Whisper (3 page)

Her head is tilted to the side and there's an expression on her face that looks a lot like sympathy because I don't know about deaf names, that I haven't understood.

‘You can only be given a deaf name by other deaf people, so it's different. My real name is K-e-i-s-h-a.'

I want to wipe that sympathetic expression off her face.Why would anyone want to have a deaf name anyway?It's not like it's fun or cool or anything to be deaf and have deaf friends. If anyone should feel sympathy here it should be me. At least I
used
to be normal.

I smile tightly at Keisha.

‘Sorry about before,' Erica signs. She obviously hasn't noticed my reaction to Keisha. ‘Chatter doesn't want … to know she likes …'

I don't have a clue what Erica is saying about Chatter or Keisha or whoever she is. Only that she seems to be making the sign for football with her hands while she mouths what looks to be the name Luke.

I try to stomp down on the frustration that's rising inside me. I was missing out on so much at my old school. It's one of the reasons why I decided to go to the deaf school instead. I thought that at least if people were signing and I didn't have to worry about lip-reading all the time, I wouldn't have to deal with only half getting everything.

‘Can you please slow down?' I ask and sign, raising my eyebrows to signify a question.

The sign for ‘slow down' is one of the first ones Jules taught me. It's like a foot easing off the accelerator pedal,but with the hands instead.

Keisha lightly smacks Erica on the shoulder with the back of her hand and rolls her eyes. It's so
physical.

‘Yes, slow down,' she signs to Erica with a grin.

Keisha doesn't seem to be wearing hearing aids, and I can't see a cochlear implant. I wonder if that means she's as deaf as I am.

‘B block is over there,' she points. ‘Walk with us?'

I nod.

‘Don't you hate English?' Keisha continues, and without waiting for a response goes on, ‘it's so crap'.

The sign for ‘crap' is like making quote marks with both hands and lowering them quickly. Keisha mouths it as she signs.

I love English – it's my best subject. But I nod as though I agree. It's almost second nature to keep my real thoughts to myself these days. Avoid conflict.

‘Who needs a second language?' Erica signs.

She and Keisha laugh. And I feel myself smile, just a little, as I shrug. I've never thought of it like that. But I guess if you've signed all your life, English probably does seem like a second language.

I fall behind the girls. It's not even 9.30, but I'm feeling tired already. I don't even try to keep up with their conversation as we walk down the corridor.

There are noticeboards on the walls. I glance at one with photos as we pass. The next noticeboard is covered with pieces of handwritten work. It's obviously done by kids in the primary school. The writing is messy, the spelling all over the place.

It suddenly makes me think of Harry's note to me.His spelling was also adorably terrible, but the message was clear. That note had floored me.

My parents had been slowly leaking the truth to me.

There were hopes. Meningitis only leads to permanent, profound hearing loss in a small number of sufferers.

The hopes rose and fell with each visit to a new specialist.As Mum kept saying, a diagnosis was only an opinion, and an opinion was subjective. There were medical references, the doctors of friends, Google searches. Each would bring up more possibilities.

I attached myself to Mum's hopes. She had always been unstoppable, my mum. She would find a way to lead me out of the silence that suddenly, horribly surrounded me.

When Mum wrote her messages about the next doctor's visit on the pad next to my bed, or on the newly installed whiteboard in the kitchen, Dad often stood behind her, frowning. It was like he had something to say that he thought had to stay unsaid. I sensed he somehow disagreed with what Mum was doing.

Unless you want war, it's best not to disagree with Mum.Dad is a scientist and this is an indisputable fact.

Dad annoyed me then. Actually, he hurt me. I felt like he had given up on me. I couldn't understand it. Dad and I had always been close. We were allies against the united front of Mum and Flawless.

But Dad just stood back with that look on his face as Mum ploughed on. She ploughed on and on until my whole life seemed to revolve around doctors and new tests and different technology. In a way, she's still doing it. But now I know her hopes are hopeless, and her trying to make me normal again is what's annoying.

Thinking back I realise the truth was there, written in the deeply etched lines on Dad's forehead, long before I let myself believe it. As Mum and I trudged off to specialist after specialist, those lines softened and turned into something like acceptance.

But because I didn't want to read those lines, it was Harry, my little nephew, who forced me to face the facts. He was five at the time. He snuck into my room, blond fringe flopping over his eyes. I was reading one of the tacky romance books that Nadia had bought for me, since I'd devoured every decent book in the house. The sticker on the back of the book declared the reduced price of $6.99. The content declared that $6.99 was a rip off.

Harry crept in like a cartoon character, high tip-toed steps to my bedside. He had probably been told not to disturb me.He picked up the notebook and pen from my bedside table.Then he sat in the chair and entwined his skinny little legs around the legs of the chair.

He hadn't been writing for long and his tongue peeked through his lips like it often did when he was concentrating.It took him a few minutes to write his note.

Finally, triumphantly, Harry peeled off the page.He pushed his fringe out of his eyes as he handed the note over.

I Am sore thit Your eyAs dont work. I Love you eniwAy.

That all seems like a lifetime ago. But my ‘eyas' still don't work, and here I am, at a school for the deaf.

I take my eyes off the noticeboard and look ahead, to where I need to go.

Then I catch up with the girls.

chapter 4

The blinds are drawn in the classroom, and it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust.

It looks like there are just the same kids in English as from my homeroom. I probably should have guessed that.At my old school there were twenty-two in my class. I tuck the information away. It will be a good statistic to take home to Mum.

The desks are arranged in a semi-circle. I put my books on the desk closest to the door and sit down. Keisha and Erica sit next to me ‘Is this everyone?' I sign to Erica.

Erica nods. Then she goes around the room, pointing at people. It's kind of embarrassing that she's making it so obvious that she's telling me about them, but I can't really do anything about it.

‘That's A-d-a-m,' she signs, pointing at a guy with hair that sits out like a ledge. It's short around the sides, doesn't even cover his geeky pink hearing aids.

‘That's L-i-n-g,' Erica continues, pointing to the girl next to Adam.

Ling is wearing glasses, but I can still see that one eye goes towards Adam and the other wanders in another direction.It makes her a bit weird-looking.

Erica continues pointing and signing the names of the other kids. The rest look pretty normal.

‘So we're all here except for S-t-e-l-l-a,' finishes Erica.‘She's …'

There's something about a plane in there, so I gather that Stella must be away. I don't catch where. Somewhere that begins with an ‘A', I think, but Erica's finger spelling is too fast for me. I don't want to ask her to tell me all over again.

So I nod. Pretend I got it. And I try not to let my frustration take over. I'm pretty good at squashing down my feelings now, pretty good at controlling the panic inside me. I even manage a smile at Erica.

The classroom light flicks on and off, on and off. I look up, expecting to see one of the boys mucking around with the light switch. Instead I see a man, clearly a teacher.

‘Hi, everyone,' he signs as he walks into the centre of the room. Then he looks directly at me so that everyone else looks at me too. ‘Welcome to our class, D-e-m-i. My name is A-l-i-s-t-a-i-r.'

I nod and hope he'll look away. But he doesn't. He gives me a big smile that is obviously supposed to be welcoming but is just making me uncomfortable.

‘I started at the College for the Deaf last year, so I'm pretty new too.' His signing is really slow, slower than mine, so I'm getting everything.

‘Four years ago I was lucky enough to go to a performance by Theatre of the Deaf,' he continues.

I wish he would stop looking at me. I don't really care whether he went to a performance by Theatre of the Deaf.

It's a relief when he looks away from me and around the classroom, as though that little intro was just for me, but now he's ready to make a larger point to the whole class.

‘I fell in love with sign. It's so beautiful. So expressive.I decided I wanted to change my life, to combine my love of sign with my love of teaching.'

I don't feel relieved anymore. I'm irritated. He's clearly not deaf. All that stuff about how beautiful sign language is. Maybe it is beautiful if you have a choice about it.If you haven't been shoved into a silent, hopeless world you know nothing about and don't want to be in. I imagine for a moment what it would be like to have a normal life, to have my hearing, and then to come to this school to
help.

I don't want to be his project. I close my eyes and block Alistair out.

Jules believes in wishes. Jules says it's to do with putting good energy out into the universe to get it back. I'd love to believe that it works. For the millionth time I tell myself that if the universe restores my hearing, I will do something good and noble like work with the poor in Bangladesh.

I try to send out that thought, but then I wonder if that's exactly what Alistair is doing. I guess the poor people of Bangladesh might think I'm making them my project.

I've probably ruined my wish by thinking that.

I open my eyes. I still can't hear. And Alistair is still signing.

I glance at Keisha. She smiles at me and rolls her eyes.Under the table, she points to herself and signs no. Then she points at Alistair and signs yes, and then the word chatter lots of times in a row. It's like blah blah blah. I get that she's saying that Alistair is the one who goes on and on and deserves the deaf name Chatter more than she does.

And I get that she's endured these speeches from Alistair before. It makes me feel better. Like she has the same response to Alistair and his
help
.

‘Sign is expressive and emotional,' Alistair goes on, completely clueless, ‘like the poems of K-e-a-t-s. We'll be studying Keats this term.'

He looks around as though he's expecting a round of applause.

I see two looks passing over Alistair's face in quick succession. Before I went deaf I probably wouldn't have even noticed. Jules spent ages teaching me how to read faces, to understand body language.

The first look is disappointment that his speech hasn't got a reaction. That's in the droop of his shoulders, the slight downturn of his mouth.

Then there's a fresh determination. His mouth straightens up and his shoulders push back.

Alistair is so here to
make a difference.
It's almost funny.He hands out a poem,
A Thing of Beauty,
and asks for a volunteer to come out and sign the poem for the class. I look at the floor.

Finally, Ling gets up. She has a wonky eye and she's deaf and she's up the front signing a poem about beauty. It's kind of embarrassing, and I wonder what my old group of friends would have thought. Stavros can do something similar to Ling with his eyes. It's part of his weird-talents repertoire though, not a permanent condition. Like Shae can jut out her shoulder bones to make shark fins and Nadia can wiggle her ears.

I can imagine them, trying not to laugh, but at the same time egging each other on. I imagine me doing the same, joining in. Not to be cruel, but
come on
. It's funny, right?

I have to remind myself that things are different now.I wouldn't laugh like that anymore, but I know that others will laugh at me.

I remind myself I'm here to learn. I have to get good marks. I'm not even sure if it's still possible to do what I want to do, to be what I want to be, now I'm deaf. But I have to try.

So I kick the gang out of my head. It's not that difficult to do. It's not like I've felt that close to them lately.

chapter 5

The tram takes me right to the street of my favourite pool.There's an electric feeling in the air. I sense it before I see the lightning. Out of habit I count down to the thunder I will never hear. One cat-and-dog, two cat-and-dog, three cat-and-dog. I'm up to seven when I think it must have come, because some kids outside the pool gate are acting afraid, screaming silent screams and hugging each other.