The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth - Alexandra Robbins [59]
On the next band bus ride, Noah saw Leigh sitting near the back of the bus. He recalled something his father had said: “Push yourself into conversations and become more involved.” He plopped down next to Leigh and cheerily talked about every subject that came to mind, made her laugh with jokes and songs, and otherwise tried to show her he cared. He tried to be her friend.
Over the next several days, Noah and Leigh talked on the phone for hours. They went out for a friendly dinner. After a recycling presentation, Noah and Leigh had breakfast together before school. At the end of the week, Leigh asked him to get back together. Elated, Noah agreed.
DANIELLE, ILLINOIS | THE LONER
At the first National Honor Society meeting of the year, an officer told the club about two girls with disabilities who spent their days at Stone Mill and looked forward to having student visitors. “Not very many people are able to do it,” the officer said. “It can be kind of weird for some people.” Danielle liked the idea that most students couldn’t work with the girls. She was up for the challenge.
When Danielle walked into Emily and Viv’s classroom for the first time, she was nervous. The sisters were both in wheelchairs. Emily, a short, round-faced girl in pajamas, perched on a platform where a machine massaged her back. Viv, taller and skinnier than her sister, wore a dressy scarf around her neck. One other student sat in the room, a prep whom Danielle knew from sophomore year English. Danielle sat next to her. They exchanged uncomfortable looks.
The sisters’ aide reviewed a long list of guidelines about how to act around the girls. Neither girl could see or talk, and both of them had hypersensitive hearing. Visitors had to enter and exit the classroom quickly so the closed door blocked out the sounds of students in the hallway.
Danielle returned the following week. When she made spin art with Viv, she had to hold the girl’s hand on the button to rotate the device. Viv’s hand was limp, and Danielle, who had never been around people with handicaps, was apprehensive about touching her. She imagined that Viv’s hand felt like a dead person’s hand. Danielle didn’t like touching people to begin with, which made it that much more awkward to touch a stranger, let alone an unpredictable stranger. Viv’s hand kept falling off of the button—Danielle assumed because she wasn’t enthusiastic about spin art—so Danielle held the button down herself.
Despite her discomfort, Danielle realized it was a relief to spend time with the sisters and their aide. She didn’t have to force herself to make inane small talk; she could talk about whatever interested her, and the aide told stories about the girls. Also, the hush was nice. The sisters’ classroom was a refreshing oasis amid the superficial pandemonium of high school halls.
It seemed as if every year Danielle grew quieter; and the less she talked, the more she withdrew from people. She wasn’t sure why this year she was having a particularly difficult time connecting with classmates. Sometimes Danielle’s mother suggested she had a superiority complex. She did sometimes feel superior to other students, because they didn’t have any meaningful aspirations. At other times, Danielle’s mother said she had an inferiority complex. Danielle agreed with both assessments. Physically, surrounded by bone-thin girls at school, Danielle, who fluctuated between sizes six and eight, felt fat, and mentally, she felt unintelligent because she hardly bothered talking in class. Ever since the seventh-grade hate club, Danielle had adopted an Abraham Lincoln quote as a mantra: “Better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” She found another kindred spirit in Xenocrates, whose quote hung in her creative writing teacher