Billy found his family and went up into the bleachers to join them.

“You did great tonight,” Dad praised as Billy sat down between him and little sister Laura.

“Thanks. I can’t believe I had to perform just before the girl’s impressive dance act. At least I wasn’t after them.”

Mr. Jacobs came out onto the stage and quieted down the audience, “I would like to thank all of our fabulous students who participated in this year’s talent show. We have some real amazing talent in our school.”

The audience broke out in applause, whistles, and hollers.

After a moment, Mr. Jacobs got everyone to be quiet again, “Before we hand out ribbons to the top three acts the students voted for after watching the dress rehearsal earlier today, there is one more performance for all of you to see.”

Looking around at each other, the students were confused. What was Mr. Jacobs talking about? There wasn’t another act. During the dress rehearsal, the 6th grade girl’s dance performance was the last one.

After quieting everyone down again, Mr. Jacobs continued, “No one from Mrs. Star’s class has ever been in our talent show before, but when this fourth-grade girl wanted to be in the show like her big sister was, I knew we had to make this possible. Because she is extremely sensitive to loud noise, I need everyone to be extra quiet when she comes out and please stay that way until she leaves.”

“No way. It can’t be her,” Laura softly said as she started to look around the gym.

Billy and his parents looked at Laura, but she was too busy looking around for someone.

“Please no talking, clapping, or making any noise. To applause, please use the American Sign Language silent applause,” Mr. Jacob held up both his hands at about face level and twisted them back and forth.

Once Mr. Jacobs got everyone to be silent, he turned to the principal who was standing at the gym door. The principal left and returned a few moments later with Mrs. Star and a girl in a pretty dress, looking like she was ready for picture day.

Laura whispered just loud enough that her mother and brother could hear her, “It is her. What are Mr. Jacobs and Mrs. Star doing? How could they be so mean to do this to her?”

“Isn’t that Holly,” Billy whispered? “Rachel’s little sister?”

“Yeah,” Laura responded, never taking her eyes off Holly. “She’s technically in my class, but we usually only see her if we go down to Mrs. Star’s room.”

“Holly sometimes comes and visits her sister in our classroom,” Billy softly said. “How in the world can she be in the talent show?”

“Quiet you two,” Mom whispered. “Mr. Jacobs said we needed to be silent.”

“But you don’t understand Mom,” Laura whispered back. “That’s Holly. She . . . she.”

Mom held a finger up to her mouth and whispered, “We’re supposed to be quiet. You can tell me afterwards.”

Holly and Mrs. Star went up onto the stage. The microphone was adjusted down to Holly’s level, before a tablet was held out to her.

Holly tapped a few things on the tablet, and everyone heard the synthetic voice of the tablet say, “Go go.”

The teacher smiled at Holly, took the tablet, and left the stage.

“Don’t take her talker away,” Laura whispered. “Don’t leave her up on the stage all alone.”

Holly looked out at the audience and started flapping her hands. Everyone was silent as they looked up at the girl on stage.

As Holly stood up on stage, everyone in the audience was confused. She was just standing there doing nothing except flapping her hands. That wasn’t a talent, she did that all the time. After two very long minutes, Laura couldn’t take it anymore. She stood up and started to make her way down the bleachers. She was stopped by her mom and instructed to sit back down.

“But you don’t understand Mom,” Laura whispered.

Suddenly, something could be heard through the speakers, “M . . . Mmmm . . . my . . .”

There were many gasps throughout the audience.

“Name . . . is . . . Holly.”

The students from Laura’s class were spread through the bleachers, sitting with their parents. Suddenly almost all of those students started to silent applause. Most of the audience was confused by this action.

“I . . . am . . . ten . . . I . . . like . . . swing.”

Laura smiled, nodded her head, and whispered, “She does.”

With that, Holly smiled, flapped her hands some and then turned and ran off the stage back to Mrs. Star. When the two were reunited, Holly shrieked and was led towards the door to the gym. While this was going on, every kid in Laura and Billy’s classes stood up and started to silently applause.

Once Holly and Mrs. Star had left the gym, Mom said, “That poor little girl, she got so scared we didn’t even get to see her performance.”

Laura blurted out as she sat back down, “That . . . was . . . amazing!”

Mom looked at her daughter in confusion.

Mr. Jacobs got back up on stage, “Thank You everyone. The last thing to do before we leave is award the ribbons to the winners of the Talent show. In third place we have . . .”

As ribbons were handed out to the top three performances voted on by the students after the dress rehearsals, Laura sat in shock mumbling to herself repeatedly, “How? How did she do that?”

When the family was walking to the car, Laura still appeared to be in a daze. Mom squeezed her hand and asked, “Are you okay sweety?”

“Holly should have won first place,” Laura finally responded. “If she had been part of the dress rehearsal, she would have won.”

“She just introduced herself,” Mom commented. “What’s the big deal? We didn’t even get to see her performance.”

Laura looked up at her mom, “But Mom, Holly can’t talk. Since Kindergarten, I’ve never heard one word come out of her mouth. She can communicate two-word phrases with her tablet talker, but she doesn’t talk any other way. How . . . how did she do that? That was amazing!”