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Chapter One
The Way Indians Talk

Copyight © 1993, 1996 Sylvan Zaft.

This is the first chapter of Peter Jameson's Secret Language.

You may make one verbatim electronic copy and one verbatim paper copy for your personal use as long as the copies include this entire notice. For information on purchasing a printed copy of Peter Jameson's Secret Language please go to Information and Ordering.

PETER WAS ALWAYS INTERESTED IN LEARNING new things, but they were not always the things that his teachers were asking him to learn. He did well enough on tests, though he did not always get the highest grades in his class. But when his fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Johnson, had them working on a unit on Indians, one thing caught his attention, the special language of the Indians, their sign language.

He raised his hand. The whole class was working on a handout, so Mrs. Johnson, who was just finishing her first year of teaching, came to his desk. She was a slender woman with a round face and light brown skin, and her black hair fell to her shoulders.

"Yes, Peter," she said very quietly.

"Mrs. Johnson, why did the Indians need a sign language?" Mrs. Johnson was one of those teachers it was easy to ask questions of, not like Mrs. Martin who would have said, "This is the time for working on your hand-out, Peter, not the time for asking new questions."

"A little quieter, Peter," Mrs. Johnson told him. "I'm right here."

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Johnson," Peter whispered.

Mrs. Johnson thought for a moment and then she smiled and said, "So they can understand each other."

Peter whispered loudly, "But why didn't they talk to each other instead of using sign language?"

"Sometimes," Mrs. Johnson said calmly, "they might have been hunting, and they didn't want to frighten the animals away."

"If we were Indians," Peter whispered, not quite so loudly as before, "then I could ask my question in sign language, and not disturb the class."

Mrs. Johnson smiled and nodded, and Peter smiled, and then he had a far-away look in his eyes. Mrs. Johnson knew he was thinking, and she went over to Sally Morrison who was waving her hand. Later, when it was time to collect the hand-outs and Peter's was incomplete, Mrs. Johnson simply asked him to finish it at home and turn it in after the week-end.

It was a rainy June day, and Peter had his yellow slicker and his black rubbers on when he walked home. The school was built next to a little park that stretched along a creek, and Peter liked to walk along a path through the park past a baseball diamond and past three picnic tables and past some woods where birds nested until the path turned at Clay street which ended at the park. He enjoyed the sound of the rain and the smell of the earth, and the brim of his yellow rain hat shielded his glasses from the drizzle so he could see clearly.

"Hey, Pete!" It was Ronny James catching up with him. "I'm going to form a gang, Peter. Do you want to be in my gang?"

Peter looked at Ronny who was small and wiry and could run faster than anyone in the class. "I'm thinking about sign language," Peter said.

"Sign language?"

"You know, like the Indians used."

"My Aunt Dorothy uses sign language."

"She does?"

"Yep. She works with people who can't hear. They talk with each other in sign language."

Peter was so excited that he forgot all about the gang. Deaf people were talking in sign language!

"In my aunt's church," Ronny went on, "there are deaf people, so Aunt Dorothy stands up on Sunday through the whole service and tells the deaf people what's going on."

Peter had that far-away look in his eyes again, and Ronny knew that look, so he punched Peter in the arm and ran away, and Peter knew what was expected of him, so he chased Ronny, but, of course, he couldn't catch him.

That was how Peter Jameson started to think about language.