Whisper (18 page)

The sign for ‘lobby' is one fist on top of the other, and a forward, pushing motion. Very Stella. ‘It's essential that we be able to text 000. It's incredible that we can't do it in this state. The hearies expect us to play by their rules, but they won't give us access to basic services. It's a double standard.It's cruel.'

There are a couple of different ways to sign ‘cruel'. It's very Stella, also, that she uses the most extreme, an index finger across the throat like a knife.

I look away from Stella and survey the room. There are pockets of people everywhere, and everyone is signing.I should be used to it from school, but this seems different.Everyone looks like they're having fun. Everyone has chosen to be here – you don't really choose to go to school. There are all ages here too, from littlies to oldies.

Part of me wishes I could be invisible, just to soak it up for a moment. It's like I am glimpsing the possibility of living in a different way. I wonder whether it would be an easier life – less choked with misunderstandings and disappointment.

I can scan the room and see conversations all around.Unless someone has their back to me I'm not locked out of anything. I can get what's going on in this room even more easily than if I was hearing and at a hearing party.

But I'm not invisible. Stella has spotted me. She waves and beckons me over.

‘This is my friend, D-e-m-i,' she introduces. ‘She's going to be a lawyer. Hopefully by the time she is, the emergency number issue will be sorted, but there will always be plenty to keep her busy.'

She's got it wrong in more ways than one. She's making it seem like I'm going to be a lawyer
for
the deaf rather than a lawyer who just happens to be deaf. And there's the ‘going to' certainty that always bothers me.

I'm about to protest, but there's something about the way Stella looks at me that stops me. She looks proud of me. It makes me feel special, and then I realise how un-special I've been feeling, how hollow.

With a stab I think again of Ethan, and how he's ashamed of me.

‘Nice,' signs one of the men, introducing himself as Peter.His smile is wide and warm. ‘We need more people like you, making a difference.'

The woman reaches out a hand to shake mine. One side of her face is frozen, maybe paralysed. It looks strange when the other side smiles, because it's a lovely smile. It would have been a lovely smile if there was some symmetry left.

‘I'm J-i-l-l,' she signs.

It clicks that something must have happened to Jill. It looks like maybe she's had a stroke or something. It strikes me that Jill's a real person and that things like this must happen every day.

Suddenly I'm thinking about the situation in a way that isn't like my fear of imagined intruders when Mum left me alone that night. It's real. If Peter hadn't been home with a TTY phone to call an ambulance when Jill had the stroke, who knows what might have happened. Don't the government care?

The thoughts hitch themselves to the feelings already swirling around my head. Feelings about Ethan and Mum and Flawless, but also about all the things that have happened to me because I'm deaf. It's all like a weight on my shoulders, and I can feel myself leaning closer to Stella's views.

‘Come on, I'll take you around,' Stella signs, grabbing my hand.

Despite what she's been discussing, there's a lightness about Stella that I haven't seen before.

In the middle of the room Stella pauses, giving me a chance to take everything in.

One girl, about our age, is signing to an older girl about a movie she wants to see. She's pissed off that it doesn't have closed captions so she'll have to wait for the DVD.

A group of kids, ranging in age, are sitting on beanbags playing Celebrity Heads.

Stella's mum joins us. ‘It's a release for everyone when we get together,' she signs to me.

I remember learning the sign she uses for ‘release'.It's usually used to talk about setting someone free, like from jail.

It makes sense to me. I know that it can be lonely out there for deaf people.

‘We can get a little rowdy,' continues Stella's mum.

As if to demonstrate, I see a little girl pumping the air as she guesses who she is.

I wish it were that easy to figure out who I am.

chapter 23

I'm watching the kids get ready for a new round of Celebrity Heads. A boy with tightly wound curls is up. On his rather large forehead is the label ‘Oprah'. It could be a good one, but Stella has my hand and she's pulling me outside.

There are four teenagers in a courtyard outside, sitting on a wooden bench beside a fire pit. Two boys, two girls.They jump a bit when the door slides open. There's a scramble to hide their drinks in the bushes.

When they see who it is, the drinks are rescued.

‘You scared the crap out of us, Star,' one of the boys signs, grinning. He is short and buff, like he works out a lot.

Smoke from the fire makes my eyes water and explains why everyone is on the far side of the flames. Stella introduces us. Short and Buff hands us a drink each.

So P-a-u-l, you got suspended?' Stella signs to him.

Paul shakes his head, laughing. ‘See?' he tells the others.‘There's more Chinese whispers in the deaf community than in the hearing.'

The others smile as Paul gets ready to fill us in. I get the impression that they've already been through this.

‘I got a detention, not suspended,' Paul explains.

‘What happened?' Stella asks.

Paul stands up, though the standing up version of him isn't much taller than the sitting one.

‘Well,' he signs, looking around to check his audience is being attentive, ‘you know how there are different types of farts? My specialties are the atom bomb and the silent-but-deadly'. ‘He can clear a room in seconds,' one of the girls signs to me with a smile. I grin back at her. I am loving this. Paul's a really good storyteller. His hands are flying, but I'm getting
everything
, not just bits here and there that need piecing together.

‘Normally, I know which type of fart I'm letting out,' he continues, ‘but this day, there were complications. Baked beans.'

Paul has to wait for everyone to compose themselves before he continues. I laugh too, but there's a particular look on his face now. It might just be the flicker of the fire, but I think I see something else. He takes a deep breath and continues.

‘So, there I was in class. History of the Roman Empire.And I thought I was letting out a couple of SBDs. But the kids who can hear said I was actually letting go of atom bombs. The teacher was not impressed, which is silly because I'm sure the ancient Romans would have worshipped the atom bomb. Worshipped.'

The sign for ‘worship' is the hands in prayer position and a couple of downward strokes. Paul holds his hands together after he's finished signing. I catch his eye, and he looks away.I can't help wondering if he's turning the story into a joke when it was really embarrassing at the time.

I glance at Stella. She's smiling, but there's something else in her expression too. I get the feeling that she's had the same thought as me.

‘I got in trouble last week too.' It's the other girl signing now, the one who hasn't said anything yet. She has beautiful red-orange hair that matches the fire.

‘What happened, L-o-u?' Stella asks.

‘My PE teacher is really hard to lip-read. She's a mumbler.She hardly moves her mouth. You know the type?'

Five heads nod, unanimous.

‘Well, she said she reminded me three times to bring my netball skirt. I thought she was just reminding me to bring my
shirt
, because I forget it all the time. So I remembered my shirt, but when I came out of the change room in my shorts, she went off.'

Lou's signing just tells the facts, but her face fills in the emotion. Her forehead is creased with a frown and her eyes are sad.

‘She sent me to the principal's office,' Lou continues.

‘I had to wait outside, on the bench, so everyone who walked past knew I was in trouble. When he called me in, he told me that the PE teacher thinks I disobey her on purpose.That now I have a cochlear implant, I should be able to hear her.'

Lou's eyes are welling up. Stella sits down next to her.

‘It's not true,' Lou signs. ‘My hearing's not that much better, even with the cochlear. I haven't had it for very long, so I haven't really learnt how to interpret sounds properly yet. Sometimes it makes it harder to figure out what's going on. But she says I'm just making up excuses.'

Lou has turned to Stella, as though Stella is the one she really wants to talk to. I understand why. Stella is weirdly perceptive sometimes. She
gets
stuff like that. It makes me think of the way she got why I sit close to the door all the time.

Stella puts her arms around Lou's shoulder.

‘They're not excuses,' Stella signs. ‘They're reasons.'

She looks over to me, her eyebrows raised, and I get that she's asking me to understand that her politics come from personal experiences like these – not just the big issues like having proper access to emergency services.

The others have some creative ideas about what they'd like to do to Lou's PE teacher. I watch them, but I'm not really concentrating on what they're saying. I'm thinking about the hearing people in my life.

Ethan doesn't want to be seen with me in public.My mum and my sister are too wrapped up in their own petty problems to bother with me anymore. And Nadia thinks she has to take care of me. It's made our friendship lopsided and I don't know if we can get back to the way we were before. It's all left a hole inside me.

It's weird that even though I'm mostly in the company of strangers, it doesn't feel that way. It's not that I really feel like I belong here; it's more like maybe I
could
belong here, in time.Especially if I started to think a bit more like Stella does. She seems to take on everyone's experiences of being deaf and merge them together so they become kind of
communal.
And then they make her strong. I admire that strength.

Lou is still crying. I know this stuff can really hurt. It's not so different to what happened to me at the pool that time when the woman was yelling at me. But at least Lou can talk about it with friends who understand. I wish I'd had that at my old school, rather than having everything fester inside me. It's not just about having friends who sign, it's about having friends who know the things that happen when you're deaf – and how they can make you feel.

Paul is talking the others through a torture chamber, some sharp bamboo sticks and the PE teacher's fingernails.

It's got nothing to do with torturing Lou's teacher, but I suddenly feel my own horror story surfacing. I want to tell Stella what happened at Northfield. It's a shock to suddenly want to tell someone, but I think she'll understand, and I need to let it go.

And I also want Stella to know that I
do
get it, even though I haven't been deaf for very long. That bad things have happened to me, too.

I wait until the others are about to go inside, and I ask Stella to stay.

chapter 24

Ethan texts me four times on Sunday. Each time, my heart seems to vibrate along with my phone. Each time, I delete the message without reading it. It takes willpower
,
but I do it. I have to keep reminding myself that the bits between us that seemed beautiful – him talking about us swimming in sync, writing to each other at the park – they're just the easy bits. The truth is much uglier.

If he's embarrassed to be seen with me in public, then he can't see me in private. It's as simple as that.

When my phone vibrates again I almost delete the message without checking who sent it.

It's Nadia.

Deng come quick. Have lost ring. Panic. Need u x

It's a very Nadia message, hurriedly written. She started calling me Deng when her old phone's predictive text kept changing Demi to Deng. It's a long-running joke of ours.

I know what Nadia's like at losing things. She got an iPod after months of nagging last year and lost it the next day.

I gave her mine so her parents wouldn't find out. It's not like I need it anymore.

I feel a bit weird about going to Nadia's. For a second I feel weirdly guilty, like maybe I'm betraying Stella.

Stella was amazing last night when I told her about Northfield. She didn't interrupt me once as I described what happened. How I went nuts in public, yelling and screaming.How all those people stared at me like I was a monkey in a zoo. I told her how embarrassed I'd been, after the fear wore off. How I stopped speaking afterwards for a whole week. At that point, she chipped in.

‘It's fine not to speak, D-e-m-i. Hearing people don't have to sign, so why should deaf people have to speak?'

I wasn't so sure about that bit. You lose access to so much if you don't speak. But I let it go. I let it go, carried along by Stella's outrage.

Stella wanted to write the shopping centre a letter of complaint. But I didn't know the name of the security guard.He might not even work there anymore. Anyway, Stella was so angry for me that it felt like she was taking on some of my anger. I felt lighter.

I look at Nadia's text for a while. But I can't ignore her when she needs me
.

Coming right away mafia.

I can't help smiling. In the way Demi became Deng, Nadia became mafia. It stuck. It still amuses me that the phone could link an organised crime circle to Nadia. She's one of the least organised people I know.

I catch a tram and walk from the corner. I'm a few doors down from Nadia's house when her little brother Jasper shoots past me on his bike. He does a wheelie for my benefit and stops in front of me, cutting me off.