March 8th 2024

Chapter 68
The Year of School Spirit

The quiz teams had had an unexpected guest that morning when Maya arrived. Jake Bennett had arrived early for class, and it wasn't even for anything to do with class exactly. Instead, his prompt arrival had everything to do with his foot, and the crutches that propelled him along. He'd had plenty of opportunities to be the talk of the school over the last three and a half years, but now he was in the spotlight again thanks to a spectacular fall during the boys' team's game last weekend. It was surprising that he should be there at all today, but as he told it, there was really nothing stopping him, and he didn't want to just be sitting around the house. It was bad enough that this last game had unknowingly been his last game on the high school team.

"I'm really sorry, Jake," Maya told him after he'd shared the news. She knew very well how much he loved the sport, the place it held in his life long before he'd ever come to the school. She might have asked him about his prospects after graduation, knowing how much he wanted to play on through college, and even beyond, and the look on his face said that the hope was not high in his heart. Whether this was his own interpretation or actual medical fact, she couldn't say, but she wasn't going to push to find out. The best thing she could do for him right now was help him find his own recovery.

X

There was something really interesting for her about jumping from seniors right into AP freshmen, going from kids about to graduate to kids still in their first year with her. It reminded her of how quickly it all went by… as though she needed help remembering that. Then again, there would be those kids within those freshmen groups who would sometimes be giving her the impression like they had already had their fill. In this group, she could not help but look to Rosie McAllister.

There was more to it than that with her, Maya guessed, but even so… The impression from the start was not simply that she didn't want to be in high school, no. Knowing her as she'd done up to now, it did feel more accurate to consider how Rosie was in a general case of restlessness, which would be true of anything or anywhere that made her feel like this, made her feel stuck.

Maya knew what that feeling could be like, she did, and she would do her best, always, to try and give her the means to be content with where she was, but she could only do so much. She had to wonder if she'd be able to do more if she hadn't doubled up her classes this year, but she wouldn't be helping anyone by going down that road, certainly not Rosie. She would do what she could do. There was really nothing else for her to do.

X

She hadn't been aware of the problem with Allie Sheridan by her own interactions with her specifically, not at first. The sophomores were her third class of the day, in mid morning, and by then she would be there, same as her classmates. The problem was most felt by her first period teacher, and when Maya had expressed a concern over how the girl looked kind of tired over the last few weeks, one day in the teachers' lounge, she had been informed of how she had been late to class more days than not for the better part of the school year. Sometimes it was only a couple of minutes, but other times it was fifteen, twenty minutes… A couple of times, she hadn't been seen at all in first period, and she'd arrived just in time for second period.

After hearing about all this, Maya had been left to rethink everything she had seen of the sophomore that year. She tried not to sink into exaggerated worrying, but then would that be what she was doing? For what she'd known of Allie up to now, she really wasn't a skipper. Her studies were very important to her. And yet… She'd finally tried and approached her about it a few days back, and she'd taken it well enough, but she'd brushed off the concerns, promised that she was just having trouble with time management. She would do better, she would try.

X

"Mrs. Friar, would it be alright if I stayed in here for lunch?" Jesse Durant asked her, shortly before the AP sophomores were set to be dismissed to go and eat. She looked at him, took in the way he looked not quite avoiding eye contact but also seeming as though he just wanted so much not to have to explain himself. One might argue he was doing a poor job of that one, but she chose to go the way of giving him what he needed.

"Of course, yeah," she told him. "You don't mind having company, do you?" she asked, casually indicating his classmate, Angie Anna Bowles, and her XC guest. They looked to be in it for the whole year at this point, and she wasn't going to take that from them.

"No, it's fine," he promised. "Thank you," he nodded at her before moving back to his seat.

It was no secret in the school by now, though she would try and stop all levels of gossiping happening within her earshot. People knew that things were not well, over at the Durant house. One of the other sophomores lived just down the street from them, and she'd taken much too great a pleasure in letting people know that the police had been called to Jesse's house following a noise complaint. Several versions of the story had managed to evolve into being by now, but all of it came to suggest to Maya that Jesse's parents were fighting, leaving him in the middle. She wasn't about to deny it this space for peace.

X

Maya had been a teacher for many years now. This year would actually mark fifteen years, meaning that in no time she would be teaching kids who hadn't been alive when she'd started out at this school. She had seen countless kids go by, with countless stories to follow. A lot of those stories would cycle back and be seen again, as though they were on a cycle. A lot of the time, it made it so that she saw things coming, saw the pieces lining up.

When word started going around that Logan Meyer was suspected of being drunk on school grounds, she really didn't know what to make of it. She'd seen a few students come through her class with some early struggles with alcohol, some as young as the freshman boy was, if not younger, but it was still one that could take her by surprise. How was she meant to see this one coming? Yes, Logan had shown himself to be… disruptive… more than once… a week… It wouldn't make it any easier for Maya to make that link. With that claim out for people to hear it, including herself, as a teacher, she couldn't very well ignore it. They had no proof of it beyond the kids' words at first, and they weren't about to go and give him a test to confirm or deny anything without his parents' consent… and it wasn't about to come from her.

X

It was important to her to know that kids felt comfortable to speak with her, to know that if there was ever anything they needed to discuss with an adult, many of them would think of her almost at once. The vast majority of those would be kids who'd sat in her classroom, though she also got some from beyond her lists at times. With her AP groups, she'd bridged the gap with several of them, and she gave them the same attention now as she would have done before they ever became her students.

Reese Quinland had already been her student, once, and then he'd ended up in juvenile detention… but then he'd come back, and of all places, he'd wanted to be in AP art for his junior year. She'd taken him on, expecting nothing, but getting plenty. She could sense that he felt safe in her class, and she encouraged this, with no ulterior motive. When he came to her one day, shortly after they'd returned from the holiday break, wanting to talk to her about what had gotten him in juvie… All she told him was that he could talk to her whenever, and so he had.

He told her a story that felt familiar, through years past, but no less true. He'd messed up, he'd gotten mixed up with the wrong people, and he'd done things that had gotten him where he was today, and now he was just doing what he could to earn people's trust again. She couldn't speak for others, no, but she hoped he knew that he had her trust, fair and square.

X

She might have hoped that the seniors would have backed down a bit from their stance on Claudia Carter by now. Surely, they would have better things to do in their last year of high school than to make claims and assumptions over one of their own. It did feel as though she'd earned a bit of their favor back by now, but it wasn't an overall shift by any means. A lot of the kids wouldn't get involved, but so many of them would go around as though there was nothing else to be said. Claudia Carter's 'reputation' stuck to her like glue, just like any number of boys in and out of the school, according to them.

Claudia made a good show of going around as though completely unbothered, but the front had been getting fainter and fainter the more the year advanced. By now, she was so close to letting it get to her, even if she knew that it was exactly what those kids were waiting for, but there was nothing else to be done for it. There was only so much one person could take, wasn't there? Maya was relieved to know at least that she wasn't the only one of her teachers doing their best to keep her from sinking nowadays. It had to count for something.

X

Jonah Killian was no longer held back by detention after the last class of the day would be over, but day after day, as his fellow juniors would hurry on after last bell, he would stay behind. He would help his teacher pick up everything, clean up around the classroom… He looked and sounded genuinely happy to be there with her, helping, so she wasn't about to stop him. They got to talk about any number of things, mostly about school, his days in class, and hers as a teacher, but a lot more about basketball. He knew she had been a player back in her day, and she had Haley to thank for that information download. Maya didn't mind. She was happy to see him motivated, engaged… The mistake that had landed him in detention with her had been very much that, a mistake, and he was not going to repeat it so soon.

Cleaning up the class that afternoon, Maya had to think about how close she was to ending up on leave, to not being there with him in the afternoon, and it became very important to her as she thought about it later on that she find a way to keep that link alive. She had the diaries, and they had been brought to exist for that very reason, but she wanted to do more, for Jonah and for the rest of them. So, she would find a way, as she always tried.

TO BE CONTINUED

See you tomorrow! - mooners