Jessi's Secret Language

by Ann M. Martin

  When I got to the Braddocks’ house I could tell that Mrs. Braddock was a little nervous, too. She kept reminding me about things.

  “Be extra careful outdoors,” she said. “Remember that Matt can’t hear car horns.”

  “Right,” I replied.

  “And he can’t hear a shouted warning.”

  “Right.”

  “And inside he can’t hear the doorbell or telephone.”

  “I’ll take care of those things.”

  “Do you remember the sign for bathroom?”

  “Yup.”

  “For eat?”

  “Yup…. And I can do finger spelling. I memorized the alphabet last night.” (Mrs. Braddock had explained to me that there was a sign for every letter in the alphabet, just like there were signs for words. So, for instance, if I wanted to spell my name, I would sign the letters J-E-S-S-I. Finger spelling takes longer than regular signing, but at least you can communicate names and unusual words that way.)

  “The whole alphabet?” Mrs. Braddock repeated. She sounded impressed.

  I nodded. “The whole thing. Oh, and I thought of a name for myself. Look.”

  I shaped my right hand into the sign for the letter J (for my name), pointed it downward, and whisked it back and forth across the palm of my left hand. That’s the sign for the word dance except that you usually make a V with your right index and middle fingers, to look like a pair of legs flying across the floor.

  “See?” I said. “A dancing J! Anyway, don’t worry, Mrs. Braddock. You know how many signs I’ve memorized. I’m not too good at sentences, but Matt and I will get along. No problem.” I sounded a lot more confident than I felt.

  “Besides,” added Haley, who had appeared in the kitchen. “You’ve got me, right?” She sounded a little uncertain — as if I might say I didn’t need her after all.

  I put my arm around Haley. “I’ll say!” I exclaimed. “You’re the best help I’ve got.”

  Haley turned on that smile of hers.

  “Well …” said Mrs. Braddock. She glanced down the hallway and out the front door, looking (I think) for Matt’s special school bus. “Matt should be here in about ten minutes. I told him this morning that you would be here when he got home from school and that I’d be back soon. Haley can help you remind him if he seems anxious, but I think he’ll be all right. He really likes you, Jessi.”

  “Thanks,” I replied.

  Mrs. Braddock left then, and Haley and I sat on the front stoop to wait for Matt. The school bus was prompt. It pulled into the driveway exactly ten minutes after Mrs. Braddock left.

  Matt jumped down the steps of the van. He waved eagerly to the driver, who waved back, and then signed something to a giggling face that was pressed against a window of the van. The little boy signed back. A second boy joined in. Matt and his friends were talking about football. (I think.)

  It was odd, I thought, to see so much energy and so much communication — without any sound at all. Watching the boys was like watching TV with the volume turned off.

  The bus drove away and Matt ran across the lawn to Haley and me, smiling. (Mrs. Braddock hadn’t needed to worry about anxiety.)

  “Hi!” I signed to Matt. (A wave and a smile.)

  He returned the wave and smile.

  I showed him the sign for my name (which he liked), and then I asked him about school. (The sign for school is clapping hands — like a teacher trying to get the attention of her pupils. When I found that out, I wondered what the sign for applause or clap is, since it seemed to have been used up. This is the sign: You touch your hand to your mouth, which is part of the sign for good, and then clap your hands. It’s like applauding for good words. See why I like languages? They make so much sense.)

  Matt signed back, “Great!” (He pointed to his chest with his thumb and wiggled his fingers back and forth — with a broad grin.)

  After Matt had put his schoolbooks in his room, he ate a quick snack. I’ll give you the sign for the snack. See if you can guess what the snack was. You form your hand into the sign for the letter A, then you pretend to eat your thumb. That’s the sign for … apple! Eating the letter A. Isn’t that great?

  Anyway, as soon as Matt was finished eating, I took him and Haley outdoors. I had a plan. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about what happened when the Braddocks and I ran into Mary Anne and Jenny Prezzioso. And I was determined that Matt and Haley were going to make friends in their new neighborhood. I remembered how horrible Becca had felt when nobody in Stoneybrook would play with her. Then one day Charlotte Johanssen, who’s just her age, had come over, and Becca was so happy she barely knew what to do.

  I began marching Matt and Haley over to the Pikes’ house.

  “Where are we going?” Haley asked me.

  “We,” I replied, “are going to a house nearby where you will find eight kids.”

  “Is one of them my age?” Haley sounded both interested and skeptical.

  “Yup,” I replied and suddenly realized that we were leaving Matt out of the conversation by not signing. I told Haley to sign.

  “I hope the nine-year-old isn’t a boy,” Haley said, hands flying.

  (Matt made a face at that.)

  “Nope,” I said. “The nine-year-old is a girl. Her name is Vanessa. She likes to make up rhymes.” There was no way I could sign all that, so Haley did it for me, to keep Matt informed. Then she told him where we were going.

  “Is there a seven-year-old Pike?” Matt signed.

  Haley looked at me.

  I nodded. Then I signed girl, and Matt made a horrible face. It wasn’t a sign, but it could only mean one thing — YUCK!

  “Tell him there’s an eight-year-old boy,” I said to Haley.

  Matt brightened, and I finger spelled N-I-C-K-Y.

  We had reached the Pikes’ front door by then. Matt boldly rang the bell. It was answered by Mallory, and I was relieved. I’d told her we might come over, and I wanted her to help me with the introductions.

  “The Barretts are here, too,” she whispered, as we stepped inside. “They’re friends from down the street. Buddy is eight and Suzi is five.” She turned to Haley and Matt, said hello, and waved at the same time. She knew that much about signing from me. I loved her for remembering to do it. That’s one of the reasons she’s my new best friend.

  “Well,” said Mallory, “everyone’s playing in the backyard.”

  We walked through the Pikes’ house, waving to Mrs. Pike on the way, and stepped into the yard. It looked like a school playground.

  The Pikes and the Barretts all stopped what they were doing and ran to us.

  The introductions began.

  The signing began.

  The explaining began.

  The staring began.

  And Haley began to look angry again.

  I glanced at Mallory. “Ick-en-spick,” she whispered. And with that, a wonderful idea came to me. Mallory and I love to read, and not long ago we’d both read a really terrific book (even if it was a little old-fashioned) called The Secret Language, by Ursula Nordstrom. These two friends make up a secret language, and ick-en-spick is a word they use when something is silly or unnecessary.

  “You know,” I said to the kids, “maybe Matt can’t hear or talk, but he knows a secret language. He can talk with his hands. He can say anything he wants and never make a sound.”

  “Really?” asked Margo (who’s seven) in a hushed voice.

  Mallory smiled at me knowingly. “Think how useful that would be,” she said to her brothers and sisters, “if, like, Mom and Dad punished you and said, ‘No talking for half an hour.’ You could talk and they’d never know it.”

  “Yeah,” said Nicky slowly. “Awesome.”

  “How do you do it?” asked Vanessa. “What’s the secret language?”

  This time, Haley jumped in with the answer. “It’s this,” she replied. She began demonstrating signs. The kids were fascinated.

  “Say something,” Claire, the youngest
Pike, commanded Matt.

  “He can’t hear you,” I reminded Claire.

  “I’ll tell him what you said,” Haley told Claire importantly. She signed to Matt.

  Matt began waving his hands around so fast that all I could understand was that he was signing about football again.

  Haley translated. “Matt says he thinks the Patriots are going to win the Super Bowl this year. He says —”

  “No way!” spoke up Buddy Barrett. Haley didn’t have to translate that. Matt could tell what Buddy meant by the way he was shaking his head.

  Matt began signing furiously again.

  “What’s he saying? What’s he saying?” the kids wanted to know.

  Mallory and I grinned at each other. We sat down on the low wall by the Pikes’ patio, relieved, and watched the kids.

  “Your brothers and sisters are great,” I said.

  “When you grow up in a family as big as mine,” Mallory replied, “you end up being pretty accepting.”

  “Thank goodness.”

  After awhile I looked at my watch and realized that Mrs. Braddock would probably be back from the grocery store soon.

  “I better take Haley and Matt home,” I said and began to round them up. But in the end, I only brought Matt home. Haley was having too much fun at the Pikes’ to leave, and swore up and down that she knew the way back to her house. I left her teaching the kids how to sign the word stupid. I had a feeling there was going to be a lot of silent name-calling in the neighborhood for a while.

  Friday

  Oh, no! Jessi what have you started? Mallory and I were sitting at her house last night and guess what happened. You won’t believe it.

  Well, she might believe it. Don’t jump to any conclusions. After all, most kids like languages, and this one reminds my brothers of football signals.

  Okay, so she’ll believe it, but anyway, Jessi, get this. It started when the Pike kids went totally wild last ni

  Not me! I wasn’t wild!

  No, of course not, Mal. You were one of the sitters. I meant that your brothers and sisters were wild.

  Oh, okay.

  I have to stop Dawn and Mal’s notebook entry here. It goes on forever. Let me just tell you what happened while they were sitting. (And by the way, Dawn was right. I did sort of start something.)

  Mr. and Mrs. Pike were going to a dinner party that evening, so Mallory and Dawn were in charge of the Pikes from six o’clock until eleven o’clock. They had to give the kids dinner and everything. I know you met some of the Pikes in the last chapter, but just to refresh your memory, I’ll include all their names and ages here:

  Mallory — the oldest, of course. She’s eleven, like me.

  Byron, Adam, and Jordan — ten-year-old triplets.

  Vanessa — nine

  Nicky — eight

  Margo — seven

  Claire — five

  Those kids are a handful, even for two experienced sitters.

  When Dawn arrived, which was just as Mr. and Mrs. Pike were leaving, the kids were hungry and clamoring for dinner. Sometimes Mrs. Pike lets the kids eat up leftovers when baby-sitters are in charge, sometimes it’s up to the sitters to make sandwiches or something. But this time Mrs. Pike had fixed a huge pot of spaghetti (a food that every single Pike will eat), and left the sauce bubbling away on the stove.

  “Well, if everyone’s hungry,” said Mallory as her parents’ car backed down the driveway, “then let’s eat.”

  Dawn had sat at the Pikes often enough that she was prepared for what happened next: The kids swarmed through the kitchen and had the big table set and the food served in about thirty seconds. (Well, maybe I’m exaggerating, but it was fast.)

  Then they sat down to their dinner. Since there are so many Pikes, their kitchen table looks like a table in the school cafeteria — very long with a bench on either side and a chair at each end. Four kids sit on one side, four on the other, and Mr. and Mrs. Pike sit in the chairs.

  That night, the boys were lined up on one side, facing Vanessa, Claire, and Margo. Mallory was sitting where her mom usually sits and Dawn had taken Mr. Pike’s chair. Something about boys versus girls seemed a little dangerous to Dawn, but there are almost no rules in the Pike house, so she didn’t ask them to change places. She just hoped for the best.

  That was before the worm song began.

  Things started off innocently. Adam, one of the triplets, formed his spaghetti into a mound and placed a meatball at the very top. Then he began to sing (to the tune of “On Top of Old Smoky”), “On top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese, I lost my poor meatball when somebody sneezed.”

  Adam glanced at Jordan, who faked a very good sneeze.

  “Ew, ew!” cried Claire. “Cut it out! Germs!”

  The boys ignored her. Adam continued his song. “It rolled off the table and onto the floor, and then my poor meatball rolled out the front door. It rolled down the sidewalk and under a bush, and now my poor meatball is nothing but mush.”

  Adam looked as if he were going to send his meatball down the spaghetti mountain, and maybe, actually, out the front door, so Mallory leaned over and speared it with her fork.

  “Hey!” exclaimed Adam. “Give it! That’s mine!”

  Meanwhile, Jordan, Byron, and Nicky were hysterical at the thought of a traveling meatball and were experimenting with theirs. They rolled meatballs down spaghetti mountains until Dawn told them that if they couldn’t behave, she and Mallory would have to separate them.

  “We’ll behave,” Adam spoke up from the other end of the table, “if Mallory will give me my meatball back.”

  Mallory returned the stolen meatball.

  For two minutes, Dawn and the Pikes ate peacefully. The mounds of spaghetti and meatballs were disappearing.

  Then, so quietly that Mallory and Dawn weren’t sure at first that they’d heard anything, Nicky began singing the worm song. But he was eating at the same time, and he looked totally innocent.

  “Nobody likes me,” he sang, “everybody hates me. Guess I’ll go eat worms.” He picked a single strand of spaghetti off his plate and held it above his mouth.

  “Nicky,” warned Mallory.

  Nicky dropped the spaghetti into his mouth. “First one was slimy,” he sang.

  “Mallory, Dawn, make him stop!” cried Margo. “I’m going to be sick.”

  Margo is famous for her weak stomach. Everything makes her throw up — riding in the car, airplane takeoffs and landings, roller coasters. Those are motion sicknesses, of course, but Dawn thought there was a good chance that a gross-out would make Margo get sick, too. And she certainly didn’t want anybody throwing up at the table, especially throwing up spaghetti.

  But it was too late. Too late to stop the worm song, I mean.

  By then, Byron was holding a strand of spaghetti over his mouth. “Second one was grimy,” he sang, continuing the song.

  “Mallory!” shrieked Margo, looking a little green.

  “Oh, no! Oh, no! Not the worm song! Please stop the boys before something goes wrong,” said Vanessa Pike, future poet.

  Adam sucked in two strands of spaghetti, pretended to gag, and sang, “Third and fourth came up.”

  At that point, Margo jumped up from the table and headed for the nearest bathroom.

  Silence.

  Margo stopped, turned around, looked at her brothers and sisters, and said, “Fooled you!”

  She returned to the table. All the boys stuck their tongues out at her. Margo looked pleased with herself.

  “That may have been a false alarm,” said Dawn, “but one more word of the worm song, and you will all be in trouble. Understand?”

  “Yes,” mumbled the Pikes.

  They finished their dinner. It wasn’t until they were clearing the table that the remainder of the worm song escaped from Nicky’s mouth. It was as if he just couldn’t help himself. He sang in a rush, “So-I-began-to-crying-thinking-I-was-dying-eating-all-those-squishy-squashy-worms.”

  �
�That does it!” cried Mallory. “Didn’t Dawn say no more worm song?”

  The Pike kids scowled at Nicky.

  “Yes,” Nicky replied.

  “I meant it, too,” said Dawn. “You guys are banished to the rec room. I want you all down there for a half hour. No running, no jumping, no grossing each other out. Just behave for the next thirty minutes and let your sister and me finish cleaning up the kitchen.”

  Reluctantly, the seven Pikes headed down the steps to the rec room.

  For ten minutes, Mal and Dawn worked in peace, scraping dishes, loading the dishwasher, and sponging off the table. They were almost done when they heard a giggle from the rec room. Then another and another.

  But there were no crashes or shrieks or yelps.

  “Maybe that means they’ve settled down,” suggested Dawn hopefully.

  The next thing my friends heard was Vanessa saying, “No, like this!”

  “No, I’ve got it! Like this!” exclaimed Nicky. “Wiggle your fingers.”

  “How about an elephant?” said Margo. “That would be easy. You could make it look like you were flapping big ears.”

  “What would the sign for ‘rabbit’ be then?” wondered Byron. “They have big ears, too.”

  “No, they have long ones,” Claire corrected him.

  Upstairs in the kitchen, Dawn said to Mal, “What on earth are they doing?”

  “Let’s go see,” she replied.

  They tiptoed to the head of the stairs. In the rec room, the Pikes were seated on the floor in a sloppy circle, and their hands were working busily.

  “Stupidhead!” Margo announced. She crossed her eyes and pointed to her head.

  “Witch!” said Vanessa. She formed her hands into a peak over her head, making a witch’s hat.

  “Banana-brain,” said Jordan. He touched his fingertips together, then separated his hands, indicating the shape of a banana. Then he tapped his head.

  Mal and Dawn looked at each other in surprise.

  “The secret language,” whispered Mallory. “They’re making up their own. I don’t believe it.”