January 28th 2018

Chapter 28
Her Induction Into New Possibilities

On the following Monday afternoon, the quiz team and its advisor met up once again. This time, Mr. Matthews had the four of them answering questions, in a sort of mock up of a competition, breaking them into two teams of two. Maya was paired with Rebecca, and Nadine with Scott. She had to stop herself from thinking back to what Lucas had pointed out, about how each of them were now or had been part of a pair she had helped to advance, first Nadine with Zay, then Rebecca with Joey, and now Scott with Riley

With nothing more than bragging rights on the table, the mock quiz had still managed to pry out the competitive streak in each of the four players, some might say too much. Mr. Matthews had gotten that look on his face that seemed to say 'we have some work to do.' They needed to pull that back in, just a bit.

Despite all this, the encounter had felt good, made it all that much more real to them all of a sudden. Maya was surprised by how much she had fun in this scenario, even if it was just pretend as of yet, not a proper competition. It might have seemed like she kept on coming back to the same thought, but she really couldn't help it. She couldn't help thinking about the past, the present, couldn't help thinking about who she'd been and who she'd become and how little they had in common on so many fronts, and school, well, that was the biggest one of all. Before Texas, she would never have found herself in a setting like this and felt so… inspired, excited, devoted…

And she had to think about what her mother had told her, that no matter how much it felt like the worst for her to lose basketball the way they'd lost it, she would find a way to rise up again, to not feel so down. Now here she was, sitting with her teammates, this smaller team but just as passionate about what they did, and she felt like she was flying, out of her depths and into great new unknown skies. Oh, she still missed basketball, and she didn't think she would ever not miss it in some way, but if she couldn't have it, then having the quiz team felt like the best alternative.

Suddenly, after weeks of feeling off balance in this new school year, this year that was meant to be sort of special in its normalcy was actually starting to grow, to develop into its own thing, without being weighed down by how it had started. Suddenly, everything was smooth sailing, and much as it could have the potential to feel sort of scary to not go along, scanning the waters for sharks, she was going to sit there and enjoy the sun, see what happened.

The competition had been heated, each of them showing how they more than had their place in this team. To Maya it was reminiscent of how all of them played when they met at one hoop or another, at Dylan's, at her house, at the park… They all thrived, playing with each other and against each other. Maybe it was for bragging rights' sake, but one way or the other it was working. Of course this could all change once it came to the point where they were facing a whole other team, but then they all had that bit of experience, too, didn't they? And they couldn't wait to get to stretch out their legs, stand side by side against whoever they'd be put up against.

In the end, much like their friendly basketball games, it was neck and neck right to the end, neither pair holding on to the lead for very long before the other would steal it away. But in the end, it was Nadine and Scott – Team Zhulby, as Nadine would chant – who had defeated Maya and Rebecca – Team Hitz, because merging Fitz and Hart the other way around just felt wrong. Everyone had shaken hands, tossing some playful jabs at one another as they congratulated one another on the match.

The win was celebrated with the 'losers' treating the winners to a round of smoothies. Sitting around the table, talking about the weekend that had just ended, and the day of classes which had preceded their meet up. To Maya, it really felt like the team was born that day, became real. Maybe for that, it was also the day where they came up with an official name for themselves as a unit, not just two by two.

They'd been going on about basketball again, as was almost inevitable with three players among their four. The talk had started off as Maya sort of feeling at the subject, out of some curiosity she could no longer fight down, after the game they'd had at her house, the afternoon she'd roped Scott into joining them. On the first front, the Riley of it all, it seemed the two of them were growing as friends for the time being, and this pleased Maya to hear, just as it did that, on the 'cheer him up despite the fact that we lost our season and he lost his shot to join' front, it had been a rousing success. And from there, the conversation had rolled off like a thing with a mind of its own.

Then Rebecca had sort of chuckled, listening to them. She did jump in every so often, but never all that much, never having been so much into the sport; she was more of a soccer girl. They had interpreted her chuckle as her way of pointing out that the three of them were carrying on while she sort of couldn't, and they'd sort of sheepishly apologized, but then she had reassured them that it wasn't like that.

"I think I found a name for our team," she explained, drawing their attention. "It may have come out of a… tiny bit of frustration, sitting here listening to you guys," she admitted, tipping her head, "But hey, so long as it works, right?"

"What is it?" Scott asked. Rebecca cleared her throat, sitting up straight before pronouncing herself.

"Basket Cases," she nodded with a smile. "Get it? Because you guys are a bit… intense about basketball, and then the brainy stuff…" she gestured before looking to her teammates. "What do you think?" They looked from one another.

"But won't that be a little unfair to you?" Nadine asked.

"Well I came up with it, didn't I?" she shrugged, before giving another nod to ask if they agreed.

"Well I like it," Maya nodded.

"Me, too," Scott smiled.

"Okay then," Nadine put in the final vote, and it was made official with the strike of four glasses. Maya had a strong feeling that she'd be sitting in her bay window drawing up some kind of logo by the end of the night.

She ended up doing exactly that almost as soon as she'd finished eating dinner with her parents, suddenly struck with inspiration. She made a few different designs, later to be scanned and sent off to the other three to see what they thought. It reminded her of making posters for her friends, for her teammates, for their families to wave around at the games. Did people wave signs around at competitions like this? She'd have to find out…

Now with their little team getting all grown with a name and everything, it got her thinking about other things she'd been looking forward to. As of yet, only she and Lucas and Farkle had really discussed this idea, but she'd been meaning to talk about it with the others once the school year was well on its tracks, but with the season's cancellation, and the aftermath, and now the formation of the quiz team, she'd sort of forgotten. Now they had come to a place where it didn't feel impossible anymore, and she wanted them to start talking about it. After they graduated from high school, not quite three years from now, they wanted to go on a trip, their whole group, or as many of them would want and be able to go, of course. One way or the other, it would take time to plan… mostly, it would take time to earn the money to do it all, and as she and Lucas had agreed, three years sounded pretty reasonable to do that, didn't it? So they had better get started.

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners