Jessi's Secret Language

  “You’re sure it’s not the real thing?” said Dawn.

  “You really think there’s a sign in that dictionary of Jessi’s for banana-brain?”

  “No,” replied Dawn, giggling.

  “We’ll have to invite Haley and Matt over again,” said Mallory carefully. “If my brothers and sisters like secret languages so much, then they ought to be able to learn the real thing.”

  “And if they did learn it,” said Dawn slowly, catching on, “Matt could communicate with the kids in the neighborhood — with kids who can hear.”

  When Mallory told me this the next day, my heart leaped. It was more than I’d hoped for. It was like getting the part of Swanilda when I wasn’t even sure I could be one of the townspeople.

  The Pikes’ secret language meant that they were going to accept Matt. I was sure of it. It meant that they wanted to communicate with him. I thought it might even mean that they would want to learn actual American Sign Language.

  And it meant one more thing — that the kids would probably get to know and like Haley, just for herself.

  I couldn’t wait until Haley realized that.

  Rehearsal.

  My bones ached. My muscles ached. Each and every one of my toes ached.

  Being Swanilda was not easy.

  It was four o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, and the cast of Coppélia had been rehearsing for hours.

  “We want per-fec-see-yun,” said Madame Noelle crisply. “Per-fec-see-yun.” She banged her club on the floor. “Nothing less. Mademoiselle Parsons,” (that was Katie Beth), “you must turn the head faster and start the turn a little later. Just a froction of a second, non? Mademoiselle Bramstedt,” (that was Mary, one of the townspeople), “higher on the toes. This is a toe-doncing, en pointe production. Please to remember. Mademoiselle Romsey, excellent work.”

  I closed my eyes with relief. Thank goodness. That was all she’d said to me that day. Of course, I’d been working extra hard — practicing longer hours at home and putting every ounce of me into my dancing.

  The other cast members glanced at me approvingly. I was glad. I needed their approval. I wanted to show them that I could be a good Swanilda even if I was young and new at the school.

  “Okay, closs. Our time is ended,” said Madame. “This was a good rehearsal. Go change now. I will see you in your closses next week.”

  As I walked toward the dressing room, a hand touched my shoulder. I looked around. It was Katie Beth. She was with Hilary.

  “Good work,” said Katie Beth briskly.

  “Yeah, good work,” agreed Hilary. “Nice job.”

  They linked arms and walked away.

  Not exactly friendly, but a whole lot better than the sarcastic comments they used to make. Katie Beth had almost smiled.

  In the changing room, I got dressed slowly. Daddy had said he’d be a little late picking me up. Even though it was Saturday, he was in his office in Stamford. He was working on a special project and had a big deadline coming up. That morning he’d told me that he’d pick me up at 4:30, after some important meeting.

  Although I changed my clothes slowly, I was dressed by 4:10. I walked into the lobby of the school to wait for my father. I sat on a bench and watched the other students stream past me, out the front door. When things quieted down, I noticed Katie Beth sitting on another bench, not far away.

  We smiled embarrassed smiles and looked at our hands.

  After a moment, I looked up again. Katie Beth wasn’t alone. Sitting next to her was a younger girl, about Haley’s age. She looked somewhat like Katie, or would have if she’d pulled her long hair back from her face, the way Katie’s was fixed.

  Were they sisters? If they were, why weren’t they talking? When Becca and I are together, we never shut up.

  Katie Beth caught me looking at her and said, “This is my sister, Adele.”

  “Hi, Adele,” I said.

  Adele didn’t answer, but when Katie Beth nudged her, she smiled at me.

  I decided to take a big risk. I got up and moved to the bench next to Katie Beth and Adele. “I’m waiting for my father,” I told them. “He won’t be here until four-thirty.” I checked my watch. “Fifteen more minutes.”

  Katie Beth nodded. “We’re waiting for our mom. She’s talking to Madame Noelle. She’s upset because I need new toe shoes so often.”

  I nodded understandingly. “My parents don’t like it, either. But there’s really nothing you can do about it.”

  “That’s what I tried to tell Mom, but …”

  Katie’s voice trailed off and I knew she meant, “Go try to figure out parents.”

  I smiled.

  Just then, Adele touched her sister on the arm. Katie Beth turned to look at her. To my great surprise, Adele signed bathroom. She was using American Sign Language!

  To my even greater surprise, Katie Beth looked at her sister as if she were a cockroach, and then turned back to me. She was blushing bright red.

  Adele nudged Katie Beth again and signed bathroom for the second time. She was getting that look on her face that Becca sometimes gets which means, “This is an extreme emergency. I need the bathroom now.”

  “Hey, Katie,” I said, “Adele can use the bathroom down the hall. No one would mind.” I signed that to Adele, who gave me the most incredibly grateful look you can imagine, jumped to her feet, and ran down the hall. As she passed me, hair flying, I caught sight of the hearing aids in her ears.

  Katie Beth glanced at me, puzzled.

  “She had to go to the bathroom,” I told her.

  “You mean you understood her?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “Didn’t you?” I was sure bathroom was one of the most popular signs in sign language. It was probably the first one ever made up.

  “No,” Katie Beth answered in surprise. “I don’t know sign language.”

  “You don’t? But how do you live with Adele? How do you know wh —”

  “Oh, I don’t live with her,” Katie Beth broke in. “Not really. She goes to a special school for the deaf. It’s in Massachusetts. She lives there most of the time. She only comes home for holidays, part of the summer, and a few weekends.”

  “But when she’s home,” I pressed, “how do you talk with her?”

  “Well, I don’t exactly. I mean, my parents and I don’t. Sometimes if we shout really loudly, she can hear us a little. And she can read lips, sort of.”

  “Does she talk?”

  Katie Beth shook her head. “Nope. She could but she won’t. She is so stubborn.”

  I wondered about that, considering the sounds I’d heard coming from Matt’s throat.

  Then another thought occurred to me Boy, was Matt ever lucky. How terrible it must be for Adele. She couldn’t even communicate with her own family, unless they wrote everything down all the time, and I didn’t think there was much chance of that.

  I still wasn’t sure that the Braddocks had done the right thing by teaching Matt only sign language, but I did see that they were a pretty incredible family. They’d kept him at home (Adele must have felt pushed off the face of the earth), and they’d all made the effort to learn and use sign language — fluently.

  “You know,” I said to Katie Beth, “sign language is fun. And in a way, it’s like dancing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, it’s a way of expressing yourself using your body.”

  Katie Beth looked thoughtful. Then she asked, “How come you know how to sign?”

  I told her about Matt. “I could show you some signs,” I said as Adele returned from the bathroom.

  “I don’t know …”

  “Oh, come on. It’s fun. Look — this is the sign for dance.” I demonstrated.

  “Hey, cool!” exclaimed Katie Beth.

  Adele was watching us. She smiled. Then she used her hands to ask me if I was a dancer like her sister.

  I nodded. Then I asked her how old she was.

  Adele held up one hand and formed her in
dex finger and thumb into a circle, her other fingers pointing upward.

  Nine. (There are signs for numbers, just like there are for letters.)

  So she was Haley’s age.

  “Do you dance?” I signed to Adele.

  She shrugged. Then she signed back that she couldn’t hear the music, and she didn’t know ballet, but she liked to dance in her own way.

  During our signed conversation, Katie Beth had been watching us curiously. I knew she didn’t know what Adele and I were saying to each other, and I wondered how she felt being left out of a conversation. At the Parsonses’ house, Adele must always be left out.

  “What are you saying?” Katie Beth couldn’t resist asking.

  I told her. Then I showed her the signs for a few more words. Adele was grinning away.

  By the time Adele and Katie Beth’s mother showed up, it was almost 4:30. I walked outside with the Parsonses to watch for Daddy’s car.

  “Good-bye!” called Katie Beth as they drove off. “And thanks! See you on Monday!”

  “Bye!” I called back. Adele and I waved to each other.

  I felt that something important had happened between Katie Beth and me. We were linked. She would never call me a teacher’s pet again. But we probably also would not wind up as best friends. My only best friends were Keisha and Mallory. I was linked to them, too, but those links were much, much stronger.

  Saturday

  Jessie youre secrit langage is a hit. Its catching on everywhere and its the best babysiting game ever invinted. I used it to in entr entirtane Karen Andrew and David Micheal.

  See I sat at Kristys house last night. Kristy was at a baketball game with her big borthers Sam and Charlie. I love siting but the house scars me. And Karen doesn’t help with her gost stories and which stories. So last night when Karen started with the ghost stuff I dicided to show the kids a litle of the secrit langage. They love it!

  The secret language sure was catching on, and I couldn’t have been happier. The more kids who learned it, even just a few words of it, the more kids Matt could “talk” to. I was really happy about Claudia’s notebook entry. Of course, I knew before I read the entry that Claudia was teaching the secret language to Kristy’s little brother, stepbrother, and stepsister. That was because Claudia and Karen kept calling me and asking me to look up things in the sign language dictionary. But, as usual, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start back at the beginning of the evening when Claudia arrived at Kristy’s house.

  Claudia’s mother dropped her off at the Brewer mansion at seven o’clock. Claudia rang the bell, and it was answered by Karen Brewer, Kristy’s stepsister. Kristy loves her stepbrother and stepsister just as much as if they were her real brother and sister. She wishes she could see them more often. But Karen and Andrew mostly live with their mother and stepfather. They only stay at their father’s house every other weekend, every other holiday, and for two weeks during the summer.

  Karen is this bouncy, bold little girl who loves to scare people (including herself) with stories about witches and ghosts. She’s even convinced that her father’s next-door neighbor, Mrs. Porter, is actually a witch named Morbidda Destiny. And she’s sure that a ghost named Ben Brewer (some old ancestor of hers, I guess) haunts the third floor of her father’s house.

  Andrew, on the other hand, is shy and quiet. Karen often scares him, although she doesn’t mean to. Usually, she’s very protective of him, and he adores her.

  That night, Claudia was going to be sitting for Karen, Andrew, and David Michael, Kristy’s seven-year-old brother. Claudia arrived just as Kristy, Sam, and Charlie were running out the door to the Stoneybrook High versus Mercer High basketball game.

  “Bye, Kristy! Hi, Karen!” said Claudia.

  “Bye!” called Kristy as the door slammed behind her.

  “Hi,” said Karen. “I’m going to be very busy tonight. There’s a ghost party on the third floor.”

  “And you’re going to it?” asked Claudia, trying to look serious.

  “Are you kidding?” replied Karen. “That would be crazy. But I’m in charge of refreshments. All night it’s going to be my job to take food to the bottom of the third-floor stairs and leave it there for the ghosts.”

  “What are you going to feed them?”

  “Ghost pâté,” replied Karen. “It’s really the only thing for a ghost party.”

  “Well, I’m sure they’ll appreciate it,” said Claudia.

  “Hi, Claudia,” spoke up another voice. It was Kristy’s mother, the new Mrs. Brewer. “Thanks for coming. Mr. Brewer and I will be home by ten-thirty. And the kids should go to bed at nine.”

  “Aw, Elizabeth,” complained Karen. “Andrew’s younger than me. He should go to bed before I do.”

  “But it’s Friday, honey,” Mrs. Brewer pointed out. “He can stay up a little later.”

  “Then I get to stay up even later than he does.”

  Kristy’s mother sighed. “All right. Claudia, Andrew’s bedtime is nine o’clock, Karen’s is nine-fifteen, and David Michael’s is nine-thirty.”

  “Goody!” cried Karen, jumping up and down. “Thank you!” Claudia thought Karen might complain about David Michael’s bedtime, but she didn’t. Fair was fair.

  “Now,” Mrs. Brewer went on, “Andrew is getting over tonsillitis and needs a spoonful of liquid penicillin before he goes to bed. The bottle is in the kitchen, in the cabinet next to the refrigerator.”

  “Okay,” Claudia replied.

  “I guess that’s it. You know where the emergency numbers are. And Mr. Brewer and I will just be across the street at the Papadakises’.”

  The Brewers left, and Karen and Claudia went upstairs to the big playroom, where they found Andrew and David Michael building a space station out of Legos and Tinker Toys.

  “Hi, guys,” Claudia greeted the boys.

  “Hi!” they replied.

  “Want to help us?” asked Andrew.

  “Sure.” Claudia sat down in front of the space station.

  “Well,” said Karen, “I guess I better go.”

  “Go where?” asked Claudia vaguely, sifting through a pile of Legos.

  “Down to the kitchen, then up to the ghosts.”

  “Down to the kitchen?” Claudia repeated. “For real food?”

  “Sure. That’s where the ghost pâté is.”

  “What’s ghost pâté?” asked Andrew nervously.

  “Don’t worry about it,” David Michael told him. “Karen’s just pretending again.”

  “Am not!” cried Karen.

  “Are too!”

  “Hold it! Hold it!” said Claudia. (Silence.) “Karen, use pretend food, okay? You don’t need to go down to the kitchen.”

  There were, Claudia thought, a few problems with living in a house as big as the Brewers’. For instance, it was easy for the kids to get out of ear-shot in the house, and Claudia didn’t like that. And when she sat downstairs at night waiting for the Brewers to come home, she sometimes felt terrified.

  Then Claudia added, “And Andrew, don’t worry. It really is just a game.”

  “Is not!” said Karen indignantly. She stooped down, pretended to pick something up, and walked out of the room calling, “Here comes the pâté!”

  When she returned, Claudia decided that it might be a good idea to get Karen’s mind off the ghost party. First she tried to interest her in the boys’ space station. When that didn’t work, she said in a hushed, excited-sounding voice, “How would you guys like to learn a secret language?”

  “Huh?” replied Andrew and David Michael. They didn’t look up from their work.

  But Karen said, “A secret language? What do you mean?”

  “I,” Claudia began, “can show you how to talk without making any sounds at all. Without even opening your mouth.”

  Now she had captured even the boys’ attention. “That’s impossible,” said David Michael.

  “No, it isn’t.” Claudia made the sign for dance, which I had shown the m
embers of the Baby-sitters Club. “That means dance,” she informed them.

  She showed them three other signs. “Some deaf people,” she told the kids, “know thousands of signs. They can have whole conversations with their hands.”

  “Is there a sign for ghost?” asked Karen.

  “Probably,” Claudia replied. “But I don’t know what it is.”

  “Oh.” Karen looked disappointed.

  “I know how we can find out, though,” Claudia said, brightening. “We’ll call Jessi Ramsey. She has a dictionary with all the signs in it. She can look up ghost.”

  The four of them trooped into the hallway, and Claudia dialed my number. Becca answered the phone and called me into our kitchen. When Claudia had explained what was going on, I said, “Just a sec. I’ll go get the book.”

  I ran to my room, grabbed the dictionary off my desk, and tried to look up ghost as I was running back to the kitchen. “Here it is!” I exclaimed. (I was pleased to be able to help Claudia. Sometimes Mal and I feel like the babies of the Baby-sitters Club, since we’re younger and have been members for such a short time.) “There is a sign for ghost. Only it’s going to be kind of hard to describe.”

  I did my best.

  Then Karen wanted the sign for witch. That one was almost impossible to explain over the phone. After witch, she wanted cat, storm, night, and black.

  I thought that was the end of things, but no sooner had I put the dictionary away than the phone rang again. This time it was Karen herself.

  “I forgot the sign for night,” she said.

  I tried to explain it again.

  “And is there a sign for afraid?”

  “What are you going to do?” I asked Karen. “Sign a ghost story?”

  “Yes,” she replied seriously.

  I smiled. “Okay.” (The sign for afraid is covering your heart in fear with both hands. I love it, I just love it.)

  Meanwhile, back at Kristy’s house, Karen was trying to sign her ghost story. She didn’t know nearly enough words, though, and soon gave up.

  “Let’s make ourselves a snack and then you guys will have to start getting ready for bed,” Claudia told the kids.