Sounds Like Home: Growing Up Black and Deaf in the South

12. Coming of Age

12 I'D N EVE R be able to face the time ofyear when school started without a feeling of great loneliness and loss at being separated from my family and home. Once back on campus, it was a little easier since I had friends and could communicate with them. We went about getting settled in, seeing who was new, showing off new clothes and trinkets. I still had the same homeroom and Miss Laws, but had to take English under Mrs. ]. D. Mask. Mrs. I. B. Free was gone and a Miss Leach had her place. Mrs. Holbrook was back and Mrs. Alston was still matron for the blind girls. As usual, we had a bunch of new students, but the outstanding one as I remember was a girl named Gracie; I never knew her last name. We found her sitting on a bed in the junior girls' room one day when we came in from class. She had a brown complexion and pretty hair, but she was thin with very large black eyes that just stared at you with no expression. We gathered around and waved at her. No response. Each of us took turns making motions trying to get her to at least nod her head or something. She just sat and stared. Next, "Hazel the Horrible" stuck her face close up to Gracie and started trying to ask her name, thinking she might be able to 159 160 A NEW KIND OF LIFE hear a little. The girls told her to stop before she scared the girl to death and that Gracie knew she couldn't talk. "I too can talk," she told them, then started shaking the poor girl to make her talk, laugh, or cry. But Gracie never did. We wandered away, but went back when the bell rang for supper and tried to make her understand that it was time to eat. Nothing. I was told to "open my mouth" and tell her to go eat. Still nothing. The rest of us went. By the time we got back it was near dark and she still sat there. We had study hour, then started preparing for bed. We gathered around Gracie again and told her to put on her gown and go to bed. When we still got no response, one of the girls picked up her suitcase, laid it on the bed, took the key from around Gracie's neck, and opened it. It wasn't even halffull: a couple of brand-new cotton dresses, a nightgown, and a pile of Kotex. We took the gown and went through the motions ofpulling off a dress and putting on the gown, but it was a waste of time. Hazel grabbed the gown, pushed her face close to Gracie's, looking as mean as she could-which was mean indeed-and tried to pull the dress over her head and dress or undress her by force. No go. Gracie hung onto her clothes and her dignity. Finally giving up, we went to bed and left her sitting there in the dark. Upon awakening the next morning, we expected to see her either asleep or still sitting there. Neither was the case. Gracie and her suitcase had disappeared with the night. Since both hall doors were always locked at night on both floors, and all window screens closed and locked from the inside, where was she? Margie thought that maybe Mrs. Holbrook had come up and moved her downstairs or something. However, upon being informed of the Coming ofAge 161 happening, Mrs. Holbrook was shocked. She said she knew no more than we did and hurried to call Reverend Williams. He hurried right over, examined the door locks, and questioned all of the upstairs girls. After going to bed and lights-out, no one had seen Gracie. So that was the talk at breakfast and in the classrooms . "Wonder where Gracie is?" "How did she open the door and get out?" "Maybe she was really a ghost or a magician." 1 hoped she wasn't a ghost. When 1 thought about Snooks on that windy March night years before, 1 still got the shakes. "You all are crazy," Margie said. "I had my hands on her and she was warm. Ghost, nothing." So it remained a mystery until a day or so later when we got word that she'd been picked up...