The Color of Silence Page 17

  “There has to be a way to tell the computer when you’re at the end of the word. I guess this is why we’re supposed to wait for Shawna.”

  I stare at the screen for a while and then it hits me in the face. There’s a little rectangular icon at the bottom of the screen that says End. I point it out to her and slap my head in the universal sign for “duh.” Joanie laughs.

  “Try looking at that End square when you’re done with the word.”

  She looks at me and smiles her understanding.

  Or she’s smiling because she thinks I’m an idiot for not seeing it sooner.

  She focuses for several seconds on the screen. A few minutes pass by with some random letter sounds popping out when she accidentally focuses on the wrong letter…but then—

  “Hi,” the robot Joanie voice says.

  I look at her face, all twisted up in her own patented crazy grin.

  I know it’s kind of nuts, but for just a second, she reminds me of Cali. It’s something in her eyes that says, “Hey, look at me! I’m awesome!”

  “Hi.” Emotions I haven’t felt in a while steal my voice away and the word puffs out in a tiny whisper.

  Joanie hears me anyway.

  I can see it in her eyes.

  Chapter 36

  Hi!

  I said “Hi” to Alexandra!

  I found the letters and made a word that I wanted to say, and she heard me and said it back.

  It’s a very small word, but it’s all mine! No one put it there for me.

  I am so very glad that I paid attention to Ms. Blaine when she tried to unlock the mysterious rules of spelling for us so many years ago. Vowels and consonants. I before e except after c. Many ways to make the same sound…ea, ee, ie all saying the same thing…except when they don’t. Silent letters thrown in beside their noisier neighbor for no apparent purpose at all.

  Then again, in my world, all the letters were silent.

  But not now. Now when I try to spell, there is a voice. It isn’t my voice, but it’s saying my words. At least, it’s trying to.

  Trying to figure out how to spell the words takes a lot of time and makes me tired, though. Alexandra told me there are ways to store important words on the computer so I can have screens of my very own choices. I hope Shawna has time soon to show us how to do that so we can make everything move more quickly.

  I feel as if I’m in a race with my words, and if I don’t get moving faster, I’ll never catch up, and they’ll get to the finish line without me.

  I hope Alexandra will figure out a way to tell Shawna that

  I can read and spell so we can get moving. It feels like I’m figuring out how to talk faster than she is right now.

  At least she talks to me now. I really like that she does that.

  “Hi, kid. Time to get you out of that chair. Your legs must be starting to bother you by now.”

  Patrick is here! Alexandra left the Wizard awake and ready, just in case he came, so I could surprise him. This is my chance. I have to calm down or I’ll do it wrong. Come on, Joanie. You can do it. Talk to Patrick.

  “Hi.”

  For the second time today, I have stopped someone in their tracks with a single word. Patrick just freezes, a statue carved out of surprise, staring at me as if I suddenly jumped out of my chair and did a tap dance across the floor for him.

  “Wow! That’s…amazing. I mean, I saw the whole thing when Shawna explained it to us and all, but this is…amazing. I already said that, didn’t I? I’m running out of amazing words. It’s just…well, you’ve never talked to me before.” His feet come unfrozen and he moves the rest of the way across the floor. His eyes are wet and shiny as he bends down and gives me a kiss on the cheek. I feel warm suddenly, and I imagine my cheeks flushed as red as the cartoon characters who run around looking silly on Patrick’s shirt.

  “This is great, kid. I’m proud of you. I’m going to make some time to work on this with you. I promise. I’ll get Alexandra to show it to me again next time she’s in. Deal?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes! You said ‘yes.’ First ‘hi,’ and now ‘yes’! This is so cool. I sound like a kid. I feel like a kid. I mean, I’ve seen these things on TV, you know? But I’ve never seen someone use it live and in person. I’ve never seen you use it. It must feel so amazing to you—having words for the first time. But you look a little tired now. So for today, I’ll turn this off. I hope I remember how she showed us.”

  He is so excited for me. It feels nice to have someone so happy for something that has happened to me. He puts the Wizard and me back into silence and then transfers me into bed. When Patrick does the transfer, it’s never a two-person job. He’s the best at it in the whole world, quick and painless.

  Painless. That’s a funny word. It’s supposed to mean without pain, but that’s not what I mean. I mean what it says. When Patrick moves me there is less pain than when other people do it. Painless. Without pain should be called…unpained or nonpain or something like that.

  Words.

  Patrick said that I have them for the first time.

  But that’s not really true.

  Patrick would be surprised to know that I have my very own stories and poems that live inside of me, made out of my dreams and hopes and thoughts and ideas and feelings.

  He might think it’s too bad that I can’t put them out into the air so that other people can hear them, but I’ve always been happy just keeping them for myself. After all, they are mine.

  I’m not sure all of my inside thoughts can even be translated into outside words. Besides, some thoughts are too precious to give away.

  But not all of them! Lots of them have been stuck in this brain of mine far too long, and they’re totally ready to fly!

  Patrick doesn’t know that I’ve always been filled with wild and whirling words that buzz around inside my mind, trying to discover how to get outside and show the world who I am.

  Thanks to the Wizard, my words are finally going to get a chance to break free.

  The outside world had better watch out!

  Chapter 37

  “So, I emailed Shawna and told her that I thought maybe she’s moving a bit slowly for you. She was cool about it and sent me some directions on how to do the spelling page. She also programmed in some whole words to try, and she gave me all the steps to get at them and to program in any new words we figure out are important to you.”

  I kind of wave the paper full of words at her. Joanie looks at me, big eyes staring intently, and it suddenly occurs to me that I did all of this without asking her first. Treating her like a kid. Nice one, Alex.

  “I hope that’s OK. I guess I should have asked you if you thought that was a good idea. I know I told you I was going to bring her here, but I thought we’d have to wait too long. I didn’t mean to go behind your back or anything. I should have talked to you first. Not cool. I’m sorry. I guess I can ask you now though. Is it OK?”

  She looks at me for a second, her eyes literally sparkling. I think she accepts my apology. I think she’s laughing at me a little too.

  The machine is up and ready. She looks away from me and stares at it intently.

  “Yes.”

  The robot voice always sounds the same. It can’t sound excited, but I pretend that it did. Joanie definitely looks excited. I look at the paper in my hand. I basically have it memorized, but I feel a little nervous. I want to make sure I do everything right.

  “OK. Well, the first thing it says here is that we need to do more basic target practice. Getting the letters you want on the first try, then getting them fast enough so that they go together before you end them.”

  I’m talking too much today. Maybe I’m a bit excited too. I’m not sure though. It’s been so long that I don’t remember what it feels like.

>   We start to play around with it. She tries a few different words; some of them make sense and others don’t. A couple of times she looks really surprised when the computer seems to finish the word for her before she has a chance to finish picking out the letters—it’s like texting with the word-prediction option on. I forgot to tell her about that. Obviously Joanie’s never texted anyone.

  “I forgot to tell you that the computer is programmed to guess what you’re trying to spell. It finishes the word for you. Does that make sense?”

  “Yes.”

  “If it says the wrong word, Shawna said just do the No square for now. Once you have most of your own words programmed in, it won’t be as big a problem, because you won’t be spelling as much.”

  We play around with the spelling a bit more before moving on to the programmed words. Shawna told me that, assuming Joanie can spell, we should work on it long enough to get a sense of what words she would want in the preprogrammed word bank.

  I’m assuming Joanie can spell.

  I assume Joanie can do it all.

  “Shawna picked a few words for you to try. She told me to read them to you so you would understand which word was in which spot.”

  “No.” She looks at me. Her eyes seem to be putting an exclamation point on that one. No what?

  “Are you saying you don’t want to work on words?”

  “No.” An even bigger exclamation point this time. I’m sure of it. She’s starting to look a bit pissed, like she’s getting frustrated. I’ve never seen that look from her before.

  For half a second, I could swear that a tiny spark of Cali flares out at me from somewhere inside of Joanie’s eyes. It startles me into actually using my brain.

  “Are you saying you don’t want me to read them to you, because you can read them perfectly well yourself, and that

  I should know that?”

  “Yes.” She laughs. Not through the robot. Just through her own self. Her laugh is usually short and sweet. This time, it actually turns into a cough.

  She coughs and kind of gags. Her eyes tear up, and I start to panic.

  “I’ll call someone!” I run over to the bed and hit the little panic-button thing that hangs from the bed frame. I always

  wondered what good that thing would do her because she can’t press it, but now I’m not wondering anymore.

  “What’s up?” Patrick comes calmly in. I point to Joanie, who’s still coughing but not as dramatically. Patrick goes over to her and bends down so they’re face to face. He puts his hand on her chest and then pulls out his stethoscope and listens with one hand while he strokes her head gently with the other.

  “OK, sweetheart. Try to slow it down. It doesn’t sound too bad this time. Come on, you can do it on your own.” He looks at his watch, still stroking her hair. She looks at him, her eyes soft and trusting. The coughing slows down and gradually stops. He strokes her cheek and smiles.

  “Good girl. Just relax. Do you want to go back to bed for a bit?”

  “NO.” That one came out in capital letters for sure. Patrick looks a bit startled and then laughs.

  “I’m so not used to that. But I love it! OK, you can stay up for a bit longer, but only until Alexandra leaves. And no more coughing, OK?”

  “Yes.” Patrick grins and touches her cheek. She looks at him with the same look in her eyes that Cali used to have when she talked about Matt.

  “You must be tired. Maybe we should quit for today.”

  “No.”

  “OK, I guess. But let’s just take it slow.”

  “No.”

  “Just for today, I mean. We can just keep fooling around with the spelling for now and work on the new words next time. Why don’t you just try to pick one word that’s important to you.”

  “Yes.”

  She starts working with the letters again. It takes a long time, and the computer spurts out a few odd combinations of sounds before a full word comes out.

  “Rain.”

  “Rain? Are you trying to say rain?”

  “Yes. No.”

  “Yes or no?”

  “Yes. No.” I look at her. Her face is scrunched up with concentration. It’s seems obvious that she is deliberately saying yes and no each time. What does that mean?

  Yes and no.

  “Yes, you wanted to say rain. No, you didn’t want to say rain. I feel like I’m on a game show. Which likely doesn’t mean much to you, because I doubt anyone has ever bothered to show you a game show.” And now I’m babbling, which I haven’t done for a while and really should stop doing now.

  “Are you trying to say something about rain? Or a word with rain in it?”

  “Yes.”

  I got the right question, but I asked her two because I’m brain dead. It’s not raining out today, so she probably doesn’t want to talk about rain. What words have rain in them? Raining. Rained.

  “Raincoat?” I can tell by her eyes I’m wrong, even before

  I hear it. Obviously. Why would she want to talk about a raincoat? I still feel like I’m on a game show. And I’m losing!

  “Raindrop?”

  “No.” I’m definitely going to be disqualified if I don’t figure it out soon. Come on, Alex. How many words have the word “rain” in them? And where’s my laptop when I need it?

  “Rainbow?”

  “Yes!!” The double punctuation is obvious in her eyes, and she looks so excited that I’m afraid she might start coughing again.

  “Rainbow. You like rainbows?”

  “Yes.”

  “Me too. They’re pretty.”

  “Yes.” She looks at me, and it seems like she wants to say more. Her eyes move off my face and start moving from side to side. She’s obviously trying to look at something in the room.

  I try to follow her gaze, which is hard because I don’t think she’s finding what she’s looking for.

  Her eyes keep moving upwards and over toward the bed.

  I look over and see the call button hanging there and wonder if she wants me to call Patrick in again. Maybe she wants to lie down.

  “Do you want to go back to bed? Do you want Patrick?” Two questions again. Slow down, Alex! I feel a little panicky though, like there’s something really important going on that

  I can’t figure out.

  “No.” If she could yell it, I think she would.

  I look over toward the bed again, scanning the area. My eyes finally go up the way hers did, and I see it—the necklace of polished stones that hangs over her bed. I’ve noticed it before and wondered a bit how it got there. It’s very pretty, with all different colors…red and yellow and pink and green…

  purple and orange and blue.

  I can paint a rainbow…paint a rainbow…

  I don’t know where that song came from. I think I remember knowing it in my childhood. I have this really distant memory of someone singing it to me. Was it my mom?

  “Is that your rainbow?” I point toward it as I finally figure out that I should move her chair, trying to find the right spot so that she can see it too.

  “Yes,” says Joanie.

  I look at her staring up at the ceiling with her eyes literally glowing. I just smile and shake my head at her—or maybe at me. Joanie looks at a stone necklace and sees a rainbow full of color.

  I’ve been looking at rainbows full of color and only seeing shades of gray.

  She looks over at me with shining eyes, thrilled that I was finally smart enough to figure it out. She looks like she just got the biggest prize of her life.

  But I think I’m the one who won.

  Chapter 38

  “Pneumonia? Again? Are you sure? She was fine on Tuesday. She was talking to me on that computer of hers. She only had one small coughing spell. She’s
been doing so well!”

  Patrick’s voice shoots the words at Kathleen. He is stroking my forehead, smoothing back my hair.

  “You know how easily it can happen, Patrick. We had three cases in the ward last week.”

  The answer is gentle, without ammunition.

  “I know. But she’s so young. It’s hard enough for her. She was doing OK.”

  Patrick’s voice sounds odd, thick and full.

  “Well, we don’t know how it’s going to go. She’s pulled through worse bouts than this. Anything could happen.”

  I can feel them staring at me together, trying to look inside and figure out where I am. It’s hard for them to do when my eyes aren’t letting them in.

  I want to let them know I’m awake. I’ll open my eyes in just a minute. I feel strange. Tired, even though I’ve been sleeping again. I think I’ve been spending most of my time sleeping for the past few days, but it’s all I can manage to do. My chest feels a bit like someone is sitting on it.

  I haven’t seen Alexandra or Shawna. I haven’t even gone into my rainbow because I can’t see it.

  I can feel it, though. I can still see the colors in my mind. Isn’t color an incredible thing? Can you imagine the world without color—how boring it would be? Color is magic.

  I wish someone would put on some music. Music is like color for your ears. I wish Alexandra would come and play me some more Broadway. I wonder where she is. I suppose they must have told her not to visit me because I’m so sick.

  I know that I am very sick again. Pneumonia. I have had it before. Patrick sounded angry when he said the word, as if he is talking about an enemy that he wants to do battle with.

  Being angry because I am sick doesn’t make me better. Dark feelings seem to take so much more energy than light ones.

  I think that Patrick is angry because he is afraid for me—afraid that my lungs are finally going be defeated.