Whisper (9 page)

She's wearing a low-slung studded belt, and her black jeans are frayed and ripped, exposing tartan tights underneath.Her boots are tartan too, laces undone. When she turns around, I can see that she has a large camera strung over her shoulder.

Her brown eyes land on me, but they don't seem to register anything. For a second, I wonder if I'm actually here.

Helena drums her boots again. Her writing on the whiteboard is next to the info about the careers expo.But the style is very different. The lettering is huge and red, like a celebration.

WELCOME BACK STELLA!!!

Stella looks at the writing. She smiles at Helena and claps her hands together as she walks to the front of the room.

‘Why no school uniform?' Helena signs. The rest of us are the audience.

‘I'm jet-lagged,' Stella signs back, her hand flying across her front like a plane. She doesn't voice as she signs. ‘I just came in to get books so I can do my homework.'

‘Weren't you … take books with you? Weren't you … to be studying while you were away?' Helena quizzes. I figure out the missing bit means something like ‘supposed to' or ‘going to'. I'm getting faster at this.

‘I was studying,' Stella signs, head tilted. ‘I was right in the middle of the school of life.' The word ‘middle' is emphasised, Stella's right hand chopping heavily down on her left.

The performance is mesmerising. I glance around the room and see that the others are also staring with what looks like awe. Luke has his chin in his hands as he looks at Stella. I wonder whether she has been the cause of one of his past heartbreaks. Keisha's eyes move between Luke and Stella, and I wish Luke would see Keisha properly, would notice how she looks at him. Everything could be so easy and un-heartbreaking.

The three kids in front of me lean forward, enjoying uninterrupted views of the Stella show.

Helena rolls her eyes exaggeratedly. She bites down on her smile and hands a form to Stella. ‘We have an excursion to the careers expo Wednesday week,' she signs to Stella.‘I think you will be interested. So I hope we will have the pleasure of your company.'

Stella shrugs, like the expo is no biggie. I have a feeling she already knows where her future lies.

Helena shoos us out of the classroom the way she always does when it's time to move to the next class. I've grown used to it. I actually kind of like the way she does it. It's clear and predictable and familiar. Like she knows us all well enough to ‘shoo'.

I stay seated for a minute as everyone leaves. I feel new all over again. As in, awkwardly new. It's weird, because before Stella arrived this morning, I'd been thinking how nice it was to have started feeling settled in.

I'm right near the door as usual, so everyone has to pass me. When Stella passes, I can't help checking to see whether she has hearing aids or a cochlear. It's become a habit when I'm around deaf people, searching for an indication of whether someone can hear anything at all.

It's not like I'm staring. More like I'm sneaking a look.I am leaning against my hand, and only my eyes travel.

But it seems that she's caught me anyway. Her eyes make a quick assessment. She blinks, and it feels like she has taken a mental snapshot of me to study later. But that's ridiculous. It's probably just me being paranoid.

As I stand up I see Keisha, Erica, Luke, Cameron and Stella all gathered just outside the door. Their signing is fast and furious and I only catch words here and there. They obviously have a lot to catch up on.

Erica beckons for me to join them. I point to my homework. We have English next. I finished my essay on
A
Thing of Beauty
last night, but I need an excuse. For some reason I'm not quite ready to be with them.

I watch them walk off. They have made a formation around Stella, two devotees on each side. The shape means that everyone can address Stella, everyone can see what she's saying.

Stella is very definitely at the centre.

I need to swim after school. I'm in a funny mood. Unsettled, and I know it's about Stella even though that's dumb. She made such a brief appearance today, and I don't know why she had such an impact.

But I'm kind of nervy, like Stella's arrival may have changed the dynamics of the group. I'm not sure where I'll fit now that she's back.

I go into the change room, and I hold my towel around me as I change. Then I put my swimming cap on and take a quick glance at myself in the mirror. My head looks like a bright yellow egg. The cap pinches a bit of skin on my forehead, but I don't adjust it yet. I back out of the change room, dragging all my stuff from school.

I've forgotten that the lockers are so close, and I bang into them. I forget how much sound that would make. Is it more reverberation than loud sound? I hope so. They are old lockers, fastened to each other but not to the wall. There is definitely a bit of wobble. Enough wobble to destabilise someone crouching down in front of the lockers.

It's a boy, wearing the purple and navy speedos of the swimming squad that often train here. He looks about my age. His shoulders are broad and impressive. He says something. I can only see the side of his mouth moving,but it's pretty obvious he's swearing. He's sitting on the concrete floor because I've made him lose balance and fall.

I say a quick sorry, eager to be away from him, to be in the pool and anonymous.

He stands up. There's a lot of him, standing up. He turns and looks at me. I feel extra conscious of my egg head. But I can't help looking at him. His eyes are green, almost exactly the same colour as mine, though his hair is as blond as mine is dark.

‘It's OK,' he says. ‘You're OK. I've just … one of … crap –' He's losing me. He is not looking directly at me anymore, and it's too hard. I could stop him. I could ask him to look at me when he's talking because I'm deaf. I could say that to every new person I meet. But I won't, I don't, so I walk away.

I don't want to negotiate getting a locker with him there.I realise with horror that I'm standing right under the disabled sign of the change room behind me.

My own personalised backdrop.
Check out the
handicapped girl!

I need to get away. I dump my stuff on one of the chairs next to the pool and dive in.

chapter 12

The next morning everyone is ushered into the school hall.It's dark, except for a large lit rectangle projected on the wall above the podium.

I sit at the end of the row, nearest the door.

Erica and Keisha squeeze past me, and then Luke and Cam fill up the next two spaces. I notice that Keisha has managed to get a seat next to Luke, and I feel good for her.Just having him next to her makes her beam. I lean forward and smile at her.

The art teacher, a woman called Juanita, is waiting up the front. Just standing there, she isn't getting anyone's attention. The hall is a mass of moving hands as kids sign and muck around.

Eventually Juanita resorts to the light switch system, flicking them on and off.

‘This morning we are lucky to share in a student's assessment task for art,' she signs when the hall calms down.

She has huge, expressive hands. It's like you couldn't look anywhere else if you tried. There's a theatrical slant to her signing of the word art. It makes me want to know what it is she's painting when she brushes one thumb down the other hand's palm.

‘I am sure you'll agree that S-t-e-l-l-a has created something memorable. It's not finished, but it's particularly special because it relates to all of us here at the College for the Deaf.'

Stella walks up the stairs and over to the podium. She is in school uniform but at first glance I don't quite believe that she's wearing the whole thing. But when I check each bit off mentally – dress, jumper, white socks, black shoes – she totally is.

I guess it's her hair and her make-up that makes her look different, or like she isn't really in uniform. She has bobby-pinned bits of her hair into a whole lot of little twirls on top of her head. Her eyes are rimmed so heavily with eyeliner that I can see it from here.

Stella doesn't say, or sign, anything. She just presses a button on the digital projector.

A photo fills the white space on the wall. It's of a group of kids on an oval. They seem to be playing with a ball, but it's not a regular ball. It looks like a glass bubble. It takes me a second to notice that there's a girl inside the bubble, looking out. Her hands are pressed against the surface of the ball.A few metres away a little boy is standing with one foot out, getting ready to kick the ball. And, I guess, the little girl inside.

The bubble is Stella's constant theme, and it's clear what it represents. Deafness. Isolation. It's used in every photo, but in different ways and different situations. Each photo is amazing. I am frozen to my seat.

The next photo is of a girl, a teenager. She's beautiful.She is wearing a purple dress, sort of floaty, and black boots.She is sitting cross-legged in front of the camera. She's also inside a bubble. One of her arms is folded around her waist, the other is raised so that her hand goes up to her chin.It's a contemplative look, but it's also more than that.Her eyes are downcast, her lips follow the same lines.

Maybe it's because the girl is about my age, but this photo draws me in even more than the others. There's a stillness about it that becomes more disturbing as I stare at it.It's as though it's not only her body, but also her thoughts and feelings that are trapped inside the bubble.

Next is a photo of a man. He has a metal band around his ankle, a chain leading from it. At the end of the chain is a bubble. It makes me think of a prisoner's ball and chain from the olden days. The man is dragging his foot behind him, obviously struggling with the weight of the bubble.It's as though he's dragging his deafness behind him like a punishment. In the corner of the frame stands a man in a blue uniform.

He
wore a blue uniform. The brick of a guard at Northfield.Stella has brought it all back to me, and it's like she's found a brand new copy of that worn out memory and pressed the play button.

I'd been shopping. I had my bags and was walking out of some jeans shop. I was thinking about the very cool but very expensive jeans I'd just tried on when someone pushed past me, running. I only saw the back of her so I didn't see who it was, but she was wearing the same school uniform as me.I didn't think anything of it, and just kept walking.Suddenly, from nowhere, there were two huge, heavy hands pressing on my shoulders. I jumped in fright, my heart hammering. My bags flew everywhere as I tried to swing around but it was hopeless. The hands held me tight, and with another wave of panic I realised that he was so strong I didn't stand a chance.

I had no idea what was going on. Zero. Maybe he was a rapist? A serial killer? I was so freaked out that it didn't even occur to me that a rapist probably wouldn't try to grab someone in the middle of a busy shopping centre.

My breathing was shallow and fast and I remember wondering if I was having a heart attack or something, even though I don't know any normal teenagers who have heart attacks out of the blue. I didn't think I'd have enough breath to scream, or if I did manage to make a noise I don't think it would have been very loud.

I felt my legs buckle, and as I collapsed to the ground like a rag doll I knew people were staring. I thought I was going to black out. I wasn't worried about the serial killer anymore because surely all these people wouldn't just stand there and watch me being attacked.

I was worried about embarrassing myself. I knew now what was happening, because it wasn't the first time. But it was the first time in public. Behold, the Public Panic Attack.I was the freak star. But wait, there was more. When I finally drew breath, they got a panicked, screaming deaf girl for the same price (free). I can only imagine what the sounds I was making would have been like.

It seemed like years before I realised he was a security guard. Years more before I found out that the store's buzzer had gone off and the girl who pushed past me had probably stolen something.

Afterwards he took me to the centre's management.They apologised. They offered to call my parents. I said no.

I didn't want Mum and Dad to know what had happened.I didn't want anyone to know what had happened. Ever.