Triumph Over Adversity 3-in-1 Collection

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‘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.