How Green Becomes Wood

"Oh, that would be wonderful, simply wonderful! I thank you in advance!" Mr. Major gestured with a flourish and then grinned with delight at Alec's report, "Ah, well, I cannot hold it against him if he is so happy! No, I simply cannot! How truly marvelous, for him to smile so often! For years, we all here thought it impossible! Well, Rose and I learned it was not so first of all, Miss Piper learned quicker than we did, because we adopted her by force!"
 
Alec giggled at that. "I do think he misses all of you, and he did so love teaching, but, yes, he is truly happy now. Perhaps someday there will be a way to get you all together again to reminisce about your time together. I mean, who could not miss you, Mr. Major, sir? As either teacher or friend?"
 
"All of us as in our little gang or all of us as in everyone here?" Mr. Major asked with a surprisingly subtle smirk for someone like him, "Do not answer that. But, perhaps you are right! Although you are much too kind to me, much much too kind! No, but perhaps you are right! Oh, but I am sure you have places to be!"
 
"Yes, sir! I look forward to your class, sir!" Alec cheered, saluting him. He hurried off to catch up to Xander, who was waiting for him, and the pair went to the cafeteria to meet the rest of their friends.

Peter was already sitting at their usual table eating slowly. He looked to be in his usual good mood.
 
"No," Alec groaned. "I'm sure you're eager to get out of school and move on to bigger and better things, but I'm going to miss this! We'll have to find someone else to adopt just to fill in the space, but it'll never be the same."

"I'm thinking it's going to be a good year," Peter said happily.

"Says the guy in honors math and Ap sciences," Xander grumbled. "How did you land that?"

"It's amazing how focused one can be when one is not constantly scowling," Peter grinned. "How's the first half of your day been, Sloan?"
 
"It's been okay. I thought it'd feel different, but it really does just feel like any other year. I'm in higher level classes too, by the way, but for me it's less about not scowling and more about growing up in a household that demanded excellence." Sloan half-joked, "but also, you know, growth mindset and all of that. If you think you can't do something, or that you're just outright bad at something, you won't do it. You have to think, 'How can I learn to do this' rathet than, 'I can't do this.'"
 
Xander squinted at her. "It sounds like half gardening advice and half self-help presentation."

Alec laughed but nodded. "Sloan's right! That's an excellent mindset. After all, studies show that now is when our brains are the stretchiest and most willing to learn, so now is when we should be cramming it full of knowledge!"

"Really? Studies show that?" Peter asked doubtfully. "I don't know about that, but I suppose there is some logic there. I'm not giving up all my free time just to learn stuff, though!"

"Not everything worth learning can be taught in a classroom," Alec assured him.
 
"It's not just about being young," Sloan said before taking a sip of a waterbottle, "If any person goes into a yoga class, do a few poses, and says, 'I'm just no good at this,' they probably won't go back, and then, yeah, they'll always be bad at yoga. But if you say, 'Oh, I need to work a little harder at this', then you keep going, and one day, you will be good at yoga. So it's about how you frame things, you know? And that's true for school, too, if you say to yourself, 'I'm just never going to do well in school,' then you probably won't be motivated to try to do well, because you've made it hopeless in your mind. That's one of the few important lessons my mom taught me. She took it to a bit of an extreme, and now I'm an overachiever who gets stressed out and feels lazy if I sleep in, but it does help even if you aren't like that."
 
"Okay, good for you, I guess," Xander said a bit uncertainly.

Alec nodded in agreement. "Oh, sure! Of course, it's more than just being young! I just mean that you learn things quicker and more easily when you are young as opposed to when you get older. You still have to work for you. You can't just sleep on your textbook and hope for the best."

"I should probably move my book, then. I'm getting such a kink in my neck every night," Peter grinned.
 
"That's why I'm at the gym so often, I refuse to say there's a skill I simply cannot do." Sloan told them, "Well, that and I don't know how to settle, I know just enough to rest not to get hurt. I want to be D1 when I'm in college."
 
Xander stared at her in horror. "Why do I need to know that? Why do any of us need to know that?"

"It means division one, not whatever you were thinking," Peter said as Alec gently tapped Xander on the back of the head. "That's a really, really cool goal. I'm sorry you don't know how to settle, but I get it. It can be rough, but I see it as a skill. So, I suppose you could maybe try to apply your attitude toward the gym and school work toward learning how to settle. When you're ready. If you're not ready, then you really are fighting a Sisyphean battle." He nodded toward Xander and Alec. "You aren't the only one who needs to learn to settle."
 
Sloan turned her head to the side and looked at Xander confused, "Division One, the highest level of college athlete. What did you think I meant?" As hard as she tried, she could not decipher what he thought she meant, so she turned slowly back towards Alec, "I think it'll be better when I don't live with my mom anymore. It's easier to find balance when you don't live with a woman who gets my done by 8 a.m. than you do all day."
 
"Probably," Peter admitted. "My mom's like that, too, but she recognizes it and tried not to be. Even so, when I was twelve, my dad had to talk to her about having signed me up to nearly every single extracurricular provided by the school. I couldn't have done it all unless I had like a time turner thing."

"What's a time turner?" Alec asked.

"Harry Potter reference, just a time traveling device with vague rules," Peter said, waving a hand. "Anyway, your situation sounds a lot worse, so I hope you're able to find something better some day. Or at least different challenges."
 
"I don't want to have kids, but I hope if Benny does he's not that kind of parent. But my mom's always been easier on him, I think because he's a boy. The big pressure he gets is to marry a Jewish girl. Oh!" She looked around, "He's not in this lunch period, but it is his first day of Freshman year. I've seen him in the halls and he tried to pretend like he didn't know me, I guess so I didn't embarrass him."
 
Xander, Alec, and Peter glanced at each other and then grinned slyly at Sloan. "Shall we go tell your brother hi?" Xander suggested with a grin. "Tell him how much his big sis misses him and hopes he behaves?"
 
"You know..." Sloan hummed, a grin stretching over her face, "I could be a very kind and understanding sister, and say, no, no, do not pester my baby brother on his very first day, but then, well, how will I know he is settling in well?"
 
"Excellent!" Alec shoved in the last of his lunch and hopped to his feet. "Come on! We gotta find him!"

"Hunt him down!" Peter grinned, standing up.

Xander glanced around, noticing he hadn't spotted Milo yet, but the appeal of mischief pulled him up. "Alright, let's go see if we can track him down."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top