Telling a story

Applejack

As class was dismissed for the day, the fillies and colts made a beeline for Cheerilee's desk, all holding a piece of paper in their mouths. Some papers held scrawled writing; some writing fell out of the guide lines on the paper, and Diamond Tiara's writing looked suspiciously like it had been written by an adult. They went in single file, handing over their work and leaving for the day.

"Aren't you coming?" asked Scootaloo as she passed Apple Bloom, still sat at her desk.

"No, I mean yeah, I mean just give me a minute, I'll see you outside."

Scootaloo nodded and walked over to Cheerilee, the teacher looking mildly unimpressed to see her student had only reached one half of the one page requirement. And she had been allowed to add drawings to take up the space too!

"Apple Bloom? Is everything ok?" asked Cheerilee, noticing her student still sat at her desk.

"Oh, yeah," replied the young filly, quickly glancing around to make sure the cost was clear. Seeing it free of students she picked up her own work, and trotted over to the desk, sheets of paper hanging from her mouth. Her teacher looked puzzled as the work was placed on her desk.

"Apple Bloom you only had to write a page about what you had learnt about the cutie mark," said Cheerilee before smiling kindly. "I hope you didn't push yourself too-,"

The smile vanished as she pushed away the top sheet of paper and saw a different style of writing underneath. "Erm Apple Bloom…"

"No, no it ain't like that Miss Cheerilee. I was asking Sis about her cutie mark, and Twilight Sparkle was there and said she'd offer to give her cutie mark story as some kinda…supporting…evidence? Whatever it is, Rainbow Dash overheard, and said if I wanted a real story she should get one from me."

"And the rest of the papers?"

"All of sis's friends ended up writing things- Rainbow Dash even made Fluttershy, even though she said her writing wouldn't be as good and…and I only brought it with me cos I thought you might find them interesting!"

"Well Apple Bloom, I can see from the top page you did your own work, so I suppose you just went above and beyond this time. I'll take this, why don't you get going and meet your friends?"

Apple Bloom, not needing a second invitation, nodded once and ran off.

After the filly had left, and after quickly cleaning her desk Cheerilee left for the day, heading home and waving to a few ponies on the way. Finally back home for the evening she sat around, cleaning a bit, writing a few sentences of a report, but her interest kept coming back to Apple Bloom's work. Finally she realized she had to read it, and sat down. She read through Apple Bloom's work- a bit crude, some spelling errors, but it was a nice enough report.

Finally she got to the bottom of the page:

And this is my siss storey:

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Oh hi there Cheerilee. Apple Bloom asked me to write this, I don't know much about writing so I don't know if this'll be any good. This is meant to be my story about my cutie mark, though I think you might have heard about it before what with us both living in Ponyville and all and being around the same age.

Oh that wasn't a good start to a story was it? Please don't mark Apple Bloom down for that, I'll tell my story now.

As you know I live on the farm and I did live on the farm when I was young too. When I was a filly Apple Bloom wasn't around, but as a teacher I suppose you know that already right? It'd be impossible with the ages. Anyway I lived on the farm with my brother and Granny Smith and we worked there hard, just like we do today.

But at the time I just didn't want to spend all my time working the farm, so I left the farm, I gathered all my things together to go live the sophisticated life with my Aunt and Uncle Orange. That led me to Manehatten, and let me say that was a heck of a trip to get there, have you ever tried long distance travel as a filly? It ain't all that easy without an adult, but there I was in Manehatten, the big city. Really big city.

There were giant buildings, and statues and even bigger buildings all over the place, nothing at all like Ponyville, but I guess maybe you've visited it too in which case I'm just wasting your time describing it ain't I? But anyway it was a really big city and it was filled with a lot of fancy looking ponies. And rude ponies too, but I guess wealthy folk can afford to be rude. Oh and I forgot to mention, but back then I had even more freckles too, I guess I should have said that earlier though.

So anyway, there I was in Manehatten, the place where I was certain I'd find myself. Positive, super-duper certain I'd find myself. And by find myself I mean find what I want to do, what I wanted to be, I hadn't somehow lost myself if that's what it actually means. Not that I would be able to lose myself.

So I stayed with my Aunt and Uncle Orange. They lived in a mighty big building, but other ponies lived there too. The place they called home was all really big, but boring too, they didn't really have any decorations or anything at all. And they sure spoke weird.

Soon I found myself at a party or was it a dinner? Anyway my mane was all done up silly and I sat there around other ponies with their expensive costumes, trying my hardest to speak like they did. Oh boy that was hard to do. But they sure are strange, they hadn't even heard of a rooster, and there I was, sitting and feeling like an idiot. And you know those jokes about Manehatten food portions? They ain't a joke.

Oh I was sad then, sad and lonely. There I was in the big city, among a whole load of ponies, but I just didn't feel home at all. I was lucky enough to get my mane out of that silly style, and found myself looking out the window to watch the sunrise. And it was then that I found myself thinking about my family, about the farm, about what they were doing right now. Well right now back then.

I was so homesick, when all of a sudden, BOOM a rainbow just suddenly appeared and it pointed me back home. Well needless to say I ran back to the farm, but you'd know that already wouldn't you, I mean where else would I be? And then my cutie mark finally appeared when I returned to the farm, reunited with my family and finally doing what I was supposed to do. And without any worries about big city dinners, or speaking correctly or anything like that.

And then of course Apple Bloom came along and please don't mark her down if this story was bad.

Applejack.