by Helen Rutter
“That was an incredibly brave thing to do, buddy … and really funny too. I’m so impressed with you.”
“Th-thanks.”
“Now, I need to admit something. In all my years teaching I have never taught anyone with a stutter before. Can you believe that?”
I just smile and shrug, and he keeps going.
“So I need your help, if that’s okay? Can you let me know any things that would make it easier for you? Things that people do that are annoying or make it more difficult. I want to know them all.”
I just nod, thoughts rushing into my head about Waiters and Encouragers, but I know that I’m not about to start explaining all that to him now.
He looks at me, and almost like he can read my mind, he says, “I know there must be loads of stuff and you’re not about to launch into a monologue about your entire life experience! So how about this …” He rummages around in his desk and brings out two little notebooks, one has blue stripes and the other has drum kits and the words BOOM and CRASH on it.
“Pick one,” he says.
I immediately point to the drums.
“I thought you might go for that one. I’ve seen you drumming away with your pencils! I used to drum, you know, before the trumpet. I wasn’t very good and it was years ago but I could show you a few bits and bobs on the school kit sometime?”
“Yes, please!”
“Great. Now, in this book, if you think of anything at all that would be helpful for me to know, just jot it down, okay? It’s not a workbook, so it can be as messy as you like, and you can doodle in it or whatever you want, but if something pops up, then write it down and I will check in with you at the end of each week. Sound good?”
“Yeah. Th-thanks, sir.”
As I’m about to walk out, clutching my new notebook, I think of something and stop and turn around. “A-a-a-actually, sir, th-there is one th-thing that I can th-think of now.”
“Go on.”
“Iiit’s qu-qu-qu-qu …” Mr. Osho just waits as I’m stuck. “… quite hard being at th-the end of the attendance.”
He pauses and thinks for a moment. “Because you have to wait so long?”
“Yeah, I would r-rather g-g-get it over and done with,” I say, quickly adding, “B-b-b-but not first either!”
“Yes, I can see that. No worries, that’s an easy one to fix. I will send a message around to all your teachers and we will move you up. In fact, maybe I will get the whole attendance list changed so that it goes by first names. Then you’ll be near the start and everyone else will be shuffled around too so it’s not just you who’s moved. Sound good?”
“Really?” I ask.
“Of course, Billy—that’s an easy change to make. That’s why I want you to tell me everything. You can’t have a good time at school and learn loads if you’re stressed out, can you? I want happy kids in my class!”
“Th-thanks, sir,” I say, looking down at my notebook and feeling like this day just keeps getting better and better.
* * *
At lunch Skyla comes and sits with me, and I don’t feel like I need to run away.
“I loved your speech,” she says, shoveling some fries into her mouth. She looks really hungry.
“I liked yours too,” I whisper. “I’m sorry about your sister. I never knew.’ ”
“Thanks. Mom’s been pretty messed up ever since; she spends most of her time in bed, but I’m okay. I can look after myself.”
I don’t know what to say then, but it feels good to have said something, even in a whisper. We just sit and eat together, and I realize that it feels nice having her sitting next to me. After lunch Skyla heads off down the corridor, and I half wonder whether I should follow, but she doesn’t look back so I do my usual wandering. Today is a bit different, though. I see Jiggly Josh and Tall Matthew coming towards me.
“Hi, Billy,” says Josh as he’s approaching.
“Hi,” I whisper.
“Great show-and-tell, by the way. You totally nailed it!” says Matthew.
“Thanks.” My voice is getting a tiny bit louder with every word.
“I love jokes too,” he adds. “How do you get a squirrel to like you?”
“Act like a nut?” I whisper, crossing my eyes and doing a little dance. He laughs and pats me on the back.
“You know it! We’re meeting Alex in the Music Lounge, if you want to come.”
“I m-m-m-might see you there,” I mumble. They wave as they walk away.
Watching them, I know that I won’t go—not today anyway. But it doesn’t matter because even though I’m still just wandering the corridors on my own it feels different now.
I’m not invisible anymore.
Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off?
He’s all right now.
The next day in history, Blakemore holds up a piece of paper when Mrs. Able isn’t looking. It says:
Some of the kids look really mad at him, but some of the others start laughing behind their hands. Skyla grabs the paper off him and rips it up.
“Skyla Norkins, is there any reason why you are tearing up school property?” Mrs. Able is really nice, but her strict voice is pretty scary. She goes really quiet when she’s telling someone off—it’s way more effective than shouting.
“No, ma’am. Sorry.”
“Well, don’t let me see you doing that again.”
When I turn back to Blakemore, he has a new sign:
I wish I could grab it off him and rip it up for her. I think about Skyla looking after herself while her mom lies in bed. In every class after that, there’s a new sign. I try to ignore them. I don’t even want to read the words, but I can’t help myself.
As I’m doing my lunchtime wandering, Blakemore finds me and grabs me by the arm. He leads me down the corridor and whispers, “Don’t say a word about this to anyone, Plimpton,” then laughs to himself. “Ha, I forgot, you CAN’T say a word to anyone, can you?” Then he shoves me into the boys’ room and takes out his phone.
“Ya goin’ to do a little performance, Billy. I know you love jokes, so don’t worry, this’ll be funny. It’s like your first comedy show! YouTube’ll blow up when it sees this.” Then he presses record on his phone and points it at me.
I really don’t know what he’s going to make me do. I’m scared that he might make me strip or drink out of the toilet, but then he says, “Ya just goin’ to say the alphabet, Billy, that’s all. When we get to the end, you can go.” He grins a horrible grin. “But remember we need you to say it nice and clearly. N-n-n-no hesitation.”
I try to run, but he grabs me and shoves me back. I have no chance. Blakemore is twice my size. I stand there hot and shaking. If I just wait it out and say nothing, he’ll get bored before I do.
“Don’t make me wait, Billy,” he growls, and then he gives me another shove in the stomach, this time hard enough to really hurt. I decide to give him what he wants—how bad can it be?
“A, B-B-B-B-B …”
“Oh no, Billy … start again!”
It takes what feels like forever, inhaling the stench of the boys’ room, him laughing at every letter. The pointlessness of starting back at A knowing that I will never make it to the end, but not being able to stop. The growing humiliation with every attempt. I only get as far as D. Eventually he does get bored, shoves me into the door, and wanders off. I feel exhausted and just want to go home and crawl into bed.
* * *
When I come out of school, Dad’s waiting for me at the gates. He never picks me up, so I know right away that something’s wrong. His face looks old and he’s very still. At first I think it’s because of me. I must have done something. My head starts swimming with thoughts and panic. Has he seen Blakemore’s video? Then he bends down and holds my hands and looks at me right in the eyes.
“Granny Bread’s in the hospital, Bill. She’s had a stroke.”
I have no idea what a stroke is when Dad first says it. I know it’s bad, though, because of how he sa
ys it. I don’t say a word in the car and neither does he. Instead I count all the red cars I can see as we drive. There are fourteen. If I stop counting cars, then my brain might start thinking about Granny Bread being ill. So I just keep counting. I google stroke on the iPad as soon as I get home.
A stroke is a serious life-threatening medical condition that occurs when the blood supply to part of the brain is cut off.
It doesn’t make me feel any better. Life threatening.
Mom won’t let me go to the hospital. “Not until we know how things are looking. I need to see how she is first,” she says. She looks really tired too. I want to argue. To say that Granny Bread needs me. That I have to be there. But seeing Mom’s sad face as she picks up her purse and turns towards the door, I decide not to.
Dad says I can go on the iPad until she gets back, so I get into my pajamas, flop onto the sofa next to Chloe, and start watching my favorite comedians. It doesn’t feel right, though, watching people telling jokes when Granny Bread is in the hospital. As I’m staring blankly at the screen I remember Blakemore laughing at me, pointing his phone in my face. What if he’s put it up? I check that Chloe isn’t looking over my shoulder, but she’s fixated on some pony cartoon. So I start searching for the video, praying that it’s not there. I look under his name and mine and then under everything else I can think of: Stammering kid, stuttering alphabet, kid can’t speak, funny stammerer, abc stutter. I breathe a sigh of relief when nothing comes up—that’s the last thing Mom needs to deal with right now, me going viral for being bullied. I sit there, fed up, and wonder what to watch. Eventually I decide on Granny Bread’s favorite episode of Blue Planet. I focus on the dumbo octopus and try to remember all the facts to tell Granny Bread when I see her. She’ll be okay. She has to be okay.
When it’s over, I go back to the start and press play again. Chloe gets really irritated when she looks at my screen.
“Why are you watching it again, Billy? You are so annoying.”
“You’re so annoying with your b-b-boring pony shows,” I shout. Then Dad comes in and tells her it’s time for bed.
“What about him?” she whines.
“He’s older than you.”
“What about Granny Bread?”
“I will wake you up if anything happens.”
“Wh-wh-what do you mean by that?” I ask. “You mean if she d-d-d—”
“ENOUGH! Thank you, Billy. Chloe, bed, now, please.” She knows there’s no point arguing.
Later, when I’m on my third viewing of Blue Planet, I hear Mom’s car outside. I press pause and run out in my slippers to meet her. She looks even more tired and ushers me back into the house. When Dad hugs her, she starts crying. I think that Granny Bread is definitely dead because of the crying and so I start crying too, but then she sobs, “She’s okay. They think she’s going to be fine. It was a small stroke.”
I wish Mom would cry at things that make more sense! Why is she crying if Granny Bread’s okay? Anyway, I wipe my eyes and give her a hug. She really looks like she needs one.
* * *
I’m allowed to visit Granny Bread the next day. The hospital smells funny. We have to put cold wet stuff on our hands on the way in and out. It makes me worry about germs, so I don’t want to touch anything.
There’s an old man in the bed next to Granny Bread who keeps groaning really loudly and saying, “Help me.” Mom goes and finds a nurse to look after him, but he keeps saying it even after the nurse has been to see him. It’s a bit scary. He looks right at me when he says it. I really want to help him, but I don’t know how. Then Chloe gets really scared and starts crying. So Mom takes her out.
“You stay with Granny Bread, Billy. I will just take Chloe for some fresh air.”
I hope Chloe doesn’t come back. That suits me. I want it to just be me and Granny Bread. I don’t want to leave her, even though she’s tired and falls in and out of sleep as I’m talking to her. She looks really old, lying in her hospital gown with a plastic tag wrapped around her wrinkly wrist . Her face is pale, and she has trouble talking and dribbles from one side of her mouth. It makes me feel a bit awkward seeing the dribble. Mom wiped it with a handkerchief, and so when she and Chloe have gone, I do the same. It feels weird at first, but then I just get used to it.
Granny Bread’s voice is all weak and slurry, and it’s hard to understand what she’s saying at first.
“Tell mmee a jjjjjoke, Billly,” she slurs.
“Guess who I saw yesterday, Granny Bread?”
“Who?”
“Everyone I looked at!”
I can feel her laughing, and her eyes get full of tears. I start crying then, out of nowhere, tears just pop out of my eyes as I’m holding her hand and feeling her shaking with laughter. She looks at me and squeezes my hand hard.
“I’m not going anywhere, Billy. Wipe away those tears. You have got more jokes left to tell me yet, don’t you worry. Talk to me, Billy.”
Then she stops talking and just listens, still holding my hand. I tell her about school and then talk about things I know she likes. I tell her again and again about the octopus on Blue Planet. I tell her facts about how deep in the sea it lives and how rare it is. How they live so deep that no one ever sees them.
I remember her saying once, “It seems a shame that they don’t come up to the surface. People would love to see them.” I remember thinking that people would probably scream or kill them if they popped up at the seaside. People don’t like things that are too different. Not in my experience anyway.
It’s hard talking to someone who doesn’t talk back much. When I run out of things to say, I read to her from the book on her table by the bed. It has a little cottage on the front surrounded by flowers. When I finish the chapter, I tell her some more jokes. She is too tired to laugh, but she closes her eyes and squeezes my hand at every punch line.
* * *
Chloe falls asleep in the car on the way home, and I pretend to sleep too. Sometimes when I want to hear what Mom and Dad will talk about I do this. I have gotten the breathing just right. Mom used to know when I was faking, and I figured out it was because of the breath. Now I can trick her every time. They still talk in whispers in the car, but I can hear what they’re saying. They say that Granny Bread might have to go into a nursing home when she comes out of the hospital.
“The nurses said that there is a possibility that she will need help with everything. Like going to the toilet and eating her dinner,” Mom says. She sounds really worried.
“Well, let’s wait and see,” Dad says. “She’s a trouper. She might be on her feet in no time.”
“They said if someone had been with her she could have gotten to the hospital quicker. I feel so guilty, Ian.”
I imagine Granny Bread on her own in her apartment needing help and it makes my throat hurt, so as soon as I pretend to wake up, I tell Mom that Granny Bread can come to our house, have my room, and I’ll share with Chloe.
“Then I can look after her,” I say.
Mom laughs and says, “That’s a lovely thought, sweetie, but she can’t stay with us.”
“Wh-wh-wh-why not?” I feel like she isn’t really listening to me.
“Because, Billy, we have one bathroom, which is upstairs. She could barely use the stairs before this happened. I don’t think the stroke’s going to have improved things, do you?” She’s angry now, and her face looks red and blotchy. She looks like she might cry, and I remember then that Granny Bread is actually her mom.
“S-s-sorry, Mom.”
“It’s okay, sweetie. I know it’s hard for you. She loves you so much—you know that, don’t you? You and your jokes brighten up her life.”
“Yeah. I know,” I say, and I mean it. I remember Granny Bread sitting on her flowery sofa and think about my pinkie promise to give her a comedy show of my own.
What do you call a man trapped in a paper bag?
Russell.
Most lunchtimes, after our pizza, fries, apple juice,
and yogurt (Skyla and I have the same thing every day now), I sneak into the theater and sit in the empty seats. Once, she came with me, but she didn’t really understand what we were doing there.
“You just sit here?”
“Yep.”
“Why?” she asked.
“I l-like looking at the stage.”
“I’m not sure why I stick up for you sometimes, Billy!” she said. Then she punched me lightly on the arm and slung her bag over her shoulder before walking off towards the door. Before she left, she stopped and called back to me, “Maybe you should get on the stage one day, you weirdo! See you later, Bilbo.”
That’s what gave me the idea.
When the theater’s busy, with people singing or dancing on the stage, I either watch them through the little window or go find somewhere quiet to read. I try to avoid anywhere I might have to speak. The library’s okay at lunchtime, or there’s a good reading spot under the stairwell where no one can see me. Sometimes I still wander around looking in the windows of the art rooms for Skyla, but I can never find her. She won’t tell me where she goes.
It’s nice to have one person to talk to while I eat my lunch. It’s actually quite hard being quiet all the time in class, especially when I know the answers but don’t want to say them out loud. So by lunchtime I am ready to talk to someone. I’ve even started trying out some of my jokes on her, in my real voice too, not just a whisper anymore. She’s a good audience, but not as good as Granny Bread. Skyla can always spot my jokes coming while Granny Bread never can.
“I l-l-l-learned something interesting today, Skyla.”
“Oh, here we go … what?” she says, rolling her eyes.
“Do you know why b-birds fly to warmer countries in winter?”
“So they don’t freeze?”
“No, because it’s easier than walking!”
She kind of snorts and then packs up her tray.
“Will you ever run out of jokes?”
“N-N-N-NEVER!” I say loudly, and do a massive evil laugh, “Mua ha ha ha ha!” while I rub my hands together like a villain. She laughs at this and picks up her tray and heads out of the dining hall.