Bionic Girl

          The day I became a superhero 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 into the third grade class like every other day. 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 quirky, giant black glasses. And, after all, 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. She and Dad 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.

            The following week, I had to go back to the box and fill my ears with this super cold glue. They said it was to follow the shape of my ears and harden up; I think it was a torture device for being stupid and needing hearing aids.

            A month after the last BEEPing test, I had 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 definitely make fun of me. How couldn’t they? I am stupid.

            Mom drove me to school. She wanted to talk to Mrs. Funk before school started. We walked in before any of the kids were even there. My mom decided she would talk to Mrs. Funk in the hall, like Mrs. Funk was a bad kid! That would have been funny if I knew it wasn’t because of my hearing aids. 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 was 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 could tell that Mrs. Funk looked a bit worried. Mom thanked Mrs. Funk and she hugged me goodbye and left. Mrs. Funk didn’t look like she knew what she was going to do. How could she? The whole class was going to make fun of me. I was a goner.

             She tried to smile and make me stop worrying. Then she 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. That seemed like a great idea because, after today, I would probably never play along and have fun again.

             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, like they were a sun peeking through the clouds of my hair on a rainy day. I was sure everyone would notice them instantly. Yet somehow, no one seemed to say anything about them. So if they did detect them, no one said anything. Mrs. Funk started settled them down and had me come up to the front of the classroom. I couldn't believe she made me walk up there! I was shaking and about to cry but I trusted her, as much as a seemingly glowing third grader could.

            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. I sat right in the reading chair, holding on for dear life.

            “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 heard Dan say.

            “I can’t believe it!" Brian uttered.

             “I want hearing aids! Don’t you?” Mrs. Funk said joyfully. 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—or worse—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? Huh?”

            “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.” Adam couldn’t fight that one; Superheroes are cool!

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