Free Deafening by Frances Itani Page B

defeat you.”
    Defeat?
    In the Deseronto school, she doesn’t want to be separate from the hearing children but she is always separate. She sits at the edge of the room, alone in a double seat. At morning recess, the children tease. Not every day, but some days they tell her that the way she talks sounds funny.
    “Say spit. ”
    “Thpit.”
    “Ha Ha. You said thpit .”
    Grania makes the crazy sign at them, her cupped hand waggling beside her ear.
    Long-legged Kenan comes to her rescue in the schoolyard. Someday, Kenan will marry Tress. He will be part of the family and he will keep Grania strong. Mamo says that Kenan is a good boy. Kenan is Grania’s bully.
    After Kenan sends the others packing, Grania goes to the edge of the schoolyard and lies back against a stump. She looks up at stump’s neighbour, tall tree, and she watches leaves and branches flicker and sway at the top. If she stays here with stump and tree, she is safe. The teasing children can do what they want. For her, alone is best.
    By noon, she has forgotten morning recess. The children shout and play, run and holler. They pair off and grip each other’s wrists and swing in fast circles until they spin and spin and fall to the ground. Grania joins in. Plants her feet against the earth, turns and turns until she is reeling with dizziness. She drops, breathless, to the grass and stays there, cross-legged, tucking her skirt beneath. The others sit, and make a sudden circle with Grania at its centre.
    A new game begins, unfolding as it is imagined. Is that a word? A sound? Grania watches one mouth move, then another, and laughter on the faces around. She is caught up by this and she laughs, too. Someone at her side says something; other faces are watching. She turns her head but misses the sound, the word. Whatever it is bounces from one child to another, erupting the way mayflies erupt on the surface of the water, quick, impossible to catch. A word hopping, one pair of lips to another. Excited, she reaches for but can’t see the sound. The children keep it in front, overhead, behind, to the side.
    But behind does not exist. Not for her. Behind is the darkness outside of thought. It’s the place where sound gathers, sound that she is not meant to hear.
    “What?” she cries to the circle of children, but her voice only makes them laugh. “ When the children taught, fight back,” Mamo has told her.
    “Tell!” Her voice soars.
    They are jeering now. They will never tell. “Dummy!” they cry. “Dummy!”
    Grania pushes herself up, looks around wildly, and they back away. She makes fists but the tears are welling up. Fight back. She charges into one girl but the girl runs away. The children scatter and Grania is suddenly alone. She goes to find Tress. Tress puts both hands on her shoulders and makes her look. “Don’t give up,” her lips say. “Don’t give up.”
    But Grania’s shoulders sag with defeat. She scuffs towards the girls’ entrance and stands there by herself. She waits and watches until the monitor’s wrist swings the bell, up down, up down.
    In their room at home, she refuses to leave Tress alone until Tress shouts in her ear. “SPIT SPIT SPIT.” What does it matter that Grania hears nothing? Some part of her head will hear, even if her ears do not.
    Now it is her turn. “Listen,” she says. “Tell when my voice is wrong.”
    Tell.
    Tress listens for a few moments but she is impatient. She has homework to do.
    “Watch me, Graw. What am I saying?” She faces Grania, moves her lips and pretends to speak. But Grania can tell that her sister is faking. Her throat, her tongue, her cheeks, her breath are not making real words.
    Grania jumps on her, sits on top of her. “You’d better help me,”she says. “Helpmehelpme say it right.”
    But Tress is not in the mood. “Just a minute,” she says. “Wait.”She holds up a palm and looks towards the closed door. “Mother is calling. I’m supposed to tell you to go