Unexpected Changes

The rest of the week went on with little incident. Lily brought back the paperwork, and they started in on their curriculum, going over the first part of any school year, testing to make sure that they retained the knowledge from last year, seeing if they already knew the material for this year, and if so, how much. Lily scored particularly high in anatomy, though not high enough to excuse her from that section. Still, it was worth finding out what she already knew.

When Friday rolled around, they had a special routine. If they'd been good all week and did all of their schoolwork, their parents would give them some pocket change and they could have some frozen yogurt on the way home. Since it was impossible for them to have homework yet, and difficult for them to have a failed test that actually counted, as only the retests could count as being failed, they just had to behave themselves. And other than talking about anatomy in the wagon on the way to school (which could easily be excused because it was something they were supposed to be learning about that year and Lily's body was going through changes that she was obviously curious about), there was no bad behaviour.

"I'm just glad that rumour fizzled out," chuckled Lily. "You'd think that they'd know I wasn't a robot, what with me eating eggs. What kind of robot eats eggs?"

"An egg-powered robot," scoffed Glory. "Duh."

"And how would an egg-powered robot even work?" shot Snapdragon. "Explain that to me."

"Easy," answered Glory. "Eggs go in through the fuel intake valve, and then they're converted to power, and any waste is expelled through the exhaust chute; sometimes as a gas emission, and sometimes as a solid lump."

"Gross," sneered Daisy. "You're going to put everypony off of their appetite."

"She asked!" scoffed Glory. "All I did was answer her question."

"It was a dumb rumour," sighed Lily. "Can we just grab some frozen yogurt, already?"

They went up to the counter and made their selections. Glory insisted on going first, picking a chocolate and banana swirl with gummy worms, sprinkles, cookie crumbs and fizzler candies. Daisy went next, with a simple cup of strawberry yogurt with dried banana slices. Lily opted for a coconut yogurt pop, and Snapdragon picked out a red velvet and strawberry swirl, with only red sugar sprinkles.

They picked out a table and sat down to eat their snack. "Just a yogurt pop?" asked Daisy. "You know, they let you put toppings on it if you put it in a cup."

"Yeah, but everypony's been complaining about me eating weird stuff lately. I thought it might be beneficial to do something normal."

"But normal's boring!" complained Glory. "I thought we were celebrating our differences?"

"Apparently not," shrugged Lily. "Besides, it's coconut. Ponies already think that's a weird flavour."

"Do they?" asked Daisy.

"Regardless," waved Snapdragon, "If you picked up your normal berry blast cup, we wouldn't question it. That would seem more normal to us. Picking a pop is what seems odd."

"Yeah. You normally have the berry blast with chopped nuts. That's what we're used to seeing."

Lily sighed. "I was just... I was feeling like coconut today. And then the attendant looked kind of busy, so I thought I'd make it easy on him."

"It's his job," responded Snapdragon. "If a customer wants berry-flavoured yogurt with chopped nuts, then his job is to make that happen. That's what he's paid to do."

"Well, I paid him to give me a coconut yogurt pop. What's the big deal?"

"The big deal is--"

"It's melting."

On Daisy's alert, Lily looked down at the pop and noticed that it was, indeed, melting. Before it could drip, she spun it in her hoof and placed her tongue at the base, slowly pulling it up the side to catch the creamy white liquid on her tongue, swallowing it in a big gulp, then going back down to lick the other side, running from the base to the tip.

"Huh..."

Lily looked at Glory. "What?"

"Most ponies start at the top and eat their way down."

"Yeah, well, it was melting, as Daisy pointed out. And rather than letting it drip all over my hoof, I thought I'd clean it up with my tongue. Weren't we just saying it was okay to be different? Why the sudden change in attitude?"

"You're fine," urged Daisy. "Eat your popsicle however you want. And you," she turned to Glory, "stop making her feel bad about the weird way she eats frozen yogurt."

"Worse than you for calling her "weird?"" asked Snapdragon. "Honestly, it's not even all that strange, and she had a good reason for doing it that way."

"I told her to eat it however she wants!" argued Daisy.

"Yes, and then you said it was weird."

""Weird" doesn't mean "bad!"" growled Daisy. "Just because it's odd doesn't make it wrong!"

"But it makes her feel bad when her you call her weird!"

"No, I'm the one that called her weird," volunteered Glory. "And it's dripping again."

Lily groaned, licking up the shaft of the pop again. When it was clean, she noted that none of her friends had reached for the napkin dispenser to help her wipe up the mess, so she reached over and grabbed it herself. Unfortunately, the napkins were stuck, so she needed both hooves.

Taking the tip of the pop into her mouth, she tilted her head back and slid the whole popsicle into her throat until just the stick remained, which she clamped between her teeth. Everypony could see the bulge in her throat as she pulled a few napkins from the dispenser and cleaned up the spillage.

Once it was clean, she wrapped one more napkin around the stick, then slowly pulled the whole popsicle out of her throat, sucking on it to make sure all of the drippings stayed in her mouth, rather than spilling out onto her face and chest, where she'd just have to clean it up again.

When it was all the way out, only a single white strand connected between her lips and the tip of the popsicle. she swallowed, then gasped, as she had to do the whole thing without breathing.

"How'd you do that?" asked Daisy, incredulous.

"It's not that hard," Lily shrugged. "My dad taught me."