school

in which the protagonist accounts a few stories from her time at school

The first day mamma enrolled me in the local elementary school, she made sure every member of the faculty, even the janitor and the fifth grade teachers that probably wouldn’t even be there by the time I was in that grade, knew about my disability. All the kids knew too, but most of them didn’t understand. They would pretend they couldn’t speak either, and we would play the most wonderful games with no noise at all. My kindergarten teacher said she had never seen anything like it.

I had a special notebook that I would write in if I wanted to say anything. Because of this, I learned the English language at a very young age. If I had had vocal chords, chances are I could’ve beaten the entire fifth grade class at a vocabulary quiz by the time I was halfway through my kindergarten year.

I seldom used the notebook, though. I chose instead to express my words through pictures. My momma tells me that the first thing I did when I got to class on my first day of school was run straight to the big sheet of paper in the back of the classroom and draw a girl on her first day of school. Granted, it wasn’t a masterpiece at that age, but everyone else had to admit it was a good drawing.

The thing I struggled with most, what I still struggle with, in school, is that folks don’t understand the difference between  not saying anything and not understanding anything. Most of my teachers wrote me off as slow and stupid, and often I was given C’s just so they wouldn’t have to deal with the unresponsive girl next semester. I never did mind, though. I still don’t. I’ve noticed that the stupider folks think you are, the easier it is to learn about them, because they don’t expect you to hang on to every word they say or take note of your actions. I tend to do both of those things a lot. I guess when you can’t talk you have to be content with just listening.

I’ve often wondered if things would be different if I were a boy. A silent boy just gets passed off as weird and maybe doesn’t have as many friends, but a silent girl is someone you can take advantage of and order around, someone who will listen to you but not say anything. I guess for a long time my actions didn’t help to discourage this assumption about me. I would’ve liked to stand up for myself more as a younger girl, but my friends still played with dolls and their only futures involved being a housewife or if anything a veterinarian like every little girl wants to be. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that dolls bored me, or that when I grew up I knew I was going to be a famous scientist.

The only person I talked to about how I really felt was my momma. She would listen thoughtfully to every idea that I scribbled in my notebook, and then she would tell me calmly that one day it would happen. I would be a scientist, I would invent something, I would build houses, I would do whatever I set my mind to. But even my momma, for all she was worth, with her fried food and XXL couch-colored dresses, couldn’t predict the future. After awhile, I guess I figured out that her promises were empty. I didn’t know squat about science, or buildings, or machinery, and the closest school that would teach me was across the state.

I remember the day my views on being a girl changed. It was sixth grade, and I wanted to play on the football. I loved sports, I still do, and nothing was going to stop me from being quarterback on the school team. Except that it wasn’t a coed team.

My mamma and I joked for awhile about me cutting my hair and pretending to be a guy, but that was before she realized I was serious. I wanted to play football. Now by this point we both knew that no other teams nearby were going to take a mute girl, so the school was our only hope.

One week before the football season started, my momma marched me into the principal’s office dressed in her most intimidating purple dress.

“My daughter wants to play football,” she said before Principal Reiner even had a chance to greet her.

“That’s nice,” he replied.

“On the school team,” my mamma clarified.

“No can do,” Reiner said, sucking air in through his teeth and pretending he was sorry in that way grown ups do. “This school has a strictly all boys football team. Girls playing football, it just ain’t right. We would get too many complaints from the fine Christian folk of this town. Now, if lovely Miss Marcy Rose is interested in our dance program, by all means here’s the sign up sheet. But I’m afraid she just can’t play football.”

“My daughter,” mamma repeated, firmer this time. “Wants to play football on the school team.”

“You’ve made that clear, Miss Thurman. But it just can’t be done. Unless you suggest we make a new team for girls. But who would play besides your daughter? Besides, she’s mute. No coach wants a player who can’t talk.”

“My daughter can talk just fine,” momma argued. “Just not with her mouth.”

“Well no one on the team knows sign language, so the answer is still no,” Reiner repeats.

“Marcy doesn’t use sign language.”

“Then how does she speak?”

Mamma was silent. I knew she couldn’t explain to my principal that you could see it in my eyes, in the way I stood, the way I moved my hands slightly, because that would never do on a field where they only way I could help my team would be if I could talk.

“I’m sorry, Miss Thurman, but I’m afraid I have to ask you to leave. I have more pressing matters to deal with at the moment. I hope you and your daughter have a good day. I presume you can show yourselves out?”

My momma was never one to give up easily, so the walk of shame out of his office was almost unbearable for her. She spent the car ride home mumbling about how she would get me on that team no matter what it took. Honestly, at that point I wasn’t so much concerned about getting on the team, but more with how Principal Reiner had reacted. What he said sparked a fire in me, and it wasn’t about to be extinguished by my lack of vocal chords. I had things to say, and I was going to say them, no matter what my disadvantages were.

Author's Note

same as the previous chapter, please tell me what you think!