First Day of School (Pt. 1)

--- Maya ---

Getting up for school in the morning was a pain, especially for a person who was distinctly (and proudly) not a morning person.

Getting up in the morning for the first day of school was even worse, due to a summer of late nights and even later mornings.

Getting up and ready for the first day of school in a household of five kids, two adults, and one dog was a flat-out nightmare.

“Damn it Vi! You don’t even have classes until the afternoon, get out of the pinche shower!”

“I have to go in early for a group project so fuck off Tommy!”

“Come on Seamus, I know you're sleepy, but you have to get dressed for school mijo.”

“No, wanna!”

“Missy, sorry girl, we don’t have time to play today. Who hasn’t eaten yet?!”

The fact that Izzy didn’t say a single word to her throughout all of this chaos did surprisingly little to help Maya’s mood as their mamá rushed them out the front door.

“Okay, it’s Seamus’s first day of preschool so older kids have to get dropped off first today.” Her mamá reminded everyone as the ones she had to drive to school loaded up in the car.

“I know the drill.” Tommy nodded, the high school senior more than used to having the drop-off order shifted as his younger sisters changed grades and schools.

“Right, uh, is it me or Tommy first?” She asked, because despite both of them being high schoolers they wound up going to different schools due to their circumstances.

“You’ll be going first since your school is farthest out, and I can circle through the rest.” Her mamá told her as they pulled out of the driveway.

---

Now, unlike most of the schools her family’s tax bracket would end up in, she -thanks to a scholarship from her good grades- went to one of the better schools that while not quite on the northside was still close enough to have a fair number of rich kids attending. (Not that that’s a plus.)

What this translated to was her attendance at an academia that was in significantly better shape than any of the schools she’d attended on the southside of the city, with clean freshly painted white walls, and not a single gang tag in sight.

(There’s also the tacky shrubbery.)

(I was trying to ignore that.) Her inner reason admitted, as they passed some kind of gardening sculpture. (There such unnecessary opulence, a simple tree would be far more efficient and require less maintenance.)

“If you disregard the leaves in the fall.” She chimed in, since there was nothing better to do at the moment, than talk with the voices in her head.

(Sometimes I worry for our mind.) Her inner logic admitted. (After all those leaves could effectively be turned into compost for the gardening club.)

(Yeah, we’re a bit scatterbrained.) Her inner madness agreed. (Though I doubt these rich snobs will get their hands dirty digging their own gardens. Or at most they’ll just use store bought compost and soil.)

“Uh, I think only hipsters and try-hard gardeners make their own compost.” She noted, thinking of the fact that she’d never actually seen someone take their gardening that far.

(What about us? We recycle our organic material!)

“We feed it to a bio-pod that’ll eat anything organic.” She pointed out dryly. “If it actually took more than a couple afternoons’ work to do something, we probably wouldn’t do it at all.”

(Point.)

(…)

“…”

(…)

(Well, that killed like five minutes. How much longer do we have to wait before they unlock the front doors?)

She checked her phone. “Another half-hour.”

(Ugh, it’s not going to be like this every school day is it?) Her inner child groaned.

“No, just today since mamá has to walk Seamus into school and help him get settled.” She reminded herself.

(Why do they always have to turn the first day of school into an event? I mean this is really biting us in the ass.)

“Hey, it’s Seamus’s first day of school. That’s a big milestone!” She chastised herself.

(Not what I meant, but whatever.)

(Quite… Well, ignoring our inner petulance -as is healthy-)

(Hey!)

(- I feel the need to ask what we’re doing for the rest of the day.)

“Not much.” She admitted. “The only thing we really have to do is check in with Ying, since she disappeared all summer." (Like she does every year.) "Hopefully her mom won’t be too overbearing about her hanging out this year.”