Special

I sat in the schoolhouse, my day beginning like any other day. The young mares and stallions, all my age, were in front of me. They were talking to each other, laughing, and spending their free morning time not-so-wisely. While they conversed, I was staring and scratching my head at the math paper I didn’t finish the night before, due to winemaking. At least I was being, or trying to be, productive.

In all, there were nine students. There were three Pegasi mares, two Pegasi stallions, two Unicorn mares,  one Unicorn stallion, and me. An Earth pony. The only Earth pony. My spot was in the far back, in the left corner. Everypony else was around me.

The thing was, the Unicorns talked to Unicorns and the Pegasi talked to Pegasi. Not only were they discriminating against us, but against other races as well. That town was really screwed up.

The others didn’t seem to focus on anything going on around them until the teacher walked in. Her name was Mrs. Bowtie. She was a soft pink with dark blue hair, decorated with yellow ribbons. She was a Pegasus as well. She usually paid little or no mind to me, unless it was important.

And that day was important.

Mrs. Bowtie sat at her desk, giving us one of her warm smiles. “Good morning, students!” she greeted us. “Today is a very special day.”

The ponies looked quizzically at her, and even I sent her a wondering gaze.

“It’s Earth Appreciation Day!” she said with what looked like a forced smile.

My eyes went wide. How could I forget such an important holiday? Must have been all that wine tasting. “Wait, what?” I exclaimed, nearly sliding off my seat, and it didn’t take long before I realized everypony else had, too.

Mrs. Bowtie nodded. “Yes, today is the day where we celebrate the wonders both the Earth and the Earth ponies do for us,” she replied. I could sense something sharp and distasteful in her tone... sarcasm, perhaps? She hid it well from the others, though, so I remained quiet and began sinking in my chair.

A yellow Unicorn mare asked spitefully, “Why would a day like that exist? What have they ever done for us?” Other ponies nodded in agreement.

“Without them, we’d starve. They’re the only ones capable of growing purely organic fruits, vegetables, and grains for Equestria.” Then Mrs. Bowtie’s eyes caught mine, and I sunk deeper. “Like Ms. Vine’s grape vineyard, for example.”

The students eyed one another in disbelief and resentment. Then, on what seemed to me like a cruelly scheduled cue, they all turned and looked at me, even the teacher.

Twelve pairs of eyes were staring at me with mixed emotions. By that time, only my head was visible from behind the desk. Did they not care?

I celebrated that day by my family giving each other gifts and taking a day off of work. It was a care-free day where we stayed inside the house as much as we could, feeling relaxed and having fun together. But, at the school, it just felt awkward to be celebrating this.

“Um... hi?” I finally said aloud.

The white and silver Unicorn mare from earlier scoffed as she turned around, “Yeah, I really don’t care about that thing.”

I was about to say something not so nice to her, but Mrs. Bowtie interrupted me. “Moonshine, straighten out your attitude or I’ll do it for you.”

“With what?” Moonshine replied harshly. “Your wing? Like that’s going to hurt.”

Mrs. Bowtie let out a long sigh, then looked at me. It was a stare with confusion and a hint of anger and sarcasm, like her voice had the last time she had something to me. Even though she was facing me, she seemed to be talking to the whole class. “Look, we’re going to try and respect it- uh, her, for the rest of the school day. Got that?”

There was a pause of hesitation, then the class slowly nodded. But I wasn’t any more relieved. I was uncomfortable. “Can... can I go home, Mrs. Bowtie?” I asked, sitting up in my chair.

“Why would you want to do that?” She knew very well why I wanted to do that, she was just playing dumb.

“I, uh... feel sick. Yeah, really sick!” I said, then let out a few coughs for good measure.

Mrs. Bowtie eyed me carefully. I must have been bad at acting. Just like I am with singing. And dancing. And drawing. And playing piano. “Mm-hm,” she replied. “I’m sure you are.”

I coughed a few more times. “Yeah. And I think my family would want to see me on this special day, too. You know, for celebration reasons.” I smiled.

“Your family wouldn’t want to celebrate with you being sick, would they?” The other ponies in my class were snickering.

My face turned bright pink, from both embarrassment and anger at myself. “Oh...”

“Earth ponies are really bad at lying, aren’t they?” Mrs. Bowtie sighed, then turned to the chalkboard to start the lesson. There were a few stragglers who continued to giggle and gaze at me, but they soon turned back to the front of the classroom.

I waited for a good moment, then snaked out of my chair and silently ran out of the room, leaving behind a trail of dust. That was the most uncomfortable and awkward moment of my life, hooves down.

“And they said they were going to respect me!” I exclaimed, then inhaled a bite of strawberry cake. “It was weird!”

Mom set the egg shells down next to her and continued mixing in the bowl. “Honey, don’t talk with your mouth full, and don’t you want them to respect you?”

I swallowed the sweet bite and frowned at her ignorance. “They’ve been treating me badly for years! Seeing it change so quickly, and for just one day, mind you, is a bit disturbing, don’t you think?”

Turning to me, Mom answered, “Sure, it’s a bit disturbing, but you should cherish it, not run away from it.”

“But they were laughing at me!”

“Because you’re a terrible liar, sweetie.”

“Oh.” A puff of air passed my lips, and I started eating more cake. Cake had become my escape from my problems recently. When it was out in the open and looked good, I usually ate it. Somehow I didn’t gain very much weight, though, but I wasn’t about to complain. Besides, it would catch up with me sooner or later.

Mom shook her head with a few tsking sounds, then started making more cake batter, to my pleasure. Maybe, if I was nice enough, I could lick the spoon. I watched her mix the ingredients intently, seeing the chocolate brown glop swirl in rhythm with the wooden spoon. It was tempting to just grab the spoon and lick it already, but I restrained myself obediently.

“What did you want to do today?” Mom asked, then added a bit more sterner, “Since you decided to ditch school because you felt uncomfortable.”

“I dohn’t how,” I muttered through the dessert in my mouth. Mom glared at me, and I smiled sheepishly and gulped down the bite. “I don’t know... hey, can I have some more cake?” I held out my plate like a poor child.

Mom, who had just plopped batter in the oven, shook her head. “If you want to keep the figure I gave you, I suggest laying off the cake, dear,” she said simply, walking out of the kitchen. I looked down at my pudgy stomach and sighed.

We went into the living room where Dad was reading the paper. A steamy cup of black coffee sat at one side, and his reading glasses on the other. Every few moments he would put the glasses on so he could read better. It reminded me of that really old and cranky stallion at the nursing home.

...Don’t tell him I said that.

Anyways, Mom came over to him and kissed him on the forehead, saying, “The cake’s in the oven.”

Dad suddenly looked away from the newspaper with a frightened stare slashed across his face. “You’re pregnant again?” he cried, but it was more of a shocked yell.

While I refrained from laughing my head off, Mom stepped back a bit at his response. Then she realized what he meant and groaned. “Hon, the saying is ‘the bun’s in the oven’.” Dad huffed in relief and continued reading.

“Are we harvesting today?” I asked, putting my hooves on the rest of his chair, my smile wide and toothy with as much innocence as I could muster. “Because I’ll be bored otherwise.”

Turning away from the paper, he gave me a long stare. “We were going to wait until tomorrow,” he said, arching a brow. Then he put on a sneaky grin that scared me a bit. “but now that you ask, you can do it by yourself.”

“What?!” I shouted. It didn’t take long for me to realize that there was no getting out of it, so I pouted and went out the back door. When you go home without makeup work, why not do housework instead? Seems legit.

The vineyard was a few rolling hills away from our house. It was small, but could hold many bunches of grapes and provided us with its fruits all spring and summer. Barely anypony tried to mess with it, and when they did, they usually had a nice meeting with my father’s popgun. The sound alone would scare ponies away.

I carried two baskets on my back, one for the white grapes, and one for the green grapes. Those were the only kinds we grew, since Mom insisted that we made wine when we moved in. And the only wine she would drink was white wine, so we had no other option, not even red.

Most of the grapes were already gone, but there were a few left that needed picking. Thankfully, it was my special talent, so it would get done quickly.

I popped a few grapes in my mouth, making sure they were ripe, then took out my curved knife. It had a black handle, and the metal shined in the morning’s sun. It was my harvesting knife, and the only one in the entire house. Probably because I was the only one who knew how to use it correctly without breaking it.

Holding out a bunch of green grapes in front of me with one hoof, I used my other hoof to hack the knife across the stem. It came off in one slice, clean and perfect. I put it in the basket and smiled at my knife. If you had seen, it must have made me look like a murderer or something.

I continued doing that for a half hour or so, until the sound of childish cackles came from a distance. I looked over to the sound and saw a mare and a stallion, both a bit older than me, walking along the dirt road. They were glaring at me, but their smiles told me different. Though it was hard, I tried my best to ignore them.

“Hey, you!” the mare called. “You having a hard time with that knife?”

I hesitated at first. “No,” I answered.

The stallion, a Unicorn, walked a bit closer to the vineyard. I stopped and stared at them again. “If you had magic,” he started, and his horn lit up a dark blue color. He picked up a bunch of grapes, and my eyes widened. “this would be a whole lot easier, huh?” The grapes were yanked off, and most of the fruits flew off the stems.

“Stop that,” I said firmly, turning to them and stomping my hoof in the clay dirt.

He let go of the empty bunch. “What are you going to do if I don’t?” he snapped, his smile everlasting against his muzzle. The Unicorn next to him was just as snarky as he was.

But I wasn’t scared. I ran over to him, turned around and, before he could do anything, bucked him in the face. I could feel my hind legs hit his flesh, and a sickening thud and crunch right after. I whipped around and saw him unconscious on the ground, his face a dark red mess.

“You monster!” the mare said, but I could barely hear her over the blood roaring in my ears and my puffs of breath. “I’m telling the force!” With that, she galloped away, leaving me with an unmoving body. The small droplets of blood were warm on my legs.

Could I have just killed a stallion for no reason?