Tuesday, September 8, 2015

2015
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Today's Horoscope (Virgo): Be wary of people you meet today, but don't shut them out. Keep a close rein on your temper today.

Early Morning

After breakfast, I go with Twilight to walk Spike.

"Are you nervous?" I ask.

Twilight sighs. "Yeah. That video's had a lot of time to go around now. Today's...not going to be fun."

Spike whimpers.

I put my hand on Twilight's shoulder. "I'm here for you. You know that, right?"

Twilight nods and smiles at me.

On our way to school, I overhear two girls talking.

"Club signups are today. I'm thinking about Art Club."

"I think I'll check out the Drama Club. I'd check out Music Club, but..."

"Oh God, her...yeah..."

Morning

A couple of guys in the back of Mr. Turner's class are laughing. They notice me walk in, nudge each other, and crowd around my desk.

"Hey, Flash...it must be tough, huh?"

I look up. "What must be tough?"

The other guy chuckles. "Your girlfriend's a pig, dude. Heheh, oink oink..."

I groan. "Get lost, loser."

"Don't talk so tough, pigfucker! We can kick your ass!"

I stand up and slam my hands on the desk. They flinch.

The whole class is staring at us.

I take a deep breath. In a loud, clear voice, I say, "Yes. Twilight occasionally has bad table manners. But a nice girl with bad table manners is a hell of a lot better than two assholes who shit out of their mouths."

The room fills with "oooohs" and chuckles.

The two jerks stare at me, then look around at the rest of the class. "You...!"

"Problem, boys?"

Mr. Turner and his helmet have arrived.

"Sit down, I'm about to start class."

Lunch

At lunch, a lot of people are staring at Twilight, snickering, and making pig noises. She barely has any food on her tray, and what little she has, she's picking at it halfheartedly.

Two girls walk over, giggling. "Hey, Twilight Porkle," one of them says. "We thought you might need this." She tosses a bib in front of Twilight. The two girls explode in bitchy laughter and walk away.

I start to stand, but Rainbow Dash beats me to it. The whole cafeteria is treated to a bizarre, somewhat frightening display as Rainbow tackles the two girls to the ground, pins them down with her knees, and starts violently pulling their hair.

"Oh Rainbow, why?" Twilight moans, burying her face in her hands.

The cafeteria is in an uproar. Applejack's eyes widen. "Whoa nelly."

"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!"

Principal Celestia storms in, walking rapidly over to the scuffle on the ground. The bitch twins are screaming and screeching, and Rainbow is swearing up a storm. Everything slows to a halt as Celestia walks up. Rainbow looks up at her, gulps, and lets the girls' hair go.

"Rainbow Dash," Celestia says in a stern, deadly tone. "What is the meaning of this?"

"She just jumped us and started...started trying to..." one of the girls sniffles.

"Call the cops! She needs to be arrested!" the other wails.

Celestia crosses her arms. "Young lady, I demand an explanation."

"Umm...excuse me...Principal Celestia..."

I never saw Fluttershy get up from the table, but she's standing next to Rainbow.

"These two girls...they came over to our table..." Fluttershy looks at the two girls, who glare spitefully back at her. "They...they called Twilight...'Twilight Porkle'...and threw this at her." She holds up the bib.

"She's lying!" One of the girls says, throwing up her hands. "We—"

Celestia holds up a hand. "Enough." She looks at Fluttershy. "Is this true?"

"Yes."

Celestia looks over at our table. She walks over, frowning. "Did those two girls insult you, Twilight?"

Twilight nods.

"They sure did," Applejack says.

"We all heard it," Rarity adds.

"This kind of thing's been going on all day," I add. "I'm even getting crap over that stupid video."

Twilight's eyes widen in horror. "They're...they're bullying you too?"

I shrug. "I can handle it. I'm more worried about you."

Celestia frowns. "The video Nurse Cadance brought to my attention?" She pinches the bridge of her nose. "I don't know what's going on with this school lately..." She looks over at Rainbow and the bitch twins. "You two. Detention for the rest of the week. Rainbow Dash..." She sighs. "I'm sorry, but I can't let two incidents of assault pass, even if it was provoked. I'm sorry, but...you're suspended for three days."

Rainbow bows her head.

Celestia looks around. "All of you, listen carefully: the kind of behavior I've been seeing lately is completely unacceptable. You're old enough to understand that your words and actions affect others. I don't want to hear of rumors going around about students' private lives. I don't want to see humiliating videos of students circulating, or hear of people bullying them because of it. If I have to start sending you kids back to kindergarten to learn to behave, so help me that's what I'll do." She fixes the entire cafeteria with a stern glare, then stalks off.

Once she's gone, we all get up and gather around Rainbow. "Rainbow...I'm so sorry..." Twilight says.

Rainbow waves her off. "It ain't your fault," she says. "I blew my top. I shoulda known better." She sighs. "See you guys back at the dorm. Don't worry about me. I wanna hear about club signups when you all get home!"

As Rainbow leaves, I sneak a look at Sunset Shimmer's table. She's wearing a smug, self-satisfied grin.

After School

Afternoon classes feel heavy and slow in the wake of the cafeteria incident.

I don't think I'm really in the mood for it, but I decide to swing by the music club room.

There are about fifteen students in the club room, many with instruments. Several of them look away as I walk in.

"Well well, if it isn't the new kid."

A girl with pale blue skin and long, wavy platinum hair walks over to me, examining me from every angle with her dark purple eyes. She wears a blue hoodie and a purple skirt embroidered with a star-tipped magic wand and a wisp of glittery blue smoke, and has a blue guitar in one hand.

"And what makes you think you're worthy of joining the Canterlot High Music Club?" she asks.

A girl with mint green skin and silvery hair groans. "Give it a rest, Trixie." She smiles at me. "Come on in. Are you joining?"

I nod. "I was thinking about it, yeah."

"Cool. Do you play anything?"

"Guitar, actually."

Trixie scoffs. "Hah! The Great and Powerful Trixie doubts you even know how to tune a guitar, much less play one."

There are a few electric guitars in the back of the room. I grab one, wipe it down, plug it into an amp, tune it, and start playing one of my favorite songs.

Trixie's jaw drops.

When I'm done, everyone else applauds. "You're good!" the green girl says. "I'm Lyra, we're glad to have you in the club." She picks up a big harp...a lyre?...and starts strumming it. "We meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If you have your own guitar, you can bring it. Or you can use one of these."

The club meeting lasts an hour, during which time I meet the rest of the club and we jam for a while. As everyone packs up, I start putting away the school instruments. I'm about to leave when Trixie gets right in my face. "You must think you're something special."

"Not really."

"Well you're right! Trixie is the greatest guitar player in all of Canterlot! If you think for one second you can simply upstage Trixie and not suffer the consequences..."

"Yeah, you know what? I've had a shitty day, and I'm not in the mood for this." I step past Trixie and leave.

"Wait! Come back! Trixie isn't finished with you! ...come back? Please?"

Holy crap she sounds pathetic.

As I'm headed for the entrance, a man's voice calls out to me. "Excuse me, son, would you mind giving me a hand here?"

I look to my left. In an open classroom door, there's a man wearing brown coveralls. His skin is grayish and unhealthy-looking, and his eyes are jaundiced and bloodshot. A patch of thinning black hair sticks out from under his brown cap, but his thick eyebrows and scraggly beard are a dirty white. A name patch on his coveralls says "Juan".

"I hate to trouble you, but...I could use a hand moving this table," he says. "I'm not as young as I used to be, you know."

He's been trying to move a rather solid-looking table out of a classroom, apparently.

"Sure, I'll help."

We begin moving the heavy table.

"I..." He grunts and strains. "I really appreciate this, kid."

"It's no problem."

It takes fifteen minutes to get the table to the storage room. When we get there, I lean against the wall to catch my breath.

He sits on the table we just moved. "You're the new kid, aren't you?"

"That's right."

"I've heard you're having some trouble."

"A little," I admit. "Nothing I can't handle."

"Is that so..." He twiddles his beard. "I remember when I was your age. Oh, the trouble I'd get into!" He chuckles. "Of course, that was before we had social media and mobile phones and such." He fixes those beady eyes on me. "Your girlfriend is that Twilight Sparkle girl, right?"

"Well...she's not my girlfriend as such, but...we're close."

He nods thoughtfully. "Sunset Shimmer has it in for that girl. You'd better be careful." I must look surprised, because he grins. "I know a lot of things about this school...about the students here. Even about the teachers." He stands up and claps a hand on my shoulder. "I can help you out...give you advice...tell you things..." He smiles crookedly. "It'd be worth your while to drop by and talk to old Juan the Janitor once in a while..."

With that, he walks off, whistling tunelessly.

---

That's enough creepy for today. I head back to the dorm.

Evening

Nobody's in the lounge when I get back to the dorm.

I already got enough guitar practice at club, so I get an early start on my homework. By the time I've finished, it's around the time we usually have dinner, so I head downstairs.

Everyone's in the dining room except Rainbow. I ask where she is.

"She was in her room napping when I got home," Pinkie says. "But when I went to tell her dinner's ready, she wasn't there..."

"She's not in the bathroom, maybe?"

Fluttershy shakes her head. "I was just in there."

"She ain't nowhere in the dorm Ah know of," Applejack says.

"She isn't answering her phone," Rarity says.

Twilight looks down. "She must be upset about today..."

"I'll go look for her," I say.

As I leave the dorm, it occurs to me that I have no idea where Rainbow Dash might be. She could be anywhere in Canterlot...

I'm about to go knock on Cadance's door and tell her Rainbow's missing when I hear noises coming from around back.

I walk around to the back of the dorm and find Rainbow, wearing bicycle shorts and a sports bra, kicking a soccer ball against the brick wall of the dorm. With every kick she lets out a loud, frustrated grunt.

As I approach, I can see tears glistening in her eyes.

"Rainbow?" I call.

She stops and turns. "Oh. Hey." She scrubs at her eyes with the back of her hand, but she's so sweaty that's probably not really helping. "What's up?" she asks, trying to sound tough and aloof.

"Everyone's worried about you," I say.

"Oh," she says. "Eh, tell 'em I'm cool."

I step closer. "No, you're not," I say. I reach up and wipe tears from her eyes.

She bats my hand away. "Cut it out! I don't need...I'm not..."

"Is it because you got suspended?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "No, that...that doesn't bother me..." She sniffles. "Well, yeah, it bothers me, I don't really need that on my record, but..." She sighs. "I just...what happened today really sucks, you know?"

"Yeah, it does."

She looks away. "It's not fair...people talkin' shit about you when they don't even know you...callin' Twilight a pig...callin' me gay..." She looks at me. "Sayin' you caught th' clap from one of us...it just makes me so mad when people talk shit! Why? Why they gotta...?" She bows her head. Tears are still spilling from her eyes. "I hate when I lose it like I did today. I get mad...like when I threw that shoe at you an' you didn't even do nothin'..." She sniffles again. "Coach...Coach says I gotta work on my temper. When I get upset, I get sloppy...he says I gotta keep it together if I wanna go pro..." She looks up at me again. "I do, y'know? Wanna go pro. I wanna play in the World Games. I want people to know who I am and talk about how cool and awesome I am. But..." She sighs. "All anybody's talkin' about right now is how I'm a dyke that goes nuts in the cafeteria and gets kicked outta school." She sniffs again, running her hand through her hair. "Look at me...I'm a mess...I'm cryin'...this isn't awesome..."

"So what?" I ask. "You had a bad day. We all did. It's okay to cry when it hurts."

She snorts. "Yeah, I guess. I just..." She sighs. "Sorry I dumped all that on you."

"Hey, we're friends, right?" I smile at her. "Friends listen to each other when they have problems. Any time you want to talk..."

She wipes her eyes again. "Yeah, okay. Thanks."

---

"Come on, dinner's getting cold."

We go back inside and join the others for dinner. It's been a rough day, so after dinner, I head up to my room and fall asleep watching television.