CHAPTER TWELVE

Sosie wasn’t afraid of the jungle. Her ears didn’t register the screeches and growls that so unnerved the others. She heard only her heartbeat, which ticked in rhythm with the swaying leaves of a tree, the tiny ripples in the stream, the flutter of feathers on the wild bird roughly ten paces ahead of her. Her pumiced spear at the ready, Sosie crouched behind the bush to watch and wait. The bird pecked at seeds on the ground. It probably cooed or gobbled or some shit like that, but she couldn’t hear it. Maybe it was complaining about the quality of the seeds: “Really? Seeds again? I thought Wednesdays were taco day!” That’s right, birdie. Life’s unfair, Sosie thought as she poised her stick to strike. Go out squawking.

When the virus stole most of Sosie’s hearing, it also stole her right to complain. She figured out early that nobody liked an angry disabled person. It messed with their sympathy, with the story in their head about people overcoming adversity to be shining lights in the world. People wanted to think you were so okay with it all so they wouldn’t have to expend any energy feeling guilty. Sosie had played her part, being the smiling, plucky, don’t-worry-about-me, lip-reading Pollyanna. If she was angry about how unfair life could be, she never let on. Not like Fawnda Toussaint. Fawnda was fat and in a wheelchair due to cerebral palsy. She had not gotten the memo about how disabled people were supposed to be happy and noble all the time in order to make people without disabilities feel okay about being lucky bastards.

Sosie was in sixth grade when her teacher had wheeled Fawnda over to her at recess. “SOSIE,” she shouted with a smile. “THIS IS FAWNDA. SHE MIGHT NEED A FRIEND HERE AT BRIGHT PROMISES ELEMENTARY. I’LL LET YOU TWO GET ACQUAINTED.”

Sosie had only heard about every third word, but she understood completely that Mrs. Brewer thought she could pair disabled kids like socks. Still, she played along.

“Hi. I’m Sosie. I may be disabled but that doesn’t stop me from —”

Fawnda glared. “Stop.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said, Stop. With. The. Bullshit,” Fawnda enunciated clearly.

Sosie’s cheeks grew hot. “It’s not, um, what you said. I choose to have a positive attitude. I don’t let my hearing loss get me down. I can do anything a hearing person can do.”

Fawnda’s eyes went flinty. She grabbed a notebook from the purse dangling from her chair and scribbled with hard strokes. Then she held up the notebook for Sosie to read: Yeah? Anything? Like hear? While Sosie digested the shock of it, Fawnda flipped the notebook closed, placed it back in the purse, and stared out at the kids racing around screaming on the blacktop.

“Why are you being so mean?” Sosie asked.

Fawnda answered with a mangled shrug. “I’m not here to make anybody feel better,” she enunciated. Then she wheeled herself off.

Fawnda stuck to her guns. Her seventh grade essay was entitled “The Cerebral Palsy Wheelchair Olympics Blues.” Her eighth grade poetry unit featured the poems “Reasons I Hate You,” “Hope You Enjoy Those Legs, Cheerleader Beyotch,” and “Dear Weil-Meaning Church Groups: Please Ask Jesus to Stop Dicking Around and Get Me Out of This Chair. Sincerely, Fawnda.” Those had landed her a visit from the guidance counselor, who’d suggested that Fawnda might try an art therapy group to help heal her inner tantruming child. Fawnda suggested the guidance counselor might try something that started with “F” and ended in “Off.” After that, Fawnda was sent to a special school for the differently abled — out of sight, out of mind, as if she had never existed.

Fawnda might not have been likeable. She might not even have been a nice person. But she had something: anger. It gave her a reason to wake up in the morning. And she wasn’t giving it up just to make some guidance counselor or church group feel okay. Deep down, Sosie had admired her. Because what had she herself done? Rolled over and showed her belly. Like me and I won’t be any trouble at all.

But things were different out here in the jungle. It was as if the wheels were coming off the old Sosie. She wasn’t interested in being everybody’s good sport anymore. The sweet deaf girl mascot. Fuck that.

Bye, Bye, Birdie, she thought and let the spear fly. It veered to the right, missing the bird and bouncing into the bushes. With a panicked rustle of feathers and probably a lot of squawking, the bird flapped its wings and scuttled away.

“Damn,” Sosie said. There was a tap on her shoulder and Sosie whipped around, ready to fight.

Jennifer put her hand up. “Whoa! Peace!”

“Sorry,” she signed. She retrieved the spear from the bushes.

“Cool. Very B-A-D-A-S-S,” Jennifer answered and finger-spelled. Her signing had gotten pretty good. “Want to go for a swim?”

“Nah. Wanna bag the bird. Sick of fish.”

“Okay. Let’s …” Jennifer stopped. “What’s the sign for hunt?” she asked. Sosie showed her and Jennifer repeated it. “This is cool. Like having a secret code.”

Sosie glared and Jennifer’s stomach tensed. “What did I say?”

“It’s not code. It’s how I talk.” She both said and signed it, her fingers moving sharply.

“I-I didn’t mean …”

“I just need you to know that it’s not some cute code. It’s a language. My language.”

Jennifer nodded. “What’s the sign for asshole?”

Sosie grinned. “Did you see which way it went?”

Jennifer shook her head.

“Crap.” Sosie stuck her spear into the ground. “Hey! I’ve been working on a new dance based on girl superheroes. Wanna see what I’ve got so far?”

Jennifer nodded enthusiastically. Without hesitation, Sosie launched into her sequence, a modern dance full of grace and power and vulnerability. When she was dancing, Sosie felt as powerful as any superhero. Her body did what she wanted it to without her having to say a word. With every flex of her foot or contraction of her muscles, she came wondrously alive, blood pumping, emotions playing across her face. Once, while dancing a piece from Swan Lake, she’d cried, so overcome by the beauty of it that she felt as if she really were the dying swan. But this dance was not about wounded bird girls, and Sosie reveled in unleashing the full power of her body.

Jennifer watched, awestruck, at Sosie’s grace and power and utter lack of self-consciousness. For most of her life, Jennifer had learned to hold her emotions in check. But it was obvious that Sosie had full access to hers, and Jennifer felt envious of her ease. She wondered why she’d held so tightly to her feelings for so long, and if it might be possible to give them some slack.

Sosie stopped, breathing heavily. “That’s all I’ve got so far.”

Jennifer clapped enthusiastically. She made the sign for awesome.

“Yeah?”

Jennifer nodded.

Sosie grinned and reached out to her friend. “Come dance with me.”

“Oh, no!” Jennifer waved her off.

“I’ll teach you! It’s easy.” Sosie pulled on Jennifer’s arm, but Jen resisted.

“I can’t dance,” Jennifer signed.

Sosie scoffed. “Everybody can dance. It’s about passion. It’s like kissing. If you can kiss, you can dance.” Sosie looked her square in the eyes. “Can you kiss?”

Jennifer blushed hard. “Well, yeah, but —”

Sosie brightened. “Then you can dance!”

Jennifer folded her arms across her chest and shook her head.

There were few things Sosie loved more than a direct challenge. If she had to pick a personal motto, it would be “Bring it!” Her grin was a dare. “Gonna make you.” Laughing, Sosie made another grab for Jennifer’s arms, but Jen, also laughing, broke away.

“You’re not the boss of me!” Jen yelled and adopted a fake ninja pose.

“I can make you… .” Sosie taunted. She snapped her fingers across her body like one of the Jets in West Side Story.

“Stop!”

Sosie stretched out her arm as if wielding some invisible energy source. “I have a secret weapon. A secret weapon … of dance!”

“Ooh!” Jennifer mock shuddered.

“You will be powerless against it.”

Jennifer dropped to the ground and sat, arms crossed, a defiantly amused expression playing across her face.

“Okaaay …” Sosie said in warning. She stood perfectly still, her hands held stiffly before her chest, her head tipped to one side, a blank expression on her doll-like face. With startling precision, Sosie’s feet began to move one way while her torso inched the other direction. Her hands jerked up and down like pistons. “Dance, earthling, dance.”

Jennifer’s mouth twitched toward a smile. “Are you doing … the robot?” She spelled out robot. “Oh. My. God.”

Sosie frowned. “Robot. Is. Sad. Because silly bitch. Will. Not. Dance.”

With that, Sosie dropped quickly to her knees and backed up, moving with tremendous skill. It was as if she were made of liquid and elastic. Her arms worked independently of her shoulders, and her neck swiveled back and forth like a pendulum. Somehow, she incorporated a mechanical beauty queen wave, which exploded into a motion where she seemed to pull herself up by an invisible string. It was ridiculous — and amazing.

“Sad. Sad. Sad.” Sosie lurched toward Jennifer, who laughed.

“That is messed up! Get away!”

“Dance, silly bitch,” Sosie intoned.

She made a strange whirring sound and watched wide-eyed as her arm shot out, machinelike, toward Jennifer’s. She pulled Jennifer to her feet, and this time Jen didn’t object. Sosie snaked an arm around Jennifer’s waist and bent her side to side as if they were a robot couple taking a turn around some factory dance floor.

“Robot. Getting. Happy. Robot. Like. Girl. Who. Can’t. Dance.”

“Hey!” Jennifer said, but she couldn’t stop laughing.

“Robot girl give rhythm chip for disability,” Sosie said, starting to lose it. “Do not let bad-dancing disability define you, bad-dancing girl. We will have benefit concert to help you. Can’t-Dance-For-Shit-A-Thon.”

Both girls laughed uncontrollably — full, body-shaking guffaws. In the laughter, the girls’ feet became entangled and they fell to the ground, Sosie on top of Jennifer, their faces separated by no more than an inch of warm jungle air. Jennifer looked into Sosie’s eyes. A small, involuntary sigh escaped. Sosie felt the breath soft and warm on her face and something fluttered deep inside her. A dance she did not yet know had begun.

Sosie tensed and jumped to her feet. “Robot leave girl alone now.”

“Thank God,” Jennifer said, but she didn’t mean it.

They glanced nervously at each other.

“Maybe you could teach me?” Jennifer signed.

Sosie smiled. “Sure,” she signed back.

The bird scrabbled into view. Seeing the girls, it squawked and darted into the dense jungle growth. With a war cry, Sosie grabbed her spear, and she and Jennifer ran after it, full-bore, without second-guessing.