April 13th 2023
Chapter 103
We Move Into New Ground
Maya was no stranger to getting tailed by students who wanted to know if she'd made a choice already. Every year since the quiz team had been running, which was most of her years teaching so far, she'd had to deal with eager new team captains seeking their latest recruit. It wasn't such a big deal in the end, as she couldn't pick some kid at random when she barely knew them. She would make her choice in the end, and everyone would be happy.
Now, she was also the new cheer coach, and though the squad was only on its second year after its shaky return, it didn't prevent all the hopefuls from being very, very eager to know whether or not they had been selected. One would think that their having only a few days to wait out instead of weeks like the quiz team would make them a bit more patient, but that wasn't the case at all. Instead, Maya spent the days following tryouts being followed in and out of school by teenagers wanting to know if they would get to don the uniform soon. She was as patient as one could be, but she could wholly admit that she would be very glad once the list was up.
That morning, the wait would be over, and not just for the squad. The basketball teams would also be announced, as would the student government. And for the first time that year, the quiz teams would gather with a full complement for their pre-class session in the art room.
She would be accused each fall – lovingly so – of worrying too much about how her chosen freshmen would gel with the rest of the team and vice versa. It was normal though, wasn't it? She just wanted them all to get along so well, but it could happen that they wouldn't, couldn't it? It hadn't actually happened, the closest being how there had been some uncertainty toward Ava Nash, but that had not lasted long. Now a new year was upon them, and a new member had been welcomed, two of them, with the new team, too.
As she approached her classroom, Maya could hear voices from within, the members of Born Curious and Critically Bookish talking over one another like both teams were having separate conversations, and that was how she found them, huddled around two opposing stations. Around one, the Born Curious team of Maia, Lydia, Agnes, and Max. Around the other, Miley, Marie, Kip, and Kinsey, the team of Critically Bookish. They were so invested in what they were discussing that they didn't see her there, so she discreetly stepped back out of view, the better not to interrupt them. She nearly revealed herself with a yelp as she nearly bumped into Stella.
"Sorry!" the French teacher quietly spoke, and Maya guided her away from the class.
"It's fine, I'm fine, are you?" Maya asked, looking her over. Stella instantly smiled at this, her hands coming to rest over her generous belly. She was getting closer and closer to the end of this first pregnancy and, for looking like she should have been in a hospital about to push more than at work about to teach a day of classes, she was the picture of serenity. Going by the reappearance of paint splashes on those hands as she saw them, Maya imagined that her art had been her means of calming down, the closer to the end she got.
"Oh, I'm good, I'm great. Baby's very awake at this time, see?" she motioned for Maya to give her hand over, which she did, and it was guided to press against Stella's belly. The movement was detected even as her fingers were not quite in contact, and Maya felt her heart leap as she smiled.
"Hey there, baby bird," she spoke gently. It was not the first time she got to feel this little one moving, and now as well as that first time, it would be a very emotional moment even before she'd see the look on Stella's face, the look that showed just how happy it made her to share this moment with her, too. It was a wonder that she hadn't gone and started to cry... again.
It wouldn't be long that Stella would be gone from the school, on maternity leave. Her substitute had been secured, though as French was not part of his arsenal, Barton Day wouldn't be taking this post. That wasn't so much the part that both Maya and Stella had been stuck thinking over. Yes, Cory was also advising the quiz teams, but he wasn't involved as directly as he used to be, and they had all agreed that they might want to look elsewhere for someone to hold down the CB fort while Stella was out. Maya could just maybe keep watch over both teams for those months, but she knew better than to overload herself. No, she had better ideas, and they had names... like Rochelle McNeil, like Bodhi Thompson, like Lea Sullivan-Reyes... Any one of these former captains, like Stella herself, could be just what they needed. It would be up to her to pick her own replacement, and she had promised to make her choice soon.
In the meantime, they had these newly completed teams, eager to test their own mettle. They said as much when their advisors finally came and joined them in the art room. They wanted to compete against some other teams that weren't their fellow school team. They could definitely make that happen.
"They said they get to go to your house sometimes, is that true?" Max asked as the teams finally started to head off before first period started.
"It is, they do, and you will," Maya smiled. "Between you and me, I think my daughter is most excited about that. She can't wait to meet you. I think her future teachers are going to find it hard to… unseat your mother as her favorite one. Not me, of course... at least I hope," Maya frowned jokingly. Max laughed.
"She's pretty great," she agreed, her gaze shifting past her teacher a moment later as she noticed something off at the end of the hall. "The lists are up! I gotta find Max. See you after lunch!" Max sprinted off.
As she went, she caught Kinsey by the arm, her fellow freshman having been quietly hanging by like she hadn't known what to do with herself, possibly nervous to go and look if she'd made the squad. Taken in charge as she was all of a sudden, Kinsey was startled, but she went along with Max nonetheless, maybe finding reason in having strength in numbers. Maya smiled, watching them go, as much for the fact that she knew that Kinsey would learn within seconds that she had made the squad, just as this Max would be able to tell the other that he had made it, too.
There would be some disappointments that day, that was just the way it went with these things, but there would be so many more celebrations, people happy to have been selected, people happy for their friends for having been selected, as much as they would comfort those who hadn't. She would have the pleasure of watching Maia Bennett follow little brother Jake to the board and learn with him that he had made the boys' basketball team, of watching Lydia Sullivan-Reyes accompany her would-be little brother as he existed in the announcement that he had won his campaign… It was a good day…
"Maya!"
There were very few people who didn't call her Mrs. Friar in this building, and they certainly didn't sound like they'd been seeking her out with haste. She just turned on her heel, seeking the caller, and then there was Morgan, cutting through throngs of students moving from one class to the next after third period. Maya moved in her direction at once.
"What's the m…"
"Come here," Morgan turned to fall in step with her and guided her with a hand at her back, toward the bulletin board.
"I already saw the lists, why…"
"You didn't see this, it's new," Morgan promised, and now Maya could sense her rising upset, so she said nothing until she could see what her colleague and bandmate wanted to show her.
There were others at the board, and while some of them might have been late coming to the lists, others were looking at the new posting, too. It didn't take long for Maya to see why they were there or why Morgan had been so urgent. A notice had gone up, letting the students know that 'after much consideration' their principal had made the 'difficult decision' to remove the theater class from the curriculum. This was accompanied by plenty of explanations, all of them sounding plausible enough, but it didn't matter in the end, not to anyone who had just been waiting for something like this to happen. Of course, it was one thing to have been waiting on some first genuine strike like this one, but now that it had come, now that they knew who had ended up in the crosshairs…
Maya and Morgan soon hurried together to track down their fellow muse, back in her classroom. They remembered so well how they had both felt, the day they'd learned of Miranda's hiring, what it could mean for their school. Now this news had broken, and they needed to know that it wouldn't mean she'd be gone, too. They must have looked like a couple of worried kids, skidding to a stop just inside the room. It still looked the same, hadn't been stripped of its decorations all at once, and Miranda was still there. Just now, she was sitting at the piano bench, her back to the instrument. One look at her face and they knew that she was well aware of what had brought them to her.
"There was a note, pinned to the door when I came earlier," Miranda pointed vaguely to where they'd come along. "Asking that I go and see her at my 'earliest convenience.' Already had a bad feeling about it, so I went right away. I got the live version of what was posted, and now here we are."
"She didn't…" Morgan asked, sounding more like 'she better not have.'
"Oh, I am out," Miranda didn't hold them in suspense. They weren't surprised, but it still knocked them off balance to hear it. They moved together and went to sit on either side of their colleague, hugged around her. She smiled, just barely, reached up to pat them both on the arm. "I'm choosing to look on the bright side if you don't mind. Better that than the alternative."
"And what's the bright side got exactly?" Maya had to ask.
"Oh, the two of you, for once," Miranda told her and Morgan. "You two are going to hold down the fort, get that musical going and make it the best one we've done."
"What, without you?" Morgan leaned her head to her shoulder.
"You can do it, I believe it," Miranda chuckled lightly. "And… if it's incentive you need, I can tell you what I plan to do, with my brand new unemployment."
"What are you going to do?" Maya asked.
"Go back to New York, see if the stage might have me back." The declaration brought both the art and music teachers to sit bolt upright and look to the woman between them.
"You're serious?" Maya breathed.
"You said you never wanted to…" Morgan asked in a near identical tone.
"I thought that, too, when I got here, but… Being here the past few years, with all those kids, with the two of you… I think I'm ready to give it another try. And you know how I am when I make up my mind about something."
"Her loss, our gain," Maya beamed, and she and Morgan fell in once more to hug their fellow muse. The way Miranda held to them, pressed a kiss to the top of one head and the other, she might have been comforted by her fellows, by sisters, by daughters… They would sit in this moment together for now. Later… Later, they would see what came next. Our move.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
