“Your turn,” Jason said.
Ollie did it. He did the shiver, he did the snowman, he did the brush up the chest. His face stayed serious.
“Good hands,” Jason said. “Really good hands. Now—your face. ‘Jolly happy soul.’ What does jolly look like?”
Ollie thought for a moment before making a fake, somewhat rictus smile.
Jason had to keep himself from laughing. “Okay, good start. In acting, we have to feel the word down deep in our bellies. What is your real smile when you think of something that brings you joy?”
Ollie glanced at Mauve and a smile broke out on his face. Mauve gave Jason joy too, so he understood perfectly.
“That’s it,” Jason said. “When you sign that word, try to connect it to something that brings you joy in real life.”
Ollie tried again, and it was absolutely beautiful to watch. “You’re bringing me joy, kiddo,” Jason said.
More beaming from the young one.
Jason continued the instruction. “You have to think of yourself as an actor and you’re telling a story with your hands and your face. The audience is going to be leaning forward trying to understand you. And you know what that means?”
Ollie shook his head.
“It means you get to be bold with your expressions. Sometimes actors are told to make things subtle for the camera, but not on the stage. On stage, you want to reach the cheap seats.”
Ollie’s brows came together.
“He means the people sitting in the back,” Mauve said.
Ollie nodded thoughtfully.
“Your turn,” Jason said. “’Jolly happy soul.’ Cheap seats smile. Go.”
Ollie took a breath. He brushed his hand up his chest, and he went for it. Total ham mode, with a wide, goofy, full-bodied grin, teeth and eyes and eyebrows. Like a kid about to get a cookie from his pretty therapist.
Jason made an exaggerated WHOA face. “Well done. I better be careful, or you’ll take my job.”
Ollie giggled.
It was the first sound he’d ever heard Ollie make, and it shot straight through his heart. He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard a more beautiful sound in his life.
They worked for forty minutes,learning “was a jolly happy soul” and “with a corncob pipe and a button nose.” Ollie nailedthe sign for button, twisting a finger against his cheek, on the second try. He made up his own sign for corncob pipe because the real one was too hard. Halfway through the second verse, something happened that Jason didn’t expect.
Ollie was working on “Frosty the Snowman knew the sun was hot that day,” and when he got to the last word—day—his mouth opened and a small sound came out.
“Dah.”
Not the full word, but still. A syllable that escaped because his body was so wrapped up in performing that it forgot to hold back.
Jason’s eyes snapped to Mauve.
She had gone very still. Her face was carefully neutral, therapist-calm, but her hand had come up to her throat.
Ollie went again. The sound didn’t come a second time. In fact, Ollie didn’t seem to know it had even happened.
“Okay, bud, one more line and then we take a break,” Jason said. “You’re doing incredible.”
Ollie signed “jolly happy soul” again, bigger this time, repeating the brushed-up chest and the wide grin.
“I think we have an actor on our hands,” he said to Mauve before turning to fist bump his little friend.
