Singing Hands (18 page)

I almost stumbled over the girl in front of me. "In charge?" I squeaked. "He didn't tell me about being in charge."

"Well, maybe he wasn't aware of it. But many of Miss Benton's former students begin arriving tomorrow. Everything has changed so much since they were here at ASD. The superintendent needs someone to lead the alumni on tours of the school." She gave a haughty sniff. "I was the only dormitory supervisor selected for the duty."

"But, Miss Hinkle, I don't know anything about Maypole dancing."

"Oh, you seem like a smart girl," she breezed on. "You'll do fine."

I swallowed. "When did you say we need to be ready?"

"The program starts at one o'clock on Saturday. Ours will actually be the first performance, since we'll need to remove the Maypole after we're done, to make room for the other numbers."

I felt my face freeze into a sickly smile. Saturday was the day after tomorrow.
Dang it.
What had Daddy gotten me into?

We stepped into the warm August night. Out on the lawn a firefly flickered, reminding me of catching swarms of them in Mason jars at Aunt Glo's. I looked down at my wristwatch. Eight-thirty. If I was in Texas, I'd be settling down to homemade peach ice cream on Aunt Glo's porch right about now, or maybe sliding down for a soak in her old clawfoot tub....

Miss Hinkle and I walked in silence the rest of the way back to the girls' dormitory. By the time we reached the second floor of Graves Hall, I was so lost in longing for Texas that I jumped when I heard Miss Hinkle speak out suddenly in a sharp voice.

"Just look at that," she snapped, stopping on the edge of the vast sprawl of beds.

I blinked. "Look at what?" There wasn't anything unusual that I could see—just some girls pulling off their shoes, getting ready for bed. Another group had gathered in the corner, signing excitedly and giggling.

"
That,
" she said with disgust, stabbing her finger toward the cluster of girls. "That talking on their hands. No matter how much I scold them, they still persist."

"What do you mean?" I asked, completely baffled. "How else are they supposed to talk with each other?"

She looked shocked that I had even asked such a question. "Speaking and lip reading, of course," she said. Her voice hardened with determination. "They'll never be able to get along in the hearing world if they don't learn those oral skills properly. And how are they supposed to learn if they insist on doing nothing but that hand talk whenever I turn my back?"

I stared with my mouth open as Miss Hinkle threaded her way between the beds like a cat, with stealthy steps, every muscle poised to pounce. At the sight of the dorm supervisor bearing down on them, two of the girls stopped cold, the smiles evaporating from their faces. But the poor red-haired girl, Belinda Bates, was facing the other direction, still happily signing away when Miss Hinkle shoved into their circle and snatched Belinda's hand out of the air.

She leaned into the cringing girl's face and spat her syllables out slowly. "I—told—you—to—talk—with—your—lips—not—your—hands!" With each exaggerated word, she slapped her clipboard against her thigh. Then she flung Belinda's wrist away and whirled around to the other girls, pointing to her own mouth. "Like this. See?
Like this!
"

Once all three of them had dutifully said the words "Yes, ma'am" out loud, Miss Hinkle ordered them to get ready for bed. Then she stalked off to her own small quarters at the far end of the room, yanking the door shut behind her. For a while, I stood motionless, shaken with anger and the unfairness of it all. Poor Belinda. I could see her rubbing her sore wrist as she solemnly began to undo her braids for the night. I expected her to burst into tears at any second. But instead, to my surprise, she broke into a throaty laugh when one of her friends slipped closer and furtively signed something else about "mean old Miss Wrinkle." I couldn't help smiling myself. Hinkle. Wrinkle. Pretty clever.

Then something strange happened. Belinda and her friend must have spied me watching, because all at once they fell still again and looked back at me with wary expressions. As they quickly moved apart, a wave of astonishment rippled through me. They actually thought I
agreed
with Miss Hinkle, that I believed signing was an oddity, something to be ashamed of or hidden away.

I made my way over to my bed and sank down on the narrow mattress feeling lonelier and more cut off from Daddy's world than ever. Of course, I knew it was my own fault. So far I had barely even bothered to talk
or
sign with any of the other girls at ASD. And what about how I had treated Abe when he needed my help the most? No wonder Belinda and her friends assumed I was just like all the other Ears.

A few minutes after I changed into my nightgown, Miss Hinkle reappeared and marched through the rows of beds. Like the previous night, the girls knew it was time to drop to their knees on the hardwood floor and press their palms together for the nightly prayer. They watched Miss Hinkle's lips and followed along as best they could while she stood over them reciting the prayer in a flat, droning voice. There was barely time to say "Amen" before she announced, "Lights out!" and flipped the switch to darken our section of the dormitory.

Soon the entire second floor was as dark as a coal cellar. I stayed awake for what seemed like ages, still confused and miserable, listening to the night noises of the dormitory that no one else around me could hear. Someone was snoring over in the corner, and the crickets had set to chirping outside. But then I heard the soft creak of bedsprings and feet padding across the floor. I sat up in bed just in time to see three shadowy figures scampering along the wall of windows toward the hallway.

I couldn't bear not to follow them. They were in the bathroom—Belinda and two other girls, the same ones Miss Hinkle had scolded earlier. I didn't see them at first. They had hidden in the shower room, in the last big stall on the left. I could hear them laughing, but when I peeked around the edge of the shower curtain, they all jumped, their hands flying to their mouths in surprise.

"It's all right!" I signed, pushing the curtain aside. "I won't tell!"

Belinda's freckles stood out like orange paint splashed on her pale skin. She spoke out loud in a high, thin voice. "We were just ... we just come here to talk sometimes after lights out."

"You can sign all you want with me," I rushed to tell her. My hands had taken on a life of their own. "Miss Hinkle has no right. No right to make you stop signing. I think signing is ... is wonderful!"

The girls gawked at me, startled even more by my sudden outburst.

"Are they all that bad?" I hurried on. "The dorm supervisors? Are they all as strict as Miss Wrinkle?" I signed the word "wrinkle" with a dose of theatrics, twisting my face into a grimace and dragging my fingernails down my cheeks like claws.

They broke into nervous smiles then, and Belinda shook her head. "Miss Hinkle's the worst. She's the only supervisor who cares if we sign during our free time. All the others let their girls sign in the dining hall or in the dorm. But Miss Hinkle thinks she's a teacher, for some reason. Maybe because she's been here so long."

"The teachers don't allow signing in class?" I asked in amazement. "Never?"

The tall, tomboyish girl named Hattie shook her head. "Never. I got my hands smacked with a ruler three times last year for signing in composition class."

"How do you learn, then, if they don't sign?"

Hattie shrugged. "Books. Blackboard. Reading lips.... But it's hard sometimes," she added, furrowing her brow.

It didn't take long before we were all sitting on the wooden benches lining one end of the shower room. They wanted to tell me everything, about how impossible it was to read Mr. Carney's lips in math class. He was a mumbler. And Mrs. Devon, the sewing teacher, was even harder to understand, with her big overbite. We all collapsed into snorts of laughter as Belinda did her imitation of Mrs. Devon, pushing out her front teeth like a crazed rabbit.

Then Hattie told about her first day at ASD. "I had never seen anyone signing before," she told me. "Back home I had always just looked at people's lips to get by. When I saw all those kids in the dorm flapping and waving their hands around, I thought I had been dropped down in the loony bin."

"You sign so well now," I said. "If the teachers won't allow sign language, how'd you learn?"

She shrugged again and pointed to her eyes. "Watched the other kids till I picked it up," she explained. "That's what everybody does, unless they're lucky and have deaf parents who teach them at home."

A long time passed before anyone mentioned going to bed. "We better sneak back," Belinda finally signed with a sigh. "Miss Hinkle will be flashing the lights early tomorrow for us to go out and practice that awful Maypole dance."

Hattie groaned and held her nose.

Mary Alice, the shyest one of the group, broke in with a flurry of her small hands. "At least she's not making us sing this time."

I repeated her sign more slowly, waving my right hand in front of my left palm like a conductor, my eyes wide with disbelief. "
Sing?
What do you mean
sing
?"

"They always make us sing for the Parents' Day programs," she signed. "'The Star-Spangled Banner,' Christmas carols. Songs like that.... One of the teachers leads us and plays the piano, but my brother—he's hearing—he says we sound terrible. Like dogs barking."

Hattie snickered. "Good," she signed.

Mary Alice looked offended. She poked out her lip in a pout. "I hate to sing. Especially that 'Star-Spangled Banner' song. Even the Maypole is better than that."

"We're not doing it," I cut in abruptly.

They all stopped.

"Doing what?" Belinda asked.

The notion had come to me out of the blue, but just signing the words filled me with determination. "We're not doing the Maypole dance."

Hattie whooped and threw up her arms in a cheer.

"We're not?" Mary Alice asked fearfully. "What do you mean? What are we doing instead?"

"Something great," I gestured, my hands tingling with newfound power. "Something different. Something
signed.
"

It took a few seconds for my idea to sink in, but slowly, a glimmer of excitement began to creep across their faces. An uncertain glimmer, but a glimmer all the same.

My stomach fluttered with butterflies. Now I just needed to come up with it. Something great. Something different. Something
signed.

I hardly slept that night. Hour after hour ideas flitted through my head like brightly colored birds against a dark sky—too exotic, too wild to rein in. I had twelve girls and barely more than twenty-four hours to get ready for the Jubilee. I needed an idea that was not only great and different but practical, too, or else our performance would be bound for disaster, just like the doomed dummy of Birthmark Baines.

With my sheet twisting in knots around my ankles, I drifted in and out of sleep, muddling through restless half-dreams. First there was Miss Hinkle turning into Mrs. Fernley, meticulously enunciating another word list as she stood in front of an endless field of beds. "Integrity!" she called out through ruby-painted lips. "Say it! Like this! Integrity!"

Then came Margaret and Mother and Abe. They were standing on the altar of Saint Jude's Church for the Deaf with their lips stubbornly squeezed tight, holding hands and humming "The Star-Spangled Banner."

But somehow, as I floundered awake for the third or fourth time that night, I had it. My idea. Of course I was too excited to fall asleep again after that. Through an open space under one of the tall window shades, I could see a tinge of pink light creeping into the sky. I untangled myself from the bedclothes and sneaked through the rows of sleeping girls back to the shower room, where I paced and practiced for another hour or more, until the lights in the dormitory flashed their rude wake-up call.

By the time Miss Hinkle sought me out that morning, I was bleary-eyed but dressed and ready for the day. "I'm entrusting this to you," she said, laying her precious clipboard in my hands. "They want me over at the school office right away, but you'll find everything you need written there. The weaving patterns. The girls' names listed beside their assigned ribbon color. Don't worry. I'll be sure to check on you throughout the day." With an arched eyebrow, she added, "Good luck, Miss Davis. And remember, speaking and lip reading only for those girls.
No signs.
It's for their own good."

She turned to leave, and after sticking out my tongue at the back of her head, I hurried off to the dining hall to join the other girls for breakfast. I didn't even attempt to search for Daddy in the crowded cafeteria. There was too much to do. Belinda, Hattie, and Mary Alice had saved me a place at a table in the corner, and we huddled over the clipboard as I scribbled out the specifics of our routine on a fresh piece of paper.

Mary Alice immediately started to gnaw her lower lip. "We're going to get in trouble, aren't we?" she signed worriedly, checking over her shoulder to see whether anyone was watching.

Hattie's eyes shone with a crafty glint. "Are you kidding? Look who's teaching us." She poked my arm. "The Reverend's daughter. We're safe as long as she's in charge."

I grinned along with Hattie. She was right. Daddy was a hero at ASD. How could they punish us just for signing—an art Daddy had always taught with pride and used to reach out to deaf people all across the South?

With Mary Alice feeling somewhat reassured, Belinda darted across the dining room and brought back her sister, a studious-looking high school girl who wore silver-framed spectacles and quickly promised to keep our secret. She sat down to join our huddle and within a few minutes had helped us work out the trickier parts of our performance. By the time the kitchen manager came over to fuss at us for leaving all that oatmeal congealing in our bowls, we had already formulated a Wrinkle-proof plan of attack.

Three times that day our plan was put to the test. We took turns on lookout duty, and whenever Miss Hinkle happened to stride by the front lawn herding small groups of visitors on tours of the campus, she saw nothing more than twelve schoolgirls marching in a circle around the Maypole.