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"Teach Me Goodness"

by Posh

Chapter 1: Out For Summer, Out Forever

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Author's Notes:

This begins the revised version of my entry for the Writeoff Association's July 2016 FiM short story contest. Certain scenes have been expanded, or rewritten entirely. If you read both versions, you'll no doubt come across some of those changes. Make a drinking game out of spotting them all!

Summer vacation. The words had been on every pair of lips in the schoolhouse all month.

Across the classroom, foals whiled away the school year, chatting and signing yearbooks and every so often glancing at the clock, watching the seconds tick steadily away. Five minutes were all that remained, five minutes that could not pass quickly enough.

Cheerilee watched the clock with a sense of dread proportional to the students' excitement.

The last day of the semester was half the length of a regular school day, and little more than a formality. All tests had been graded and passed back; all final papers were read and marked up and returned. There was little to do that hadn't already been done, so Cheerilee assigned an in-class essay on the students' summer vacation plans that she had no intention of grading or returning, gave the foals a few extra minutes of recess, and allowed them to spend what time remained signing yearbooks and chatting and simply being the bright-eyed, precocious children she'd come to know and love.

She spent those last few minutes navigating the rows of desks, unnoticed, etching every detail of the day in her memory. A powerful sense of regret filled her. Moving forward in her life meant leaving behind what she'd built for herself in Ponyville. She'd come to terms with that a while ago. But saying goodbye to her students... That hurt too much to contemplate.

So she put it off, and kept putting it off, until the day came when they would gather under the same roof for the last time, and she knew she could put it off no longer.

Cheerilee walked to the front of the classroom and savored the view for a few more precious seconds before speaking.

"Settle down, everypony! If I could have your attention for the last few minutes of class?"

The chatter took a few seconds to die down, but one by one, her students dutifully gave Cheerilee their undivided attention. Their shining faces and barely restrained excitement brought a smile of her own to Cheerilee's lips.

"Thank you all for being here today. I know that showing up for a half-day on the last day before vacation can seem a little pointless, but it gives us all a little more time to spend together. And years from now, when you look back, you'll realize how important it is to cherish every second of time you have with the ones you love." Her smile dimmed as her students' brightened. "Before you all leave, I have a final announcement to make."

"Oh no! You're goin' to jail, aren'tcha?!" Apple Bloom's question left her looking and sounding distressed in equal measure. "You can't go to jail! Fight the law, Miss Cheerilee; you can win!"

Somepony else picked up the cry, and it carried across the room from one mouth to the next. Before long, all of her little ponies were pounding their hooves on their desks and chanting "Fight! The! Law! Fight! The! Law!"

Cheerilee's hoof met her forehead, but behind it, she was smiling. "I'm afraid it's nothing quite so colorful as that," she called over the chant. It died down gradually. "Rather, it's... it's, ah..."

The students, as one, leaned forward, listening with baited breath.

They think I'm drawing it out for suspense, don't they? Otherwise, this would be unbearably humiliating.

In a way, it already was. For years, Cheerilee had been a rock in front of the classroom, the very picture of stability and confidence. Now she was hemming and hawing and stammering like a nervous first-year TA.

Just say it, damn you; just get it all out there.

"Ammoofin!"

She spat the words out at last in an abrupt burst of air, an incomprehensible jumble that made her students' noses scrunch in confusion. Cursing herself, she took a deep breath, and tried again in a slower, more measured cadence.

"I am moving. To Fillydelphia." A beat passed, and she repeated herself, her calm and confidence once again ringing in her voice. "I'm moving to Fillydelphia."

She waited patiently while her students absorbed the news, each one reacting in their own way. Rumble looked stricken; his jaw hung open. Twist took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. Apple Bloom slumped; her ears flattened against her head, and Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle exchanged a glance. Silver Spoon leaned toward Diamond Tiara to whisper something in her ear. Diamond Tiara gave no reply; she did nothing, said nothing. Her unfocused gaze drifted to the front of the room, looking past Cheerilee.

Then came the questions. Her little ponies all jockeyed with one another to be heard, and their questions emerged in a torrent of rushed, inquisitive babbling.

"Why are you moving? Are you quitting being a teacher?"

"Did you win the lottery and decide to retire?"

"Was it us? Are you moving because you don't like us anymore?"

Cheerilee held up a hoof, signaling for quiet, and let the furor die down again before she continued speaking.

"First of all, no, I'm not going to quit teaching. Second, I'm not leaving on account of anypony. This is my own decision." She drew courage from that reminder, and let it carry her as she continued. "I've decided to pursue a doctorate at the University of Fillydelphia."

The scrunchy, confused noses returned, joined by the gentle hum of eighteen foals murmuring confusedly to one another.

"You're becoming a doctor?" asked Rumble. "But how can you be a doctor and a teacher? Are you gonna be a teacher to other doctors? Teaching 'em how to drain abscesses, and do liver transplants and amputations? Stuff like that?"

"Don't be a creepy weirdo, Rumble," snapped Silver Spoon. "She isn't studying to be a medical doctor. Having your doctorate just means that you're the most educated you can possibly be in your field. Which, for her, is teaching." She beamed at Cheerilee. "Right?"

"Something like that, Silver Spoon. Although that was an unnecessarily rude way to speak to your classmate." Cheerilee's face grew stern as she chastised the filly.

Silver Spoon, thus chastened, mumbled an apology to Rumble, who shrugged blithely. "I am a creepy weirdo. She's just callin' it like she sees it."

A fit of giggles came over the class. Cheerilee let it run its course before signaling for quiet again.

"I know this comes as a surprise to everypony," Cheerilee continued. "The truth is that I've wanted to do this for a while. But I kept putting it off, because I..." Her motherly smile returned. "Well, I'm quite happy here. I love my life in Ponyville; I love my friends, and I love my students. But I came to a point in my life where I realized that, if I didn't do this now, I probably never would."

She was perfectly happy and comfortable. In fact, she would be perfectly content to live and die as Ponyville's schoolteacher. But there would always be that little part of her that would nag and nag, that lingering regret at reaching to the sky and stopping just short if she didn't.

It was all said and done, anyway; she found a nice little apartment adjacent to the campus in Fillydelphia during a visit over the spring break; her house had sold with little fanfare in a private transaction without going on the market; what little she owned that would fit in the apartment was already shipped to her new home, and what wouldn't was in storage. It was difficult, and she had to force herself not to stop and turn around at times, but everything was in motion now. She couldn't go back even if she truly wanted to.

Snips waved his hoof in the air. "When are you leaving?"

She'd been waiting for that question. It didn't make hearing it any easier. "On the first train to Fillydelphia tomorrow morning." Cheerilee swallowed. "At seven sharp."

At that, the class erupted in cries of remorse and disbelief. The Cutie Mark Crusaders turned and huddled close to one another, sneaking glances back at their teacher. Silver Spoon morosely twisted a lock of hair around her hoof. Diamond Tiara continued to stare at nothing.

"I'm sorry for not telling you sooner." Cheerilee raised her voice this time, speaking over the class. "You deserved to know that you wouldn't be seeing me when you came back from vacation, and you deserved to hear it a long time ago. But I didn't want to spend our last few months together with that hanging over our heads."

I couldn't come to work every morning and look you all in the eye with that sense of finality between us.

"There's going to be a little get-together for me at Sugarcube Corner tonight. Anypony who wants to come out and say goodbye is more than welcome. Otherwise..."

The class fell silent and listened, rapt.

"I want you to know that my years as your teacher have been the best of my life, and I wouldn't trade them for anything. Thank you for making my life so—"

The bell cut her off, filling the room with its hideous ring. Cheerilee slumped over, shaking her head with a sardonic chuckle.

There's a lesson in here about procrastination.

"The party starts tonight at seven-thirty," she called as the students shuffled away from their desks, all traces of excitement and glee gone. "I hope to see some of you there!"

Silver Spoon said something to Diamond Tiara again, and again received no response. With a worried look at her friend, Silver Spoon left the schoolhouse along with the other foals, heading off into their first summer afternoon.

Diamond Tiara didn't move from her desk, and Cheerilee felt a mounting concern of her own. "You know, it's a beautiful day outside," she ventured, keeping her voice sweet. "I'm sure you don't want to spend any more of it than necessary cooped up in this old schoolhouse."

Diamond Tiara folder her forelegs tightly together on her desk. Her eyes found Cheerilee for the first time since the announcement.

"You're really just gonna go?"

Cheerilee had expected some of her students to take the news harder than others. She hadn't expected that Diamond Tiara, of all ponies, would be one of them. Throughout her time as Diamond Tiara's teacher, she reached out to her just as much as she would any other filly under her charge, but she seldom saw Diamond Tiara reaching back. She thought about her many memories of the filly: Diamond Tiara with her perfect grades, Diamond Tiara raising funds for the school, Diamond Tiara chairing the yearbook committee...

Diamond Tiara harassing Apple Bloom, Diamond Tiara pouting in detention, Diamond Tiara muckraking on the whole town...

But she hadn't seen that filly in her classroom for a long time, and she didn't see her now. Nor did she see the cheerful, gregarious Diamond Tiara who'd been showing up to her class since losing the school election to Pipsqueak. The sullen filly she saw at the desk was very different from any iteration of Diamond Tiara she'd heretofore met.

Cheerilee sighed. "I'm afraid so."

Diamond Tiara rested her chin on her folded hooves. "But you're gonna keep being a teacher?"

"I am. Teaching is my passion, my calling. And, not to put too fine a point on it, my destiny." The flowers on her flank were proof positive of that. "I won't ever stop teaching, or wanting to be a teacher. Think of my doctorate as..." She trotted down the aisle to Diamond Tiara's desk as she tried to put it into words.

"As a way for me to be a better teacher. To be recognized by my fellow teachers. To learn from them, and help them learn from me. To help all teachers, everywhere, be better at what they do. Because fillies like you deserve it."

Cheerilee arrived at Diamond Tiara's desk, her shadow falling upon the filly's face. Diamond Tiara watched her impassively, sunk up to her chin in her forelegs.

"Is there anything you'd like to tell me?" She put on her most encouraging smile and spoke as kindly as she could.

All for naught. "I'm fine," said Diamond Tiara, with a familiar, supercilious tone. She ripped her gaze away from Cheerilee, shoved away from her desk, and trotted out the door.

Cheerilee followed her to the door and watched her leave, leaning her hoof against the frame. Perhaps she'll come around. Maybe I'll see her at the party tonight, and we can clear the air. She didn't want to part with any of her students on poor terms. But that might be unavoidable now. I should have told them sooner; I shouldn't have kept the truth from them.

Keeping the news of her departure quiet was something of a task in itself. Luckily, Cheerilee was fairly unassuming, and few took notice of her activities outside of the schoolhouse, of the wagons that came and went from her home, laden with possessions and furniture, of the fact that she hadn't invited anypony over in more than a month. The lack of any real estate signage on her property didn't hurt either. A few ponies knew – the Mayor, who needed to find a replacement, other ponies she was close to, and of course, Pinkie Pie had to know if she was to plan the farewell party. But all in all, Cheerilee wanted to keep her exit from Ponyville as quiet as possible, all to avoid drawing the attention of her students and forcing herself into confronting the reality that she was leaving them behind.

That meant hitting them with it all at once, though, with little time to prepare themselves emotionally. It hit her all at once, too. The emotions were overpowering; it took everything in her not to start crying right there in front of everypony.

Time enough for that on the train, or in Fillydelphia. I want to hold on to my happiness for as long as possible.

But her grip on that was tenuous. She wondered who was faring worse with this news – herself, or her students.

Cheerilee let the thought go for the nonce, shut the door to the schoolhouse, and trotted to the front of the empty classroom, sighing. Beneath her desk was a cardboard box that she'd smuggled in when she arrived early in the morning to prep for the day. It had sat there, out of sight and out of mind; if the students saw it, there'd be questions, and if Cheerilee so much as glanced at it, her careful composure might've broken. The box was another one of those things she wanted to put off for as long as possible, to not think about until she absolutely had to.

Of course, now, she didn't have any excuse not to.

Cheerilee pulled the box from under the table, and glanced over the desk that had seen so many duties for so many years – lectern, dinner table, even pillow and bed on occasion. She ran her hoof over its surface, badly in need of a new coat of varnish, and smiled fondly at the faded coffee rings, and the faint furrows dug into the wood by pens and pencils scribbling harder than necessary on thin, cheap paper.

I wonder if the new teacher will ask for a replacement. She chuckled. Hay, I wonder if it's not too late to have this shipped to Fillydelphia. Mayor Mare, knowing her, would deduct the cost of shipping from her last paycheck. Which isn't what I'd call substantial anyway.

She sighed again. "Okay. Maybe not."

Littered about the surface of the desk was an assortment of personal effects, paraphernalia that had accumulated over the years. They had become part of the classroom scenery after a while, things she took for granted, things she barely noticed unless she had need to. But as she looked them over, the memories came burbling back to the surface of her mind. The mug she scalded herself with as she ran hurriedly to work last month, an hour late getting out of bed and farther behind schedule than she cared to be.

Why is this still here? Cheerilee, you slob.

The dog-eared and annotated copy of Flourish Prose's poetry that a wingless Twilight Sparkle gifted to her after the talent show.

Three? Four years ago? How long ago was that, even?

A bridal veil that Big McIntosh gave her as a gag gift last Hearts and Hooves Day, draped over the foam head of a ponnequin.

Right on this spot and in front of the whole class, no less. They couldn't stop laughing; I couldn't stop blushing; I punched him in the shoulder, and he laughed it off, and Apple Bloom looked at the two of us and shouted "Sweetie, Scoots, it's happenin' again!"

A shiny red wax apple that Apple Bloom had given her on her very first day as a student.

Diamond Tiara accused her of trying to be teacher's pet, but sure enough, the next day, she came to class with an apple of her own – bigger, shinier, redder, and edible to boot. Except it had a worm in it. I played it off like I didn't mind, but Diamond looked crestfallen – humiliated, really – with everypony but Silver Spoon laughing at her expense. And Apple Bloom said "Next time, buy from Sweet Apple Acres!"

No, the truth was that those things weren't just accumulated paraphernalia, nor part of the classroom scenery. They represented moments in her life that would never come again. Her gaze wandered over the desk, searing the sight of her organized mess into her mind's eye, until her vision blurred and she had to sniff to keep her nose from running.

Carefully, one by one, she packed her memories into the box.

Next Chapter: Leave Nothing Unspoken Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 15 Minutes
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