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“The Indians were decimated by the whites, some tribes even exterminated?”
I slowly dozed off. I actually liked English, but somehow Mr. Schmidt managed to cover the same topics every year. We had Native Americans for the third time at least. Suddenly, I heard snoring next to me.
“Jan, please wake up and follow the lesson!“ Mr. Schmidt had heard it too. My best friend Jan actually woke up.
“Don't grin like that, it's stupid,” he whispered to me.
“I never grin stupidly, but always hyperintelligently,” I retorted.
“Pah!”
After this outburst of action, we continued to doze off. At least for five minutes, because then Mr. Schmidt, who was also our class teacher, suddenly stopped his English droning.
Immediately everyone was wide awake. Mr. Schmidt ended the lesson? Several minutes before the end of the lesson? That had never happened before. He always went over time.
“I still have an announcement to make.”
Aha, so there was something after all.
“As you probably already know, our school will be opening a few integration classes in the next school year.”
We didn't know yet.
“Depending on which age group it is, this class could also be affected.”
General whispering. Florian spoke up.
“Mr. Schmidt?”
“Yes?”
“What is an integration class?”
“An integration class is a class in which disabled and non-disabled students learn together?”
Now there was real unrest, everyone suddenly threw questions into the room.
“We are already 26 in the class, should there now be 20 disabled people added?”
“What kind of disability are we talking about?”
“Why our class?”
“Please be quiet for a moment! Integration classes are possible with all kinds of disabilities, we haven't even discussed what kind of students we'll be admitting. It's also about a maximum of two per class. And we chose your class because, compared to your parallel classes, you have few problems with other lifestyles.”
I could confirm that, though.
“As I said, we don't yet know which students we'll be talking about. We also don't yet know whether any students at all will be enrolled in your year. In any case, nothing has been finalized yet.”
At lunch in the school cafeteria, the announcement was of course the general topic of conversation. I followed the back and forth rather casually. “Few problems with other lifestyles,” yes that was it. In any case, I was extremely lucky with my class when I was outed two months ago.
Like many young gays, I had registered with Gayromeo (where I had to “round up” my age to 18), hoping to meet a few other young gays, since I didn't know any otherwise. Sure enough, I met Johannes soon after. He was a few years older than me, but he was totally gorgeous and seemed nice. We met a few times and eventually we went to bed together. At first it was really nice, but then he just said, “I want to fuck you,” and started to stick his fingers up my ass. It hurt like hell, and I whined for him to stop, but he didn't. At some point, I managed to get away from him. I got dressed and fled from his apartment. From then on, he constantly wrote me messages along the lines of “I want to deflower you.” Meanwhile, I knew from other users that he was only interested in “first ascents” of guys, and I answered him curtly that I was not interested. He just wrote back: “I'll get you for this.” At the party for my 16th birthday, he turned up, announced loudly: “Lukas is gay and slept with me,” and disappeared again. Everyone had heard it, not just all the guests, but also my parents and my brother, who were in the house. I just remember sitting on the floor and crying – and my parents and friends, at least those who were still there, took care of me.
That night, I learned that I could always rely on my parents. My pubescent little brother, he was fourteen, often made stupid remarks, but he didn't mean any harm.
I expected much worse at school. When I arrived the next Monday, trembling, my worst fears were immediately confirmed. Matthias, with his gang of hooligans from the parallel class, called after me at the school gate, “faggot.” Just when I was doubting whether I should even dare to go to class, Florian from my class came rolling up on his skateboard. He was always friendly and funny, but I hardly knew him. He was the king of the skaters, took his sport much more seriously than school and was one of the few in the class who smoked. In short, he did pretty much everything I didn't do, so we never had much to do with each other. “Don't let a few idiots annoy you.” I looked at him skeptically. As he rolled past, he patted me on the shoulder. “Hey man, you're cool.” Flo may have lived in a very different world from me, but actually he was a good guy. Most didn't react quite so openly, some even distanced themselves a bit from me, but after two weeks, everyone in the class had actually adjusted to the new situation and everything went back to normal.
And I could always rely on my real friends. My real friends were the ones I was sitting with at the table: Jan, my very best friend since the days of the sandbox, his girlfriend Lisa, who he had been with for over a year, Kevin, an incredibly patient, calm and good-natured guy, and Julia, who, as far as I could tell as a gay guy, was extremely good-looking but had never had a boyfriend. In any case, she dismissed all the school machos. I knew everyone long enough to understand that she would have liked to be with Kevin. Maybe that would come.
“Lukas, are you still there?” Lisa brought me back from my reverie. Where were we? Oh yes, the maybe integration class.
“How is that going to work? Wheelchair users can't even get through the building, there's no elevator and no disabled toilet,” Julia interjected. ‘Or they'll have to do a major renovation first. There's enough space, but it'll be really expensive.”
“Maybe then we'll finally get soap dispensers in the bathroom.’ I couldn't resist this dig at our school administration.
“It doesn't have to be wheelchair users, it could be that blind people come,“ said Jan.
“Well, but you need guidance systems for them, and how are they supposed to read what's on the board?”
“Was it even mentioned that they were physically disabled?” Lisa asked. “It could also be mentally disabled or learning disabled.”
“But next school year we'll be in the 11th grade. Are there any learning disabled people who make it that far?”
We looked at each other helplessly. Actually, we had to admit that we had no idea about the subject. So we decided not to worry about things that would only become relevant later. If at all. We had more important things on our minds anyway; after all, there were only a few days left until Christmas.
“I spoke to Mr. Schmidt on the phone to set the date for the parents' meeting.”
Great, just got home and then you hear something about school again. Did I mention that my mother is a parent representative?
“He said that you might have an integration class.”
“Yes, we are all very excited.”
“Well, just wait and see. Nothing has been decided yet anyway.”
My mother again. She managed to see the good in everything.
“What, you're getting Mongos in the class?”
My little brother came straight out of the bathroom into the kitchen with a towel around his waist.
“Alexander!” My mother looked at him sharply.
Oh, she had to be really angry when she called little Alexander that. Otherwise, he was just Alex to everyone. Of course, I knew that he had been raised to be just as tolerant as I was and that he just wanted to provoke in his pubescent way. “Let it be, Mom, he just wants to play.”
Alex stuck out his tongue at me and flexed his muscles a bit, probably to make me jealous. Actually, we looked quite similar with our hazel eyes and brown tousled hair, but Alex was always more athletic than me, and for some time now he had been doing dumbbell training, probably to get the girls. I mean, I wasn't really unsportsmanlike, but rather the slim type. I could show myself in the swimming pool without looking embarrassing, but I never made it to the top of the sporting world. Fortunately, we were not taught in classes during physical education, but the boys were divided into three groups, one good, one medium and one weaker. I was always in the middle group, so at least I didn't have to compete with the big sports freaks.
“So, you two bullies, I'm going to go do some Christmas shopping.”
And just like that, Mom was gone. She could do that very quickly.
“What did you actually want from Mom and Dad for Christmas, kid?”
Alex grinned dirty. “A few chicks to fuck, of course.”
He disappeared into his room.
“And you think you'll get them?” I shouted after him.
“Well hopefully, how am I supposed to survive Christmas without fucking?”
“You've survived over 14 years without fucking?”
A pillow flew at my head from his room. Even though my first sexual experiences were not great, I liked to tease him about not having had his first time yet.
Christmas was quiet and cozy. Of course, my brother didn't get any girls as gifts, but he did get a lot of other things that he was happy about. Otherwise, it was a very normal Christmas with a Christmas tree, tinsel, Christmas music and good food. Nothing new, but Christmas thrives on everything being the same.
“Boom!”
I didn't really like fireworks, but they were a must on New Year's Eve. We were standing in the meadow behind Jan's parents' house, waiting for the new year to begin. Just a few more minutes and the new year would be here.
“Do you know what I heard from my aunt?”
Everyone turned to Julia. Julia's aunt worked in the school board, so we were always provided with the latest information, but the fact that there was to be something new from the school on New Year's Eve, of all times, was surprising.
“We're supposed to get a disabled student in our class at the end of the first semester.”
“What?”
“Without any preparation?”
“Why is that?”
“They say he's moving here with his family, and because there's no suitable special school for him here and his mother doesn't want to send him to boarding school, and because the Schiller doesn't want to accept him, he's coming to us.”
The Schiller Grammar School was the other grammar school in town. We were at the Kant Grammar School, which was of course the much better of the two. At least that's what we thought.
“And what kind of retard is he supposed to be?”
“No idea.”
Oh dear, well, we could be curious about what the new year would bring. And it started right now with howling, fireworks and fireworks all around. What did I actually wish for this year, I wondered, while a rocket rose in front of me. Actually only one: a friend. A friend to cuddle, to cuddle, to fall asleep together. Would the wish come true? I didn't think so. But I wished for it.
There were things that didn't change even in the new year. For example, that you had to go to school. The news that we would have a new person in our class in a few weeks spread at the usual rate. Before the first lesson, the first information was passed on, after the second lesson the whole school was talking about it. At least the students, because the teachers didn't say a word about it.
Maybe they want to wait a few days to share the information, we all thought.
But after a few days, not a word had come from the teachers, not even after a week, and after two weeks, we were still sitting in Mr. Schmidt's English class just as clueless as ever.
“Why isn't he saying anything?” Jan whispered to me.
“Maybe there was nothing to the information after all?”
“The information is completely watertight,” whispered Julia from behind.
“Did any of you get your hands on the class register? Maybe the new guy is already in there.”
General shaking of heads.
A knock on the door interrupted our discussion. The door opened and our headmistress, Frau Stein, appeared in the doorway. To be precise, she filled it. Female headmistresses always seemed to have to underpin their importance with their girth.
“Mr. Schmidt, I'm very sorry to disturb you, but there's an urgent phone call for you.”
Oops, that rarely happened.
Mr. Schmidt went to the office with Ms. Stein. That was our chance! The class register was in the front. So, look in, leaf through, look for the class list? Lo and behold: the new guy was actually in there! But it didn't say much, only his name and date of birth. At least now we knew that his name was Thomas Neumeier. And he was 16, like us, so apparently he had never repeated a year. We couldn't discuss it for long either, because Mr. Schmidt came in again and, unmoved, continued with his sleep relaxation program – oh sorry – his class.
When he packed up his things at the end of the lesson, i.e. of course three minutes after the end of the lesson, I couldn't take it anymore.
“Mr. Schmidt, is it true that we're getting a disabled student?”
Mr. Schmidt paused for a moment. “Oh, news travels fast around here. Actually, we wanted to discuss this with you and him when he gets here. Yes, that's right.”
“But we don't have the facilities here to take in a physically disabled or blind person, do we?”
“He's neither physically disabled nor blind.”
Oh dear, he actually told us almost nothing. Now he was already walking wordlessly towards the door.
“Mr. Schmidt?”
“Yes?”
“What kind of disability does he have?”
“He is deaf.”
“And how is he supposed to follow the lessons?”
“He's pretty good at lip-reading. He's also had a few extra lessons with a deaf teacher who fills in the gaps when he hasn't understood something. But we'll really only see how it goes once he's here.”
With that, he disappeared from the classroom.
A deaf person? We hadn't even considered that possibility.
“Do you think he'll be able to follow everything?”
“I don't know,” said Lisa, ‘I think the idea is that we're supposed to help him.”
“Maybe he's really good-looking, then Lukas will drool over him and help him with every task,’ Jan grinned at me.
“Pah, forget it.”
Although, maybe he was right, there hadn't been a really good-looking student in our class before? Apart from the fact that I never drool, of course.
Oh well, what the heck, let's wait and see. Maybe he was also the biggest creep in the world, then I wouldn't have anything to do with him anyway.
The following two weeks dragged on with the usual uneventfulness. There were school days and half-yearly reports with pretty much the expected grades.
The following Monday started well, with math with Mr. Mausbach. Math was one of my favorite subjects, I didn't let unpopular topics deter me and bravely fought my way through the logarithms. What was it again, did I need the natural or the decimal logarithm here?
My thoughts were interrupted by an unharmonious knock on the door. In came Ms. Stein, Mr. Schmidt, a woman I didn't know, and behind them? Wow, I almost fell out of my chair. My absolute dream guy! Light blonde hair, dark brown eyes, an earring in his left ear, broad shoulders, as far as you could see under the black jacket. Did I mention that I'm totally into muscles? Well, not gross bodybuilders, but I can instantly go weak at the knees for well-trained, athletic guys. And that's exactly what this guy seemed to have. On top of that, he had a really cute, somehow totally sweet face. If he smiled, he could certainly melt my heart. At the moment, however, he was just looking around rather uncertainly.
“Don't drool,“ Jan grinned at me.
“I'm not drooling!”
“Yes, you are!”
”
“This here is Thomas,” explained Ms. Stein. “You already know that he is now part of your class. I would like you to support him as much as possible. And this,” she turned to the woman who had come in with her, ”is Ms. Mayring, our new sign language teacher. She will help Thomas. But she also offers a course in sign language for everyone. I would be happy if as many of you as possible took part. The dates will be posted on the bulletin board.”
Except for Thomas, the group disappeared as quickly as they had come. Thomas sat down at a free table in front of me, so I had the opportunity to size him up a bit. He had hung his black jacket over the chair and placed his backpack under the table. A bicycle helmet and an air pump were hanging from the backpack, apparently he had come by bike despite the winter temperatures. Just like me, he was obviously not a fan of designer clothes; he was wearing a normal white sweatshirt, jeans and sneakers. And without his jacket, you could see a little bit more of his body; he obviously went to the gym regularly.
“Are you drooling again?”
“Pah!”
“Do you think he can do it with us?”
“I don't know.” Lisa seemed almost worried. ‘I didn't get the impression that he understood much. I thought you said he could read lips?”
“But Mr. Mausbach has to look at him to do that,’ I interjected. ”He kept walking back and forth, and I think Thomas could only see his back half the time.”
“Maybe we should have helped him somehow.”
“How? How can you make contact with him at all?”
“Well, you would have helped him take off his clothes.“ Jan grinned the dirtiest grin he was capable of.
“Isn't that right?”
“Well, it was obvious that you liked him,” said Julia.
Oh dear, am I that easy to read? I squinted as carefully as possible towards the table in the corner. There sat my secret crush with a girl. Was that perhaps his girlfriend? Then I would secretly hate her.
“That's Klara, his sister. She's in ninth grade and, unlike him, she can hear,” Kevin explained, as if he could read my thoughts.
“How do you know that?”
“The rumor mill has already reached this table. You just didn't realize it because you were ogling Thomas.”
“I wasn't...”
Oh dear, I really had to try harder to hide it.
I got up to take my tray back. I almost tripped over my little brother at the tray rack.
“Say, is that your new guy?” He pointed his head in the direction of Thomas.
“Yes, why?”
I had never seen Alex take an interest in the boys in my class before.
“And who's the pretty one at his table?”
Aha, so that's what this was about.
“That's his sister. Now please don't tell me you're talking about banging hot chicks again?”
“Nah, nah. She's, she's... uh... really... uh... pretty?”
With a slightly red face, he stammered and left. Apparently I was not the only member of the Kamphaus family who had a crush on a member of the Neumeier family.
I began to worry about my secret crush. The school days went by and the situation didn't get any better. Anyway, it seemed like he didn't really pay much attention to the lessons.
Well, maybe I shouldn't worry so much about other people's problems. On the other hand, he was so cute. They said that Ms. Mayring was helping him fill in the gaps. I could only hope that worked.
Damn! Now I had a much more pressing problem: computer science was postponed to the 9th and 10th hour today and I had two free periods.
“What a bummer!” I said out loud as I stood in front of the bulletin board.
“You can always go to the sign language course for morons.”
Oh dear, Matthias the idiot again. Fortunately, he passed me by and didn't make a few comments of the kind.
Oh dear, I spoke too soon. Thomas had just come from the stairs to the bulletin board and Matthias received him with a few monkey gestures. I turned away, I really didn't need to see that.
“Hey, what's the matter with you?” I suddenly heard Matthias scream.
I turned around again. Thomas had grabbed Matthias by the collar and lifted him up. Wow, he must have been really strong, he must have gone to the gym. Matthias wriggled, but Thomas held him in the air with one hand. After about a minute, Thomas put him down again. Matthias left. Apparently he had realized that he was better off not messing with Thomas.
Nevertheless, I still had the problem of what to do with my two free periods. Hm, maybe I should really go to the sign language course. If I didn't like it, I could just stay away again.
When I entered the classroom with the bell, I realized that the course was not very popular. Apart from me, there were a few sixth-formers, but no one else.
“Hello!” it sounded. Or rather, it didn't sound. Ms. Mayring just formed the word with her lips and waved. Apparently that was the correct greeting among the deaf.
Before she started with the actual signing, she began with a few explanations.
“In Germany, the deaf use German sign language. There is also sign language that accompanies spoken language, in which spoken language is translated one-to-one into signs. German sign language, on the other hand, has a sentence structure that differs significantly from the German language.
There are two schools of thought in deaf education. One advocates oral language education. In this approach, students should lip-read as much as possible and also learn to speak themselves, which is difficult for most of them because they cannot hear their own voice. The other approach advocates teaching in German sign language. This has the advantage that communication is easier. The disadvantage, however, is that it becomes more difficult to make contact with hearing people. In addition, many find it difficult to write German texts because they are used to a completely different grammar. But one should not generalize, I also know deaf people who write very good German.
So, now enough theory for the beginning. Now we want to do a bit of signing. We use not only our hands, but also our facial expressions.”
Ms. Mayring demonstrated a few gestures. I was afraid I would feel silly doing it, but somehow it was fun. Soon we were walking through a virtual market, showing each other tiny fruits, thin asparagus and thick turnips, all accompanied by appropriate gestures.
“So, that's it for today.” The two hours had flown by.
“Next time, we'll form a few real sentences, like introducing each other and the like. Thanks for now, for participating so well.”
The high school students left the classroom, but I still wanted to ask Ms. Mayring something. After all, she knew Thomas a little better.
“Did Thomas actually grow up speaking orally or signing?”
“Let's put it this way: he was always pushed back and forth a bit. He can lip-read quite well, but he can't really speak properly. In any case, he is practically impossible to understand; he communicates using sign language.”
“So he has difficulties in German?”
“No, he writes excellent German. He's just a highly intelligent student, so far he's had almost only A's. I'm afraid that's going to be more difficult here. I'm trying to help him fill in the gaps, but in math and science it's hard for me because I'm reaching the limits of my abilities there. You'll have to help with that.”
I thanked Ms. Mayring and went to the door.
“Lukas?”
I turned around again.
“Why don't you just ask Thomas all these questions yourself?”
“Because... uh... I don't know.”
“Because you don't know how to get in touch with him?”
“Yes, something like that.”
“My God, try gestures, or write a few notes or something. I also always thought that you young people would be chatting on the internet all the time anyway, wouldn't something like that work with him too?”
Hm, I hadn't thought of that. Chat would be a possibility. But in which chat room?
When I arrived home, I booted up the computer. Maybe he was on Jappy. I rarely used Jappy; I preferred to meet my friends in real life, but maybe I could find Thomas. So I quickly entered our zip code and the age 16 in the search, let's see what came up. Our town wasn't that big, so the results were manageable. There were just a few people I already knew, and two or three more I didn't know, but Thomas wasn't among them. I clicked through the profiles without a picture, but there was nothing that matched him either. Disappointed, I turned off the computer.
That evening, I lay on my bed and thought. Was it really such a good idea to take Thomas in, without preparation and without any concept? After all, it was impossible to overlook the fact that he was in serious trouble. The Schiller Grammar School had also refused to accept him, Julia had said. They had probably sensed the difficulties. Wait a minute... the Schiller? Maybe he lived around here. Then he didn't have our zip code at all, but the other one that still existed in the city.
Although it was already late, I booted up the computer again and quickly found myself in the Jappy search. And... bingo! There he was. With a nice profile picture, smiling happily. Oh my God, how cute he looked! I realized that I had never seen him happy, apparently he felt very much like a stranger with us.
Oh, he was still online. I hesitated for a moment, then sent him a short message: “Hey!” I couldn't think of anything better.
A message came back shortly afterwards: “Hey”
“Still awake?”
“Yes, but not for much longer. It's been a busy day.”
“Our school is very exhausting for you, isn't it?”
“Oh, so-so.”
I was sure that he was greatly understating his problems here.
“I'd be happy to help you with math or something?”
“Thanks, but I don't need it.”
Apparently he was too proud to accept help. I was already thinking about how I could persuade him when another message came from him:
“I'm going to bed now. Good night.”
And he was gone. I was ready for bed too, but first I looked around his profile a bit. It was almost as empty as mine. At least it said that he was single. But otherwise he hadn't given much information, not even whether he was looking for girls or boys. But what was I worrying about, the chance that he was gay was vanishingly small.
I took a look at his photos. The profile picture seemed to be the only recent one. Otherwise, he had two folders, both of which had been created two years ago. In the folder “Friends and me” Thomas could be seen, apparently in a good mood, talking to others. I clicked on the folder “Soccer”. There was only one picture in it, but this picture... I almost fell off my chair. It showed Thomas playing soccer... shirtless! Even though the picture was apparently two years old, he already had a very handsome body, even though he certainly looked even better now. Of course, he was in the group for the best students in gym class, so I had never seen him do sports.
Later, I lay in my bed and tried to fall asleep, but I couldn't. Again and again, I imagined Thomas without a shirt, what he would look like, and what great muscles he had. My dick had been as hard as granite the whole time, and I had no choice but to jerk off.
“Maybe I'll have a chance to see him topless in the summer,” I thought to myself, while I wiped my cum off my stomach with a handkerchief. ‘Maybe I can...’ I couldn't get any further, I finally fell asleep.
Oh, shit! Today I was really close to school. I ran up the stairs and just made it to the classroom when the bell rang.
Phew, just made it. But don't panic, Mr. von Ochsbrink, our history teacher, was just writing on the board. It would be at least five more minutes before he started class.
As I passed, I waved to Thomas with the “hello” I had learned yesterday. He looked up in surprise, hesitated, and then answered with “hello” as well.
I dropped down onto my seat next to Jan. “Well, have you finally got the attention of your crush?”
“He's not my crush.”
“Apparently he is.”
I gave up. Jan always noticed that I was looking at Thomas. But today was a little different. Thomas sat a little more turned towards the class and out of the corner of his eye, he looked over at me more often. Unfortunately, he kept avoiding my gaze when I looked at him.
“Well, at least you seem to have sparked his interest,” Jan said as we walked down the stairs towards the courtyard after the second hour. I had already told him in a whisper about the events of the past day during the lesson.
“Well, he's still a bit shy about it. And he doesn't want to be helped either.”
“But you saw how he looked at you.” Jan put on his grungiest smirk again. ”I think he fancies you.”
“Well, that might suit you. I admit, I think he looks nice?”
“Nice? You must dream about having sex with him all day.”
My God, he was still grinning. And I missed the bottom step of the stairs with such fright that I almost fell over. But wait a minute, why only almost? Actually, I had just tipped over and now I was hanging in the air. It took me a moment to realize that someone had held me with a strong grip and was now putting me back on my feet. I turned around. Thomas was standing behind me and smiled at me kindly. He smiled at me! Thomas smiled at me! I walked into the courtyard feeling rather dazed. What had Jan said? I want sex with Thomas? Yes, that too, somehow maybe. But most of all I wanted to cuddle and caress him and fall asleep snuggled up against him. Unfortunately, that would probably remain a dream.
In the evening, I looked at Jappy again. Unfortunately, Thomas was not logged in. So it went on for a few days. At school, he looked at me more friendly, even smiled, but I had not yet started a conversation with him. But on Jappy, the same thing every day – no Thomas.
It took almost a week before I caught him online again.
“Hey, there you are again.”
“Yes, I'm not often here online.”
“I noticed that.”
Suddenly I had an idea. Maybe I could ask him about his relationship with girls.
“So you don't use Jappy to look for a girlfriend?”
“No, why?”
“I just thought so? Because of the topless picture, I thought that was supposed to attract girls.”
“Nah, that was just at football.”
“Oh, so you just take your shirt off when you play soccer?”
“I really like doing that, not just when I'm playing soccer, but generally when I'm outside when it's warm.”
Wow! I immediately imagined being outside with Thomas and him taking off his shirt. Just thinking about it made me hot.
“And then all the girls don't run after you?”
“Nope.”
My God, there was really no getting anything out of him. But I still had to try because of the really important things.
“Say, don't you want me to help you with math?”
“Nah, nah, let's not. I'm off now.”
Oh dear, he really didn't want any help. Somehow I could understand him. He had probably always been a very good student and now couldn't get over having to rely on help. But it couldn't go on like this either.
I could see that again the next morning. The day started with math. Math is actually nice, but today we got the test back that we had recently written. That said, it was still nice for me, I was able to pick up my A. Thomas, however, looked pretty crestfallen. It was obvious that he had screwed up the test.
“Before we continue with the lessons, I would like to change the seating arrangements.”
Oh, what was Mr. Mausbach planning to do now?
“While marking the tests, I realized that some of you had probably used not only your wits but also the answers of the students sitting next to you. Is that right, Florian?”
Flo looked down guiltily, at least that's what it looked like. You couldn't really see it under his baseball cap, which he always wore everywhere. Actually, I only knew him with a cap.
“It might be better if Lisa doesn't sit next to you anymore. I think Lisa would be happy next to Jan.”
Yes, I could imagine that. But what about me then?
“Lukas, you could sit here next to Thomas, there's still a seat.”
Okay, I could live with that. While I was moving all my things, Mr. Mausbach looked at me and raised his eyebrow slightly. The purpose of this action was immediately clear to me. He wanted support for Thomas without embarrassing him in front of the class.
Thomas looked at me briefly. He actually looked quite friendly, so I seemed to be welcome. He wasn't smiling though; on the contrary, he looked quite sad. I could understand that; the work had obviously not gone well for him. I tried to catch a glimpse of his work. Oh God, he had really messed it up. It must have really hurt him; he was certainly not used to such grades.
I slid him a note. “I can really help you.”
He wrote underneath: ”I don't need it.”
My God, he was stubborn. Mr. Mausbach now continued with the lesson. I tried to follow the lesson and watch Thomas at the same time. Now it was clear: he was taking in the blackboard writing and a few incoherent sentences from Mr. Mausbach. And nothing else. It was not going to work that way.
I looked at Thomas. He turned his face away immediately, but the half-second had been enough to see that there were tears in his beautiful brown eyes. He probably knew that his school career was going down the drain here.
He tried to continue his class notes for a few more minutes, but then he apparently capitulated. Oh dear, I felt sorry for him. He just sat there motionless for a few minutes.
Suddenly he started moving again. He wrote something on a piece of paper and with slightly trembling fingers he pushed it over to me.
“Can you come to my house after school today?”
Hurray, he had finally realized that someone wanted to help him. I wrote a short “Yes” below it and sent my mom a text message saying I'd be coming home late. Thomas also pressed his cell phone, apparently announcing my visit at home. Actually a practical invention, the text message, that had to make his life much easier.
I also needed to relieve myself, namely after the lesson on the toilet. At the sink, I met Alex, who apparently had the same urgent need. I quickly told him that I would come home later today because I was still going to Thomas's place.
“Well then you can finally shag him?” Oh dear, Alex's grin was almost unbearable.
“Alex!”
“Well, it's obvious to everyone that you fancy him.”
“Get out!”
Alex actually left.
When I came back to class, Thomas and Jan were passing a few notes to each other. It was kind of nice that he was thawing out a bit and gradually getting in touch with the others. I don't know what Jan had told him, but he grinned at me. Thomas also looked somehow different than before, somehow a bit happier, apparently he had overcome the initial shock of his work.
I was a bit excited when we left school and he pushed his bike next to me. My God, he really did live at the end of the world. We had to go through the entire city, across the large market square and past the town hall. We were on the road for almost half an hour. No wonder Thomas came by bike even in winter, and there was no decent bus service either. Somehow Thomas seemed more relaxed than at school. We couldn't talk to each other, but he smiled at me friendly from time to time, and I smiled back.
The Neumeiers lived in a nice row house. Thomas unlocked the door and in the hallway a woman, who was apparently his mother, was waiting for us. She looked quite a bit like Klara. She greeted Thomas with a hug and a kiss on the cheek and ruffled his hair. Immediately I wanted to do the same, but I couldn't really do that.
“Hello Lukas,” she said, beaming. So she knew who I was. ”It's nice that Tommy finally brings someone from school.”
The Neumeiers seemed to have just moved in, as there were still a few folded moving boxes in the corner.
Mrs. Neumeier noticed my glance. “Yes, we are still quite new in town. But now we are done with the move and all installations. Only the heating is not working properly, so it is still a bit cool here. But that will be fixed tomorrow, actually we like it warm.”
It's true, it was actually quite fresh here. Too bad, I was already hoping to see Thomas in a T-shirt?
First of all, Thomas showed me the house. It wasn't particularly big, but it was very cozy. Downstairs were the kitchen, bathroom, and living room, and behind the living room was a small garden. It must be nice here in the summer; the garden was not visible from outside, and the small terrace by the house was certainly a good place to lie and sunbathe. I preferred not to imagine what else I could do with Thomas there.
Thomas led me up the stairs. At the top was his mother's bedroom – I noticed that somehow there was no father in his life – and his sister's room. We took a quick look inside; she didn't seem to be there. Her room was tidy, which couldn't really be said for Thomas's own room. He quickly cleared away some sports equipment so that we had somewhere to sit. Otherwise, his room looked like that of a normal teenager, except that there was no stereo and no music posters on the wall. I noticed a strange lamp above the door, the purpose of which I couldn't explain to myself. Thomas noticed my questioning look, went out and pressed a button. The lamp started flashing brightly. So that was the substitute for knocking, that's how Thomas had a bit of privacy in his room.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I signaled to him. Of course, I didn't know any appropriate gestures for that, but had to roughly imitate what I meant, which made me blush and made him grin.
On my way down, I passed the kitchen and Frau Neumeier was looking out. “I'm really glad someone is helping Tommy; it doesn't seem to have gone so well so far.”
“Yeah, somehow the school didn't really prepare for that either.”
“Yes, for one thing, he wasn't prepared for it himself. Then there were always the problems he had with his father.”
“Where?” I bit my tongue just in time. I didn't really want to ask about the father, who apparently no longer lived here.
Ms. Neumeier had understood the question anyway. ”Oh, you can ask. No, he doesn't live here, he left us. That's why I had to look for a job and now work here at the hospital. Well, he always wanted to have a perfect son and Tommy was always a disabled person for him, and his second child was a girl. And that his son was in his eyes even more disabled... Well, let's leave it at that, in any case, he couldn't cope with it.”
I didn't understand what she meant by “even more”, but I didn't want to ask, it wasn't my business anyway.
“Unfortunately, I have to go to work now.”
“Oh, you must have really inconvenient working hours.”
She laughed. “Well, somehow all this,” she pointed to the house around, “has to be earned. So have fun today.”
And learning was actually fun. I was amazed at how easily I could communicate with Thomas. Mathematics went well with pen and paper and I quickly realized how easy it was to fool around without words, which we did extensively.
Time flew by and I found it a shame when I had to leave. Thomas was really a nice guy, with whom you could laugh a lot.
He accompanied me to the door. I was still wondering how I should actually say goodbye. “Hello” had already been used in class, but not goodbye. Thomas took the decision out of my hands... he hugged me and squeezed me very tightly. I was sure that this was not the usual way of saying goodbye among the deaf, but of course I enjoyed it anyway.
“You're going to Thomas's again?”
Alex looked into my room.
“Yes, why?”