November 22

It didn't feel like I'd slept at all when I woke up, although I was pretty well-rested. I nuzzled Meghan's chest, and I guess she was awake, too, 'cause she petted my mane and scratched behind my ears, and then she reached over me and petted Aric's head, too, until he opened his eyes.

Even though we didn't, we pretended that we had all the time in the world, and we were all slow and patient and concentrated on making each other happy, and I was glad that we'd started our day off right.

We did kind of have to rush our shower a little bit, but there was still enough time to get ready and for me and Meghan to help groom each other.

Aric gave us a ride back to campus in Winston, then he had to hurry back home because he said that he had a project that he was supposed to turn in by noon and it wasn't quite done yet. And I told him that he should have been working on it instead of watching the movie, and he said that his hand had cramped up and he was seeing double because you could only draw so many lines on a lighting plot before you had to take a break, and he said that he already had the rough draft done and now all that he had to do was ink it in, and he knew that he needed a steady hand for that.

We all kissed and I promised that I'd say goodbye to him before me and Peggy left for Colorado Springs, and then me and Meghan went to breakfast together.

Meghan just had a plain bagel, which Christine said was like a giant, unflavored fruit loop, and I told her that I knew what bagels were and they were nothing like fruit loops except that they were circular with a hole in the middle, and she might as well claim that a bagel was a plain donut, even though they weren't that much alike, either.

Christine told me that she was trying to see the entire world in relation to fruit loops today, and Sean said that it was better than the time she'd assumed that anything that was taller than it was wide was a penis. Then she told him that it was true, everything was a phallus if you looked at it right. And he shook his head and sipped his coffee.

Anna got an orange and peeled it so it looked like there was a penis in the skin, and she said that that was our new god now, and set it in the center of the table. And Reese took a couple of seeds from the one that he had been eating and put them in front of it, and Peggy just shook her head and said sometimes she wondered if she'd ever actually left middle school.

Christine said that you were only as old as you felt you were, pulled her arms into her sleeves, said she was a Tyrannosaurus Rex, and shoved her face into her cereal and started eating it that way, even though it was really messy and she got milk in her hair and a fruit loop stuck to her forehead.

We all left together, 'cause almost everyone else had a final to go to, and Christine still had a little bit of milk in her hair, which Sean finally wiped off for her when we got outside. And then we split up to go to our exams, and I went to see Pastor Liz.

When I came in without my glaive, she chuckled and said that she'd always thought it was funny how I was bringing a polearm when I talked with her.

She said that there were a lot of people in the world who just picked the verses in the Bible that most matched their views, and that they didn't really understand what it really meant. And she said that some of them used that for bad reasons, because they thought that it allowed them to do bad things. Other people who didn't like Christians found verses that made them sound bad and took them out of context, not wanting to understand the deeper meanings.

Then she told me that there were other religions as well, and people did the same for them, even though it wasn't what Christians were supposed to do. She reminded me that Jesus had taught a message of peace, and that his sacrifice meant that God had forgiven everyone, which was why Christians didn't have to follow the laws in the Old Testament any more, but the new laws that Jesus had set forth, and too many people didn't understand that.

She told me that I should always remember what Paul had said to the Corinthians: 'And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love,' because she thought that that was the most significant duty of a Christian.

And then she hugged me and told me that I was a good pony, and she'd heard how seriously I took my duty to stormwatch, and to study for my classes, and said that she'd miss me when I went back to Equestria, because I was the kind of pony who changed lives for the better, and that was so nice it made me cry a little bit, and I just kept thinking about what she'd said when I was back in my room.

I started to pack up my things even though I didn't want to, because it was a sign that there was hardly any time left at all, and I didn't want to go, and I had to stop, because I couldn't do it alone, so I went outside and sat on the boardwalk and looked over the quad until I saw Peggy walking up towards the dorm, and she saw me and waved, and I waved back at her then went inside and waited for her to come up to the room.

She was all done with her finals, and I gave her a big hug, and then the two of us spent a little bit of time packing together, until she ran out of boxes. That didn't take all that long, 'cause she only had had five, which wasn't enough, so we had to go to one of the metal dumpsters that was for cardboard and find some boxes in there. They were usually pretty full, except now I guess a lot of students had thought of taking boxes out of them, 'cause there weren't too many left. So I set the things that didn't have boxes on my desk for the time being.

Peggy set out clothes for tomorrow and Thursday and said that I was lucky that I didn't have to worry about wearing clothes at all, 'cause I could travel with everything I needed in my saddlebags and she had to carry around a big suitcase. But it wasn't all that big—she used her big one for dirty clothes that she was going to wash at home, and put everything that she'd need for the road in her duffel bag.

And then it was lunchtime, so I got my astronomy books and my poetry book and went to the dining hall and sat down with Cedric and Trevor and Leon.

At first, no one talked much, 'cause we were all thinking how this was the last time we'd eat lunch together, and then it was just too much for me and I started crying again, and Cedric got up and hugged me and he was so big and strong and gentle, and I told him that I was sorry that I was being sad, but I was going to miss them so much, and he said that he was going to miss me, too. But he promised that he'd write me letters when I was back in Equestria, and then he said that the three of them had gotten together and gotten me a gift, and it was all the Harry Potter books, and they'd also gotten me a guide to Quidditch. Leon and Cedric said that I had to promise to use them to teach ponies to play, and I told him that I would.

I hadn't gotten them anything, and I felt bad about that, but Leon shook his head and said that I'd given them poetry. And Cedric said that I was braver than anyone else he knew, and that when we'd first met he thought that I was going to turn tail and run off, but I'd gone and hugged him anyways and he said that it was easy to be brave when you were big but really hard when you were small.

And pretty soon we were laughing and joking around, and I felt a lot better.

Trevor said that he had a poem that he thought was appropriate for today, and it was called My Human Family by Maya Angelou, so he read it for us, and then he gave it to me to keep.

Even though I should have returned it on my way to astronomy, I kept the poetry book in my saddlebags and went to astronomy. Anna was already there, and I smiled when I saw that she'd brought extra pens, too.

Professor Miller came in a couple of minutes late, and she said that the Xerox machine had run out of paper and they'd had to go on an epic quest to find some more, but all that they could find was canary yellow, so some of us were going to get yellow test booklets. And she said that to make up for her being late, we'd have an extra fifteen minutes on the test if we needed it.

And then she asked if there was anyone in the class who didn't want a yellow test, and a couple of people raised their hands, so she gave them normal-colored ones. I thought about raising my hoof, but I decided that I'd just take my chances, and I did end up getting a normal-colored test, which was a relief. I thought that it might hurt my eyes if I stared at a yellow one for too long.

Me and Anna had probably over-studied, 'cause there weren't any pictures that we had to identify, but it was always better to be too prepared than not prepared enough.

A lot of people finished before I did, and there weren't too many students left in the class by the time I was done. Anna had already finished up her test and left, and I had to remind myself not to hurry, 'cause I thought that she might be waiting for me.

There was still a half-hour left for the exam when I was done reviewing it and carried it down and gave it to Professor Miller, and I thanked her for the class, and she said that I'd been a good student and reached down like she was going to pet my mane, but then she stopped, which kind of confused me.

Anna hadn't waited for me, and I hoped that she hadn't waited for a while and then gotten bored when I didn't come out. Probably she had wanted to go see Reese before they went home for the break.

So I went back to my dorm room, and Peggy had gone and gotten some more boxes which were really clever. They were called file boxes, and you could fold them all up from a flat sheet of cardboard, and you didn't need any tape to hold them together.

I only needed one more for the rest of my things that I needed to pack up, so I mostly helped Peggy with her things. I trusted Mister Salvatore and Miss Cherilyn to take care of the rest for me, and it was too bad that he wasn't going to help Peggy, too.

She had everything ready by dinnertime, and she carried most of it down into Cobalt and packed it in. Tomorrow morning, we were going to put all my things on my bed so that Mister Salvatore would know what to take—she had the same room next quarter, and so she didn't have to empty it out completely.

Peggy said that she didn't know who she was getting for a roommate next quarter, or if she was getting anyone at all. She couldn't have another pony roommate, since she was graduating in the spring.

She said that whatever happened, it was going to be a lot different without me. And I said that I didn't really want to think about it right now, 'cause we were still going to have a nice vacation together. And Peggy told me that it had been snowing in the mountains in Colorado, too, and all the good resorts were open, so we were going to get to spend lots of time in the big outdoors, which I was really looking forward to.

We went to dinner together, and already the dining hall was a little bit emptier than it had been before. Everyone was still at the dinner table, though, and Anna and Reese both looked a little bit stunned that the year was over. There would be breakfast tomorrow, and then the dining hall was closed, and everyone had to leave, which is why so many people already had. And I was hoping that nobody that I'd wanted to say goodbye to had left yet.

Although it was the last supper, the food was actually good. They had cod fillets, which were really tasty, and they had spinach with the salad again, and they had a lot of pies for dessert. Christine thought that was probably because they were getting rid of the last ones that they had left, which was probably true. And they weren't as good as the ones that they'd had for Thanksgiving, but they were still pretty good.

We stayed late at our table, and then said our goodbyes and pretty soon I was crying again, and I wasn't the only one. Sean said it was kind of like a funeral, and I think he was trying to lighten up the mood a little bit but his eyes were wet, too. And before we left, I made sure to hug and nuzzle everyone, and then after I'd put my tray away, I took one last look at the table, which looked sad and empty without us there.

Me and Peggy went back to our room and she left the door open, so that people could come by and say goodbye if they were leaving, and pretty soon Rebekka and Kat and Ruth were all in our room, and I sat on the bed between Ruth and Rebekka and we thought about playing one more game of euchre but we didn't—we just sat and talked, and I was getting teary again because it was so hard to say goodbye to all my friends, and I didn't want to go, I wanted things to stay like they were even though I knew that they couldn't.

And I was a little bit jealous of the other ponies who weren't done with their classes yet, because after Thanksgiving, they'd get to go back to school and spend some more time with all of their friends.

Too soon, we hugged and they went back to their rooms, and it got more and more quiet in the dorm, and we laid down in our beds, but I couldn't sleep, so I finally got back up and turned on my bendy light and wrote in my journal and that helped.

Human Family