Miss Cheerilee tapped the chalk diagram on the board which showed the simplified inner workings of a camera and cleared her throat. "The shutter opens, allowing the light to enter and expose the film. When you develop the film in the lab, it reveals the images that you shot like a memory of what the film 'saw' at that moment when you let it 'peek' out of the open shutter. Those images are imprinted on the film as what's called a negative. Um…" The teacher silently looked back at her guide, trying to refresh her memory and keep up with the lesson.

Apple Bloom held up her sample negatives to the light and strained her eyes to decipher the tiny strip of scenes between her hooves but they looked so strange.

"If you look at your samples," continued Cheerilee, "you'll notice that the pictures in them look pretty funny. That's because a negative is an opposite of the true image which is the positive. Things that are dark are now light. Things that are light are dark."

"What's the point of making a negative?" shrugged Rumble.

"The negative is what allows you to expose and print the actual photographs of the image on photo sensitive paper. So the positive makes a negative which makes a positive. Isn't that weird?" she giggled.

"Why don't they just have a camera that exposes the paper and makes a photo without having to make a negative at all?" asked Silver Spoon.

"They have those but that's actually the old way we did it. One exposure, one photo. Film gives us lots of exposures in a much smaller package and when you have a negative, you can print as many photos from it whatever size you want. It's pretty innovative over the old way." She glanced at the clock while the foals began to murmur amongst themselves.

"It looks like that's all the time we have for today. Your homework is to get to know your camera and be able to name all the parts on the hoofout I gave you before lab on Friday."

The students got up and gathered their things while Apple Bloom went straight to the teacher's desk.

"Miss Cheerilee? I don't hear the shutter click when Ah press the button. Do ya think it's broken?"

Cheerilee gritted her teeth. "Lens Flare might be better to ask about that sort of thing but I'll look at it."

Apple Bloom slid her camera across the desk to her teacher. Cheerilee depressed the shutter button with her hoof, noting that nothing happened.

"Hm… Oh, you know what. You're supposed to use the advance lever after each press to advance the film and reset the button." She tilted the camera so Apple Bloom could see and then pushed out the little lever till it clicked. She tried the button again, eliciting a gratifying shutter flap. "Even if there's no film in-" she trailed off as her eyes fell on the exposure number which read '20.' "Oh, did you know there's film in here?"

Apple Bloom shook her head. "There is?"

"You've already taken nineteen photos."

"Ah didn't take 'em," she shrugged. "No one's used that camera in years. It used ta be daddy's."

Cheerilee gasped. "Could they be his photos?"

"Ah guess so," nodded Apple Bloom, wide-eyed."

"Let's see," breathed Cheerilee as she began manually winding up the film. Once the counter reached zero, she popped open the back.

Apple Bloom stared as if she were witnessing a magic trick. There were so many secrets in that little box.

The film canister plunked onto the desk. "Well, look at that," laughed Cheerilee. "Four hundred, black and white. I think you can develop that in class. We should have Lens Flare use it for in-class demonstration," she proposed excitedly. "Would you like that?"

"Yeah… Wow. Ah wonder what's in there." She scooped up the canister and tried to imagine as she turned away to the now empty classroom. "Thanks Miss Cheerilee."

"Of course. Take care of that film roll… Oh, um, Apple Bloom?" she called. Are you meeting Big Mac in town now?"

"Uh-huh. Why?"

"Mind if I walk with you? I was going that way too… into town, that is."

---

Big Mac worked the old toothy bow saw through the last bit of the infected tree trunk. The wood cracked and the tree came down with a rustling crash. He paused with a sigh to wipe the sweat from his brow. Then he set to work on chopping up the trunk. As the saw zipped back and forth, his eyes flicked up to Apple Bloom who was kicking around a rotting apple like a soccer ball.

"C'mon, Apple Bloom," he spat impatiently. "Them branches aren't gonna cut themselves."

Apple Bloom sighed in despair and picked up her much smaller saw. She placed the teeth on the first spot she could find and began reciprocating.

"It's slowin' down," mused Big Mac. "Ah think we're finally gettin' ahead of the spread. Gotta keep our eyes open but Ah hope this is the last one we gotta put down."

"What are we gonna do with all these dead trees?" asked Apple Bloom, stepping back from her branch as it snapped off under its own weight.

"We'll sell 'em as firewood. Wood's just another crop we sell now."

"This is so hard," she cried as her strokes got slower and slower.

"Applejack could help me instead an' you could watch Granny at the house," suggested Big Mac facetiously.

Apple Bloom shook her head vehemently and began sawing with renewed energy.

The stress of the unfortunate situation the family had been tossed into revealed much about the Apple siblings that the three previously hadn't seen in each other. While Apple Bloom viewed the others as having a more caustic demeanor now, Applejack was still honest but more evasive about her true feelings, almost like denial. Big Mac, who usually kept his thoughts to himself was now more willing to voice uncomfortable truths that Applejack wouldn't, even if it was usually indirectly.

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