January 3rd 2024

Chapter 3
The Opening of Our School

It had been a few years since she'd last been pregnant, and she had not known what to expect from the start of this one. She had figured it would be harder, that the time in-between and the birthdays along the way would have something to say about it all went. She only had a brief experience of it as of yet, but so far it was all going better than anticipated. Morning sickness had been coming for her, yes, but not so much as to knock her off her feet.

She could thank her allies on this. Lucas was right with her, as always, but then Marianne… Oh her Annie girl was always there to intervene as needed, whether it was by causing a distraction with her siblings or her aunts and uncles in-house, or by tending to her when she was feeling the nausea retreat at last. The best part was easily the snuggles. She had sketched the memory already, her tall girl curled up in her arms on the couch, or on her bed… Right now, the rumblings in her stomach had nothing to do with the baby. She was arriving at school.

The summer had been like none before. Maya and the rest of the faculty had needed to do a lot in the transition toward the opening of their high school in its new vocation. It was halfway aesthetic, halfway paperwork and logistics… and some other situations as they revealed themselves. A big one had to do with them, the faculty.

They'd lost a portion of their teachers between the previous year and the upcoming. Some had gone because, as much as they applauded the change, they just didn't see themselves staying on, or they wanted to leave the space open to people who would fit. Others had found the idea simply preposterous, and they left with little more than some choice and unmentionable words. They were not missed.

By this small exodus they had been in a fevered staff hunt, more and more as the curriculum came together. The sooner they were found, the more they had been able to participate in the transformation to the school itself. There were some areas that required the introduction of work crews, to pull down and rebuild. The full effect was not achieved until the end of it, as all the other, smaller changes bridged the gaps.

The completed transformation, they hoped, would be well received. By all accounts, the changes hadn't been so massive that those of them who'd been here before wouldn't recognize the way it had been before. Those of them who'd been there long enough, teachers and beyond, would see it even more. Most important of all, what they would see would be the new spirit that inhabited their school. It was like something had been expelled, and now they could breathe…

There had been plenty of talk about what they wanted this day to feel like, and what they had come down to was simple enough. This was their old school becoming their new school. The vast majority of students were coming back for a second, third, or fourth year, but in many ways it would be as though they had been brought back to the same level as the freshmen, walking in for the first time. It was a welcoming, a beginning. They had to be inviting.

There were balloons, banners… Maya saw them as she drove up, and she grinned as she imagined her kids hearing about this. They would want to come and see it all at once… She would bring them out as soon as she could, naturally.

She had already brought the boxes of diaries ahead of the day, her and Lucas together, so she didn't have to worry about them that morning. She parked, and she walked around to the front of the school. She walked toward her old bench. For all the changes that had come over the summer, the bench was still there, along with the others along the path. It had been given a good cleaning and refreshing, but it didn't take away from any of Maya's memories of those of her husband and their old friends. They could not have taken any of those.

"Scoot over, Friar!" a laughing voice pulled her from the sketch she'd started to do of the balloons off by the main doors. She grinned. Of all those colleagues who had vowed to join her here before first period, none could understand what this place meant to her quite like Dylan Orlando, Coachlando as some of the kids had started to call him. It was the highlight of his day, every time.

"There's plenty of space, Coach," she assured him. He dropped in by her side, and it was hilarious to see him, as much for the ways in which he had simply not changed in the many years since she'd met him as for the way his children now reminded her of that thirteen-year-old that she'd met in middle school.

He was as excited as those of them who'd chosen to stay, especially those whose subjects put them somewhere outside the arts. For all that - and in Dylan's case there was plenty to see - there were others nearer to Maya's side of it who had been counting down the days to get here. They ranged from Maya's band mate, Morgan the music teacher, who had been going on and on about ideas she'd had for this year, to Stella the French teacher. By all means, her subject wasn't directly of the arts, no, but anyone who knew Maya's former student turned colleague knew very well how much of an artist she was. Even now that she was an adult, with a career, a husband, a daughter, and a house, she still nurtured the shy bird with the paint-speckled hands that Maya had encountered on her first day as a teacher.

As their small band came together, they soon had to go about leaving the bench behind so they could head inside and prepare for their first classes, interrupted as they would be by the assembly that would introduce them all to their new and returning teachers along with Vice-Principal Alistair Song and newly appointed Principal, Lita Rìos, Alistairs's predecessor in the VP position before being unceremoniously ousted by disgraced and now former Principal Sandra Davenport.

They had truly erased every trace left of her in the school as they had done their transformation. Some of it was probably unintentional, just sort of filling in the gaps, but then in other places… She had been so against the arts that every flourish of it they put on display, big or small, would bring this smile to them like they could imagine the sour look on her face… and it couldn't help to be amused by it.

"That doesn't make us bad people, does it?" Stella asked as they sort of acknowledged this tendency between them.

"Not at all, no way. Especially not you," Maya assured her. "Now Morgan on the other hand…" she joked. She knew she would get a reaction out of her friend, and she was right. The smirk and the chuckle said exactly was on her mind. She would only ever be very, very proud.

She didn't know when she would tell them all about the baby. Right now, all she would focus on would be to keep the secret. That so far had gone alright. Maybe it was that she'd done this a few times before. Maybe it was that she was older this time and could keep it together. Maybe her giddiness for the school was the best cover she could ask for. Whatever it was, no one had a clue she'd brought a guest to class…

She had thought a lot about what she would do with her classroom. There was no way she would carry on like it was all business as usual, just another first day back, no. It was high time she gave the place a change, and the possibilities had felt endless. She'd done sketches - because how could she not - and she'd received a heap of input from the kids. Some were as silly as one would expect, but some of it was plausible, and oh, how quickly she would seek to apply those suggestions where she found the means to do so.

Like the rest of the school, there was a sense of 'familiar but new' to her art room. They were entering a whole new era together, and she wanted them to be part of it. She was excited for them to see it now. She suspected that it would feel a lot like when they saw the room at Halloween. Eyes would be on a swivel, taking everything in for a while, discovering new details… They wouldn't get much done, but that came hand in hand with this day whether or not they were relaunching their school.

What she was maybe most looking forward to, aside from this, was the introduction of the AP levels. For those groups she'd already been teaching for one year, or two, or three, it would mean seeing them split into two new groups, the advanced ones coming along to fill those gaps she'd had for all her years as a teacher in between her classes. She didn't mind losing those breaks, though she would undoubtedly change her mind about that the further into this pregnancy she advanced.

She had been thinking a lot about what this split would give her, the subjects she would get to explore, the materials they would get to use… At this rate, there would be too much for her to want to do to even fit into a school year, so it was a great thing they had more years to look forward to… most of them at least. She was not going to let her emotions wade in the way of Senior Nostalgia, not yet. Her emotions were already all over the place.

Her mornings would begin with the seniors, sure, just as they'd always done. But then in the gap between that and the sophomores, she would suddenly head the other way, meeting her AP freshmen. She would have the AP sophomore right after their regular classmates and heading into lunch. She foresaw this being a fitting partner to the last period juniors as they had always been. Between the freshmen and juniors, her former long breaks would be given over to the AP juniors and AP seniors, which would be interesting in its own rights, knowing how their counterparts did in first and last period.

"Hey, Mrs. Friar!"

She smiled, both for the sound of those familiar words and the voice who'd spoken them. She might have gone ahead and driven her to school if not for her having to go and see her daughters to school, but that was fine. Amy Dixon had been glad to make her own way, if only to provide that experience to her XC guest. Himari only knew about some of the things Amy counted as normal from television and movies. She might not have been able to see them, but to hear her, she was an expert. She had her own interpretation of what she encountered, but she also loved imagining what others saw.

"Good morning, you two, welcome!" she moved to join them. Himari was accompanied by her guide dog and eternal companion, Kuma, who was taking in her new surroundings almost as Amy did it. This was her fourth and final year already, but she had a splash of that freshman wonder in her, and it made Maya even happier to see.

"I hope it's okay we came before class," Himari addressed her.

"I wanted to show her around, her and Kuma," Amy added, the tone in her voice showing that this had been made a stranger experience by all the changes made over the summer.

"That's more than alright," Maya assured them. "Please, take all the time you need."

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners