June 20th 2021

Chapter 171
Our Beginnings Into Endings

"Hey… Hey now, what's the matter, huh? Mopey? What's up?" Lucas gave a kindly if slightly teasing jostle of his wife as she lay next to him that morning.

He'd woken up and, rather than finding her still spooned up to him, she was on her back, staring at the ceiling. To test her responsiveness, he'd sent his index and middle finger tippy-tapping at that small bit of stomach left open to him by her PJ shirt having ridden up. She'd barely made a noise of complaint, so he'd slipped his arms around her midsection, lifting his head until it might be right in her line of sight. At his questioning, she finally gave some sign that she could in fact hear him as she smiled despite herself.

"Good morning?" he asked her. Maya scrunched up her face. "That bad?" She pouted now, a very exaggerated, purposefully childish look of disappointment about her. "Penny for your thoughts?" Lucas asked, in what was unmistakeably his impression of his grandfather.

"Don't make me go," she requested. She didn't have to speak any further for him to know what she was talking about. Today was the last day of class, and her apprehension about going had nothing to do with the classes themselves but rather her students, and how she was about so say goodbye for good to a quarter of them. Her first freshmen…

"Fine, we'll both stay here today, you, me, the pumpkin, we'll have a great time," Lucas offered, and she smiled at the thought. "But…"

"Knew that was coming," she frowned.

"It will still be the last day, and you won't be sparing yourself so much as missing out on saying goodbye for the year."

"Why are you like this?" she 'complained' before pushing her hand at his face.

"Come on, you've got this," he smiled, leaning into that hand until it just supported his chin as he looked at her.

"I know… Doesn't mean I can't wallow in my feelings just a little bit, right?"

"Right, absolutely," Lucas nodded, then, "Want me to get the pumpkin?"

"Oh, please?" her face melted into a smile. He leaned in and kissed her.

"Coming right up."

Her schedule was always the same, every year. Her students may have been seeing her at a different time as they advanced, but for her the blocks were always the same. Seniors in first, sophomores in third. Freshmen after lunch, and juniors at the end of the day. She was fine with that, and by now it was just second nature to her. But right here, today… She kind of wished she could flip things around, keep her seniors for the end of the day instead of getting them first thing in the morning and then having to carry on after their last period together. Sure, she'd be seeing the other groups off to summer, getting them back in the fall, but she could just see herself riding that mopey feeling all the way, looking at the freshmen, sophomores, and juniors and thinking over and over about how they'd be gone, too, before she knew it.

She was not going to hide the fact that she'd made her way to school as early as she could, just so that she would be able to get her things inside and then to make her way back out to the bench before the girls arrived. The mornings had been countless when she would be up here, and she would hear…

"Hey, Mrs. Friar!"

Oh, today was going to be rough. They dashed over to her, those dear girls… They'd been at the heart of her journey as a teacher, from day one. Knowing they wouldn't be here in the fall, even if she knew deep down that they wouldn't be gone from her life, not any time soon… It would mean losing this last piece of her teaching thread who had been with her all along. When they reached her, they didn't hesitate to hug her, and she already had her arms open and waiting for them.

"You know, if you don't start classes too early in the morning next year, I wouldn't say no to surprise visits," Maya told them, one arm locked to one of theirs at either side as they walked toward the building. Both Stella and Phoebe looked just on the verge of tipping their heads to rest at her shoulders. They were feeling it, too.

"Are you busy after last period?" Stella asked. "The team and I, we were thinking about doing one last meeting and…"

"Absolutely," Maya told her at once. "You four just show up and I'll be there."

Just like the previous year, Maya would empty out her diary boxes throughout the day, as each sketchbook would be returned to its owner for them to keep. And like the previous year also, those belonging to her seniors would have a secret bonus of a drawing done by her inside the back cover. One by one, each box would be set aside, empty until the end of the summer, when she'd be making another trip to the store for a big order to restock.

She would playfully say that she proudly made it through the day without crying. Whether she'd come astronomically close to crying, well… That was neither here nor there. She'd been screwed as soon as those seniors walked into her class in first period. Sure, some of them were in here and they enjoyed themselves and that was that. Others had always shown themselves excited to be here with her, and now that it was all ending, they looked almost as torn up about it as she did. Even if she wouldn't go so far as to say that she was happy that they were sad like her, it did sort of help to make her feel like she wasn't out there on her own feeling it all. Having them to look after was the best way for her to keep steady.

After first period, the rest of the day went by a lot faster than felt possible, but there was nothing to be done for it, and suddenly she was sitting through last period with her juniors. She'd been fine right up until she'd remembered that they would be her seniors in the fall, and then it was just a lot of trying to keep her composure and not turn into a mess in front of a group of teenagers.

"What's wrong?" Rochelle asked her. She was hanging back while the others were all running out of here into that fleeting bit of freedom called 'the sweet spot between classes and finals,' waiting for the rest of the quiz team to arrive.

"I wouldn't say that anything is wrong. The thing is that something can be completely, one hundred percent right and still hit you like a ton of bricks," Maya explained.

"Oh… Right, I get it," Rochelle nodded. "Sorry."

"No, please, it's alright. Actually, getting to end today with you four, that's just… There's no place I'd rather be right now."

She meant it wholeheartedly, and the best part about it was that she looked at Rochelle and she knew that the girl heard her and understood her. They had come so far, too, over the past three years, so much so that she could hardly believe it had been that long. The same could be said of Bodhi, and of Lea, as they joined them next. Last of all to arrive was Stella, and this because she'd needed to get something from her locker after getting out of her final class. She carried it in with near holy reverence and a bright smile. The reason they'd called this last meeting of this year's Born Curious team was so that they could close out the year's section in the team log.

They were just about getting to the point where there were enough years entered in the great book so that it felt like looking back had some genuine and deep impact. The team had only been active for the past three years, so they'd had a grand total of six members, but what they already had was this legacy, the shape they'd established for themselves and what it had brought and would hope to continue bringing. Every year they were and would continue to be one student each from the four grades. Every year, their senior member would graduate, and every year they would be joined by a freshman.

It could be said that much in the way that Maya was seeing her first freshmen graduate this year, next year would see the rise to captaincy of their once youngest member, and that was Rochelle. She would be the first person to have spent four years under the banner of Born Curious. She received this small bit of trivia with a barely contained proud smile, claiming that if this would be her biggest accomplishment – other than being valedictorian at graduation, which was a reasonable goal at this point – then she would consider herself glad.

"Is the cafeteria still open?" Lea asked Maya.

"Uh, maybe not, why?"

A few minutes later, the meeting reconvened inside the cafeteria. It had been closed, but Maya had been able to get them inside. Finally, they were sitting at one of the tables, with an assortment of leftover desserts and beverages, the better to properly mark the end of the year and of their quartet.

"Toast!" Lea declared now, as though the entire effort had been in order to put her in the position to raise a glass… or a milk carton. "Hey!" she called the others to attention, rising to stand on her chair but just as quickly climbing back down when one of the lunch ladies saw her and told her to get down. By the team's laughter, the gesture had at least achieved its goal. They were looking at her. "To Captain Stella," Lea smiled, and the cheer was echoed by Rochelle and Bodhi and Maya, as the year's captain just sat with a meek smile. "Crusher of Champions." The others showed their approval with more cheers. Stella turned into a tomato. Lea looked to her teammates and nodded. You do one.

"Alright, well…" Rochelle took up the charge, looking around a moment. "Well, to you, Rookie Lea. No crutch to keep you down," she raised her carton. Lea laughed, and the others cheered.

"To…" Bodhi went to make his own toast, to Rochelle, but had to pause for a moment as he tried to think what her title might be. Seeing this, she leaned in and whispered something at his ear. He smiled. "To Stats Keeper Rochelle," he lifted his carton, to smiles and snickers from the others. "Thanks for sharing your drive with us," he told her, with an unspoken suggestion that he was most thankful that she shared it with him. Rochelle responded by leaning over to kiss him, much to her teammates' approval.

"To… Quiz Master Bodhi," Stella spoke lastly, and the title was received by the other girls with great approval, even as Bodhi smiled that all encompassing smile of his. "For keeping us on our toes." It had never been demanded or even intended that way, but at some point, the lone boy on the team had taken it upon himself to drop in with some pop quiz questions for his teammates, and they had been more effective than any of them could know to explain.

When the log had been updated, closed for this year's team, it was passed over to Maya, so she might hold on to it until the fall, when Rochelle, Bodhi, and Lea would be on the lookout for a new freshman to join their ranks. She could just make out a paper stuck inside, the top marked To Captain of Captains Mrs. Friar… and she knew without asking that she was meant to wait, to read what it said later on, when she was on her own. Still, she saw them off, her students, her team. Three of them she would see again in the fall, the other she would see again before summer really began… at graduation…

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners