Out of My Mind (The Out of My Mind Series)

by Sharon M. Draper

Words. I’m surrounded by thousands of words. Maybe millions.

Words have always swirled around me like snow-flakes—each one delicate and different, each one melting untouched in my hands.

My parents have always blanketed me with conversation. They chattered and babbled. They verbalized and vocalized. My father sang to me. My mother whispered her strength into my ear.

If I had a paintbrush… wow! What a painting that would be!

I suppose it’s a good thing to be unable to forget anything—being able to keep every instant of my life crammed inside my head. But it’s also very frustrating. I can’t share any of it, and none of it ever goes away.

Everybody uses words to express themselves. Except me. And I bet most people don’t realize the real power of words. But I do. Thoughts need words. Words need a voice.

He always spoke to me as if he were talking to a grown-up, using real words and assuming I would understand him. He was right. “Your life is not going to be easy, little Melody,” he’d say quietly. “If I could switch places with you, I’d do it in a heartbeat. You know that, don’t you?”

“You’re not so intelligent, sir—you’re just lucky! All of us who have all our faculties intact are just plain blessed. Melody is able to figure out things, communicate, and manage in a world where nothing works right for her. She’s the one with the true intelligence!”

Even though she has trouble figuring out complicated stuff, Maria understands people and how they feel. “Why are you sad today, Melly-Belly?” she asked me one morning a couple of years ago. How could she have known that my goldfish had died the day before? I let her give me a big hug, and I felt better.

I like all the kids in room H-5, and I understand their situations better than anybody, but there’s nobody else like me. It’s like I live in a cage with no door and no key. And I have no way to tell someone how to get me out.

“All kids are special,” Mrs. V had replied with authority. “But this one has hidden superpowers. I’d love to help her find them.”

I wondered if she would teach able-bodied third graders the same way. Probably not. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got.

She came back to me and gently wiped my face with the warm, soggy wad. Nothing had ever felt so soothing. She then brushed my hair, adjusted the straps and buckles on my chair, gave me a quick hug, and went home. Mrs. Billups quit her job after spring break, so we ended up with a series of subs till the end of the year. I think she had figured it would be easy to work with people who were dumber than she was. She was wrong.

Mrs. Lovelace paused at the end of the song. “Music is powerful, my young friends,” she said. “It can connect us to memories. It can influence our mood and our responses to problems we might face.”

We both laughed so hard, Mrs. Lovelace had to put her finger to her lips to tell us to hush. Never in my life have I had a teacher tell me to be quiet because I was talking to somebody in class! It was the best feeling in the world! I felt like the rest of the kids.

To those who are genuinely concerned, I push a button to say, “I have spastic bilateral quadriplegia, also known as cerebral palsy. It limits my body, but not my mind.” I think that last part is pretty cool. To people like Claire and Molly, I say, “We all have disabilities. What’s yours?”

I believe in me. And my family does. And Mrs. V. It’s the rest of the world I’m not so sure of.

“I build stuff for Rusty all the time, but there’s no way he could do what you are about to do.” He kneels down so he can look me in the eye. “Knock their socks off, champ! Rusty will be watching.” “Okay!” I type. “For Rusty.”

Our team hasn’t done anything special. They don’t need to. They have me.

“How will being on the winning team change your life at school?” I thought that was a good question. “Not much,” I admitted. Then the reporter waited patiently while I took the time to tap the right words. “Maybe kids will talk to me more.”

When Penny notices my picture in the paper, she drops Doodle and shouts, “Dee-Dee!” She picks up the paper and kisses it. I bet I won’t get many reactions like that at school today.

That makes me get all teary. Just once I wish I could hug my little sister or tell my dad I love him too. In real words, not through a machine.

I just sigh. I can’t do anything right. I don’t want to be all that—I just want to be like everybody else.

I want to call Rose and see if she’s nervous too. I want to ask her what she’ll wear to the White House. Suppose we get to meet the First Lady—now, that would be the bomb! I want to know if we’ll be sitting near each other on the plane. I want to be like all the other girls.

I feel like stomping on something. Stomping and stomping and stomping! That makes me even crazier because I can’t even do that! I can’t even get mad like a normal kid.

“Oh, Melody, if only I could make your hurt go away,” she says plaintively. I blink at my own tears.

I couldn’t explain to them that I wanted to see Catherine. Somehow I felt like she’d talk to me and make me feel better. She’s a college kid—she would know what to say. Besides, I had to give her that card. Today.

She got out of the car. She looked down. She screamed for a long, long time. Her screams were louder than the police sirens that eventually came shrieking around our corner, louder than the fire truck and ambulance sirens that followed them, louder than my silent cries.

I was still for a moment, then I typed, “It should have been me.” “Huh? What do you mean?” “Nobody would miss me.” “Now, you just stop stupid talk like that! My whole world would fall apart if something happened to you. Your parents’ as well.”

After what had almost happened, facing a bunch of snotty fifth graders will be easy.

Maria comes over to my chair and gives me a big hug. “You did good, Melly-Belly,” she says. “Real good.” I’m not sure if she is talking about the quiz team or something else, but my eyes get all drippy and my nose starts to run. I wish I could give her a big squeeze back to let her know how good she has made me feel. But I just tap, “Thanks.”

At last I break the silence. I turn the volume up loud on my machine, then type out, “Why did you leave me?” Somebody should have been there with a video camera proving that, yes, a fifth-grade classroom can be absolutely, totally quiet.

It’s like somebody gave me a puzzle, but I don’t have the box with the picture on it. So I don’t know what the final thing is supposed to look like. I’m not even sure if I have all the pieces. That’s probably not a good comparison, since I couldn’t put a puzzle together if I wanted to. Even though I usually know the answers to most of the questions at school, lots of stuff still puzzles me.

This is going to take a while. So much is stuffed inside my mind. I have lots to say and just one thumb to say it with. I guess I’ll start at the very beginning…

What is significant about the story of Ollie the fish? How does Ollie’s life mirror Melody’s? Describe Melody’s feelings when she is unable to tell her mother what really happened.

Each raindrop became a tiny explosion against the ground. I doubt if anyone can hear just one raindrop, but hundreds of

them make their own kind of music. It’s rhythmic, yet gray. I can usually sense a color in just about everything. For example, the rustling of leaves sounds like green, and the wind in my hair feels like blue, and my favorite cookies taste like gold. But I didn’t sense colors in today’s rain.

I have this unspoken love affair with words, maybe because I can’t actually speak them. My words are like bubbles from under the sea, floating around me, floating within me, silent, screaming to be heard. At the same time, words make me whole. Which is ironic because, hello, I can’t talk.

Here’s the thing. Lots of people talk who have nothing to say. But for me, words are my superpower—I use them to fly me to galaxies of understanding, to joke around with friends at a picnic table, or to tell my little sister, Penny, to open the back door so that our dog, Butterscotch, can go out and pee.

We all needed help, just in different ways. And because we all got help, it all started to feel… normal. Weird, huh?

“All great stories emerge from deep truths that rest within us.” But the real truth of a story often can be found in places that not even the author has dared to explore.

She has spirit, determination, intelligence, and wit, and no one knows it. But in dealing with hardships—from buildings that are not wheelchair accessible to classmates who make fun of her—she finds a strength within herself she never knew existed.