Dear Diary,

My name is Megan, Megan Marlow. I have light brown hair, sapphire blue eyes and lots of freckles dotted unevenly on my nose like flakes of fudge sprinkled on vanilla ice cream, which is one of my favourite combinations in the world. I am tomboyish, tell lots of jokes and love every sport under the sun (except golf. What's sporty about driving about in a buggy with Grandpa?). I have a Mum, a Dad and a little brother called Jamie.

My best friend is called Abigail and she, like my family, can sign (as in sign language), which is useful as I am deaf. I have been deaf my whole life and I will be deaf for the remainder of my life.

Is it all right if I just call you Diary? I think it is.

Now, with all of the pleasantries out of the way I can tell you why I decided to talk to you.

It was Mum's idea really. She thought that as I can only communicate in sign language, it would help to write down my feelings, thoughts and ambitions. That is what I'm going to do, but first I had to introduce myself; after all, you are like a person and you have to know things about me so that you get to know me. I mean, it's not like a hearing person would go up to a complete stranger and confide their secrets in them is it?

In some ways I like being deaf. There are lots of positives such as making out that I don't understand when someone who is not used to signing tries to tell me off and I can also talk with my mouth full!

Unfortunately, Mum knows how to sign 'Go to your room'.

There are three reasons why I don't like being deaf. The first and most obvious reason is that I can't hear a thing so Mum grips my hand when we cross a road. I have never known the sound of anyone's voice and even if I did, I don't know how to speak. This sometimes saddens me as I can't hear things such as the sound of laughter, which Mum says is magical. In addition, people think that I am dumb, which I am not as I got an A in Maths last year.

When people have realised I am not simple, them then feeling overly sorry that I'm deaf is a cause of annoyance. One girl I met on holiday last year nearly burst into tears when Mum told her I was hard of hearing. It sometimes makes me so angry, I want to suddenly be able to scream out 'I'M NOT DIFFERENT' when people try to be too kind. Even though they don't understand it, I sometimes sign 'there is such a thing as over-empathising'.

I don't like people feeling sorry for me. I guess I have had to get used to it, though; one comfort is that I will never have to accuse you of this.

On top of the disadvantages of being deaf, I have the agonies that all other children face; one of the most frustrating being having a younger brother. Jamie is the most annoying brother in the world, probably the universe (until they find other life forms in space, this will remain the case). Although he can't annoy me by screaming and shouting, he hides my pencil case, grabs the last biscuit when he knows on had my eye on it and once even swapped the pepper in the pepper grinder with ashes from the fireplace.

I guess as a diary you don't have to deal with younger siblings so you will probably find the recounts of my brother's devious plots a bore. Something you may find a bit more interesting is what Abigail and I get up to at school. As we are the only pupils (except from Jamie) who can sign past 'Where is Abigail as I need her to translate?', we come up with cunning plots using sign language as it is the only form of communication I can understand and one of the many forms of communication that no one else knows.

We swap around the lids of the whiteboard pens when the teacher has gone out of the room, we hide in the bushes and 'accidentally' squirt our water bottles when someone walks by and we wreak havoc in the lunch hall.

I guess we are just as mischievous as Jamie. If he is better at succeeding in his task to annoy the person he set out to annoy (more often than not, me), then we come up with more cerebral, more complicated plots.

Next year, although we will still be together, Abigail and I are really going to have to 'pull our socks up' according to Mr Turner, our form teacher. Next year, we won't be going to Rockfield Primary. Next year, Abigail and I will be going to secondary school.

Our parents have made sure that we go to the same school (although I am only going for one day of the week, as I shall be attending a school for deaf children as well). At my hearing school, I'm glad I'll have Abby as I can't bring Mum as an interpreter. Even though I will have Abby with me, I am still nervous about what other people will say about me being deaf. Maybe this is part of the reason Mum decided I should keep a diary, so by the time I go to secondary school, I'll write down anything that might have happened. I hope that she won't check my diary to find out, though, as this will be our private conversation, for my eyes and your pages only.

I hope that you don't mind me grumbling about what will happen, but I find it easier to confide in you than in real people, though of course I do count you as a person.

On a more uplifting subject, I want to tell you about Coco. She is my brown and white Welsh springer spaniel and she is my world. I named her Coco as her brown patches looked like splodges of chocolate and Mum and I are chocoholics. Coco is sweeter than white chocolate and she has so much energy it is like she is constantly having a sugar rush; she bounds up to me, tail wagging so hard I'm afraid it will fall off, and licks me all over when I get home from school. We were made for each other.

Now you know all about me, I don't want you to want to be another girl's diary, as, although I am different, I am an ordinary girl. It is just that what I hear is an echo of what everyone else hears; words travel from the speaker's mouth to a signer's hands then to my eyes. It takes a while for this process to happen and by the time I understand, it's like the reverberation of the echo has faded away. You are then an echo of my thoughts.

Sometimes the solitude is broken and I hear distant sounds and voices that make my heart beat faster and faster and I realise how wonderful it must be to hear and although it's only murmurs they feel like deafening shouts.

Maybe I heard something. Maybe I can hear. Maybe I will hear!

Then all too soon, the echo dies, the hope fades and the silence returns. Once again I'm different, cut off from the hearing world. All of a sudden I'm deaf.

I feel like that sometimes when I want to make new friends. They seem really friendly, share their belongings with me and then the question comes. 'Why don't you speak'?. They find out I'm deaf and slowly their expression changes from inquisitive, to surprised, to embarrassment, maybe because they are in the company of a deaf person. They gradually shy away, go and spread the word, whispering hurriedly to their friends. Their friends tell others, and then they all make their way up to me; then the question, the dreaded question, gets repeated over and over again, echoing the first one. The only exceptions are Abby and hopefully you.

You are like my mirror. You remind me that just because you can't respond, it doesn't mean that you don't exist. You can't speak, or sign but you can break the silence with silence; you don't need ears to listen.

Megan Marlow

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