The Child of Scraps

Chapter 1

Is there ever a single characteristic that defines a person?

Like in the classroom, there's the smart guy, the dancer, the wise-crack, the fashionable, the airhead, the loner, and probably loads more. Most people are a mixture of all sorts of characteristics, but to fit the person in the mind, where it's busy and cramped and has an unwillingness to move over, especially for strangers,  most people just simplify a single person to a single characteristic. It was like having only four elements, when there was an entire world of magic to choose from. It may not be that fair, but that's how the world works.

Take this girl for example: a small girl riding with her father on a pedicab, a really cheap makeshift bicycle with a sidecar. Her name is Noah Rizal. She has messy hair. She lives in the Philippines with her father, Dominiko. She never knew her mother. They were a poor family. She liked watching anime. She liked reading books. She wasn't easily scared by horror movies. 

Seems simple enough, right? Seems like an average girl with an average life, as the only child of a single dad.

But what if you knew she was deaf?

There. That's the little kicker. Suddenly she's the deaf girl, who couldn't hear ever since she was born. She'd be this passing bucket of pity, that everyone is quick to feel sorry for, but they never look beyond the lack of hearing.

And Noah, adjusted to this world, really didn't have much to believe except for the fact that being deaf had totally taken over her life. She couldn't watch Saturday cartoons because they had no subtitles; hence, she only watched anime.  She had very few friends, the closest was a girl named Melissa, and she didn't stay near Noah much, because she kept moving around. She couldn't go to school because coming from a poor family that couldn't afford the luxuries of those schools that were meant for the disabled. It's not like a regular public school teacher would know how to sign. Oh, and communication  problems! Thank goodness her father, Dominiko, learned ASL with her - because really there was no other choice than learning it on the internet and teaching her - although she was trying to learn reading lips as well.

Dominiko was a public school teacher, who didn't earn very much. He also worked a part-time job at a fast-food place to earn a little more. Since he wasn't having much time with Noah, he had given her a phone with unlimited texting. Noah downloaded e-books and games there too, and she played all day as the owner of some kind of magic shop. It wasn't much, but it was a good past time.

Enough with the back-story information dump. Aren't you interested in what happens to a deaf girl that lives in a world of magic?

Noah was trying to figure out what kind of magic she had.  She was thinking about it on the pedicab ride, wondering what powers she had. Other than the usual generic stuff that everyone was given, like learning to enchant things and basic mastery of energy manipulation, she didn't really know what she had, other than this old passive ability of hers, which wasn't so useful for much other than getting her friends that it wasn't worth defining what ability it was.

Dominiko tapped Noah on the shoulder, and she looked up to see that they were already at the mall. They got out of the pedicab, Dominiko paid for the fare, and they started walking towards the mall, with Noah's hand in his. 

Noah didn't remember why they decided to go here, actually. She figured that since it was a Sunday, the only day when Dominiko was actually free, he decided that they could hang out for a while. Was he going to bring her to the arcade or a bookstore? Maybe he was bringing her to that stuffed toy place, and he was going to get a companion for her stuffed tarsier, Tara. Noah's curiosity was starting to come out.

As they went inside the mall, Noah realized that it looked a little different from her visit last time, which was about two weeks ago. There were red and blue banners all over the place, with the same face on each one of them. Noah tugged Dominiko, and pulled him towards the poster. She recognized the face as Enrique Aguirre, a politician that kept appearing on the news, lately.

Dominiko tapped on her shoulder, and she looked at him. "He's doing some advertising so that people will vote for him," Dominiko said, Noah reading his lips.

Noah signed back, "Is that for the election? Isn't it in 6 months?"

Dominiko replied,"They do it early so that there's more time for the people to think about who to pick, meaning more time to convince the people to choose them."

Noah didn't quite understand, but she nodded. Dominiko smiled and pointed towards the center of the mall, where important events usually happened. "Actually," he said, "I think Aguirre should be here today. I remember he had an important announcement to make."

In the center of the mall was a huge stage, that never really left its position. It was used a lot, usually for sales and little performances by indie bands. On that same stage, there were many banners, same as the ones decorating the mall, and there were people setting up the electronic equipment, while others enchanted disks to float in the air and show the stage to those at the back. It seemed that they were doing the finishing touches.

With Noah's interest piqued, she started rushing to the center of the mall, pulling Dominiko along. It was then that she noticed how crowded it was. She realized that these people were not just here for leisure, but they were probably here to see the candidate Aguirre. She let go of Dominiko's hand, trusting that he'd follow her, and started darting in between people. If there was one thing that she was good at, it was maneuvering through large crowds.

She was getting a little closer to the center, and more people had stopped walking. Noah stopped, trying to find a better way. She got a glimpse of her friend Melissa, who was probably there to check out the commotion, and Noah waved to her. Melissa gave back a devilish smile, before disappearing into the crowd. Noah realized that her friend's position was probably a good place to be, so she hurried there. She stopped in her tracks to view the stage from her position, which was actually decent; the people on stage seemed tiny, but there was a disk being set-up in front of Noah, which meant that she'd get a clear view.

Noah felt a familiar tap, and she turned around to find Dominiko behind her. He smiled at Noah, which comforted her. Dominiko seemed so invincible, so perfect. He was always there for her, and he never left her behind without a good reason. She didn't know what she'd do if she had lost Dominiko.

They waited for a good ten minutes or so, and if Noah wasn't used to being bored waiting at home for her father to come home, she'd probably think that it was the longest ten minutes of her life.

Finally, Aguirre came on stage, and people started clapping and pushing forward to see him better. He tapped on the microphone, and for a quick second Noah wondered how she was going to learn from his speech. She kept her eyes on the floating disk, which was focusing on Aguirre.

Aguirre started talking, and people were reacting in ways that Noah couldn't properly comprehend because they used their vocal chords. She wondered if she would even be able to hear Aguirre properly over the crowd if she wasn't deaf.

Then Aguirre started showing pictures of a building in the works. The disk changed its focus from the man to the pictures of the building. Noah squinted her eyes at the tiny text at the bottom of the picture, which said 'Manila'. Was that where the building was located? Probably.

Then the picture changed again and Noah read the tiny - how was this even legible what was the point of putting this here - subtitles that said, 'Manila School of Learning'. Noah got the idea that whoever named the building wasn't very creative.

Dominiko tapped her again so she looked at him. Instead of talking, like usual, he started signing, which probably meant that he had a lot to say. "The reason why he gathered people here today was because he was going to announce his new project, the school. He's trying to get more people to vote for him, and it's rather amusing because  another candidate, named Francis de Castillo, decided to build a school too, which is almost done with their preparations, compared to Aguirre's school, which has barely started."

Noah laughed. Politics was weird.

Then she noticed that people started shaking and running towards the entrance. That was when she knew something was wrong, and that is where our story begins.