“Wish I could have seen Dale’s face when you
dumped that ice water on him!” Callie half-muffled her giggle in her
pillow. Our cabin counsellor was a tyrant about no talking after lights
out. “You can see faces, can’t you? Was he mad?”
“Uh huh.” In the twin bed across from hers, I tried to imagine seeing
only light and dark like Callie did. That’s all I saw through my left
eye but I could see faces and objects with the tunnel vision in my right
eye. “He had to know it was coming when I asked him to be a fake plant
in the skit we did before dinner.”
“Dale sounds conceited,” Callie confided. “I like Joel. Have you heard
him play guitar? Amazing.”
“I like James,” I said dreamily. The long day of swimming and canoeing
cocooned me in a contented mist. “Can’t wait to go water tubing
tomorrow. It was so much fun yesterday.”
“Is this really your first time at summer camp?” Callie asked. “Or just
a blind summer camp?”
“Both.” Self-consciousness poked into the mist. I was fifteen. How to
explain that no one my age wanted to hang out with me, that I hid in the
school bathroom during lunch to avoid their teasing? And, as for other
blind people, I’d never met any before this week at Lake Joseph, much
less socialized with any. “Lake Jo isn’t what I expected,” I admitted.
“Did you think we just sat around making brooms?” Callie laughed.
“You’re from Trinidad, right? My mom says that’s what blind people there
do.”
“I didn’t think we’d play tag and run relays. My parents say I can’t
run. Well,” I paused, feeling disrespectful for challenging their
judgment, “they say I’ll hurt myself if I run or do really active
stuff.”
“Yeah, well, that’s stupid,” Callie scoffed, making me giggle loud
enough for our counsellor to give our room door a warning rap. “Just
because we’re blind doesn’t mean we can’t do regular kid things.”
Was she right? I wondered. True, I’d flipped off the tube in the lake
yesterday, and my arms hurt from hauling myself back on, but I was super
excited to try tubing again. And, boy, had it felt good to race through
the woods playing tag; hadn’t tripped once. The best part was talking
about boys. Girls at school did that all the time – I heard them in the
hallways and in the bathroom at lunch – but they never included me.
It sure felt awesome to act like a regular teenager...and to be treated
like one.
So, if Cqallie was right, what else were my parents wrong about? What
else could I do?
(c) Kristy Kassie, 2017
A character's epiphany - or lightbulb
moment - is an effective way to advance the plot of a story.