Mute Does Not Mean Dumb- Chapter One

The teacher dedicated the next few weeks to manners, not walking out on teachers, not eye-rolling, not that I was there for an hour of it. I spent my time spying on the kids, learning American sign language at a rate as fast as I could, not being able to ask the teacher questions without interrupting the class. It was about three weeks later, when Ms. Turnbaker figured out where it was I went, and when I left followed me there.

“Come back to class Alyse.” She said.

I shook my head, while putting my pointer and middle finger together and pinching them against my thumb, the ASL sign for “No”. But she clearly didn’t get it.

“Alyse, there’s nothing for you to learn here.”

I frantically moved my hands.

“No. I want ASL”

She seemed to have no comprehension of the meaning of my hand movement.

She put her hand on my arms, trying to pull me towards the classroom, I shook her off.

“No, I want ASL”

By now, the ASL teacher was staring at us.

“No, I want ASL”

Ms. Turnbaker kept persisting, calling back-up with her radio. The ASL teacher was walking towards us. She stared Ms. Turnbaker in the eye.

“You wanted to get her to start talking, but you don’t pay enough attention to notice when she does.”

“I want ASL.” I moved my hands slowly, exactly how Ms. Turnbaker and all the other teachers I had in the past would pronounce things. Making one syllable seem like three.

“And what does that mean?” She said, gesturing to my hands.

“She is trying to tell you that she wants to take American Sign Language.”

The next day, I wasn’t immediately sent to the usual classroom, instead, I was sent to the ASL room. I learned along with the rest of my class, and quickly flew past them. by the end of the week, I could sign rather fast to those who took that class. But I could see that everyone felt awkward around me. Just because they didn’t hear the sound of my voice when I spoke, they felt as if I didn’t belong there. Sure they tried to hide it, but it was obvious. It didn’t matter much though, because I could now learn with them, as soon as the teachers learned what I had learned in the first day, they could make out a little bit of whatever I was trying to say. And now I was given as many books as I wanted, and I devoured them. Soon, my room was lined with bookshelves and my were they full.

But- the people did matter. What they thought mattered now- now that they knew who I was. Either they felt awkward or guilty; guilty because they had treated me badly when I was “dumb”, awkward for whatever reason, you never do know.

Children usually dream of unicorns and dragons and they only know what else, but me, I only ever dreamed of having a voice. As if a voice would magically fix everything, well it doesn’t, even if sign isn’t technically a voice. Well, having a way to tell anyone what they want to know doesn’t solve all the problems. There are those who don’t want to know who you are. There are those who think that you learning is some sort of practical joke, and there are those that accept it, but have no idea what you are talking about because they don’t speak your language, and don’t care to put in the effort to learn it. But there are those who put in the hours to get to know you, and those are the people that you really want to know anyway I guess. More people befriended me, some of which were only befriending me so that they could get to know the other people that were, I learned that after one of them cussed me out, “Who was I going to tell? The other personality in my head?!” Mute doesn’t mean Multiple Personality Disorder person! I didn’t even bother learn her name, I held quite the grudge against her though.

I was reading a book, when I started thinking about Samuel. Kind young Samuel. When he went to this school, he didn’t understand people very well, but he understood me. He told me that one day I would be recognized as a genius, although I never believed him. I still didn’t, I believe that the teachers were being kind to me, letting me off because I couldn’t talk. But any time I asked them they said that my grades were the best. I had at least %94 in every class, and I read my textbooks as often as I could. I had practically memorized the science one, all the others seemed a little hard to remember, but science just flowed. When it came to life science that is. I couldn’t build a circuit if you gave me a guide book and a thousand dollars, but I could make a model of a cell with names for every organelle with kitchen scraps, my models tasted pretty good too.

Math was also easy for me, but I found it boring and dull. Nothing about it seemed fun, just numbers and theories. But I also loved to write, I don’t know why, but when I wrote, a story transferred to the paper or computer screen that I could have not told anyone to write down for me by signing. Beautiful fantasy, and gory science fiction were my favourite things to write. For my language arts class, we had to write stories about some drawings by a character named Harris Burdick, who didn’t actually exist and was just meant to give kids ideas to create stories. I wrote an especially gory tale about a phoenix hatching from a glowing pumpkin and the less than jealousy filled past of the person who found it. My teacher read it with enthusiasm, and everyone said that I was a great writer, although I was personally mesmerized by the ones of everyone else, and thought that mine was rubbish. Well; Almost rubbish anyway. The end was way too cheesy.

The bell rang, and I hefted my backpack onto my back and walked towards my next class, Band. Most other people didn’t like band, but I did, I was mesmerized by the notes that came out of my flute, by the sound that ultimately came from my mouth. I longed to run my fingers over the cool metal surface of the instrument, even though I barely knew how to play.

During class, someone, an agent from the academy, was looking over our group. We were doing our scale tests, the teacher didn’t care what we did when another student was playing, as long as we were quiet. I had managed to get my hands on an Advanced Botany textbook, after practically begging my mother for it for a few weeks. Things happened so fast now that I could “talk”. I had just gotten to section 6, when the man walked up to me, and peeked over my shoulder to see what I was reading. He furrowed his brow.

“What does that even mean?” He said.

I tried to sign it to him.

He drew out his syllables, trying to make it sound like a different language, which failed.

“I’m Sorry, I don’t speak sign language.”

I flipped through the pages of the book, to the glossary, and pointed out the various terms that seemed to have confused him. He nodded, and was on his way. I kept reading until the band was getting together to play, doubtless he would find another person more fit for the academy, since I, would be an inconvenience and they would not pick me.