"Okay kids, today we're going to learn about sign language," I said in my most controlled voice. Inwardly I wondered just how I had been talked into doing this, but then I remembered Mrs. Golch and returned to the present. There was no point in arguing with Mrs. Golch.

"We don't want to learn about sign language," said Henry Kleinfarben. "We want to play Twister." Mrs. Golch had spoiled these kids.

"Look, you're going to learn about sign language and you're going to like it!" I said forcefully. Tact has never been my strongest suit.

"What's sign language?" asked the kid in the corner. I didn't know her name because no one ever used it. To everyone, she was "the kid in the corner," because it seemed like she was always in corners.

"It's a way of talking to deaf people."

"What're deaf people?"

"People who can't hear."

"What's hearing?"

"Don't give me that. I've seen you read books twice the size I was reading when I was your age, so I know you know what hearing is. I bet you knew what sign language and deaf people were too, but I explained it because some other kids might not. Okay, any other questions?"

Kevin Leece raised his hand, then lowered it again with a sheepish look. Ulma Vier raised her hand half a second later. "I gotta go to the bathroom."

"Okay, Ulma, go, now, quickly. Now, let's learn about sign language. Firstly, why do you think we need to have sign language?"

"To talk to deaf people." The kid in the corner was really snotty today.

"Yes, but why not just write it down?"

That stumped them for a moment. Truth be told, I didn't know the answer either, really, but they didn't have to know that. "'Cause deaf people are dumb," said Henry.

"Henry, we don't insult people here! Deaf people are not dumb." I almost felt like I was channeling Mrs. Golch on that one.

"Yes they are."

"No they are not. How would you like it if I said all people named Henry were dumb, huh?"

"It's true," said Giggling Girl, whose name I also could never remember but just because she wasn't a regular. "Henry is real dumb."

"Okay, maybe so, but are all people named Henry dumb? And it's, 'really dumb,' not, 'real dumb.'"

"My Uncle Henry is pretty dumb," said the kid in the corner.

"But is everyone named Henry dumb?"

"But all deaf people are too dumb. I saw it in a book." Henry was cruising for a bruising, as far as I could tell.

"No you didn't. No book out there says that deaf people are dumb." Then it hit me. "Oh, wait. Henry, they didn't mean dumb as in stupid. They meant dumb as in can't talk."

"See, told you so."

"Henry, you're dumb."

"Kids, kids, remember, insults are not appropriate." Mrs. Golch would have been proud. Actually, she probably wouldn't have been, but since she shanghaied me into doing this, she would have to make do with what she could get.

"So does stupid mean something else too?"

"No, stupid just means stupid. But dumb can mean not being able to talk. A lot of deaf people are dumb, but not all of them."

"You mean all deaf people are stupid? You just said that wasn't true." I was losing the crowd.

"Okay, enough about dumb. Let's move on to learning how to sign, 'Hello, my name is your name.'"

"Why do we want to say that?"

"Because you might meet a deaf person one day and want to introduce yourself."

"Why couldn't we just write it down?"

"Okay, we've moved past that, now let's focus on how to sign your name, okay."

"I gotta go to the bathroom."

"For God's sake, Ulma, you just went to the bathroom."

"I gotta go again."

"Fine, go, whatever. Let's learn how to sign our name, okay, please. Just a little work, okay."

"My daddy makes a sign a lot. What does this mean?"

"Oh Jesus Kevin, don't do that, that's very bad."

"But why?"

"Like this?"

"No, no Henry, don't you do it either. That means very bad things, it's very rude."

Forty-five minutes later, no one could sign their names. I doubt very much if they could even remember what we were supposed to be doing. Henry and Kevin had been flipping each other off for fifteen minutes straight and laughing nonstop while doing it. The kid in the corner was reading a book and ignoring me. Ulma Vier had been to the bathroom, by my count, seven times. Giggling Girl was giggling for no apparent reason.

I counted it an extremely successful day, made even more so by the fact that, aside from looking briefly at the sign language alphabet before showing up at the Center, I didn't know sign language from ancient Greek.