July 26th 2020

Chapter 208
Their Autumn For Students

It had rained all day, a steady but unhurried autumn shower from morning up to now, as she climbed into the attic that evening, tea in hand. She had been waiting on this moment for some time now, no denying it. She had promised herself that she would wait one month after the start of classes for her to open Mrs. Yang's file box, all the things she had collected in teaching for the final three years of her time at the school. She had been told to wait, to get to know her kids on her own, and she could truly say that she had done this.

Today had marked one month since the start of the school year, one month since she'd started teaching.

How the time could have slipped by so fast, honestly, she couldn't say, but then again when had time ever felt like a real thing? The novelty had worn away, and now it was just natural, going into that school, early every day, seeing her seniors, her sophomores, her freshmen, and her juniors... The novelty may have gone, but the feeling of happiness, that... That part had not gone away, not by the smallest fraction of an inch. It might only have increased, now that the whole thing wasn't just an idea in her head but a reality, undeniable.

Setting her cup well away from potentially being spilled, Maya went and opened the box. There would not be anything to do with her ninth graders, of course, though that did not mean she couldn't have said anything about them. With no disservice to the others, this group would always be very special to her for being the first graduating class she'd see go through all four years. This year, all of them being new to the school like her, she could remember so well what it had been like for her and her friends, going from middle school over to high school.

Pulling out the first large folder, she found this one stacked with several smaller folders, each identified with a name, along with the years and grades included within.

Brett, Daphne - 9th ('26-'27)

Maya smiled, opening the folder to find the first item was a painting Daphne had done last year, of a planet's surface from high above, with plenty of detail. She suspected that, as invented as it was, she would have tried and done her research to make it realistic, maybe calling on her father. Beyond this, Mrs. Yang's notes coupled with every other piece of Daphne's work included here presented her much as Maya had come to see her. She was optimistic, very much so, and she had so much creativity in her as to not know what to do with it except to find a way to express it. In a lot of ways, Maya could understand what this was like.

Day, Dakota - 9th ('26-'27)

The first item in this folder was a drawing, and for having seen how the boy worked for a few weeks now, Maya had to appreciate how he had clearly improved since the previous year. Still, she could look at this and see the boy she had seen through all these mornings in her class. She could see him working on this, his whitish blond hair swooping down like a curtain, following the motion of what came off on the whole like he wasn't paying attention, hiding the fact that he was doing all of what they'd eventually find on the page. From what she'd heard of the other teachers, he was this way everywhere, and when they would call on him, thinking they might catch him out, he would just go and give them nothing but correct answers. He was shaping up to be at the top of his class, whether he presented that way or not.

Su, Ariel - 9th ('26-'27)

In one month, Maya had lost count of the number of novels she'd spotted Ariel reading, sometimes in the very first minute or two after the bell called her class to session. The variety had been as wide as the number, which felt on point. Even here, in Mrs. Yang's file, she could see work that spoke of Ariel's breadth of exploration, of tasting from many a plate. Of all the things she found there though, the thing which drew her attention the most, like proof of what she had surmised about Ariel so far, was a note written by the girl herself. In her clean, looped writing was a request for her to redo or at least complete an assignment which had been collected before she could properly finish it. By the looks of the file, she couldn't say whether this request had been granted, though she had a feeling it wasn't. Ariel's grades may not have suffered for it, but the girl likely had.

Boggs, Derek - 9th ('25-26) - 10th ('26-'27)

When she had finished with the first stack, she'd grabbed the next one, finding here the past two years of her juniors chronicled, in folders twice as thick. Finding the one belonging to Derek, she had to admit, she had been curious. Would he have been the same complicated boy two years ago as he was now? He was actually a very talented artist, enough to tell her he hadn't just signed on for this as a throwaway class to fill his schedule. His file, in the half dedicated to his freshman year, she saw more evidence of his love for art, and she knew this was his work, it had his style. There was something different about it though. She couldn't put it into words, more into feelings. She could see what he was trying to say, to some degree, and she took a breath. As someone who had walked the world with a mask for a long time, she felt a new tie to the boy.

Morales, Leon - 9th ('25-26) - 10th ('26-'27)

Her gentle giant may not have had the kind of imagination the likes of Daphne Brett or Maya herself, but his work had been on the whole very polished. He had a fine hand, the kind most people would not expect from someone of his stature. In the past two years, his style hadn't evolved so much, though this didn't mean he didn't grow as a person. What she'd seen of him suggested he mostly liked to keep his school life and home life separate. He had his goals settled, and he was here to make them happen. Why art had become part of this, she couldn't say, but she would do her best to make it happen.

Lifting out the biggest folder, for her seniors, after getting through her juniors, she started going through these as she'd done with the others, finding what had to be the most in-depth stories as of yet.

Janacek, Milena - 9th (-) - 10th ('25-'26) - 11th ('26-'27)

Maya had known it would be her file by how it had been significantly thinner than the others, covering two years instead of three. What she found in the oldest pieces filed away here was the Milena of two years ago, freshly promoted from 8th grade straight into 10th, thus starting her high school days among a brand new group of kids than the ones she'd been with from the start, a group who had already had time to settle into this new school by now, unlike her, and also a group that included her older brother. What her art showed was how she'd felt very out of place in the beginning. It was like her hand couldn't hide it, no matter what she did. It had changed, in time, steadying until she became the girl Maya knew now. There were still the smallest signs of that old discomfort here and there, and she hadn't known to spot it until now. It was another eye opening moment on this rainy night.

Janacek, Tony (Antonin) - 9th ('24-'25) - 10th ('25-'26) - 11th ('26-'27)

A lot of the time, whenever she'd look at any of Tony's work, she would remember him telling the class about his mother being an artist, on that first day. By now, Maya knew that Mrs. Janacek had indeed passed away, when Tony had been ten and Milena eight. What Tony's file showed Maya was how he had already been very good as a freshman, but every year since, he'd been honing those skills, under Mrs. Yang's tutelage. As she'd reached the end of that folder, she was ledt with this thought of potentially putting Tony in touch with her new pal Caleb Stamp, letting him and his extraordinary sketching skills bond with those of the Janacek boy. It felt like a match made in art heaven.

Matthews, August - 9th ('24-'25) - 10th ('25-'26) - 11th ('26-'27)

She had been waiting to land on this one all evening, no way around it, so much that she'd set it aside when she'd reached it, keeping it for the end. How many times had she almost gone to the box in the last month? She wanted to get just his file, but she knew that the moment she opened the box she would want to look at every file, not just the one. So, she had forced herself to resist. But now...

Here she had this timeline, three years strong, to help her help her student, her almost brother. August at fourteen, fifteen, sixteen... She looked at the very end of it, found that familiar cloudiness. She looked to the beginning, and oh there was that bit of sunlight she had grown to love in Riley's little brother. Whatever had changed him, it had happened, somewhere between the start of freshman and the end of junior year, clearly. She almost felt like she couldn't look, like it would have been an invasion, even though this wasn't anything like a diary, nothing private.

Maya spread it all around herself, contextualizing this timeline of August Matthews. It wasn't as though it would be right there, like slowly darkening skies, but... she could see it. There was a sort of... wobbliness... as ninth grade progressed, but then somewhere in tenth, there was a noted shift, and from there it became more of the same. What this told her was that it wasn't just that he had kept on a steady decline, no. There had been an incident, a moment, and from there, he'd been walking the school halls with that weight forcing his head down.

"Auggie..." Maya whispered to herself, breathing out. Maybe 'hiding the vegetables' wasn't going to be the way to go.

It wasn't until she'd gathered everything up to put it back in the box that she noticed there was one more thing at the bottom. After the emotions she'd been facing since she'd opened the box, this might have been just the thing she needed.

Hart, Maya - 9th ('17-'18) - 10th ('18-'19) - 11th ('19-'20) - 12th ('20-'21)

"Wow..." she'd laughed to herself, opening up the folder.

So much of it felt like someone had cracked open her memories, ones she'd have believed lost until she saw these pieces of paper, some now ten years old, and suddenly it could have been just yesterday. She would experience that a lot when she would flip through her old sketchbooks. She had so many of them, and it was no wonder. They were the best way she knew to store this bit of herself, her past... the good and the bad. In many ways, she had been an only child when this file was started, and by the end... She had discovered what it was like to love someone the way she loved Lucas, in those years...

Before putting the files away, she decided to go ahead and tag them with this new year just started, to see that her kids got to complete their timelines. When she was done, she went and found some empty folders, some labels, and a pen. Seventeen folders were identified, including the likes of...

Avelino, Kai - 9th ('27-'28)

Buckley, Stella - 9th ('27-'28)

Munroe, Phoebe - 9th ('27-'28)

Sanderson, Melissa (Missy) - 9th ('27-'28)

In four years, they would be spilling over with who they would all become, and their art teacher could not wait to see it unfold.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners