Whisper (2 page)

It was five days, Mum told me later. Nearly a week of not knowing if I would survive. My head was still throbbing when I woke up. My neck felt rubbery, like there was no bone in it anymore.

Dr McBaldy and Mum stood at the end of my bed.They were talking without making a sound. I couldn't even hear them whispering. I thought they were being pretty stupid. If they didn't want to wake me, why didn't they talk in the corridor?

Out of the corner of my eye I saw two men in hospital blue racing past the open door, a stretcher between them.I could see their mouths moving. I could see the wheels under the stretcher turning. Shouldn't all that be loud?And where were the beeps of the machines, the other hospital sounds? How was it possible to mute a whole hospital scene? And
why?

The skirt of my new uniform is navy, criss-crossed with lines of red and grey. Identifying colours. I stand up and sling my backpack over my shoulder. My stop is next. I keep my eyes on the door.

Horse Girl and co get off at my stop. I hang back, wait for them to clear out. But once I'm off the tram we're stuck on the traffic island together. I'm glad the girls don't look back at me. They cross the road when a gap in the traffic appears.

I wait for the green man to tell me when to cross.Cars and motorbikes can appear out of nowhere, and as everyone keeps reminding me, I won't hear them coming.

The three girls move off, sticking their earphones in as they go. They are choosing to block out the sounds of the world. It's a choice I used to make without thinking.

I coach myself on my breathing, trying to calm the nasty doubts that flip around the edges of my mind. I've already decided. It's too late for old doubts to come in and start messing things up.

I watch as the girls reach their school gate. It's only a couple of hundred metres from the gate I'm standing in front of now.

As I walk through the wrought iron gate I feel like I'm passing through a portal. Like everything inside is going to be weird and magical. But the gravel on the other side of the gate just feels like normal gravel.

I walk past a little girl hanging upside down on the monkey bars. Two boys chase each other, one tossing a handful of tanbark at the other's back.

The gravel pathway leads to the office. I walk inside.

The office lady looks busy. She bustles up to the window.

I wonder if I should talk or sign.

‘I'm new,' I say. ‘D-e-m-i V-a-l-e-n-t-i-n-o.' I spell out my name in sign as I speak to cover my bases.

She nods, breathing out through her nose as she does.She checks something on the computer and then points me in the direction of my new homeroom.

I go through the quadrangle. There's a boy sitting alone on a bench. A girl rifling through her school bag.The quadrangle is a large square of green. There are trees and pigeons. It's like they're trying to make the school seem normal, natural. I watch as a flock of birds flies up to the roof.

A red light flashes and spins up there. I know there's no emergency but it still makes me think of ambulances and police cars and disasters.

There's a sudden flurry of students now, summoned by the flashing light.

In the classroom I'm relieved that the desk closest to the door is free. It means that I don't have to walk past anybody.It also means that I can get out quickly if I have to. I sit down. I keep my head still and let my eyes wander. There are already some kids at their desks, and two more have just walked in. Now there are eight, including me.

At first glance, they don't
look
that different. Not their faces anyway. But there's something kind of overblown, over the top, about the way they're acting. Waving hands everywhere. And their expressions are exaggerated. Not quite right. NQR, as we used to say at my old school.

There's a thump, and I jump as my desk wobbles. When it happens again
,
I can see the table-thumper is on the other side of the room, near the window. He has bad skin, but good eyes. His eyes are sky blue and fringed by long, dark lashes. He is writing something in his notebook. Then he waves his hand right in front of the blond guy next to him, showing him the note.

That would drive me crazy, such an invasion of personal space. But the blond guy doesn't seem to mind.He reads the note and slowly turns to look out the window.But I think they are both looking at me even though they're pretending to look out the window. I get the distinct feeling that the note is about me and I don't like it.

I give them one of my looks. The don't-mess-with-me.Nadia reckons that look could kill.

The table-thumper looks amused and for a second I want to point this out to Nadia and roll my eyes. I actually forget that she's not beside me, to point anything out to anymore.

The blond guy gives me an apologetic smile, like he's got the message. It's the second apologetic smile I've got today, and again I feel like I might have misread something.But it's just weird and rude and wrong, teenagers thumping tables and waving their hands like that. I switch my focus to someone else.

There are a few empty seats next to me. Further along there are two girls laughing together. They are signing so fast that it's like their conversation is some kind of race. Their hands swish through the air and I miss most of what they are saying. I get ‘hot' and ‘boy' before one of them catches me looking. She turns away slightly and I'm blocked out.

There are another three kids sitting in front of me.Two girls and a guy in the middle. I can only see their backs.It's a relief that I can't see their faces and hands. I feel like I'm on overload, that this is all too strange, these people are all too strange.

But as I stare at the guy's back I remind myself I don't have to like it here. I just have to focus and study, so that somehow there might be a future for me after all. There might even be the future I'd planned for, before.

I push that thought away. Another hopeless wish.

Everyone continues what they're doing when the teacher walks in. She's curvy and she's wearing a great dress. It's very sixties, with a geometric print in yellows and blues. She looks like a normal teacher, except prettier.

I notice a pendant thing around her neck. It's the only thing about her that isn't pretty. I think it's a streamer. I saw a brochure about them at one of my millions of appointments with specialists. It explained how a streamer connects someone's hearing aids to their mobile phone or iPod or whatever via Bluetooth.

I feel a stab of jealousy. The teacher must have enough hearing for it to work for her.

The teacher walks to the front of the room, puts her laptop down and stands in front of her desk.

With no warning, she starts drumming her ballet flats on the wooden floor, as though she's in one of those dance movies where it's perfectly normal to break into dance every so often. I feel the vibrations in the soles of my school shoes and give a snort of disbelief.
What the –?

I was obviously wrong about her seeming normal.

Everyone in class looks up, not like the teacher's off her head, just like she's got their attention.

I realise suddenly that everyone seems too happy for a Monday. Too happy to be at school at the beginning of a new year. And year eleven, when everything matters so much.

I wonder for the millionth time whether I will ever be happy again.

‘A big welcome,' the teacher says, with her mouth and her hands, ‘to D-e-m-i.'

She finger spells my name, letter by letter. Her thumbs are outstretched, her palms and fingers working in front of her chest.

The other students have gone back to their conversations.

The teacher drums her feet again, and throws her hands in the air. I almost expect her to tap dance across the floorboards. But it's a cue, obviously. My face flushes red as a classroom of hands welcomes me. The three sitting in front welcome me without turning around.

The teacher wags a finger at them, mock disapproval on her face, before she smiles at me. She has a nice smile.Then she turns around and writes her name on the board.Helena. It suits her.

She passes out a timetable to each of us. The school letterhead is printed in bold. The logo is the same as the one on my blazer pocket.

COLLEGE FOR THE DEAF

chapter 3

In hospital there was a competition for the cheeriest smile.It was run by a clown in the children's ward, where I moved after intensive care. The clown started off getting the kids to do a sad face, then a surprised one, then an angry one.Then they had to give their biggest smile.

My new classmates would have won hands down, the way they wear their feelings splashed over their faces.

The clown had stood at the end of my bed, all painted and determined and upbeat.

I didn't win. What on earth was there to be cheery about?I had just been pronounced profoundly deaf.

Profoundly deaf, as in: a piercing scream is like a mosquito buzzing.

As in: I can't hear anyone talk.

As in: stuffed.

I wonder if any of my new classmates lost their hearing the way I did. I doubt it. What happened to me was very rare. Extraordinary. Go me.

Helena stands in front of my desk, patiently, like she's been waiting for me to return from my thoughts for a while.She taps the desk, the rhythm way slower than my racing heart.

‘Do you know where the next class is?' she signs.

I'm relieved her signing is slow and clear. It's taken me a while to get used to the way sign sentences are formed.Often the topic of the sentence is signed at the beginning, so if I miss that, it's hard to work out what's being said.Sometimes I can't work it out at all. Jules taught me how to fill in the gaps but mostly it's just practice.

I shake my head. Helena turns my timetable around so she can read it.

‘Follow,' she signs, and nods her head towards the two girls nearby.

She walks over to them. I can't see what they're saying, but the three of them go on for a while. Then Helena stands back so she can see us all and waves us off. I feel like we're being shooed away. I can't imagine any of my old teachers making a gesture like that. It seems kind of rude, like we are cattle being herded around.

But the other girls don't seem to take offence. They just look over at me as they get up and walk out.

I wait a moment, keeping my head down. Slowly, I gather my stuff and head out. The sunshine is bright. I shield my eyes.

Someone smacks my arm.

‘I'm E-r-i-c-a,' the smacker says, finger spelling her name.She must have been waiting for me. It looks as though she's speaking aloud, but she might just be mouthing.

Erica has a cochlear implant, a brown circle of electronic and plastic sticking out of her scalp. I've seen them on people in the audiologist's waiting room.

Mum and I had ridden that hope too. We'd hung on like rodeo riders to the hope that a cochlear implant would change my life back to almost normal. Like a magic trick.But when the audiologist explained how it worked, it didn't seem so magic. They actually take out your own natural cochlear and replace it with the implant.

Whatever sounds or speech come through to you can be kind of robotic. Mum had a really funny look on her face when the audiologist told her about how this version of sound could supersede my
memory
of how things sounded.When she put headphones on mum to let her hear how speech might sound to me if I had a cochlear implant, Mum went all pale, like she was going to faint.

I could see that Mum was freaking out. I could see her thinking that the implant might actually make me seem
less
normal rather than more. And when the audiologist started telling us about the risk of infection from getting a cochlear implant, I decided I couldn't deal with it right then. I had so much to get used to. I couldn't handle any more change.

I couldn't handle any more disappointment if it didn't work out.

Erica's cochlear pushes out of her scalp, quite exposed in her short, browny-blonde hair. It looks weird. Seeing them in the audiologist's waiting room was different. Everyone there was a
patient.
But this girl isn't a patient. She's smiling and chatting and walking around.

If I'd been able to get one, I would have gone for the same dark brown as my hair, and it would have been pretty much hidden. Even though Erica's is exposed and ugly and she really should try and hide it better, I feel a swish of envy.

Erica pulls the other girl over by her hand. She is signing now, not mouthing at all.

‘This is …' Erica is pointing at the other girl and I think she is introducing her but the sign she makes next seems to be ‘chatter'. It's her right hand in front of her mouth, thumb below fingers, like a beak opening and closing.

I'm not sure I got it right. Chatter would be a weird name.

‘Is that your nickname?' I ask.

‘It's not a nickname, it's my deaf name,' Chatter signs back.