January 9th 2023

Chapter 9
We Expand Our Structures

"What's the matter? How come we're meeting out here?" Stella asked as she climbed up the stands. Across the gym, there were many students, split between the left end and the right. One group was there to try out for either the boys' or girls' basketball teams, and the other for the cheerleading squad.

It was hectic, and it shouldn't have been that way. The cheer tryouts were going to be held outside… but it had rained all day and even if it had stopped – which it hadn't – they could not have pulled it off safely. They might have rescheduled, but this felt a lot easier. Everyone was here, everyone was ready, and Dylan had pointed out how this could actually be a good thing.

"It's like the guys' and girls' teams. They're their own thing, but they both play for this school. You remember what it was like when we were playing."

"Oh, yeah," Maya had told him, grinning.

"Yeah, so the players, and the cheerleaders, they should get to be that for each other, too. Their own thing but also… one school." With his hands clasped together like that, Maya really wished that she'd had the presence of mind to have her phone out at the time.

She wished that she still felt like chuckling right now.

"We're here because if I'm here then there's a lot of people around and I'll keep my voice down. Also, it's basketball, it helps," she gestured vaguely in the direction of the team tryouts.

"You… need to yell?" Stella looked ready to gulp. If anything, that flash of shy bird… shy birding… broke Maya out of her funk enough to elaborate.

"Just had an… encounter with the principal, where she wanted to 'express my concerns about this year's lineup for the quiz team,'" Maya performed a flawless imitation of Sandra Davenport, down to the sweet tone that felt draped over a poison stinger. Stella confirmed this flawlessness by shivering and Maya apologized with a smile. After a moment, considering what this could have meant, Stella let out a short gasp.

"This is because of Lydia, isn't it? Because of what happened last year?"

"Of course. And in a different circumstance I could understand where she's coming from, but where she is coming from is just about not liking anything that has any potential of putting a blemish on her record, at her brand new posting."

"What did you say?"

"I said that we had handled the situation, considered it from all angles and, in the end, decided that Lydia deserved to keep her spot on the team. She… not so subtly… subtly suggested that I am biased because she's my husband's cousin."

"You're not though," Stella promised at once.

"I know that," Maya sighed. Internally, she was kind of glad she'd said it. "She's been here for a month, and the whole time I've seen her just… prowling, doing her own thing. I actually started to tell myself that maybe she wasn't that bad, but the way she spoke to me back there… No, no, she's exactly who I thought she was, and that's just the start, you wait and see."

They stayed in silence for a little while, watched the students on one side of the gym and the other. The basketball side was fun, comfortable. She could see familiar faces, the teams as they had been last year, those of them who hadn't graduated out, and some students from tenth grade and up who had either never tried out and wanted to take a shot, or tried and failed in the past… And there were the freshmen, these in the highest numbers, as usual. Maya could see Noor and Freddie, waiting side by side and watching the proceedings, pointing to this player or that one…

Meanwhile, the selection field on the cheerleaders' side was as wide as one would expect. None of these kids had even looked at cheerleading like an option, and now it was, and everyone who might have entertained some notion of being on a squad wanted their shot. Lydia was there, and Maya's eyes kept being drawn toward her, recalling her conversation with Principal Davenport. That woman saw trouble, whereas Maya saw a girl who'd faltered and, since then, had been carrying herself with a new determination, a new strength, and that was exactly what she was going to bring to the squad if they picked her… which they really should, because she was brilliant out there. Out across the gym, on the basketball side, MJ would watch her, too, with a huge grin on his face. Whenever Lydia would catch him looking, he'd playfully give her a cheer pose and make her laugh. He wanted this for her, that was what it meant, and she appreciated it.

Other hopefuls for the squad included Meadow Bailey, which felt like something Maya could have predicted before the squad had ever been revived, were she ever asked which of her students she thought could have been cheerleaders. On the flipside, if asked who she would never suspect of wanting to cheer, she could have thought of several names, too, and in fact none of those kids were there… none but one, and she hadn't even spotted him immediately. Once she had spotted him, she'd been speechless. Austin Abbott… The freshman boy was out there now, and he looked nervous, like so much of his brain was telling him to get the hell out of there. But he wasn't moving, no. He was staying right there. He hadn't gone up and done anything yet, but he was there, waiting.

"I… I was wondering if you had any ideas for your new freshman, for the quiz team?" Stella spoke up, sounding very much like she wanted to give her former teacher something to focus on, something that would remind her of the things she loved to do, things that had nothing to do with Sandra Davenport and would never, not as long as she had anything to say about it. Maya smiled.

"I do, actually, I do, uh… I've been meaning to get on that, believe me, I've got the rest of them staring me down by now, see? Over there?" she nodded across the gym, where Maia Bennett stood, in her gym clothes, whispering to Rolly McNeil. He wasn't on the team, only commentated for the games, but he'd been known to stand in at tryouts, the better to bring up anecdotes on this player or that one and the promise they'd shown, leading to their selection. Just now, he looked more concerned, him and his quiz teammate, with whether their teacher had finally found them a fourth member.

"Really? Who?"

"Agnes Killian? She's not with you, is she?" Maya asked, surprised at Stella's smile of recognition.

"No, well, she studies Spanish, but she's one of my new tutors. I'm very lucky to have her," Stella revealed. At Maya's surprise, she went on to reveal how Agnes had grown up speaking French with her grandmother. Maya knew that the woman had lived with her daughter and her family for as long as Agnes had lived, did so to this day, but the French part had somehow never come up. "I think she'll be wonderful. Did you ask her yet?"

"Getting around to it, but I wanted to talk to you first, see if you'd had any luck for the new team," Maya told her, revealing the reason why she'd called her up into the gym in the first place. Stella beamed, turned her eyes toward the students spread out across the gym.

"Haven't talked to any of mine yet either, I just… I wanted to run it by you and Mr. Matthews, and…" she started, and Maya signalled for her to go on. "Well, see out there, on the cheer end, those two redheads?" Stella pointed, and Maya found them well enough. "The Nilsson sisters. The little one there's Miley, she's a junior. And the taller one is Marie, sophomore."

Maya had seen them in the halls, but they'd definitely been part of those students she didn't know by name. For what she knew of them, from those passing encounters and from what she saw today, they were very close, very dependent on one another, as good as best friends. Beyond that, she didn't know where they stood academically, but she trusted Stella's judgment, so if she saw them as having potential…

"Alright, so that's two. Who else?" Maya asked, and she was pointed back over to the basketball side.

"Sandy Abbott for the seniors."

"Oh, yeah?" Maya sat up, intrigued. Naturally, she'd known of her for being one of her sisters' classmates and one of their teammates over the past three years, but now she also knew her as Austin's older sister. If she'd been upset to see the boy get tossed around over the start of his freshman year, then his sister had done everything in her power to look after him. He didn't always want her to do that, felt embarrassed at being tailed by his sister, but that didn't stop her, and Maya had to respect that. "Alright, good. That just leaves your freshman, huh?"

"I've had my eye on Kip Perreault, actually," Stella told her. The boy wasn't here for either of the tryouts, but Maya didn't need a visual aid, not when he'd been a constant at his new best friend and current cheer hopeful's side. She had to admit that other than that connection, she knew next to nothing about him except that bullies had zeroed in on him. "I swear he's got a photographic memory or something, it's just mind blowing sometimes."

"Good to know," Maya laughed. It was good to see Stella be so invested in all this. She could not have asked for a better new advisor at her side. "Alright, well, how about we get them all together tomorrow after class?"

"Okay… yeah, I… Maybe I should have some backups," Stella frowned to herself. "Some of them could say no."

"Could be," Maya agreed. "But let's see what happens first."

"Yeah, we can do that," Stella breathed. "I can't believe it's October already."

"Kind of sneaks up on you, doesn't it?" Maya chuckled.

"It does," Stella nodded. "All these tryouts, the auditions for the musical coming up, the elections…" Another of Sandra Davenport's spotlight projects since she'd come along. She wanted to give the student government more of a presence, which Maya wasn't against, sure, but as ever, the principal's connection to it all just sort of left a sour taste of dread. One more thing not to let get spoiled by her.

"Go, Austin!" a girl's voice cut across the gym, drawing their attention back to the tryouts. That had been Sandy Abbott. She was standing on one end of the large room, hands still cupped at her mouth to amplify her call while, on the other side, her younger brother's turn had arrived.

While no one doubted that he appreciated the support, he might have wished to go without. He froze up for a moment, but then he pushed it aside and got on with his tryout. Maya's hands were at her mouth, too, though in her case less to amplify her voice and more to swallow it down as she looked on and felt her heart drum in shared nerves. She just wanted this to go great for him. There were only so many spots, and she was sure plenty of those kids were worthy, but this… If he had this, it could help, right? Maybe?

For a kid she'd mostly seen shuffle quietly along for a solid month, he moved a lot better than she could have ever anticipated, and she could imagine him out there, bringing just what any cheerleader worth their salt should bring and then some. Alright, way to go, kid, way to go… All of you, well done…

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners