BEEP?

Bionic Girl


The day I became a superhero might have turned out to be the best day of my life.

But I was petrified at first. In fact, petrified was an understatement. I wished I was just petrified. It seems so easy. Just walk in class. Sit down. Pretend nothing is different.

What if someone notices? What if they start talking? If glasses made you a "geek", what in the world were the other kids going to think of me? They would hate me. I would no longer have friends. I tried so hard to ace that test.

BEEP.

Every "BEEP" I would have to raise my hand. Every high pitched scream and I felt like I was part of the machine as my hand shot into the air. I swore I began raising my hand to the bells and whistles that went on in my head after an hour of those awful BEEPs.

BEEP.

BEEP.

…Just wait for it. There should be another. What if that is the one I can't hear? It should have happened by now right? I mean I should hear it now. Oh no! What if I do need them? What will the kids say?

BEEP.

Phew! At least I heard that one. Maybe the machine just had a problem. After this seemingly forever long screaming test, they better prove I am fine.

BEEP.

"Ashley, you can come out. The test is over."

FINALLY! I hate that stupid headset in that stupid little box they call a room. It is a box. A metal box that I, personally, hate. And that headset. Why do they need different colors? Red and blue, they are always red and blue. I just want to be by my dad.

"Well," the doctor started. He wasn't exactly the person I wanted to hear anything from. He looked funny with his weird little mustache and he gave me that stupid test. "Her hearing isn't awful. I am not quite sure what caused her hearing loss but she definitely has an acute one. What you need to know is that there are choices you have. I suggest hearing aids. Her hearing isn't bad enough where there should be a problem and she has long hair so I don't even believe it would be noticeable. I am sure you are going to want to talk it over with your husband but I am afraid it is your best option."

"I don't know much about this, to be honest. What is causing her hearing loss?" My mom looked a little worried. Maybe she was going to have to take the BEEP test too. Dad and her were holding hands and I was sitting on Dad’s lap.

“To put it simply, there are three parts to the ear, as you can see on this model.” I knew all about the model, I was playing with it before he got in the room. It was boring. “The inner ear is where a lot of people have severe hearing loss problems. There are a bunch of little hairs in it and sometimes they get bent or are missing and the sound waves are never picked up. The middle ear is where Ashley’s problem is. There are tiny bones that vibrate inside of the middle ear. For some reason, Ashley’s bones aren’t vibrating when they hear low pitches. It is probably a problem with the amount of wax she has in it, but I know you have tried tubes a couple times and that doesn’t seem to be helping. Her hearing problem isn’t severe by any means and it is quite possible that she could live without having hearing aids. However, I recommend them to help her in school. I think they will help her focus her schoolwork better as well as participate in more conversations.”

Hook, line and sinker.

A week later I got my ears fitted with this super cold glue that they put in my ear that was going to follow the shape of my ears and harden up.

It has been a month and now I have to go to class with my hearing aids. I tried to convince Mom and Dad to let me stay home from school. I knew Jon would laugh at me. And Jeremy? Jeremy would make fun of me. How couldn’t they? I am stupid.

My mom drove me to school today. She wanted to talk to Mrs. Funk before school started. We walked in before any of the kids were there. My mom decided she would talk to Mrs. Funk in the hall. I just sat at my desk and looked around.

I liked Mrs. Funk. She was always a very nice teacher. Probably my favorite teacher EVER! She gave us Beanie Babies as rewards and took us to McDonald’s sometimes if we were really good. Her classroom was fun too. She had everything Snoopy: Snoopy candy glass, Snoopy posters, and Snoopy name tags too. It was fun.

My favorite part of her room is her reading chair. It looked just like a movie star’s chair and sometimes she would let you read your paragraphs on her chair. Normally though, Mrs. Funk would read our chapter books as she sat on her movie star chair.

When Mrs. Funk and Mom got back, I found out they devised a plan. Mom thanked Mrs. Funk and she hugged me goodbye and left. Mrs. Funk told me that she had a super secret plan and that I needed to trust her. She was my favorite teacher; of course I would trust her. She told me to play along and have fun.

The class started coming into the classroom and talking a lot. I was still super nervous. No one noticed my hearing aids. I felt like they were glowing and everyone would notice them instantly. If they did, no one said anything. Mrs. Funk started settled them down and had me come up to the front of the classroom.

The class wanted to know why I was in the room early this morning and why I was coming up to the front of the class now. As I walked up she moved the movie star chair right in the middle of the classroom.

“Class, Ashley has very important news she wanted me to tell you. She is a very lucky girl. She just got hearing aids! She basically has bionic ears and she can hear EVERYTHING now. If Samantha and Courtney are whispering, she will know what they said! If you yell her name from three whole miles away, she will hear you!

“She has super powers! I can’t believe it! I want hearing aids! Don’t you?” She made me out to be the coolest person ever. Even I was impressed with my awesome hearing powers.

Everyone wanted hearing aids. Everyone wanted to be my friend. No one laughed at me. No one even scared me! There was no need to be petrified after all.

She let the kids ask me questions and told them she would obviously leave me in charge when she had to leave the classroom.

Adam raised his hand to ask a question.

He whispered something I couldn’t hear and I got a little worried. “What did I say, Ashley?”

“Adam,” Mrs. Funk said. “Ashley knows exactly what you said. She has bionic ears! Ashley can’t tell the rest of the class what you whispered because she has super powers and superheroes keep secrets.”

Those awful BEEPs and moustache man made me into Bionic Girl. Maybe they weren’t so BEEPing bad after all.