Early morning chores (OPEN)

[Jonah King]

The only problem with asking Jonah to fix a radio was that he came to some difficulty when working out how effective he had actually been.

Not only had the radio in question stopped working, but everyone kept saying how bad the sound quality was – and while Jonah was pretty sure that he could sort out any problems that anyone was having with it, he was rather dreading the moment when he would have to find someone and ask them how much good he had done. People trying to explain sound to him was like him trying to explain to them what it felt like to experience someone else’s thoughts inside his head.

But the radio in the student lounge had broken, and Jonah had been the one elected to fix it. If anyone was aware of the irony of the situation, they hadn’t said anything – but Jonah allowed himself a small smile as he held up the object to his eye level. He was sitting on a bench in the courtyard (preferring to be out in the fresh air – with all the heating on, it was too stuffy inside the building), wrapped up in coat and scarf. There was still snow on the ground, although today it was melting in patches – his boots were already wet from it.

It was pretty early in the morning, and Jonah had been quite relieved not to find anybody else outside. He could work on things much better if he didn’t have to keep looking up to see what everyone else was saying…and if he didn’t have to be on his guard, looking out for stray snowballs. Even if nobody was aiming for him, he really didn’t want to get in the middle of a snowball fight. That was just asking for trouble.

Pulling a small screwdriver from his coat pocket, Jonah took the back off the radio and examined the contents closely in the bright winter sunshine. The problem wasn’t immediately obvious, so he started examining all the buttons and connections – sometimes things like this could stop working if they were jogged too forcefully and something inside stopped touching something else.

Jonah should really have been inside, working on some of his physics homework. Wonder if I could argue that fixing this is actually physics? The idea of trying to explain that point of view made him smile. He didn’t think it would hold much water with any of his teachers. But as far as Jonah was concerned, what was the point of his being inside? Out here he was doing something useful: fixing something that needed to be fixed. If he stayed inside, he would be working on something that he would never be able to do right. Logically, why should he stop doing something right, just to go and do something wrong?

Another argument that Jonah doubted would have much of an impact if he brought it up in class. But it wasn’t his problem at the moment – his current problem was on his lap in two halves: a large, black, digital radio.

[Ruth Edwards]

Ruth had woken up surprisingly early and couldn't go back to sleep. Not wanting to wake up her suitemates, she decided to go for a walk around campus. She started putting on her black Converse before remembering how disgustingly wet it was outside. The snow was probably starting to melt and she didn't want to soak her shoes. So instead she pulled on the water-proof boots that Estelle and Edie had hassled her into getting and pulled on her favorite leather jacket.

Walking down the hall, she looked out the window and was surprised to see someone in the courtyard. It was weird for anyone to be outside this early. Making her way outside, Ruth tried to think of why anyone could possibly want to be out in the cold and the wet, but only managed to come up with a diabolical plot to steal the snow (of which she heartily approved). She didn't think she recognized the boy sitting there, but that wasn't really surprising. Ruth didn't know many people, even after two years of being at Hammel. Her curiosity got the better of her and she decided to introduce herself.

"What are you doing out here so early? It's freezing." Well, maybe introduce wasn't quite the right word.

[Jonah King]

There was a girl standing near his bench.

Jonah only became aware of her a few moments after she had arrived, so engrossed was he in working out what was wrong with the radio. But his eyes strayed for a moment and he saw a pair of boots, dark against the white snow. His eyes travelled upwards and soon he was looking into the face of a girl. A rather pretty girl, if truth be told. He didn’t immediately recognise her, then realised that he had seen hew a few times in the corridors of the school – so she wasn’t in his year, then. And by the looks of her, she was younger.

She didn’t look too happy, either. There was an inquisitive look on her face, and Jonah’s heart sank. That could only mean one thing: she had asked him a question, and he hadn’t heard it. Which meant that he would have to ask her to repeat it, which would mean that he would actually have to speak to her…

Well: nothing ventured, nothing gained. And she certainly didn’t look like she was about to leave. ‘Sorry,’ he murmured softly, looking up at her with an apologetic smile. His voice was hoarse, his consonants unformed - he seemed to speak from deeper in his throat than most people did, and the result was a guttural effect. Most people were startled by his voice, and was the reason he did his best to keep silent. Tapping the two forefingers of his right hand to his ear, he explained: ’I’m deaf. What did you say?’

It was a phrase he often felt that he should tattoo on his forehead, he said it so much. He said it at least once a week, if not once a day. After people had got to know him, it was alright – they would start to touch him on the shoulder when they were going to speak, or get his attention in some other way. But until then, you would be surprised how many people would just act as if he simply ‘wasn’t listening’ to them.

After his initial shock at being interrupted, he was slowly starting to relax – he looked up at Ruth with his usual half-smile on his face, wondering which course she would take: blush and walk away, or stay and force a conversation to seem polite. They were, after all, the two most common reactions Jonah tended to receive.

[Ruth Edwards]

When the boy on the bench looked up, Ruth still didn't recognize him and she was a little surprised to learn he was deaf (especially since he seemed to be fiddling with a radio, of all things). "I was wondering if you were a nutcase for being out here. It's freezing. My name's Ruth, by the way." Ruth climbed up onto the bench beside him, crossing her legs under her to keep warm. She felt an odd connection to the boy, even without knowing his name. He was probably a misfit too.

"What's your name? And why the heck are you sitting outside with a broken radio?" Ruth didn't normally strike up conversations with people she didn't know, Cobalt excluded, but there was something about him that just made her want to sit and talk. "So how long have you been at Hammel? What's your power? Do you like it her? I hate snow; just one of the many reasons I'm not happy here." She belatedly thought that she'd probably said too much, or talked to fast, two things she tended to do without realizing it once she got going. But she didn't want to treat him like he wasn't just as smart as her (he was probably smarter, being older and understanding the mysterious ways of radio parts and pieces).

"You must be pretty good with your hands to be fixing stuff like that. Radios are way too complicated for me. Too many parts," she said, wrinkling up her nose at the very thought of it.

[Jonah King]

There was a long moment when all Jonah could do was stare at Ruth in astonishment while she unleashed a torrent of questions upon him. The last thing he had been expecting had been for her to sit down on the bench next to him, and then all those words…he watched, fascinated that anyone’s mouth could move so quickly. But her diction was good, which made her easy to lip-read – so Jonah let her ask him everything she wanted to, and attempted to remember everything she had just said while he sorted out who to answer her.

‘Jonah,’ he told her (after a moment’s pause to make sure that she wasn’t going to surprise him with anything else). That had been her first question – Jonah had learned very quickly how to sort carefully through what was said to him, in order to decide what he needed to say in reply. Much of what people tended to say was pointless, they made a hundred comments that they didn’t need you to reply to: and Jonah wasn’t about to join in with some wordplay. He invariably kept his answers to the point.

But there was something almost endearing about this girl – a frankness which was strangely artless. You didn’t find many people who seemed genuinely interested in strangers. ‘Five years,’ he replied in answer to her question about his time at Hammel, holding up his right hand, fingers outspread, for emphasis. ‘I’m a telepath.’ He paused there, watching carefully to see what her reaction would be. People with telepathy were notably historically unpopular. In reply to ‘do you like it here?’ he gave a half-smile, and an amiable shrug. It was a school – better than his previous school, but still full of books, essays, and mathematics.

His smile at her compliment was pleased, and a little embarrassed. Jonah was rarely told that he was good at something – people were usually trying to make him better at things. ‘I like fixing things,’ he replied, looking back down at the radio for a moment. Then, because he was curious (and because asking questions and letting her talk was easier):‘You don’t like it here?’ Jonah tilted his head to one side, looking at her with thoughtful eyes.

[Ruth Edwards]

Ruth smiled a little at his surprise. Most people didn't ever hear her talk this much, again excepting Cobalt and sometimes Estelle, but she really did enjoy the reactions it got. It felt like something she actually had control of in her life and she had seen the same confused look on the faces of plenty of people who weren't deaf.

"It's nice to meet you, Jonah. And I haven't been able to say that honestly to many people I've met here." The shortness of his answers was a little refreshing. Most of the people she knew, including that silly Mr. Cobalt Weaver, really liked to talk, not that it was necessarily a bad thing. It was just nice to encounter something different. "You've been at Hammel a long time, then. Do you miss your family or where you're from?" Ruth started to get the impression that Jonah would rather listen than talk, which could lead to some difficulties, as there were still certain things she didn't want to talk about with anyone - not Estelle, Edie, Cobalt, let alone a stranger.

"Telepathy. That's cool. I have super-speed." Ruth wrinkled her nose again. Even after her talk with Cobalt, she was still feeling frustrated about her power. Jonah seemed hesitant about his power too, and seemed ambivalent about the school in general. But he smiled when she complimented him, and for some reason that little smile made Ruth inexplicably happy and she smiled back. "I'm pretty good at breaking things; I can't control my speed and I run into stuff a lot. Maybe you could fix stuff for me," she said, wondering how he would react to the request.

When Jonah asked his own question, Ruth hesitated. She didn't really want to dump her life in his lap with the broken radio (I'm not broken, I'm not broken. Cobalt said...), but he had asked and deserved an answer. "I've been here for two years. I don't fit in, I don't have many friends, I can't control my power, and I have nowhere to go during breaks, so I'm stuck here with all this nasty snow." She sat there, hoping that he didn't think she was whiny or anything like that. It was just so unusual for people to be interested like that.

[Jonah King]

Did Jonah miss his family? Well, if that wasn’t a question and a half. ‘Not really,’ he told her, realising as he said it that it was true. ‘We’re - not close.’ Again, the truth. Jonah had never been very close to anyone in his family, and they had only distanced themselves from one another since he had been going to Hammel. It was as if they could pretend, while he was away, that he didn’t exist – and when he turned up on their doorstep during Christmas and summer, they were suddenly forced to re-accept that they had a son.

Luckily they were happy to have him out of the house for most of the day, which was no chore for Jonah. At meals, they would behave as they always had: conversing amongst themselves, and not expecting him to look up and join in the chatter. They could, he figured, have eventually accepted his deafness – providing that his grades had been excellent. But deaf and bad at schoolwork? Add to that the rather interesting little detail of him being a meta, and you didn’t exactly have the recipe for a happy family life. At least not where Jonah’s family were concerned.

Ruth’s admission to breaking things prompted an amused smile from Jonah. She was obviously self-conscious about her ability, and he felt for her: before he had gained good control of his telepathy, life had been difficult. But he also knew how annoying it was to have people breathing down your neck all the time, being terribly serious when they spoke to you. Jonah had never been very good at being too serious, and on the whole he much preferred to make things as much of a joke as he could – which is what he decided to do now. Anyone else would solemnly have held out their out his hand for Ruth to shake, but instead Jonah held up his right hand in an oath-making gesture, the other hand resting on the radio as if it were a Bible. The amusement was still brightening his eyes as he said, deadpan: ’If you break anything, I will do my best to fix it.’ The promise thus made, he sat back with a warm smile.

Jonah’s gaze turned sympathetic as Ruth detailed her dislike of Hammel. But he wasn’t used to being confided in like this, and it threw him a little. He thought for a moment, idly toying with the screwdriver in his hands. Not for the first time, he wished that he was more eloquent – his vocabulary wasn’t good even when he was writing, let alone when he was trying to talk about something which was obviously difficult for someone else to talk about.

Eventually, he put the screwdriver down and turned so that he was facing her properly. He was just going to have to man-up, and start speaking to her. Of all the issues she had mentioned, there was only one he felt qualified to speak on. ’It took me three years to block people out properly,’ Jonah told Ruth, again holding up the requisite amount of fingers to underline his point (it was second-nature to him, after so many people misheard him). ’And that was only because I tried all the time.’ By Jonah’s standards, this was already a speech – but he persevered. He hadn’t spoken this much in one go in a very long time. ’I still slip sometimes, even now. You’ll get better at controlling things. You just need more time.’

Then Jonah smiled, some of the intensity gone from his expression. He had never been very good at conveying emotion through tone of voice, but he made up for it by giving Ruth a boyish grin as he added: ‘And if you don’t, other people will just have to get better at fixing things.’

[Ruth Edwards]

Ruth wasn't really surprised to hear that Jonah and his family weren't close. It seemed like everyone she knew had unhappy family background, herself included. "Oh. I'm sorry. But I can definitely understand that. I'm not sure my parents ever really cared about me." Though she'd heard from various sources the encouragement that never really helped, the assurances that of course they loved her, somewhere deep down, Ruth was fairly certain that they'd wanted a son to inherit all their money and, 21st century though it was, they had been disappointed with a daughter. If they had lived to see her powers manifest... Ruth didn't really like to think about that.

Jonah's solemn oath made Ruth laugh, really laugh, for the first time in ages. She couldn't wait to tell Estelle about this new friend who promised to fix things for her. In all the time she'd spent alone at Hammel, and even before coming here, Ruth had forgotten how much she loved seeing people smile. And Jonah had a wonderfully dorky smile.

As Jonah turned to face her, she saw a concern that took her by surprise. Even though Cobalt had shown a similar concern, it was still such a foreign concept that somebody would worry about her. The length of his response surprised her a little too; she had started to get used to his short answers. But thinking about it, Ruth decided she liked hearing him talk. Sure, most people jump at hearing a deaf person, but Jonah was really making an effort to connect with her, and she appreciated it. She'd have to think of more ways to get him to talk in the future.

He, like Cobalt, was under the impression that she could learn to control her speed with time. She wasn't so sure. "Jonah, I ran through a window the other day. A window. Granted, that's how I met Cobalt and I'm glad of it, but still! Running through windows isn't exactly a barrel of monkeys."

[Jonah King]

Jonah caught the past tense Ruth used when she mentioned her parents, but he didn’t dig any further. He wasn’t the kind of guy who needed to know everything about everyone else (he had met enough of that type of person in his life, and he didn’t want to become one), and he didn’t like to pry. It was one of the reasons he was so uncomfortable with his telepathy – it made him uncomfortable to know that he could find out anything about anyone he was talking to. Secrets belonged to the people who owned them, and not to him. The impression that Ruth either didn’t have parents any more, or was completely out of contact with them, was relegated to the back of Jonah’s mind. He would ponder it later – for now, he would let her be.

He would also refrain from the tired clichés: ‘I’m sure that can’t be true.’ ‘I’m sure they did, really.’ They were meaningless, and they would only serve to irritate her. Besides, if anyone told him that his own parents wouldn’t be much happier if he never saw them again after he turned 21 (with the odd e-mail or letter so that they could pretend that they were in contact with him, and maintain some semblance of respectability) he wouldn’t believe a word of it. No, Ruth had a lucky escape with this one: in many ways, Jonah knew exactly how she felt. When he made her laugh, even though he couldn’t hear it, Jonah felt a warmth grow in his chest. It had been a while since he had made anyone laugh, and he found that he liked it. He didn’t join in (Jonah never laughed aloud), but he smiled, almost – but not quite – chuckling.

She had run through a window? Interesting. Jonah ignored the mention of ‘Cobalt’ (he didn’t want to waste words on asking who this man was, and suspected that it would become clear in the future), and considered what she had said. Idly, he looked back at the radio for a few moments, checked a few connections and fitted one half back against the other. It helped him to think when he had something else to do – as if using distraction techniques made the words come easier. Maybe because he wasn’t over-thinking things when his brain was looking in two different directions.

He turned the sound up to medium, and flicked the switch on the side – a burst of sound filled the courtyard, but Jonah didn’t hear it: his affirmation that the radio was working was the feel of vibrations beneath his hands. He could feel the pulse of the music, and it made him smile. With a satisfied nod, he turned it off and looked back at Ruth with a thoughtful expression. Radios were easy to fix, but people were very difficult indeed. He almost smiled when he realised that Ruth probably had the same problem as the radio itself – a connection was down somewhere, one which allowed her to turn down the volume on her ability.

’Have you tried using a treadmill?’ he asked eventually, thinking it through. A treadmill would allow her to run as fast as he wanted, without the risk of her ending up crashing into something. Then, he smiled. ‘Or you could take up glass-making.’

[Ruth Edwards]

Ruth was glad that Jonah didn't ask about her parents, even though she'd mentioned it. People always insisted on asking lots of questions and pretending they were sympathetic when they were really just nosy. Someday she would tell Jonah about her past. Certainly not today, but she got the feeling that she'd be talking to Jonah a lot in the future. And even though he didn't speak his sympathy out loud (or maybe because he didn't), Ruth knew it was there. And then Jonah was smiling again, though not laughing. But that smile- it was sweet and really quite endearing.

When Jonah went back to tinkering with the radio, Ruth wondered if maybe he hadn't heard her when she mentioned Cobalt and the window. But Jonah seemed to be the kind of person who took his time and didn't waste any words, so she let him be. Suddenly, the radio came to life and echoed across the courtyard. Apparently satisfied with his handiwork, Jonah turned it off and looked back up at Ruth. He seemed thoughtful and Ruth didn't want to interrupt him. He reminded her of the fictional supercomputer "Deep Thought" and wondered if he had ever read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. She resolved to ask him about it sometime, but for now she was content just to gaze back at him, not saying a word, blushing and a little surprised with herself for the sustained eye contact.

A treadmill. Huh. "You know, I've never thought of that before." Part of her wanted to resist, but the more she thought about it, the better it sounded. If she could get to a treadmill while she was power tripping, it'd be great. So long as she didn't wear it out or run too fast. But maybe, just maybe, it would work. But then he suggested something better. "Jonah, that's BRILLIANT." Okay, so she was being just a little sarcastic, but glass-blowing actually sounded like a lot of fun. "We should make glass together sometime," she said, smiling broadly at him. Feeling much bolder than usual, Ruth leaned over and kissed Jonah on the cheek. "Thanks, Jonah. I think I really needed to just sit and talk with a friendly tinker."

[Jonah King]

If there was one thing Jonah really wasn’t used to, it was pretty girls kissing him.

So far, during his life, Jonah had developed a great skill for avoiding actual physical contact. Some things couldn’t be helped – if the person was behind him, or moved too suddenly, he wasn’t able to get out of the way – but if he realised they were going for a hug or handshake, he would do his best to make sure that nothing happened. Standing or sitting close to people made it difficult enough to block them out, let alone actual physical contact. As you can guess, this meant that Jonah was not exactly confident when it came to anything approaching romantic intentions, and his experiences of these were few and far between (he was still getting used to the idea that he wasn’t a gangly kid anymore, and that girls might find him attractive – as a result, everything surprised him). They had mostly involved girls at the deaf club he attended during the school holidays, and, while he had always been polite, he had always declined to take anything further.

So when Ruth kissed him on the cheek, Jonah was so taken by surprise that he could do nothing to prevent it.

The world blurred a little, and swam in front of his eyes. Suddenly he could hear Ruth’s thoughts, whispers and shouts – too many for him to pick any of them out of the tangle inside her head. But more than that he could feel the pulse of her nature, and he had an overwhelming feeling of what it was like to be Ruth Edwards: young, scared, and very, very lonely. Jonah didn’t register the gesture itself, or the feeling of her lips, warm and soft against his cold cheek: he was too busy trying to block out her thoughts. But the kiss was over in a moment, and he was returned to his blessed silence. To Ruth it would have felt merely as if he had become very still – in fact he was, as Mia always so delicately termed it, ‘spazzing out’ at her touch. But he pulled himself together, and hoped that Ruth had noticed nothing untoward about his reaction to her. He missed the first half of what she said to him, but he had just been in her mind: he could guess that they were words of thanks.

Then it hit him that she had just kissed him on the cheek (kissed him on the cheek!) and he knew that he was probably blushing. A lot. ’You’re welcome,’ he managed after a moment, the words difficult in his mouth. She didn’t seem to expect him to return the favour, so he did his best to hide the fact that he felt as if he had been hit over the head with a shovel. He wanted nothing more than to go for a run and clear his head – it was the only way he would be able to really get himself back on track. Jonah looked at Ruth, and picked up the radio. ’I should take this back.’ Lame, he imagined Mia saying to him, acidly: his voice of reason. You can do better than that. He offered Ruth a shy smile. ’We should go running, sometime?'

Better, he thought, and gave Ruth a nod before getting to his feet and heading inside to deposit the radio. It would take a lot of walking in the snow to really clear his head.