True Biz

Kayla knows that Austin did not intend to offend her, but she is still hurt by his racism. She decides to enlist Austin for a TikTok about racism within the Deaf community to make up for his mistake. Kayla plans to do an entire series on BASL to educate people and dismantle oppressive systems.

February is stressed in the week leading up to Thanksgiving break, knowing that for some of her students, going home is not a good thing. When she notices a student pacing in the parking lot waiting to be picked up by her family, she brings her into her office for cookies. In the meanwhile, she calls the police to see what to do about a child who has nowhere to go.

Charlie and her father are catching up over dinner when her mother texts to tell her she is coming over. Outside, Charlie’s mother hands her a new processor for her implant. Charlie is annoyed, knowing her mother delivered the processor so Charlie could show up to Thanksgiving dinner with her implant on. When her mother leaves, Charlie’s father tells her that she is only trying to help.

The beginning of the essay includes a diagram about ancient “cures” for deafness from ancient times until the 21st century.

Austin spends the day after the pizza outing humiliated about having said something racist to Kayla. He is anxious about seeing Charlie again, who witnessed the incident.

When he goes home for break, he learns from his parents that Skylar is hard of hearing. This news is visibly upsetting to his father, whom Austin tries to reassure. His father tells him he does not care if Skylar is hearing or Deaf and just wants her to be healthy.

Charlie spends the day before Thanksgiving at her mother’s, where her grandmother and her mother’s boyfriend, Wyatt, are also present. At dinner, Charlie’s grandmother wants to catch up. When Charlie misses part of the conversation, she communicates with her dad via ASL, which confuses her grandmother. Charlie is forced to tell her grandmother that she attends River Valley now, which infuriates her mother, who stays silent. To Charlie’s surprise, her grandmother is thrilled and asks her to show her some signs.

After her grandmother leaves, Charlie’s mother scolds her for revealing her news.

February wakes up early on Thanksgiving morning to begin preparing the evening meal but gets a call from Spring Towers about her mother while she is in the middle of her preparations.

She arrives at Spring Towers to find her mother asleep in the hospice ward. February lies next to her mother for hours and is awake to see her mother take her last breath early in the morning on Black Friday.

After the scolding she receives from her mother, Charlie boards a bus to Colson and meets up with Slash at the Gas Can. After his show, Charlie tags along with Slash and his bandmate Greg to a local hardware store. With ski masks ready, they enlist Charlie to help them shoplift by blocking the security cameras with a shovel. They manage to steal some pipes and kitchen gadgets before setting off the alarm.

From the hardware store, they take their stash to an encampment by the train tracks and give away their goods to the men living beneath the overpass. Back at Slash’s place, Charlie notices that they also stole a couple of pressure cookers.

The beginning of the chapter includes a Wiki page with a timeline of US anarchist movements.

Charlie wakes up to find Slash staring at her. He tells her she did a great job helping with the burglary. She sends a text to her mother, lying about being at brunch.

At home, Charlie braces herself for battle but finds her mother relatively calm. She seems to believe Charlie was out to brunch with a boy from school, so Charlie goes along with that story. Not wanting to chat further, she retreats to her room and naps for the rest of the day.

While she helps her mother prepare dinner, Charlie promises herself to stay away from Slash because of his habits of using drugs and stealing. After dinner, she catches up with Kayla over text.

February is overcome with grief following the death of her mother. She remembers the grief she felt after her father died and realizes that the agony she feels over the loss of her mother is fundamentally different.

A few days after the funeral, February feels uplifted when Wanda stops by with a casserole. Something about Wanda’s support makes February feel like she is going to be okay. Later that day, February tells Mel about Wanda’s visit and can see that Mel is suppressing an outburst, although she admits the casserole is delicious.

After being gone from school for a few days, February finally opens her laptop to catch up on work.

When Charlie returns from break, things at school are better than ever, especially because she and Kayla are growing closer. One day, Austin invites her to his room, knowing that Eliot will be away at his football game. When they are close to having sex, Eliot comes in, his game having been canceled.

Back in her room, Charlie tells Kayla she finally met Eliot. Kayla realizes that Charlie was probably hooking up with Austin and tells her to put in a good word for Alisha with Eliot.

The beginning of the chapter includes a lesson plan about Alexander Graham Bell, who believed getting rid of sign language was the key to eradicating deafness.

February spends her first week back at school completely overwhelmed, both by grief and by all the work she needs to catch up on. At the end of the week, she attends a meeting with the school board about the River Valley closure. Austin’s father also attends the meeting. Afterward, February calls Wanda and tells her about the closure.

For the next week, February remains quiet about the closure. She doesn’t want to ruin her peace with Mel and hopes to soak up the last moments of normalcy before everything falls apart.

After speaking with February, Wanda reflects upon the traumas of her life. When Wanda was a student at River Valley, her brother was murdered. She was seven, and he was 17. Before Eric’s murder, she had a neutral relationship with her parents, who did not know sign language.

Eric is the first person she thinks of when she hears about River Valley’s closure, his death being the lens through which she first began to understand loss.

On the night before Christmas break, the atmosphere in the dorm is tense, given that many students will go home to families who do not speak to them or value their deafness.

Charlie has a conversation with Kayla about Deaf history, sharing that she never learned about anti-deafness efforts while she was in hearing school. Kayla tells Charlie that she wants to be a teacher when she grows up so that she can help change the system. When Charlie asks Kayla if she thinks River Valley is just as racist as anywhere else, Kayla answers in the affirmative. Wanting to further educate herself about Black history and culture within the Deaf community, Charlie asks Kayla to point her toward some resources. Kayla sends her a link but reminds her that it is not her burden as a Black person to educate Charlie.

The beginning of the chapter includes an excerpt from a Wiki page about BASL, including its history and how it differs from ASL.

Austin spends Christmas Day with his father’s side of the family, an event he dreads every year because they are hearing. As usual, they make little effort to communicate with him during dinner. He texts to tell Charlie that he misses her; when she tells him the same, he turns red, and his mother notices it.

The day before New Year’s Day and his parents’ annual party, Austin texts Charlie an invitation to the gathering. He is delighted when she agrees to come. His mother finds him dancing in the kitchen, so he shares that Charlie agreed to come to the party. She insists she come over for dinner, too, but Austin does not want her to have to deal with his grandparents.