[stylist] A Deafblind Girl (chapter 3)

[Judith Bron]

Helene, It's getting better with every chapter.  Keep up the good work! 
Judith
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "helene ryles" <dreamavdb at googlemail.com>
To: "A private list for authors" <DB-AUTHORS at tr.wou.edu>; "bookel" 
<bookel1 at gmail.com>; "Writer's Division Mailing List" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 06, 2009 4:58 PM
Subject: [stylist] A Deafblind Girl (chapter 3)


Chapter 3:
My life as an honorary Dragon by Liza Bronze (1983)
An essay written by Liza Bronze as part of her Q2 exam (Q2 is the
second highest school leaving qualification)

My beloved dragon, Talmon Bronze, bought me soon after birth.  He
bought me from some poor excuse of a man who didn't care whether
Talmon reared me or ate me.  Unfortunately the miserable wretch also
happens to be my father.
I am also a duman, which is a grey-skinned person who can’t work any
magic.   Our magic comes from the Daemons, who are immortal superhuman
beings with very powerful magic.  When humans mate with daemons they
usually inherit some of that magic, which is how witches are created.
My great grandmother is a Daemon called Parvi.  My Grandmother, my
father, and both my aunts are all powerful witches who have inherited
their magic from Parvi.  They are disappointed that my sister Monika
and I have failed to inherit any of that magic at all.
Not only that but Monika and I were also born deafblind and female.
Being female would have been bad enough as far as my father is
concerned.  He married my sister to some thug who mistreats her, and I
was sold at birth. He just couldn't think of any better use for us.  I
am lucky to be alive today so I can prove my father wrong.
When I leave school I plan to join either the police or the armed
forces so I have a better chance of rescuing my sister Monika from her
abusive husband.  After that I hope to have my father arrested and
thrown into jail.     I will liberate Mother, and we will all live
happily ever after with Talmon and a house full of dogs.

I first moved in with Talmon when I was eight years old.  I used to
live in a signing Deaf community called Nassoli in Nazdonia.  I lived
with Shania who was my Nanny.   Talmon placed me there.  He had the
good sense to realise that a deaf baby would need a signing deaf
nanny.
There are so many deaf people in Nassoli that everybody can converse
in sign language.  I had lots of friends and I was really happy.   I
could speak a little and write in Nazdonian, as well as communicating
fluently in Nazdonian sign language (NSL).
It was a normal healthy environment, but it wasn’t good enough for Aunt 
Beria.
She persuade Talmon to move me to his home in Druzil, so I could be
educated  orally in ‘the real world’ with lots of ‘real’ learning
experiences, like having to learn to lip-read in a completely
different language;  plus the racial attacks I endured for being duman
and of Nazdonian heritage.
I spent a lot of time wishing I was back in Nassoli.  If only they
weren’t so anti-dragon there.  My visits to Nassoli were regularly cut
short with me getting really annoyed and storming off.  I still miss
them, but I won’t tolerate anyone criticizing Talmon.


First I went to Druzil School for the Deaf and the Blind where they
taught me orally in Drasp.  My education would have suffered even more
then it did if it wasn’t for my aunt Arielle.  She can sign fluently
in NSL.  She taught me Drasp with the help of some really good large
print text books.  They were all written in Nazdonian on how to read
and write in Drasp.  Arielle was a great help while she was there. It
is thanks to her that I am fluent in both Drasp and Nazdonian.
I was just getting used to Druzil School for the deaf and the blind
when in sixth grade; I was transferred to a mainstream middle school.
I was very isolated there since Druzil is only a small seaside port.
I was supposed to be given a cued speech interpreter but he often
failed to show up.  The more sympathetic teachers used to write
everything down on the blackboard for me to read.  The other children
resented them doing that.  I used to get into a lot of fights over it.

                  ***  ***  ***

After a day of struggling to decipher lip patterns at school, it was
always a relief at the end of the day to go home to Talmon. The
wonderful language of Dramic with its telepathically transmitted
images is most ideal for the deaf.
As I got home I would visualise an empty bowl with a question mark.
"Fish and chips" I would sign.  I couldn’t see Talmon from where I was
standing at the bottom of a steep climb, but I knew he could see me.
I visualised a fat and unhealthy looking girl with a spotty face.
"All right then.  I'll have spicy bean pasties with Salad then"
At that point a rope and harness would land at my feet.  I would slip
on my safety harness, and scramble up the side of the building, to get
to the door.   That climb keeps me really fit.  I think such
challenges are necessary in life.
When I first came to live here Talmon gave me fish and chips every
single day for a week.  When my aunts realised this they had a few
words with Talmon.  So now Talmon has a freezer full of healthy meals
for me.  He warms them up and serves them to me with plenty of salad.
At the time I thought my aunts were being really mean to interfere in
my dietary choices in this way.  I know better now.  As wonderful and
considerate as Talmon is, he has no idea what human hatchlings should
be eating. I could have asked him for all sorts of junk food if my
aunts hadn’t put a stop to that.
It was Talmon who first explained to me about my periods.  He told me
all female humans bled every month and it was nothing to worry about.
 He even explained to me about reusable tampons.  So when our fifth
grade class discussed the subject, I knew what they were talking
about.  I thought my teacher would be impressed but she wasn't.  She
got very worried and kept me behind after class.  It seems that she
felt it was not proper for a male dragon to explain such issues to a
young female human.
I really can’t understand what her problem was.  It annoys me when
people object to the dragons. They whine about the lack of stairs in
Darthrila, but climbing up the side of buildings, is a good form of
exercise.  People must be really fat and unhealthy in other parts of
the world that are run by humans.   Human leaders are very corrupt.
They make a mess of everything, squandering a lot of the world’s
resources on unnecessary items such as cars.   Due to all these cars
the air in human-run countries is thick with smug.  This makes people
cough and splutter all the time.  I feel very privileged to live in a
country that is run by a dragon.

My beloved dragon, Talmon saved my life on numerous occasions.   The
first time was when I was supposed to go out with this boy from school
called SH (which isn't his real name).   I was really looking forward
to it, as it was the first time I had a boyfriend. Thick glasses and a
couple of large bodily-worn hearing aids don’t do too much to enhance
one's popularity with boys.  Nor does being a duman.
 I remember with a great deal of pain how I clutched excitedly at the
straps on Talmon's back as he took me to meet SH.  Then instead of
taking me to the desired venue, he turned round in mid air and took me
back home.
"Talmon, we are going the wrong way!” I shouted.
I saw SH with a group of boys.  I saw the evil sign next to his head.
This was Talmon's way of telling me that SH had evil intentions
towards me.
"I don't care if he wants to sleep with me. I‘m ready for that"
Next he made the confused sign.  I visualised an image of a girl and a
boy alone together, followed by a question mark.
"Yes, of course it's only the two of us together”
Another image filled my head of a group of about 13 or 14 boys. The
evil sign again. The boys were waiting for me with eager anticipation
so they could all take it in turns to rape me.   SH did not intend to
stop them. The final image was of me sharing Talmon‘s hammock followed
by a question mark.
Normally my favourite times were with Talmon in his hammock.   We
would have a cuddle before I went to bed.  Sometimes Talmon would lick
me clean with his lovely rough dry tongue.  Today I was feeling so
dispirited that the prospect did little to placate me.
I spent that night weeping into my pillow.  Talmon came to comfort me.
 I am now very grateful for what Talmon did to protect me from SH.
When I went back to school SH broke my heart by spreading vile rumours
about me sleeping around with all his friends.

The second time Talmon saved my life was when my evil half sister
Madrella and her first husband moved into the area. They moved to a
village, a few miles out of Druzil.
I had a dog at the time called Briar.  I met Briar on the beach, and
Talmon let me keep him as a pet.  He even allowed me to make a dog
flap in the ground floor so I didn't have to keep carrying him up the
steep climb to the front door.  He also gave me several maps of the
surrounding area and a magnifying glass to read them with.  With the
help of the maps, we would walk for miles around the surrounding area.
 Briar and I were best friends until Madrella caught him in their
garden.
Earlier that day, I took Briar for a long walk along the beach.  When
I caught sight of some holiday makers, I went to grab Briar, to put
him back on the lead.  That's when I realised he was missing.  So I
went around calling after him.  I looked everywhere.
"Hey Duman, do you want to know where your dog is?" a grey-skinned
girl asked me. She said something like that anyway.   I could not hear
what she said over the sound of crashing waves, so I only had her lip
movements to go by.   I recognised her as Madrella's sister-in-law,
Melissa Rickshaw.   She goes to the same high school as me but we
don‘t get on.  She’s the kind of witch who despises those that can’t
work magic.
"Yes, of course I do.  Why else do you think I've been calling for him?"
"You never know with Dumans what their motives are.  If you will just
follow me, I'll show you where your dog is" and she set off at top
speed.
"Hey, Come back" I yelled after her, "I can't follow you when you move
so quickly"
"Oh, I forgot, you’re blind as well as deaf and duman.  I would let
you grab my arm, but your hands are filthy.   I don't want you to soil
my nice clean dress"
I smelt smoke coming from Madrella's garden.  To my horror she had
some sort of carcass tied up over a fire.  He smelt of cooked meat. I
didn't realise it was Briar until Madrella threw his collar at me.  I
kept screaming profanities at her for a long time after that.  I would
have beaten the living day lights out of her too, if Melissa wasn't
holding me back.
"Your dog shat in our garden.  I'm not having that.  Dog dirt is very
unhygienic.  It might cause my baby to be born a freak like you. So
I've decided to teach you and Briar a lesson.   He's not quite dead
yet.  If you really care about him why not get him out of the fire...
You can let go of her Melissa.  I want to see what she does," Madrella
had been standing very close to me, holding my head up so I was forced
to  stare into her face.  She moved away quickly after that.
As soon as Melissa released me, I rushed towards the fire, in order to
save Briar's life.  At that moment a pair of sharp claws dug into my
shoulders and I was lifted up into the air.  I had been so intent on
saving Briar that I hadn't noticed Talmon swoop down on top of me.
"Let go of me.  I need to get back to Briar" I told Talmon struggling
franticly, but Talmon just tightened his grip.
I suddenly visualized a dead dog.  A clock face with moving hands
showed me that poor Briar had been dead for over an hour before I
came.  Madrella had been lying to me when she said he was still alive.
Talmon was not flying back home. We were flying above the sea.
We landed on an island.  Talmon licked the tears from my face.  I sat
clutching him for quite some time.
"Briar is gone.   I'm going to kill the she devil that did this to my
dog.   I'll make her sorry, just see if I don't"
Talmon made no reply to this.  He sat stroking my hair with his scaly
hands.  We spent a few days on the island.  Talmon caught fish for
himself but I was too grief stricken over Briar's loss to eat anything
myself.
Talmon sent me an image of myself with a group of dragons.   They were
all happy to see me.  I was obviously one of them.  Talmon was
offering me a chance to become an honorary dragon.
I nodded enthusiastically.  I was so grief stricken right then that I
hated other human beings.   I wanted to disengage myself from the
human race entirely.
So Talmon took me to meet the other Bronze dragons.  They all came
over to stroke me.  I was given something to drink which made me very
sleepy.  I wanted more of it to drown out the grief I felt over
Briar's loss.
About a week later, they performed the initiation ceromony.  I am
forbidden from saying what exactly happened, but it was a very
beautiful experience.     I am so proud to be accepted into the Bronze
family group as an honorary dragon.   They don't always accept humans
in their private quarters.   They even alowed me to use their family
name instead of Slyrake which is the witch clan I was born into.   I
never liked being a Slyrake.   Bronze is a much nicer name.

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