Chapter 8
SEE
Two days later, House found himself standing in front of a high school. "Never thought I'd ever go in one of these again," he thought ruefully. He saw three other people entering through a side door, and decided to follow. After entering the building he found himself in a large lobby. He took a quick glance around and spotted a sign that read, "SEE Classes" and had an arrow pointing down a long hallway. House followed the signs, past a computer lab and the library. Then he ran into a problem. Steps. Only eight, but that was just enough to make him balk at the idea of climbing them. As he stood there contemplating the options, a very young looking girl came up next to him. She gave him a small smile and pointed back the way he had come.
"There's a ramp over there. Just make a left when you hit the dead end." With that, she hopped down the steps and headed into a classroom near the end of the hall. House sighed and went to look for the ramp. Reaching the T junction at the bottom, he made a left and found himself standing at a classroom that had a big red sign on the door that read "DHH Classroom." Next to that was a smaller sign that read "SEE Class in Here." Pulling the door open, House saw that there were only four other people in the room. He carefully lowered himself into a desk and was mildly surprised to see that the young girl was in fact the instructor of the class. A few moments passed in awkward silence as House and the three other students eyed each other up.
"OK, looks like everyone is here, so introductions. I'm Erin Cale. I'm a student here, and I have a slight hearing impairment. I've been signing since I was 6, and I'm fluent in both SEE and ASL. Because of my hearing issues, I just ask that you look at me whenever you talk. I'm a decent lip reader, so even if I can't hear you, I'll usually get what you're saying. So how about you? Tell us your name and why you're here." She looked over to the youngest member of the class, a boy who looked no older than 12.
"I'm John, and my sister is deaf, so I thought I'd learn." Erin then pointed to the only other woman in the class.
"I'm Natalie, and I teach special education, and this year I have two deaf students." Next was the older man on House's left.
"I'm Mike, and I've always wanted to learn how to sign." Then it was his turn. Unlike the other three, House didn't stand.
"My name is Greg House and I have an autistic patient who is nonverbal."
"Great. So, the basics. SEE is just like what it says, 'Signed Exact English.' It's not American Sign Language, which is a language all to itself. SEE is a lot easier for people who are not deaf to learn, because it all comes from spoken English." Erin paused for a moment and then began searching through her backpack. Removing a few papers, she passed them out.
"What I just gave you is the manual alphabet. You need to learn this first, simply because any sign you don't know you will have to spell out. Also, the manual alphabet is used for creating name signs. All a name-sign is is a quick sign that can replace spelling out your whole name. Mine is..." She raised her right hand and brought her thumb to her palm and pulled her fingers into a bent position. Using her hand that was bent, she brought it up to her right shoulder and tapped it twice. "That's my name sign. It's the letter 'e' tapped twice. So now whenever you want to address me, you can use that sign. Also, it's considered very rude to give yourself a name sign if you aren't deaf, so the ones we have in the class will be for practical purposes, not "official" name signs." She paused again.
House looked down at the paper. Some of the letters made sense, like "a", "c", and "d." Others, however, were very strange, like "q" and "g."
"Why don't you all go through the alphabet and then work on your name-sign. Remember it should be a quick, easy to remember sign."
House looked at the paper and tried to get his fingers to form into the foreign shapes. When he reached the letter "K", he paused. The picture wasn't very helpful. Erin bounced over and gave him a smile. He scowled back.
"Here, this is 'K'." She brought her hand up and left only her index and middle fingers straight. She then shifted the middle finger to be slightly in fount of her index finger and placed her thumb in the space between them.
"'K' is actually one of the hardest letters," she said with a smile. "Have you thought up a name-sign yet?"
"No," he stated. She was far too cheerful for his liking.
"You're a doctor, right?"
"Yes."
"Great! Then I have the perfect sign." She took her right hand and made the letter "g." It looked a lot like pointing to the left. She then brought her right hand into her left wrist.
"That's the sign for doctor, except signed with a 'g' instead of a 'd'!" She bounced away and House tried the sign. 'It's a lot like taking a pulse,' he thought, 'maybe that's where the sign came from.'
The rest of the class was spent practicing the alphabet. While it was slightly harder than he had expected, House had the letters memorized much more quickly than the other 3 in the class. As the class came to an end, Erin spoke up in her far too happy voice.
"OK! Good work! Practice the alphabet for next week and then we'll work on simple signs." The three other students stood quickly and left. House gathered himself more slowly. Sitting for an hour did not make his leg happy. He hauled himself to his feet, then reached into his pocket and dry-swallowed a pill. He looked up to see Erin watching him.
"Why are you taking this class?" she asked after a moment, "And don't tell me it's because you're a nice guy, I can tell you aren't." House did a slight double take. Was he that obvious?
"Maybe it's because I care about my patients," he snapped.
"Maybe you do, but why go to all the trouble of learning sign?" she asked, "I'm not asking this to pry. I'm asking because I'm interested. Not many people like you take SEE classes from a high school student."
"My boss is letting me out of a duty that I really hate to come here." He admitted after a moment, "But that's not the only reason."
"Right, well, you seem to be picking things up faster than the other three, so if you're interested, I can teach you privately. Don't think this is all for you, either. I can see that it would not be a good idea to let you get bored." She smirked at him; she loved messing with adults, and he was making it way too easy.
"Could you come to PPTH? If it's at all possible, I'd like someone to work with my patient as well."
"Ah, so you do care." She said with an ear-to-ear grin.
"Yeah, well don't tell anyone. I have to keep up the 'cranky bastard' role."
"Right, well your secret's safe with me. I'll see if I can work something out. Can you come back tomorrow; I have a free period where we can work out a schedule."
House agreed, and left a smiling Erin standing in the doorway. As he headed back to his car he had to wonder what he had just gotten himself into.