Shadows 02 Girl in the Shadows by V. C. Andrews Read Free Book Online

shrugged to indicate she was lost when it came to following them. She returned to the kitchen.
"How long does it take to communicate that well with someone who can't hear?" I asked him.
"It takes as long as it takes," he replied dryly. "Obviously, it depends on your ability to learn yourself and, as I have said repeatedly. I have no idea what you're capable of doing and what you aren't capable of doing. It might take you weeks or you might not get proficient at it for months or maybe you'll never succeed at it. School and learning have obviously not been a priority in your life. Why should it suddenly be now?"
I felt the heat that accompanied my rising blood travel up my neck and into my face. "You don't know what has and what hasn't been a priority in my life."
He shrugged. "No. I don't. That's the point."
"Well, perhaps you'll know very soon then." I replied, and ate my sandwich. I had intended to avoid the bread and cookies, but his arrogance and his aloofness riled me up and I ate more out of frustration. He watched me reach greedily for the food. I thought he looked so smug in his evaluation of me and his expectations. He thinks I'm just some fat, lazy girl taking advantage of these people, I concluded. I couldn't say why what he thought was so important to me all of a sudden, but as much as I hated to admit it to myself, it did.
I didn't return with them to the office to watch him finish his lessons with Echo. Instead. I located the book on signing and went up to my bedroom to read it and practice before a mirror, determined to impress him the next time I saw him. I was up there so long and concentrating so hard. I didn't realize how much time had gone by nor did I hear him leave. A little while after he had. Echo came looking for me. I had left the bedroom door open and suddenly realized she was there watching me go at it in front of the mirror. I heard her laugh.
"Oh," I said. turning. "I didn't hear you come in."
How silly that sounded. I didn't hear her? Lucky Tyler wasn't present. He would surely make me feel like some sort of an idiot.
She came over to me and began to help me with some of the signs, moving my fingers so they would be more accurate in depicting words and phrases. I worked with her for a while, looking into the mirror at the both of us as we practiced. She had sweet lips and tiny freckles under the crests of her cheeks. Her face was tightening and shaping. Those high cheekbones will make her stunning one day. I thought, and looked at my own bloated cheeks. My face should be in the dictionary next to pIump, I thought.
Echo assumed I was growing bored. She began to look again at some of Uncle Palaver's magic tricks. The ones I had brought in were collected in the corner by the windows. I showed her the self-tying handkerchief, the cut and restored string, and the coin through an elbow. It all delighted her and she asked me to do each one again. Finally, I communicated the idea that she should learn them herself. I thought she would enjoy performing them for her grandmother and especially for Tyler Monahan. She didn't seem to understand when I explained and when I referred to Mr. Monahan, even when I pronounced his name slowly so she could read it on my lips.
Why was it so easy for her to read his lips and not mint?
I flipped through the book and found the sign for tutor: both T hands with the palms facing were to be placed against my temples and then moved forward and back several times. It said to add the sign for individual. which was to open my palms and trace my body down to my hips. She finally understood and laughed. Then she signed back. but I didn't
understand. Frustrated, she wrote on the pad on my table: "I call him Ty. not Mr. Monahan."
Oh, so that's it. I thought.
"He wants me to call him that." she wrote. and smiled proudly.
Having a more personal relationship with him was obviously very important to her.
I watched her look about the room and then reverently touch things that had been her