The Color of Silence (16 page)

Chapter 33

Joanie seems totally shocked that I'm here. Shocked in a good way, though, which is a relief. I wasn't totally sure how she would feel about my showing up without warning.

I'm not a hundred percent sure why I'm here. Up here on the third floor, I mean. I know why I'm in the hospital again so soon.

I had an appointment with the headache doctor so she could do some tests to see why my head keeps trying to explode. If I had the energy and the words, I would have told her it's a waste of time. All the tests in the world aren't going to tell her why my head hurts. I could tell her, but I'm not going to.

I tried to refuse to go because no one told me that fixing my brain was part of the probation deal. But my dad said that I had to go because going back to school
is
part of the probation deal, and figuring out my headaches is part of getting ready to go back.

I'm trying to cooperate with my dad these days.

But I really don't want to go back to that school. I don't want to go to
any
school, but especially not that one.

I can't imagine what it would be like to walk into a building full of Cali's friends.

To walk past her locker and remember standing there watching her brush her hair and talking about music and boys and clothes and math problems—in that order.

To walk into the choir room and watch her grinning at the teacher and singing about watermelons.

Or to stand in the hall and remember the very first time I saw her. To hear her voice bursting out all over the place singing “Fame.”

I want to live forever
…

To know that I took it all away. From her. From me. From everyone.

To know that everyone in the building remembers that it's my fault.

Why are they pushing this?

Who decided that school is so important, anyway?

Who cares where I learn things, as long as I learn them?

Why does anyone care about me at all?

I don't need school on top of everything else. Why doesn't anyone understand that?

But they don't, and I can't explain it to them.

Not even to my father, even though I should try.

So here I am back at the hospital, letting them take pictures of my brain.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

It wouldn't take a thousand words to tell them why my head hurts.

Only six.

Cali is dead because of me.

After Dr. Stewart finished wasting her time, I stood out in the hallway for a minute trying to figure out where to go. I didn't really want to go home. My father keeps trying to talk to me, and I know I should be listening and trying to talk back. I'm just too tired to deal with that today.

I closed my eyes for a second, trying to picture somewhere safe where I could go for a while, just to feel a little less twisted and torn.

When my eyes opened back up, I found my feet heading toward the elevator so that I could head up to the third floor.
I didn't even really think about it. They just decided that visiting Joanie was the right thing to do.

And now that I'm here, I have to agree with them.

I get her computer going so we can start to practice. I start to press the icon that brings up the colors, but I accidentally touch a new icon that brings up squares filled with letters.

“Oops. That's not right.” I look at Joanie. She's staring at the screen with super interested eyes.

“I think this screen is for spelling. I guess that's sort of obvious with all the letters.” I try a smile. Joanie doesn't smile back. She's still staring at the letters.

“I get the feeling you would like to try this. Like, right now.”

“Yes.”

The word startles me. I hadn't noticed that the Yes and No squares were still there on the screen. I guess Shawna programmed it that way. Or maybe it came that way. Doesn't matter. It's still cool.

“I'd like to, but I'm not so sure Shawna is planning on using this yet. I don't know if I'm supposed to try new stuff or not.”

“Yes.”

“Yes? Yes, I'm supposed to try new stuff?”

“Yes.”

“I don't know. I don't want to mess anything up. I don't even know if she finished programming this part or whatever. I think I should at least check first. OK?”

“No.”

“Come on, give me a break here. I'm not the boss of this thing.”

“Yes.”

I look at her, and I swear she's grinning.

“Yeah, well, see here's where the yes/no thing kind of falls down. I don't know if you're saying yes, I
am
the boss or yes, I'm
not
the boss. Doesn't matter, I guess, because we both know that the real boss is Shawna.”

“No.”

“No? Shawna's not the boss? Well that leaves one person…you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think Shawna knows that?”

“No.” And she starts her funny, gurgling laugh, which makes me start laughing too.

I laugh so hard my stomach starts to hurt. I can't believe this. She made a joke.

And she's right. Shawna might think she's the boss, but Joanie is definitely in charge.

She only has, like, six words, and she's making jokes!

Imagine what she could do if she could use these letters to make words she actually gets to pick for herself!

I really need to talk to Shawna about speeding all of this up. I don't think she really understands how much more Joanie needs. I saw kids online who are a lot younger than Joanie doing all kinds of cool stuff that Joanie is totally capable of doing faster and better than any of them. I feel like we shouldn't be wasting any time. Joanie's been waiting long enough, and she's smart enough to just go. She needs more than this tiny pile of words.

Six words.

Yes. No. Red. Yellow. Green. Blue.

How many pictures can Joanie really draw with only six little words?

Chapter 34

Yes.

No.

Blue.

Yellow.

Green.

Red.

These are my words so far. The ones that other people understand. Alexandra and I practiced over and over again until I got them right every time. I wanted to move on to some new ones or to maybe try that spelling page, but Shawna hasn't taught us how to do that yet. I don't know when I am seeing her next, but I hope it's soon. I just want to get moving!

How will she decide what steps are the most important ones for me to learn next? Is there a set of rules that dictates what comes first and second and third? She said she was doing a lot of guessing, because she doesn't know which words are already inside my mind and which ones haven't made it there yet. I hope the guessing doesn't slow us down too much.

I think that the words I would most like to learn are questions instead of answers. I want to ask more about the world around me and get the answers I'm looking for, instead of having to wait until people accidentally give me the information I want.

I want to ask Patrick if he is going to be working on Sunday, or if he has a day off.

I want to ask Kathleen what she had for lunch, and did she enjoy it, and would she describe it to me so I can imagine it too.

I want to ask the staff to bring Allison here to see the Wizard. I want to ask Allison if there's still room for me at the group home, and ask if I can move back there if I get well enough that my good days start to outnumber my bad ones.

I want to ask Shawna if there's a way I could take the Wizard home with me, if I ever do go back.

I want to ask Alexandra when I'm going to see her next, and where we're going to go, and what we're going to do, and who we're going to see, and why she seems so sad sometimes…I need W words!

Would Shawna be surprised to find out that I know which words start with W and which do not? I suspect that most people don't know that I can read and spell quite well. I paid attention in class when Ms. Blaine tried to teach us, and the idea of sounds and symbols made perfect sense to me. Although, I do have to admit that not all of the sounds match the symbols in ways that make sense. I remember being surprised to find out that words that have the exact same sounds sometimes have different letters making those sounds. Ms. Blaine put a sentence on the board to make us laugh—“which witch is which?” It seemed so silly to me that the sounds are the same but the symbols are not.

I loved Ms. Blaine. I had other teachers before her and after her, but no one taught me as much as she did. Other teachers were kind and helpful, but none of the others seemed to believe that I had a brain inside of me.

I have been thinking about spelling a lot since Alexandra left. That screen with all of the letters on it got me wondering if maybe I could use the Wizard to spell out whole sentences.
I like that idea. That would let me pick my own words from inside my mind instead of having to use words that were chosen for me. I don't know if I can spell every word that I want to use, but I think I can come close enough for people to understand.

It would take me a lot of time, though, to scan the screen and focus on each letter of every word I want to say. But maybe with enough practice I could learn to do it quickly enough so that the person I am talking with doesn't fall asleep waiting for me!

I wish Alexandra knew as much about the Wizard as Shawna does. Then we could get started right away.

Alexandra knew I wanted to.

Even with only two words, I could tell her.

She asked me if I was the boss, and I said “yes.”

She asked me if Shawna knows, and I said “no.”

I was trying to be funny when I said no…even though it's true!

And Alexandra laughed. She knew!

I have lots of funny ideas inside my head that will need more words than yes and no. I'm pretty sure I could make Alexandra laugh again.

When I find the words.

It's a little bit like going around in a circle. I need to have the words to tell them what words I want to learn.

I really know I shouldn't be impatient. After all, I have spent so many years without any words at all that I can share with other people. I have been patient this long; I should be able to do it a little longer.

I
am
a patient who has to try to
be
patient!

But it's just so exciting that I feel like I can't wait another day! I have so many words inside me that want to get out, and I want to learn everything I can as quickly as I can so I can talk to everyone I can.

I want to ask everyone I meet how they are feeling today, and where they are going after they leave here, and what they are going to do. I could ask what their favorite color is, or if they like the rain, or have they ever been to a fair, or have they ever seen a rainbow?

I would like to tell Patrick and Alexandra that my stones are really a rainbow that lets me walk around inside of my yesterdays and see if they would think I'm a bit strange.

I could ask them if they wish they could have a rainbow into yesterday, or if their life is so interesting that they would rather just stay here in today.

I could tell them that I really like being here in today with them.

And maybe I could ask them if they like being here in today with me too. Then again, that might be the kind of question that doesn't need words for an answer.

Chapter 35

“So, the bad news is that Shawna is out sick today, so you two can't go down. The good news is that it's sunny out, so you can go for a walk if you like. Or I guess you can work here with the computer if you'd rather.” Kathleen is standing beside Joanie's chair when I come in. Today's my regular day, two days after my waste-of-time brain scan appointment, or whatever that was.

A waste of time because the results are in. My brain is normal. My favorite non-word.

There is no magical solution to my headaches.

Except maybe a time machine.

Joanie's face looks disappointed by Kathleen's words.
Her eyes kind of drop and look like the lights were just dimmed. It is sunny outside and a walk would be OK, I guess. So long as no one talks to us. I don't want to listen to anyone these days.
I'm pretty tired of words that come from other people's mouths.

Although I am starting to really like words that come from other people's computers.

I wait until Kathleen leaves and try a couple of my own.

“So,
do
you want to go for a walk?”

She looks at me, her face twisting up into more expressions than I can read. It mostly looks like a
no
to me.

“You know what? You can answer that question yourself without me screwing it up. I'll turn this on for you again.” I start the computer up and go through the steps to bring up the screens that have been programmed so far for Joanie. I read online that there are all kinds of different ways to combine words, symbols, and letters to represent the communication needs of each person using the system. Shawna told us basically the same thing. She also said that a big part of the training is to figure out what the person's learning curve is and what screens will be most useful for her, specifically.

Joanie's learning curve seems like a steep one to me. Or is it shallow? I'm not sure how to use that idea properly. Whatever the right words are, Joanie is picking up on this fast. She knows exactly what she wants to say and is ready for more. The problem is that Shawna has to keep up with her and make sure she finds the right ways to help her say what she needs to. I'm not really sure that Shawna gets Joanie. I'm sure she cares about her and really wants to help her, but I don't think she really gets how smart Joanie is and how fast she can learn things. I feel like Joanie could fly through this stuff. Or maybe it's just that Shawna just isn't around often enough to make that happen.

The biggest problem is that when Shawna isn't around,
I still don't know enough about the system, or the right way to do this, to try anything new myself. At least, I don't think that I do.
I spent a bit more time reading about it last night and watched a few videos of people using spelling pages. It looked easy when I watched other people do it, but none of the screens I saw looked exactly the same as Joanie's. I want to be sure I'm teaching her how to use the spelling function the right way. I want to know how to store the words she spells so they can be programmed in as whole words later.

I need Shawna to teach me directly, because I don't want to waste Joanie's time doing it wrong. I want to help Joanie fly, but I have to do it right.

“OK. There you go. Now, let's try this again. Do you want to go for a walk?”

Joanie focuses her eyes on the screen.

“No.”

“OK, so no walking. Good enough. Do you want to work on your words?”

“No.”

“Oh. OK.” I have a feeling I know what she's thinking.

She's straining her neck as if she's trying to push her chin toward the computer screen. I look directly at her eyes, which are not looking at the colored squares on the middle of the screen, but seem to be scanning the icons across the top, where Shawna and I select the screen that she's going to use. There is a whole line of them up there that we haven't seen yet, including the alphabet icon that I accidentally hit the other day. She figured out how that happened and how to make it happen again. Typical Joanie.

“Do you want to try the alphabet page I hit on last time I was here?” She starts to move excitedly in her chair. Her eyes jump around a bit.

“Yellow.” She starts moving more quickly, arms flailing around until I have to duck.

“It's OK. Slow down! I know you weren't saying yellow. Just relax and try again. Are you asking me to bring up that alphabet page?”

She looks at me and her eyes close tightly, scrunching her face up like a sock puppet. She stays that way for a few seconds, and I start to worry that I upset her. I watch her closely, wondering what I'm supposed to do next. Then her hands start to slow down and her eyes open. She looks at me and then at the screen.

“Yes.”

“I had a feeling you were going to say that. And I haven't been able to get hold of Shawna since I was here last. I did try to figure it out a bit by reading about it and stuff, but I'm still pretty unsure.”

“Yes.” I think I just got yelled at in a robot voice.

“OK. OK. I think I understand. You're getting frustrated, right? Too slow and all that?”

“Yes.”

“All right. We'll try it today, but I will seriously have to get Shawna up here to make sure we're doing it right before we go too far with it. I saw on the Internet that it has to be programmed differently for each person who uses it, and you have to set up the time limits and other things. In other words, I am not the right person to be doing this, but I'll still try. Fair?”

“Yes.”

I bring up the screen with a touch of the icon. The arrangement of squares on the screen only has thirteen spaces, which makes the letters bigger and spread over two screens. There's an arrow at the bottom of the screen. I touch it and another page of letters appears.

“Try looking at this to see if the arrow works by eye gaze. Touching won't work that well if I don't know what you're spelling, right?”

She concentrates on staring at the arrow, and all of a sudden the first set of letters rolls up and off, replaced by the rest of the alphabet. Both screens have a Yes and a No box on them, as well, which seems like a nice touch to me. Some of the other spelling screens I saw online had other everyday words that the speech path had programmed onto the page as well. Maybe I should keep track of everything Joanie tries to spell, in case it helps Shawna with that later.

“Cool. I guess it's up to you to move the screens then. Are you any good at spelling? I hope so because I suck at it.” She makes her laughing sound and looks at the screen.

“Yes.”

“Yes, you're good or yes, I suck? Never mind. Dumb joke. Let's try it. I hope Shawna doesn't kill me for trying something different without her permission. You know it might not work very well because I don't know how to set it up—right?” I wait a few seconds for her to find the answer.

“Yes.”

Joanie's obviously excited and working hard to keep herself calm enough to concentrate on the letters. It takes us both a while to figure out how this one works. At first the robot just says a bunch of letters that don't add up to anything, which starts to get frustrating for both of us.

“There has to be a way to tell the computer when you're at the end of the word. I guess this is why we're supposed to wait for Shawna.”

I stare at the screen for a while and then it hits me in the face. There's a little rectangular icon at the bottom of the screen that says End. I point it out to her and slap my head in the universal sign for “duh.” Joanie laughs.

“Try looking at that End
square when you're done with the word.”

She looks at me and smiles her understanding.

Or she's smiling because she thinks I'm an idiot for not seeing it sooner.

She focuses for several seconds on the screen. A few minutes pass by with some random letter sounds popping out when she accidentally focuses on the wrong letter…but then—

“Hi,” the robot Joanie voice says.

I look at her face, all twisted up in her own patented crazy grin.

I know it's kind of nuts, but for just a second, she reminds me of Cali. It's something in her eyes that says, “Hey, look at me! I'm awesome!”

“Hi.” Emotions I haven't felt in a while steal my voice away and the word puffs out in a tiny whisper.

Joanie hears me anyway.

I can see it in her eyes.