Romance and the Deaf Girl
by Jessica White The bus trip from our family property to primary school in town took forty minutes, and with my siblings and cousins aboard, it was a noisy journey. I sat on the left hand side of the bus, so that if someone spoke to me I’d be able to hear them with the ear that still had some hearing. Usually, I found it too hard to join in so I read my book, or looked at the passing grey-green gum trees, low granite outcrops dotted with prickly pear and stands of pine trees, or paddocks crammed with rust-coloured…