A Perfect World

Chapter 8

“Aydin!” They call again. I spin around and spot Claire frantically waving me over to them. For half a second I hesitate, casting a quick glance around the crowd before trotting quickly to my friends.

“What were you doing over there?” Ty says, interpreting for Dan.

“Hm, what? Oh, nothing. I thought I saw somebody I knew, that's all.” I say hurriedly.

“Who’d you see?” Claire asks, obviously oblivious to the fact that I was trying to be vague.

“Uh, ya know that dirty blonde chick from school?” I say coming up with a completely random person to avoid sounding crazy.

“The one with blue eyes, and is about 5’ 5”? Ace?”

“Yeah, her.  I thought I saw her. That's all.” I say with an innocent smile to sell my story. Claire nods, before turning to Dan and Ty and asking as if she had been waiting for years, “Could you guys teach us ASL?”

Ty seems shocked by Claire’s question, suddenly at an obvious loss for words, but Dan nods, a smile appearing on his face, revealing dimples on his cheeks. Dang, that kid has a nice smile. He taps Ty’s shoulder, snapping him out of his trance, a smile stretches across his face too, and he nods, “Yeah, of course!”

Dan taps Ty’s shoulder again and signs something to him. Ty nods, and signs something back, then turns back to us. “Let’s start simple. The alphabet should work, right?” He says with a slight grin. We spend the next 15 or 20 minutes practicing the alphabet until we all have it memorized. After a bit, we start trying to sight words to each other, earning an amused grin or an occasional chuckle from Dan and Ty, followed by them correcting whatever we did wrong, and telling us what we screwed up on. Usually, we just spelled something wrong, but we did it so intentionally and with such confidence, they couldn’t keep from laughing. Finally, we’re all able to spell simple sentences to each other, Dan occasionally jumping into one of our conversations, or showing us the sign for a word we use a lot. By the time we the guards shout that free-time has started we’ve come up with ASL names for each other, and can all carry a reasonable conversation. Claire is AB, which stands for Aggressive Blonde. I’m PB, Passive Blonde, and Meg is Fire Hair. Jaydia, even though she can’t carry a conversation, is Scarlad, named after her ancestral home.

Instead of switching back to speaking, ya know, like normal people, we sign to each other as we disperse into the crowd to get into our lines.

<Remember the plan,> Meg signs, <We need to do that quickly.>

<Right. When are we planning to start?> I sign back, still surprised by how good we got so quickly.

<As soon as possible,> Dan replies, <We have another- We don’t want to get caught.>

<We have another what?> I sign, catching both Dan’s miscommunication, and his face as he tries to hide it, hoping I’d miss it.

<Nothing.> He responds quickly. Too quickly.

<Just tell her, Peace.> Claire signs with a sigh. Peace is the name Ty and Dan agreed Dan would use when they first became friends, but Ty had told us he didn’t really know why Dan had chosen that. Ty’s ASL name is Silence, a name of his own choosing in reference to his deafness.

Dan sighs before giving me his explanation, <Tech and Sport have a plan to get us out,> He signs, his hands shaking slightly, making it difficult to signs quickly, <It’s going to start later tonight, around 8:30. None of us can go to our cells, or else we’ll get locked out of the plan until we can come up with another time to come back.>