Into the Mind of a Simpler Mare

Chapters

I'm gonna try to be smart
I dont want to make Celeschia angrey
I wish it woud reely work alredy so I coud get smart like evrypony else
That makes me feel bad because I would never of hurt the baby
It's confusing, but I'm going to find out all about my life
We all love Harry
I hate to go home to that lonely room
next time, I'm going to kiss him goodnight

I'm gonna try to be smart

Into the Mind of a Simpler Mare
Story based on Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Edit by me
After the operashun Im
gonna try to be smart. Im gonna try awful hard.

Progris riport 1 martch 3.
Twilite says I shoud rite down what I think and remembir and evrey thing that happins to me. I dont no why but she says its importint so she can help me. I hope she can help me becaus mr whooves says mabye they can make me smart. I want to be smart. My name is Ditsy Hooves im not releted to mr whooves but our nams are similer I werk at the ponyvill post offis were grumpy gives me 11 dollers a week I am 26 yeres old and next munth is my brithday. I tolld Twilite and Spike I cant rite good but thay sed it don’t matter thay sed I shud rite just like I talk and like I rite in mr whooves nite class at Cheerilys school where I go to lern 3 times a week on my time off. Twilite says to rite a lot evrything I think and evrything that happins to me but I cant think anymor because I have nothing to rite so I will close for today...
yrs truly ditsy hooves.

Progris riport 2 - martch 4.
I had a test today. It wasn’t like Mr Whooves tests I think I faled it and I think mabye now Twilite wont help me. What happind is I went to see Spike at lunch time like Twilite said. I sometimes have truble reeding but mr whooves says im exselling I dont no what that meens but it sownds good.
in the test Spike showd me cards but i think he spilld ink on them. he had a wite coat like a docter but I dont think he was a docter because he dint tell me to opin my mouth and say ah. All he had was those wite cards at ferst I dint know what he was gonna do and I was holding on tite to the chair like when I go to a dentist onley Spike aint a dentist but he kept telling me to colm down and that gets me skared because it always means somthing bad will hapen he sed Ditzy what do you see on this card. I saw the spilld ink and I was very skared even tho I got my lucky coin becos when I was a filly I always faled tests in school and I spilld ink also.I tolld Spike I saw ink spilld on a wite card. he sed yes and he laffed and that maid me feel good. He kept shoing me all the cards and I tolld him somepony spilld ink on all of them. I thot that was a easy test
When I got up to go Spike stoppd me and said now sit down ditzy we are not thru yet. Theres more we got to do with these cards.
I dint understand about it but I remembir Twilite said do anything Spike telld me even if it dont make no sense because thats testing. I dont remembir so good what Spike said but I remembir he wantid me to say what was in the ink. i saw nothing in the ink but Spike sed there was picturs there. I coudnt see picturs. I reely tryed to see. I holded the card up close and then far away. Then I said if I had my eye glassis I coud probaly see better I usully only ware my eye glassis in the movies or to watch
TV but I sed maybe they will help me see the picturs in the ink.
I put themon and I said now let me see the card agan I bet I can find it now. I tryed hard but I still coudnt find the picturs I only saw the ink. I tolld him mabey I need new glassis. He rote somthing down on a paper and I got skared of faling the test. So I tolld him it was a very nice pictur of ink with pritty points all around the eges but he shaked his head so that wasnt
it neether.
I asked him if other ponys saw things in the ink and he sed yes they can imagen picturs in the inkblot. He tolld me the ink on the card was calld inkblot.
Spike is very nice and he talks slow to me like mr whooves dose in his night class were I go to lern reeding and righting for slow mares and staleons. He explaned me it was a raw shok test. He sed ponys see things in the ink. I said show me where. He dint show me he just kept saying imagen theres something on the card. I tolld him I imaggen a inkblot. He shaked his head so that wasnt rite eather. He said what does it remind you of. pretend its something. I closd my eyes for a long time to pretend and then I said I pretend a bottel of ink spilld all over a wite card. And thats when the point on his pencel broke and then we got up and went out. I dont think I passd the raw shok test.

3d progris riport. Martch 5 -
Twilite and Spike say it dont matter about the ink on the cards. I tolld them I dint spill the ink on them and I coudnt see anything in the ink. They said maybe they will still use me.
I tolld Twilite that mr whooves never gave me tests like that only riting and reeding. She said Mr Whooves tolld her I was his bestist pupil in his class and I tryed the hardist becaus I reely wantd to lern. I wantid it even more then ponys who are smarter then me. Twilite askd me how come you went to Mr Whooveses class all by yourself Ditzy. How did you find out about it. I said I dont remembir. Spike sed but why did you want to lern to reed and spell in the frist place. I tolld him because all my life I wantid to be smart and not dumb and my mom always tolld me to try and lern just like mr whooves tells me but its very hard to be smart and even when I lern something in Mr Whooveses class at the school I ferget alot.
Spike rote some things on a peice of paper and Twilite talkd to me very sereus. She said you know ditzy we are not shure how this experamint will werk on ponys because we onley tried it up to now on animils. I said thats what Mr Whooves tolld me but I dont even care if it herts or anything because Im strong and I will werk hard. I want to get smart if they will let me. They said they got to get permissen from my familie but my uncle deedle who use to take care of me is ded and I dont remember much about my familie. I dint see my mother or father or my littel sister Dinky for a long long long time. Mabye their ded to. Twilite askd me where they use to live. I think in manehatin. She sed they will see if mabye they can find them.
I hope I dont have to rite to much of these progris riports because it takes along time and I get to sleep very late and Im tired at werk in the morning. Grumpy hollered at me because I droppd a bag full of letters in a pudle. They got derty and he had to dry them off. Grumpy hollers at me all the time when I do something rong, but he reely likes me because hes my frend. Boy if I get smart wont he be serprised.

Progris riport 4.Mar 6 -
I had more crazy tests today in case they use me. Spike tolld me the name and I askd him how do you spell it so I can put it down rite in my progis riport. he askd Twilite and she sed THEMATIC APPERCEPTON TEST. I dont know the frist 2 werds but I know what test means. You got to pass it or you get bad marks. This test lookd easy because I coud see the picturs. Only this time he dint want me to tell what I saw in the picturs. That mixd me up. I tolld him yesterday he said I shoud tell him what I saw in the ink. he said that dont make a difrence because this test is something else. Now you got to make up
storys about the ponys in the picturs. I said how can I tell storys about ponys I dont know. he said make beleeve but I tolld him thats lies. I never tell lies any more because when I was a filly I made lies and I always got hit. I got a pictur in my bag of me and Dinky with uncle Deedle who got me the job to be malemare at ponyvil local post offis before he dyed. I said I coud make storys about this picture because I livd with uncle Deedle along time ago but Spike dint want to hear about them. he said this test and the raw shok was for getting persinality. I laffd. I tolld him how can you get that thing from cards that sompony spilld ink on and fotos of ponys you dont even no. he lookd angrey and took the picturs away. I dont care.
I gess I faled that test too. Then I colored some picturs for him but I dont drawer so good. Later Spike took me to a diferent room in the library that said PSYCHOLOGY LABORATORY on the door. Spike said PSYCHOLOGY means minds and LABORATORY meens a place where they make spearamints. I thot he ment like where they made the minty chooing gum but now I think its puzzels and games because thats what we did.
I coudnt werk the puzzels so good because it was all broke and the peices coudnt fit in the holes. One game was a paper with lines in all derections and lots of boxs and litle halls. On one side it said START and on the other end it said FINISH. He tolld me that game was amazed and I shoud take the pencil and go from where it said START to where it said FINISH withowt crossing over any of the lines. I dint understand the amazed and we used up a lot of papers. Then Spike said look I'll show you something lets go to Flutershys lab and mabye youll get the idea.
We walked a long time to Flutershys home. Flutershy is very kind but she seemed reely shy and i felt nervus. there was a room with lots of cages and animils she had monkys and some mouses. It had a funny smel like old garbidge. And there was som other ponys in wite coats playing with the animils so I thot it was like a pet store but their wasnt no customers.
Spike took a wite bunny out of the cage and showd him to me. Spike said that Angel can do this amazed very good. I tolld him you show me how he does that. Well do you know he put Angel in a box like a big tabel with alot of twists and terns like all kinds of walls and a START and a FINISH like the paper had. Only their was a skreen over the big tabel. And Spike took out his clock and lifted up a slidding door and Flutershy said lets go Angel and the bunny sniffd 2 or 3 times and startid to hop. First he went down one long row and then when he saw he coudnt go no more he came back where he startid from and
he just stood there a minit wiggeling his nose. Then he went off in the other derection and startid to hop again. It was just like he was doing the same thing Spike wanted me to do with the lines on the paper. I was laffing because I thot it was going to be a hard thing for a bunny to do. But then Angel kept going all the way threw that thing all the rite ways till he came out where it said FINISH and he made a squeek.
Spike says that means he was happy because he did the thing rite. Boy I said thats a smart bunny. Spike said woud you like to race against Angel. I said sure and he said he had a differnt kind of amaze made of wood with rows skratched in it and an electrik stick like a pencil. And he coud fix up Angels amaze to be the same like that one so we could both be doing the same kind.
He moved all the bords around on Angels tabel because they come apart and he could put them together in differnt ways. And then he put the skreen back on top so Angel woudnt jump over any rows to get to the FINISH. Then he gave me the electrik stick and showd me how to hold it in my mouth and to put it in between the rows and Im not suppose to lift it off the bord just follow the little skratches until the pencil cant move any more or I get a little shock. He took out his clock like he was trying to hide it. So I tryed not to look at him and that made me very nervus.
When he said go I tryed to go but I dint know where to go. I didnt know the way to take. Then I herd Angel squeeking from the box on the tabel and his feet thumping. I startid to go but I went in the rong way and got stuck and a littel shock in my mouth so I went back to the START but evertime I went a differnt way I got stuck and a shock. It didnt hert or anything just made me jump a littel and Spike said it was to show me I did the wrong thing. I was haffway on the bord when I herd Angel squeek like he was happy again and that means he won the race. And the other ten times we did it over Angel won evry time because I coudnt find the right rows to get to where it says FINISH. I dint feel bad because I watched Angel and I lernd how to finish the amaze even if it takes me along time. I dint know bunnys were so smart.

Progris riport 5 mar 6.
They found my mother who lives with my sister Dinky in manehatin and she gave permissen for the operashun. So their going to use me. Im so exited I can hardley rite it down. But then Twilite and Spike had a argament about it frist. I was sitting in Twilites room when spike came in. Twilite was worryed about using me but spike tolld her I looked like the best one they testid so far. Spike sed Mr Whooves rekemmended me the best from all the people who he was teaching at the
his night class were I go.
Spike said I had something that was very good. He said I had a good motor-vation. I never even knowed I had that. I felt good when he said not everpony with an eye-Q of 68 had that thing like I had. I dont know what it is or where I got it but he said Angel had it too. Angels motor-vation is the carat they put in his box. But it cant be only that because I dint have no carats this week.
Spike tolld Twilite somthing I dint understand so wile they was talking I rote down some of the words in my notebook for keeping my progris riports. He said I know ditzy is not what you had in mind as the frist of your new breed of intelek** coudnt get the word*** supermares. But most people of his low intele** are host** and uncoop** they are usally dull and apathet** and hard to reach. Ditzy has a good natcher.
Then Spike said remembir she will be the first pony ever to have her intelijence increesd by sergery. Twilite said thats exakly what I ment. Where will we find another retarted mare with this tremendus motorvation to lern. Look how well she has lerned to reed and rite for her low mentel age. A tremendous achievement.
I dint get all the werds and they were talking to fast but it sounded like Spike was on my side and Twilite wasnt. Spike kept saying docter whooves feels she has an overwhelm" desir to lern. she aktually beggd to be used. And thats true because I wantid to be smart. Spike got up and walkd around and said I say we use ditzy. Twilite skratchd her head and said mabye your rite. We will use ditzy. But weve got to make her understand that a lot of things can go wrong with the experamint.
When she said that I got so happy and exited I flew in the air and shaked her hoof for being so good to me. I think she got skared when I did that. she said ditzy we werked on this for a long time but only on animils like Angel. We are sure thers no fisical danger for you but there are other things we cant tell untill we try it. I want you to understand this mite fale and then nothing woud happen at all. Or it mite even succeed temperary and leeve you werse off then you are now. Do you understand what that meens. If that happins we will have to send you bak to the equestrean home for mentley chalenged. I said I dint care because I aint afraid of nothing. Im very strong and I always do good and beside I got my luky coin and I never breakd a mirir in my life. I droppd some fernichor once but that dont count for bad luk.
Then Twilite said ditzy even if this fales your making a grate contribyushun to sience. This experimint has been successful on lots of animils but its never bin tride on a pony. You will be the first. I told her thanks doc you wont be sorry for giving me my 2nd chance like Mr Whooves says ill have. And I meen it like I tolld them. After the operashun Im gonna try to be smart. Im gonna try awful hard.

I dont want to make Celeschia angrey

Into the Mind of a Simpler Mare
Story based on Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Edit by me
Mabey I shoudnt of let them oparate on my branes like she sed if its agenst Celeschia.
I dont want to make Celeschia angrey.

Progris riport 6th Mar 8.
Im skared. Lots of ponys who werk at the libary and the ponys at the hospitle came to wish me luk. Spike brot me some flowers he sed they were from the ponys at the psych departmint. He wished me luk. I hope I have luk. I got my lucky coin and my luky three leef clover my horshoe and my luky charms cereal. Twilite sed dont be so superstishus Ditzy. This is sience. I dont no what sience is but they all keep saying it so mabye its something that helps you have good luk. Anyway Im keeping my coin in one hoov and and my cereal in my mouth and my luky clover in my other hand with the hole in it. The clover I meen. My hand dosnt have a hole in it. I had the horshoe on my back hoov to but its hevy so I
mite leeve it in my jaket.
Swifter from the post offise brot me a chokilat cake from Pinky Pie and the folks at the bakery and they hope I get better soon. At the post offise they think Im sick becaus thats what Twilite sed I shoud tell them and nothing about an operashun for getting smart. Thats a secrit until after in case it dont werk or something goes wrong.
Then Mr Whooves came to see me and he brout me some books to reed,
and he lookd kind of nervus and skared. He fixd up the flowres on my tabel
and put evrything nice and neet not messd up like I made it. And he fixd the pilow under my hed. he likes me alot becaus I try very hard to tern smart not like some of the ponys at the mare center who dont reely care. he wants me to get smart. I know.
Then Spike sed I cant have any more visiters becaus I got to rest. I
askd Spike if I coud beet Angel in the race after the operashun and
he sayd mabye. If the operashun werks good I'll show that bunny I can be as
smart as he is even smarter. Then I'll be abel to reed better and spell the
werds good and know lots of things and be like other ponys. Boy that woud
serprise everyone.
If the operashun werks and I get smart mabye I'll be abel
to find my mom and dad and sister and show them. Boy woud they be serprised
to see me smart just like them and my sister.
Twilite says if it werks good and its perminent they will make other ponys like me smart also. Mabye ponys all over equestia. And she sed that meens Im doing somthing grate for sience and I'll be famus and my name will go down in the books. I dont care so much about beeing famus. I just want to be smart like other ponys so I can have lots of frends who like me.
They dint give me anything to eat today. I dont know what eating got to do with geting smart and Im. hungry. Spike took away my choklate cake. That Spike is a growch. Twilite says I can have it back after the operashun and she wont let Spike eat it. You cant eat before a operashun. Not even muffins.

PROGRESS REPORT 7 MARCH 11
The operashun dint hert. Twilite did it while I was sleeping. I dont know
how because I dint see but there was bandiges on my eyes and my head for 3
days so I couldnt make PROGRESS REPORTS till today.
the skinny nerse who wached me riting says I spelld PROGRESS rong and she tolld me how to spell it and REPORT to and MARCH. I got to remembir that. I have a very bad memary for speling. Anyway they took off the bandiges from my eyes today so I can make a PROGRESS REPORT now. But there is still some bandigis on my head.
I was skared when they came in and tolld me it was time to go for the
operashun. They maid me get out of the bed and on another bed that has weels
on it and they rolld me out of the room and down the hall to the door that says sergery. Boy was I serprised that it was a big room with green walls and lots of docters sitting around up high all around the room waching the operashun. I dint no it was going to be like a show.
A mare came up to the tabel all in wite and with a wite cloth on her face
like in TV shows and rubber glovs and she sed rilax Ditzy its me Twilite. I sed hi doc Im skared. she sed theres nothing to be skared about Ditzy. she sed youll just go to sleep. I sed thats what Im skared about. she patted my head and then 2 staleons also waring wite masks came and straped my arms and legs down so I coudnt move them and that maid me very skared and my stomack feeled tite like I was gone to make all over but I only wet a littel and I was gone to cry but they put a rubber thing on my face for me to breeth in and it smelld funny.
All the time I herd Twilite talking out loud about the operashun telling evrybody what she was gonna do. But I dint understand anything about it and I was thinking mabye after the operashun I'll be smart and I'll understand all the things shes talking about. So I breethed deep and then I gess I was very tired becase I went to sleep.
When I waked up I was back in my bed and it was very dark. I coudnt see nothing but I herd somepony talking. It was the nerse and Spike and I sed whats the matter why dont you put on the lites and when are they gonna operate. And they laffed and Spike sed Ditzy its all over. I was scared becos i thought he was saying i died..he sed its dark because you got bandijis over your eyes. Its a funny thing. They did it while I was sleeping.
Spike comes in to see me evry day to rite down all the things like my tempertur and my blud preshur and the other things about me. He says its on acount of the sientific methid. They got to keep reckerds about what happins so they can do it agen when they want to. Not to me but to the other ponys like me who aint smart. Thats why I got to do these progress reports. Spike says its part of the esperimint and they will make fotastats of the reports to study them so they will know what is going on in my mind. I dont see how they will know what is going on in my mind by looking at these reports. I read them over and over a lot of times to see what I rote and I dont no whats going on in my mind so how are they going to. But anyway thats sience and I got to try to be smart like other ponys. Then when I am smart they will talk to me and I can sit with them and listen like Swifter and Stamps and Grumpy do when they talk and have a discushen about importent things.
While their werking they start talking about things like Luna or about the truble with all the mony celeschea is spending or about the ripubliponys and demistaleons. And they get all excited like their gonna have a fite so Stamps got to come in and tell them to get back to sorting or theyll all get canned union or no union. i dont no what that meens but I want to talk about things like that.
If your smart you can have lots of fiends to talk to and you never get lonley by yourself all the time. Twilite says its ok to tell about all the things that happin to me in the progress reports but she says I shoud rite more about what I feel and what I think and remember about the past. I tolld her I dont know how to think or remembir and she sed just try. All the time the bandiges were on my eyes I tryed to think and remembir but nothing happined. I dont know what to think or remembir about. Maybe if I ask her she will tell me how I can think now that Im suppose to get smart. What do smart ponys think about or remembir. Fancy things I bet. I wish I new some fancy things alredy.

March 12–
I dont have to rite PROGRESS REPORT on top evry day just when I start a new batch after Spike takes the old ones away. I just have to put the date on top. That saves time. Its a good idea. I can sit up in bed and look out the window at the gras and trees outside.
The skinney nerses name is ALOE thats how you spell it. she is very good to me. She brings me things to eat and she fixes my bed and she says I was a very brave mare to let them do things to my hed. She says she woud never let them do things to her branes for all the tea in canterlot. I tolld her it wasnt for tea in canterlot. It was to make me smart. ALOE laffed and sed mabey they got no rite to make me smart because if Celechia wantid me to be smart she would have made me born that way. And what about adim and Eev and the sin with the tree of harminy and eating the zapappel. And mabey Twilite and Spike was tampiring with things they got no rite to tampir with. She's very skinney and when she talks her face gets all red. She says mabey I better prey to Celeschia to ask her to forgiv what they done to me so i dont go to the moon. I dint eat no zapappels or do nothing sinful. And now Im skared. I dont want to go to the moon. Mabey I shoudnt of let them oparate on my branes like she sed if its agenst Celeschia. I dont want to make Celeschia angrey.

I wish it woud reely work alredy so I coud get smart like evrypony else

I don't know exactly what happened but the progress reports got a little out of order. I think I fixed them but for now on I can't be doing this when I'm tired.

Into the Mind of a Simpler Mare
Story based on Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Edit by me
I wish I coud tell him and all the other people about my real operashun.
I wish it woud reely work alredy so I coud get smart like evrypony else.

March 13 - They changed my nerse today. This one is pritty. Her name is Lotus Blossom. She showd me how to spell it for my progress report and she got blue hair a pink mane and blew eyes. I askd her where was Aloe and she said Aloe wasnt werking in that part of the hospitil no more. Only in the matirnity ward by the babys where it dont matter if she talks too much.
When I askd her about what was matirnity she said its about having babys but when I askd her how they have them she got red in the face just the same like Aloe and she said she got to take someponies temperchure. Nopony ever tells me about the babys. Mabye if this thing werks and I get smart I'll find out.
Mr Whooves came to see me today and he said Ditzy you look wonderful. I tolld him I feel fine but I dont feel smart yet. He said my eyes looked strayter. They were a little crookd still but he said they look better. I thot that when the operashun was over and they took the bandijis off my eyes Id be smart and no a lot of things so I coud read and talk about importent things like evryepony else. He said thats not the way it werks Ditzy. It comes slowley and you have to werk very hard to get smart. I dint no that.
If I got to werk hard anyway why did I have to have the operashun. He said he wasnt sure but the operashun was to make it so that when I did werk hard to get smart it woud stick with me and not be like it was before when it dint stick so good. Well I tolld him that made me kind of feel bad because I thot I was going to be smart rite away and I coud go back to show everypony at the post office how smart I am and talk with them about things and mabye even get to be a full time malemare. Then I would go to try and find my mom and dad. They woud be serprised to see how smart I got because my mom always wanted me too be smart to.
Mabey they woudnt send me away no more if they see how smart I am. I tolld Mr Whooves I would try hard to be smart as hard as I can. He pattid my hoof and said I no you will. I have fayth in you Ditzy.

March 15 - Im out of the hospitil but not back at werk yet. Nothing is happining. I had lots of tests and differint kinds of races with Angel. I hate that bunny. He always beets me. Twilight says I got to play those games and I got to take those tests over and over agen. Those amazes are stoopid. And those picturs are stoopid to. I like to drawer the picturs of a stalion and mare but I wont make up lies about pepul. And I cant do the puzzels good. I get headakes from trying to think and remembir so much.
Spike promised he was going to help me but he dont. He dont tell me what to think or when I'll get smart. He just makes me lay down on a couch and talk.
Mr. Whooves comes to see me at the library too. I tolld him nothing was happining. I asked him when am I going to get smart. He said you got to be pashent Ditzy. These things take time. It will happin so slowley you wont know its happening. He said Twilight tolld him I was comming along fine. I still think those races and those tests are stoopid and I think riting these progress reports are stoopid to.

March 16 - I ate lunch with Spike at the Shuger Cube Corner. We got all kinds
of good food and I dont have to pay for it neither. I like to sit and wach the smart ponies. They fool around and kiss somtimes but mostly they talk about all kinds of things just like the other malemares do at the post office.
Twilight says its about art and polatics and riligon. I dont know what those things are about but I know riligon is Celeschia. Mom use to tell me all about Celeschia and the things she dose to make Equeschria better. She said I shoud always love Celeschia and prey to her. I dont remembir how to prey to her but I think mom use to make me prey to her a lot when I was a filly and that she shoud make me get better and not be sick. I dont rimember how I was sick. I think it was about me not being smart.
Anyway Spike says if the experimint werks I'll be able to understand all those things the other ponies are talking about and I said do you think I'll be smart like them and she laffed and said those ponies arent so smart youll pass them as if their standing still.
She interduced me to alot of the ponies and some of them like Rareity look at me funny like I dont belong but others like Pinky Pie seem like they need a operashun to. I almost forgot and started to tell them I was going to be very smart soon like them but Spike intiruppted and he tolld them I was cleaning the library later and he explaned to me there cant be any publisity. That meens its a seecrit.
I dont reely understand why I got to keep it a seeerit. Twilight says its in case theirs a faleure she dont want everypony to laff espeshully the ponies from the Weluberg foundashun who gave her the mony for the projekt. I said I dont care if pepul laff at me. Lots of poies laff at me and their my frends and we have fun. She put her hoof on my sholder and said its not you im worryd about. She dont want ponies to laff at her if she gets sent to. She posd for a seconed and said magic kindorgarden.
I dint think ponies would laff at Twilight because shes a sientist in a library. Anyway I hope I get smart soon because I want to lern everything there is in the werld like the other ponies know. All about art and politiks and Celeschia.

March 17 - When I waked up this morning rite away I thot I was gone to be smart but Im not. Evry morning I think Im gone to be smart but nothing happins. Mabye the experimint dint werk. Maby I wont get smart and I'll have to go live at the home. I hate the tests and I hate the amazeds and I hate Angel. I never new before that I was dumber than a bunny. even dumb bunny like Angel.
I dont feel like riting any more progress reports. I forget things and even when I rite them in my notbook sometimes I cant reed my own riting and its very hard. Mr Whooves says have pashents but I feel sick and tired. And I get headakes all the time. I want to go back to werk in the post office and not rite progress reports any more.

March 20 - Im going back to werk at the post office. Twilight told me it was better I shoud go back to werk but I still cant tell anypony what the operashun was for and I have to come to the lab for 2 hrs evry nite after werk for my tests and keep riting these dumb reports.
They are going to pay me evry week like for a part time job because that was part of the arraingment when they got the mony from the Welberg foundashun. I still dont know what that Welberg thing is. Mr Whooves explaned me but I still dont
get it. So if I dint get smart why are they paying me to rite these dumb things. If their gonna pay me I'll do it. But its very hard to rite.
Im glad Im going back to werk because I miss my job at the post office and all my frends and all the fun we have. Twilight says I shoud keep a notbook in my pockit for things I remembir. And I dont have to do the progress reports every day just when I think of somthing or somthing speshul happins. I told her nothing speshul ever happins to me and it dont look like this speshul experitmint is going to happin neither. She says dont get discouriged Ditzy because it takes a long time and it happins slow and you cant notise it rite away.
She explaned how it took a long time with Angel before he got 3 times smarter then he was before. Thats why Angel beats me all the time in that amaze race because he had that operashun too. She siad hes a speshul bunny. the 1st animil to stay smart so long after the operashun.
I dint know he was a speshul bunny. That makes it diffrint. I coud probaly do that amazed faster then a reglar bunny. Maybe some day I'll beat Angel. Boy woud that be somthing. Twilight says that so far Angel looks like he mite be smart permanint and she says thats a good thing becaus we both had the same kind of operashun.

March 21 - We had a lot of fun at the post office today. Swifter said hey look where Derpy had her operashun what did they do Derpy put some brains in. I was going to tell him about me getting smart but I remembered Twilight said no. Then Kick said what did you do Charlie open a door the hard way. I did that this morning so that made me laff.
Their my frends and they really like me. Their is a lot of werk to catch up. They dint have anyone to clean out the place because that was my job so they got a new filly named Scootaloo to do the diliveries that I always done.
Swifter said he decided not to fire her for a while to give me a chanse to rest up and not werk so hard. I told him I was alright and I can make my diliveries and clean up like I always done but Swifter says we will keep the filly. I said so what am I gonna do.
Swifter patted me on the shoulder and said Derpy how old are you. I told him 26 years old going on 27 on my next brithday. And how long you been here he said. I told him I dint know. He said you came here seventeen years ago. Your Uncle Deedle Celeschia rest his sole was my best frend. He brout you in here and he askd me to let you werk here and look after you as best I could. And when he died 2 years later and your mother had you comited to the home I got them to releese you on outside werk placmint.
Seventeen years its been Derpy and I want you to know that the postal bisness is not so good but like I always said you got a job here for the rest of your life. So dont worry about me bringing in somepony to take your place. Youll never have to go back to that home.
I aint worryd only what does he need Scootaloo for to diliver and werk around here when I was always deliviring the packiges good. He says the filly needs the mony Derpy so Im going to keep her on as an aprentise to lern him to be a malemare. You can be her asistent and help him out on diliverys when she needs it. I never was a asistent before. Scootaloo is very smart but the other ponies in the post office dont like her so much.
Their all my good fiends and we have lots of jokes and laffs here. Some times somebody will say hey lookit Kick, or Swifter or even Grumpy. He
really pulled a Derpy Hooves that time. I dont know why they say it but they always lafl and I laff too. This morning Grumpy hes the head sorter and he has a bad hoof and he limps he used my name when he shouted at Scootaloo because
Scootaloo lost a box of purple glasses. He said Scootaloo for Celeschiasake you trying to be a Derpy Hooves. I dont know why he said that. I never lost any packiges.
I askd Swifter if I coud lern to be an aprentise malemare like Scootaloo and then be a full time malemare. I told him I coud lern it if he gave me a chanse. Swifter looked at me for a long time funny because I gess I dont talk so much most of the time. And Kick herd me and he laffed and lafed until Grumpy told him to shut the fuck up and go tend to his letters. Then Swifter said to me theirs lots of time for that Derpy. A malemares werk is very importint and very complikated and you shoudnt worry about things like that. I wish I coud tell him and all the other people about my real operashun. I wish it woud reely work alredy so I coud get smart like evrypony else.
March 24 - Twilight and Spike came to my room tonight to see why I dont
come in to the lab like I am suppose to. I told them I dont want to race
with Angel no more. Twilight said I dont have to for a while
but I shoud come in any way. She brout me a presint only it wasnt a presint
but just for lend. She said its a teeching mashine that werks like TV. It
talks and makes picturs and I got to tern it on just before I go to sleep. I
said your kidding. Why shoud I tern on a TV before I go to sleep. But Twilight said if I want to get smart I got to do what she says. So I told her I dint think I was goin to get smart anyway. Then Twilight came over and put her hoof on my sholder and said Ditzy
you dont know it yet but your getting smarter all the time. You wont notise
it for a while like you dont notise how the hour hoof on a clock moves. Thats
the way it is with the changes in you. They are happining so slow you cant
tell. But we can follow it from the tests and the way you act and talk and
your progress reports.
She said Ditzy youve got to have fayth in us and in
yourself. We cant be sure it will be permanint but we are confidant that soon
your going to be a very intellijent young mare. I said okay and Twilight showed me how to werk the TV that reely wasnt a TV. I askd her what did it do. First she lookd sore again because I asked her to explane it to me and she said I shoud just do what she told me. But Spike said she shoud explane it to me because I was beginning to questien authorety. I dont no what that meens but Twilight looked like she was going to buck his
lip off.
Then she explaned me very slow that the mashine did lots of things to my mind. Somethings it did just before I fall asleep like teach me things when Im very sleepy and a little while after I start to fall asleep I still hear the talk even if I dont see the picturs anymore. Another thing is that at nite its suppose to make me have dreams and remembir things that happened a long time ago when I was a very littel filly. Its scary.
Oh yes I forgot. I asked Twilight when I can go back to Mr Whooves class at the school and she said soon Docter whooves will come to the library testing center to teach me speshul classes. I never new why everypony calls him docter Whooves. Mr Whooves is a teecher not a docter. I havnt seen him so much since the operashun. He is nice but defenetly not a docter.

March 25 - That crazy TV kept me up all nite. How can I sleep with something yelling crazy things all night in my ears. And the nutty picturs. Wow. I dont know what it says when Im up so how am I going to know when Im sleeping. I asked Spike about it and he says its ok. He says my branes are lerning just before I go to sleep and that will help me when Mr Whooves starts my lessons at the library science center. I dont know what sience is exept Im helping it with this experimint.
Anyway I dont know about that TV. I think its crazy. If you can get smart when your going to sleep why do ponies go to school. I dont think that thing will werk. I use to watch Equeschria Nitely News and the Hoity Toity Fashion Show on TV all the time before I went to sleep and it never made me smart. Maybe only certin shows make you smart. Maybe like quizz shows.

March 26 - How am I gonna work in the daytime if that thing keeps waking me up
at nite. In the middel of the nite I woke up and I coudnt go back to sleep
because it kept saying remembir... remembir... remembir... So I think
I remembird something.
I dont remembir exackly but I think it was about Mr. whooves
and the school where I lerned about reading. And how I went their. A long time ago I asked Swifter how he lerned to read and if I coud lern to read to. He laffed like he always dose when I say something funny and he says to me Derpy. Thats what they call me. why waste your time. They cant put any branes in where there aint none. But Stamps herd me and she askd her cusin who is a studint at Ponyvill Public School and she told me about the nite class for challanged mares. She rote the name down on a paper and Kick laffed and said dont go getting so eddicated that you wont talk to your old frends. I said dont worry I will always keep my old frends even if I can read and rite. He was laffing and Swifter was laffing but Grumpy came in and told them to get back to printing stamps. They are all good frends to me.
After work I walked over six blocks to the school and I was scared. I was so happy I was going to lern to read that I bougt a newspaper to take home with me and read after I lerned.
When I got their I saw lots of fillies. I got scared of saying somthing wrong to somepony so I startid to go home. But I dont know why I terned around and went inside agen. I wated until most everypony went away exept some ponies going over by a big clock like the one we have at the post office and I asked the mare if I coud lern to read and rite because I wanted to read all the things in the newspaper and I showed it to her. She was Cheerily but I dint know it then.
She said if you come back tomorow and rejister Dr. Whooves will start to teach you how to read. But you got to understand it will take a long time maybe years to lern to read. I told her I dint know it took so long but I wantid to lern anyway because I made believe a lot of times. I meen I pretend to know how to read but it aint true and I wantid to lern. She told somthing to a Stalion across the room and he shaked my hand and said glad to meet you Ditzy. I will be your teacher. My name is Dr. Whooves.
So thats wear I went to lern and thats how I met Mr. Whooves. Thinking and remembiring is hard and now I dont sleep so good any more. That TV is too loud.

March 27 - Now that Im starting to have those dreams and remembiring Twilight
says I got to go to theripy sesions with Spike. She says theripy sesions
is like when you feel bad you talk to make it better. I tolld her I dont feel
bad and I do plenty of talking all day so why do I have to go to theripy but
she got sore and says I got to go anyway. What theripy is is that I got to lay down on a couch and Spike sits in a chair near me and I talk about anything that comes into my head. Only Spike was wareing a funny hat and smoking a pipe with bubbles. I like bubbles. For a long time I dint say nothing because I coudnt think of nothing to say.
Then I told him about the post office and the things they do there. But its silly for me to go to his office and lay down on the couch to talk because I rite it down in the
progress reports anyway and he could read it. So today I brout the progress reports with me and I told him maybe he could just read them and I could take a nap on the couch. I was very tired because that TV kept me up all nite but he said no it dont work that way. I got to talk. So I talked but then I fell off the couch and went to sleep.

March 28 - I got a headake. Its not from that TV this time. Twilight showed me how to keep the TV turned low so now I can sleep. I dont hear a thing. And I still dont understand what it says. A few times I play it over in the morning to find out what I lerned before I fell asleep and while I was sleeping and I dont even know the words. Maybe its another langwidge or something. But most times it sounds Equeschrian. But it talks too fast.
I askd Twilight what good is it to get smart in my sleep if I want to be smart when Im awake. She says its the same thing and I have two minds. Theres the SUBCONSCIOUS and the CONSCIOUS (thats how you spell it) and one dont tell the other what its doing. They dont even talk to each other. Thats why I dream. And boy have I been having crazy dreams.
I forgot to ask Dr Strauss if it was only me or if everypony has two minds like that. I just looked up the word in the dicshunery Twilight gave me:

SUBCONSCIOUS. adj. Of the nature of mental operations yet not present in
consciousness; as, subconscious conflict of desires.) Theres more but I still
dont know what it meens. This isnt a very good dicshunery for dumb ponies
like me.

Anyway I think the the headake is from the party. Kick and Swifter invited me to go with them after work to Dj Ponies Club for some drinks. I dont like to drink alcihall but they said we will have a good time.
We played games like me doing a dance on the the bar with a lampshade on my head and everypony laffing. Then Swifter said I shoud show the mares how I mop out the toilet in the post office and he got me a mop. I showed them and everypony laffed when I told them that Stamps said I was the best janiter and mailmare she ever seen because I like my job and do it good and never come late or miss a day exept for my operashun.
I said Mr. Whooves always told me Ditzy be proud of the work you do because you do your job good. Everypony laffed and Swifter said that Mr. Whooves must be some cracked up piece of shit if he goes for Derpy. That didnt sound like a nice thing to say. Stamps said hey Derpy are you making out with that peice of flank. I said I dint know what that meens. She said she would do something to him but it was loud in there. Stamps seems to always talk about stalions for some reason.
They gave me lots of drinks and Kick said Derpy is hillaryus when shes drunk. I think that means they like me.
We have some good times but I cant wait to be smart with my best frends like Stamps and Kick. I dont remember how the party ended but I think they asked me to go around the corner to see if it was raining and when I came back there was nopony their. Maybe they went to find me. I looked for them all over till it was late. But I got lost and I felt bad at myself for getting lost because I bet Angel coud go up and down those streets a hundrid times and not get lost like I did.
Then I dont remember so good but Swifter says a nice poleesmare brought me
back home. That same nite I dreamed about my mother and father only I coudnt see her
face it was all wite and she was blurry. I was crying because we were in a big departmint store and I was losst and I coudnt find them and I flew up and down the rows and crashed into one of the big cownters in the store. Then a Stalion came and took me in a big room with benches and gave me a lolypop and tolld me a big filly like me shoudnt cry because my mother and father woud come to find me.
Anyway thats the dream and I got a headake and a big lump on my head and black and blue marks all over. Swifter says mabye the cop did it. I dont think poleesmares do things like that. But anyway I dont think I'll drink anymore exep for water.

That makes me feel bad because I would never of hurt the baby

Into the Mind of a Simpler Mare
Story based on Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Edit by me
That makes me feel bad because I would never of hurt the baby.

March 29 - I beet Angel. I dint even know I beet him until Spike told me. Then the second time I lost because I got so exited. But after that I beet him 8 more times.
I must be getting smart to beat a smart bunny like Angel. But I dont feel smarter. I wanted to race some more but Spike said thats enough for one day.
Fluttershy let me hold Angel for a minit. Angel is a nice bunny. Soft like cotton. He blinks and when he opens his eyes their black and pink on the egos. I asked can I feed him because I felt bad to beat him and I wanted to be nice but every time he goes in to eat so he has to lem something new to get his food. That made me sad because if he coudnt lern he woudnt be able to eat and he would be hungry. I dont think its right to make you pass a test to eat.
How woud Spike like to have to pass a test every time he wants to eat. I think I'll be frends with Angel.
That reminds me. Twilight says I shoud write down all my dreams and the things I think so when I come to the library I can tell her. I tolld her I dont know how to think yet but she says she means more things like what I wrote about my mom and dad and about when I started Mr. Whooves class or anything that happened before the operation. She said that is thinking.
I didnt know I was thinking and remembering. Maybe that means something is happining to me. I dont feel different but I'm so exited I cant sleep. Twilight gave me some pink pills to make me sleep good. She says I got to get lots of sleep because thats when most of the changes happin in my brane. It must be true because Uncle Deedle use to sleep in our house all the time when he was out of werk on the old sofa in the parler.
He was fat and it was hard for him to get a job because he use to paint ponies houses and he got very slow going up and down the ladder. When I once tolld my mom I wantid to be a painter like Uncle Deedle my sister Dinky said yeah Derpies going to be the artist of the family. And dad slappd her face and tolld her not to be so goddam nasty to her sister. I dont no what a artist is but if Dinky got slappd for saying it I gess its not a nice thing. I always feeled bad when Dinky got slappd for being meen to me. When I get smart I'll go visit her.

March 30 - Tonite after werk Mr. Whooves came to the teeching room near the labatory. He looked glad to see me but nervus. He looks yunger then I remembired him. I tolld him I was trying very hard to be smart. He said I have confidense in you Ditzy the way you strugled so much to reed and rite better then all the others. I know you can do it. At werst you will have it all for a little wile and your doing somthing for other retarded ponies.
We startid to reed a very hard book. I never red such a hard book before. Its called Daring Doo and the Lost Island. It’s about a mare who gets merooned on a dessert island. She's smart and figgers out all kinds of things so she can have a house and food and shes a good swimmer. Only I feel sorry for her because shes all alone and she has no frends. But I think their must be somepony else on the island because theres a picture of her with her funny umbrela looking at hoofprints. I hope she gets a frend and not be so lonely.

March 31 – Mr. Whooves teeches me how to spel better. He says look at a werd and close your eyes and say it over and over again until you remember. I have lots of truble with through that you say THREW and enough and tough that you dont say ENEw and TEW. You got to say SNUFF and TUFF. Thats how I use to rite it before I started to get smart. Im mixd up but Mr. Whooves says dont worry spelling is not suppose to make sence.

PROGRESS REPORT 9
April 1 - Everpony at the post office came to see me today where I started my new job working by the electrick sorter. It happined like this. Olive Garden who works on the sorter quit yesterday. I used to help him out before bringing the packages over for him to put in the sorter. Anyway I dint know that I knew how to work the sorter. Its very hard and Olive Garden went to sorting school for one year before he could learn how to be a profesianal sorter.
But Kick hes my friend he said Derpy why dont you take over Olives job. Everypony on the floor came around and they were all laughing and Swifter said yes Derpy you been here long enough. Go ahead. Grumpy aint around and he wont know you tryed it. I was scared because Grumpy is the head supervisor and he told me never to go near the sorter because I would get hurt.
Everypony said do it exept Stamps who said stop it why dont you leave the poor mare alone. Swifter said shut up Stamps its April foals day and if Derpy works on the mixer she might fix it good so we will all have the day off. I said I coudnt fix the mashine but I could work it because I been watching Olive Garden ever since I got back. I worked the electrick sorter and everypony was surprised espeshully Swifter. Stamps got exited because she said it took Olive Garden 2 years to learn how to sort the packages right and he went to sorters school. Kick who helps on the mashine said I did it faster then Olive did and better. Nopony laffed.
When Grumpy came back and Stamps told him he got sore at me for working on the sorter. But Stamps said watch her and see how she does it. They were playing her for an April Foals joke and she foald them instead. Grumpy watched and I knew he was sore at me because he dont like when ponies dont do what he tells them just like Twilight. But he saw how I worked the mixer and he skratched his head and said I see it but I dont believe it.
I was scared he was going to be angry and holler at me so after I was finished I said can I go back to my own job now. I got to sweep out the front of the post office. Grumpy looked at me funny for a long time. Then he said this must be some kind of April foals joke you ponys are playing on me. Whats the catch. He limped all around the mashine and he said to I dont understand it but Derpy knows how to handle it and I got to admit it she does a better job then Olive.
Everypony was crowded around and talking about it and I got scared because they all looked at me funny and they were exited. Kick said I told you there is something peculier lately about Derpy. And Swifter says yeah I know what you mean. Grumpy then sent everypony back to work and he took me out to the front of the bulding with him.
He said Derpy I dont know how you done it but it looks like you finally learned something. I want you to be carefull and do the best you can do. You got yourself a new job with a 5 bit raise. I said I dont want a new job because I like to clean up and sweep and deliver and do things for my friends but Grumpy said never mind your friends I need you for this job. I dont think much of a mare who dont want to advance. I said whats advance mean. He scratched his head and looked at me over his glasses. Never mind that Derpy. From now on you work that sorter. Thats advance.
So now instead of delivering packiges and washing out the toilets and dumping the garbage. Im the new sorter. Thats advance.
Tomorrow I will tell Mr. Whooves. I think he will be happy but I dont know why Kick and Swifter are mad at me. I asked Stamps and she said never mind those foals. This is April Foals day and the joke backfired and made them the foals instead of you. I asked Swifter to tell me what was the joke that backfired and he said go jump in the lake. I guess their mad at me because I worked the mashine but they didnt get the day off like they thought. Does that mean Im getting smarter.

April 3 – Finished the last Daring Doo book. I want to find out more about what happens to her but Mr. Whooves says thats all there is.

April 4 – Mr. Whooves says Im learning fast. He read some of my progress reports and he looked at me kind of funny. He says Im a fine pony and I'll show them all. I asked him why. He said never mind but I shouldnt feel bad if I find out that everypony isnt nice like I think.
He said for a pony who Celeschia gave so little to you did more than a lot of ponys with brains they never even used. I said that all my friends are smart ponies and their good. They like me and they never did anything that wasnt nice. Then he got
something in his eye and she had to run out to the stalions room.
While I was sitting in the teaching room waiting for him I was wondering about how Mr. Whooves was a nice Stallion like my mother use to be though my mom wasnt a stalion.
I think I remember my mother told me to be good and always be friendly to ponies. She said but always be careful because some ponies dont understand and they might think you are trying to make trouble.
That makes me remember when mom had to go away and they put me to stay with the Apples who lived next door. Mom went to the hospital. Dad said she wasnt sick or nothing but she went to the hospital to bring me back a baby sister or a brother. (I still dont know how they do that) I told them I want a baby brother to play with and I dont know why they got me a sister instead but she was nice like a doll. Only she cryd all the time. I never hurt her or nothing.
They put her in a crib in their room and once I heard Dad say dont worry Ditzy wouldnt harm her. She was like a bundle all pink and screaming so loud sometimes that I couldnt sleep. And when I went to sleep she woke me up in the nighttime. One time when they were in the kitchen and I was in my bed she was crying. I got up to pick her up and hold her to get quiet the way mom does. But then Mom came in yelling and took her away. And she slapped me so hard I fell on the bed. Then she startid screaming. Dont you ever touch her again. Youll hurt her. She's a baby. You got no business touching her. I dint know it then but I guess I know it now that she thought I was going to hurt the baby because I was too dumb to know what I was doing. Now that makes me feel bad because I would never of hurt the baby.

It's confusing, but I'm going to find out all about my life

Into the Mind of a Simpler Mare
Story based on Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Edit by me
It's confusing, but I'm going to find out all about my life

April 6 - Today, I learned, the comma, this is, a, comma (,) a period, with, a tail, Mr. Whooves, says its, importent, because, it makes writing, better, he said, somepony, could lose, a lot, of money, if a comma, isnt in, the right, place, I got, some money, that I, saved from, my job, and what, the foundation, pays me, but not, much and, I dont, see how, a comma, keeps, you from, losing it, But, he says, everypony, uses commas, so I'll, use them, too.

April 7 - I used the comma wrong. Its punctuation. Mr. Whooves told me to look up long words in the dictionary to learn to spell them. I said whats the difference if you can read it anyway. He said its part of your education so from now on I need to look up all the words Im not sure how to spell.
It takes a long time to write that way but I think Im remembering more and more. Anyway thats how come I got the word punctuation right. Its that way in the dictionary. Mr. Whooves says a period is punctuation too, and there are lots of other marks to learn. I told him I thought he meant all the periods had to have tails and be called commas. But he said no.
He said; You, got. to-mix?them!up: he showd? me" how, to mix! them; up, and now! I can. mix (up all? kinds of punctuation- in, my. writing! There" are lots, of rules; to learn? but. Im' get'ting them in my head: One thing? I, like: about, Dear Mr. Whooves: (thats~ the way? it goes; in a business, letter (if I ever go! into business?) is that, he: always; gives me' a reason" when-I ask. He"s a genius! I wish? I cou'd be smartlike-him; Punctuation, is? fun!

April 8 - What a derp I am! I didn't even understand what he was talking about. I read the grammar book last night and it explains the whole thing. Then I saw it was the same way as Mr. Whooves was trying to tell me, but I didn't get it. I got up in the middle of the night and the whole thing straightened out in my mind.
Mr. Whooves said that the TV is working, just before I fell asleep and during the night, helped out. He said I reached a plateau. That's like the flat top of a hill. After I figured out how punctuation worked, I read over all my old progress reports from the beginning. Boy, did I have crazy spelling and punctuation! I told Mr. Whooves I ought to go over the pages and fix all the mistakes, but he said, "No, Ditzy, Twilight wants them just as they are. That's why she lets you keep them after they're photostated-to see your own progress. You're coming along fast, Ditzy." That made me feel good. After the lesson I went down and played with Angel. We don't race any more.

April 10 - I feel sick. Not like for a doctor, but inside my chest it feels empty, like getting punched and a heartburn at the same time. I wasn't going to write about it, but I guess I got to, because it's important. Today was the first day I ever stayed home from work on purpose.
Last night Kick and Swifter invited me to a party. There were lots of Stalions and Grumpy was there. I remembered how sick I got last time I drank too much, so I told Swifter I didn't want to drink anything. He gave me a plain Pona-Cola instead. It tasted funny, but I thought it was just a bad taste in my mouth.
We had a lot of fun for a while. "Dance with Doughnut Joe," Kick said. "He’ll teach you the steps." Then he winked at him like he had something in his eye. He said, "Why don't you leave her alone?" Kick slapped me on the back. "This is Derpy Hooves, she’s my buddy, my pal. She's no ordinary mare-he's been promoted to working on the sorting machine. All I did was ask you to dance with her and give her a good time. What's wrong with that?" He pushed me up close against him. So he danced with me.
I fell three times and I couldn't understand why because no one else was dancing besides Joe and me. And all the time I was tripping because somepony's hoof was always sticking out. They were all around in a circle watching and laughing at the way we were doing the steps. They laughed harder every time I fell, and I was laughing too because I thought it was funny. But the last time it happened I didn't laugh. I picked myself up and Kick pushed me down again.
Then I saw the look on Kick's face and it gave me a funny feeling in my stomach. "She's a scream," one of the mares said. Everypony was laughing. "Oh, you were right, Kick," choked Joe. "She's a one mare side show." Then Swifter said, "Here, Derpy, have a fruit." he gave me an apple, but when I bit into it, it was fake. Then Swifter started laughing and he said, "I told ya she'd eat it. C'mon you imagine anypony dumb enough to eat wax fruit?" Doughnut Joe said, "I ain't laughed so much since we sent her around the corner to see if it was raining that night we ditched her at Vinyl's."
Then I remembered in my mind when I was a filly and the other fillies in the block let me play with them, hide-and-go-seek and I was looking for them. After I counted up to two fifteen times on my hooves I went to look for the others. I kept looking until it got cold and dark and I had to go home. But I never found them and I never knew why.
What Swifter said reminded me. That was the same thing that happened at Vinyl's. And that was what Kick and the rest of them were doing. Laughing at me. And the fillies playing hide-and-go-seek were playing tricks on me and they were laughing at me too.
The ponies at the party were a bunch of blurred faces all looking down and laughing at me. "Look at her! Her face is red." "She's blushing. Derpy's blushing." "Hey, Joe, what'd you do to Derpy? I never saw her act like this before." "Boy, Joe sure got her worked up." I didn't know what to do or where to turn. Him rubbing up against me made me feel funny. Everypony was laughing at me and all of a sudden I felt naked. Even more naked than usual.
I wanted to hide myself so they wouldn't see. I ran out of the apartment. It was a large apartment house with lots of halls and I couldn't find my way to the staircase. I forgot all about the elevator. Then, after, I found the stairs and ran out into the street and walked for a long time before I went to my room. I never knew before that Swifter and Kick and the others liked to have me around just to make fun of me. Now I know what they mean when they say "to pull a Derpy Hooves." I'm ashamed. And another thing. I dreamed about that Stallion Joe dancing and rubbing up against me and when I felt funny.

April 13 - Still didn't go back to work at the post office. I told Mr. Rich, my landlord, to call and tell Grumpy I'm sick. Mr. Rich looks at me lately like he's scared of me. I think it's a good thing about finding out how everypony laughs at me.
I thought about it a lot. It's because I'm so dumb and I don't even know when I'm doing something dumb. Ponies think it's funny when a dumb pony can't do things the same way they can.
Anyway, now I know I'm getting a little smarter every day. I know punctuation, and I can spell good. I like to look up all the hard words in the dictionary and I remember them. And I try to write these progress reports very careful but that's hard to do. I am reading a lot now, and Mr. Whooves says I read very fast. And I even understand a lot of the things I'm reading about, and they stay in my mind. There are times when I can close my eyes and think of a page and it all comes back like a picture. But other things come into my head too. Sometimes I close my eyes and I see a clear picture.
Like this morning just after I woke up, I was laying in bed with my eyes open. It was like a big hole opened up in the walls of my mind and I can just walk through. I think its far back... a long time ago when I first started working at the post office. I see the street where the building is. Fuzzy at first and then it gets patchy with some things so real they are right here now in front of me, and other things stay blurred, and I'm not sure... A little old earth pony with a baby carriage made into a pushcart with a charcoal burner, and the smell of roasting chestnuts, and snow on the ground. A young pegasis, skinny and wall eyed and a scared look on her face looking up at the sign. What does it say? Blurred letters in a way that don't make sense. I know now that the sign says Ponyville Local Post Office, but looking back in my memory at the sign I can't read the words through her eyes. None of the signs make sense. I think that the mare with the scared look on her face is me.
Bright neon lights. Hearth’s Warming trees and sidewalk peddlers. Ponies bundled in coats with collars up and scarves around their necks. But she has no gloves. Her hooves are cold and she puts down a heavy bundle of brown paper bags. She's stopping to watch the little mechanical toys that the peddler winds up the tumbling bear, the dog jumping, the seal spinning a ball on its nose. Tumbling, jumping, spinning. If she had all those toys for herself she would be the happiest pony in Equestria.
She wants to ask the red-faced peddler, with his Hooves sticking through the brown cotton gloves, if she can hold the tumbling bear for a minute, but she is afraid. He picks up the bundle of paper bags and puts it on her shoulder. She is skinny but she is strong from many years of hard work.
"Derpy! Derpy!... wall eyed Derpy!" Fillies circle around her laughing and teasing her like little dogs snapping at her hooves. Derpy smiles at them. She would like to put down her bundle and play games with them, but when she thinks about it the skin on her back twitches and she feels the way the older fillies throw things at her. Coming back to the post office she sees some young unicorns standing in the door of a dark hallway.
"Hey look, there's Derpy!" "Hey, Derpy. What you got there?" "C'mere. We won't hurtya." But there is something about the doorway-the dark hall, the laughing, that makes her skin twitch again. She tries to know what it is but all she can remember is their dirt and spit all over her mane, and Uncle Deedle shouting when she came home all covered with filth, and how Uncle Deedle ran out with a hammer in his hand to find the fillies who did that to her.
Ditzy backs away from the fillies laughing in the hallway, drops the bundle. Picks it up again and runs the rest of the way to the post office. "What took you so long, Derpy?" shouts Grumpy from the doorway to the back of the building. Ditzy pushes through the swinging doors to the back and sets down the bundle on one of the counters. She wishes she had her lucky coin with her.
She likes it back here in the post office where the floors are full of piles of crates. The thick soles of her own hooves are crusted with snow. She relaxes here - squatting against the wall leaning back in a way that tilts her baseball cap with the D forward over her eyes. She likes the smell of bubble wrap, cardboard, and stamps. The sorter is whirling and makes her sleepy. Sweet... warm... sleep... Suddenly, falling, twisting, head hitting against the wall. Somepony has kicked her legs out from under her. That's all I can remember.
I can see it all clearly, but I don't know why it happened. It's like when I used to go to the movies. The first time I never understood because they went too fast but after I saw the picture three or four times I used to understand what they were saying. I've got to ask Twilight about it.

April 14 - Twilight says the important thing is to keep recalling memories like the one I had yesterday and to write them down. Then when I come into the library we can talk about them. When I went to her room this morning, she told me about how important it is for me to learn about myself so that I can understand my problems. I said I didn't have any problems. She laughed and then she got up and went to the window. "The more intelligent you become the more problems you'll have, Ditzy. Your intellectual growth is going to outstrip your emotional growth. And I think you'll find that as you progress, there will be many things you'll want to talk to me about. I just want you to remember that this is the place for you to come when you need help."
I still don't know what it's all about, but she said even if I don't understand my dreams or memories or why I have them, sometime in the future they're all going to connect up, and I'll learn more about myself. She said the important thing is to find out what those ponies in my memories are saying. It's all about me when I was a filly and I've got to remember what happened. I never knew about these things before.
It's like if I get intelligent enough I'll understand all the words in my mind, and I'll know about those fillies standing in the hallway, and about my Uncle Deedle and my parents. But what she means is then I'm going to feel bad about it all and I might get sick in my mind. So I've got to come to the library twice a week now to talk about the things that bother me. We just sit there, and I talk, and Twilight listens. It's called therapy, and that means talking about things will make me feel better.
I told her one of the things that bothers me is about Stallions. Like dancing with Joe got me all excited. So we talked about it and I got a funny feeling while I was talking, cold and sweaty, and a buzzing inside my head and I thought I was going to throw up. Maybe because I always thought it was dirty and bad to talk about that. But Twilight said what happened to me after the party was normal, and it's a natural thing that happens to mares.
It's confusing, but I'm going to find out all about my life.

We all love Harry

It's really just a coincidence that the name of a boy in this chapter became Harry (see username). You see, in the original, his name was Harriet and he was a girl. It doesn't seem necessary to make this an ultra lezbo Derpy/some(pony) else thing. So I didn't name a pony after myself. I just named it after its name. Now here's the next chapter!

Into the Mind of a Simpler Mare
Story based on Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Edit by me
We all love Harry

April 15 - I'm reading a lot these days and almost everything is staying in my mind. Besides history and geography and arithmetic, Dr. Whooves says I should start learning foreign languages.
Twilight gave me some more tapes to play while I sleep. I still don't know how the conscious and unconscious mind works, but Twilight says not to worry yet. She made me promise that when I start learning college subjects in a couple of weeks I won't read any books on psychology-that is, until she gives me permission. She says it will confuse me and make me think about psychological theories instead of about my own ideas and feelings. But it's okay to read novels.
This week I read The Great Gatsby, An Equestrian Tragedy, and Look Homeward, Angel. I never knew about mares and stallions doing things like that.

April 16 - I feel a lot better today, but I'm still angry that all the time everypony was laughing and making fun of me. When I become intelligent the way Twilight says, with much more than twice my IQ of 70, then maybe everypony will like me and be my friend.
I'm not sure what IQ is anyway. Twilight said it was something that measured how intelligent you were-like how the scale at Applejack’s market booth weighs in pounds.
But Spike had a big argument with her and said an IQ didn't weigh intelligence at all. He said an IQ showed how much intelligence you could get, like the numbers on the outside of a measuring cup. You still had to fill the cup up with stuff.
When I asked Fluttershy, who tests and works with Angel, I think she said that some people would say both of them were wrong and according to the things she's been reading up on, the IQ measures a lot of different things including some of the things you learned already and it really isn't a good measure of intelligence at all.
So I still don't know what IQ is, and everypony says it's something different. Mine is about a hundred now, and it's going to be over a hundred and fifty soon, but they'll still have to fill me up with the stuff. I didn't want to say anything, but I don't see how if they don't know what it is, or where it is - how they know how much of it you've got.
Twilight says I have to take a Rorschach Test the day after tomorrow. I wonder what that is.

April 17 - I had a nightmare last night, and this morning, after I woke up, I free associated the way Twilight told me to do when I remember my dreams. They said free association is like thinking for yourself but I still don’t get it.
I thought about the dream and just let my mind wander until other thoughts come up in my mind. I keep on doing that until my mind goes blank. Twilight says that it means I've reached a point where my subconscious is trying to block my conscious from remembering. It's a wall between the present and the past. Sometimes the wall stays up and sometimes it breaks down and I can remember what's behind it.
Like this morning. The dream was about Dr. Whooves reading my progress reports. In the dream I sit down to write but I can't write or read any more. It's all gone. I get frightened so I ask Grumpy to write for me. But when Dr. Whooves reads the report he gets angry and tears the pages up because they've got bad words in them. When I get home Twilight and Spike are waiting for me and they give me a beating for writing dirty things in the progress report. When they leave me I pick up the torn pages but they turn into a lace Hearts and Hooves Day card with blood all over it. It was a horrible dream but I got out of bed and wrote it all down and then I started to free associate.
Post office... delivering... the... uh... somepony kicking me... fall down... bloody all over... writing... big pencil on a red card... a little gold heart... a locket... a chain... all covered with blood... and he's laughing at me... The chain is from a locket... spinning around ..flashing the sunlight into my eyes. And I like to watch it spin... watch the chain... all bunched up and twisting and spinning... and a little boy is watching me. His name is Dr. Who- I mean Harry. "Harry... Harry... we all love Harry."
And then there's nothing. It's blank again. Dr. Whooves reading my progress reports over my shoulder. Then we're at the Home for the Retarded, and he's reading over my shoulder as I write my compositions. School changes into P.S. 13 and I'm eleven years old and Dr. Whooves is eleven years old too, but now he's not Dr. Whooves. He's a little boy with blue eyes and scraggled hair and his name is Harry. We all love Harry.
It's Hearts and Hooves Day. I remember... I remember what happened at P.S. 13 and why they had to change my school and send me to P.S. 222. It was because of Harry. I see Ditzy-eleven years old. She has a little gold color locket she once found in the street. There's no chain, but she has it on a string, and she likes to twirl the locket so that it bunches up the string, and then watch it unwind, spinning around with the sun flicking into her eyes.
Sometimes when the other fillies play catch they let her play in the middle and she tries to get the ball before one of them catches it. She likes to be in the middle - even if she never catches the ball - and once when Rhyme Note dropped the ball by mistake and she picked it up they wouldn't let her throw it but she had to go in the middle again. When Harry passes by, the girls stop playing and look at him. All the girls love Harry.
Derpy doesn't know why they make such a fuss about a boy and why they always want to talk to him (she'd rather play ball or kick-the-can, or play in mud than talk to a boy) but all the girls are in love with Harry so she is in love with him too. He never teases her like the other fillies, and she does tricks for him.
She walks on the desks when the teacher isn't there. She throws erasers out the window, scribbles all over the blackboard and walls. And Harry always screeches and laughs, "Oh, lookit Derpy. Isn't she funny? Oh, isn't she silly?" It's Hearts and Hooves Day, and the girls are talking about cards they're going to give Harry, so Ditzy says, "I'm gonna give Harry a card too." They laugh and Platinum Spoon says, "Where are you going to get a valentine?" "I'm gonna get him a pretty one. You'll see." But Ditzy doesn't have any money for a card, so she decides to give Harry her locket that is heart-shaped like the jewelry in the store windows.
That night she takes tissue paper from her mother's drawer, and it takes a long time to wrap and tie it with a piece of red ribbon. Then Ditzy takes it to Rhyme Note the next day during lunch period in school and asks Rhyme to write on the paper for her.
She tells Rhyme to write: "Dear Harry, I think you are the most handsomest boy in all Equestria. I like you very much and I love you. I want you to be my very special somepony. Your friend, Ditzy Hooves." Rhyme prints very carefully in large letters on the paper, laughing all the time, and she tells Ditzy, "Boy, this will knock his eyes out. Wait'll he sees this."
Ditzy is scared, but she wants to give Harry that locket, so she follows him home from school and waits until he goes into his house. Then Ditzy sneaks up to the house and hangs the package on the doorknob. She rings the bell twice and runs across the street to hide behind the tree. When Harry comes down he looks around to see who rang the bell. Then he sees the package. He takes it and goes upstairs.
Ditzy goes home from school and she gets a spanking because she took the tissue paper and ribbon out of her mother's drawer without telling her. But she doesn't care. Tomorrow Harry will wear the locket and tell all the girls Ditzy gave it to him. Then they'll see. The next day Ditzy runs all the way to school, but it's too early. Harry isn't there yet, and she's excited. But when Harry comes in he doesn't even look at her. He isn't wearing the locket. And he looks sore.
Ditzy does all kinds of things when Mrs. Happily isn't watching: She makes funny faces. She laughs out loud. She stands up on her seat and scrunches her nose. She even throws a piece of chalk at Bon Bon. But Harry doesn't look at her even once.
Maybe he forgot. Maybe he'll wear it tomorrow. She passes by him in the hallway, but when she comes over to ask him he pushes past her without saying a word.
Down in the schoolyard his two big brothers are waiting for Ditzy. Gus pushes her. "You little bitch, did you write this dirty note to my brother?" Ditzy says she didn't write any dirty notes. "I just gave him a Hearts and Hooves card." Dollarback who was on the football team before he graduated from high school grabs Ditzy's mane and pulls out some hair. "You keep away from my brother, you degenerate. You don't belong in this school anyway." He pushes Ditzy over to Gus who catches her by the throat. Ditzy is scared and starts to cry. Then they start to hurt her. Dollarback punches her in the nose, and Gus knocks her on the ground and kicks her in the side and then both of them kick her, one and then the other.
Some of the other kids in the yard, Ditzy's friends -- come running screaming and stomping their hooves: "Fight! Fight! They're beating up Derpy" Her mane is torn and her nose is bleeding and one of her teeth is broken, and after Gus and Dollarback go away she sits on the sidewalk and cries. The blood tastes sour. The other kids just laugh and shout: "Derpy got a beating! Derpy got a beating!"
And then Daisy Bloom, one of the caretakers from the school, comes and chases them away. She takes Ditzy into the girls' room and tells her to wash off the blood and dirt from her face and hands before she goes back home... I guess I was pretty dumb because I believed what people told me. I shouldn't have trusted Rhyme or anypony.
I never remembered any of this before today, but it came back to me after I thought about the dream. It has something to do with the feeling about Dr. Whooves reading my progress reports. Anyway, I'm glad now I don't have to ask anypony to write things for me. Now I can do it for myself. But I just realized something. Harry never gave me back my locket.

April 18 - I found out what a Rorschach is. It's the test with the inkblots, the one I took before the operation. As soon as I saw what it was, I got frightened. I knew Spike was going to ask me to find the pictures, and I knew I wouldn't be able to. I was thinking, if only there was some way of knowing what kind of pictures were hidden there. Maybe there weren't any pictures at all. Maybe it was just a trick to see if I was dumb enough to look for something that wasn't there. Just thinking about it made me sore at him.
"Ok, Ditzy," he said, "you've seen these cards before, remember?" "Of course, I remember." The way I said it, he knew I was angry, and he looked up at me surprised.
"Anything wrong, Ditzy?" "No, nothing's wrong. Those inkblots just upset me." He smiled and shook his head. "It’s fine Ditzy. This is just one of the standard personality tests. Now I want you to look at this card. What might this be? What do you see on this card? People see all sorts of things in these inkblots. Tell me what it might be for you-what it makes you think of."
I was shocked. I stared at the card and then at him. That wasn't what I had expected him to say at all. "You mean there are no pictures hidden in those inkblots?" Spike looked confused and took off his unnecessary glasses. "What?" "Pictures! Hidden in the inkblots! Last time you told me that everypony could see them and you wanted me to find them too." "Ditzy, I didn’t say that." "What do you mean?" I shouted at him.
Being so afraid of the inkblots had made me angry at myself and at Spike too. "That's what you said to me. Just because you're smart enough to go to have a fake psychology degree doesn't mean you have to make fun of me. I'm sick and tired of everypony laughing at me." I don't recall ever being so angry before.
I don't think I was angry at Spike himself, but suddenly everything exploded. I tossed the Rorschach cards on the table and walked out. Twilight was passing by, and when I rushed past her without saying hello she knew something was wrong. She and Spike caught up with me as I was about to leave the library. "Ditzy," said Twilight, grabbing my wing. "Wait a minute. What is this all about?"
I shook free and looked at Spike. "I'm sick and tired of everypony making fun of me. That's all. Maybe before I didn't know any better, but now I do, and I don't like it." "Nopony's making fun of you here, Ditzy," said Twilight. "What about the inkblots? Last time Spike told me there were pictures in the ink-that everypony could see, and I-"
"Look, Ditzy, would you like to hear the exact words Spike said to you, and your answers as well? We have a tape-recording of that testing session. We can replay it and let you hear exactly what was said. "I went back with them to the library with mixed feelings. I was sure they had made fun of me and tricked me when I was too ignorant to know better.
My anger was an exciting feeling, and I didn't give it up easily. I was ready to fight. As Twilight went to the files to get the tape, Spike explained: "I’m pretty sure I used the exact words I used today” and recited a poster I saw on a bookshelf. “It's a requirement of these tests that the procedure be the same each time it's administered."
"I'll believe that when I hear it" A look passed between them. I felt the blood rush to my face again. They were laughing at me. But then I realized what I had just said, and hearing myself I understood the reason for the look.
They weren't laughing. They knew what was happening to me. I had reached a new level, and anger and suspicion were my first reactions to the world around me. Spike's voice boomed over the tape recorder:
"Now I want you to look at this card, Ditzy. What might this be? What do you see on this card? Ponies see all kinds of things in these inkblots. Tell me what it makes you think of..." The same words, almost the same tone of voice he had used minutes ago in the lab.
And then I heard my answers-childish, impossible things. And I dropped limply into the chair beside Twilight’s desk. "Was that really me?"
I went back to the lab with Spike, and we went on with the Rorschach. We went through the cards slowly. This time my responses were different. I "saw" things in the inkblots. A pair of bats tugging at each other. Two men fencing with swords. I imagined all sorts of things. But even so, I found myself not trusting Spike completely any more. I kept turning the cards around, checking the backs to see if there was anything there I was supposed to catch.
I peeked, while he was making his notes. But it was all in code that looked like this:

WF + A DdF-Ad orig. WF-A SF + obj

The test still doesn't make sense. It seems to me that anypony could make up lies about things they didn't really see. How could they know I wasn't making fools of them by saying things I didn't really imagine? Maybe I'll understand it when Twilight lets me read up on psychology.
It's getting harder for me to write down all my thoughts and feelings because I know that people are reading them. Maybe it would be better if I could keep some of these reports private for a while. I'm going to ask Twilight. Why should it suddenly start to bother me?

I hate to go home to that lonely room

Into the Mind of a Simpler Mare
Story based on Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Edit by me
I hate to go home
to that lonely room.

PROGRESS REPORT 10
April 21 - I figured out a new way to set up the sorting machines at the post office to speed up delivery. Grumpy says he will save labor costs and increase profits. He gave me a fifty-dollar bonus and a ten-dollar-a-week raise. I wanted to take Swifter, Kick, and Stamps out to lunch to celebrate, but Kick had to buy some things for his wife, Swifter was meeting his cousin for lunch, and Stamps had a date with Big Macintosh.
I guess it might take time for them to get used to the changes in me. Everypony seems frightened of me. When I went over to Grumpy and tapped him on the shoulder to ask him something, he jumped up and dropped his cup of coffee all over the floor. He stares at me when he thinks I'm not looking. Nopony talks to me anymore, or foals around the way they used to. It makes the job kind of lonely.
Thinking about it makes me remember the time I fell asleep standing up and Kick knocked my legs out from under me. The warm sweet smell, the white walls, the roar of the sorter when Olive Garden opened the hatch to shift the packages. Suddenly falling... twisting ..everything out from under me and my head cracking against the wall.
It's me, and yet it's like somepony else lying there-another Ditzy. She's confused... rubbing her head, staring up at Kick, tall and thin, and then at Grumpy nearby, massive, hairy, gray-faced. Grumpy with bushy eye-brows that almost hide his blue eyes. "Leave the kid alone," says Grumpy. "Jesus, Kick, why do you always gotta pick on her?" "It don't mean nothing," laughs Kick. "It don't hurt her. She don't know any better. Do you, Derpy?" Ditzy rubs her head and cringes. She doesn't know what she's done to deserve this punishment, but there is always the chance that there will be more.
"But you know better," says Grumpy, clumping over on his orthopedic boot, "so what the hell you always picking on her for?" The two men are both sitting down at a long table, the tall Kick and the heavy Grumpy still punching ink on the stamps stuck onto the letters that are to be sent to waiting ponies all over ponyville. They work in silence for a while, and then Kick stops and tips his white cap back. "Hey, Grump, think Derpy could learn to stamp letters?" Grumpy leans an elbow on the worktable. "Why don't we just leave her alone?" "No, I mean it, Grump- seriously. I bet she could learn something simple like stamping."
The idea seems to appeal to Grumpy who turns to stare at Ditzy. "Maybe you got something there. Hey, Derpy, come here a minute." As she usually does when ponies are talking about her, Ditzy has been keeping her head down, staring at her hooves. She knows how walk to them. She could stamp letters. She could learn to press, roll, pound, and push the ink into the small square stickers.
Kick looks at her uncertainly. "Maybe we shouldn't, Grump. Maybe it's wrong. If the moron can't learn maybe we shouldn't start anything with her." "You leave this to me," says Grumpy who has now taken over Kick's idea. "I think maybe she can learn.
“Now listen, Derpy. You want to learn something? You want me to teach you how to stamp letters like me and Kick are doing?” Ditzy stares at him, the smile melting from her face. She understands what Grumpy wants, and she feels cornered. She wants to please Grumpy, but there is something about the words learn and teach, something to remember about being punished severely, but she doesn't recall what it is-only a thin white hoof upraised, hitting her to make her learn something she couldn't understand.
Ditzy backs away but Grumpy grabs her arm. "Hey, kid, take it easy. We won't hurt you. Look at her shaking like she's gonna fall apart. Look, Derpy - I got a nice new shiny good-luck piece for you to play with." He holds out his hoof and reveals a brass chain with a shiny brass disc that says STAR BRIGHT’S METAL POLISH CO.
He holds the chain by one end and the gleaming gold disc rotates slowly, catching the light of the fluorescent bulbs. The pendant is a brightness that Ditzy remembers but she doesn't know why or what. She doesn't reach for it. She knows you get punished if you reach out for other pony's things. If somepony puts it into your hoof that is alright. But otherwise it's wrong.
When she sees that Grumpy is offering it to her, she nods and smiles again. "That she knows," laughs Kick. "Give her something bright and shiny." Kick, who has let Grumpy take over the experiment, leans forward excitedly. "Maybe if she wants that piece of junk bad enough and you tell her she'll get it if she learns to stamp the letters. maybe it'll work."
As the mailponies set to the task of teaching Ditzy, others from the office gather around. Kick clears an area between them on the table, and Grumpy pulls off a medium sized letter for Ditzy to work with. There is talk of betting on whether or not Derpy can learn to stamp letters. "Watch us carefully," says Grumpy, putting the pendant beside him on the table where Ditzy can see it. "Watch and do everything we do. If you learn how to stamp letters, you'll get this shiny good-luck piece."
Ditzy hunches over on her stool, intently watching Grumpy pick up the stamp and press in on the ink pad. She studies each movement as Grumpy presses the stamp firmly on the funny-shaped sticker, lifts it up and presses it again on the felt pad. "Now watch me," says Kick, and he repeats Grumpy's performance. Ditzy is confused. There are differences. Grumpy holds his elbows out as he pushes just enough ink on, but Kick keeps his arms close to his sides and uses much more ink. Grumpy uses his whole hoof as he presses the stamp, but Kick works with the flat of his hooves. Worrying about these things makes it impossible for Ditzy to move when Grumpy says, "Go ahead, try it."
Ditzy shakes her head. "Look, Derpy, I'm gonna do it again slow. Now you watch everything I do, and do each part along with me. Okay? But try to remember everything so then you'll be able to do the whole thing alone. Now come on - like this." Ditzy frowns as she watches Grumpy press out some ink and push it onto the letter.
She hesitates, but then she picks up the stamp and presses onto the ink pad and sets it down in the center of the table. Slowly, keeping her elbows out exactly as Grumpy does, she presses it on the stamp. She looks from her own hooves to Grumpy's, and she is careful to keep her hooves exactly the same way, hooves flat and elbows out. She has to do it right, the way Grumpy wants her to do it.
There are echoes inside her that say, do it right and they will like you. And she wants Grumpy and Kick to like her. When Grumpy has finished working his ink on the letter, he stands back, and so does Ditzy. "Hey, that's great. Look Kick, she did it, flat on the letter." Kick nods and smiles.
Ditzy sighs and her whole frame trembles as the tension builds. She is unaccustomed to this rare moment of success. "All right now," says Grumpy. "Now we’ll stamp another letter."
Awkwardly, but carefully, Ditzy follows Grumpy's every move. Occasionally, a twitch of her hoof or arm mars what she is doing, but in a little while she is able to press out enough ink into the stamp and fashion it flat on the letter. Working beside Grumpy she stamps six letters. She sets them carefully alongside Grumpy in the large duffle bag.
"All right, Derpy." Grumpy's face is serious. "Now, let's see you do it by yourself. Without me. Remember all the things you did from the beginning. Now, go ahead." Ditzy stares at the pad of ink and at the stamp that Grumpy has put into her hoof. And once again panic comes over her. What did he do first? How did he hold his hoof? His arms? How hard did he press...?
A thousand confusing ideas burst into her mind at the same time and she just stands there smiling. She wants to do it, to make Kick and Grumpy happy and have them like her, and to get the bright good-luck piece that Grumpy has promised her. She pushes, wooden stamp on the pad, but she cannot bring himself to finish. She cannot press it on the letter because she knows she will fail and she is afraid.
"She forgot already," said Kick. "It don't stick." She wants it to stick. She frowns and tries to remember: first you press on the ink. Then you find the weird sticker. But how does it get to be a squiggle like the ones in the bag? That's something else.
Give her time and she'll remember. As soon as the fuzziness passes away she'll remember. Just another few seconds and she'll have it. She wants to hold on to what she's learned-for a little while. She wants it so much.
"Okay, Derpy," sighs Grumpy, taking the stamp out of her hoof. "That's alright. Don't worry about it. It's not your work anyway." Another minute and she'll remember. If only they wouldn't rush her. Why does everything have to be in such a hurry? "Go ahead, Derpy. Go sit down and look at your comic book. We got to get back to work." Ditzy nods and smiles, and pulls out her comic book. She smooths it out, and puts it on her head as a make-believe hat.
Kick laughs and Grumpy finally smiles. "Go on, you big baby," snorts Kick. "Go sit down there until Grumpy wants you." Ditzy smiles at him and goes back to the crate stacks in the corner near the sorting machine. She likes to lean back against them while she sits on the floor cross-legged and looks at the pictures in her comic book. As she starts to turn the pages, she feels like crying, but she doesn't know why. What is there to feel sad about?
The fuzzy cloud comes and goes, and now she looks forward to the pleasure of the brightly colored pictures in the comic book that she has gone through thirty, forty times. She knows all of the figures in the comic-she has asked their names over and over again (of almost everypony she meets)-and she understands that the strange forms of letters and words in the white balloons above the figures means that they are saying something.
Would she ever learn to read what was in the balloons? If they gave her enough time-if they didn't rush her or push him too fast she would get it. But nopony has time.
Ditzy pulls her legs up and opens the comic book to the first page where the Batmare and Robin are swinging up a long rope to the side of a building. Someday, she decides, she is going to read. And then she will be able to read the story.
She feels a hoof on her shoulder and he looks up. It is Grumpy holding out the brass disc and chain, letting it swing and twirl around so that it catches the light. "Here," he says gruffly, tossing it into Ditzy's lap, and then he limps away...
I never thought about it before, but that was a nice thing for him to do. Why did he? Anyway, that is my memory of the time, clearer and more complete than anything I have ever experienced before. Like looking out of the office window early when the morning light is still gray. I've come a long way since then, and I owe it all to Twilight and Spike. But what must Kick and Grumpy think and feel now, seeing how I've changed?

April 22 - Everypony at the post office is changing. Not only ignoring me. I can feel the hostility. Grumpy is arranging for me to join the mailmare's union, and I've gotten another raise. The rotten thing is that all of the pleasure is gone because the others resent me. In a way, I can't blame them. They don't understand what has happened to me, and I can't tell them.
Nopony is proud of me the way I expected-not at all. Still, I've got to have somepony to talk to. I'm going to ask Dr. Whooves to go to a movie tomorrow night to celebrate my raise. If I can get up the nerve.

April 24 - Twilight finally agreed with Spike and me that it will be impossible for me to write down everything if I know it's immediately read by them at the lab. I've tried to be completely honest about everything, no matter who I was talking about, but there are things I can't put down unless I can keep them private-at least for a while.
Now, I'm allowed to keep back some of these more personal reports, but before the final report to the Home, Twilight will read through everything to decide what part of it should be published.
What happened today at the lab was very upsetting. I dropped by the library earlier this evening to ask Twilight or Spike if they thought it would be all right for me to ask Dr. Whooves out to a movie, but before I could knock I heard them arguing with each other. I shouldn't have stayed, but it's hard to break the habit of listening because everypony has always spoken and acted as if I weren't there, as if they never cared what I overheard.
I heard somepony bang on the desk, and then Twilight shouted: "I've already informed the convention committee that we will present the paper in Canterlot." Then I heard Spike's voice: "But you're wrong, Twilight. Six weeks from now is still too soon. She's still changing." And then Fluttershy: "I uh... I’ve predicted the pattern correctly so far. I think we are justified in making an interim report. There's nothing to be afraid of. We've succeeded. It's all positive. Nothing should go wrong now." Spike "This is too important to all of us to bring it out into the open prematurely. You're taking the authority on yourself-" Twilight: "You forget that I'm the senior member of this project." Spike: "And you forget that you're not the only one with a reputation to consider. If we claim too much now, our whole hypothesis will come under fire." Twilight: "I'm not afraid of regression any more. I've checked and rechecked everything. An interim report will do no harm. I feel sure nothing can go wrong now."
The argument went on that way with Twilight saying that Spike had his eye on the Chair of Psychology at Manehatten, and Spike saying that Twilight was riding on the coattails of her psychological research. Then Twilight said that the project had as much to do with her techniques in psychosurgery and enzyme-injection patterns, as with Spike's theories, and that someday thousands of neurosurgeons all over Equestria would be using her methods, but at this point Spike reminded her that those new techniques would never have come about if not for his original theory. They called each other names-opportunist, cynic, pessimist-and I found myself frightened.
Suddenly, I realized I no longer had the right to stand outside their office and listen to them without their knowing it. They might not have cared when I was too feeble-minded to know what was going on, but now that I could understand they wouldn't want me to hear it.
I left without waiting for the outcome. It was dark, and I walked for a long time trying to figure out why I was so frightened. I was seeing them clearly for the first time-not Alicorns or even heroes, but just a unicorn and a dragon worried about getting something out of their work.
Yet, if Twilight is right and the experiment is a success, what does it matter? There's so much to do, so many plans to make.
I'll wait until tomorrow to ask them about taking Dr. Whooves to a movie to celebrate my raise.

April 26 - I know I shouldn't hang around the library when I'm through with the tests, but seeing everypony going back and forth carrying books and hearing them talk about all the things they're learning in their classes excites me. I wish I could sit and talk with them over coffee at Doughnut Joe’s (I’m over that asshole but the coffee is great).
Like when they get together to argue about books and Equestria and other ideas. It's even more exciting to hear them talking about poetry and science and philosophy-about Shakehorn and Maneton; Newtlaw Apple and Einstegisis and about Platoof and Kuchen and all the other names that echo like great church bells in my mind.
Sometimes I listen in on the conversations at the tables around me, and pretend I'm a college student like them, even though I'm older than they are. I carry books around. It's silly, but since I belong with this experiment I feel as if I'm a part of the library.
I hate to go home to that lonely room.

next time, I'm going to kiss him goodnight

Into the Mind of a Simpler Mare
Story based on Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Edit by me
next time,
I'm going to kiss him goodnight

April 27 - I've made friends with some girls at the Campus Bowl. They were arguing about whether or not Shakehorn really wrote Shakehorn's plays. One of the girls-the thin with freckles one said that Marelowe wrote all of Shakehorn's plays. But Leanna, the short one with the glasses, didn't believe that business about Marelowe, and she said that everypony knew that Sir Francis Haybacon wrote the plays because Shakehorn had never been to college and never had the education that shows up in those plays.
That's when the one with the freshmares Bean Sprout said she had heard a couple of guys in the men's room talking about how Shakehorn's plays were really written by a lady. And they talked about politics and art and Celestia.
I never before heard anyone say that Celestia might have no special powers, but rather a rare genetic deformity where a unicorn has wings. That frightened me, because for the first time I began to think about what Celestia means. Now I understand one of the important reasons for going to college and getting an education is to learn that the things you've believed in all your life aren't true, and that nothing is what it appears to be.
All the time they talked and argued, I felt the excitement bubble up inside me. This was what I wanted to do- go to college and hear ponies, unicorns, and pegasi talk about important things. I spend most of my free time at the library now, reading and soaking up what I can from books.
I'm not concentrating on anything in particular, just reading a lot of fiction now- Ponevski, Flaubert, Dickenmare, Hoofingway, Faulkneigh - everything I can get my hooves on is feeding a hunger that can't be satisfied.

April 28 - In a dream last night that I heard Mom screaming at Dad and the teacher at the elementary school P.S. 13 (my first school before they transferred me to P.S. 222)... "She's normal! She's normal! She'll grow up just like other ponies. Better than others!"
She was trying to scratch the teacher, but Dad was holding her back with his magic. "She'll go to college someday. She'll be somepony." She kept screaming it, clawing at Dad so he'd let go of her.
"She'll go to college someday and she'll be somepony." We were in the principal's office and there were a lot of ponies looking embarrassed, but the assistant principal was smiling and turning his head so nopony would see it.
The principal in my dream had a long beard, and was trotting around the room and pointing at me. "She'll have to go to a special school. Put her into the Warren State Home and Training School. We can't have her here. As it is the opinion of the entire staff that she is mentally challenged. "
Dad was pulling Mom out of the principal's office, and she was shouting and crying too. I didn't see her face, but her big red teardrops kept splashing down on me...
This morning I could recall the dream, but now there's more than that-I can remember through the blur, back to when I was six years old and it all happened. Just before Dinky was born.
I see Mom, a thin, dark-haired pegasus who talks too fast and uses her hooves too much. As always her face is blurred. Her hair is up in a bun, and her hoof goes to touch it, pat it smooth, as if she has to make sure it's still there. I remember that she was always fluttering like a big, white bird-around my father, and he too heavy and tired to escape her pecking. I see Ditzy, standing in the center of the kitchen, playing with her spinner, bright colored beads and rings threaded on a string. She holds the string up in one hoof turns the rings so they wind and unwind in bright spinning flashes.
She spends long hours watching her spinner. I don't know who made it for her, or what became of it, but I see her standing there fascinated as the string untwists and sets the rings spinning... Her mother is screaming at her. no, she's screaming at her father. "I'm not going to take her. There's nothing wrong with her!" "Rose, it won't do any good pretending any longer that nothing is wrong. Just look at her eyes. She’s Six years old, and-" "She's not a dummy. She's normal. She'll be just like everypony else." He looks sadly at his daughter with the spinner and Ditzy smiles and holds it up to show him how pretty it is when it goes around and around.
"Put that thing away!" Mom shrieks and suddenly she knocks the spinner from Ditzy's hand, and it crashes across the kitchen floor. "Go play with your alphabet blocks." She stands there, frightened by the sudden outburst. She cowers, not knowing what the woman will do. Her body begins to shake. They're arguing, and the voices back and forth make a squeezing pressure inside her and a sense of panic. "Ditzy, go to the bathroom. Don't you dare do it on the floor!" She wants to obey her, but her legs are too soft to move. Her arms go up automatically to ward off blows.
"For Celestia's sake, Rose. Leave her alone. You've got her terrified. You always do this, and the poor kid" "Then why don't you help me? I have to do it all by myself. Every day I try to teach her - to help her catch up to the others. She's just slow, that's all. But she can learn like everypony else." "You're foaling yourself, Rose. It's not fair to us or to her. Pretending she's normal. Driving her as if she were an animal that could learn to do tricks. Why don't you leave her alone?" "Because I want her to be like everypony else."
As they argue, the feeling that grips Ditzy's insides becomes greater. Her bowels feel as if they will burst and she knows she should go to the bathroom as her mother has told her so often. But she can't walk. She feels like sitting down right there in the kitchen, but it is wrong and her mother will slap her. She wants her spinner. If she has her spinner and she watches it going around and around, she will be able to control herself and not go on the floor. But the spinner is all apart with some of the rings under the table and some under the sink, and the cord is near the stove.
It is very strange that although I can recall the voices clearly their faces are still blurred, and I can see only general outlines. Dad massive and slumped. Mom thin and quick. Hearing them now, arguing with each other across the years, I have the impulse to shout at them: "Look at her. There, down there! Look at Ditzy. She has to go to the toilet!"
Ditzy stands clutching and pulling at her gray coat as they argue over her. The words are angry sparks between them- an anger and a guilt she can't identify. "Next September she's going to go back to P.S. 13 and do the term's work over again." "Why can't you let yourself see the truth? The teacher says she's not capable of doing the work in a regular class."
"That bitch! a teacher? Oh, I've got better names for her. Let her start with me again and I'll do more than just write to the board of education. I'll buck that dirty slut's head off! Ditzy, why are you twisting like that? Go to the bathroom. Go by yourself. You know how to go." "Can't you see she wants you to take her? She's frightened." "Keep out of this. She's perfectly capable of going to the bathroom herself. The book says it gives her confidence and a feeling of achievement."
The terror that waits in that cold tile room overwhelms her. She is afraid to go there alone. She reaches out for her hoof and sobs out: "Toi- toi..." and she slaps her hoof away.
"No more," she says sternly. "You're a big girl now. You can go by yourself. Now march right into that bathroom. I warn you, if you go on the floor you'll get spanked." I can almost feel it now, the stretching and knotting in her intestines as the two of them stand over her waiting to see what she will do. Her whimper becomes a soft crying as suddenly she can control no longer, and she sobs and covers her face with her hooves as he dirties herself and the linoleum floor. It is soft and warm and she feels the confusion of relief and fear. Her mother will spank her.
She comes toward her, screaming that she is a bad filly, and Ditzy runs to her father for help. Suddenly, I remember that her name is Rose Petal and his name is Danny Hooves. It's odd to have forgotten your parents' names. And what about Dinky?
Strange I haven't thought about them for a long time. I wish I could see Danny's face now, to know what he was thinking at that moment. All I remember is that as she began to spank me, Danny Hooves turned and walked out of the apartment. I wish I could see their faces more clearly.

PROGRESS REPORT 11
May 1 - Why haven't I ever noticed how handsome Dr. Whooves is? He has pigeon-soft brown eyes and feathery brown hair down to the hollow of his hooves. When he smiles, his full lips look both triumphant and gentle.
We went to a movie and then to dinner. I didn't see much of the first picture because I was too conscious of him sitting next to me. Twice his bare arm touched mine on the felt bench, and both times the fear that he would become annoyed made me pull back. All I could think about was his soft coat just inches away.
Then I saw, two rows ahead of us, a young fillyfoaler with her arm around her mare. She was the peculiar one sitting upright. I wanted to put my arm around Dr. Whooves. it was terrifying. But if I did it slowly... first resting my arm on the back of the seat... moving up... inch by inch... to rest near his shoulders and the back of his neck... casually... I didn't dare.
The best I could do was rest my elbow on the back of his seat, but by the time I got there I had to shift position to wipe the perspiration off my face and neck. Once more, his leg accidentally brushed against mine. It became such an ordeal -- so painful-that I forced myself to take my mind off him. The first picture had been a war film about the Great Griffon War, and all I caught was the ending where the G.I. goes back to The Griffon Republic to marry the woman who saved his life.
The second picture interested me. A psychological film about a mare and stallion apparently in love but actually destroying each other. Everything suggests that the stallion is going to kill his wife but at the last moment, something she screams out in a nightmare makes him recall something that happened to him during his childhood. The sudden memory shows him that his hatred is really directed at a depraved governess who had terrified him with frightening stories and left a flaw in his personality.
Excited at discovering this, he cries out with joy so that his wife awakens. He takes her in his arms and the implication is that all his problems have been solved.
It was pat and cheap, and I must have shown my anger because the doctor asked me what was wrong. "It's a lie," I explained, as we walked out into the lobby. "Things just don't happen that way." "Of course not." he laughed. "It's a world of makebelieve." "Oh, no! That's no answer." I insisted. "Even in the world of make-believe there have to be rules. The parts have to be consistent and belong together. This kind of movie is a lie.
Things are forced to fit because the writer or the director or somepony wanted something in that didn't belong. And it just doesn't feel right." he looked at me thoughtfully as we walked out past the bright dazzling lamps of the Ponyville square.
"You're coming along fast." "I'm confused. I don't know what I know any more." "Never mind that," he insisted. "You're beginning to see and understand things." he waved his hoof to take in all of the lights and stars around us as we crossed over to Apple Avenue.
"You're beginning to see what's behind the surface of things. What you say about the parts having to belong together-that was a pretty good insight." "Oh, come on now. I don't feel as if I'm accomplishing anything. I don't understand about myself or my past. I don't even know where my parents are, or what they look like. Do you know that when I see them in a flash of memory or in a dream the faces are a blank blur? It’s like that Slenderpony foal story. I just want to see their expressions. I can't understand what's going on unless I can see their faces-" "Ditzy, calm down."
a few ponies were turning to stare. he slipped his arm through mine and pulled me close to restrain me. "Be patient. Don't forget you're accomplishing in weeks what takes others a lifetime. You're a giant sponge soaking in knowledge. Soon you'll begin to connect things up, and you'll see how all the different worlds of learning are related. All the levels, Ditzy, like steps on a giant ladder. And you'll climb higher and higher to see more and more of the world around you."
As we entered Sugarcube Corner to buy a few muffins, he spoke animatedly. "Ordinary ponies," he said, "can see only a little bit. They can't change much or go any higher than they are, but you're a genius. You'll keep going up and up, and see more and more. And each step will reveal worlds you never even knew existed."
Ponies in the line who heard them turned to stare at me, and only when I nudged him to stop did he lower his voice. "I just hope to Celestia," he whispered, "that you don't get hurt." For a little while after that I didn't know what to say. We ordered our muffins at the counter and carried them to our table and ate without talking. The silence made me nervous. I knew what he meant about his fear, so I joked about it.
"Why should I get hurt? I couldn't be any worse off than I was before. Even Angel is still smart, isn't he? As long as he's up there I'm in good shape." he toyed with his knife making circular depressions in a pat of butter and the movement hypnotized me. "And besides," I told him, "I overheard something- Twilight and Spike were arguing, and Twilight said she's positive that nothing can go wrong." "I hope so," he said. "You have no idea how afraid I've been that something might go wrong. I feel partly responsible."
He saw me staring at the knife and he put it down carefully beside his plate. "I never would have done it but for you," I said. He laughed and it made me tremble. That's when I saw that his eyes were soft brown. He looked down at the tablecloth quickly and blushed. "Thank you, Ditzy," he said, and took my hoof. It was the first time anypony had ever done that, and it made me bolder. I leaned forward, holding on to his hoof, and the words came out. "I like you very much." After I said it, I was afraid he'd laugh, but he nodded and smiled. "I like you too, Ditzy." "But it's more than liking. What I mean is ...oh, hell! I don't know what I mean."
I knew I was blushing, and I didn't know where to look or what to do with my hooves. I dropped a fork, and when I tried to retrieve it, I knocked over a glass of water and it spilled on the table. Suddenly, I had become clumsy and awkward again, and when I tried to apologize I found my tongue had become too large for my mouth. "That's alright, Ditzy," he tried to reassure me. "It's only water. Don't let it upset you this way."
On the way home, we were silent for a long time, and then he straightened his tie and puffed up his formal collar. "You were very upset tonight, Ditzy." "I feel ridiculous." "I upset you by talking about it. I made you self-conscious." "It's not that. What bothers me is that I can't put into words the way I feel." "These feelings are new to you. Not everything has to... be put into words." I moved closer to him, but he pulled away. "No, Ditzy. I don't think this is good for you. I've upset you, and it might have a negative effect."
When he put me off, I felt awkward and ridiculous at the same time. It made me angry with myself and I stared at the trees as we walked by. I hated him as I had never hated anypony before-with his easy answers and maternal fussing. I wanted to slap his face, to make him crawl, and then to hold him in my arms and kiss him. "Ditzy, I'm sorry if I've upset you." "Forget it." "But you've got to understand what's happening." "I understand," I said, "and I'd rather not talk about it."
By the time we reached his house, I was thoroughly miserable. "Look," he said, "this is my fault I shouldn't have gone out with you tonight." "Yes, I see that now." "What I mean is, we have no right to put this on a personal... emotional level. You have so much to do. I have no right to come into your life at this time." "That's my worry, isn't it?" "Is it? This isn't your private affair any more, Ditzy. You've got obligations now-not only to Twilight and Spike, but to the millions who may follow in your footsteps." The more he talked that way, the worse I felt. He highlighted my awkwardness, my lack of knowledge about the right things to say and do. I was a blundering adolescent in his eyes, and he was trying to let me down easy.
As we stood at the door to his home, he turned and smiled at me and for a moment I thought he was going to invite me in, but he just whispered: "Good night, Ditzy. Thank you for a wonderful evening." I wanted to kiss him good night. I had worried about it earlier. Shouldn’t I expect him to kiss me?
In the novels I'd read and the movies I'd seen, the man makes the advances. I had decided last night that I would kiss him. But I kept thinking: what if he turns me down? I moved closer and reached for his shoulders, but he was too quick for me. He stopped me and took my hoof in his. "We'd better just say good night this way, Ditzy. We can't let this get personal. Not yet."
And before I could protest, or ask what he meant by not yet, he started inside. "Good night, Ditzy, and thank you again for a lovely... lovely time." And he closed the door.
I was furious at him, myself, and the world, but by the time I got home, I realized he was right. Now, I don't know whether he cares for me or if he was just being kind. What could he possibly see in me?
What makes it so awkward is that I've never experienced anything like this before. How does a pegasus go about learning how to act toward another pony? How does a mare learn how to behave toward a Stallion? The books don't help much. Next time, I'm going to kiss him good night.