Of Smoke and Dust 🖋

Chapter Eight: an invitation, a party, and the first moves on a chessboard

CHAPTER EIGHT

Past

January 3rd 2017

9:14 AM

There was a certain amusement Maia felt wherever she listened to Georgia Flynn speak.

It was a refreshing change of pace - Georgia, blunt, honest, and entertaining, never gave much thought to what she would say. In that regard, she was a bit like Leonie - both of them were a fountain of words, unlike Maia, who gave thought to each and every thing that came out of her mouth.

As Maia listened to Georgia's rambling recollections of what she did over winter break, she allowed herself a small smile, one mimicked by Leonie, who sat to her right. Since they weren't near each other with the usual seating chart, at times like this - when the desks were pushed aside to make space on the carpet for a wobbly circle - the two always sought each other out.

"And then!" Beamed Georgia to the class during her turn "sharing" with the circle, "And then Ben put glitter glue on his hands and smeared it all on my face! He's my brother, by the way," She added after a beat, as if anyone didn't already know this - Georgia complained about him constantly. "He's three. And annoying."

Maia swore she saw Mrs. Harper's lips twitch. "Very nice, Georgia. Anything else to say?"

"Nope." Georgia crossed her arms and tilted her head back to get her light brown hair away from her face. "Sal, your turn."

"Simon." Corrected the boy on her left. "It's Simon."

Georgia shrugged. "Okay, sorry."

Simon sighed. "Well, um, we went sledding a lot, and Mum made an apple pie. It was yummy."

Maia waited for something else, but it didn't come.

"Well? It's your turn now, Jessie." Simon frowned in Jessie Geld's - auburn hair, wide green eyes, square-framed glasses - direction.

"Oh!" Jessie seemed startled, but as soon as she regained her composure, she moved on to an almost clinical recounting of what had happened to her, every single day of the week, in chronological order.

Then it was Katelyn, and Robert, and Jay, and Laura, and Jules, and Bella, and then-

"I spent it mostly with Maia." Leonie told the class. "We had a sleepover, and after that we fell into a pond -" you fell, Maia corrected in her mind "Which wasn't fun at all. I also got a large crafting kit for Christmas. Your turn, Maia."

"Leonie already stole my story." Maia joked. Then, when it was clear Mrs. Harper was waiting for more, she added, "I got several nice books."

She had. And they were nice books - classics, like Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan - but she couldn't shake the feeling that her parents bought them for her just because they didn't know what else to get.

"James, you're up." She nodded to the boy on her left, who started up on a monologue about lego sets.

Maia put the books out of her mind.

No point hoping for something that would never be, anyways.

__________

Leonie was skipping down the hallway, hands waving above her head, eyes bright.

Maia was following after her at a half-walk, half jerky run. "Lee!"

"What?" Leonie turned back, pausing at a stretch of wall covered in posters describing the water cycle. She looked impatient, jiggling her arms slightly and inching ahead. "We don't have time to waste!"