Blabber Mouth by Morris Gleitzman Page A

photocopied she said it was the best idea she’d seen since microwave pizza, and gave me permission to hand them round.
    I watched anxiously while all the kids read the letter. I was pretty pleased with it, but you can never tell how an audience is going to react.
    â€˜G’day’, the letter said, ‘my name’s Rowena Batts and, as you’ve probably noticed by now, I can’t speak. Don’t worry, but, we can still be friends cause I can write, draw, point, nod, shake my head, screw up my nose and do sign language. I used to go to a special school but the government closed it down. The reason I can’t speak is I was born with some bits missing from my throat. (It’s OK, I don’t leak.) Apart from that, I’m completely normal and my hobbies are reading, watching TV and driving my Dad’s tractor. I hope we can be friends, yours sincerely, Rowena Batts.’
    That letter took me about two hours to write last night, not counting the time I spent arguing with Dad about the spelling, so I was pleased that most people read it all the way through.
    Some kids smiled.
    Some laughed, but in a nice way.
    A few nudged each other and gave me smirky looks.
    â€˜OK,’ said Ms Dunning, ‘let’s all say g’day to Rowena.’
    â€˜G’day,’ everyone chorused, which I thought was a bit humiliating for them, but Ms Dunning meant well.
    I gave them the biggest grin I could, even though Tasmania was trying to crawl up my throat.
    A couple of the kids didn’t say g’day, they just kept on with the smirky looks.
    One of them was a boy with red lips and ginger hair and there was something about his extra-big smirk that made me think even then that I was probably going to have trouble with him.
    â€˜Right,’ said Ms Dunning after she’d sat me down next to a girl with white hair who was still only halfway through my letter, ‘who’s on frogs today?’ She looked at a chart on the wall next to a tank with some small green frogs in it.
    â€˜Darryn Peck,’ she said.
    The kid with the big red smirk got up and swaggered over to the tank.
    â€˜Clean it thoroughly,’ warned Ms Dunning, ‘or I’ll feed you to them.’
    We all laughed and Darryn Peck gave her a rude sign behind her back. A couple of kids laughed again and Ms Dunning was just about to turn back to Darryn when a woman came to the door and said there was a phone call for her in the office.
    â€˜Ignore the floor show,’ Ms Dunning told us, giving Darryn Peck a long look, ‘and read something interesting. I’ll only be a sec.’
    As soon as she’d gone, Darryn Peck started.
    â€˜I can speak sign language,’ he said loudly, smirking right at me. Then he gave me the same finger he’d given Ms Dunning.
    About half the class laughed.
    I decided to ignore him.
    The girl next to me was still having trouble with my letter. She had her ruler under the word ‘sincerely’ and was frowning at it.
    I found my pen, leaned over, crossed out ‘Yours sincerely’ and wrote ‘No bull’. She looked at it for a moment, then grinned at me.
    â€˜Rowena Batts,’ said Darryn Peck. ‘What sort of a name is Batts? Do you fly around at night and suck people’s blood?’
    Hardly anyone laughed and I didn’t blame them. I’ve had better insults from kids with permanent brain damage.
    I thought about asking him what sort of a name Peck was, and did he get sore knees from eating with the chooks, but then I remembered nobody there would be able to understand my hand movements, and the trouble with writing insults is it takes years.
    â€˜My parents’d go for a kid like you,’ said Darryn, even louder. ‘They’re always saying they wish I’d lose my voice.’
    Nobody laughed.
    Darryn could see he was losing his audience.
    Why didn’t I treat that as a victory and ignore him and swap addresses with