No Talking

  She glared around the room.“Pass in your papers.” Everyone obeyed without a word. “Open to chapter four and read.The homework is on the board.”

  The next thirty-four minutes in the science room passed in complete silence, except for the rustle of paper and an occasional cough or sniffle.

  And sitting at her desk, Mrs. Marlow had to admit that she enjoyed the quiet, enjoyed not having to fight the battle of the mouth every second with these kids. The Unshushables were completely shushed, all right—very weird.

  But the science teacher wasn’t any closer to figuring out why the kids were acting this way.

  Dave felt something hit his arm and then drop onto his leg. It was a note.

  He glanced at Mrs. Marlow.All clear. So he slowly reached down, picked up the note, and unfolded it.

  You said, “Um, the first day.”

  Um counts as a word.

  So you said four, and you cost the boys one whole point—loser!

  Ha-ha!

  Lynsey

  Dave knew Lynsey was sitting two seats back on his left. And he knew she was waiting for him to turn around so she could give him a sickly-sweet little smile.

  So he didn’t turn around. But he felt the tops of his ears getting pink. And he began thinking of a million things he wished he could say to her—all sorts of clever insults, like, If brains were money, you’d be broke, or Wow—you can count to four! or I had a pet turtle that . . .

  “Mr. Packer—bring it here.”

  Dave snapped to attention and looked up to see Mrs. Marlow staring at him, holding out her hand.

  Putting on his best innocent face, Dave said, “What?”

  “The note. Here.”

  As Dave walked up and dropped the note into Mrs. Marlow’s hand, the bell rang.

  Mrs. Marlow tucked the paper into her pocket and then stood up quickly. Because when the bell rang, she had to hurry out her door and try to maintain law and order in the hallway between classes.

  But, of course, there was no need for the corridor police, not today. Mrs. Marlow watched all the fifth graders move from room to room, smiling, waving, making faces, nodding at each other.There were a few laughs and whistles, and she heard Tyler Rennert make a loud snort in the general direction of some girls, but there was no talking.

  She looked across the hall and caught Mrs. Escobar’s eye, and they both smiled and then shrugged at each other. And since there wasn’t any patrol work to do,Mrs.Marlow reached into her pocket and pulled out the captured note.And she read it.

  For a logical person like Mrs. Marlow, Lynsey’s note to Dave was like the Rosetta stone, a key that helped her begin to understand what she had seen and heard on the playground and then in her classroom.

  So . . . this whole thing was something about counting words. More than three words resulted in a penalty—which explained all those short answers from Ellen and Dave.And it was the boys against the

  girls—nothing new about that, not with this group. And they were all trying to keep quiet.

  Mrs. Marlow remembered the “jinx” game from her own school years, when two people said the same word at the same time and then had to keep quiet. Maybe it was like that.

  Except this wasn’t two people. It was more than a hundred and twenty-five of the most talkative children on planet Earth.

  As chunks of the puzzle began to fall into place, Mrs. Marlow immediately thought, The others are going to love this!

  She meant the other teachers. But then her scientific curiosity kicked in, and she thought, Why spoil the kids’ experiment? And I should really let the other teachers figure things out on their own. And, of course, my preliminary findings could be wrong. I should certainly gather more data before I present my theory to the scholarly community.

  And as Mrs. Marlow chuckled at her private joke, she said to herself, Kids!

  CHAPTER 12

  GUESSING GAMES

  Tuesday afternoon in the fifth-grade hall was a challenge for everyone.

  Mrs.Akers walked into the music room, sat at her piano, smiled, and said, “My, you are all behaving so well this afternoon—wonderful! Now, please open your songbooks to ‘This Land Is Your Land.’”

  As she played the introduction on the piano, she said,“Backs straight, big smiles, deep breaths, and . . .”

  No one sang.

  The piano stopped mid-measure, and Mrs. Akers frowned at the class. “Now, I know you can all do better than that.”

  She began the introduction again, counting in the beats.“One, and two, and three,‘This land is your land, this land . . .’”

  Mrs. Akers stopped. She was singing a solo, and

  her high, quivering voice made the kids giggle.

  She frowned again.“All right, students.This is not funny. And it’s not good. We have less than two weeks before our Thanksgiving program, and we have no time for this kind of silliness.”

  She pointed a bright pink fingernail around the room. “Brian, Tommy, Anna, every one of you! I want to hear you sing!”

  She banged out the introduction again, and the whole class sang,“This land is . . .” and then stopped.

  The piano kept playing, and Mrs.Akers bellowed, “Sing!” And most of the kids jumped in on “. . . my land, from . . .” and then stopped.

  After another shouted command, they sang “. . . the redwood forest ...,”and that’s how the whole song went, chopped up into three-word bits.

  And when Mrs.Akers, her face bright red by this point, thumped on her piano and said,“What is wrong with all of you today?” the kids didn’t say a word.

  Like all teachers, Mrs. Akers understood the “divide and conquer” rule: When you need to get to the bottom of something, you don’t ask the whole class; you ask one student. So she pointed at Lena in the front row and said,“Why aren’t you singing?”

  Lena hesitated, and then motioned at the kids all around the room and said,“Not talking today.”

  Mrs. Akers said, “What’s that supposed to mean? Not talking?”

  Lena nodded.“Only three words.”

  The music teacher was even more puzzled. She pointed at James and said,“Explain.”

  James had trouble expressing himself even under the best conditions. He gulped and took a deep breath.Then he said,“Not . . . words. Everyone.”

  A light dawned on Mrs. Akers’s face. And, still talking to James, she said, “Oh—so, is it like that project kids do, when they take a vow of silence? To protest how there’s still slavery in Africa? I read about that—is that it?”

  James looked lost. He shook his head. “Hard . . . explain. Not.”

  But Mrs. Akers felt like she had answered the riddle, or maybe partly answered it. And whatever was happening, she decided to be a good sport.

  Looking around the room, she said, “So, tell me—can you all hum? Is humming allowed?”

  Everyone grinned and nodded like maniacs. “How about clapping? Can you clap in rhythm?” More smiles and nods. “All right, then, here we go again,” and she ripped back into the piano. “One, and two, and three! Hmm hmm hmm hmmm hmmm . . .”

  And twenty-four fifth graders clapped and hummed along as Mrs. Akers played all seven verses of “This Land Is Your Land.” Then the whole class giggled and laughed and hummed and clapped their way through the other four songs on the Thanksgiving program.

  And they all survived their first wordless music class.

  The fifth-period gym class was less dramatic than music. News had gotten to most of the teachers that the fifth graders had gone quiet, which didn’t bother the gym teacher at all.Tuesday was dodgeball day, so Mrs. Henley appointed the two captains, and then the captains picked their teams by pointing, and the first game got under way—all without a word.

  Dodgeball, which can be pretty serious anyway, seemed especially grim without the talking and shouting. There were the usual grunts of effort and screams of terror, and when three or four kids with red dodgeballs would silently go hunting for one player on
the other team, it was sort of like watching a pack of wolves go after a lone caribou:A motion of the leader’s head, a movement toward the prey, and then, Whack! Whack! WHOMP!—dead meat.

  From the gym teacher’s point of view, dodgeball was all about improving reflexes and getting a good

  large-motor-skills workout, and to accomplish those goals without any of the taunting and teasing and name-calling? That was just fine by her.

  Even so, Mrs. Henley watched all three games with great interest, and she saw how the kids communicated without words.And she noticed herself pointing and shaking her head and blowing her whistle instead of yelling. It was nice to give her voice a rest.

  Mr. Burton taught fifth-grade reading and language arts. He was puzzled at the beginning of the class right after lunch, and like the music teacher and the science teacher, he asked questions and got three-word answers. But he kept at it, and after about five minutes, he figured out what was going on, at least part of it.

  Unlike Mrs. Marlow, Mr. Burton had a lot of patience and a pretty good sense of humor. And he couldn’t see any real problem with having these kids be this well-behaved. Anything that got the Unshushables quiet was fine by him. Plus, he decided they could all have some fun with this limit of three words in a row.

  He picked a funny story from their reading textbook, a really short one, and he had the kids read it out loud, three words each and as fast as possible, with him calling out the name of the next narrator.

  And when the story was finished, he said,“Okay, now I want you to make up a story.” He picked up a meter stick and said, “When I point at you, say a three-word sentence.And listen carefully, so you can make the story move forward. Here we go.”

  The story started like this:

  “A woman screamed.”

  “She was scared.”

  “It was dark.”

  “‘Oh, no—snakes!’”

  “One bit her.”

  “‘Ow! My leg!’”

  “She limped outside.”

  “Her neighbor came.”

  “‘What’s wrong?’”

  “‘Snakes are everywhere!’”

  “‘Are they poisonous?’”

  “‘Yes, and smelly!’”

  “‘Quick, my car!’”

  “‘You saved me!’”

  “‘Darn! Dead battery!’”

  Round and round the room the story went.

  The poor woman and her neighbor were eventually eaten by the huge orange lizards that came up out of the sewers and ripped the roof off the car.The lizards also ate all the snakes. But then some ugly tulips in the garden grew razor-blade teeth and ate the lizards. And then the tulips burped giant burps, which created a tornado that made the Statue of Liberty fall over and crush a tugboat, which made a wave that washed all the way to the White House and got muddy water all over the president’s polka-dotted underpants.

  It was quite a tale.

  The period ended, and as the students walked quietly out of the room, Mr. Burton got a lot of waves and smiles and thumbs-ups.And he waved and smiled back at the kids. No words were needed.

  It had been a successful class—fun, creative, lively, and everyone had used their word skills in new ways. Mr. Burton felt great.

  The next forty minutes was his planning period, and then came the last class of the day, period seven. He had some papers to grade, but Mr. Burton was too excited. Because what these kids were doing—well, it felt like a once-in-a-lifetime chance to mess around with words and language and communication, to try something fresh, something special.After all, science teachers aren’t the only people who like a good experiment.

  So Mr. Burton sat at his desk, thinking and thinking. Finally, with about two minutes before period seven, he got it—a great idea. Plus, he realized that this situation could be useful to him in a totally unexpected way.

  And as the bell rang, Mr. Burton noticed that he was actually looking forward to his last class of the afternoon—another proof that this was not an ordinary day.

  CHAPTER 13

  LANGUAGE LAB

  As his last class of the day came into Mr. Burton’s room, he didn’t speak, and of course, neither did the students. The bell rang, and all the kids watched him as he put a stack of lined paper on the front desk of each row.Then he turned to the chalkboard and began to write.

  Today there will be writing only. Nothing will be turned in, but everyone must write all period long, and everyone must communicate with at least four other people. You may not stop writing for more than fifteen seconds. As soon as you have paper, begin.

  In less than one minute, every kid had paper.And in less than two minutes, the first notes were changing hands.

  Todd wrote, “I still think this no talking thing is stupid,” and he passed the paper to Kyle.

  Kyle read the note and wrote, “I sorta like it. It’s different. A challenge.”

  And then Todd wrote, “Challenge? What challenge? The teachers already know about it. Like Mr. Burton. He’s just messing with us. Thinks it’s great we’re not talking. I LIKE TALKING!”

  Kyle read, and he wrote back, “Too bad. Think how hard it is for all the blabby girls—we’re gonna win this contest. Beat the girls! Beat the girls! Beat the girls! Get it? It’s a silent cheer, like at a basketball game. Cool, huh?”

  Todd wrote back, “Cool? Dude, it’s lame. Here’s my silent cheer—Kyle’s a Dork! Kyle’s a Dork! Kyle’s a Dork!”

  Kyle read the note, made a face at Todd, and then turned his back on him and started up a chat with Eric. No talking made it very simple to tune someone out.

  A few seats away, Emily was having a hot argument with Taron. “I did not say you couldn’t come over after school. I just said what’s the point? If we can’t talk.That’s all.”

  Taron read the note, shook her head, and wrote, “I know you don’t like me as much as you like Kelly. So stop pretending.”

  Emily rolled her eyes and wrote, “Don’t be like that.”

  Taron shrugged and wrote,“Like what?” Emily used block letters for emphasis. “ALL SNIFFY AND SNOOFY AND OUCHY—I HATE THAT.”

  “See?”Taron wrote. “Hate.That’s what you said. You hate me.”

  Emily scribbled, “Don’t be an idiot! I don’t hate you. Come over after school. Really. We’ll think of something to do. But we’re gonna want to talk. I know we will. And we can’t.”

  And Taron wrote back, “I’m NOT coming. You think I’m an idiot.”

  Emily read that, and then ripped the paper to pieces. And she reached across the aisle and patted Taron on the arm, and smiled her warmest smile, and then wrote on a fresh sheet of paper, “After school. My house, okay?”

  Taron smiled back and nodded.

  All around the room, kids were having to figure out the new rules for communicating.And for most of them, writing was a lot harder than talking. It was

  slower, like instant messaging—only less instant, and less fun because there was no computer to mess with. There was so much less give-and-take than there was with talking. The Unshushables weren’t used to that. At all.

  Dave had just finished a frustrating set of back-and-forth messages with Bill.

  Bill couldn’t understand how to keep from getting called offside during a soccer game. Dave had explained it three different ways. He had drawn pictures and diagrams and everything, and Bill still couldn’t figure it out.

  So Dave passed a note to Ed, because he was the best junior league player in town. “Bill doesn’t get the offside rule. HELP!”

  Ed read the note, nodded at Bill, bent over his paper, and began writing.

  Dave looked around for a new partner, and he saw that Lynsey was passing notes with Helena.They seemed to be having a great time, nodding a lot and cracking each other up. Probably gossiping, he thought. About something really stupid.

  He grabbed a clean sheet of paper and began a note to Lynsey: “What’s the difference between you and a toxic waste dump?” But he decided that
riddle was too harsh, even for Lynsey. Even if it was true.

  He crumpled the paper and took another sheet. But before he started writing, he got up, walked to a bookcase, and grabbed a dictionary.

  He flipped the pages and then ran his fingers down a column of words. And there it was:

  um also umm ([ə]m)

  interjection. Used to express doubt or uncertainty or to fill a pause when hesitating in speaking.

  So Lynsey had been right about something. For once.

  He sat back down and wrote, “Hey, Captain Burgess, how’s the war going? Ready to surrender?”

  Dave nudged Jason, handed him the note, and pointed at Lynsey.

  Jason nudged Lynsey and held the note out to her. And when she glared at him, Jason shook his head and pointed back at Dave.

  Lynsey made a face and then took the paper, holding it between her thumb and forefinger like it was a squashed toad.

  She read the message, wrote a little, and nudged Jason, who passed the paper back to Dave.

  Her reply was, “It’s General Burgess. Check the score, dimbo. Girls rule, boys are losers. As usual. You’re gonna get totally schooled!”

  Jason handed the paper back to Dave. He read her message, made a snarly face at her, and then wrote, “Don’t count on it. Always the big talker.”

  And sitting there frowning at the paper, once again Dave felt this overpowering wish that he could show Lynsey who was the boss, settle the question once and for all, really put her in her place.

  And in answer to this wish, an idea popped into his head—an idea he probably should have ignored.

  But he didn’t.

  Pressing down hard with his pencil, Dave wrote, “How about you and me go head-to-head, have our own special no-talking match? Starting right now, you and me. Unless you’re scared. And the winner gets to write a big L on the loser’s forehead. With permanent marker. On the playground after lunch on Thursday. How’s that sound?” And he gave the paper to Jason.

  Lynsey grabbed the paper from Jason and read it, and there was no hesitation. She looked at Dave, nodded a big yes, held up her hand with her fingers making an L, and pointed at him. Then she wrote something and handed the paper to Helena, who read everything, wrote something, and passed the paper back to Lynsey, who wrote something more and then passed the paper to Jason, who passed it back to Dave.