Shout It Out - 1. Shout It Out

The bus had not arrived yet, so Dan took a moment to ask Gabe about the shirt. He assumed it referred to a band. Gabe had many band shirts that no one at their high school had heard of before, but then again, Gabe had been places that no one in their high school had been before. Gabe just smiled and held up his mittened hands.

"What the hell kind of response is that?" Dan signed as the bus pulled up. Gabe shook his head and got on the bus, passing Dan who was obviously saving him a seat, and sat beside Patricia Goldman. No one sat beside Patricia Goldman.

"Get up, perv," she yelled at him. Gabe smiled and held up his mittens.

"You know he can't hear you, Patricia," Dan told her.

"He can damn well better understand this then," she said, giving Gabe a shove. Gabe fell into the aisle and the kids on the bus laughed. Gabe laughed too, in his own way, then got up and sat down beside her again. By this time the bus driver had stopped the bus and told the kids to settle down, glaring at Patricia in the process.

Peter, another of Dan and Gabe's friends, got on at the next stop, saw that the seat next to Dan was open and took it. "What's up with Deaf Boy?"

"Why do you call him that?"

"How would you like it if people called you Blond Boy or something?"

"So? People are weird." Peter shrugged, "What's up with him today?"

"He won't say."

"Well duh." Peter rolled his eyes.

"I mean, he's wearing mittens and hasn't even said hello. I wonder if he's mad at me or something?" Dan looked back over at his best friend.

"Did you do anything to make him mad?"

"No, not that I know of."

"Then don't sweat it, you know how he gets sometimes. Remember when he thought he could listen to our music if he got it loud enough?"

Dan laughed. They had not only blown the house fuse, but the block transformer as well to get enough amps for Gabe to enjoy one rock song. Since then, he was an avid concertgoer. He claimed he could feel the vibrations and enjoy the music that way. "Yeah, I remember."

"Yeah I guess. He's just acting strange, is all."

It wasn't until halfway through first block that Dan noticed that there was something strange going on at school. His teacher had called roll, but some of the kids only raised their hands instead of saying the usual ‘present’. This caused some of the other kids to snicker. The teacher didn't say anything or act like anything was unusual. Besides, they were the weird kids anyway, so it didn't really matter if the cool kids snickered at them.

Then the fourth group stepped up to do theirs. No one spoke. Instead, there was a presentation on a computer screen that was projected on the whiteboard. Why couldn't his group have thought about doing something like this? Dan wondered. He was sure that group would get a good grade. In fact, he was so engrossed in their project that he seemed to have forgotten that they didn't speak at all.

Dan hurried to his locker and emptied his arms of his morning books. Lunchtime -- forty-five minutes to sit and chat with his friends without any one asking him tough questions. A few minutes later, he was standing in line. There was the usual pushing and shoving going on, and the usual obnoxious behavior by certain groups, but then he noticed that there was also a lot of silence. Whole tables where kids weren't saying a thing. They were looking at each other, and smiling, but not talking. It was weird. He got his food and headed over to the empty table where he usually sat with Gabe. Peter had a different lunch.

The silence at his table was frustrating. It made no sense. Gabe had the mittens off and still he refused to talk. Finally, Dan put his fork down and cleared his throat. "What the hell is going on?" he asked as he signed the words, even though he spoke them clearly enough that Gabe could easily read his lips. Gabe looked at the friend he had failed to introduce who smiled reassuringly, then pointed to his shirt and grinned.

"'Shout It Out'? I don't get it." Dan scowled, as the other two boys seemed to fall into a fit of silent giggles. Then the other boy pulled a card out of his shirt pocket and slid it across the table. Gabe smiled calmly as Dan picked it up and read it. "So, you're being silent for gay rights?"

The blond boy nodded but Gabe shook his head and pointed to his ears.

"I don't get it.” Dan said.

Gabe shrugged, cleared up his lunch tray, and stood up. His friend, whom Dan still didn't know, followed. Dan sat, frustrated as he watched the two of them toss their trash, and then he hurried to follow after them. "Wait…"

The boy got Gabe's attention and they both turned around and looked at him expectantly. "I don't know what to do." He signed to Gabe. Gabe smiled and walked over to his friend, and held out his mittens. Dan took the mittens with a smile and placed them on his hands and together they walked out into the hallway. He still didn't quite understand about the silence, but he did understand about the teasing that Gabe went through and he didn't like it. If being silent for a day would help stop it and help out other kids too, then he could do it. He would do it, even if he did get a late start. He smiled over at Gabe, and Gabe smiled back. Yes, his best friend was weird, but that is what he liked the best about him.