July 20th 2020

Chapter 202
Their Art of Discovery

"Well, here she comes. How's day one treating you?"

Maya had barely stepped into the teachers' lounge that Mr. Matthews was standing from his table and signalling her over to join him. She had interacted with the whole of the faculty, here and there in the last few weeks… some of them in past years when they had been her teachers. This was the first time she was coming into the lounge though, the first time she joined them as one of their peers, over lunch. There was no telling how long it would take her to chase away that feeling of walking among giants, so she'd just have to go around as though she had stilts until then.

"Oh, you know, I'm just trying to get to know everyone," she told him, taking a seat at his side. Already at the table with him sat science teacher Daniel Brett. He was one of those who had come along in the time since she had graduated. Her science teacher had been Mrs. Brown, who had finally retired a few years back. She had been here long enough to have also taught Mr. Brett, who had been teaching across town until the position opened up. "Met your daughter," Maya nodded to the man. "She's a trip," she chuckled, finding the sentiment on fifteen-year-old Daphne Brett echoed back on to her colleague's face.

"She's the picture of her mother in every way," Mr. Brett informed her.

Looking around, it was hard not to pinpoint the mix of teachers who had been Maya's own teachers back when she'd been a student here and those who had been hired in the last six years. It wasn't as strange for her, maybe, as it might have been for someone else like her, just starting out in the same place where she had been a student. Hanging out with teachers outside of teacher/student context, well, she had done that for years now, with Mr. Matthews. It wasn't not weird, just… less. She only had to look around and see those others of her former teachers to know the bar had not quite come down.

After Mr. Matthews and Miss Alcott, there were a handful of teachers who had either been hers or prominent enough for her to recognize. She knew Mr. Castillo, the Spanish teacher, though she had not been in his class. His hair had gone to gray since she'd last been a student here. She also knew Mademoiselle Rousseau, the French teacher, and she could not wait to tell her about her honeymoon in Paris. She'd already said hello to Kelly Anderson, who alternated Algebra and Geometry, more than once today, as their classes were just about across the hall from one another's. Mrs. Anderson had welcomed her like a neighbor dropping in to see you after you'd just been away on a trip and wanting to catch up.

There were a number of new faces for her to start at ground level with, like Mr. Brett, and she was really happy for it. The gym teacher was also new, mostly, starting his second year. To hear him though, he would not be here very long, as he expected to get called up to a university position. The only other thing she could say about him was that he was somewhere about thirty, and had just the looks to him to make a portion of the student body very eager to attend gym class, the better to stare and giggle. Maya also met the basketball coaches, both of them having replaced those brought along after the teams had been reinstated. They may have come along after her time, but they had known her immediately for having played for the school, and Maya had loved hearing about the previous season, and what they were looking to find once try-outs kicked off. The other highlight for her had been the new music teacher, quite literally, as she was also starting this year, both at the school and as a teacher on the whole. If their being in close-knit fields, and being newbies, hadn't been enough, she was also aware of TXNY, as well as her song writing, and Stage Ready, too, and it had set the two of them in a few long and excited conversations.

Maya's mornings saw her with her twelfth grade class in first period, and then her tenth graders in third. It had left her with a break between her two classes and then between the second and lunch. She'd stayed in her classroom over second period, just sort of processing everything, taking notes on anything the students had said which she might want to recall. Little by little, it felt like they were becoming a part of her world, even if they had barely spoken to her for a minute or two each. She would be following their progress all through this year, she would get to know them.

Once she had finished with her notes, there had been not so much time left until her next class would come around, so she'd spent that time tinkering at the new song she'd been working on, the better to occupy herself and make the time go by. She'd been so wrapped up in this that, when the bell rang at the end of second period, she stood up and started gathering her things for several seconds before she stopped and remembered she wasn't a student here anymore, hadn't been in a while.

"Well the good thing is no one else saw that," she'd told herself before getting ready for the arrival of the tenth graders.

This group, two years younger than the previous, was in a lot of ways different from the one she'd had earlier. There was the curiosity over the new teacher, and then the rush of recognition floating from ear to ear… One of the boys had demanded that she sing something. She'd told him to go first. She did not have to sing.

With her morning classes behind her and time to kill until lunch, she'd left her classroom and gone back outside, sitting on her old bench to add the new group to her notes of the day. When she was done, she'd just sat there, breathing the air in and letting it out… She was already looking forward to the next day. Yes, this was day one, but they hadn't really started, had they? All they were doing today was talking, sharing. That was important, too, naturally, but now that she was getting to know them she really wanted to give them something to do, to get to know them in this other way.

Maya: Dad stopped by the school this morning. I invited them to dinner tonight.

Lucas: Rosa said she's making dinner, I'll let her know.

Lucas: How's it going?

Maya: Getting to know a lot of people today. You might need to quiz me.

Lucas: I am good with a flash card.

Maya: Thanks for the watch.

Lucas: Anytime.

Maya: 366… a lot.

Lucas: I 366 you, too.

She could have told him how nervous she was to walk into that teacher's lounge, as ridiculous as she felt for those nerves, but she already knew what he would tell her, and she took those unspoken words to heart. Now, here she was, with Mr. Matthews – who told her she could call him Cory, now that they were colleagues, even though she refused it – and Mr. Brett. Not long after this, they were also joined by Lindsay Alcott, who'd been delayed by the need to speak to one of her students.

She was eager, much as Mr. Matthews had been, to hear about her morning, her first classes. It didn't take long that Maya was reminded how her students were also all of theirs, too. One of them would bring up this sophomore, or that junior, and then the others would nod in recognition. It was like they were all playing a card game, and they all had part of a set in their hands, part of a story, a student. When they would bring up one of hers, those she'd met in the morning or those she still only knew from a name on a list, Maya would listen intently, the better to fill in her own picture.

"Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?" she asked Lindsay as they left the lounge together.

"Yeah, sure, what's up?" the English teacher asked as they moved down the hall. Some of the students were standing here and there, at their lockers, or coming out of the bathroom. There was still just under ten minutes until the bell would call everyone to class.

"How do you draw the line, when you have someone in your class that's also another teacher's kid? At what point do you go from consulting a colleague to informing a parent?" Maya slowly asked. Lindsay looked at her for a moment, soon parsing through the question.

"You had the seniors this morning?" she asked, and Maya nodded. "Is this about August?" She could only tip her head, showing how the fact that Lindsay could put it all together this way could only mean that she wasn't making a mountain out of a mole hill but a mountain out of a mountain. "Right, so here's the thing. On the one hand, you can say that if it has to do with his schoolwork, you're speaking to the teacher, and if it's to do with him as a person, then it's the parent. But then, any one of us might speak to another, swapping thoughts on how to proceed, in no way that would require us to get in touch with the parents. Add to it the fact that up to a certain point you need to respect that something may have been told to you in confidence."

"I don't know if I'd call it that, it's just something… I observed. And, yeah, in this case, part of it comes from the fact that I know this boy, and I've known him all his life, except… not like this."

"No, I've seen it, too. I might not have known him all his life, but I've worked with his father on and off for years now, I've seen him before ever being his teacher."

"And Mr. Matthews, what does he say?" Maya asked. It was so strange to find herself in this position, being let in to a facet of these family friends she had never been aware of until today. It felt almost like she was invading their privacy, but then what other choice did she have?

"He's… aware, to a point. August and him, being in this school together, it puts him in a place where his intervention might only make things worse. And August won't let him in, not as far as I've seen."

Maya didn't know what to say. Much as they both had some things they kept to themselves, she was roughly certain that Riley had no idea there was anything going on with her younger brother, or else she would have told Maya, especially now that she was about to be his teacher.

"I think, personally, if you want to speak to Cory about it, then you should," Lindsay finally told her, and Maya breathed out. It probably wouldn't be today, too much going on, but yeah…

"I will," she told Lindsay. "Thanks."

"Anytime," Lindsay smiled back at her. "I have a feeling you are going to fit right into this faculty."

The words sent Maya back to her classroom with much needed warmth. This small detour into her concerns for August Matthews had briefly derailed her from the spirit of this day, but now she needed to center herself once again, to prepare herself for two more classes, and so many new stories to learn.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners