Boogie Bass, Sign Language Star

by Claudia Mills

  Two of the dancers pointed to themselves and made the sign I have a dog; one pointed to herself and made the sign for I have a cat. The fourth one made a sign with one hand wrapped over the other hand, formed into a fist with the thumb poking out, and suddenly Boogie guessed it.

  “Turtle!” he shouted, forgetting for a moment that the Deaf kids couldn’t hear him. But the turtle-owning kid must have understood somehow, because he gave a big grin of approval.

  Nolan asked one of the questions from Peg and Sally’s list: What is your favorite food?

  Boogie hoped the answers would be foods from the Deaf family’s breakfast and lunch videos. But when one kid held his hand to his mouth and moved it back and forth as if he was licking it, Boogie instantly guessed that one, too. Ice cream! He felt another thrill of understanding.

  Nixie kept firing off questions: Do you like eggs? Do you like milk? Do you like toast? Do you like orange juice? Sometimes the other kids would correct one of her signs, in a friendly way, and Nixie would whack the side of her head, clearly her made-up sign for Oops! I got it wrong!

  Before long, everyone was laughing, even Vera, although she hadn’t yet signed a single word.

  Too soon it was time to board the bus to return to Longwood.

  Peg and Sally made a farewell announcement, Peg speaking while Sally signed. “Thank you so much for sharing such a wonderful program with us today! Now we want to invite you to come for a program at our school, two weeks from today, on the last day of our sign-language camp to show all we have learned.”

  The kids from Laurent Clerc School twisted their fingers in the air as a Deaf camp teacher signed a response, which Peg translated: We would love to come!

  Boogie gulped.

  What on earth could they do that would be anywhere near as good as the program today?

  He already knew the answer: nothing.

  They could sign the alphabet to the tune of the ABC song.

  Period.

  And even with his new practicing, Boogie wasn’t sure he could do that.

  It snowed again Friday night. On Saturday morning, the sun shone on a glistening world of white. It was perfect weather for outdoor luge, or at least for outdoor sledding.

  It was also the perfect chance to earn money to buy a sad little Bing a brand-new Doggie-Dog.

  As his brothers watched cartoons in the family room, Boogie bundled up and slipped into the garage to find the snow shovel.

  He started by shoveling the path from the front door to the sidewalk. Then he kept on going and shoveled the heavy wet snow on the two long sidewalks along the edges of their corner lot.

  The very heavy and very wet snow on the very long sidewalks.

  And there was still was the very long and very wide driveway.

  Boogie’s parents didn’t pay him for doing chores, like loading the dishwasher or carrying out the trash. One time when Boogie had suggested payment, his mother had asked him if he was going to pay her for cooking the meals, cleaning the house, and making sure four boys didn’t destroy it.

  This was different, though. Snow shoveling wasn’t a chore. It was work. Some grown-ups had snow-shoveling businesses, showing up with trucks filled with snow blowers to clear dozens of driveways for tons of money. Shoveling one driveway was enough for Boogie. And he didn’t need tons of money. He only needed eighteen dollars plus four dollars for shipping. Well, minus the sixty-seven cents he already had, but that was hardly worth counting.

  When he came inside, his brothers were still lying on the floor staring at the TV. His father was off at work, of course. Bitter cold weather meant freezing pipes, which meant bursting pipes, which meant water everywhere, which meant: Call the plumber!

  He found his mother in the kitchen frying bacon and scrambling eggs.

  “You,” she said, sweeping Boogie into a hug, “are my hero!”

  Boogie felt himself beaming.

  “When I heard someone shoveling the driveway, I thought it must be some kind neighbor coming to our rescue, knowing your dad was off at work and I was busy watching little boys. But it wasn’t a neighbor; it was my very own superhero son!”

  Boogie felt his grin growing even bigger and wider.

  “And you know what I appreciated most?” his mother asked.

  Boogie shook his head.

  “I didn’t have to ask you to do it. I didn’t have to pay you to do it. You just went out there and did it out of the goodness of your heart.”

  But…but…

  Couldn’t you shovel snow out of the goodness of your heart and still get paid eighteen dollars plus four dollars for shipping?

  Apparently not.

  Maybe he could go ask the neighbors if they’d pay him actual money for shoveling. But his arms ached, and his shoulders ached, and his back ached; he ached all over. He hadn’t known how exhausting the goodness of your heart could be.

  It still felt good to hear his mother’s praise.

  But praise plus money to buy a new Doggie-Dog would have been even better.

  * * *

  Nolan came over that afternoon to join in sledding with Boogie and his brothers on the hill at the park near their house. Luckily, all the burst pipes had gotten fixed that morning, so Boogie’s dad was there, too.

  Outdoor sledding in the snow was a lot more fun than indoor sledding on the stairs. And if any sled crashed into anything, this time his dad would get the blame, not Boogie. Plus, it was so great to have his dad at home. If only his dad didn’t have to work such long hours.

  As Boogie and his dad dragged the sleds back up the hill, a brilliant idea popped into Boogie’s head for earning money and helping his dad have more time for family fun.

  “Dad?” he asked. “What if you had an assistant? Someone to go with you and help you fix the pipes and unclog the toilets?”

  Should he add that this would be an assistant who got paid money to help, not an assistant who helped out of the goodness of his heart?

  “Plumbing is pretty much a one-person job,” his dad said. “We work in some small and cramped spaces.”

  “I could fit in a small and cramped space,” Boogie said. “I could be your assistant.”

  “You?” His father gave a bark of laughter, but then sighed. “Son, there’ll be plenty of time for you to do work like that when you’re grown up. Now is your time just to be a kid.”

  Boogie sighed, too.

  If he could unclog one toilet, and earn enough money to buy one new Doggie-Dog, then he could go back to just being a kid. But he could tell his father had already given his answer.

  * * *

  Back at the house afterward, in a combination of words and signs, Boogie told Nolan, “I shoveled snow to make money to buy a new dog.” Instead of saying shovel, he made a shoveling motion; instead of saying snow, he fluttered his fingers in the air; instead of saying money, he tapped his circled fingers onto his hand as if placing coins there. He made the sign for dog twice, hoping Nolan would know that meant Doggie-Dog. He didn’t want to say the words aloud, or else his parents and brothers, who were in the family room with them, would hear.

  “But it didn’t work out,” he finished. Nolan made the sad sign. “So now I don’t know what to do.”

  Nolan pointed to himself, made the sign for money, and then held his hands toward Boogie in the sign for give.

  Boogie signed no and then added the sign for thank you, so Nolan’s feelings wouldn’t be hurt. This was something he needed to do by himself, even if had no idea how he was going to do it.

  “What are you guys talking about?” T.J. demanded. “Is that a secret code?

  It was, sort of. Boogie and Nolan grinned at each other.

  Bing had been watching the whole time, his thumb jammed into his mouth. He had been sucking his thumb more since he lost Doggie-Dog, too, and talking even less.


  Hadn’t Peg said something on the first day of class about teaching ASL signs to very little kids to help them show their feelings even if they weren’t good at speaking words yet?

  Boogie picked Bing up and set him on his lap, so they faced each other.

  “Here,” Boogie said. “Happy.” He made the sign to go with it. Bing took his thumb out of his mouth and used his hands to copy Boogie.

  “Sad,” Boogie said, and signed. Bing copied that one, too.

  When Boogie signed, “Scared,” Bing burst out laughing, and Boogie laughed, too.

  But if only Bing could be giggling while cuddling a soft new Doggie-Dog.

  * * *

  On Monday, Peg and Sally skipped the usual ABCs drill—hooray, hooray!—and started right in on talking about the camp’s final program, the Signing Showcase.

  “Your families and friends are invited, and as you know, our new friends from Laurent Clerc School have already told us they’re coming, too. Colleen got permission for us to hold it in the auditorium. So as we continue to learn new signs every day during this week and next, we’ll also be preparing for our wonderful program.”

  Boogie tried to imagine what their wonderful program could possibly be.

  “We’ll start off the showcase with our ABC song,” Peg said.

  Great.

  Peg went on, “We’ll do the song a few times to help our friends and families learn some of the letters to sign along with us.”

  That sounded a little bit better. At least it would use up more time.

  “We’ll sign the words to some simple songs,” Peg and Sally went on. “If we have time to prepare, we may add a short skit or two. We’ll finish up with a Parade of Animals, where we’ll show our audience some of the most fun animal signs.”

  It didn’t sound so bad, really. Boogie had been afraid he’d have to go up onstage and do something all by himself. He wasn’t shy the way Vera was, but between his ABC mess-ups and James’s constant teasing, it was hard to feel like standing up in front of a whole audience of people and having them laugh at him, too. But he wouldn’t mind being in an animal parade along with everyone else.

  He tuned back in to Peg talking. “For the whole program we will have a master of ceremonies, or an emcee, who will greet our guests and introduce the acts. This Friday you will get to vote on who that will be.”

  Boogie saw lots of kids looking over at Nolan. Of the sixteen campers, every single one would vote for Nolan, except for Nolan, who would be too modest to vote for himself. Well, maybe James wouldn’t even bother to vote.

  At least the Signing Showcase emcee would be terrific. Boogie just hoped the rest of them could do a good enough job that the Deaf kids would like their program as much as he and his friends had liked theirs.

  On Tuesday they began practicing the Parade of the Animals for the Signing Showcase.

  Boogie was assigned the best animal by far, in his opinion: the penguin. He got to hold his hands stiffly at his sides and waddle from side to side. But all the animal signs were terrific. Nolan’s elephant moved his hand forward from his nose like an elephant trunk, his arm swaying at the end. Vera’s timid little mouse touched her nose a few times. Nixie was given the dog sign, of course. Peg and Sally knew better than to give that sign to anyone else.

  After the first run-through of the animal parade, James caught Boogie’s eye. With a smirk, he imitated Boogie’s penguin to make it look as ridiculous as possible. James had the second-best animal: the chest-thumping gorilla. But James made sure to look like a bored gorilla, rolling his eyes as he did a few half-hearted thumps, so everyone would know he still thought the whole thing was dumb.

  But maybe Boogie had looked foolish making the penguin sign. On the second time through the program, he saw even Nixie and Vera whispering to each other behind their hands as he trundled by. Some other kids were actually laughing. Were they giggling because penguins are funny to look at? Or were they making fun of him, Boogie?

  * * *

  Wednesday they worked in small groups learning the signs to go along with the words in simple songs like “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and “Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed.” They weren’t trying to sign every word, just twinkle (Peg said it was really the sign for sparkle), little, star, and wonder.

  Vera made her usual frown of concentration as she signed five, monkeys, jumping, and bed. The song was supposed to be funny, but you’d never guess it from looking at Vera’s face. As each monkey fell off the bed, she looked as anxious as if real monkeys were having constant head injuries.

  Nixie pointed this out in her usual blunt way.

  “The monkeys are fine, Vera!” she said with a giggle. “No real monkeys were harmed in the making of this song!”

  “I hate when people look at me,” Vera said in a low voice. “And I hate it even more if they look at me while I’m making mistakes.”

  “You never make any mistakes!” Nixie told her. “I’m the one who makes mistakes!”

  Boogie had wondered if she was going to say, Boogie’s the one who makes mistakes. But it was easy to remember the signs for words like monkey (scratching your sides), jumping (making two fingers jump off the palm of the other hand), and bed (laying your head on the side of your folded hands, as if they were a pillow). Plus, living in his house was like being in a real-life song about four little monkeys jumping everywhere.

  “Anyway,” Nixie added, “people look at you when you play the piano in recitals.”

  Vera wasn’t only the best artist Boogie knew; she also took piano lessons.

  “I hate that, too,” Vera said. “Not the piano part, but the recital part. At the Signing Showcase, I’m going to hate the people-looking-at-me part and the talking-to-people-I-don’t-know part. When we went to visit the Deaf school, I didn’t sign a single thing to anybody. If I don’t sign a single thing this time, they’ll think I’m the most unfriendly person in the world.”

  “You’ll do fine,” Nolan tried to reassure her. “We’ll all do fine.”

  Boogie could tell Vera thought even Nolan was wrong about some things some of the time.

  * * *

  Later that afternoon, when Boogie went to get a snack during the camp break, he heard his name when some kids were talking by the food table.

  “The thing about Boogie—” one girl was saying. She broke off when she saw Boogie approaching. So Boogie didn’t know how she had planned to finish the sentence.

  What was the thing about Boogie?

  The thing about Boogie is he thinks he’s so funny, but he really isn’t.

  The thing about Boogie is he keeps messing up all the time.

  The thing about Boogie is he’s so much worse at everything than Nolan is.

  Sometimes when Boogie got a snack, he tried to balance a cube of cheese on the end of his nose or make false teeth out of an orange rind.

  This time he decided he wasn’t hungry after all.

  * * *

  Nolan was acting strange in camp on Thursday. Maybe not strange, exactly, but Boogie caught Nolan staring at him and then looking away suddenly when Boogie turned in his direction. Maybe Nolan was nervous about the camp vote for the Signing Showcase emcee. There was no way he wouldn’t win, but Boogie had overheard James say Showoff the other day when Nolan already knew the sign for star even though the rest of the camp hadn’t learned it yet.

  If Boogie was truly Nolan’s best friend, he’d be—what did they call it?—Nolan’s campaign manager. He’d make sure everyone was going to vote for the best signer and the best friend ever.

  During the break Boogie wandered over to some kids who were sitting in the back of the room.

  “You’re voting for Nolan tomorrow, aren’t you?” Boogie blurted out.

  Two of the girls exchanged glances.

  “Maybe,” one of them said.

&n
bsp; “Maybe not,” the other one said.

  How could anyone not vote for Nolan?

  Boogie heard the other kids smothering giggles as he walked away.

  * * *

  When camp was over, as Boogie and Nolan sat waiting for their parents, Nolan suddenly pulled a lumpy bundle from his backpack.

  He thrust it toward Boogie. “Open it.”

  What could it be?

  It wasn’t Boogie’s birthday.

  There was no reason Nolan would be giving him a present.

  The package felt squishy, almost like a stuffed animal about the size and shape of Doggie-Dog.

  But Nolan had already offered to buy Bing’s Doggie-Dog, and Boogie had already told him no.

  Nolan wasn’t Bing’s big brother.

  Boogie was.

  Nolan wasn’t the one who was supposed to get Bing a new Doggie-Dog.

  Boogie was.

  Boogie pulled at the tape on the package. Inside, he could see white fur with black spots.

  Doggie-Dog had white fur with black spots.

  As Boogie froze, Nolan reached over and pulled the brand-new Doggie-Dog from its padded envelope.

  Boogie swallowed hard.

  “Now Bing can have it right away,” Nolan said, his voice suddenly sounding less confident than usual. “It’s not your fault you didn’t get paid for shoveling the snow.”

  But it was Boogie’s fault he never saved any of his money while Nolan saved all of his.

  “You’re the one who really bought it,” Nolan went on. “It was your idea. I just helped a tiny bit with the money part.”

  Like paying the entire eighteen dollars, plus four dollars for shipping. Maybe even more, so the package would come extra-fast.

  Boogie tried to force a smile. But he could tell it wasn’t a very good smile.