March 24th 2021

Chapter 83
Our Farewell to a Captain

One by one, the elements of this school year were being checked off. They'd had the field trips, and they'd had the prom. The basketball season had ended, and classes were winding down, finals were approaching. Graduation was coming. But in the middle of all that, there was one other thing left: it was to be the end of the road for the present lineup of the Born Curious quiz team. Soon, they would be losing their senior member and captain, as they had done the year before.

It was hitting harder for some than others. To no surprise, Stella was struggling at the idea of one more of that original team going away, even as she herself prepared to be in that top spot the following year. At the same time, she would say that she appreciated the structure of the team, with one player from each of the four classes. It made it so that, year after year, the team was able to move forward with an element of continuation. They were like one endless chain, with a new link added on every time.

The team had started late this year, to be certain, which was understandable under the circumstances. Next year, they would work to start earlier, by the end of September at the latest.

As late as they had started, there was no doubt that they had done the most with the time they'd had. The girls had taken Bodhi into their inner circle, and through that bond, they had brought him into the fold of their already great team structure. They hadn't gone undefeated, no, but even when they lost, it was clear to their opponents that they were not a team to underestimate. It was definitely clear in those times when they won, too.

All of it now sat in the great logbook of Born Curious. It had started out of Rochelle's keeping notes, this year and the one before, of all their statistics. It had felt important to her to track all this information, though she hadn't mentioned it to her teammates or advisors. Then, she'd finally shown it to the other three when they'd all been having a team sleepover/brainstorm session. And it had inspired Ariel toward a project. They had so many photos, from matches – friendly or official – and from practices, and other events in the (two-year) history of the team. Why couldn't they put all that together, leave it to the school, to be updated as the years went along?

It had been presented to Maya the next time they'd come to the house. As they told the story, they had left Ariel's house, where the sleepover was happening, and gone to the mall for supplies. The most important one had been of course the book itself. They wanted to get the biggest and most impressive looking one they could find. As captain, Ariel was in charge of the team funds they had at their disposal, and this definitely felt like a worthy expense.

The pictures were printed, after they'd redirected the whole gathering to Stella's house. They had the means to print quality pictures there, and so they did. Both Stella and Bodhi took it upon themselves to decorate the pages and fill in the text in their best lettering. There would be a section for every year, which would make it very easy for the future teams to fill it in with their own information. There would be pictures of the team, with a short bio, and then of course their advisory lineup. They would feature recreational and fundraising activities, and then the practices, the friendlies, and the official matches, finally providing a summary of the whole year, and a closing word from the year's captain. This had involved reaching out to former team captain Helena Zimmerman, so she might send in her own words to be copied down at the end of the 2028-2029 section.

When Maya was presented with this logbook, she was just… so deeply moved by it, by the initiative taken on by the team. All these memories, pulled together like this, ready for what would come next… It was one of those moments when she was really so deeply proud of calling herself a teacher and advisor.

"I can still come to the matches," Ariel reflected, that afternoon, as the team sat together following their final match. It had been a crushing victory in their favor, a bittersweet way for them to see their captain off. The four of them were sitting on the edge of the stage, legs dangling there. Stella had her head to Ariel's shoulder, and on the other side Rochelle had her arm hooked with the senior girl's. Next to her, Bodhi kept one leg bent, head to his knee as he hugged around his leg and looked to his teammates, the one at his side more than any other. Meanwhile, Maya, Cory, Stephen Brett, and Morgan sat in the front row of the auditorium. "You know, when I'm in town."

"We'll send you the videos when you're not," Rochelle promised, and Stella and Bodhi both nodded, which made Ariel smile. It got all the teachers, too, and Maya loved to see it, even as she grabbed a picture of the foursome on the stage.

Last year, the team had presented itself like something of a proof of concept. Back in the day when Maya's own team had existed, when they had been the Basket Cases, sure, they had been close. They had been friends, already before the team existed, at the very beginning at least. When some of their members had needed to leave, they'd been replaced, mostly by other basketball players, but for the most part they had been little more than what they needed to be. They were a quiz team.

Born Curious was family.

All those who had been a part of this team, as much as they would be recruited because they were smart and could bring something to the table that would mean victory, they'd had something else to them. It could have been read as 'they need this,' but that wasn't exactly it, no. It was more like… 'it can give them something,' 'they can benefit from this.'

They would come out on the other side of it with something that would stay with them, something wonderful and fulfilling, with these people who'd been as older and younger siblings to them. Even now, Maya would often hear about how one or the other had been talking with Helena, off in college as she was, about this thing or that. And she would tell them about how she was doing, about the basketball season and her team… Maya would follow that from afar, too. She would see her former student, back on the court, and how much she thrived for it. One of these days, she'd need to fly out and attend one of her games in person.

Come next year, she didn't doubt for a second that this would carry on with Ariel, as she would be off at school, too. Maya had been hearing all about how she'd struggled to decide where she wanted to go to college. There was no reason why she wouldn't be perfectly content going to a school right here in Texas, right in Austin, but at the same time… The prospect of getting to go and settle somewhere new just called to her. It felt like the thing she needed to do. She had challenged herself, to be sure. She had considered the idea, through weeks and months, to be certain that she still felt the same way about it. She really delved as deeply as she could, thinking about what it would be like for her to be in a city she didn't know, far away from her family or anyone else she actually knew. She considered whether it would give rise to feelings that might be triggering to her, giving new ground for the beast at her back.

When the time came for applications to go out, she was still as secure as ever, maybe even more so. The applications were sent, and the long wait began. From what she'd seen and heard of Ariel in that time, it really must have been a snail's pace to her, waiting on the responses. Finally, they came, and in time she'd been proud to announce where she was headed.

"Philadelphia?" Maya had received the information with a chuckle.

"Yeah, why?" Ariel had asked, confused for the response.

"Oh, it's just that my father's from there… and Mr. Matthews," she'd explained, and that had gotten a smile out of Ariel… and a thought out of Maya. "You know, I say it's always good to make use of connections when they present themselves to you. You might be going out there on your own, with no one you know, but maybe I can open a few doors for you."

Ariel would be making 'the great journey' to Philly in July. And through Maya, she already found herself gainfully employed to work at Alan Matthews' store. She imagined her soon former student out there, bonding with the man, and with the family… She can benefit from this…

"I wish we already knew the ninth graders from next year," Rochelle declared out of the blue. "We could scout for a new fourth and then we'd have the summer to get ready… Like quiz camp…"

"I'm not even gone yet and you're already giving my jacket away?" Ariel asked, a laugh in her voice.

"No, you get to keep it," Stella lifted her head at once, turning to the advisors, "She gets to keep it, right?"

"Yes, of course, she does," Cory assured her, and Stella smiled back to her teammate.

"We wouldn't give it away," Rochelle shook her head. "Whoever's going to try and fill your shoes is going to have to show us they deserve it." That was as good as her saying 'I love you and I'm going to miss the hell out of you.'

"I think we'll find the one we need when we need to find them," Bodhi declared with a confident nod, and the girls looked at him, agreement tipping across one face, and another, and finally a third, as Rochelle finally nodded.

Maya could have told them of a few candidates she knew for sure would be here in the fall. Lambert Day was coming. Lucas' cousin, Lea Sullivan-Reyes, was coming. And Taylor Munroe was coming… He might… Well, he might need them. But no… It was like Bodhi said, the time would come, the right time, and the next link of Born Curious would join the chain. New pages in the log would be started, and the next chapter would begin. Maya would be back, ready to dive in with them and not just from a distance.

"You totally wanted to tell them about Taylor, didn't you?" Maya asked Stella, as the others had gone on their way and she'd volunteered to drive the girl home.

"He's going to start this fall. He's… He does okay in school, mostly. I help with his homework sometimes when we're at Phoebe's house," Stella revealed. This was her best friend's brother, of course she'd thought of him when Rochelle had suggested 'scouting.'

"Hey, you never know, right?" Maya asked her, erring on the side of optimism.

"Right…" Stella slowly replied, and it gave Maya pause. It wasn't the first time where she felt as though her shy bird was picking up on things Maya would rather that she didn't. She was almost sure that she had been noticing her awkward pauses around Phoebe over the last year, but she'd never called her on any of it. Right here, now, when it was just the two of them in a car, it would have been so easy for Stella to make an inquiry… But she didn't. The moment passed, and Maya wished she didn't feel so relieved about it.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners