A/N: Hey guys, sorry for falling behind. Had some issues with time and my computer and it took a while to get back on top of things because of my job. Won't get all the back chapters caught up in one go, because it'd be a lot, but I'll get them up bit by bit until we're back on track!

June 3rd 2023

Chapter 212
A Day For Apples

"Hello, boys…" Maya beamed as she looked to one crib and another, to both of her youngest sons as they stared back at her. To one side, she could see Simon, feet stuck well in the air and nearly doubled over on himself until he had his feet in his hands and could move them together and apart, as though to play a rousing game of peekaboo. To the other, there was Jack, just as goofy as his twin, having pulled his blanket over himself as he sat up and, rather than feeling alarmed at being sort of tangled up there, looking like he couldn't have been any happier at the snug situation he'd gotten himself into. He would tip over on to his side, only to burst into a delicious peel of baby giggles that quickly echoed in his brother's voice. "You just want to make it very hard for your mom to leave you today, is that it? Well, you're almost there, I'll have you know," she whispered at them. "But it's not going to work. Do you want to know why?"

"School day! School day, Mommy!" Jamie appeared in the door, just as Lucas was about to step out to go and check on him and his brothers, which made him jump and squeak before realizing who it was and smiling again. "School day, Daddy! I go to school today!" he informed his father before being picked up. It was remarkable, the turn he'd taken into excitement for this in the final run up to the start of the year, where he would be headed into preschool. But now here he was, and the one thing that might have gotten him hung up was the sight of his baby brothers and the knowledge that he wouldn't get to stay with them anymore.

He didn't stay in that morose line of thought for long, not once his big brothers came looking for him and got him to join them heading down the stairs. They were so excited in their own rights for this morning, and one of them they were sure they could piece together with ease. Even though they would not be together – with Noah in kindergarten and Elliott (to his parents' quote-unquote dismay) in the first grade – the eldest Friar boys would once again be going to the same school, and they had been waiting on that for a whole year. It was a fact that also did not escape their big sister, as she was on the verge of beginning of her last year of elementary school. She had already shared her school with one of her brothers, and she wouldn't have that again, so Ava Friar was determined to make the most of her year with her young brothers. Just because she would be one of the big kids, the eldest at the school, it didn't mean she wouldn't associate with the youngest.

For now, she would associate with these two, and their younger brother the preschooler, and their father, as they went about the morning routine of breakfast prep, joined in time by their mother as she brought their youngest pair into their midst. They were not walking yet, but everyone said they were getting close and, in the meantime, they crawled with the best of them. It was to the point where they preferred to be on the ground, able to move forward of their own volition, more often than not, so their parents would let them be whenever the opportunity was there.

The twins didn't have that much time, not that morning, when they had to get everyone ready, the better to make drop-offs for the school bound, both students and teacher alike. When they reached the preschool, everyone got out to see Jamie off for the day, the better to make sure he wouldn't suddenly panic at being left behind with – mostly – strangers. If not for Miss Alma, he might have completely lost it and recanted all semblance of looking forward to school. When they moved on to the elementary school, Noah walked around like he was the most grown and eager, because now he was in his brother and sister's school, and they were bigger. Elliott was excited to be starting 'the numbers,' as they'd gotten to call it. And Ava… As excited as she was to be in the 6th grade – and she was – they had a feeling that what she was most excited about was the awareness that she was now a single year away from moving over to middle school, her mother's school, where she could attend her class for real and not just on a visit.

Once she got there herself, Maya had to admit that she was kind of looking forward to that, too. She could already imagine it so well, which might not have been so difficult for her, with the imagination that she had, but then it came from the place where the best of inspiration came from. It came from the heart. She could not wait to have her Sweetpea there, and even if it had started beforehand, she couldn't help but think of the moment when she had so readily announced where she would like to end up, which of her mother's groups she saw herself in. They all had their own ways, didn't they?

Her very first group, the seventh graders of the Morning Makers, or the MoMAs, carried very well the mood that came with being the first class of the day, for their art teacher as well as anyone. Sometimes, it felt to Maya as though they all weren't completely awake yet, and so they still had… a sprinkling of dreams, still just there at the forefront of their minds. That was what she'd see a lot of the time, in their work, and so she would lean into it with them.

"Excuse me, Miss?" When she turned, Maya found that the caller had been a young girl, with all the telltale sign of being on her very first day in the building, placing her squarely as being of the seventh graders and, perhaps, one of her new students. Something in her clear eyes, and the way she stood, holding to her long brown hair as it sat swept over freckled shoulders and just lightly swaying on heels and toes, told Maya that she was not here by chance. She was a MoMA.

"First period art?" she asked her, and the girl nodded eagerly before stepping forward. "Aren't you a little early?" Maya smiled.

"My mama… my mom," the girl seemed to correct herself, not because she wanted to but because she felt that she had to, "She works here, in the cafeteria." That told Maya all she needed to identify her.

"Ashleigh Tomlinson?" she named her, and she nodded. "Your mama was pregnant with you when I went to school here," she told her, slipping in the name that felt natural to the girl, and that afforded her a wonderful smile in return.

As the minutes passed on, with Ashleigh being a very willing and eager helper in putting out supplies, more of the new MoMAs arrived, most of them already making Maya feel that they would definitely fall within the parameter she'd assigned to this group, one came that made her new art teacher smile. Not only did she know her, but if anyone in this group walked around with starry eyes, it was this one... She knew her new stepsister well. She had dreams of being a star.

"Hey, Stevie," Maya grinned as the girl came rushing into her arms. "Happy to be here?" she asked and got a big nod. "Figured you would be," she chuckled. Right then, she had a thought, and it made her smile. "Do you know Ashleigh over there?" she whispered, discreetly indicating the brunette with a turn of her eyes. The cascade of her hair was broken by a bright green dinosaur earring, giving a slight glimpse of the girl's face as she sat at her chosen table, as yet unaccompanied.

"A little. She doesn't really do anything with people, sort of stays on her own most times. But she's nice, I guess." Maya didn't have to say a word for her to see what she was thinking. "Should I sit with her?"

"Only if you want to."

Time would tell what would come of this encounter between the two classmates, but Stevie sat with Ashleigh throughout the period, and both of them seemed to be glad for the other's presence, which made Maya glad. Very soon, she wished she had Stevie along for her Class Creatives, too. She could have used her with one of them in particular. It wasn't uncommon to run into borderline problem kids, but this one wasn't that, or at least... they would have to see.

The class had been filling up, leaving her to count heads as they came in, waiting for the magic number that would tell her that she had everyone she was supposed to have. Right up until then, she was on track, then she had two too many, which turned out to be part of a trio that had gone to the completely wrong class, so they hurried out, leaving her once again short by one… and then he finally arrived, seeming so lost in his own world that it was a wonder he actually knew where he was going and turned in at the right door. He looked around without a word, considered his seating options like he was trying to pick out the one where he'd run into the least issues… By his sigh and the way he lumbered over to the one seat he chose, he wasn't completely satisfied. He plopped down in his seat, crossed his arms on the table, and rested his head on top, staring into nowhere. Going off of his height and look, she guessed this was her fourteen-year-old, and this turned out correct. This one would be Cade Foster, though what made him so grumpy – besides being a teenage boy – she couldn't say.

What she could say was that perhaps he hadn't chosen so poorly after all. When he'd sat at that table, he'd landed himself with three other students, two of them looking like the best of longtime friends and paying absolutely no attention to this latecomer or the girl sitting at the other end of the table. Her name, as appropriate as it would come to feel, was Joy Augustin. Dark-skinned, face of a sweetheart, she was easily the shortest of the bunch, yet with a figure that was bound to get her a lot of attention for her age, most of it unwanted, if not downright problematic. Maybe for that, she had a quiet demeanor, kept to herself. But then grumpy boy came along, and while their other two tablemates mostly ignored him after rolling their eyes, as though to say 'oh, not him,' the quiet girl noticed him, and throughout the period, Maya observed her go along on a valiant campaign to engage him. To her benefit, and maybe to Cade Foster's most of all, she managed to… not wear him down so much as get his attention. He didn't say much, but she didn't force him to. She just shared her material, showed him what she did… and by the last few minutes, he was awkwardly returning the favor, showing her his work.

With her seventh graders done for the day, Maya now had a long stretch of time ahead of her before she'd receive her groups of eighth graders, but that was just fine. She always had more than enough to do, even on the very first day of the year. Even if she'd seen them before now, she would go and check in with some of her co-workers, fellow teachers or not, and other aspects of the school in their brand new year. Clubs and sports hadn't started yet, but they'd for sure be preparing for those already. It would be a natural place for her to end up checking in with science teacher and eternal partner in justice, Felicia Brown, but after her encounter in first period – as foretold as it had been by her student list – she just had to stop by the cafeteria and have a visit with Carol Tomlinson, to let her know how her daughter was doing in her new school, at least as far as she'd been able to observe.

Soon enough, the hours would have stacked themselves on the other side, bringing her to the approach of her first group of eighth graders, her Mindscapes. They would come to her with their day nearly done, but not quite, which would something of a blessing and a curse at the same time, as her class would allow their thoughts to roam – hence the name – but the knowledge that they'd still have another class afterward would force them to try and not let go entirely either. All of them had been Morning Makers or Class Creatives the year before, and now some of the lineups had been mixed and rematched, to the pleasure of some, while the others…

"Hey, bud," she met one such with a sympathetic smile, and it drew him to stop and confirm what he should have suspected, which was that she'd know just how he was feeling at the moment. It wasn't as though they never had been in different classes since they'd become best friends, but some of them felt more like places where they wanted to be together, and not being so would be frustrating. That was Taylor Munroe's mood right now, being in art without Lambert Day, and even though she didn't say it aloud, part of Maya felt that after what had happened to him not too long ago, the incident that had landed him in the hospital, Taylor was that much more protective of his best friend.

"Hey, Mrs. Friar," he greeted her back, that little look in his eyes that made him look so much like his older half-brother, Dylan. He looked around, spotted an empty table, the only one left, and quickly made his way over, as though it would get to remain that way. Even as he approached though, another boy looked like he'd had the same thought, and they both landed, in something like a photo finish tie, sitting across from one another. They paused, looked at each other like they were this close to telling the other to move somewhere else, but then the bell rang, and they had to let it go and stay where they were. The number of students in the group made it so that they didn't have anyone else sitting with them, so there was really no one else to look at when they'd remember they sometimes had to work together.

As was becoming part of her experience as a middle school teacher, the kids she left at the end of one year sometimes looked very different by the start of the next, and Danny Arden was one of them under the category of 'well you got taller.' Mrs. Brown would say he was still growing into his limbs. Maya was used to seeing him hunched over his work in her class, but this time around the hunch was notably more… hunchy. It wouldn't change how devoted and skilled of a young artist he was.

When the Mindscapes were gone, all that remained were the Polychromatics, and in their name Maya had tried to convey the end of day wildness that came over her students. This year, among the many of her remixed seventh grade kids, one name would be brand new to most of her classmates, neither MoMA nor CC, as she was transferring in. To hear it out of her fathers, she had been trying to make this happen, all of the year before and they'd decided that, if she wanted to so badly, then they saw no reason to stop her. A happy kid was all they cared about, and if she was happy then it would hopefully reflect in her grades as well.

Maya had clocked it, the moment the Mindscapes period ended, figuring it would not take more than two minutes before she came through the door, and she was not off by much.

"So, how's the first day going?" Maya laughed when Lea Sullivan-Reyes swept into her class like she was right at home and this was not her teacher but her dear cousin-in-law, who she naturally met in a tight hug. The fourteen-year-old may not have shared a drop of blood with her fathers, or her cousin, but she had been of them for the vast majority of her years, and it manifested easily in her temperament. They could look at her and know who her family was.

But she was also her own dramatic self, the kind that would have found immediate kinship with the seventh-grade bound Stevie Hart-Brett. She talked about her first day in great detail, complete with impressions of various teachers and classmates, and also just a bit of putting her hands in where they didn't belong?

"What do you think you're doing?" Maya asked with a chuckle as she noticed Lea picking at her student lists where they sat on the desk, currently turned to the Polychromatics.

"Nothing," Lea quickly claimed, putting the papers down as though she hadn't frozen and smiled right beforehand.

"No? And who were you looking for on there? No one?" she guessed, with pronounced air quotes. Oh, she thought she was so smooth, thought she had everything under control now and she was such a talented performer that no one would see through her, and maybe a lot of people wouldn't. But those people couldn't have known her, not like she did. And she clocked exactly who 'no one' was when he walked through the door and Lea waved her arm (smooth, very smooth) to invite him and join her table.

Lambert Day caught the invitation easily enough – how could he not – and he responded with a restrained but no less genuine smile before briefly turning to greet his teacher and making his way over to the table. The incident at the bakery had left him understandably changed. In many ways he was still the boy they had always known, but in others… How was someone supposed to deal with the idea that there had been something in their head that could have killed them, and they'd had no idea? He was doing his best not to let it show, but it was there.

And just like that, all of a sudden, the day was over. It didn't feel like it had been hours since she'd arrived and started meeting her new groups, but it had, and now she got to put her 'kids' aside and be reunited with the ones who shared her name. It worked in reverse this time around, the better to collect their little ones with as many of their older siblings as they could have, so Maya and Lucas came together at the elementary school, there to find their daughter. They found her in the principal's office.

She'd been there so briefly that there had been no point – according to the principal – for them to be called, as they were known to be on the way. They thought this to be debatable, but for now all they wanted to know was what was going on with their daughter, especially as they noticed how her hands were shaking in her lap. It seemed that she had been seen pushing – shoving, according to the principal – a fifth grader out on the playground as everyone was waiting to be picked up.

"He was going to hurt Kelsey! I just wanted to stop him!" she interjected here, only to be told to stay quiet by the principal.

"Excuse me, let her speak," Lucas stared down at the man sitting at his desk. He tried to reply, but Maya turned her own glare on him, and he stayed silent, begrudgingly.

As Ava now told it, this boy, Ronnie, who was one year below her, had come along out of nowhere and started laughing at Kelsey, calling her names that Ava struggled to repeat, even if it was only to explain herself. Kelsey was unfortunately used to being teased, and she could on the whole keep it together, but this time it had been mean enough that she had started to tear up, and that had only made the boy go on with his insults.

"Then he said he was going to see if she really couldn't walk, and he was going to yank her from her wheelchair, so I just… I tried to stop him, I got in the way, like this," she held up her shaking hands. "And he fell back, he let go. He was faking, I saw it in his face when the monitor yelled and came over. He was happy because he got us in trouble. Ask Kelsey, she'll say the same thing. I didn't even get to see her, they just dragged me in here!"

Knowing that this would take time, Lucas suggested that he stick around and deal with all of it while Maya went and got the boys. She hated to leave, but she knew as he did that it would be the best way to go about it, so she gave their girl a good hug, gave the principal another cautionary flash of New York Maya mixed with Mama Maya, and she went seeking a Sprout and a Bee.

The two of them had already found each other – as their parents had figured they might – and seeing them and hearing them as they went on talking about what they had seen and done on their first day of school to one another should have been the best thing ever, but with what had gone down with Ava, right now she was just glad to find them happy and alright. They in turn saw her and ran over at once, magic smiles on bright as they looked around for their father and big sister.

"We'll catch up with them later, okay? I know, don't give me those looks. Let's go get your brothers, alright?" Maya told them, and off they went to collect their new preschooler. He was going to be just as disappointed not to find the whole group he was supposed to have had to greet him.

He didn't notice, not right away. He was simply playing along, making the very most of the kitchen play set, like he was at the bakery, running the place. He had a similar set at home where he did the same and, right here, he had an audience of one, or perhaps a customer, in this set up. The girl was no larger than him and, as it turned out, had only turned three years old the day before. Maya would soon learn that her name was Hazel Yasuda and that, like Jamie, she had landed in this classroom after an exception had been made, allowing them to start this year when they might have been made to wait another year when the difference between this one and the next was less than a week. Up until not too long ago, they'd been so sure that he'd have to wait until next fall, but to see him here, now, Maya was very glad that this had not been the case. He'd gone and made a friend! Maybe it was early to call it that, but it felt right to her.

His reunion with his mother and brothers went from elation, to the sudden disappointment with having to leave, to confusion at not finding his father and sister there as well. The best they could do – as they had long learned to with these boys, was to redirect them to something good, and for Jamie this was easy enough once the promise of reuniting with his baby brothers came on the table. They had spent the day with their Granny Mel, so they'd get to see her, too. This was better and better.

Little as they still were, Simon and Jack were just elated at the sight of their big brothers and their mama. They crawled along, as they tended to do, as though they were at all times almost synchronized with one another. They might grow out of this someday, sure, but just now their parents were just happy for them to stay this way, their little Hug-a-bears.

The groups met up again at home. Lucas was bombarded with one son after the next, happy to see him, to tell him about their day, to babble and poke at his face if that was all they could do… and they all had one question: where was their sister? She was down in her room, but she wanted to be alone at the moment, so they needed to respect that. They were confused, and there was no guarantee that one or more of them wouldn't slip away and go see her, but then that could be what she needed in the end, so they'd just wait and see how it went.

"Well?" Maya asked, when it was finally just her and Lucas, in the kitchen, to get dinner ready. There wasn't much to be done, as she discovered that he and Ava had stopped to grab an order from Ma Maggie's on the way.

"There's going to be a meeting, between us, and the Farrells, and this boy Ronnie's parents, tomorrow evening," Lucas told her, and she sighed. "The principal talked to Kelsey, she confirmed the story. And from what I was able to hear, this boy's been trouble for a while already, so it makes them willing to hear the girls' side, but his parents…"

"Think he's an angel who can do no harm?" Maya filled in knowingly, and Lucas nodded. "Yeah, well, we'll see about that," she frowned. When he came up and embraced her, she felt her anxiety leech away. This was much better.

"How was your day?" he asked. "The new kids? How was Lea? All over the place? And Stevie?" Maybe she was like their boys; given the right subject, she could shift right back to a smile.

"Everyone was wonderful," she reported, sparing a thought for her Class Creatives and the Foster boy. Whatever was holding him back, he had room to grow, and maybe a friendly hand to guide him. Maya told Lucas all about him, about Joy, told him about Stevie, and Ashleigh, all of them… The eighth graders – cousin or no – he already knew of, but he was happy to hear about their return, in their new groups. The new year was just starting and it already promised to be memorable, in many ways. This thing with Ava, and Kelsey, and this boy, they wouldn't let it put a blemish on this new beginning.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners