No Talking (4 page)

• • •

And now it's time to tell what happened in the middle of the second Tuesday in November during Dave Packer's final year at Laketon Elementary School.

It was two minutes before fifth-grade lunch, and the principal was ready, just like always. Mrs. Hiatt had checked to be sure that the other teacher who had fifth-grade lunch duty wasn't out sick or at a meeting. Because it wasn't good to try to manage fifth-grade lunch all by yourself.

And, just like always, she had ordered Mr. Lipton, the custodian, to stay in the cafeteria today until 12:40. Because with this group, the more grown-ups around, the better.

And Mrs. Hiatt had double-checked the batteries in her red plastic bullhorn. Because it wasn't good to have a dead bullhorn during fifth-grade lunch.

Then the bell rang, and as classroom doors along the fifth-grade hall flew open, Mrs. Hiatt could hear them coming, all of them, already calling to each other as locker doors clanged open and banged shut, already talking a mile a minute, already laughing and whooping and shouting, streaming down the hallway toward the cafeteria, an unshushable wave of energy and excitement and noise . . .
so much noise!

Mrs. Hiatt took her position at the center of the cafeteria and braced herself. She was ready for today's lunchroom battle, ready to change chaos into order, ready for anything these kids could dish out.

But nothing could have prepared her for what happened next.

I
t was four minutes into the fifth-grade lunch period, and Mrs. Hiatt was pretty sure that any second now, her alarm clock was going to start making that awful sound—
BRRAP! BRRAP! BRRAP! BRRAP!

Because the principal was almost certain that she was still at home in her own comfy bed, dreaming away. She
had
to be dreaming. But no, she looked at her watch and it showed the same time as the large clock above the stage in the school cafeteria—12:04.

On any other day Mrs. Hiatt would have already used her bullhorn at least once, because when half the fifth graders were standing in the food line, and the other half were in the milk line or rushing toward their seats, there was always a terrific burst of yelling and calling out and wild chatter—sort of like feeding time at the zoo.

Not today.

There was no talking at all. Not one word. Over one hundred twenty-five children milling around the lunchroom, and not a peep from any of them.

Today the principal could hear the clattering of the worn-out motor in the milk cooler. And she could hear the kitchen workers talking softly to each other. And she could hear the children's feet on the tile floor, shuffling along through the lines.

The quiet almost frightened her. Mrs. Hiatt felt like she was in a scene from a creepy science fiction movie.

She actually liked a good scary movie now and then, but she did
not
like the ideas in her mind at this moment. Because it seemed like aliens had possessed these fifth graders and zapped their brains. Or maybe some strange creature had nipped off all their tongues—nothing left but little stubs that couldn't make a sound.

The principal shivered. Then she noticed a girl staring at her. Mrs. Hiatt realized she must have had a strange look on her face.

As the girl sat down with her lunch tray, Mrs. Hiatt forced herself to smile, and said, “Hi there, Sheila. How are you today?” Her voice almost echoed in the quiet lunchroom.

Every boy in the milk line turned and stared at

Sheila.The girls turned and looked too.

Sheila gulped, gave the principal a nervous smile, and, speaking softly and slowly, she said,“Fine, thank you.”

Mrs. Hiatt turned toward the milk line, and all the kids looked away. Silently.

And again, the principal felt like she was in the middle of a science fiction movie.

It suddenly seemed silly to be standing there in a silent room with her huge red plastic bullhorn. So Mrs. Hiatt walked over to the playground door, where Mrs. Escobar was standing. She tried to look as casual as possible, tried to act like it was perfectly normal for the lunchroom to be stone silent except for the clattering of plates and the squeaking of sneakers on the waxed floor.

The principal set the bullhorn on the floor by the wall and whispered to Mrs. Escobar, “What in the world is going on here?”

Mrs. Escobar whispered back, “I have no idea. But it's something weird, that's for sure.”

Mrs. Hiatt did not like this feeling, this feeling that something strange, something new was happening. Because this new activity was happening at her school, and no one had asked for her permission. This new activity was unauthorized.

Mrs. Hiatt didn't simply
like
being in charge of her own school. She felt like she
needed
to be in charge.

And that's why she felt like she had to say something, do something, to break the spell. So she stepped away from the wall and in a loud voice she said, “Good afternoon, fifth graders. Are you enjoying your lunchtime today?”

All the kids looked at each other. The whole room seemed to take a deep breath, and then almost everyone said,“Yes, Mrs. Hiatt.”

And then silence again.

After an awkward few seconds, the principal said, “It's so
quiet
in here today. I'm very . . . impressed. With your good behavior.”

Some kids smiled, some nodded. But no one said a word.

Mrs. Hiatt said,“Is there some special reason why no one's talking today?”

The whole room went still. Even the chewing stopped.

No hands went up, and no one answered her question.

But Mrs. Hiatt was a keen observer, and in that sudden stillness she noticed something. Right after she asked her question, it seemed like almost every

boy looked at Dave Packer, who was standing beside the milk cooler.And it seemed like almost every girl took a quick look at Lynsey Burgess, who was just sitting down at a table.

And the principal thought,
That's odd.

But the whole situation was odd.Very odd. And now it seemed like the room was stuck in a complete calm, as if all the kids had even stopped breathing.

Everyone was waiting to see what she was going to do next.

After a few more seconds of suspense, Mrs. Hiatt cleared her throat and said, “Well, students, please enjoy the rest of your lunchtime.”

And the cafeteria came back to life. Silently.

A
s Dave sat down at a lunch table with his friends, he couldn't get the grin off his face. He was having so much fun he could hardly chew his first bite of grilled cheese. And he didn't like chewing right now because chewing made noise, and when he munched he couldn't hear the silence.

The
silence
—Dave thought it was amazing. And watching Mrs. Hiatt try to figure out what was going on? That was amazing too. It was like they had trapped her in a force field.And she couldn't get out of it, because the silence filled the cafeteria.

Dave looked around, and he saw the same amazement on the faces of some other kids. They were all thinking about the same thing.Together.

Then suddenly:“Hey, give it back!”

There was a gasp as every boy and girl in the
room sucked in a breath, and all heads turned to see where those words had come from.

And there at the ice cream freezer, Ed Kesey had one hand over his mouth while his other hand reached for a cherry Popsicle that Bryan DelGreco had grabbed.

Dave swung around and looked at Lynsey. Lynsey knew a lot of kids were watching her, but she pretended not to notice. She slowly reached into her back pocket, slowly pulled out a pen and a small red notebook, slowly opened the cover, and slowly made four little marks on the first page.

And as she flipped the notebook shut, Lynsey looked right at Dave and gave him a big smile.

Just like that, and the girls were ahead by four points.

But Dave wasn't worried.The contest had barely begun.There were two whole days to go.

Dave was absolutely sure that the next forty-eight hours were going to be very . . .
interesting
.And he thought,
Is that the right word? How about . . . fascinating? No, more like . . . exciting.Yeah—exciting!

Then Dave happened to glance at Mrs. Hiatt. And he could tell from the look on the principal's face that she had been watching everything—the way Ed had shouted those words and then covered

his mouth, the way all the other kids had reacted, the way Lynsey had marked her notebook.

And at that exact moment the principal turned and locked eyes with Dave. She stared right at him, with her eyebrows all bunched up in a puzzled knot.

Dave quickly looked down at his lunch tray, and as he did, a new word popped into his mind.And he was pretty sure this one was also going to be a good word to describe the next few days:
dangerous.

M
rs. Marlow was the fifth-grade science teacher, and it was her day for outdoor recess duty. As she was gulping down a quick lunch in the teachers' room, Mr. Lipton, the custodian, stuck his head in the door and said, “Anybody want to see a miracle? Go check out the cafeteria. The fifth graders aren't talking today—not even whispering. It's like a funeral in there.”

But Mrs. Marlow didn't have a moment to spare. She finished her lunch, grabbed her coat, and hurried outside to the playground through the gym.

Even without the heads-up from the custodian, it wouldn't have taken her long to figure out that something was different at outside recess today. Every teacher knows the sound of a normal, happy

playground at lunchtime—kids talking and yelling and chasing, and all the arguments about who's it and who's out and who ran faster.

Not today. Mrs. Marlow could tell that a whole layer of spoken sound was missing. Gone. Absent.

Except . . . not completely. Because the kids did make some slipups during their first wordless recess.

Allie Bedford got caught whispering to Lena Henderson by the swing set, and when a group of boys stood and shook their fingers at her, she held up eight fingers to show how many illegal words she had said.

Christina Farley didn't have to confess, because half the kids on the playground heard exactly what she said, loud and clear. She stomped her feet, stuck out her tongue at Rachel Morgan, and then shouted, “You're a terrible friend, and you lie, and you're selfish, and I don't care how many words this is! And you're
mean,
too!”

Which was twenty-three words.

Christina's goof, plus the eight words Allie whispered, meant that Dave got to record thirty-one points against the girls on his official score sheet, which wasn't as fancy as Lynsey's red notebook—just a couple of folded index cards stuffed in his pocket.

But the boys weren't perfect either.

Scott Vickers booted a kickball down the third-base line, and when two boys made the “foul ball” motion, he yelled, “Foul? Are you
crazy
? No
way
! That ball was fair!” And Scott would have kept on yelling, but Bill Harkness tackled him and clamped a hand over his mouth—which Scott bit, but not hard enough to make Bill yell any words.

That incident cost the boys ten points. And then there was the first case of trickery. Katie Edison snuck up behind Jeremy Stephens, who was standing by the sliding board, tapped him on the shoulder, and when he turned his head, she gave him a big, noisy kiss on the cheek.

Jeremy howled and wiped his face and flew into a fit of cootie-itis. “Eeew,
YUCK!
Why did you
do
that? That was so
gross
!
YUCK!
Help me get this stuff off my face!”

Which was twenty more points for the girls. Plus Katie actually enjoyed her sneak attack—she'd had a top secret crush on Jeremy for two months.

Even though there were only a few word blasts, it certainly wasn't quiet out there, and it got noisier and noisier as the end of recess got closer. That's because everyone began to realize that this was not a contest to see who could be silent. It was just about

not talking. Sounds were allowed—as long as they weren't words.

Dave was near the door of the gym and began whistling. He was instantly joined by four other boys. They whistled every song they could think of—“Row, Row, Row Your Boat”; “Now I Know My ABCs”; “London Bridge Is Falling Down”; Barney's “Marching Song”; the
Star Wars
theme song; “Old MacDonald Had a Farm”; “I've Been Working on the Railroad”; “Rubber Ducky”—on and on.The whistling was mostly off-key, but it was a grand performance anyway, with lots of clapping and hooting between tunes.

Somewhere near the middle of the whistling concert, six or seven girls began screaming. These were not the kind of screams that make grown-ups come running.They were just an ugly assortment of squeals and yelps and shrieks that everyone else found very annoying. Spaced out around the edge of the playground, the girls bounced their high-pitched sounds around like a beach ball at a baseball stadium:“EeeeOww!”“OooWhee!”“WooHoooh!” “Yeeyeeyeeyeee!”They made lots of noise, but they weren't talking.

Some other girls were jumping double Dutch, and since they couldn't chant the rhymes, the kids
who weren't jumping or turning the ropes clapped out the rhythm of the words with their hands.

The quietest activity involved four girls who had a printed folder that showed how to use American Sign Language. They sat in a circle on the ground and practiced their hand signals.

And to round out the soundscape, Bradley Lang and Tyler Rennert were cruising around the playground bothering as many girls as possible by making all sorts of mouth sounds—clicks, pops, roars, quacks, barks, burps, and especially those loud bathroom noises created by putting the palms of both hands over the mouth, puffing up the cheeks, and blooping out a blast of air.