And then he says some words that stick in my brain.
“When you’re deaf, you can…” he says. I lip read them. And the interpreter signs them.
‘When you’re deaf, you can…’
She doesn’t need to sign any more.
That little phrase is enough for me.
Because I’ve never thought of it that way before.
For me, it’s mostly been, ‘When you’re deaf, you can’t.’ Full stop. End of sentence. And okay, maybe not too many people have said, ‘you can’t’ to my face. But I’ve known it anyway.
Jazmine can’t do that.
Jazmine can’t be that.
Jazmine can’t.
Apart from Miss Fraser, no one’s ever said, ‘you can’. In the bottom of my stomach, I feel something change. It’s like someone has lit a match. The small beginning of a fire.
When you’re deaf, you can.
At the end of the talk, I want to run to the front of the room and talk to the guy, whose name I still can’t remember, but it doesn’t really matter. He’s done what he came here to do. He’s told his story. And he’s changed mine. I’m standing up, ready to find a space in the crowd of kids, to get myself through and over to him, when there’s a tug at my arm.
It’s Charlotte.
‘Come here,’ she signs, and she pulls me away from Freya, Nick and Truck, through the door of the big room, and out onto a corner of the concrete breezeway.
‘You okay?’ I sign, and she bites her lip.
‘That thing I told you before, about the implant?’ she signs. ‘Please. Please don’t tell her.’
I shake my head in confusion. ‘Tell who?’
Charlotte’s face looks desperate. She signs it all again. ‘Please, just don’t tell anyone. And especially, don’t tell Mia.’
Chapter 11
Of course I don’t tell Mia. Fact is, I haven’t even met Mia yet. She’s coming tomorrow, so they say, but there’s still a whole day before that happens. A whole day for fun.
After the morning’s talk, it’s like I find energy I never knew I had. We go down to the pool in the afternoon, me, Freya, Charlotte and the boys. It’s warm, sunny and funny. Truck specialises in bomb dives, he signs to me. ‘You’re gonna get wet,’ he warns.
‘You think so?’ I tease back. ‘You wish.’
But he’s not kidding. When he jumps in, it’s like the pool loses a third of its water. “Argh!” I scream. I’m as wet as anyone can be. ‘That’s it, buddy.’ I jump in and try to splash him, but he’s clearly more practiced in a pool than I am and I end up clinging to the side, wet and giggling my head off.
Charlotte’s wearing a swimming cap with her braid tucked into it. ‘Hey, the Year Tens are coming,’ she signs.
‘With a camera,’ signs Freya. ‘What’s the deal?’
The deal is a camp video, according to Sam, a tall Year Ten girl with blonde hair. ‘We need you guys to dance for it,’ she tells us. I immediately want to shrink down into the warm water. Dance? For a video? I don’t think so.
But Freya jumps out of the pool, and then Truck jumps out after her, and grabs my hand to pull me out. ‘You too,’ he says. ‘We gonna shake it, baby.’ He signs it with such a funny grin on his face that I laugh all over again.
Freya stands us in a line and makes us practice some moves.
“What’s the beat?” she asks Sam, who taps out a simple rhythm. One, two, three, four.
We step and shimmy and then Truck does a version of twerking which even makes Nick look up from the game he’s on.
‘You’re crazy, dude,’ he signs. ‘No way I’m doing that,’ but in the end, we all do it too, laughing our heads off.
‘I think Truck likes you,’ says Freya, when we’re getting ready for bed after dinner and games.
‘What? No,’ I sign. I turn to the mirror and focus on my toothbrush, but I can see my cheeks turning red.
‘He totally does,’ signs Charlotte. ‘He’s in love with you.’
‘Nooo,’ I protest. But there’s a smile on my face that I can’t wipe off.
In the morning we all play touch footy again. This time I can follow the rules better, and I even pass the ball one time so that Truck can score a try. He gives me a grinning high five when he sprints back.
‘Awesome.’
I smile back and keep running. Halfway through I’m puffed, but I don’t feel bad, like I normally do when I have to play sport. Somehow this time it’s easier.
But then, everything’s easier, today.
Auslan is easier, today.
Following conversations is easier, today.
Feeling happy is easier, today.
Nick taps my arm after the game. ‘Jazmine, I’m adding you on Facebook and Messenger.’ He bends down to his phone, and it’s like a trigger for everyone else to get theirs out.
‘Good idea,’ says Freya. Charlotte and Truck do it too, and I grin and pull my own phone out. There’s a message from Gabby, which I look at quickly - nothing important, just ‘hey, what are you doing?’ kind of stuff - and type back a reply.
I’m at camp. It’s awesome. Text you soon and tell you everything.
I smile to myself. Gabby would love camp - if she knew Auslan, of course. She’d love Truck no matter how he communicated, though. And Charlotte and Freya too, although she’d probably tell Nick to get his head out of his technology. She was constantly telling her Dad to stop checking his phone last time I was there.
‘Lunch yet?’ signs Truck. ‘I’m hungry.’ He overemphasises his sign for hungry and makes huge eyes, and I laugh.
‘Now, I think,’ I sign.
‘Woo woo,’ signs Freya. ‘Falling in love.’
I turn away, embarrassed. But Truck just shrugs and grins. ‘Whatever,’ he signs to Freya, and turns to me. ‘Lunch?’
‘Sure,’ I sign. ‘Let’s go.’
Lunch is salad wraps with ham or chicken. I eat two; Truck has five. Freya just watches, open-mouthed as he eats. ‘You’re a pig, Truck.’
‘I’m a growing Truck,’ he signs. ‘A hungry, growing Truck.’
‘I can’t believe…’ she begins, and then breaks off, flicking her head towards the main door of the dining room. ‘Oh!’ She half stands up. ‘She’s here.’
I stop and look, like everyone else around me is doing. All the conversations have broken off, and the total focus is on the doorway, where a girl is leaning against the doorframe, watching, a backpack slung over one shoulder.
Mia.
It must be. Freya is out of her seat, almost running to the end of the room, and Charlotte is waving enthusiastically next to me. She pokes me in the arm. ‘It’s her,’ she signs. ‘Mia.’ The smile on her face is huge, but I see her swallow hard.
She’s nervous.
I look back to Mia, now hugging Freya and slinging her backpack off into a corner. She seems alright - normal and friendly, not the kind of person who makes other people nervous. It’s not until she starts walking across the room, between tables, heading towards our group, that I see what it is about Mia that’s making Charlotte play anxiously with the edge of her t-shirt.
It’s her confidence.
It’s in everything about her: her walk, almost a swagger; her posture, upright, owning the room; her smile that says ‘I’m the boss of this camp, and everyone in it’.
I feel my own throat go slightly dry, and I clench my fingers together, but no one even looks at me. Not Charlotte, not Truck, not Nick. They’re only looking at Mia.
She arrives at our table.
‘Seat for you,’ signs Nick. ‘Kept it free just in case.’
Mia takes the seat, without even answering. Her eyes turn to Charlotte. ‘Hey,’ she signs. And to Truck, ‘Fatter than last year, eh?’
Truck laughs. ‘You’re still too skinny.’
Mia turns to Nick. She’s smiling. ‘I beat your score on that Hex game you sent me. Loser.’
I’m even more nervous now. Is this the way Mia talks to people?
I can’t tell if she’s just straight forward, or rude. What will she say to me, and will I be able to cope?
I find out, right then.
Mia looks at me, and then around the table. ‘Who’s this?’ she signs.
‘New kid.’ Charlotte jumps into the conversation super quickly. ‘Jazmine. She’s nice.’
Mia shrugs and then turns straight to me. ‘Deaf, or Hard of Hearing?’
I’m surprised by the question, and I hardly know how to answer. Mia’s face gets impatient. ‘Are you Deaf? Or just hard of hearing?’ she repeats.
‘Hard of hearing,’ I sign, slowly.
She stares at me. ‘Have you always lived around here?’
I almost forget my numbers, and my signs are awkward. ‘About five years.’
‘So, why haven’t you come to camp before?’
‘I didn’t know it was on.’
She gives me a look like I’m stupid, turns away from me and starts chatting with the others. And that’s that. I’m on the outside of the group once again.
We wait for Mia to get her lunch and eat it. By the time she finishes, everyone else except the Year Eight group has left the dining room. I don’t leave, although it’s not like anyone around our table would miss me if I did; because Mia is ignoring me, it seems like the others are too. And it’s harder to follow the conversation now that she’s here. She signs super-fast, too quickly for me to catch everything, and it seems like everyone else has picked up the pace as well.
I’m disappointed, but I can’t do anything about it.
It’s not until we’ve finally left the dining room, and are heading out to the afternoon’s activity, making kites, presumably to try to fly them on the oval when we’re done, that Freya taps me on the shoulder.
‘Jazmine,’ she signs.
‘Yes?’
‘Don’t be upset, okay?’
I make a confused face at her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘About Mia. I know she’s, you know…’ She makes a face at me, and rolls her eyes a bit. ‘She never liked me either, at first. Not until she got to know me. She doesn’t talk to new people, she’s just like that. Give her time. She’s awesome when you get to know her.’
‘Okay,’ I sign. I grin at her. ‘I guess so.’
Chapter 12
On the third and last day of the camp, Mia holds court around the breakfast table. She’s signing some kind of story about someone else they all seem to know.
‘He came to camp two years ago, but he moved away,’ explains Freya to me, when I ask her who Mia’s talking about, off to the side. I turn back to the story and try to follow along. It’s fast, and I’m not certain on the details, but I do my best; there’s something about the guy being in an obstacle race at a school thing, but because of his hearing, he didn’t get what one part of the race involved properly - they only did a partial walk through - and then, after he won, someone accused him of cheating because he didn’t do it properly.
‘So not fair,’ signs Truck. He looks outraged, like just Mia, whose eyes flash with every hand gesture she makes.
Charlotte joins him. ‘I’d be so mad about that,’ she signs.
‘I know, right?’ says Mia. ‘Discrimination. Again. It happens all the time. It’s like deaf people don’t even exist. Hearing people just want to push us to the sidelines.’
There’s a flicker of something in my consciousness. It’s a thought, or, actually, several, that spring up like runner bean plants, twirling tendrils in different directions, and taking hold of support posts in my brain.
That’s not unusual, says one thought. Stuff like that’s happened to me before.
Another little plant pops up beside it. But it’s not discrimination, is it?
Maybe it is.
My eyes open wider, and I lean in further.
Charlotte’s signing now. ‘Mia, you’re so right. You just always understand what’s going on.’
Mia gives her a considered glance. There’s a half-second hint of something in her face that shows me she’s doubtful about Charlotte, but it relaxes and disappears. ‘You’re getting it,’ she signs. ‘Good for you.’ And I see Charlotte’s face glow with the praise.
After breakfast, we head back to the cabins. Mia and Truck walk ahead, with Charlotte making a keen third in their wake. I know I don’t have a place in their inner circle, but I’m not used to being popular anyway, so it’s okay to be in my normal place, dangling slightly behind.
There’s a tap on my shoulder. Freya has caught me up.
‘Look at Charlotte,’ she signs. She’s grinning. ‘So hopeful.’
I shrug. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Mia wouldn’t be paying any attention to Charlotte if she knew about her second implant,’ says Freya.
‘You know about that?’
Freya makes an of course face at me. ‘She told me weeks ago.’ She makes an amused face. ‘It’s like Charlotte’s trying to make up for it, even before she gets it.’
To be honest, I don’t really understand what Freya’s talking about. The question in my mind is more about Truck.
‘Are they, like, a thing?’ I gesture to Mia who is laughing with Truck, slapping him on the back.
Freya looks shocked. ‘No way. They’re like brother and sister. They’ve known each other since they were tiny. Nothing going on there.’
‘Oh,’ I sign again. And I don’t know what else to say.
‘I get it,’ Freya signs. She gives me a knowing look. ‘You like him…’
I look away, confused. I mean, maybe. I don’t know. Truck seems nice, and yesterday he was hanging around me. Today he’s not, and Mia seems to be the one who’s made the difference.
‘Look,’ signs Freya. ‘Mia is…’ she pauses. ‘Mia is Mia. She’s just like that. When she decides you’re okay, it’ll be good. She’s just wary. She gets angry if people come in and try to make it like there’s something wrong with deaf people, or we need help.’ She shrugs. ‘She likes being Deaf, and she doesn’t want to be hearing. And until she figures that she can trust you, she keeps her distance. As for Truck, he follows Mia.’ She makes a face. ‘We all do.’
More tendrils start growing in my brain.
We need help.
Something wrong with deaf people.
…she can trust you.
I stand still on the path, letting people pass me. Freya stops too, with a question on her face, but I don’t answer it. Something’s happening inside me. It’s like I’ve been standing in front of an amazing painting my whole life, but with most of it covered over. Until this moment, I’d never even known I wasn’t seeing everything, but now the covers are being taken off and the painting is coming into focus: clear, large, and more awe-inspiring than I ever knew.
‘Have you always known?’ I ask Freya, but I hardly know what I’m signing.
She looks at me like I’m stupid. ‘What?’
‘Have you always known that you’re okay?’
It’s not what I mean to ask, but it comes out anyway. My questions are bigger than that. Have you always known that hearing people looked down on you? Have you always felt less than, and small, like something was wrong with you? Have you always been given pity, and then no pity, and told to try harder and do better and just get on with it? Have you always known that people have no time for you? Have you always known that the world is not built for people who can’t hear?
Freya’s face is still confused. ‘Known that I’m okay, like how?’
And suddenly, my eyes prick with tears. I wipe a wet spot away with my hand. ‘It doesn’t matter. I don’t even know.’
But I do know.
And it does matter.
Freya’s deaf, and she’s okay.
Truck’s deaf, and he’s okay too.
Mia’s deaf. She’s as okay as anyone could possibly be.
I look down at my hands. There’s a wet smear across the back of one, so I wipe it on my shorts.
I’m deaf. Jazmine is deaf.
I’m deaf. Jazmine is deaf.
I fold the words over each other in my head. I haven’t been okay. But I’m going to be. Somewhere inside my body, everything stops, breathes and relaxes. The tears disappear, and a smile arrives on my face.
Freya’s confusion is still there.
‘So what shall we do today?’ I sign, and I give her a big grin. ‘Last day of camp. Let’s make the most of it.’
We sit in another group session, with a speaker who talks about ‘being yourself’ which is cool because while he’s talking, I think about being Jazmine, and what that’s all about, and what kind of person I am, and I get the feeling that actually, I like myself quite a bit, even though maybe that sounds weird to most people - because aren’t teenagers supposed to be all miserable and everything?
The fact is, I’ve probably been through more stuff than most people, and I’ve learned heaps in the last year and a half, and I’m so much happier than I used to be, and now it’s even better, being here with people like me. I almost have to pinch myself because I feel so right and happy. It’s really hard to keep the smile off my face, so I don’t bother. I just grin through the whole session.
At free time, Freya and Nick and I go down to the river and skim stones in, which is harder than it looks at first. When I’m just beginning to get it, and laughing my head off, because Freya looks hilarious when she does it, all legs and arms going everywhere, Mia, Charlotte and Truck come down to join us, which is cool as well. And even though everyone’s attention is still on Mia, I’m okay with it, because I’m okay with myself and I’m happy.
Happy to be here, happy to be part of it all.
Happy just to be.
The kids who are doing the video come down to get some footage of the stone skimming. They giggle when they see Freya’s style, and they clap when I show them what I can do, and even Mia looks slightly impressed.
‘Good job,’ signs Charlotte.
Being Jazmine (Invisible Series Book 3) Page 7
