July 14th 2022
Chapter 195
Our Signs For Progress
"Mama, look!" Lucy appeared at her side, brandishing her favored baby doll to show it had a new dress on. Maya leaned over from where she sat on the bed and pulled the two-year-old to sit on her legs and show the doll from up close. She'd just arrived back home, along with her fellow triplets and baby sister, dropped off by her great grandparents, and for once she'd been the first one up to find her mother, clearly very eager to share what she had received.
"Did Grangie make it?" Maya asked with a smile, already recognizing her grandmother's hand at work before her daughter could nod and hug the doll close in her arms. "She's very good, huh?" Maya asked as she brushed at Lucy's hair to nudge it out of her face.
"Yeah," Lucy agreed. She was gentle with the doll, as always. Kacey and Remy had one like it, too, all three being gifts from Sam and Dora, before Mackenzie was born. They'd figured these would be helpful in further preparing the toddlers for their younger sibling. The twins still played with their own dolls, but Lucy was easily the most attached to her own. Knowing her for her constant gentleness, it was no surprise.
With the dress shown and appreciated, the littlest triplet looked around and took in what her mother was doing. She pointed at the open box of diaries; she was starting to know what those were.
"Yeah, I started on my own since Marianne is staying at Harper's tonight. Do you want to sit with me for a bit?" Oh, she did, very much, and before long it would be one babe in her crib and three small blondes in audience on the big bed while Maya continued to work her way through her first box of diaries. She would show them each book when she'd take it out, show them the cover, and the filled page inside, and they would look with curious eyes.
Two weeks now… Two weeks, and Maya wondered how long it would be before she stopped finding herself once again with boxes of diaries to go through and thinking to herself 'has it really been a week… just a week?' Oh, that made it sound as though the last seven days had been a hell that she would have given up without a second thought, and it wasn't that, no. There were good parts, loads of them, and she was not ignoring or forgetting them. Mornings and evenings and days at home, classes with her students of each grade… Those returning students were familiar stories she continued to explore with them, and the new ones, the freshmen, they would be brand new stories for her to discover, and they were each one of them as fascinating to her as the last. And for all that… For all that, it was impossible not to feel as though all those days had been consumed in the ongoing integration of the transitioned Jenny Marshall.
The principal was not shy in recognizing when his art teacher would sweep into his office with a point to get across. She had gone to him many times over the years, the great advocate for her students. He'd seen a lot of her in the days of Cade Foster and his bullies, and Nika Petrelis and hers, and the man would always get this look when he'd see her coming, like he knew the discussions she'd be bringing to him were necessary ones but more than anything they were a new headache for him to contend with. What is it this time?
He didn't have to think very much to figure out what this time was about. He'd been consulted before the start of the year, when the Marshalls had let the school know about their daughter, so he would have known regardless, but as Maya had learned at the top of the week, the school had already been receiving several calls and visits from 'concerned' parents who had learned about 'that boy walking around in a dress' in their school. And that was the… gentlest of those comments he'd received. When he was presented with the pencil case, he looked like he had been trying to convince himself that he'd seen the worst of it.
There were jabs, insults… threats… vows that Jenny had better watch her back or they would get her, some graphically described.
"I've shown these to some of the other teachers. They've identified some of the… authors, the ones who wrote by hand," Maya had told him.
Whether or not they could be identified, it didn't matter to the big picture. Either they took a stance, supporting Jenny, or they stood quiet… in which case they were as good as complicit, saying that those students and parents were in the right. Maya couldn't let that happen, and for all he'd have to deal with it, neither could the principal. He didn't want to have some school wide assembly in the gym, didn't want a spotlight being put on Jenny to make matters worse for her, so, at first, they went at it with an announcement over the P.A. system at the start of the week. Any further aggressions, direct or indirect toward any student, would be dealt with as it deserved to be dealt with. A similar statement had gone out in a letter to parents. In neither of these was Jenny's name specifically called out, but the wording was clear enough that those involved could not miss the underlying message. Students whose locker notes had been identified had been called into the office for a direct conversation. It was a start.
The next couple of days had felt like the school existed with an undercurrent of… boiling. Water was heating, rising, rapidly threatening to bubble over. Jenny had her belongings in the art room, and if any new notes were dropped in her locker where it sat empty, they couldn't say. To their knowledge, she hadn't gone back to check. She had lunch in class with Maya, with Nika, Lara, and Maggie, some days with her senior class bandmates, too. She was dropped off by her mother in the morning, driven home by Henry or Maya in the afternoon… She was never alone, from near or far, and all the while, those who saw her as a 'he in disguise' would either be coming to grasps with the fact that they should leave her be… or they were biding their time.
On Thursday, when class let out for lunch and the girls didn't show up, Maya went seeking them out, trying not to feel like her insides were crawling for fear of what might have happened. Sure, it could have been nothing, a stop at someone's locker, or the bathroom, a talk with a teacher, but her gut was twisting, telling her that wasn't it, no… This was the other thing. She found Nika first and saw the concern in her brow like confirmation. They couldn't find her. Maggie and Lara were off looking for her, too, but neither of them could find or reach Jenny either. She'd needed to talk to Mr. Brett, and the rest of them had to go to the bathroom, so she'd sent them on ahead, promising that she'd wait for them. But when they'd gone back, she'd been gone.
They spent the whole of the lunch period looking for her. Ava, Kelsey, Olivia, Nellie, Gracie, Desi, they all tried to find her, too. Mr. Matthews, Dylan, Morgan… What if she'd left the school? No one had seen her, but it wasn't impossible. They continued trying to call her, which eventually turned up her schoolbag, phone buzzing inside it, tucked in a corner somewhere… But no Jenny. The bag suggested at least that she would be here somewhere, had to be, and either she was not responding to their calls… or she couldn't.
As everyone was moving to return to class for the afternoon, the principal's voice came floating across the halls. If anyone had seen Jenny Marshall over lunch break, they needed to let a teacher know. Maya paced the floor in the art room as she listened. They would have to call her parents soon, wouldn't they? Where had she gotten off to?
"Mrs. Friar?" Maia came skidding up to her, Ash on her heel. "I think I know where she is."
"Jenny?" Maya blinked, and the two freshmen nodded. "Where?"
They would not get into what the two of them had been doing down in the basement storage rooms at this point, though later they would assure their teacher that they'd only been on a curious 'treasure hunt' among the old desks, appliances, everything that was kept below. They'd heard something, which had sent them both skittering back up the stairs, but now that they knew about Jenny, they had to wonder…
They had been correct. When Maya followed them down there, she came upon the junior, hidden in a corner much like her abandoned school bag. She was still shaking, terrified, giving very little mind to the state of her face and much more to the state of the dress she'd worn today, to a blood stain on the fabric. By the way she sat, her face could not have been the only target of this attack. When Maya called her name and appeared crouching before her, Jenny looked at her, blinked, breathed… She was still here, and she was not alone anymore.
It had taken the better part of that period to get her out of the basement, to hear the story. By then her parents had been called and were on their way, and there were a couple of paramedics looking after her. She told them exactly who had done this. She had seen them all. Ronnie… Ronnie, again… The only witnesses were those five boys who'd attacked her, and they were brought in. This was not going to be brushed aside. Four of them had no marks on them, but they were also followers, not leaders, and faced with potential charges, they all folded, one by one. Ronnie the jerk took his last stand, claiming innocence, but his hands spoke for themselves. His cronies were suspended for a month, and Ronnie was expelled. He would never terrorize anyone else, not at this school.
Jenny had spent the night from Thursday into Friday at the hospital before being sent home. When they let her know that Ronnie was gone, her reaction was one of relief and optimism. She was ready to look at what had happened to her with one positive: Now, things just might change, for herself and others, too. After what had happened, the P.A. message no longer felt like enough, and they had an assembly on Friday morning, with speakers coming in to talk to the students and a promise that they would act just as swiftly from here on out, no half measures.
There was still no telling whether Jenny would be back in class on Monday or if she'd need a few more days at home. Whenever she would return, she would find that her schoolmates had been thinking about her. Those who had been tormenting her were in the minority, and after they'd heard about what had happened on Thursday, many of the other kids, all grades combined, had discovered her locker. Rather than stuffing it with hate, they had covered it with love, with messages, letting her know that they'd have her back. A lot of them didn't know her, but it didn't matter. She was one of them. The biggest show came from those players still at the school who had been on the basketball team with Jenny. She might not be playing among them anymore, but she would always be their teammate, and they would stand by her.
Two hell weeks… two weeks, but just now, it started to feel like maybe they were going to make a turn. And she couldn't wait for Jenny to live it with them.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
