Jessi's Secret Language (3 page)

“And
one
and
two
and
three
and
four
and
plié
…
PLIÉ
, Mademoiselle Jones. Bend those knees!”

Sometimes Mme Noelle gets a little carried away in ballet class. She has this big stick (Becca saw it once and called it a club, but it really isn't) that she bangs on the floor in time to her counting. This is only when we're exercising at the
barre
at the beginning of class.

“And
one
” (bang) “and
two
” (bang) “and
three
” (bang) “and
four
” (bang). “On your toes. Up, up,
up
!”

I wished it were the end of class instead of the beginning. At the end, Mme Noelle was going to announce the parts in
Coppélia
. Not everyone from our class would wind up in the ballet. Kids in all the other classes at the school had tried out, too, and there were simply not enough parts to go around.

I looked at the students in the room. We are an advanced
en pointe
class, which means that we dance in toe shoes. I will never forget how thrilled I was when I got my first pair of toe shoes. That is absolutely the most exciting thing in the life of a young ballerina. But you know what? We work out so hard that we need new shoes constantly. We just wear out one pair after another. Mama and Daddy admit that this is expensive, but they know I'm serious about my dancing, even if I don't want to become a professional, so they go along with it very nicely. I put quite a bit of my baby-sitting money toward shoes so that my parents don't have to pay for all of them.

In my class are eleven other girls. I'm the youngest and the newest. The next oldest are two twelve-year-olds, and the others are thirteen and fourteen. Mme Noelle said I'm the first eleven-year-old to be in this class in a long time. In fact, she sort of made an announcement about it. Right away I could tell that Hilary and Katie Beth were upset. Hilary and Katie Beth are the twelve-year-olds. Until I came along,
they
were the youngest in the class.

They do not like me.

Well, I'm sorry I took their special positions away, but I couldn't help it. I mean, I didn't do it on purpose.

“And
one
and
two
and
three
and — Pay attention, Mademoiselle Romsey!”

Mademoiselle Romsey. I mean, Ramsey. That's me! It always takes me a second to remember that.

In Mme Noelle's class, you don't apologize when she scolds you. You just shape up and work extra hard. Which I did.

But not until after I noticed Hilary and Katie Beth gloating at each other. They were happy to see me in trouble.

We finished our
barre
work and started in on some floor exercises.
Tour jetés
and stuff like that. We practiced head work, too. When you turn, you have to spin your head around faster than your body. It's sort of hard to explain. Anyway, then Madame began to teach us a complicated routine that involved groups of four girls dancing with their hands crossed and joined.

Nobody wanted to hold my hands.

Oh, okay. That's not true. It's just that Hilary and Katie Beth were in my group and neither of
them
wanted to hold my hands. The only solution was for me to dance at the end of the line, holding
the hand of the fourteen-year-old in our group who was mature enough not to care about petty little things.

Mme Noelle finally ended class five minutes early.

“Okay,
mes petites
,” she said, which is French for “my little girls.” Considering the fourteen-year-olds in the class,
mes petites
seemed sort of odd, but she calls us that all the time.

She banged her club on the floor and said, “Gother 'round, please. I am going to announce those of you who have earned parts in
Coppélia
.”

My heart began tap dancing in my chest. On the day of tryouts, all I had cared about was not doing something stupid. Since I hadn't done anything stupid, I was hoping that maybe, just
maybe
, I would be given a teeny little part, like one of the townspeople.

Mme Noelle cleared her throat as my classmates and I stood before her nervously. Most of us were nervous, anyway. But Hilary and Katie Beth looked smug. They thought of themselves as Madame's favorites, so I guess they weren't worried about getting good parts.

Madame began by announcing the smaller roles.

“In this closs,” she said, “Mary Bramstedt and
Lisa Jones will be two of the townspeople. Carrie Steinfeld will participate in the Donce of the Hours. Hilary, although the Chinese Doll is usually played by a male doncer, you have been given that part. I think you can do it. Katie Beth, you will play Coppélia herself.”

Madame paused.

I nearly died. I wasn't even one of the
towns-
people. How humiliating. And Hilary and Katie Beth were gloating up a storm. The Chinese Doll. What a role. And Coppélia herself. Oh, well. There probably weren't any black people in little European towns hundreds of years ago anyway. How could I have thought I'd get a role in
Coppélia
?

I was so busy feeling sorry for myself that I almost missed the next thing Madame said: “One role more. I am very pleased to announce that the part of Swanilda” (she's the star, remember?) “has been awarded to one of the students in this closs.”

Just about everyone in the room gasped. I'm surprised there was any oxygen left to breathe.

“Swanilda,” Mme Noelle said, “will be played by Mademoiselle Jessica Romsey.”

Jessica Romsey? Oh, Jessica Ramsey. That was
me
. ME!
I
was going to be Swanilda, the star?

“I admit,” Mme Noelle went on, “that Jessica is a bit young for the role, but I think she can hondle it. Jessica, your audition was wonderful. That is all. Soturday rehearsals will begin this weekend for those in the performance. Closs is dismissed.”

I walked into the changing room in a fog. I wasn't sure how to feel. I was delighted, thrilled, scared to death. It was encouraging that Madame didn't seem to mind a black Swanilda, but could I really learn the part? I began to imagine myself on stage in Swanilda's lovely costume.

First I saw myself
pirouetting
and
tour jetéing
to beat the band.

Then I saw myself leaping through the air toward the open arms of Franz, missing, and sailing into the scenery, which comes crashing down, knocking three dancers unconscious, and ruining the performance.

With a little shudder I slipped off my shoes and leg warmers and searched around for my jeans.

“Congratulations, Jessi,” said Mary Bramstedt and Lisa Jones.

I shook myself out of my fog.

“Thanks,” I said, looking up gratefully. I smiled.

They crossed to the other side of the room and began sorting through their clothes.

“Congratu
la
tions, Jessi,” said two more voices, only this time my smile faded. The voices were not friendly. They were nasally, mimicking what Mary and Lisa had just said. Imagine somebody noticing that you've totally botched something up, and saying, “Oh, that's
nice
. Real nice.” That was exactly how those voices sounded.

I didn't have to glance up to see who the voices belonged to.

Hilary and Katie Beth.

What was I supposed to say?

I decided to ignore their tone. “Congratulations to you, too,” I replied. “The Chinese Doll. That's a great part. And Coppélia, Katie Beth. That's terrific.”

“Oh, come off it,” replied Katie Beth nastily. She had unpinned her long hair and flipped it over her shoulder. “Coppélia barely does anything. She just sits there. She's a doll, for heaven's sake. They could put a dummy on stage, and it would be the same thing.”

“No, it wouldn't,” I told her.

Katie Beth just tossed her head. Then she took Hilary by the arm, and they sat down not far from me.

It was while I was pulling my shirt on over my leotard that I heard it.

“Teacher's pet,” Hilary whispered to Katie.

They were talking about me.

“She just got the part because she's Madame's favorite. And she's the favorite because she's the newest and youngest,” agreed Katie Beth.

“Yeah, just wait until another girl joins the class,” Hilary added. “Then she'll see.”

Were they right? Had I gotten the part of Swanilda because Madame favored new girls, not because I was a good dancer? If that were true, I couldn't stand it. That would be worse than not being in the production at all.

When I was dressed, I slunk out of school like a dog with its tail between its legs.

I didn't worry about my role in
Coppélia
for long. In our house, it's hard to keep worries inside. Everyone notices when you're brooding. Even Squirt, who tries to make you laugh by blowing raspberries.

I hadn't been home from class for more than ten minutes before Mama dragged the whole story out. Then she began talking some sense into me. “Didn't we agree that the Stamford school was the best ballet academy in the area?” she asked me.

“Yes,” I replied.

“And didn't we look into its reputation, and even the reputation of Madame Noelle?”

“Yes.”

“And did we find anything that wasn't professional?”

“No.”

“So,” said Mama, who was really being a lot gentler than this sounds, since she was sitting close to me on the couch and smoothing back my hair as she talked, “do you believe what those girls were saying? Do you think Madame Noelle would risk the whole show, would cast the starring role with a dancer who wasn't the best for the part, in order to play favorites?”

“Nope,” I replied.

“I don't think so either,” said Mama, and she pulled me close for a hug.

“Thanks, Mama,” I whispered.

And that was the end of that. Hilary and Katie Beth were jealous, and I'd just have to live with that. It was their problem, not mine. The only way for me to feel bad about it was to
let
them make me feel bad. And I wasn't going to do that. Why should I?

 

I concentrated on Matthew Braddock, my new baby-sitting charge. I was supposed to go to his house for my first training session. I decided that before I did, I should at least know what Ameslan was. So the night before I met Matthew I went into our den and looked up some things in our encyclopedia. It turns out Ameslan is sign language and that signing is a way of talking with
your hands — so that deaf people can
see
you talk, since they can't hear you. The book says signing is a lot easier than reading lips, because so many spoken words “look” the same. Stand in front of a mirror. Say “pad” and “bad.” Do they look any different? Or try “dime” and “time.” Do
they
look any different? Not a bit.

But signing is a language especially designed for the deaf, in which words or concepts are represented by different signs made with the hands. Actually, there are different kinds of sign languages, just like there are different spoken languages. American Sign Language (or Ameslan) was the language Matt had learned.

When I thought about it, even people who can hear use signs pretty often. We have always accused Daddy of “talking with his hands.” He absolutely cannot hold them still when he talks. If he's talking about something big, he holds his hands wide apart. If he's trying to make a point, he pounds one hand on the table. If he wants to show that something is unimportant, he sort of waves one hand away. If he says your name, he points to you at the same time.

Well, I couldn't imagine a different sign for every word in the world, and I couldn't imagine the sign for a word like “shoe.” Or how, for
instance, would the sign for apple be different from the sign for orange?

I would find out soon enough.

 

I rang the Braddocks' bell at 3:15 on a Monday afternoon. I realized that from then on, my schedule was going to be very busy. Mondays — Braddocks, then a meeting of the Baby-sitters Club. Tuesdays — dance class. Wednesdays — same as Mondays. Thursdays — only free afternoon. Fridays — dance class, then club meeting.

Whew!

The door was answered by a pixie of a girl who must have been Haley, but who looked small for nine. Her blonde hair was cut short with a little tail in the back (
very
in), and her brown eyes were framed by luscious dark lashes. Her face was heart-shaped, and she gave me this wide, charming grin that showed a dimple at the right corner of her mouth.

“Hi,” she said. “Are you Jessica?”

“Yup,” I replied, “but call me Jessi. You must be Haley.”

“Yup.” (That grin again.) “Come on in.”

Haley opened the door and I walked into a house that looked pretty much like Mallory's, only without all the kids. A lot of the houses in
this neighborhood look the same. They were all built by this one guy, Mr. Geiger. I guess he didn't have much imagination.

As soon as I stepped inside, I was greeted by Mrs. Braddock. She looked like a nice, comfortable kind of mom to have. She was wearing blue jeans and Reeboks and a big, baggy sweater, and she rested one hand reassuringly on Haley's shoulder while shaking my hand with the other.

“Hi, Jessica —” she began.

“Jessi, Mommy,” Haley interrupted. “Call her Jessi.”

Mrs. Braddock and I laughed, and I was ushered into the living room. Then Mrs. Braddock told me to sit on the couch. “Matt hasn't come home from school yet, but he'll be here any minute. As you know, I'm not going out this afternoon. I mean, you're not here for official baby-sitting. I just want you to meet Matt and Haley, and I want to introduce you to sign language. If you're interested in learning it, we'll go on from there.”

“Okay,” I said. “Let's start. I love languages.”

Mrs. Braddock smiled. “Terrific.”

“Can I be the teacher, Mommy?” asked Haley.

“Does Haley know sign language, too?” I asked.

“We all do,” replied Mrs. Braddock. “It's the only way to communicate with Matt, and we don't want him left out of anything.” She turned to Haley. “You better be the assistant teacher, honey,” she told her. “Why don't you start by finding the
American Sign Language Dictionary
? We'll lend it to Jessi for a while.”

Haley ran off and Mrs. Braddock continued. “Before I begin showing you actual signs, I should tell you a little about teaching the deaf, I guess. One thing you ought to know is that not everyone agrees that the deaf should communicate with sign language. Some people think they should be taught to speak and to read lips. However, in lots of cases, speaking is out of the question. Matt, for instance, is what we call profoundly deaf. That means he has almost total hearing loss. And he was born that way. We're not sure he's ever heard a sound in his life. He doesn't even wear hearing aids. They wouldn't do him any good. And since Matt can't hear any sounds, he can't hear spoken words, of course, and he can't imitate them either. So there's almost no hope for speech from Matt. Nothing that most people could understand anyway.”

“And lip-reading is hard,” I said. “I experimented in front of the mirror last night.”

“You've been doing your homework,” said Mrs. Braddock approvingly.

“How come everyone wants deaf people to speak and read lips?” I asked.

“Because if they could, they'd be able to communicate with so many more
hearing
people. Matt, for instance, can only communicate with us and with the teachers and students at his school. None of our friends knows sign language and only a few of our relatives do. When Matt grows older, he'll meet other deaf people who use sign language, and maybe even a few hearing people who can sign, but he'll be pretty limited. Imagine going to a movie theater and signing that you want two tickets. No one would know what you meant.”

I could see her point and was about to ask why the Braddocks had chosen signing for Matt, when Mrs. Braddock continued. “We're not sure we've made the right choice, but that's the choice we made. At least we've been able to communicate with Matt for a long time now. Most kids take years to learn lip-reading and feel frustrated constantly, even at home.” Mrs. Braddock sighed. “Some families,” she added, “don't bother to learn to sign. The deaf children in those families must feel so lost.”

Haley returned with a big book then and dropped it in my lap. “Here's the dictionary,” she said cheerfully.

I opened it to the middle and looked at the pages in front of me. I was in the
K
section. The book reminded me of a picture dictionary that Becca used to have.

Key
was the sixth word under K. I saw a picture of two hands — one held up, the other imitating turning a key in an imaginary lock on the upright hand.

“Oh, I get it!” I said. “This looks like fun.”

“It is sort of fun,” agreed Mrs. Braddock. “But there are several thousand signs in there.”

“Several
thousand
!” I cried. I knew there were a lot of words in the world, but I hadn't thought there were
that
many.

“Don't worry,” said Mrs. Braddock. She took the dictionary from me and closed it. “Right now, I'm just going to teach you a few of the signs that Matt uses the most. When you're at home you can use the dictionary to look up other things or things you forget, okay?”

“Okay,” I replied, feeling relieved.

We were just about to start when the front door opened and a little boy came into the living
room. I caught sight of a van backing down the Braddocks' driveway.

“Well, there you are!” cried Mrs. Braddock, speaking with her voice and her hands at the same time. “Home from school.”

The boy was Matt, of course, and his face broke into a grin just like Haley's, with a dimple on the right side of his mouth. He waved to his mother and then ran to her for a hug.

“Believe it or not,” Mrs. Braddock said to me, “that wave was the sign for ‘hello.' It's also the sign for ‘good-bye.'”

“That's easy to remember,” I said.

Mrs. Braddock turned Matt so that he could look at me. Then she turned him back to her and once again began signing and talking at the same time. She was introducing us.

“Is there a sign for my
name
?” I asked, amazed.

“That's a good question,” Mrs. Braddock replied. “And the answer is ‘Not exactly,' or perhaps, ‘Not yet.' What I did just now was
spell
your name. I used finger spelling, which I'll explain later. However, since it takes too long to spell out names we use a lot, such as our own names, or the names of Matt's teacher and his friends at school, we make up signs for those people.” Mrs. Braddock
signed something to Matt, saying at the same time, “Matt, show Jessi the sign for your name.”

Matt grinned. Then he held up one hand and sort of flew it through the air.

“That,” said Mrs. Braddock, “is the letter
M
for Matt being tossed like a baseball. Matt loves sports.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed. “Neat.”

“Show Jessi the sign for Haley,” Mrs. Braddock instructed Matt.

Another hand flew through the air.

“That was the letter
H
soaring like Halley's Comet. When you know finger spelling, you'll be able to tell the signs apart more easily. Also, we'll have to give you a sign soon.”

Mrs. Braddock asked Haley to take Matt into the kitchen then and fix him a snack. When we were alone again, she began showing me signs.

“The word
you
is easy,” she told me. “Just point to the person you're talking to.”

(What do you know? I thought. My father knows sign language!)

“To sign
want
,” Mrs. Braddock went on, “hold your hands out like this — palms up, fingers relaxed — and pull them toward you, curling your fingers in slightly.”

Mrs. Braddpck went on and on. She showed
me signs for foods, for parts of the body, and for the words
bathroom
,
play
, and
come
. Finally she said, “I think that's enough for one day. I'm going to start dinner. Why don't you take Matt and Haley downstairs to the rec room so you can get to know them better?”

The Braddocks' rec room looked like any other rec room — a TV, a couple of couches, a shelf full of books, and plenty of toys.

“Ask Matt what he wants to play,” I said to Haley.

Haley obediently signed to her brother, a questioning look on her face. Matt signed back.

“He wants to read,” Haley told me.

“Read!” I cried. “He can read?”

“Well, he
is
seven,” Haley pointed out, “and he's been in school since he was two. It's really important for him to be able to read and write.”

Of course, I thought. Reading and writing are other ways to communicate.

Matt found a picture book and curled up with it.

“How can I get to know him if he reads?” I wondered out loud.

“How about getting to know
me
?” asked Haley impatiently, and she shot a brief look of annoyance at her brother. Luckily he didn't notice.
That one annoyed look said a lot. Something was going on between Matt and Haley, I thought, but I wasn't sure what.

 

That night I finished my homework and settled into bed with the
American Sign Language Dictionary
. Tons of questions came to me, and I wrote them down so that I'd remember to ask Mrs. Braddock. How do you sign a question? Do you make a question mark with your fingers? How do you make a word plural? I mean, if there's a sign for
apple
, what's the sign for
apples
? What's finger spelling? (Mrs. Braddock had forgotten to explain.) And can you string signs into sentences, just like when you're speaking? (I wasn't sure, because I couldn't find signs for
the
, or
an
, or
a
.)

Even though I knew I had a lot to learn, I decided I liked sign language. It's very expressive — almost like dancing.