45/ Mrs. North knocked on the door. “Let’s go back,” she called. I flushed even though I didn’t use the toilet. I washed my hands and wiped them on my pants. When I exited, Mrs. North looked impatient. It seemed to me like she wasn’t used to being around children. She walked me back to the room.

44/ I didn’t actually need to use the bathroom. I wondered why they only came for me. Why wasn’t anyone else being tested? The hearing test didn’t make any sense. All I did was listen to static and say a word if I heard one. Couldn’t everyone do that? It didn’t seem like I was really being tested.

43/ She got up from her chair and walked with me to the bathroom. I was hoping I’d be allowed to go by myself. I didn’t really need to go, but I wanted to waste time. It was clear she was going to stand at the door to wait for me.

42/ The test ended. I hoped we were going back to my classroom. Instead, Mrs. North said we would be doing another test. “When can I go back?” I asked. “I’m tired.”
“This won’t take long. And it will be fun.” I tried another gambit. “Can I please use the bathroom?”
“Yes. Let’s do that,” she said.

41/ The static crackled into my ears. Both women watched me and I felt uncomfortable. “Floor,” I said. “Powder.” “Flick.” “New.” I shifted in my seat. “Ditch.” “Green.” “Service.” I wondered what would happen if I just made up a word. “Cat,” I said. Mrs. North drew a breath but didn’t stop me.

40/ When we got to the room, there was an extra adult-sized chair at the table. The box with the knobs, the headphones, and the AV cart were all set up. “I heard about your results and wanted to see for myself,” Mrs. North said. She plugged in the headphones and gestured for me to put them on.

39/ A few days later, Mrs. West was back with another woman. They spoke to Ms. Callend for a moment, then came over to me. Mrs. West introduced me to the other woman. “This is Mrs. North.” They both smiled. Mrs. North had lipstick on her teeth and she smelled a little like cigarette smoke.

38/ Mrs. West pressed a button and the headphones went silent. I took them off. Her eyes looked happy. “You did well on the test,” she said. “Better than we
expected. Except me. I had a feeling.” I didn’t understand what the test was or how I did well. She walk me back to Ms. Callend’s classroom.

37/ The words were in different voices. The time between words varied from immediate to almost a minute. “Pit.” “Tool.” “Hotdog.” “Fly.” “Slip.” “Dirt.” “Duty.” “Back.” “Flavor.” When there was a long pause between words, she held her pen and examined it as if she’d never seen it before.

36/ I listened to the static and waited to hear a word. After a moment I did. “Corn,” I said. “Hook.” “Solid.” She was writing down the words I said. She smiled, but this time it wasn’t the forced smile from before. It was real. She turned the other knob. More static. I kept listening.

35/ She gave me that smile that looked forced and told me to put the headphones on again. “When I start the test, you’ll hear noise. Sometimes you will hear a word. When you hear a word say it out loud,” she said. She turned a knob on the small box. It sounded like static between radio stations.

34/ The cart squeaked as she wheeled it over. On it there was a large beige box with buttons and knobs. It had a cord that she inserted into a plug in the box on the table. She had plugged the headphones into the box on the table and told me to put them back on.

33/ After the record finished, she unplugged the headphones and said we were going to do another kind of hearing test. She took a small box out of her tote bag. The box had two tiny knobs, a headphone jack, and two switches. She wheeled over an AV cart I hadn’t noticed before.