February 5th 2021

Chapter 36
Our Hopes For Team Spirit

"So how did it go?" Maya asked Cory when he picked up the call. She kept as reasonably quiet as she could while lightly stroking at Marianne's back, inciting her to go to sleep while she lay with her on the living room couch.

"You know, I had a feeling you'd be calling, just not that fast. The meet barely let out five minutes ago. Scratch that, not sure it's even been three," he replied, sounding like he might have given a near silent chuckle after checking the time.

"I don't see how that would surprise you by now," Maya smiled to herself, partly at his statement, partly at Marianne's little nose scrunching as she was drifting off. It had been right there from the day she was born, when Melinda had spotted it, and now a little over two months later, it was becoming familiar, and admired by parents and grandparents and whoever else got to see it.

"You're right, it doesn't," Cory confirmed.

"Alright, so come on then, set the scene for me, Matthews. How'd they do?"

She wasn't worried about the kids themselves. She knew those four, to varying degrees but enough in each part to trust that gap opened up by Helena's graduation would close again, with Bodhi as the new bonding agent, and from there… Born Curious would get back to work.

The day she'd taken the baby to school, the day she'd been compelled to bring the remaining members of the quiz team a freshman recruit, when Bodhi had overheard her talking to the Shelby twins and asked if he might join, she'd taken him to meet the others. Just in the brief time when she'd accompanied him to go and track down the girls, she was afforded a new look into the boy's character and who he was outside of the diary and the minimal exposure she'd had to him in person so far. He was shy, just a bit, but it felt to her like it had plenty more to do with the fact that he was older than his classmates, that he was starting here as a freshman. By December, some of that had been allowed to change, and he'd gotten more at ease, she could see it, and she was glad.

Still, his taking this step toward the quiz team felt like that, like a step he was making himself take. He'd been going along, doing his own thing, just getting himself through high school more than being in high school. The way he'd been going, if he kept going that way, what would he have to look back on when it was all over? Seeing that in him then, Maya was assured – though Bodhi himself would have to go and discover it for himself – that this would be just the right first step for him. In one brief year, the girls had done so much together and for each other, and they would do the same with their new teammate.

"There's… there's juniors in there?" he'd asked her as they went along, and it had taken Maya a couple seconds to understand what he was getting at. He would have been a junior if he hadn't been left to repeat years as he did. He wanted to know if any of his old classmates would have been in the team. That would have been Missy, Phoebe, maybe, but as to the team…

"There's one, yes, but she was home schooled until she started here. That's Stella Buckley. Then there's Ariel Su, senior, and Rochelle McNeil, sophomore…" she'd counted off, figuring he might as well be caught up on the lineup.

There'd been the slightest flicker of recognition here, which would track, if she recalled from his file. Bodhi had done both the seventh and eighth grade twice, before finally landing here in ninth, and so Rochelle would have been in eighth grade when he'd done that one the first time around. Last year, she would have been here while he was still back in middle school, doing the eighth over again. Whether they were friends, or didn't get along, or just knew each other, Maya couldn't say for sure at that point.

When she'd found the trio standing huddled in wait, Ariel and Stella were the first to see her and Bodhi coming, and she could see curiosity on their faces. Was this to be their new teammate? Wasn't it supposed to be another girl? Then Rochelle turned, too, and she spotted the boy, and by the briefly furrowed brow Maya guessed that he looked familiar to her but at the same time not so much. Then, finally, she recognized him. Much as she'd been coming into her own, widening her view on the world beyond what was in front of her, her studies here and her family at home, no one would go and expect her to run and hug someone or start jumping around and shout in excitement, and she did neither of those things here. Still, Maya was left with a genuine impression that the sophomore was very happy to find her former classmate here today.

"I thought I saw you in the halls a few times… I wasn't sure… Hi," she smiled.

"So, I know we were saying how we'd keep it all girls like last year, and I really tried, but it didn't happen. What matters most is that you have the right person to complete the team again, and I think I found your guy."

There was never any argument, none whatsoever, no 'but we said,' nothing. Ariel, Stella, and Rochelle all looked to Bodhi, and maybe they felt what she'd felt, like they knew it, too. This was who they needed.

"Here," Ariel handed him a sheet of paper torn from someone's notebook. On it, Maya could see each of the girls' names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses, in their respective handwriting. "This is for you, so you can get in touch. We should try and get together sometime during the break, if that's okay with you?" she asked, smiling.

"More than okay," Bodhi promised, taking the paper, and Maya could almost see the happy flourish in his heart. Now, Stella presented him with another piece of paper and a pen, which he took with thanks before scribbling down his own information. When he was done, Rochelle reached out for it, while the others took out their phones and snapped a picture of the paper.

"All set," she nodded. "I can send you videos from our old matches."

"I've got question sheets, I can bring them to you tomorrow," Stella jumped in, her shyness around new people showing up again, though lessened from the progress of the last two years.

"He's going to need a shirt… and a blazer, I'll put in the order, yeah?" Ariel looked to Maya.

"Maybe wait until after the holidays for that," Maya laughed, never so proud of her BC girls. "But for the shirt, I can get right on it." In fact, she'd made it that very afternoon, after getting home again. It was sent out to the school with the diaries on the next pick-up. When she'd gotten those back after the first day of classes in January, there'd been a note of thanks stuck inside Bodhi's sketchbook, along with a sketch of him wearing it. She'd gone with a lime green shirt for him, the print in a deep violet, and according to the note and the sketch, he absolutely approved.

Now, finally, after the four of them would have had the holiday break and now a meet with their advisors, they would be better put on track, to know how the team was shaping up. As right as it had been feeling in her gut, and oh, it really felt that way, she couldn't help but be concerned over whether her gut would have gotten it wrong after all.

"They did great," Cory assured her, with that seemingly all knowing smile of his just echoing from his voice. "Better than great. If they keep this up, I don't see why they can't do just as well as last year, if not better."

"Really?" she tried not to sound so eager but couldn't help herself.

"Yeah, really," Cory went on, and Maya had to resist making a quip here so that he'd get on with things.

From what he told her the team had gelled very well already. Ariel was very into holding her role as the senior member this year. Last year, when it had been Helena, she had been as good as captain, teammate, friend, big sister, and sometimes mother to their lot, so that was what Ariel wanted to be for the team. For Bodhi most of all, she wanted to be someone he could rely on and turn to if he needed it, and Cory seemed to believe the freshman was all for it. They may have only been a year apart in age, but it would be the only year they spent as classmates here. Still, it just might be that they'd keep in touch anyway.

And then Stella, who was of Bodhi's original graduating class even if they had never gone to school together, she seemed to embrace this fact that neither one of them had a very straightforward path through their education. She sympathized with that discomfort of being among students who had known each other since they were much younger, when they themselves had not. They were also easily the two biggest artists in the team, and that was the thing to really connect them.

Then Rochelle, oh… Cory never said it in so many words, but the way he described their interactions, the whole thing read like something so familiar to Maya. It boiled down to something that reminded her of Dylan and Riley, where she was just about sure Bodhi had feelings for Rochelle and was painfully aware of it, while Rochelle quite possibly had feelings for Bodhi in return but just didn't know it or understand it in that fashion. In that respect, it called up splashes or Isadora, and Rosa, too. What it would all turn into, well, time would have to tell, because Maya certainly would be kept far out of it so long as she was still on leave. Whether or not this current state would have evolved in one direction or another by the coming fall, no one could say. But she knew it would be on her mind… It usually was.

"They want to see about organizing a friendly with the Think Tank in a few weeks," Cory informed her.

"Tell me when it is as soon as you know, please?"

"Will do," Cory promised. She was not missing that, no. She would be right there to cheer them on.

When Lucas came home from Sullivan Stables, she recounted all of it to him, the progress of the quiz team both together and apart. It actually amused her so much to see how invested he got in the team, like any old sports team or another. He had his own shirt and everything.

"We should have one of those for her, too, maybe?" he suggested now, taking Marianne when she was offered to him. The nap was not working out, especially now that her dad was here, but hopefully they'd remedy that soon enough. For now, Lucas held her and kissed her head, atop the slightly more pronounced blond hair as it had grown in the last couple of months. He had expected her to gasp, like the idea resonated so much with her, and when he found that smile instead, he knew… "You already made her one, didn't you?"

"Oh, in December, when I made Bodhi's," she fully affirmed it now. "Couldn't help myself, but I did sort of hide it, I don't know why… Wanna see it?" She asked, beaming. He stared back, attempting to borrow one of her eyebrow-raising looks, which got her laughing. "What am I saying? I am getting it right now."

TO BE CONTINUED


See you tomorrow! - mooners