Exams suck. They always have and always will, yet the worst part is when I get a curve ball. After two days of non-stop studying, the faculty gets to surprise me with another bright idea. It wasn’t enough that they had crammed five encyclopedias in what passed as the official textbook, but they had invited an outside tutor to hold the exam—a unicorn tutor. So much for any mistake being overlooked. It was clear that the professors were covering their asses. Without their teaching guides they were just as crappy in magic as I was.

The experience was short and painful. The unicorn introduced herself as Apple Polish, wished us luck, then immediately started failing people. It took me less than a minute to tell she had spent half her life in academia. The annoyed boredom with which she corrected every fourth word of our straight-A students made two things very clear: bullshitting wouldn't word, and I was doomed. Someone hadn't read the memo that humans weren't of the same skill level as unicorns, it seems. Meanwhile, hiding among the faculty staff, in the corner of the room, the dean was wiping the sweat off his forehead. Of course, now he acts all worried.

"Mister Allen Rogers," the unicorn said in a somewhat British accent—High Canterlotian, from what I remembered of my talks with Jen. She would have loved to hear it. Knowing Jen, she would have started mimicking it within minutes. "Could you start, please?"

I shrugged. There was no way I could pass the exam. Under everyone's gaze I did the slow walk of shame up to the unicorn and waited. With the exception of Twilight, this was the first actual unimage I had seen. The first thing that struck me was how old the professor was, the oldest equine I had seen. Wrinkles round her eyes and muzzle made her look middle-age in a strange sort of way.

"Mister Rogers?" she repeated.

"Sorry, Miss," I began. "I—"

"Missus," she corrected, giving me a critical glance. "I've been happily married for over twenty five years."

The explanation only make the situation more awkward. I cleared my thoughts, faked a cough, then went on to illustrate how little I knew on the subject of magic. I barely managed to finish three sentences, when the unicorn shook her head with a sigh. That was it. Months of studying, days of crunching, all ending with me being flunked by a unicorn.

"I'm giving you a one month extension, Mister Rogers," she said. Immediately I glanced at the dean silently asking 'She can do that?' "Just please try to learn your core principles. Miss Jessica Clarence?" she called out to the next student. That was my cue to go. I grabbed my backpack, muttered something to notion of "good day," then left hall.

I spent the next few minutes wandering the halls. My phone rang a few times—Shiny Happy People by R.E.M, my mother's ringtone— but I ignored it. There was no way I was having a talk with my parent after this. Knowing my mother, she probably had guessed exactly how well the exam had gone since the calls stopped, replaced by texts. Those I also ignored. After a while I ended up in front of a vending machine. It was a newer model made to accommodate the influx of equine students. In general I didn't mind, but I found it annoying that the equines would go for the common items as well, leaving me to choose between sugar hay, daffodil crispies, and rose pudding.

"Yo, Allen!" A hand slammed on my shoulder, making me drop my backpack on the floor. "How'd it go, bro?"

"Dammit, Spike!" I snapped at him, grabbing my chest. I could feel my heart racing.

"Oops, my bad." He placed his arm round my shoulders, not in the least bit bothered he'd almost given me a heart attack. "So? What happened?"

"I failed! That's what happened!" I stepped away, trying to calm my pulse. Spike knew well enough to remain quiet for a while. Last time we'd almost gotten into a fight because of this. "Fifteen seconds," I added after a while. "She flunked me after fifteen seconds."

"Wow." The dragon frowned. "You're really crap. I thought Granny Red was cool with you and all."

"It wasn't Granny." I turned back towards the vending machine. "Dean brought some Equestrian unimage to do the test." I took out my credit card more out of habit. The corn dogs were disgusting even by my standards and I wasn't risking any equine food.

"Ouch. Sorry, buddy," Spike stood beside me.

"She didn't even let me finish my introduction." I kept playing with my card. "Told me I get to redo it in a month. As if that'll change much."

"Hey, it's a month. I'll get you someone to tutor you and—"

"Spike, I'm not getting lessons from—"

"Allen, you suck at magic!" He cut me short. Whoever said that honesty is a virtue clearly never had Spike for a roommate. "Just accept my help, stars almighty!" He raised his hands in the air. "Like, you're worse than a griffin virgin!"

The comment nearly made me drop my credit card. I'd heard far worse online, but that image—coming from Spike at that—felt so wrong. Yet another thing I hoped never to have to explain to Twilight.

"Seriously, bro. Just one week!" He went on. "If after that—"

"Ok, fine. Cool." I took my card from the floor, then punched a few keys on the vending machine. This wasn't a conversation I wanted to have. Agreeing, though, would at least give me a few hours of peace. "Just—" The vending machine spat out a plastic packet. I grabbed it without looking. It felt like beef jerky. That would have been well and all, when I remembered that college vending machines didn't offer beef jerky.

Chocolate hay. I wanted to scream. I looked at the price tag. Twenty-nine ninety-five.

"Damnit!" I hissed.

If it wasn't so damn expensive I'd laugh and leave it next to the vending machine. There was no way I'd throw away thirty dollars, though. Stupid trade agreements. That much for hay was absurd. We could easily produce the stuff here for a tench of the price, but no! Junk food corporations had lobbied long and hard and succeeded in having all foods from Equestria classified as imports. And now I was holding a packet of hay ten cents the gram.

"Today's just not your day, bro." Spike shook his head with chuckle. "Give me that. I'll pay you back next time we pass an ATM."

"Spike, it's cool," I began only to have the packet snatched out of my hands.

"Come on," Spike strode down the corridor. "Let me buy you a beer."

I followed. A beer sounded pretty sweet about now. Maybe two or three even. Might as well get a little buzzed. Failing an exam was just as an important occasion as passing it. Tonight I was going to figure out what to tell my parents.

One good thing about exams was that campus was for the most part empty. People were either studying their asses off or at a pub getting drunk. I went directly for the first bench I saw and sat down. If Jen was here I'd lie down under one of the trees.

"Spike." I looked at him. The dragon had already started eating the chocolate hay. Up close they looked like chocolate spaghetti. "Do you think—" I stopped. I didn't feel talking about her with Spike. Maybe I'd phone her tonight as well. Just to tell her about the exam, maybe chat a bit after.

"Yah?" Spike chomped down the last of the hay, crumbling the packet into a ball he put in his pocket.

"Nah, forget it." I reached for my pocket. I might as well see what my mom had texted me. "Just give me a sec and—"

"Mooom!" a yell cut me off mid sentence. "I don't believe this!"

Immediately, I turned to see what was going on. A short distance away, a cyan unicorn was shouting at someone in the building. She seemed familiar, though I couldn't quite place her name. Star Walker? Star Dancer? I remember she was one of the new transfer students freshly arrived from Equestria.

"You really came all the way to Earth just to keep an eye on me?" she yelled with enough fury to break glass. "What do you think I'll do? Become a salt-licker?!"

"Starshine!" a strict and remarkably familiar female voice said from inside. "I will not have you use such language, young lady!" A second unicorn appeared, the very same that had failed me ten minutes ago. "And not that it's any of your business, but I was personally invited by the establishment’s dean to act as a representative of the teacher exchange program. If you had paid any attention back home, you might have remembered this."

"Exchange program?!" Starshine kicked some dirt in the air. This was one of the amusing and scary things about equines: direct to a point and not ashamed of getting into fights in public. I still remember the exchange of hooves I had witnessed at a party a few months back. Two males had nearly kicked the teeth out of each other, then went back to being best friends the very next day.

"Starshine, you're overacting." Apple Polish shook her head. "Now please come with me to the dean's office so we could discuss your grades."

"You're impossible, you know that?" The unicorn was still shouting, but I could spot tears in her eyes. Talk about harsh. And I thought I had problems. "I spent six months studying my flank off just so I could get away from you, and you waltz in here and continue as if nothing happened? Well, you can go to the dean and discuss my future, but don't expect me to gallop with joy because of it!" She turned around and galloped off.

I didn't say a word. Instead I looked around to see the reactions of everyone else who saw the scene. A few were speechless like me. More were checking their phones, probably posting a recording on YouTube.

"She's got it real bad," Spike whispered. "I'd freak if Twi became a teacher here."

"Yep," I nodded, shivering at the thought. "I'd freak as well." Maybe twice as much.

"Wanna grab a beer?"

"You still buying?"

"Sure thing." He grinned.

"Let's go." I checked my phone. Three missed calls, two texts asking how the exam went, one more telling me it's all right and wishing me luck next time. Parents. I smiled. Can't live with them, can't live without them. At the end of the day mine were still cool, no matter what I said.