‘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.
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 worked quietly and productively for a good 20 minutes, when Henry’s hand suddenly shot up. ‘Miss,’ he said, waving it impatiently, as ever. ‘We’ve been wondering – who’s going to do all the talking when we do our presentation?’
Which, when decoded, meant ‘would it be him?’ He was very aware of his status as the oldest in the group, as he would be, given his background.
I walked across and sat down at the boys’ table. I mixed them up sometimes but most of the time the three boys sat at one and the girls at another. It was good to make them work together, obviously, but only up to a point. Most of the time, my number one priority was to have these kids relaxed and receptive – and that meant making them feel as comfortable as possible.
‘Well, that’s for you to decide. All five of you. You’ll have to get together and have a board meeting about it.’
Ben giggled and nudged Henry. ‘Bored meeting, more like. It will be a bored meeting if Molly and Shona have to speak!’
I glanced across at the girls, but they hadn’t even heard. They were, as ever, bent over their work, heads close, engrossed. ‘Don’t be silly, Ben,’ I said. ‘You know I don’t mean that sort of bored. No, you’ll have to have a meeting and discuss it. Though I think it would be nice if you all had something to say, don’t you? You’ve all worked so hard on this that you all deserve the spotlight, don’t you think? Anyway, right now, I need you to all get on, so we can get it finished. And quietly, please, because I need to go and make a phone call.’
I left the kids to it and went across to my desk in the corner, where I buzzed the Learning Support department in search of my sometime assistant, Kelly.
Kelly was a 23-year-old teaching assistant who had a wonderful rapport with the more challenging pupils, which meant she was very sought after within the school.
She answered the phone herself, and pre-empted my question. ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I know what you’re going to ask and I’ll be down in ten minutes. I saw Mr Brabbiner earlier and he put me in the picture.’
‘Brilliant,’ I said. ‘They’re working on their project right now, too. So you shouldn’t have any problems.’
Kelly laughed. She knew as well as I did that things could change in a split second. One minute everything could be hunky dory – as it was now – and the next all hell could break loose. Still, that was what I liked about her, and what set her apart from some of the other TAs – she seemed to thrive on the unknown element of it all, just as I did, and I’d yet to see her faced with anything she couldn’t handle. She was an expert at thinking on her feet.
I