Out of My Mind- ch. 15

[0:00]Chapter 15. The next morning we get the first snowfall of the season. Big, fat flakes fall outside the windows of room H5. Freddy zooms over and touches the window. Nice, he says. Mrs. Shannon rolls all of us closer so we can watch the snow accumulate on the grass and trees. It's really pretty. Even Jill seems to relax. We going to play in the snow? asks Maria. No, Maria, it's too cold to play outside, but guess what? It's getting close to Christmas. Maria cheers. I've heard it's some sort of tradition around here to decorate this old Styrofoam snowman. Mrs. Shannon continues. She makes a face as she pulls Sydney's head out of his box. Maria starts to hug it, but Mrs. Shannon stops her and says, I believe in the smell of fresh pine trees at holiday time and real candy canes and popcorn garland. Tomorrow, I'm bringing in a real tree and we're going to make it beautiful. Freddy and Carl slap palms. Maria looks disappointed for a moment, but she seems to forget about the snowman as Mrs. Shannon gives everyone a soft piece of chocolate candy. She wisely stuffs Sydney back into his box. While Mrs. Shannon shows the rest of the class how to make paper snowflakes, Catherine and I sit together in front of one of the clunky classroom computer and do web searches on communication devices. It's so slow. Sometimes it gets jammed up and stalls, and we have to reboot it and start all over. Room H5 always gets the big leftover computers and the other classrooms no longer want. Catherine and I research all kinds of electronic talking and communication devices that have been designed for people like me. Lots of them seem as clunky and awkward as our room computer. But some look really complicated. All of them are expensive, crazy expensive. Some of the websites don't even list the prices like they're afraid to specify how much the thing costs. The devices that you standard computer keyboards wouldn't work. I'd have no way to hit the individual keys. I need something that would work with just my thumbs. We find adapted computers, talking boards that speak with words, push button systems, and even devices that work with blinks or head nods. Finally, we find something called a meditoker that looks like a possibility. It has spaces big enough for my thumbs to get into and millions of words and phrases built into it. I watch an online video of a boy about my age using one, and even though he clearly has no voice of his own, this little box lets him tell all the details of his recent birthday party. I get so excited that my legs start kicking and my arms start flailing, and I look like some kind of crazy human helicopter. Catherine prints out the information and tucks it into my book bag that is attached to the back of my chair. Good luck, Melody, she whispers as she leaves for the day. When I get off the bus after school, Mrs. V is waiting for me as usual. I almost twist out of my seat trying to point to my bag to let her know I have something important in it. Hold your horses, Mrs. V says. Since when are you excited to do homework? What's got you all in a tizzy today? I just grin and kick. After my snack of caramel candy, first and tunamelt last, and after Penny, who has just gotten up from her nap, eats her applesauce, Mrs. V finally pulls the papers out of my bag. Well, this is exactly what you need, Mrs. V says, slapping the print outs onto the table after reading them. No wonder you're all fired up. Yes, yes, yes, I point. Then I point to the individual words. Talk to Mom and dad. Talk, talk, talk. I'll do just that, just as soon as they get home from work, Melody, Mrs. V promises. I can hardly wait. While Penny watches Cookie Monster gobble carrots instead of cookies on Sesame Street, I dream of talking, talking, talking. When Mom picks us up, Mrs. V, true to her word, not only shows Mom the print outs, but even has her computer already set to the web page where the meditokers advertised and sold. Penny sits on Mom's lap and keeps pushing the computer keys, messing up the display, which is getting on my nerves. But Mom watches the video that shows people actually talking and cracking jokes and even going to college by using that machine. Mrs. V explains to Mom how this is exactly right for me. And Mom, instead of being practical and sensible and thrifty like she usually is, seems to agree. Looks like insurance will cover about half the cost, she muses as she navigates the website. Let me talk to Chuck. This is long overdue. Tonight, I ask from my board. Yep, tonight, Mom says, giving me a squeeze. But nothing happens right away in my world. Mom fills out the online application for the machine the next day and sends it in. I wait. Then we have to ask my doctor to fax in a prescription. I've heard a prescription's for antibiotics, but for machines, that seems crazy. Who'd ever want this machine unless they needed it? I wait. Next, we have to get approval from our insurance company. More paperwork and phone calls, more questions and answers. I wait. A parental financial statement has to be turned in. You got to be kidding me. Why do they make it so complicated? I wait. The medical form was missing one signature and has to be resubmitted. I wait. One last approval form from a school official has to be turned in. I wait. I realize I have been waiting for this thing my life. Finally, finally, finally, on the Wednesday before Christmas, the Meditalker arrives. I need no other gift. When I get home from school, Mrs. V tells me that she hurried to my house when she saw the UPS truck pulling up in her driveway. She signed for the package and brought it to her house for safe keeping. The huge brown box sits there, taped and secured. And it is addressed to me. I wiggle and squeal and insist we open it right away. I can feel one of my tornadoes coming on. Spastic city, here I come. Calm down, mellow yellow, Mrs. V says, placing a hand on my shoulder, but I can't relax. Open, open, open, I tap. Well, your mom knew you'd be impatient, Mrs. V says. So when I called her to say it arrived, she told me it was okay for us to open it. I feel like I'm going to have a heart attack watching Mrs. V carefully open the edges of the box. She lets me pull out the brown paper inside. Then, under about a mile of bubble wrap, there it is, the meditoker. Smaller than I expected, it's only the size of my wheelchair tray, but it's sleek and shiny and cool to the touch. It's like a butterfly ready to unfold its wings. Boy, oh, boy, I can't wait to try it. Mrs. V plugs it into the wall outlet to charge the battery, then pulls out the huge booklet of directions. she says. This will take a year to read and understand. She flops down in a soft easy chair with Penny on her lap and begins to read. And I began to wait and wait, and wait. Finally, when I just know I'm going to explode, I wheel over to the table where the meditoker sits. I've seen the kids at school play video games they've never seen before, and I've seen them program their phones and computers without touching a book of instructions. So I take my right thumb and push the on button. The board wurs and glows, and a welcome message appears on the screen. I push another button, and a voice that sounds like an English man with a really bad head cold blurts out, Welcome to Meditoker. Mrs. V jumps up from the couch. I shriek with joy. It looks like you're way ahead of me, Melody. Now that I'm not that I'm surprised, she sets Penny down. Now let's see what this machine can do. I feel like Christopher Columbus bumping into America. It'd been there all the time, but he was the first one from his world to find it. I wonder if his heart had beat as fast as mine is. We quickly discovered that the Meditoker had more than a dozen levels, all easily reached with just one button. So on level one, we program in the names of everyone I know, my name, all the members of my family, kids and teachers at school, my doctors, the neighbors, my parents' friends, and of course, Mrs. V. On the second level, she insists we add all the vocabulary words we've been collecting in our multi-colored three by five inch flash cards. Type, save, type, save. Mrs. V's fingers fly as fast as she keeps adding words for me. Lots of our vocabulary words are already in the machine's memory, but she gives me more, more, more. Nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives, thousands of them. As well as a cool sentence maker that is located on another level. We compare hundreds of phrases and sentences and get them with just a touch. Have you heard their latest song? That's what's up. How did you do on the spelling test? Ordinary words, normal conversation. I've never had that. Awesome. Another level is for the numbers and even computation. I'll be able to do math now. Maybe I won't tell the teachers about that one. And there's a level full of corny jokes and silly sayings with room left for us to add more. Another level plays music. I can connect the device to a computer and download any song I want. I can't wait to search iTunes. Maybe I can ask Rose which songs are hot. Rose, I can actually talk to Rose now. We stopped programming after a while. Penny needs to be changed and kept occupied, but I'm too much excited to rest. So after Mrs. V gets Penny set up with her dollhouse at the foot of the couch, we add even more words and phrases. Finally, she stops typing and says, Would you like to try it out? The room is absolutely quiet. I stroke the edge of the machine softly, then push two buttons. Thanks, Mrs. V, the computer's voice says. She blinks real fast. I do too. She reaches for a tissue. We both need it. Mrs. V tucks the tissue into her pocket, then begins reading again from the instruction manual. Hey, listen to this, she says. With that connector cord, you can also save longer things you want to write like stories or poems on the computer. Wow, the machine says. Mrs. V nods in agreement. This is going to be fun, but you're going to need lots of practice to make it say what you want, kid. She's right. Many levels have been left blank for users to input their own information, words, sentences, phone numbers, even pictures. Information can be typed directly into the machine or it can be downloaded from a computer. It's a little overwhelming. We can design this to fit you, Melody, Mrs. V tells me. This will be your world. So let's take our time and make it exactly what you need. I'm so happy. I almost feel like hugging the machine, but that would look silly. Instead, I name it. That's probably pretty dumb, but sometimes it's good to have something that nobody else knows but you. I'm not going to type the name into the machine because it's personal, but in my mind, I'm going to call the meditalker Elvira after that song I like. Yep, my heart's on fire for Elvira. While Mrs. V plays with Penny for a while, I continue to explore what Elvira can do. One of the first changes I want to make is the hello message, and the voice that speaks it. The computer produced greeting sounds really fake, but the machine offers several female voices to choose from, as well as a bunch of different languages. I picked the voice called Trish. She actually sounds like a girl, not a grownup. I wouldn't mind sounding like her if I could talk. Bonneville, Trish says in French, and I know that means welcome. I pushed the button for German, and she says, Welcome. I even find something that sounds like fun when I touch the button for Chinese. I stopped for a minute and stare at the board. It has never occurred to me that there are kids like me in Germany, in China, and France, who need a machine to help them talk. Mrs. V returns to me and helps me change the original welcome message from the very mechanical sounding, Welcome to Meditoker. To Trish's voice saying, Hi, I'm Melody. Talk to me. I can't wait to take it to school and introduce my new computer to everybody there. I wonder what Rose will say. By now, both Mom and Dad have called to check on how we're doing, how much progress we've made. They're both anxious to get here and see the device for themselves. So while we wait, Mrs. V suggests that we keep programming it, adding more and more. She thinks I should practice using it for a couple weeks before taking it to school. I really don't want to wait, but I have to agree with her that this is going to take some time, and I want to be able to use the system to talk like ordinary kids, sort of. So we return to words. I want to input thousands of them, notebook, marker, homework, assignment, test, positive, negative, fingernail, nail polish, outfit, backpack, purse, scared, excited, purple. Then we type in more phrases, hundreds of them. To the mall, from a distance, in the middle of, as a result, the reason why. Lastly, we get to some sentences, dozens of them. What time is it? What's up with that? You crack me up. I'm so excited. before the doorbell rings. When Dad and Mom come in to pick us up, Dad is ready with his camcorder. His hands are shaking a little. Show us how it works, honey, he says. I can't believe Dad is making a video of me saying my first words. It's almost like when he filmed Penny's first words. Well, not really. I type very carefully and push the button to make the machine speak. Hi, Dad. Hi, Mom. I am so happy. Mom gets all teary eyed and her nose gets red. She is looking at me all soft and gooey. When I think about it, I realize I have never ever said any words directly to my parents. So I push a couple of buttons and the machine speaks the words I've never been able to say.