The camp is three hours’ drive away, and when we get close we find out it’s off the main road, down through the bush, towards a river. The road is windy and steep, and made from gravel, and the first time through, Grandma misses the turnoff.
“I’ve gone too far, I think,” she says, after the road gets more narrow than we think it should. “I’ll turn around.” She makes an awkward u-turn, nearly backing off the road into the ditch. I turn towards the back of the car, nervously looking out for cars coming the other way.
“It must be somewhere up here,” she says. “The instructions said to turn off five kilometres after the town.”
“It’s there!” I point. The sign for the campsite is hiding behind an overgrown shrub, easier to see when you’re coming back the other way.
“Oh, good,” says Grandma. “I knew it seemed wrong.” She smiles over at me. “You’ll be there soon.”
I’ve been happy the whole trip down here, and now I’m not. Now I’m looking for all the reasons I can find to get Grandma to turn around and take me back. But even if I could find the reasons, I wouldn’t be able to use my voice. There’s a glob of quivering fear stuck inside my chest, and it’s clogging up my throat.
The heavy bushland turns into wide open green fields, and the road becomes bitumen again. In the distance, a series of buildings emerge, at the top of a hill. There’s a green slope stretching from the biggest building down to a pontoon by the river. My breathing gets faster.
It looks beautiful. And terrible, too.
Argh. What am I doing?
Grandma slows down as we get closer to the site, and pulls in to a parking bay. Down the hill slightly, two big buildings stand side by side, with a big concrete open area between them. The view is incredible, but I can’t focus on that right now. My attention is taken up by one thing: kids.
There are lots of them. Twenty, maybe thirty? They’re milling around together, looking at the view, standing in groups, chatting. Or, should I say, signing. My stomach feels like it’s trying to nip me. Or gnaw on me.
I hate fear.
“Shall I come down with you?” Grandma’s voice sounds in my ear. “Do you want some help?”
I shake my head. I’ve already decided I want to do all of this on my own. If I can’t handle it from the beginning, I can’t handle it at all, I told myself yesterday. I have to be able to handle it, right?
I kiss her cheek. “I’ll be okay,” and then I move, quickly, so she can’t take over or try to get out, grabbing my small suitcase and stuffing my pillow and sleeping bag under my arm. “I’ll see you.”
Grandma looks worried, even though she’s trying to hide it. I can tell. It’s the way she’s gripping the steering wheel, tighter than she needs to. “In three days, okay?”
“Three days,” I say, back to her, and then I take in a breath, hold up my head, and walk, away from the car, down to the buildings, the concrete, the view, and the kids.
I’m going to camp.
I can handle it.
There’s a table, positioned halfway along the concrete breezeway. It has papers on it, and other official looking stuff: I can see nametags, and there’s a woman sitting behind it. As I walk towards it, the milling kids are turning to look at me - staring at me - which is weird enough to make me take in a breath, hold my chin up, and ignore them entirely.
Head for the table, Jaz.
The woman stands up when she sees me. Her smile is big - like the rest of her. She’s got big, frizzy, red hair, big jewellery, big, bright clothes on a big body. But she looks kind.
“Jazmine?” She holds out her hand towards me.
“Yes?” I say. “How do you know?”
She laughs. A big laugh. “We’ve only got two new kids this year, and you’re the only new girl.” She says the words with her voice, and she signs them at the same time. I’m transfixed. The words I can hear, I can also see. And they’re not just short phrases, here and there stuff, like Mum does when she signs.
“Auslan?” I ask, with my voice, and my hands. ‘Auslan?’
‘I didn’t know what you’d prefer,’ she signs. ‘Sometimes kids want to use both, or just one. It depends.’ She gestures around at the young people around us. ‘With this group, it’s mostly signing. Even if they don’t use it all the time at home, at camp it’s easy.’
She uses her whole body, and her facial expressions are all part of it. Mum and I have only ever done a more subdued kind of signing. Plus, her hands are fast. Almost too fast for me, with her signs coming so quickly one after the other that my head feels flooded. I screw up my nose just so I can get some thinking space.
‘I’m trying…’ I sign, slowly. ‘Practice. It’s not easy. But I want to.’
“I understand,” she says with her voice, and then with her hands, ‘A bit at a time. You’ll get better quicker than you think. I’m Shannon.’ She points to her badge, and does the finger spelling for her name. ‘If you need anything, come to me, okay? I’m here to help. And now I’ll introduce you to some others. You’re in a good room.’
I feel safe with Shannon, but still nervous as I follow along in her red and pink and purple wake, towards a blond girl with glasses.
“This is Freya,” she says, and signs Freya’s name. ‘She’s in your room. Sign slowly, Freya, okay? Look after her.’ She elbows Freya in the ribs and makes her laugh, a nervous laugh, which gets more nervous when her blue and white striped t-shirt falls off her shoulder. She pulls it back on again and adjusts her glasses.
‘Hi.’
‘Hello.’ I hardly know what to say, but Shannon is still signing to Freya. I look at her to try to follow along.
‘…Take her up, and make sure she’s got everything. And go slow.’
Freya flashes her a grin and gives me a small smile, like, we’re stuck with each other now, and I grin back at her because it’s true.
She takes me up to our room. It’s number 23, along a covered pathway that also goes past three other doors in the same block: 22, 24 and 25. When she opens it, I see some olive green carpet, four bunks – two high and two low – and striped curtains. At the end of the room there’s a door.
‘The bathroom,’ signs Freya. ‘It’s good Mia’s not here yet. She gets annoyed if you take too long in the shower.’
‘Mia?’ I sign, but slowly, because I didn’t really catch it.
‘Mia’. She finger spells it. ‘She’s coming late. In a day or two. I think her cousin is getting married or something.’ She points to the bunks. Two of them have bags spread out on them. Freya’s stuff, maybe, and someone else? ‘You can pick the one you want before Mia gets here. Ha ha.’
She laughs, like I should know what the joke is, and as I’m pretty much guessing about what she’s signing, because she’s fast, I just give her a smile and put my bags randomly on a lower bunk. ‘This one?’
She nods approvingly. ‘Mia won’t mind’.
I leave my bags there, and follow her around the rest of the campsite, up paths, into a dining room, though a big room that looks like it’s for meetings or lectures, and through another, smaller one with a fire place. We head down the path towards the river until we get to a playing field with goals at each end. The whole place is big, but Freya seems to know it all. It’s not until she tells me she’s been coming every year for three years that I understand how she feels so comfortable.
‘We hang with all the Year Eights,’ she signs. ‘The Sevens and Sixes are…’ but I can’t catch the sign.
‘Sorry. Can you slow down?’ I ask. I’m embarrassed, but she’s nice about it.
‘Cool.’ She grins and takes it down a notch. ‘The Year Tens think they’re so cool.’ She rolls her eyes and I’m in no doubt as to what she thinks of the Year Tens. ‘Mia hates them.’
We head back up the path from the playing field, up to the concrete breezeway, and the kids, still clumped into groups, some small and some big, spilling over onto the steps.
‘The Year Tens,’ signs Freya, and points towards a larger gathering of kids, taller than the rest. My heart jumps: I think I recognise two of them from the group at the beach, a girl, maybe? And one of the boys? But there’s no time to look longer, because Freya is pulling at my arm.
‘And this is our group.’
My stomach pinches inside, and my breath goes faster. New people. I swallow hard. Why is it still so hard to meet new people?
Freya points them out to me. ‘Nick. Addicted to his phone.’
A boy with black, spiky hair signs ‘hi’ at me. He has a phone in his hand, and a game on the go, if the flashing screen is any clue. I sign ‘hi’ back and do a small smile at him. He flashes a grin back at me. It lights up his face.
‘Charlotte. She’s in our room too.’
Charlotte has a long dark braid down one side of her head, over her ear. It may be the longest hair I’ve ever seen. Like, right down to her hip. I’m slightly in awe of it. Mine’s been just past my shoulders for ages now. Maybe it’s not going to grow any more. I sign ‘hi’ and she waves a hand at me in reply.
‘And this is Truck,’ signs Freya. She does the sign for it and then spells it out on her fingers. ‘Truck.’
‘Truck?’ I make a face that’s trying to be polite, but still ask a question. What kind of a name is that? Truck must have been asked that before because he chips in. ‘Mack Truck,’ he signs. ‘You know, those big trucks. The interstate ones. My real name’s Mack, and they call me Truck.’
‘Oh,’ I sign, and I begin to say it too, just because I’m surprised. “Oh.” Mack is big, and kind of lumbering. He’s probably almost as tall as Geoff, and maybe even bigger than him. I feel nervous. ‘Hello.’
‘Are you Deaf or Hard of Hearing?’ signs Charlotte to me.
‘Hard of Hearing,’ I sign, a little unsure about the question.
‘Oh, you’re not Strong Deaf,’ she signs.
I look at Freya for assistance. I don’t think I’ve ever been asked that question. ‘Am I strong…?’
Around me, there’s laughter. From Mack, shaking shoulders. What did I say?
‘Strong Deaf,’ signs Freya. She thinks for a moment, like she’s working out how to explain something. ‘Like, do you have deaf parents?’
I shake my head. ‘No.’
‘Do you only use Auslan, or do you speak English too?’ Charlotte continues. She looks frustrated at my confusion.
Freya touches my arm. ‘She means, what kind of ‘deaf’ are you?’
I honestly don’t know what to answer. What kind of deaf am I? ‘I can hear things, when I use my hearing aids.’ I’m struggling to stay fluent with my signs, but I keep going, looking around to see their responses. ‘I don’t use Auslan, except at home with my mum. We learned when I was little.’
Charlotte makes a knowing face. ‘Okay. Hard of Hearing.’ She looks at Truck, and Nick, and the three of them look at Freya, as though something’s important.
‘Well, we’ll just teach her before Mia comes,’ signs Freya, to them, not to me. I wrinkle my forehead. What does she mean? And what difference will Mia coming make?
Shannon and another teacher, a young guy, dressed in shorts and a singlet, and holding a ball come by to gather everyone up.
‘Touch footy,’ signs Truck. ‘You have to play,’ he says to me when he sees my face, which isn’t exactly horror, but it’s not delight either. Touch footy isn’t something I know anything about. But, ‘we all do,’ he signs, so before dinner I walk down with them all to the playing field for half an hour of difficult, sweaty sport. It leaves me tired, and confused about the rules.
Up in the dining room, I’m nervous-hungry, so I focus on the food while Freya, Charlotte and Truck sign and laugh and finish two platefuls each, with me following along their conversation as best I can. The whole group plays ‘get to know you’ games in the bigger meeting room after, and that’s also hard. It’s fast, and I’m shy, and at the end, I feel like I still don’t know anyone, except Charlotte and Freya who stay with me, and by the time lights out comes around, I’m more than ready to go to bed.
When the lights are off, the darkness is almost too much for me. Everything’s so different. My sleeping bag is less than comfortable, and the pillow is wrong, and I’m just so exhausted that I can’t stop a small sob erupting out of my mouth. It turns into a hiccup. An embarrassingly loud one.
“Jazmine, are you okay?”
It’s a voice. Almost the first voice speaking words I’ve heard since I’ve arrived. It’s Freya’s voice. At least, I presume it is; it’s coming from her bunk.
“I guess.” My words come out a bit blurry, and I’m surprised to feel wet around my eyes. There’s a tiny lump in my throat which I try to swallow down, but it won’t go away.
Freya hops out of bed, turns the lights on and looks into my bunk. “You are crying!” It’s almost an accusation, but it comes with a smile, so I know she’s not being mean. I sit up and try not to sniffle, and she sits next to me. Across the room, Charlotte hangs over the edge of her top bunk so she can see too.
‘It’s normal to feel bad when it’s your first time here,’ signs Freya.
‘You should have seen Freya,’ signs Charlotte, laughing out loud. ‘She bawled, like a baby. Ha ha.’
Freya makes a face. ‘Whatever.’ She turns back to me. ‘Are you missing home?’
I think for a second. And I try to put the words together in my hands. ‘Maybe a bit. But more that…’ I bite my lip and wipe stray tears off my cheeks. ‘It’s new.’ I shrug my shoulders. ‘Sometimes I feel shy.’
Freya touches my knee, kindly. ‘I know. And we’re so weird, right? Deaf kids are the crazy kids.’
I shrink back, alarmed that maybe she thinks I think she’s crazy. ‘No, not at all…’ I begin, but she’s laughing.
From her position up on her bunk, Charlotte signs and talks at the same time. “What you have to know, Jazmine, is that we just say what we think.” She grins at me. “Hearing people get all upset about people being rude. They hide their meanings under nice words, but in deaf culture we just say it.” She signs, ‘You don’t have to be offended. Just be yourself.’
Freya touches my arm. ‘Just be yourself, okay? You’ll like it - and us - soon. And, obviously, don’t worry about Mia.”
Charlotte nods, but she doesn’t look so convinced. ‘Yeah, don’t worry about Mia.’