September 8th 2020

Chapter 252
Their Flight to Stories

"When did you get those?" Riley laughed as quietly as she could when she spotted Maya coming back down the stairs with her bag. She had told her to get back down here after the last of the girls had gone to bed, and now the bride-to-be looked as though she knew exactly what was in that bag. She was not wrong. After getting her to head into the kitchen, Maya unloaded the bag of its contents, of construction paper, and glue, and markers, and – very importantly – of glitter.

"It's all about finding your moment. You know, if we were back in Austin, I could have dipped into my supply closet at school, could have had more colors," she nodded to the small bottles of glitter. "They're more for special occasions… decorations… than the actual classes, but you know, sometimes, you just need something to sparkle, high school or not. Now, would you like to be in charge of that step?" she asked, in a tone overly serious, especially for the giddy way in which Riley nodded in response.

Soon, they had themselves something of an assembly line, as Maya traced and cut out her paddles, adding the numbers in the middle and showing Riley where she wanted her to apply the glitter. When she suggested a handle, Maya blinked a moment before disappearing up the stairs for a new mission. It would be easy enough, as her sisters were not in their room, which would make it that much easier for her to go digging through their supplies again. She had been happy to find they still had a lot of things at her disposal, but then she could just see them using any and all things at their disposal in their fashion explorations, enough that they would have those items for themselves and their little siblings. This made it so that Maya returned victoriously with a load of wooden popsicle sticks.

"You know what these still remind me of?" Riley asked, as she started to carefully add handles to her already glittered paddles.

"That time you made a house with them and Stanley Voss smashed it?"

"Yeah," Riley gave a small laugh which felt entirely more cheerful thinking back on the incident than she had been when it had actually happened.

"Smashed him right back," Maya wiggled in her chair as she traced a number seven on one of the paddles.

"You punched him in the nose," Riley recalled.

"Yeah, and neither one of us got out of that one without some pain."

"You were seven, your hands were tiny."

"They're not that much bigger now," Maya joked, showing her right hand. "Anyway, I didn't mean to punch him, just wanted to scare him a little, but then he moved, and I tripped, and bam, broken little chick fingers," she flexed these long-mended digits. "I think I would have forgotten most of it except I really just remember my mom showing up at school to come and get me. She came in and she looked like she'd been working up something to reprimand me the whole way in, because all they told her was that I'd 'beaten up' one of the other kids. But then the moment she saw me sitting there, all sniffly with my hand all taped up, it was like a switch flipped, and now it was fear and concern and indignation about who had hurt her baby girl, and I remember how I just rambled on and told her what had happened, because I wanted to make sure she heard my side of it first. She took my side, no questions asked. Sometimes I think she could have been a lawyer, in another life, if the stage hadn't called her," she stated with a flair of drama, which made Riley chuckle. "And sometimes I think about moments like those, and it's like I realize for the first time how young she was at the time. When that happened, she was younger than we are now, and that's just…"

"Yeah…" Riley nodded, understanding. After a few seconds, they got back to work on their paddles.

The night had already felt like a rousing success by the time they'd come back from dinner and the movie, so really the time they had then spent with the girls back here at the house had felt like the cherry on top.

The 'one hour or one yawn' rule had been enacted, with the yawn winning out, about halfway through the allotted time. They had all still been in the midst of getting their 'tattoos' from Maya, and she had just finished the requested puppy on Sadie's leg when her sister yawned, slapping a hand over her mouth almost just as soon. It had taken a reminder that the sleepover didn't finish with tonight, and that Maya and Riley would still be here all through the next day and night, for them to agree to go up to the attic and their sleeping bags. This had started a cascade, taking along Eliza and Emma almost at the same time, which had left only the two visitors and the eldest, Cara. They'd checked to see if Teddy was still awake and might want to join them, but he was content playing on his computer, so they let him be.

To sit there in the living room, the three of them, with some of the as yet untouched snacks… It had always been a highlight of their sleepovers, these 'overtime' moments, with whoever of the older kids was able to stick it out. Eliza and Emma might have been here with them for this if they hadn't turned in already, but then Maya was sort of glad it was just her and Riley and Cara, as it put her oldest little sister in a position where she probably felt more at ease discussing certain things with her big sister.

Having seen Cara and Declan together in person for the first time, had hit Maya in a way she had not expected. Sure, she'd been hearing all about how the evolution of their relationship, from when she'd met him, to how great of a friend he had become, to her developing feelings for him, and then him asking her out, and the first date, and the first kiss… It didn't take much in the way of input from the other kids, telling of this time or that time when they or their parents had interrupted some lingering kisses to know that they were getting more and more comfortable with one another, and now tonight, at the theater, after seeing them, after Cara mentioned that Declan was also planning to come to Austin…

Maya had been taken back to a moment, it didn't feel all too long ago, when she'd sat there with Sam and given him 'the talk.' It had been uncomfortable for both siblings, but it had been necessary, as Sam and Cecilia had started circling that subject and Sam was in his sister's care, his sister's home. That one had been her responsibility, and she'd handled it, but Cara… Surely, Abigail or James would have taken on the task, yeah? She had to trust that, when the time came, this would be something else Cara turned to her big sister to discuss, and Maya would be there for her when she did. If this didn't happen for a good while still, she would not be opposed either… but she doubted it would be much longer.

When Cara had called it a night and headed up to the attic, Maya had watched her go, that thrumming of her heart still going. That was the part they didn't prepare you for, wasn't it? That age gap between her siblings and her, it had never felt like so much of a big deal, not until they'd gone and grown into those teenage years, and suddenly they made her feel less like a sibling and more like a parent, before she even had kids of her own. It was the strangest place to be, rewarding when it wasn't completely awkward, as it was here.

"You've got a weird look on your face," Riley told Maya, as she was applying glitter to number nine. She'd finished cutting and tracing the last of the paddles, which left her side of the activity handled. Now she'd just been sitting there, twirling the number one paddle between her fingers like a baton. When Riley spoke, she almost dropped it before swiftly catching it and setting it down unharmed.

"Huh? Oh… No, it's nothing," she shook her head.

"Maya," Riley gave her a look which felt sufficiently Topanga-like to break through, as though teenage Maya had taken control of her brain and opened the door for her, out of reflex.

"Just some uncomfortable big sister/little sister reflections," Maya shrugged. "Really nothing you want to be thinking about… like ever… except sooner or later you don't have a choice." Riley received this with a small nod, and Maya pointed a finger at her. "Do not head shrink me."

"No, no, I would never," Riley assured her.

"Because you only use your superpowers for good?" Maya teased, making her best friend smile. She was fairly sure Riley knew what she'd been saying without saying it, but she knew it for sure once she followed the brief silence with…

"Would I be a bad big sister if I told you about when my parents gave August his big talk?" It was just as well that Maya wasn't the one in charge of the glitter in that moment.

"I… I don't know… Would it be a conflict of interest? I mean he's my student… for a few weeks more… but I've also known him all his life and have, on one or two occasions, helped to change his diaper?"

"Well…" Riley reflected. "No one has to know but us," she pointed out, and Maya smirked. "I probably would have told you anyway, sooner or later, if you hadn't been his teacher."

"You are weird, and I love you," Maya resettled in her chair, like an invitation to hear this tale. "When did they…"

"Oh, he was fourteen," Riley nodded firmly.

"Wait, for real?" Maya sat up now.

"Yeah," Riley chuckled. "I happened to be visiting that weekend, and I think they thought it would make it less awkward if it wasn't just the two of them and him, if I was there, too."

"Oh, Matthews," Maya bowed her head, imagining how traumatized August would have been, receiving the sex talk with his sister sitting right there.

"I think he came this close to developing spontaneous invisibility powers," Riley told her. "My mom was going in there, all business like, and it just reminded me of when they gave me that talk, but I think it was different for her then, because she had that whole 'woman to woman' thing to lean on. With August, it was 'her little boy,' and she kind of went off the rails a bit."

"Did she cry?" Maya tried not to laugh.

"Oh, no, she turned into something like a drill sergeant, about protection, and consent, and waiting…" Riley recalled, putting on a face that felt very much like her mother's.

"Wow… just… wow," Maya shook her head. "Do I dare ask how your father handled it?"

"He definitely went into that one with a plan, but I'm pretty sure the plan was about passing on whatever weird moment he must have had with his dad when he was younger. When it was my turn, he barely said a word, mostly his eyes had a big 'please don't' in them," Riley gestured to her face with a sparkly finger, shaking her head. "Whenever they get on Hunter with all that, they better leave me and August out of it."

"Well that's going to make for some weird dreams tonight…" Maya breathed as they collected the completed paddles and cleaned up the kitchen. Riley grinned.

"Should be even weirder when you see my dad at school on Monday."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners