by Helen Rutter
I don’t know why, but when I whisper, I can say whatever I like. This only works when people are close enough, though. I whisper a lot at home. My latest idea is this: I want to try whispering into a microphone to see if my voice sounds loud enough. Maybe I could wear a secret microphone all day long. If it worked, I could be a whispering comedian! “Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together and welcome to the stage … WHISPERING BILLY!” Actually that sounds a bit odd. Maybe it’s not one of my better ideas.
If only I lived in an opera, where they sing instead of speak, then I would be okay. But I can’t exactly sing my way through life, can I? Imagine going into a shop and singing, “Please, may I buy this Mars Bar?” Singing jokes is even weirder; I have tried it, and it ruins them. Singing my name for attendance—that might be the weirdest of all.
I didn’t discover this one in the mirror, obviously. Mom told me. Mom says I talk in my sleep and keep her awake. She recorded me once on her phone—it was hilarious. I was talking about putting something in a trash the wrong way around. It made no sense whatsoever. I didn’t stammer in my sleep. That’s the first thing I thought when I heard it.
I sleepwalk too sometimes. It freaks Mom and Dad out. Dad says he was up late watching TV once, and I came in the living room and stood there like a zombie. I didn’t answer when he said, “Bill, what are you doing up?” He had to lead me back to bed, and I couldn’t remember any of it in the morning. Weird! Mom says it’s because I have so much going on in my brain that it never relaxes. I don’t get that. I relax all the time, watching Blue Planet with Granny Bread or reading my favorite joke books. Mom just thinks everyone should relax the way she does, lying in a bath with candles and a magazine.
If only I could be asleep when the teacher calls out my name.
If I drum out a rhythm on my knees and say the words to fit the beat, I usually stammer less. A few years ago I started doing it all the time. After a while it lost its power and stopped working so well. So I started drumming more and more. Harder and harder, to make it work again. Eventually Mom and Sue said that it was probably a good idea to stop the tapping. Mom’s exact words were: “You sound like a woodpecker, Billy, and you look like you have a problem with your movement.” They thought that was worse than the stutter itself. One good thing came from it, though: I realized I LOVE drumming. I practice my beats all the time, and I think I’m pretty good. I really want a drum kit but Mom says, “Absolutely no way!” She loves saying “Absolutely no way!”
She says it to loads of things:
“Mom, can we get a dog?”
“Absolutely no way!”
“Mom, can I have ice cream for breakfast?”
“Absolutely no way!”
“Mom, can I get a drum kit for my birthday?”
“Absolutely no way!”
After assessing all the options, my reflection and I decided on a combination technique of raising my hand, whispering “Yes, sir,” and then clearing my throat, as though I had something stuck in it. The coughing will explain the whispering, and I should get away with it. It looked pretty believable in the mirror anyway. I’m not sure I can keep doing it every day, but it will do for now.
“William Blakemore?” The teacher has started the attendance.
The boy with the loose tie says, “Wassup.”
Everyone laughs. The teacher looks at him as if deciding whether to tell him off and then goes back to the class list. Now I know William Blakemore is definitely the one I have to watch. I need to be careful.
Next to have his name called is Matthew Coombes, the super-tall boy who sits behind me. The jiggler is Josh Day, and Alex Kirby is the blond boy next to me. I notice Alex wearing hearing aids, which is interesting. When the teacher finally gets to my name, I go bright red instantly. I put the plan in motion and I think it works pretty well; no one seems to notice. After the whisper and the cough, I sneak a look around me and no one is looking back. Perfect! I smile to myself. Maybe all the practice in the mirror has been worth it. I breathe a sigh of relief and slip away to the morning’s lessons. I won’t utter a word for the rest of the day and will do the whispering cough technique at every register. Maybe middle school is going to be fine after all!
For the rest of the morning, I spend most of my time wandering around the halls with my class schedule in front of me. The most difficult thing about being a “Bannerdale boy” (as Granny Bread now insists on calling me) is not having a clue where I’m going. The rooms are all numbered weirdly. Art is in R1 and geography is in E11. I don’t know what the R and the E stand for. If I were in charge, I would get rid of the letters.
The eighth graders are supposed to be looking out for us and helping us if we’re lost. But they’re too busy chatting in big groups or laughing at each other to notice me. That suits me fine, because the last thing I need is some huge eighth grader asking me any questions and me trying to find an excuse not to answer them. So I just keep on wandering until I find where I’m supposed to be. When I get to Spanish fifteen minutes late, the teacher just ushers me in and says something in Spanish. I sit down and bury my head into my bag. I can feel everyone staring at me.
My new backpack is really big, so I can nearly fit my whole head in it. I don’t, obviously; I think everyone would stare even more if I did that. So instead I pretend I’m searching for something in it; it has loads of pockets for me to check.
Of course, after pretending in Spanish class, I really can’t find my pen in history class and start panicking, frantically looking through all the compartments. The teacher, Mrs. Able, is really kind. She has lines around her eyes that make it look like she’s smiling even when she isn’t. She just knows what I need without asking, smiles, and quietly puts a pen on my desk.
I think it’s a good name for a teacher, Mrs. Able. I will start a new list: Good Names for Teachers. In elementary school, there was a kindergarten teacher called Mr. Friend. That’s definitely at the top of the list. That probably means I need another list to go with it: Bad Names for Teachers. Dad once said that he had a teacher named Mr. Fartlet and they all called him Mr. Fart and then said the let part so quietly that you couldn’t hear it, but loudly enough that he couldn’t tell them off. I think you need to consider whether teaching is the right career for you with a name like that.
It turns out that I was right about William Blakemore. He messes around in every class, calling out and making comments. I can tell the teachers are all as wary of him as I am. I do my best to avoid sitting anywhere near him. If he’s like this on the first day, I can only think that he’s going to get worse. When we sit back down after lunch break, Blakemore is messing with some of the girls’ pencil cases and they are squealing at him to stop. Jiggly Josh walks past me to his seat and sees me looking over. “Blakemore is the worst,” he whispers. “I went to school with him before. I should know.” I just nod my head and make a face like I feel sorry for him. I don’t think he notices that I don’t say anything.
The cough/whisper goes okay again when we return to homeroom after lunch. Our teacher, Mr. Osho, tells us all about himself. He plays the trumpet and has a pug dog named Terence. He’s brought his trumpet in for us to see. I really like the feel of it, cold and smooth, and the buttons feel good to press. It’s much heavier than I thought. Mr. Osho tells us he loves jazz music and every lunchtime runs a club called Mr. Osho’s Music Lounge, where you can listen to music and play board games. I wonder if I should go.
I’m just thinking about how well my first day is going when I hear him say, “Now you all know a bit about me; I need to find out about you guys.” Oh god, I have a horrible feeling that I know where this is going.
“So on Monday,” he continues, “I want you all to bring in an item from home that tells me something about you.” I am frozen, staring at him. I can’t believe what he is saying. “I’m giving you a few days to think about what you want to say. Tell us all a bit about what makes you … you.”
This clearly cannot happen. I won’t need to say m
uch before everyone in my new school knows exactly what makes me ME. I’m meant to be keeping quiet! Not showing and telling!
I should have a choice, shouldn’t I? Like in biology when older kids don’t want to cut open a pig’s eyeball, they don’t have to. This is like a pig’s eyeball for me. I shouldn’t have to talk if I don’t want to. I start panicking and want to scream, “No! You can’t make me. I won’t do it!” Obviously I can’t say anything, though. I just put my head down and ball my hands in fists, shaking.
I can’t become a whole new person at Bannerdale. Not if I have to do this before I’ve had a chance to get rid of my stutter.
I need a new plan.
Why did the teddy bear say no to apple crumble?
Because it was stuffed.
We are at Granny Bread’s to celebrate my first day as a Bannerdale boy. She’s making apple crumble, my favorite. We used to just call Granny Bread “Granny,” but when we went out for lunch on Dad’s birthday a few years ago, Chloe got the giggles really badly when she heard Granny ordering granary bread with her soup. Chloe thought she was asking for “granny bread.” So Granny has been called Granny Bread ever since.
I used to go to Granny Bread’s every Tuesday after school, and she always comes to our house on Sundays after my soccer match.
After our crumble, we all squash on the flowery sofa, watching an old episode of Doctor Who. Mom’s covering Chloe’s eyes at all the scary bits. One of the kid actors in it looks a lot like Skyla from school.
“She looks like that scruffy girl in your class, Billy—what’s her name?” Granny Bread says.
“Skyla.”
“It’s nice you’ve both got someone you know at your new school, isn’t it?”
“Kind of,” I say. “I didn’t really talk to her today.” I don’t tell her that I didn’t really talk to anyone.
I don’t stammer as much with Granny Bread for some reason, especially when it’s just me and her. Mom used to drop me off at Granny’s after school on Tuesdays and take Chloe to gymnastics. Granny and I played cards: solitaire and rummy. Now that I’m at Bannerdale and Dad’s back, I don’t know if I’ll still go around as much. I hope I will.
Granny Bread looks at me really hard in the eyes and listens hard too. She is definitely a Waiter. Her eyes and ears are “going,” she says, so she has to really concentrate on what I’m saying.
She’s always lived on her own, or at least as long as I have been alive. My granddad died just before I was born. She says he was “a right old grump.” So I don’t think she misses him too much. I do think she must be lonely, though, in her hot apartment all on her own. I wonder what she does all day. I think she really likes our Tuesdays.
After cards, we usually listen to her favorite music on cassette tape while we eat and then watch Blue Planet. Our favorite is episode two, with the dumbo octopus. It’s called that because it has massive ears (like Dumbo the elephant) and it flies with them. (It doesn’t actually fly, obviously; it swims, but it really looks like it’s flying.) Granny Bread loves it! “What a strange creature, eh, Billy?” she says. “Beautiful, though. The weirdest ones are the most wonderful, aren’t they?”
It helps when someone looks at me like Granny Bread does. Stops what they’re doing and looks right at me and listens. Not like when Mom is cooking, listening to the radio, helping Chloe with her spelling, and still pretending she’s interested in what I’m saying. I still stammer, of course, even if you do look at me, but I like the feeling of being listened to.
Granny Bread LOVES my jokes. I tell her a new one every time I see her. She’s the best audience member you could ask for. If I didn’t have a stupid stutter, I would be a stand-up comedian. I haven’t told anyone that, apart from Granny Bread. If anyone ever asks me that stupid question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” which grown-ups always seem to ask, I say, “An accountant.” That seems to shut them up pretty quickly. I tried “bus driver” once but then they just asked me loads of questions about vehicles and I don’t care at all about vehicles, so I asked Mom what the most boring job ever is. I don’t even know what accountants really do—she said it’s lots of math. That doesn’t sound too boring to me. Math is my best subject. But saying accountant seems to do the trick. I could never tell people the truth. Imagine the look on their face if I said, “I w-w-w-want to b-b-b-b-be a c-c-c-c-comedian.”
I remember the moment that I realized it could never happen. Granny Bread and I had just finished and were getting snuggled on the sofa, about to watch Blue Planet. As we turned the TV on, a stand-up comedian popped onto the screen, telling a story about his dog drinking out of the toilet. I’d never seen a comedian on TV before; I didn’t even know that it was an actual job. He wasn’t really telling jokes, like from my books, but talking about funny things that had happened to him. There was a huge audience, heads back laughing, wiping tears from their eyes as he stood in front of the beautiful red velvet curtains on the stage. I couldn’t believe it.
I imagined myself standing in the center of that stage, just like him, saying everything I want to say, without getting stuck. The audience cheering and laughing. Then I thought: There’s no chance of that, though; it’s a stupid thing to even think about. I felt angry with myself for even imagining it.
Granny Bread could tell that I was getting upset. “I want to see you doing that one day, Billy,” she said. “Telling your jokes, making people laugh—I want to see it while I still can. I tell you, that would make me so happy.”
I pinkie-promised her I would do it. Do a show just for her. She looked at me in the eyes and giggled as I held out my finger and showed her how to curl her wrinkly little finger around mine. I repeated, “Make it, make it, never never break it,” over and over until she joined in and we kept on saying it, getting louder and louder until we both started laughing and couldn’t stop.
“Oh, Billy, aren’t we a daft pair?” she said, wiping away a tear from underneath her glasses. I love Granny Bread so much—sometimes she seems like a little kid, how excited she gets about things. I have to keep my pinkie promise to her, no matter what. I don’t know how I will do a comedy show for her, but I will do it, even if it’s just in her hot living room. After that night, I started watching comedians on YouTube. There are so many of them, and that’s what they do as a real job, for money and everything. It’s only made me want to do it more.
Tonight, I try to slip my latest joke into conversation without her noticing. That’s the best, when you surprise someone. Especially Granny Bread.
“Granny Bread?” I say as casually as I can.
“Yes, sweetie?” she says, looking right at me over her bowl.
“Last night I had a nightmare that I was drowning in an orange ocean.”
“Oh dear, do you think it’s all the Blue Planet we’ve been watching?”
“No, it’s okay. It was just a Fanta sea.”
She laughs so hard, I wonder if she is going to choke on her crumble. Then I start feeling bad imagining myself killing Granny Bread with a joke.
It isn’t until I get home that I remember the ME ME speech that I’ve somehow got to get myself out of. Time for a new list.
I’m aware that some of these ideas are more realistic than others, and that some may be considered excessive, but I’m fighting for my survival here. Maybe, before I hit the list, I’ll start small: persuade Mom to tell Mr. Osho that I don’t have to do it. That sounds like a better option. After the Christmas disaster, Mom told my Sunday school teacher that I didn’t have to perform in the Easter show if I didn’t want to. Of course I didn’t want to, so I ended up playing all the music from an iPad. That suited me fine. So it should be easy enough to convince her that the ME ME speech is not a good idea. I just need to make her see how bad it will be.
My plan is this: Over the next few days I’ll become quieter and quieter and stop eating dessert. I LOVE dessert, so Mom will definitely know there’s a BIG problem. When Mom asks me what’s wrong, I’ll say, “I
don’t know.” This will keep up until she is really worried. Eventually she’ll start guessing. When she mentions school I’ll flinch, cover my eyes, and put my head down. Then she’ll know she’s onto something.
Now here’s the best part. When she finally gets the truth out of me, it will be HER idea that I shouldn’t do the ME ME speech, instead of mine! Then she’ll write a note for me to take in on Monday. I’ll go along with it, saying things like “If you think it’s for the best” in a sad, quiet voice.
I feel better already. Sometimes you just have to have a plan.
Why don’t farts finish middle school?
Because they always end up being expelled!
I have been noticed. I knew it would happen eventually, but I thought it would take longer than this. So far the only words I’ve uttered at school are Yes, sir, when Mr. Osho is taking attendance in the morning and in the afternoon. So in a whole day, that’s four words. I’ve been there for two days, and so I have spoken a total of eight words. I know what you’re thinking … This kid’s math skills are amazing! I know, I know. Anyway, you would think that, with only eight words leaving my inadequate lips, I would have gotten away with it. NO. Apparently that isn’t how school works.
This morning, day three, I’m sitting in the same spot as yesterday, next to Alex. As we wait for the bell, I am silently drumming with pencils on my knees. Facing the window, making sure that no one can see me. I’m doing it hard, so it kind of stings my thighs, but I like it. I’m practicing my rudiments. They are like the basic rhythms of drumming.
I look up when Mr. Osho calls “Billy Plimpton” for what sounds like the second or third time, judging by his tone of his voice. I’m so engrossed with the drumming that I haven’t heard the bell or even seen him come into the room. I completely forget my whispering/coughing tactic, panic, and end up half singing and half stammering, “Y-yes, siiiir.” It sounds more like a noise than an answer. Everyone giggles, and I feel my ears get really hot.