November 12th 2020

Chapter 317
Their Growth in School

All morning, Maya had been itching for it to be lunch time already, getting some kind of less creepy version of the Telltale Heart from the boxes she knew were hidden in the supply closet Every time any of the seniors or sophomores went to grab something from there, she'd sweep in, cool as ever, grabbing what they'd need for them so they wouldn't open the door out and show what was hidden inside. At least one time they had a close call of sorts, but eventually she was in the clear and all she had to do was wait until everyone went to lunch and the quiz team came to the art room for their weekly meet with 'Advisor Friar.'

They came in due time, each girl with her lunch, which they enjoyed as they sat around a station table with their teacher. It had been near on three months now since Born Curious had come together, and while they hadn't seen an official match yet, they'd been carrying with their playful 'rivalry' with the boys of the Think Tank on a monthly basis. The boys had won the first, back in November, yes, but upon the rematch in December the girls had claimed the top spot, right before the holiday break. They had not needed to prove anything to anyone, but that had definitely felt great, even more as they'd gone on to hit a repeat with their January match. Now, February was upon them, and the tension was making itself felt. Would they create a streak, winning a third time in a row, or would the boys reclaim the winning side? It had been clear from the day one that they were fairly evenly matched, with each final score reflecting this, and all this did for them was make them that much more determined to end up on top.

That was all business though, and it had been a long-standing rule among them that there was not to be 'team talk' while they ate. Helena had been the one to come up with it, and Maya was glad for it. The girls did hang out outside of the meetings and the matches, she'd seen them, heard them talk about it, but even here it felt important that they allowed themselves this down time, to just breathe, and eat, and talk, before jumping into everything else. Seeing them like this, Maya could see so much of how the time had knitted them all together. There were still isolated patches, letting her believe that they weren't entirely open with one another, but that was fine, that was normal.

On the flipside, they did share with one another, things they would never have done in the beginning. Stella had come around and shared about her mother, and growing up in LA, and though the others would sometimes ask her if she'd ever met this one celebrity or another, on the whole they were very respectful of her privacy, her secret. Helena spoke of some of the harder times, back when she'd been sick, when she'd come so close to losing her battle, and how she came back from it all. Ariel confessed her compulsions for perfection, how for a time she had let it affect her so much that her parents had put her in therapy. It wasn't something she liked to talk about a lot, or at all, but she felt able to do so here, with them, and she was happy to say she had improved. It hadn't all gone away, but she coped much better than before.

Rochelle had been slowest to come around and talk of herself, of anything past basic surface facts. Even if she wasn't there all the time to witness it all, Maya could tell. But the more time she'd spent with these new friends, the possibility of opening up and letting some things out didn't come off as pointless or scary as it had once been. So, she shared the weight of her experience, being of mixed race, her and her brother being the only ones, their father's new wife being black like him and their mother's new husband being white like her. Adding to that the fact that she kept to her mother's faith, it had been another place where she stood out among people who were meant to be her own. There was plenty that felt unstable around her, but the things she could control by herself, like her education, oh…

Today, the discussion around the table had been inevitable. The Valentines dance was coming up. Ariel was happy to reveal that she'd poached Neil from the Think Tank as her date, which had rung the bell of 'scandal' for her crossing into 'enemy' territory, but she didn't care. The boy was – according to Ariel – ridiculously good-looking, and he moved well so they'd actually get to dance at the dance. When she went on to suggest that Stella might see if Neil's teammate, Gilbert, wanted to go with her, she had immediately gone babbling, shaking her head and insisting she didn't want to go. As many strides as she'd made over the past year and a half she just was not ready for this.

"Maybe you are, but you're never going to know if you don't try," Helena tried to encourage her, but Stella still shook her head.

"Is it being at the dance that freaks you out or the part about dancing up close to someone?" Rochelle asked, showing some perceptiveness. "I get that," she went on to admit, which did get Stella to meet their eyes again.

"You don't have to bring anyone, just come," Maya pitched in.

"But it's the Valentines dance," Stella pointed out. "Isn't it the whole point to have someone?"

"We could always use someone at the drinks table," Maya offered, and Stella considered this. Rochelle raised her hand. "You, too, if that's what you want."

"But what about…" Ariel whispered, and Rochelle turned a pointed look at her.

"What about what?" Helena grinned. "What about who?"

"No one, no one," Rochelle replied, the first to Helena, the second to Ariel, who now tried to play it cool. Thankfully, none of the others were the type to pry, so they let it go. "What about you?" Rochelle changed the subject by turning to Helena. The senior girl sighed.

"Complicated," she stated.

"Why, because they won't let you go with a girl?" Rochelle asked, sounding ready to brandish a large sign and demand it.

"Oh, no, no, that's fine," Helena assured her, though she did steal a look to Maya as though to ask 'it is, right?' Maya tipped her head. If anyone tried to say she couldn't she'd handle it, no signs needed. "No, it's just… There is someone, but… Well, she's not out, and I get it, I'm not going to force her to do anything she's not ready to do. So, I can't go with her. I could just go with someone else, but if she can't then…"

"Drinks table?" Maya sympathetically asked. Helena chuckled.

"Can we sell those drinks?" Rochelle asked. "Get more money in for the team? We might as well, if three of us are going to be there," she went on, turning a look to Ariel, she of the Think Tank fraternizing.

"Look me in the eye and tell me the guy is not hot, come on!" Ariel insisted of her friend. From the look she got back, Rochelle evidently could not fault her on this part at least, and it got the rest of the table laughing.

"Oh, hey, now that we're done with lunch," Maya stood up all at once, like she had almost forgotten about her Telltale boxes.

"Is it about the thing hiding in the supply closet?" Stella casually asked, and Maya turned back to her, receiving a shrug. Of course, she would have pieced it together.

"What's in the supply closet?" Ariel asked, all the girls now watching their teacher as she went to the door. Almost as soon as she'd asked this though, she gasped. "Did they finally come?" she asked, and when Maya smirked the teammates stood from their stools and approached.

The order for the team's jackets had been put out, good and prompt, back in December. However, after some kind of mix up in shipping, they had ended up getting sent elsewhere, and then they'd been lost altogether. By the time they'd gotten it all sorted with the company who'd made them, they'd been carrying on with their team shirts alone, which had been fine for the Think Tank, but they were coming up on their first official match and they really wanted the jackets they had worked so hard to earn. When the shipment had finally shown up at the school, Maya was easily as giddy as the girls now were, waiting for her to bring them out.

"Okay, let me just see…" Maya brought out the stack of boxes and carried them to her desk, the girls following and reminding her of the dogs keeping underfoot whenever she had food in her hands. "Miss Zimmerman," she declared, after having checked the label on the side of the top box. After passing it to a smiling Helena, she gave her a look to ensure she'd wait for the others. "Miss Su," she checked the next box, and Ariel was there with her hands out in the blink of an eye. "Geez… okay…" Maya laughed. "Miss Buckley," she followed, and Stella received her box like it was so very precious. "And Miss McNeil," Maya turned and handed the next box to Rochelle, who received it with the wavering determination of a kid in front of a present they couldn't open yet. "Okay, go, go," Maya waved at them, and they didn't have to be told twice.

For all the concerns the girls had expressed about expectations versus reality, and measurements, and colors on a screen and in real life, the jackets were a perfect fit, and with all of them in the same colors, it rendered the four of them in the most team-like appearance they'd ever achieved. This included a more streamlined logo for the team, along with BORN CURIOUS in neat letters underneath, all of it stitched on the pocket. Inside, stitched into the lining, they'd find their own names, in looped letters rather than blocked.

"Wow…" Maya breathed, bursting with pride and the tingle of near tears at the sight of them. "Here, here, stand in front of the board," she moved out with her phone, the better to capture the image. The girls gladly posed, jackets tugged straight.

"Wait, what about yours?" Stella asked, after the picture was shown to them. They looked to the two boxes still on the desk, and they spoke over each other, all of them insisting that she put hers on, too, and so she did, leading to another picture. Moments later, the five of them were marching through the school's halls, looking their most team-like as they sought out Cory Matthews.

"By the way, Mr. Matthews is going to be running the Friday lunch meeting next week," Maya told the girls, as a stop at the teachers' lounge redirected them toward the history classroom.

"How come?" Helena asked.

"I'm actually going to be absent all of next week," Maya revealed. "I should have mentioned it this morning, slipped my mind, I'm sorry."

"Where are you going?" Stella asked. Maya smiled.

"Well, something came up, and I put in for some of my days off," she told her and the rest of the team. True to their name, they were very curious to know what she was talking about, and she could have left them to figure it out for themselves, but that wouldn't have felt right, would it? "You might still see me though…"

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners