A Silence Full of Sound

Chapter 3

Waking up the next morning, was the same as every other day. Waking up, not getting out of bed, Sammy coming to drag me out of bed, getting ready before walking to school with Sammy.

As we walked Sammy talked about what classes he had today and I told him mine. It turned out that we had a history class together later on today, and that made me excited. I wondered if Alice was in that class too, but if not at least I had my brother.

Alice was standing at my locker when we walked in. She smiled at me and gave me a hug when I walked up to her, and nodded and smiled to Sammy.

"Right, well, I'll see you in history, Ri. I've got football tryouts today at lunch so I can't be there. But I'll see you afterwards and we can catch up in history?" I nodded, I started ask him where the tryouts were and whether I could come and watch, my hands moving to create the first sign.

Sammy's eyes went big and I had realised what I had done. He grabbed my hands before I could say anything else and gave me a hug to cover up what had just happened. Once he let me go, we both looked over at Alice. She was watching both of us with a weird expression, I don't know whether she picked up on the signing, but if she did, she didn't say anything about it. I was grateful for that.

"I'll see you later Riley. Bye Alice" Sammy said walking off down the corridor. When he got far enough, and could see that Alice wasn't looking, he mouthed at me "be careful!" before turning away and walking around the corner.

Alice stepped right in front of me. She smiled big and said "you ready to go?" I smiled and nodded and with that she linked her arm in mine, and walked me down the opposite side of the corridor. I guess this was a normal occurrence now.

I took a subtle deep breath knowing that I had got away with what had just happened. Somehow Alice hadn't seen it, or if she had she didn't bring it up. I didn't need my secret getting out yet, I wasn't ready.

The morning went by and before we knew it, it was lunchtime. Somehow I had managed to keep up with all my classes, despite missing the odd words here and there. Alice had let me copy some of her notes if the teacher was going to fast, but somehow I had managed to keep up.

"Come on quick! Otherwise all the good seats will be gone!" Alice said as the final morning bell went, I'm guessing. She was hurriedly packing up her books and had even started to pack some of mine. I looked at her confused. I tapped her and looked at her as if to say "why are you hurrying me? What's going on?" And she shook her head, grabbed the rest of my stuff and dragged me out the classroom. I only had enough time to pick up my jacket and quickly chuck my bag on my shoulder.

Running down the corridor, my books still in her hands, Alice dodged in and out of people as they leisurely walked past. Nearly dislocating my shoulder, Alice pulled me out to what looked like the football field and onto the stadium seats around it. Looking down I could see Sammy, already warming up. Sammy was a good player, he was one of the best back home, so I was sure that he would ace the tryouts.

I realised that for Sammy, football was his THING, you know? His thing that would allow him to escape. Escape his real life and all the struggles that meant. The struggle of moving and being the new kid in school, the struggle of being a twin and somehow always worrying about me and whether I was okay, the struggle of having a deaf sister. When he was playing football, he didn't have to be the new kid, or the deaf girl's twin, he could be just another team member, and I liked that he could have that. It was what I had found in my books.

We sat on the seats and watched. I could tell Alice laughed as the vibrations of the chairs moved as we sat down. She picked up her feet and placed them on the chair in front. Nobody was sat there, but I liked the confidence, so I did the same. We were in the perfect seats to watch all the players.