we had such a good turnout today! Today we are so excited to give you all a taste of what a typical day is like here at Ponyville’s finest elementary school!”
“The only elementary school,” Applejack muttered.
“Applejack! Ssh!” Rarity hissed, nudging her sharply with one elbow. “Miss Cherilee, when do we get our powder room break?”
“Oh, Rarity! If you need to use the little filly’s room, you can go at any time.” Cherrilee smiled. “Now, next up we will -”
“No, nothing like that, Miss Cheerilee!” Rarity tittered. “I mean, when do we get to go do our makeup touch-ups, reapply our perfume and our bespoke scented body glitter?”
Cheerilee paused. “Um … you can do that in the little filly’s room, I suppose.”
“Y - You don’t have a powder room?!” Rarity gasped. “What kind of elementary school is this?!”
“A normal one,” Cheerilee ground out, and forcibly unclenched her jaw before she spoke next, her voice cheerful and bright once more. “Alright, students! Who’s ready to take a fun pop quiz?”
“Ooh, pop quiz! I’m ready!” Twilight Sparkle gasped, rubbing her hooves together at her tiny desk. “I was up studying all night!”
“... Princess Twilight, what foal are you accompanying today?”
“Well, I, uh, I’m here to accompany - Spike! He’s, uh, considering enrolling here next year.”
“... where is Spike?”
“Spike had a little - a little cough!” Twilight Sparkle swiped a hoof across her forehead. “Gosh, is it hot in here, or is it just me? Spike sure will enjoy it here, cold blooded you know! Heh heh!”
Cheerilee closed her eyes for a beat, then fought to regain her flagging cheerful vibe. “Alright, let’s start handing out these sheets! Everyone do your best, but don’t worry if you don’t know the answer! Today is about learning from our mistakes just as much as it is getting a good score. Apple Bloom, will you be my helper to hand out all of the papers?”
As the papers went around the room, the parents shared a small chuckle between themselves, and dutifully lifted their pencils to begin writing. The day was getting off to a quick start, it seemed, and every parent, guardian, sibling, or close friend was eager to show their young companion the proper way to take a pop quiz. Well, in their own way …
“Now, Miss Cheerilee,” Applejack interjected a few minutes in, “I think there may be an error in your mathematics, here.”
Cheerilee rose from her desk, and crossed to Applejack’s own tiny one, which the orange mare was currently contorting her muscular frame to fit into. “Yes, Applejack?”
“See, on question two, it says ‘Bubble Belle has five apples. Little Frogger comes along, and takes two apples. How many apples does Bubble Belle have left?’”
Cheerilee waited for a moment for a question that never came. “Alright. So how many apples are left? It’s a word problem - the equation we’re looking for is five minus two. So that would be -”
“No, no, now that ain’t right. If Little Frogger is gonna come up and rustle somepony’s hard earned crop, then Bubble Belle is going to have to do something about it!”
“Applejack, if you could keep your voice down -”
“Since when is Little Frogger allowed to just - steal apples?! That used to be a buckin’ crime! They’d go hunt him down and tan his hide, is what they’d do! Why -”
“Applejack, when we are inside we need to use our -”
“If Little Frogger was in front of me right now, why I’d -”
“INSIDE VOICES, INSIDE VOICES!”
The room fell silent abruptly, and Cheerilee flushed an even brighter shade of magenta.
“Well, you don’t have to tell me twice, Miss Cheerilee,” Applejack said a little primly.
Cheerilee closed her eyes again for a moment, counting back from one hundred. “You can skip that question.” Cheerilee turned, and silently walked back to her desk. Out of sight of the students, she pulled a squeezy foam smiley face from her desk drawer, and began clenching it very rapidly between her hooves,
“Miss Cheerilee?”
The foam toy exploded from the force Cheerilee was exerting on it. Silently, she put the pieces back into the drawer. “Yes, Pinkie Pie?”
“Oh, I just had a question!”
“And you are here accompanying …?”
“Oh, I’m not!” Pinkie Pie giggled. “But the Cakes are going to need a school eventually, right? For the twins? So I’m making a tour of all of the local schools!”
“Oh, I see.” Cheerilee relaxed, and tried not to visibly sag as she crossed to Pinkie Pie’s desk. “So you had a question about our kindergarten program? The daycare?”
“I was actually curious about your average SAT scores!”
Cheerilee blinked. “P-Pardon?”
“Well, I’m interested in hearing about your university acceptance rates of course, but the SAT scores seemed like a nice place to start, you know? And of course I want to hear about life-school balance, how the students’ mental health is taken into account - it’s so important, don’t you agree? Now tell me, do you use more of a Authoritarian style of teaching, or are you more of a Delegator style? Or maybe a hybrid? Also, lunch choices; what’s the average caloric intake you give here, and are students allowed to intuitively feed themselves during the day? Or are they trapped in a more archaic ‘lunch hour’ style of feeding? I mean,” Pinkie Pie snorted as she giggled, “we’re not talking about raising farm animals here!”
“Hey!” Applejack huffed, still scowling over her quiz paper.
“I, uh, you know, I will have to get back to you on that, Miss Pie! We are just about to finish our quiz!” Cheerilee stammered, her grin a rictus of pain as she rapidly walked back to her desk.
“Hey, since I have you,” Rainbow Dash interjected as she blocked her path with one blue leg, “do you have, like, a scholastic path for like - the cool kids? You know, the athletes? I mean, Scoots is a real smart kid, but she doesn’t always wear a helmet, you know? She’s taken a couple bonks on the ol’ noggin - I’m thinking she might need like, the coaster classes. Y’know, so she can focus on her Buckball-slash-skateboarding-slash-rollerblading career!”
“We don’t have different classes!” Cheerilee snarled, fighting her way back to cheerful, which was coming out somewhat feral instead. “This is a one-room schoolhouse!”
“Um, Miss Cheerilee? I’m done. I’m done first, actually, I’ve been done for ten minutes,” Twilight Sparkle interrupted, her voice drifting into a smug little sing-song at the end. “Could you check mine first? I don’t want you to run out of gold stars.”
“Gold stars?! For propaganda?!” Applejack growled, batting at Twilight Sparkle’s page as she waved it above her head. “They’re advocating for apple theft! That’s a crime!”
“Miss Cheerilee? Miss Cheerilee?” Rarity called, waving her hoof elegantly in the air. “My paper got a graphite smudge on it, may I have a new one?”
“ALRIGHT THAT’S ENOUGH!” Cheerilee roared, slamming her hooves on the desk. “PENCILS DOWN, THE QUIZ IS OVER! TIME FOR RECESS! EVERYPONY OUT!!”
“Well,” Rarity sniffed as she pranced by Cheerilee’s desk on her way out, “you don’t have to get huffy about it!”
Cheerilee slumped in her chair, and slid beneath her desk to curl up on the floor.
“That was the best family day EVER!” Apple Bloom cheered once they were safely outside, prancing around Applejack and her friends. “You guys were great! Your plan worked perfectly! I bet we’ll get recess for an extra hour, at least!”
“Plan?” Rarity asked, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders exchanged quick looks as their adults looked down at them in confusion.
“We didn’t have any plan,” Applejack shrugged.
“Yeah! I just wanted to learn more about the program there! Gotta say I wasn’t very impressed…” Pinkie Pie clucked to herself, scribbling furious notes on her pink notepad.
“I hope she doesn’t forget my gold star,” Twilight Sparkle muttered to herself, casting a dark glance back at the little red schoolhouse.
