No Focus Listen Do not let Mom be right Click I push the button Click click They were beeps They had to be I close my eyes and concen trate as hard as I can Yes a beep Low but I’m sure of it Click Another Was it Did I make it up Click Again yes I hear it Click Eyes sealed tight Click I hold my breath not wanting to miss a near silent beep Click Click Click I jump at the sound of Yvonne’s voice Okay sit tight for a second Easy for her to say With no noise coming through the headphones the tinnitus takes over That con stant loud ringing in my ears drives me nuts espe cially at night when I’m trying to fall asleep I look to the corner where two of the metal walls the ones that cage me in meet and try to distract myself by counting holes from the bottom up This time I get to ninety-two before the vault door opens Yvonne’s smiling as she takes the clicker from my hand Better than a shot at a doctor’s office right 6
I don’t have my aids in and though I can still hear certain things a little bit without them Yvonne doesn’t know this So I pretend I have no clue what she’s say ing especially because I’d take one hundred shots at a regular doctor’s office over sitting in this Box of Shame any day Her question is ridiculous And mean She throws me that I-feel-sorry-for-you smile the one people wear every time they find out I have hearing loss and I wish I could erase it right off her face I mean if she’s going to be an audiologist she should at least be a better pretender I can faintly hear that she’s still talking but I don’t look at her I don’t need to read her lips to know what she’s saying that for this next test I don’t have to do anything but sit still while the nearly upside down lopsided headband that hugs the back of my head tests something with my bones When Yvonne slips out and closes the door before she gets to her side of the smudged window I slide the headband backward about an inch A test with no results is better than a test with bad ones I close my eyes and mentally transport myself to my happy place the beach and prepare for Mom’s scold ing when Yvonne finally lets me out of this detention 7
Chapter 2 Dr James is examining the audiogram as I plunk onto the chair next to Mom I pull out my note book and try to write the five new words I saw on Yvonne’s list when I stole a glance at it as I came out of the Box of Shame Youth Beg Jug Phone Words I didn’t catch Words to memorize Sounds and pat terns to study so I can figure out exactly what I don’t hear in order to pretend that I do Before I can write the last word star Mom leans in and gives me a kiss on the cheek Because she’d call this cheating for sure I quickly f lip to a new page and doodle my favorite star constellation Delphinus to help me remember to add the word later Delphinus is a dolphin that according to star lore saved a famous ancient singer when he was robbed by pirates at sea The singer jumped overboard before the pirates could hurt him A dolphin heard 8
the guy’s song and rescued him carrying him safely to land The Greek god Apollo rewarded the dolphin with a constellation It’s one of my all-time favorite star stories Mom taps me How’d it go she asks me but she looks to Dr James for an actual answer I’m worried the last ear infection Rayne a few weeks ago damaged ears more Yvonne busted me on the bone test and made me redo it I bet she told Dr James He gives me a tight smile He probably also knows I guessed words and clicks I was trying maybe too hard Part of me feels bad He’s a nice man and I like him but I’m sure I’ve wasted his time today Those tests probably cost a million dollars so I wasted that too But he’s not the one with a mom who even though she can hear just fine refuses to listen Mom’s like a cat watching a game of ping-pong looking from Dr James to me and back I turn away and hitch my left foot on top of my opposite knee and trace one of the constellations I drew on my sneakers One boy called them dorky in the middle of the hallway at school and a few kids laughed but I’d rather them stare at my feet than my ears so I keep wearing them 9
