Hi All,
I was looking through old files and I found this story I had written about my first day of high
school. I wanted to share!
As I walked up to the cold metal doors for the first time I was immediately appalled by the awkward green paint that had been slapped on them. The doors were a hard shapeless mass of heavy steel. They seemed to be an impenetrable barrier between myself and my secondary school education - and I was fine with that. I took a slow, deep breathe and apprehensively opened the vast metal expanse to peer inside. What lay beyond those doors was a sea of youth. A melting pot of emotions and sexual tension. It was at that moment that I knew that the next four years of my life were going to be hell.
I slowly made my way through the cinder block maze to room 108. The door was open and as I looked inside it seemed like a serene haven compared to the unorganized chaos of the hallways. I stepped inside with a sense of urgency. I examined the room; every corner, every wall, every window, every door and every person. It was a strange shade of steel blue and the walls were adorned with posters filled with witty, dull comments about education. I sat down in the desk in the back left hand corner of the room. I pulled my purple notebook out, turned to a fresh page, and began to write. The only other people in the room were all sitting together. They sat in a little clump in the front two rows in the right hand corner. They seemed as though they had known one another for a while.
I watched the group and tried to make some observations. There were five of them in total. Four girls and one boy. That is what they looked like too, girls and boys. Not young adults. All of them looked as though they had been dressed by their parents. All of the girls were wearing conservatively long skirts. Their shirts were basic plain coloured tee's and all but one of the girls had a knit sweater over top. They all had long hair, in varying shades of sandy brown, that reached well past their shoulders. The one boy was wearing painfully short jeans and a sweater that was clearly knit by his great grandmother. He had bright red socks that protruded from his unfortunately large shoes. His hair was a mousy brown bowl that balanced precariously on his head. I started to watch their lips so I could see what they were saying. One of the girls was talking about her church. Or maybe their church. She glanced up and noticed me staring so I quickly looked away.
Soon other students started to flood into the room in little packs. I watched them all as I furiously scribbled notes about each and every one of them into my purple notebook. 'Girl who looks like a mouse: seems to be timid and afraid to breathe...maybe she will suffocate, Boy who looks like the stock surfer character in a bad shark attack film: Judging from what he is saying about his tractor he is just trying to look like a surfer...I doubt he has ever seen an ocean, Church girl: keeps eyeing me in funny ways, make sure to avoid her' Those were my first impressions of my new classmates. Girl who looks like mouse, stock surfer boy, and church girl.
The chatter was overwhelming. Everyone seemed to know one another. They were all talking their summers and their plans for the new year. Timetables were being compared, teachers were being discussed and I could see the cliques forming at that very moment. I tried to take in the whole room at once. I tried to see the class as one. It couldn't be done we were all too different. As I was surveying my new classmates someone appeared beside me. I could feel her gaze piercing through me. I glanced up to see Leah smiling nervously. Her bright red hair was shorter than the last time I had seen her. It fell just below her chin, framing her freckle-filled face perfectly. She had gotten new glasses which she seemed to hide her bright green eyes behind. She had grown quite a bit and her tall slender frame towered above me. Her outfit was well planned. She had on jeans and a deep turquoise knit top that fit her perfectly. They hugged what few curves she had, accentuating her female attributes. Leah was no longer a lanky, awkward kid. Leah was beautiful.
A moment after I realised who she was she sat down in the desk next to me and started regaling me with details of the past two years. We were deeply engaged in conversation when we noticed that the room had fallen silent. We looked around to notice everyone watching us. They were fascinated and seemed to be studying every movement we made. Neither of us knew anyone else in the class and no one else knew us. Some of the kids started whispering to each other and quickly conversations broke out across the room. Leah and I started up our conversation once again. We were in the midst of comparing timetables when the teacher walked into the room. He walked straight to the white board and scrawled "Mr. Addison - Grade 9 Geography" across it in the most horrific cursive writing I had ever been forced to read.
Mr. Addison was a tall, slender, nerdy looking man. He had an awkward, distinct gate and he seemed to trip over his feet with every step he took. He was wearing a plaid dress shirt and khaki coloured dress pants. His shoes were polished and produced a blinding glare when the light hit them just right. He plunked his bag down on his desk and started sorting through a folder of papers.
I looked back over at Leah who was now searching through her mauve backpack. She pulled out a black case and walked toward the front of the room. She approached Mr. Addison and handed him the small black transmitter. I could not see what they were saying but I know she was explaining the FM system to him. A short while later she returned to her desk. She asked me if I was going to give him my transmitter. Then she glanced up at my ears to see that they were empty. Her face held a look of concern. "Are they broken?" she asked me. They weren't broken. I didn't have any.
Mr. Addison flicked the lights a few time to signal that class was about to begin. I turned my attention to the front of the room and quickly found myself lost. The expressionless drone about our high school careers was not particularly engaging and I soon found myself drifting into a dream land. Before I knew it the bell rang. It was loud! The desks shook with it and all of the students jumped. Everyone except for Leah and I. I waited for Leah while she collected the FM transmitter from Mr. Addison and then we ventured out into the sea of youth that was pouring through the halls. We jumped into the current and let it carry us to room 106.
We entered room 106 to find an average looking, young man. He had sandy blond hair and an awkwardly large nose. His arms seemed to dangle and move about in a spaghetti like fashion and he over enunciated every word. Leah and I took the two front and centre desks and started to chat again. We were in the midst of a heated debate about the students who were in our Kindergarten class when the average looking man interrupted us. He said "You must be Jenny and Leah, I am Mr. Wilson!". Leah and I identified which one of us were which and soon found ourselves engaged in conversation with Mr. Wilson. He had so many questions for us! He was quite young and it was only his second year of teaching. Not only had he never taught a hard of hearing student before, but he was also new to teaching in general. He wanted to know where to stand when he taught, if the desks were set up well for us, and how the lighting effected our ability to speech read. He was curious about the FM system and most of all why I didn't use one. I was dreading that question. I hated having to explain to people why I chose not to use hearing aids or any other sort of amplification. It is hard to explain to someone that I was sick of the doctors and all of the tests. I was happy with my quiet world. I could get enough sound to have speech reading support, to use a phone - provided it was loud, and to function in school. I did not need any other sound. I was comfortable with what I had. People did not understand that. They could not understand that. Mr. Wilson seemed confused by my explanation but dropped the subject. I am sure he could tell by my body language that it was not something I was interested in discussing.
I had been so involved in our conversation that I had neglected to notice the small groups of students filtering into the room. As I surveyed the room I noticed a few other students that I knew. I had gone to elementary school with them. I excused myself from the conversation and left Leah and Mr. Wilson to talk. I walked over to Lauren and sat down on her desk. Lauren and I had known each other since third grade. We had kept in contact throughout middle school at dance and the barn. Just as I started to ask her what her other classes were the bell shook the school again. This was the signal for class to start. I scurried back to my seat and prepared to be bored to death with more meaningless chatter about highschool and how it will be different from middle school.
I was wrong. Mr. Wilson did not lecture us on highschool. He wrote a formula on the board and started teaching math right away. I did not even attempt to pay attention. Once there were letters and numbers being used consecutively I was lost. There was no point in me even trying to follow along. I let my mind wander and thought of the days spent at my middle school. I missed the friends that I made there. I missed dancing every day and being surrounded by artistic, crazy, fun people. I missed everything about it. I could have continued on in the program for high school but for some reason I felt a real pull to be at Ernestown Secondary School. I was not sure what had brought me there or why the pull was so strong. Maybe I would never know. As I contemplated the reasons I glanced up at the clock to see it was 11:51am. A moment later the bell shook the school once again.
All of my classmates leaped up and ran into the hall. For many of them this was their first day of having a cafeteria at school and they were excited to buy their lunches for the first time. Mr. Wilson intercepted Leah and I on our way out the door to question us on his lesson. He wanted to make sure he had done everything correctly. Leah handled his questions with an amazing sense of ease and provided criticism in the most tactful manner. She really had developed into a young woman since our last meeting. I hadn't though. I was still the awkward, flat chested, lanky, linear kid I had always been. My conservative black metal glasses still held coke-bottle lenses that distorted my eyes, the large gap between my front teeth still made it look like I was missing a tooth, and my long hair still hung lifelessly on either side of my face. I looked like an overgrown 8 year old. I acted like one too.
Leah and I made our way to the cafeteria without saying a word. We clutched our lunch bags and apprehensively made our way through the halls. We sat down in a corner of the cafeteria and didn't even try to find a table. The floor was fine and we could hide there. I opened my lunch bag and pulled out my salad. Leah had a sandwich of sorts and we began to eat. We chatted a little bit as we ate but we were both too nervous to have too much of a conversation. We didn't want to call attention to ourselves. We ate quickly and set out to find our next class after only 15 minutes in the cafeteria. It was easier to talk when we weren't so exposed to the whole school. At least we could hide in a classroom.
Our next class was English with Mrs. Wyatt. It was on the second floor, a place where we had not yet ventured. We found a stairwell outside the cafeteria and as we started to head up it we were met with a stampede of children. They were running past us and around us. We stood there stunned and waited for it to pass. What seemed like several minutes later the rush subsided and became a slow trickle of stragglers. It was only later that we found out half of the second floor housed a middle school. The stampede that nearly killed us was a group of 7th graders heading out for recess.
Once at the top of the stairs we made our way down the short hallway to room 207. Just inside the door was a large desk with a petite woman sitting cross legged on top of it. She was going through a pile of papers and jumped when she saw us entre the room. She held our her hand and introduced herself as Mrs. Wyatt. I was a little shocked that this was our teacher. She had a curly blonde mop of hair that somewhat resembled a poorly groomed poodle, her glasses looked like they were designed in the 80's and her outfit was appallingly bright. I could not tell if she was wearing a long shirt or a dress with pants underneath but either way it looked like a rainbow had thrown up on her.
Leah and I introduced ourselves in a very timid manner. We were not sure if this woman would bite. "Leah and Jenny! You're the new deaf girls!" she exclaimed. She quickly switched from Spoken English to Signed English and continued her welcome. Her signing was rough and quite hard to follow but she was making and effort. Leah stopped her after a few minutes to inform her that we were hard of hearing, not deaf, and we could both read lips. Mrs. Wyatt switched back to Spoken English seamlessly and continued her ramble. Just as she was telling us about a monkey that she once used American Sign Language with another student showed up. Mrs. Wyatt was quickly distracted and Leah and I darted for the nearest desks.
Mrs. Wyatt only remained occupied for a few short minutes. Just as Leah and I were settling into our desks she came bouncing over to us. Before we knew it she was rambling on about her time spent in Lima, Peru. On occasion I would glace over a Leah and see her watching intently. She was absorbed in Mrs. Wyatts every word. She nodded in all of the right places and said only the right things. I, on the other hand, was a timid and fearful creature. I was very unsure of this whole situation. Why had I gone back to this group, back to Odessa? I was content in Kingston with all of the city kids. They were more like me. We were all different but in the same way. Here I was just different - and afraid of all of the other different people. Especially Mrs. Wyatt.
The day was flying past and I seemed to be missing most of it. I been stuck in a dreamland ever since Leah had shown up. Her charisma and intelligence had scared me away and I had retreated inwards. As I was deciding to engage in the conversation taking place before me the bell shook the school. A herd of students began to flow into the classroom and occupy the desks around me. Mrs. Wyatt redirected her attention to all off the new bodies in the room and left Leah and I alone. I noticed church girl come in. It was the first time I had seen her since Mr. Addison's class. She looked at me and I quickly changed my gaze to the student behind her. It was the boy with the red socks. They took the desks next to Leah and I. The bell shook the school once more to signal the start of class.
Mrs. Wyatt leaped to the front of the room and began what has come to be the most animated English lesson I have ever witnessed. She read us poetry for the entire class. She never introduced herself, she never spoke of class expectations, she never did any of the things one would expect during the first class. She just read. Her reading was amazing. She used her whole body to convey even the most simplistic of words. She danced and twirled around the room. Her movements and words enthralled the class. For some, I am sure it was the first time they had ever truly listened to poetry. There was something very special about this teacher - as scary as she may be. With all of her movement it was hard for Leah and I to follow her words, yet because of her movement we understood every word. It was a strange experience, one that is hard to describe. I knew right then that this woman would be someone who would understand me. She would get who I was. As we sat there mesmerised by her darting about the school shook with the ringing of the bell once again. We all waited for her to finish the poem she was reading before quickly escaping the room. Although it was one of the most interesting lessons I had ever experienced, it was a bit of a sensory overload and I needed a break.
Leah and I found ourselves fighting against the current to get to our next class. We pushed our way down the hall, down the stairs, and through a remarkably crowded cafeteria to room 119. In room 119 we found a multi-levelled floor covered in a hideous grey stained carpet. The chairs were set up in four rows and curved around the room. Amongst the chairs darted a tall slender man. His hair was purple and blue with spots of grey. His was wearing acid wash jeans and a bright blue concert shirt that said "Blue Skies" across the back. He had on rainbow coloured glasses that were far to large for his face. He seemed oblivious to our presence until he almost ran us over. He stopped the instant that he noticed us and took off his glasses. He inserted the arm of the glasses into his mouth and began to speak. Leah quickly stopped him to inform him that we were hard of hearing and needed to be able to see his lips as he spoke. He hooked the glasses onto the collar of his shirt and began speaking once again. "I'm Mr. Rush! Welcome to grade 9 music!" he said with a goofy smile "Sit anywhere for now and we will divide into sections once we do instrument selection!". Then he ran off.
Leah and I took the seats near the piano and watched the other kids filter in. Once again church girl, red sock boy and the rest of their friends entered the room. This was my third class with them now. I did not know why they fascinated me, but for some reason I was intrigued by them. My gaze was interrupted by the bell shaking the school. Mr. Rush continued to dart around for a few minutes before starting the class. We began music theory right off the bat. I almost fell asleep. It was hideously boring. F-A-C-E, A-C-E-G, E-G-B-D-F, G-B-D-F-A, sharps, flats, the repetition was mind numbing. Leah was feeling the same way and we found ourselves signing behind the stands. We discussed our fellow students throughout the entire class. Eventually the bell shook the school for the final time that day. Everyone jumped up and ran to their lockers. They was a fury of activity throughout the halls as students collected their belongings and ran for the buses. I didn't have a bus to catch since my mother had the day off. I observed the activity much like I had that morning. I watched from a different perspective this time though. I was no longer on the outside looking in. I was on the inside now. I still thought that my time spent there would be hell. One thing that I knew at that time, that I had not known that morning, was that the time I spent there would prove to be life changing. I still did not know how it would change me, but I knew that I would never leave that place the same person I was when I entered. Now it was time to sit back, ride through my adolescence and watch how I would develop and how this mysterious place would change me.
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