Kyle Finds Her Way

by Susie Salom

  “Can I at least tell you about our vibrating cable system?” I say.

  Mom takes a breath and lets it out with her back still to us. She’s at the stove pouring water for tea. I could go for a hot chocolate right about now. My stomach makes a noise like it agrees.

  I look at Dad and he nods so I shove away thinking about food. Both my parents are quiet for a lot of minutes while I explain everything to them from the very beginning. I tell them about how Cameron won’t be able to hear or see in the maze and that he has to trust us to guide him. I tell them about how Meowsie’s wayfinders spend their lives working on their deep awareness of the natural world and the motion of the earth beneath their feet—or actually their boats—and how the things I learned from Marcy and Coach Yeung have helped me understand we don’t just see with our eyes and hear with our ears. We can use everything. Our skin, our memories, the things we think are gonna happen or hope are gonna happen. We can use all of that to navigate the dark places. And we can use each other.

  “So what does this have to do with cables?” Mom sits down with her swirly hot drink. I watch her blow the steam away and take a tiny, testing sip.

  “At first, Donna was the one that started us thinking on echolocation,” I explain. “But when that didn’t really help at the pool meeting, I had a moment and a breakthrough with a game in P.E. because we were looking for a way to communicate to Cameron without using batteries or electricity. It had to be something that didn’t need extra power.”

  Dad gets an interested look on his face.

  “All of this was because of what Marcy was teaching me about how she hears through her fingertips and … other parts. And me and Reed were learning about sending and receiving messages through the skin in gym.”

  Mom gives Dad an alarmed look.

  “It’s t’ai chi, Mom. It’s nothing bad. It’s the ancient martial art.”

  Dad smiles at Mom with his eyes, just like Reed used to when I first met him.

  “So at the next meeting, we all worked together to come up with the three-cable system to attach to Cameron. After that, we came up with the taps to send messages for when he turns left or right or stops or how many steps he moves forward.”

  “How does he turn a corner if the cables have to be stretched to tap them?” Mom asks.

  “Reed is attached to the cables on the other end and one of us taps the left and another taps the right. When it’s time to turn a corner, the one on that side taps once and we let the cables go loose so Cam can navigate the turn. Then Reed moves to make them tight again and we tap the middle to let Cam know how many steps to take until the next turn.”

  “What are you using to tap?” Dad asks.

  I shrug. “That’s part of what we’re”—I stop—“I mean, they’re going to try to decide on Monday.”

  I almost can’t believe I’m backing down without a fight. I had actually been thinking about standing up to Mom and Dad and telling them that I was gonna keep going to the meetings during school even if they wouldn’t let me be officially on the team.

  I don’t have it in me to fight my parents, though. I just don’t. Either I can get them to see things my way or I stop forcing it. And that’s when it really gets clear for me. This isn’t about salt or skin or bears. It’s about stars.

  The stars move and the earth moves and we move and we have to look for when things are moving our way and hop on for the ride. You can’t shoot down the stars. You have to learn them and feel them and watch how they rise, and trust.

  “I’m so sorry I lied,” I tell them.

  And right as I hear the word coming out of my mouth, I realize holding back any part of the truth is pretty much the same thing as a lie. It’s only easier to kid yourself about it.

  “It felt really, really good to be the one who came up with the first solution for the team and it would feel even better to be able to finish what we’ve started and actually compete in the maze. But I’m not going to do it if it means I have to fight you or go behind your back,” I say. “All I can tell you is that this is something that has become important to me and that I want to be there for my team. That I’m sorry and I want a chance to do things right.”

  There. All said.

  That wasn’t so horrible, actually.

  Dad does this tiny smile but Mom lets out a tired sigh and wipes her mouth with one hand. She and my dad look at each other but don’t say a thing.

  “Go get cleaned up and ready for bed,” she says. “And turn off that computer. I don’t want you on it at all tonight.”

  I look at Dad.

  “Do as your mother says.”

  I get up slowly from my chair. “What about dinner?”

  Inquiring stomachs want to know.

  Mom finally gives me a small smile. “Get your shower,” she says. “Then come down and you can have something.”

  “No salt,” Dad says.

  “Shut up, Keith.”

  Mom swats at Dad and he smiles.

  “I’ll have something ready for you, Kiki,” Dad tells me. He hasn’t called me that in a really long time. Like since before summer. “And tell your brothers to come down to eat, too. But after they’ve gotten cleaned up. You kids made my car on the way home smell like bear.”

  Mom and I both look at Dad, then each other. I’m freaked Mom will remember how mad she was when I got her kicked out of the boring shop but then she starts laughing. Like full-on cackles from the rowdiest member of the studio audience.

  I leave the kitchen and go straight upstairs for a shower. I swear, parents are super fruit loops sometimes. Fruit loops with boots and a cape.

  Dad makes these tasty sandwiches and vegetable stew, but we’re all too tired to do any more than eat and go to sleep afterward.

  Well, not really.

  I lie in bed and squeeze my eyes shut so I don’t have to stare at the ceiling. There are horses up there. It’s like the chariots are on tonight. When my eyes were still open, I think I could even see some spit roping from the mouth of the second horse. She really wants the trophy or whatever the winners get. A nice, fat wreath for her long, proud neck and a crunchy bucket of apples and orange sugar cubes. If they have orange sugar cubes.

  I still haven’t answered the chat. I’m too scared to tell the team I can’t help out anymore. I’d hoped that maybe when I went back downstairs after my shower, Mom and Dad would say, ‘Great news, Kyle. We’re so impressed by your determination to make things right we’ve decided to let you do NAVS, after all!’

  But they didn’t.

  We didn’t talk much or laugh or anything. Just munched our yummy sandwiches and then everyone brushed their teeth and went to bed. Mom and Dad to their master bedroom, because they’re the masters.

  The next morning when I wake up, I have the heart of a robot. Dad makes this rad blueberry salad with crumbly cheese and almonds in it and I shovel mine down and barely remember to say thank you. All I do is:

  O-pen mouth.

  In-sert bite.

  Wipe lips.

  Do not feel mad. Do not feel sad. Do not feel bad.

  As I’m waiting for the bus, my arms and legs are all buzz town. It’s a terrible feeling. Wish I could turn into a pterodactyl and fly over to a tsunami somewhere. I’d rather be swooping down to load innocent bystanders onto my back for a few hours instead of this.

  “Kyle!”

  A horn beeps twice and I spin around to look.

  It’s Dad!

  “Get in the car, Kiki,” he says through the window.

  I shade my eyes from the crackling autumn sky. “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m taking you to school today,” he says. “We need to talk.”

  I look at the couple of other kids waiting at our stop then climb into Dad’s passenger seat. I click the belt and face the front, feeling even more jumbly than before.

  “I have an idea about what you could use to tap the cables,” he tells me as we start to drive off.

  “Wait, what?”
I pull out the seat belt and lean forward so I can look at his face. “Does this mean you and Mom—”

  Dad nods. “This means me and Mom.”

  “Oh, Dad!” I roll down the window and scream out of it. Mom would have freaked, but Dad just laughs. “Sorry. Had to get that out.”

  Dad chuckles into the rearview.

  “Hang on, one more.”

  I stick my head out and scream again but this time there’s a lady in a teal jogging suit walking three dogs. She jumps and says a cuss word at me.

  “Dad, can we please go back to the bus?” I ask.

  “Why?”

  “Because I wanna tell Reed and Brooke I don’t have to hide anything from you guys anymore!”

  “Well, don’t you want to hear my suggestion about what to tap with?”

  “Oh.” I settle back into the seat. No sense rushing. I mean, I can always tell Reed and Brooke the good news at the meeting in the library. If I don’t explode! “Of course.”

  “Just joking, I don’t have a suggestion.” Dad smiles. “Just thought that was a good opener.”

  “Are you kidding? It was killer.” Then I do my trademark click and wink and look out the window at the beautiful world.

  Sometimes in life, really good news is followed by really craptacular news.

  When Mrs. A. tells us that morning in the library that the school can only send four official members to the challenge—and that it turns out I haven’t been officially signed up since Mom spoke to Principal Brac in the beginning of September—she lets us all know that I will be the one she adds to the team as an alternate.

  An alternate.

  Which means unless lightning strikes one of my team members and turns them into a human electrical box, I.

  Can’t.

  Play.

  “You know I actually just got official permission from my mom and dad to be a part of the team this morning?” I tell my friends after Mrs. A. leaves.

  “Well, that’s ironic,” Cameron says.

  And there’s the word.

  Here’s what I’ve decided.

  I’ve decided it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that, officially, I’m now just an alternate because, really, I’m lucky to be a part of this at all. I’m still on the team. I still was the one who came up with sending messages with vibrations. I still helped to develop how we send those vibrations and I can still help the team decide what to use to send them.

  So, see?

  All that really matters is that the team wins. Because if we win, we all win together. Just because I’m not actually in the maze with my teammates doesn’t mean I’m not a part of the big Navsbowski.

  This is what I keep telling myself as Marcy and I sit together at lunch. Okay, so I kiiind of moved away from Brooke and Donna, just for today, because all they wanna talk about is the challenge in a couple of weeks and I could use one minute of my entire life without being obsessed by NAVS.

  “Hey, Fedora.”

  Reed slams a tray with what’s left of a sloppy joe and milk on the table next to me.

  “Time to get you sorted and here’s how I see it.”

  Get me sorted? I need sorting? Reed casts a glance over his shoulder at Donna and Brooke then looks back to me.

  “This whole NAVS business hasn’t been easy for you from the first.” He lifts his hand. “But, so what? Did you know that at my old school things were so skint half the class had to sit outside?”

  “Reed.”

  He puts a hand over his chest. “Dead serious. But only in late spring. Look, I know it seems I’m taking the mick but the truth is, people all over have it rough. I mean really rough.”

  “I know,” I say. Because I do.

  “And I’m feeling for you,” he goes on, “I really am, but sitting away from your mates ’coz listening to them talk about the challenge is hard for you isn’t gonna help.”

  “Reed,” I say again. Mostly because I don’t know what else to say. Plus, I’m a tiny bit embarrassed that he’s giving me this sorting talk all out in the open and right in front of Marcy. I mean, she’s the one who’s really had to build a bridge over troubled water this year.

  “You’re a fighter, Fedz,” Reed goes on. “You face things and you don’t run away. And you know what you’ve got to face now?” he asks.

  I shake my head.

  “Now that your mum and dad aren’t giving you something to push against, ’coz I know that’s how you like it best.”

  I swallow and blink.

  Holy mustard cannoli. Could he be right??

  “Now, it’s yourself you gotta get in the ring with,” he tells me. “You gotta take that big, heaping spoon of disappointment and swallow”—he takes a slurp from the little red carton and crushes it—“and we’ll all be the better for it. The team’ll always need you, Fedora.” He wipes off his milk mustache and smacks his lips before picking up his tray. “No sense backing down now.”

  He gets up from the table and moves away.

  For a second, I can’t face Marcy. I can feel her eyes trying to sneak under my fedora but I can’t seem to get up the guts to return her stare. After about a minute, though, she just tells me what she wants to say.

  “Being an alternate’s not the end of the world.”

  Inch by inch, I look up. “I know.”

  “Can I be honest?” she says.

  That question is never followed by something that’s easy to hear, is it?

  “I think Reed’s half right,” she goes on, “about you not being the type to run away.”

  I sit there, still, waiting for her to go on.

  “It’s like you don’t run away from the big, in-your-face things,” she says.

  “Like Ino?”

  She nods. “But the smaller things, that are kind of bigger in their own way, it’s like they have more of an effect on you.” She crosses her legs on the bench and gets comfy. “I’ll try and explain. On my first day of school here, I was so nervous about whether or not these hearing aids were going to be a good walking stick.”

  “Walking stick?”

  “Yeah,” she says. “You know, like a blind person? They use a stick and it sends them information about the world. A curb, a chair, anything that they would have to sense first and then steer around.”

  I lick my lips, paying attention as hard as I can.

  “In the school that I went to before, we didn’t need walking sticks. Because that world was set up for people who couldn’t hear. Everybody lip-read. Almost everybody signed. And everybody understood how it was okay to sometimes slip into your own place and not communicate anything at all. Here”—she looks around—“it’s a totally different world. It’s a world for people who have built-in walking sticks. They can hear. They take it for granted that everyone is on the same wavelength. But not everyone is. Some of us need help to be like everyone else. We have to work harder to understand and be understood. We look for people who will go out of their way to be nice instead of mean. Or better yet, people who don’t make us feel like they have to go out of their way at all. Like you.”

  I blink. Me?

  “I think the reason you get me is because you know what it’s like to have to work a little harder to be understood.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like with going behind your mom’s back. Or being on the outs with your popular friend, Sheroo. You’ve got all kinds of guts when it comes to dealing with creeps like Ino or even a bossypants like Donna. But when it comes to what’s really in your heart, it takes more work. More risk. And I understand that. I don’t have a problem with being deaf. There are parts of it that I actually like better. It almost feels like a special power to be able to have the world go quiet so that I don’t have to fight to make out my own thoughts. It’s being in a world made for people who can hear that makes me feel like I’m on some kind of battlefield sometimes. See what I’m saying?”

  I wish I did see everything that she’s saying. But I think it’s going to take me a
little time to get it all sorted—as Reed would say.

  “Use the part of you that is strong to help the part of you that is weak,” she says. Then she knocks her shoulder next to mine and almost bumps off my fedora. “And go to it.” She reaches out to fix my hat. “Slugger.”

  The next two weeks are almost the best of my entire time so far at Georgia O’Keeffe. Pretty quick it stops to matter that I’m not going to be in the maze because the people from NAVS headquarters or wherever it is send the school practice blindfolds and earplugs just like the ones Cam will use on the day of the competition, so everything starts to feel really real. Coach even has his last gym class set up some practice lanes so that we can actually guide Cam through them every day after school!

  The first time he rocks the earplugs and blindfold, he starts falling to the side when he walks. Actually, he can’t stop falling to the side. Even when we hook him up to the skinny braided steel cables—which is what we’ve settled on in place of the jump ropes—and attach him to Reed. I tiny-sign my name in the air to tell my left from my right and notice Cam goes to the right every time. His body just seems to wanna lean like that, which makes keeping him inside the lanes even more of a challenge.

  The Wednesday before the competition, Ino and his buddies are in the gym after school because they’re jerky lard buckets and have nothing better to do with their lives than watch us practice and throw shade at Cam.

  “Little baby can’t walk!” Ino calls out. “Poor little baby, just learning to take his steps, and he keeps falling.”

  His friends laugh and give him five, but Cameron doesn’t notice because I guess he can’t hear with the plugs. And obvs, he can’t see.

  We’ve decided to use a wand to tap the cables. It gave us the perfect excuse to get a magic kit with the school’s money but what’s really kick is that it works the best of all the things we tried. Spoons, rulers, backscratchers—Donna even suggested a tree branch—but nothing made a better walking stick than a magic wand.

  The other thing we figure out once Cameron is wearing the belt, the cables, the blindfold and the earplugs, is that we can’t just keep tapping the middle cable to keep him moving in a straight line. After you tap it enough times, even with the wand, Cam can’t tell the number of steps anymore. The message gets too blurry. So Reed says what if instead of Donna or Brooke tapping the middle cable, they pluck it? But then Brooke goes well, how will Cam know when to stop? And that’s when Donzie comes up with the genius plan of holding the cable.