January 4th 2024

Chapter 4
The Opening of Levels

The girls had offered their assistance in getting the room settled ahead of the rest of the class coming to join them, but Maya insisted that they should take the rest of this time for Amy to continue showing Himari - and Kuma - around, so they set their bags down and got to it. Now Maya could turn to the stacks of boxes by her desk.

The patterns painted on the boxes had been broken, the boxes organized as they were for the day. Stella had suggested creating a new display on one side of each box to create a new pattern for the class, but Maya told her to wait until she knew for sure just how she would continue storing them in class. For now, there were four stacks of two sitting side by side, for the first and second halves of morning and afternoon. Maybe later she'd make the bottom row the afternoon and the top row the morning… She had been thinking about this a lot more than what felt reasonable, but she couldn't help it.

The first box, the senior diaries, was settled on the nearest station to the door, so everyone could grab theirs. Amy quickly retrieved her own as well as boyfriend Jake's before finding Himari's and returning to her guest. To hear them talk, Amy had already been letting her know about the diaries.

Maya couldn't just place the diaries on the stations, trusting that the junior seating would be repeated. Those juniors had now been split into this class of seniors and the AP, which would already make for some rearranging without accounting for the newcomers. They had so many students now, kids who had never taken art because they hadn't been allowed to, earning them the nickname of 'the uncapped.' They also had kids who were brand new to the school, who had heard of their focus switch and decided this was where they needed to be. This left her with groups that were still roughly what they had been before in size, essentially doubling her student load across the board.

When they all started to arrive, this created a mix of excited returns, curious introductions, and anything in between. They were here now, and that was what mattered. Maya had to work so hard not to let her emotions get the best of her, which was already difficult when she wasn't pregnant…

The assembly call came even as they had all come around to taking their diaries and figuring out where they would sit, so they left their things and went to the gym. It wasn't so long as to eat up all of first period. They sat, the principal spoke to them, introduced the new teachers, talked about some of the things they could look forward to in this inaugural week, and then they returned to class. She wanted to make sure they could all get started right away.

"Okay, alright, we are here," Maya breathed as everyone took their seats.

"You're going to cry, aren't you?" Rafa teased with a grin, and the class laughed along. They knew her well enough, even those who'd barely arrived.

"Looks like we have a volunteer to kick off the introductions. Thank you, Mr. Cruz," Maya smirked back at him, and he gladly accepted 'the honor,' though he did wonder why they should introduce themselves when they had been in her class for three years already. "You were, yes, and a lot of the others were, too, but not all of them," she pointed out. "Besides, those introductions are very out of date… And this is really not the same school you were in before now, is it?" They all agreed, so on the new introductions began.

"Hey," he waved at her, at the rest of the class, and there were for sure several more smiles at this than there might have been back in freshman year, so that was age working for him. "My name's Rafael Cruz, but everyone calls me Rafa. It almost wasn't my name though, because when I was born I was given up for adoption. I lived with a different family for a little while before my mother changed her mind. I don't think either of us would have been nearly as happy if we hadn't gotten to… grow up together. Now she runs the bed and breakfast over at Sullivan's Stables. We live out there, and I don't know where I'll end up, but if I can stay there all my life, I think that'll be best," he nodded with great confidence. Maya nodded back at him.

The freshman Rafa would not have felt nearly so open about his alternate life, the what if that had nearly been his truth. They would be so proud of him for hearing it, his mother as much as his almost fathers and siblings. The fact that his almost family happened to be the uncles and cousins to her husband didn't find its way into the conversation, but it didn't need to, not on day one. It could be a surprise later, for those in the room who didn't already know.

The introductions continued after this, the returning art students interspersed with those who were making their single-year debut. All of them were as delightful as the next in their own rights. She had Jake Bennett, who had carried at least one characteristic through his entire high school career, which was his easygoing charm. You couldn't not like the guy, and some had for sure started out under the assumption that he'd be a jerk, someone you'd start out thinking was safe only to reveal the dark tones underneath. But then you'd spend five minutes with him and there'd be no way he'd be anything but what he presented as: a deeply kind and honest young man. It was a quality Maya had already seen through his older sister and her former student, Maia, and that she had been seeing in his younger brother, Willy. Soon, she'd be rounding out the Bennetts with youngest sibling Marco, and she foresaw a similar outcome. All the credit there went to Lucas' old teammate and her late husband for having raised their kids as they had done, and she would lament the day when none of them were left to her classroom.

Amy Dixon took up the charge right after her boyfriend, talking briefly of the whole back and forth tale of her family, how she and her younger sister Julie had been born of their father's second marriage, though they were very close with their older half brother Cole, through whom they were the very happy aunts of their little nephew Cameron. She was plainly rushing through this introduction, the better to give time to her guest. When she was compelled to introduce herself, Himari stood from her stool, which in turn compelled Kuma to rise from the spot at her girl's feet where she'd been peacefully sitting.

She established what they had for the most part figured out, which was that she was blind and had been so, since she was born. She had some vision, she explained, if only because she knew that there would be this question of what she might do in this class. What little she did have was low enough as to almost be insignificant, but even without it, she would have wanted to be here. She loved to find new and unexpected ways to express herself. She spoke about her life in Japan, and her family, all of them dearly missed. But the star for her and for the class was easily Kuma. They knew the rules for how to interact with the guide dog almost without Himari having to tell them, and there was no worry that they might not respect them. She ended with the thing that had brought her to Austin, that was like her mantra in life: she was going to be a veterinarian.

Of those students who were new to her class, one of those she'd been looking to through arrivals, assembly, and introductions turned out to become the last of the group to speak up. She was uncapped, already a student at the school and plenty familiar to anyone who kept up with the basketball team over the past three seasons. They knew Robyn Blakely, nicknamed Rockin' Robyn on the court thanks to Martin McNeil's running commentary. Like probably every newcomer to her class she had seen or known in some other capacity beforehand, she had not expected the girl to be an artist, not when she'd been so clearly dedicated to her sport all along. But all morning to this point, from the moment she'd been handed her diary, she'd been looking at it. She'd been staring like someone who thought of those empty pages like she had so much desire to go and start filling them. By now, she had been twirling, twisting, flipping and tapping her pencil for a while, the itch to start drawing being irresistible.

She didn't get to say a word in the end, as the bell rang and pulled them away, but Maya had a feeling that she would be very happy with what she got to see when she'd start collecting the girl's diary. For now, she had only a moment of sitting in her empty classroom before she remembered that she had more students on their way and she had to prepare for them now… freshmen… her first advanced group, too.

She had plenty to be excited about where this group was concerned even before any of them came through the door. The one that had her heart doing little flips already was the coming of something she had been eagerly waiting to happen. She hadn't figured it would happen this year, thought instead that she'd have a few more years to wait, but then her friends had split up, and Isadora and the children had relocated from Dallas to Austin…

Ada Marie Minkus looked very much like her mother, but her temperament and personality were much more aligned to that of her father. This had been shaken up somewhat in the aftermath of the divorce. When she came into the room, she did not hesitate to go and hug her turtle aunt turned art teacher. Maya hugged her right back, brushing at her dark hair as she did.

"How's it going so far?" she whispered at her ear.

"I'm just… playing along," Ada shrugged. Maya tapped her cheek, and there was that Minkus smile. She looked around, taking in the classroom. She had never been here, but she'd heard so many stories about Maya and her students… She spied the open diary box and she looked back to her new teacher with a request in her eyes. Maya nodded, inciting her to fish out the one with her name on the spine. She pulled the gold marker attached to the side and she went to sit, where she got to work in decorating the front cover. She had been telling Maya that she already knew what she wanted it to be, but she hadn't known just how much she meant it. She'd hurried from her first class of the day, the better to get started on this.

She continued tracing gold as others started to arrive. After this many years, the reactions to seeing her may have evolved, but there was still that bit of surprise when some of them would recognize their new teacher for any of the other things she did outside of teaching. One of them at least, like Ada, knew her beforehand, if by a lesser degree. Later that day, when she would receive the rest of her seniors, she would be seeing Max McAllister, but for now she was getting to welcome her younger sister as one of her first AP freshmen.

Rosie McAllister was not like a smaller version of her big sister the way some of her sibling students could be. It might have something to do with how they had no common DNA to tie them, both of them born of one of their two mothers and different donors. But then you'd look at them and, different as they were from one another, there would be this quality to them as though they had taken on something of their non-biological mothers as much as the ones who had carried them into the world. For all that, Rosie… Everything she'd seen and heard of her continued to hold true here: she was a bit all over the place and a dreamer. It was the kind of thing where it would be anyone's guess whether people saw her as annoying, or over the top, or deeply charming, or someone that would brighten up the room just for being in it.

To Maya, there was always this immediate connective feeling about her, and it wasn't until that morning that she figured out what it was: She reminded her of her mother. It wasn't today's Katy Hunter or even Katy Hart, no. It was Katy Clutterbucket, in the stories she'd heard of her. She didn't know what it was about her, but that was definitely it. One day, it might be that she would look back on this thought and find that everything made much too much sense and she should have thought about it more. One day…

She got to meet Mason Quinland later on, preceding his older brother with the AP juniors, which in itself would be a very interesting situation, for what she knew. She didn't want to put that on Mason right here and, though he didn't bring it up at any point throughout the class, he didn't look like he wanted to bring it up either. He looked like he wanted to bring as little attention to himself as possible, good or bad, like he feared either comparisons to his brother or seeds of friendship being salted before they had the chance to grow from the ground. She respected this and did her best to make him feel welcomed and aware of the fact that he now had her as an avenue for conversation if he so chose.

Sitting right next to him, there was someone who also had an older sibling, a sophomore in her case. Unlike Mason, she clearly had a great connection with her big sister. Peggy Sheridan had barely given name and her age - fifteen as of late July - and revealed that she had been a lover of art, of museums and 'those great, big books that they have in the shops' since she was a kid that she set off talking about the source of that love, being her big sister Allie. There may have only been a year and some dust between them, but did Peggy ever look up to Allie. For what little she knew of her already, Maya suspected that the feeling would be mutual.

They all got to say their piece, unlike the seniors before them who'd had to share their time with the assembly, so when the last introductions were done, and the diaries all handed out, she got to speak with the group briefly about what she hoped to do with them throughout this year and the following three. She had been nervous about this part, to be honest, like they might not be on board for some reason. Instead, they went away that day with so much hope and excitement in them that Maya felt emboldened all over again, eagerly awaiting the next group to roll into the second half of this morning. It was already sailing by so fast.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners