The Girl Without a Voice: The true story of a terrified child whose silence spoke volumes. Casey Watson

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ of Molly – another newbie with slight learning difficulties – she seemed to have found a new focus and sense of purpose. Helping Molly, who had been a target for bullies since starting school three weeks back, seemed to bring some light to Shona’s dark, unhappy days.

      They came in side by side, as they invariably did, and both smiled at me as they parked their coats and bags. Though, on this occasion, there was a third person coming through the door behind them – Donald Brabbiner, the deputy head.

      ‘You have a moment, Mrs Watson?’ he asked me, indicating that I should step out into the corridor.

      ‘Of course,’ I said, turning automatically to the children. ‘Get yourselves organised,’ I told them. ‘We’re going to be continuing with what we were doing Friday. So start getting your equipment out. Quietly.’

      I followed Don out, smiling to myself as the three boys immediately took on that slightly anxious ‘Oh God, what am I in trouble for?’ expression. Don was a great deputy head and a real presence around the school. And, having been in post for several years now, also something of a legend.

      We stepped outside and I pulled the door towards me. ‘Problem?’

      ‘No, no,’ he reassured me, smiling. ‘Nothing to worry about. I was just wondering how many you had in today that’s all. Is it just those five?’

      I nodded. ‘Though I think I’ve got a couple more coming after lunch. Why?’

      ‘Because we’ve got a new girl – a 13-year-old. Name of Imogen. She’s new to the area as well as the school, and it looks like she might need to come straight to you. Arriving some time in the next hour – I think her grandparents are bringing her. I told them to try to arrive before first break.’

      ‘You know anything else yet?’

      ‘Not a great deal,’ Donald answered. ‘It’s all a little bit last minute, this, to be honest.’

      ‘That’s fine,’ I said. ‘I dare say we’ll find out soon enough, won’t we? I’ll come round to your office when they get here then, shall I? And we can all sit down and have a little chat.’

      ‘Ah,’ Donald said, shaking his head. ‘A chat is precisely what we won’t be having with her – in fact, that’s the reason she needs to go into your Unit.’

      ‘I don’t get you,’ I said, grinning. ‘What is she – feral?’

      Don shook his head. ‘Though it is a bit bizarre,’ he explained. ‘First time I’ve come across something like this, to be honest.’

      ‘As in?’ I prompted.

      ‘As in she doesn’t speak.’

      ‘What, not at all?’ I asked, confused. ‘Is she disabled?’

      ‘Apparently not. Just doesn’t speak in certain situations – I understand it’s called selective mutism. Except that at the moment it appears the “selective” bit is absent. Hasn’t spoken for weeks now, apparently. Not at all.’

      Well, well. That was something I’d never come across before either. My line of work frequently involved dealing with the opposite problem, and though I also dealt with shy kids who needed coaxing from their shells, a child who didn’t speak at all was something else again.

      I went back into my ‘Unit’ and considered my current charges, who, according to type, were variously talking in whispers or babbling away at each other thirteen to the dozen. Till they saw me and fell into a predictable silence, that was – a state of affairs anyone working in a school should work hard to be able to bring about with ease.

      What a thing, I decided, to have a child in your care in whom you want to provoke the exact opposite. Well, we’d see. It might not be Riley’s ‘every day’s a holiday’, this job of mine, but there was no doubt that it was always an adventure.

Chapter 2

      Getting my job at the comp was something of a dream come true for me, and I still pinched myself sometimes that I had. Yes, I’d worked with young people before, but never in a school setting, so to be entrusted with a job looking after the school’s most challenging children was something I felt very proud of.

      My background had previously been in social services. I’d had a similar role, in that I was helping the disadvantaged and troubled, but it had involved working with adults – ones with learning disabilities. So though I’d done teacher training and managerial courses as part of my post with social services, my only prior experience of supporting and helping troubled kids had been when I’d been a volunteer youth worker.

      I don’t know what clinched it on the day. There were four of us interviewed, and I never in a million years thought I’d get it, because the other candidates had way more professional qualifications. But I did. ‘The head phoned me personally,’ I told Mike, when I called him to tell him the good news. ‘Said it was my obvious understanding of how the school were trying to be more proactive about the emotional well-being of their pupils that had swung it,’ I explained. ‘That and my enthusiasm, which had apparently really impressed him. And he said they’d pay for any courses I needed to go on.’

      ‘And?’ Mike had asked.

      ‘And what?’ I’d answered.

      ‘And how many unmarked £50 notes did you have to slip him?’

      No danger of anyone getting a big head in our house.

      I had never worried that I might become bored or disillusioned once the reality of working in a large city comprehensive kicked in, but neither had I reckoned on how much the job would consume me. It was just so engrossing – sometimes stressful, sometimes fascinating, but always so interesting – that on weekdays, at any rate, I ate, slept and breathed it.

      And it looked like this week would be no exception. A new child always brought a little thrill of excitement, as each one was a different leap into the unknown. And this one sounded particularly intriguing. I made a mental note to see if I could find out anything about selective mutism on my computer once the children were settled with their work.

      ‘Right,’ I told them. ‘Let’s get this project up in the air, shall we?’

      Henry, predictably, groaned at my pun. We had been doing a project on the history of aviation for the past two weeks, and had been devoting the first two hours of each day to developing it. My little group were lucky. Only the school’s IT department enjoyed the luxury of computers, and the only internet connections were on the ones in the school offices. But since my classroom was also my office, that meant I had one of those precious few, so could allow access to the children in my care for their research. And the boys had researched well. And, now, armed with all the information they needed, they had been making a magnificent model of the Wright Brothers’ first plane together with an accompanying narrative.

      The girls, meanwhile, had been busy writing a first-person account of Amelia Earhart’s solo flight across the Atlantic. The whole group had also been working on a large timeline poster, complete with carefully cut-out pictures and artwork. They’d all worked hard, and I was proud of them, and would feel even prouder when they presented their work during school assembly the following week.

      They СКАЧАТЬ