By the time I get home, my thoughts have turned sour.It’s like Horse Girl is inside my head, feeding me lines.
As if. As if. He’s not only normal, he’s gorgeous. And you?You are a deaf girl who goes to a weird deaf school.
I try to shove nasty Horse Girl thoughts out of my head.I don’t want her to be in my head, in my bedroom. But I keep seeing the way she stared at Keisha and me as though we were freaks. The way she pointed to the deaf school, two handed, as though pointing to a very different planet.
As though we shouldn’t be at the footy, and we should be stuck in a bubble somewhere away from normal people, like in Stella’s photos.
I have another nagging feeling. At least at my old school I was mixing with hearing people. That would seem more normal to someone like Ethan. The feeling grows when I think about my old gang, especially about Nadia.
I feel like half of me is missing without Nadia around every day, being annoying, or even taking care of me, if that’s what it would take to keep us close.
My school work has improved since I started at the deaf school – I’m understanding nearly everything in class.But life isn’t all about school work. Maybe I’ve made the wrong decision?
I thought I was past all this doubt. I need to remind myself that my decision wasn’t only to do with school work.It was about the rest of my life too. I mustn’t get too romantic about my old school. Things had changed. I didn’t really fit in there anymore, even when I thought I did. Even when I thought I passed for being normal, I was kidding myself.
I guess it’s kind of like being homesick for your old house when it’s been pulled down and replaced with a block of flats. It’s not there anymore; you can’t go back. But you still miss it somehow.
There is a DVD disc with an ordinary printed label in the right-hand drawer of my bedside table. Speech Night. It looks innocent. My TV is on the wall. Around the edges are stickers, and the third photo booth pic of me and Nads.
Maybe I want to punish myself for dreaming of a normal life, a normal boyfriend. I don’t really know what makes me decide to watch it again, but I push the disc in the slot.
The first time I watched it, I was tucked under my doona with a bowl of popcorn on my bedside table.
Now, I sit on the end of the bed. No snacks. No doona.
The beginning of the DVD is jumpy. The media students had been practising their skills at cutting between cameras.The first bit shows people in the audience taking their seats.There’s a pan of the auditorium roof, then the camera comes down to the stage.
There’s more stability as Olivia sidles up to the microphone. There are closed captions at the bottom of the screen, just for me since there were no other deaf students. As Olivia speaks, her words appear on the screen below.
The time limit for each speech is two minutes. All of us have chosen a topic around the environment. Olivia talks about climate change and the debate about its scientific link to greenhouse gas emissions.
The camera scans the audience as everyone claps at the end of the talk. I see Mum, Dad and Harry sitting in their seats. Harry is clapping along, being very grown-up, his little face all serious. Oscar is squirming around on Felicity’s lap, trying to lock his chubby legs into a standing position.
The camera cuts back to the stage as Justin comes on.It’s typical Justin. He’s wearing the usual short-sleeved white shirt and tie but he has ditched the blazer and the shirt is about two sizes too small.
When Justin starts talking about an emissions trading scheme, I know to look at the kids in the corner of the screen, just off to the left-hand side. I know that this time.It’s a parallel narrative there, more telling than what’s on centre stage.
As Justin talks, Liam, the class clown, flexes his muscles, posing like a body builder. I can’t tell which kids are with him. It’s too shadowy. But I can see their shoulders shaking, and it’s clear they’re laughing at Liam’s take-off.
The first time I watched the DVD, I laughed too. I laughed at the way Liam caught the gist of Justin’s vanity. I laughed at the way Liam played with what was happening onstage.Each of Justin’s arm movements looked like it was showing off an impressive muscle group rather than explaining the impact of dangerous emissions. I laughed with a mouthful of popcorn. I had to sip my drink to avoid choking.
I’m not laughing now. I know what’s coming.
I watch myself walk out onstage after Justin finishes.
It’s obvious that I’m nervous. My footsteps are clumsy, as though my school shoes are made of concrete and my arms are pinned unnaturally to my side. I remember reassuring myself that I knew my speech, word for word, and I can almost see myself breathing in that reassurance.
The back of Jules’ head appears at the bottom of the screen, standing to the right of the stage on the ground.I cringe as I watch the screen-Demi deliberately not looking at Jules, trying to be independent of him after what happened at the market.
I see myself looking straight into the auditorium, remembering my teacher’s advice to talk to the back of the room so that everyone would be able to hear me.
Screen-Demi leans into the microphone. I lean into the microphone and start my speech.
My words appear across the bottom of the screen, line by line, like karaoke. I can see the writing, but it’s not the words I focus on now. Jules is in view again. It’s still just the back of him, standing up, but I can see what he’s doing, though of course I didn’t see it at the time.
I can see it all too clearly – now. His hands are in front of him, and are pushing down. It’s an easy sign, one of the first I learnt. He’s telling me to lower my volume.
I have to be tough with myself. I have to keep watching.
There’s no point trying to warn screen-Demi to look at Jules.
My eyes switch to the left side of the screen, to Liam and the other kids in the shadows. Liam is covering his ears with his hands, shaking his head from side to side as though he’s being rocked by some earsplitting noise. I know the kids near Liam are laughing because I can see their shoulders shaking. Again. This time though, they’re laughing at the poor deaf girl making a fool of herself.
Get it now on DVD!
I turn off the TV, and I switch off the silly idea that Ethan might like me. That something might happen between us.
As if.