A/N: Hey everyone, don't know if this is going to work. For some reason the chapters from the last two days are no longer visible, so this one might not show up.

November 2nd 2020

Chapter 307
Their Hope to Learn

Whether or not this feeling was nerves, it was keeping Maya well on her toes as the morning progressed. There were thirteen of them in that room, none more, just two teams of four, and two advisors here, one advisor and observing teacher there, with someone asking the questions in the middle, in this case Morgan, standing all on her own on the fourth side of their square. It could not have been more informal, and yet to look at some of them, Maya included, it did get to have a similar feeling to loaded gyms on game days. They weren't being noisy about it, but oh were they ever concentrated.

Maya might have felt like she needed to keep focused, like any sliver of distraction would just bring her back to a place that would not release her again, would make it so she wasn't doing what she was supposed to do, which was to be there for her students.

By the looks of them, the opposing team was still fairly new, too, in its current configuration at least. Two of the boys were freshmen, on their first year as part of the team, while the third looked like he might have been a sophomore, junior at the most. He and Eric both had clearly been doing this a while longer, and it showed in their ease. On the whole, they didn't look mean-spirited in any way. They welcomed the competition and they played clean. Born Curious could not have asked for a better kick-off match than this.

For all their good sportsmanship and despite their recent lineup, the thing that mattered the most for today was how good they were. They were very good. They weren't flawless by any means, but they were very solid, a formidable opponent. Maya had become aware of this fairly early on, and it definitely did not help in keeping her calm.

As much as it could have sent her spiraling though, she would turn and look upon her girls, and just as quickly she would be shown that, new as they were, having been a team for less than a month, they were no pushovers. They were very good, too. She could pinpoint the exact moment when the other team realized it. They practically straightened up in their chairs, as though collectively thinking 'oh, this is on now.' The girls were more than up to the challenge, too.

With three of them, the BC could just as well have stood for 'Born Competitive.' It was a trait Maya had recognized in each of them, whether she'd known them for a year or a couple of months. Ariel Su, from day one, showed it in how organized she was. It could have seemed to a lot of people as though Maya's being 'only the art teacher' would have no bearing on how they did in more academic subjects, but this couldn't have been further from the truth. She could tell plenty about any of her students for how they handled themselves in her class and from the works they produced. Ariel was her laser focus girl, and she could tell practically from day one that she'd be one who came with a natural ease in learning. It had nothing to do with aspirations toward one career or another, although she would have those, too. She was just smart in a way that was just… hyperaware… and organized.

In this match today, she showed this from question one. She sat there, her posture impeccable, locked in. She never looked away from the table across from them, where the boys sat, her hand hovering at the ready over her buzzer. When she answered questions, her hand would hit that little object so quickly that she practically had to close her hand around it even as she pressed down, so not to let it slide away and off the front of the table.

Then Helena, well… The time she'd spent out of school, for what Maya knew of it, had not been easy, no, but Helena had always been a very industrious girl, who liked to keep busy, to get involved. Maya had picked up on that from the day of the then juniors' field trip to the museum. When she and Lucas had driven her home, Helena had invited them into her house, to share some of her drawings with her future art teacher. This had brought Maya into Helena's room, which might as well have been called Helena's world, her mind, her heart. There were plenty of items showing her days being on the basketball team, her involvement in story hours at the library, her ties to the school's LGBTQIA+ club, her drawings of course, and her schoolbooks to help her keep up with her studies… Once she'd come back to school in September, it was clear that she'd do all she needed in order to get herself to where she needed to be, to get back on track, and that was a drive Maya understood very well.

She was much more relaxed than Ariel when she'd answer, but this in no way made her any less driven. She showed so much confidence, and though this was a bunch of people sitting down the whole time, it gave Maya a solid impression of what she would have been like on the basketball court.

Now Rochelle, oh… This whole thing had come together because of her, because it had felt like just the thing to bring her out of that sturdy shell of hers, to break her tunnel vision. And while Maya was aware that there would be so much work left to be done, that she still had so much growing to do, there had already been a lot of change to note. The difference in under a month bordered on staggering. Sure, Maya had not had the chance to see what Rochelle was like when she was in science class, or English, or history… For all she knew, she could have been like this anywhere but in art class, but Maya didn't believe it, or else the counselors would not have seen fit to drop the girl on her class doorstep. And then she only had to look to Cory, and how he'd speak of her following those team sessions he advised, to know that he was seeing noted changes from her, too.

One thing was for certain, she may have been the youngest on their team, but she had presence. She'd rattled the freshmen boys on the other side before the match had even started, and she kept that attitude going throughout the match. More than once, Maya suspected one of those boys had missed answering a question because of the pointed look aimed back at them from across the table. Rochelle was in her element, and she had not even known it might be hers until it was handed to her.

With the three of them as competitive as they were, it had been clear to Maya even before she'd seen them all in action that they would need something to counterbalance them, something, someone to see that they didn't get carried away. And that was Stella. The shy bird tended to have that effect on people. She commanded respect and no one really realized it, for how unassuming she was. You could have been excused for not even realizing she was there at first sometimes. Certainly, it could be said that the boys didn't realize what they had in their midst at first. And then, just as she'd shown the other girls on her team, she'd sneak in and show herself for the secret weapon that she was.

Before she'd been in school with the rest of them, back when she'd been home schooled, she had devoured information. She just liked to read a lot, and she was pretty good at retaining what she read. She was the kind of person who could find just about anything interesting, especially if it was something she didn't know a lot about. She'd once told Maya how she'd gotten bored one summer and ended up reading a dictionary. She'd liked to see all the words, see how some of them shared roots, or just discover definitions to words she'd heard before without knowing what they meant… This had led to a few weeks deep diving for spelling bee videos, where she'd sit there and quietly spell the words along without looking. Apparently, she'd keep score. To Maya, it felt so very much like Stella to do something like that.

So, that was her team, her Born Curious. The more she saw of them here today, the more she knew they could not have found a better name for themselves if they tried.

As much as she knew about them and could have championed each one of them on and on, Maya could see that it wouldn't be that simple. She and Cory would watch the score as they advanced through the match. It would tip back and forth, sometimes toward one team, sometimes toward the other. It could spend a few questions tipping deeper in one direction, but sooner or later the other side would inch and inch closer before finally overtaking the leaders, and then it'd start all over again.

At one time, Maya felt a touch at her knee and nearly startled, looking back to Cory at her side. He gave her a look she took to mean 'are you alright?' She let out a breath, sitting back in her chair and realizing that she'd been leaning forward, good and hunched for a while, following the girls' ascension back to the lead after the boys had had it for several questions.

Now that he'd said it, it was like the thing she'd been ignoring had needed nothing more than this small sliver of an opening. The moment it had that, it could shoot through and regain power. The line was really thin now in her mind, wondering if this was nerves or early pregnancy signs. The new wrinkle then became something like 'If this is because I might be pregnant, then I should try to calm down, shouldn't I?' This match really needed to end… It would get easier after this first one, wouldn't it? There was no doubt in her mind that the thing that was tugging at her anxiety was the affection she had for her students. It might be said that before she ever had kids of her own, she'd had all of them first.

One thing was certain now. On her way home, she was going to have to make a stop to pick up a test. It was too real in her head now, and she had to know, regardless of the result. A follow-up to this errand would possibly be a bit of research on relaxation techniques.

Maya gave Cory her best sort of look to convey that she was just really zoned in to the match. It made perfect sense; the match was intense, continuing its tipping back and forth as it went on.

It did get to a point where they saw how close they were to the end, and at the same time they noticed this, the boys broke the current tie in their favor. And then they advanced a little further. The girls simply ran out of chances to catch up to them this time, and so they had lost.

Both teams, students and advisors alike, had exchanged congratulations as well as declarations that they needed to do this again another time. Rematches were always fun, and for how heated their first encounter had been, it felt as though they had no choice but to go further.

"Alright, well, I was going to say this whether we won or not, so don't see this as a pity offering," Maya told the girls as they walked back down the hall together. "Let's go get something to eat. Lunch is on me."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners