Casey Watson - Triumph Over Adversity 3-in-1 Collection

This morning, happily, he seemed to be in high spirits. ‘All right, Miss?’ he said as he bounced into the room and slung his tatty backpack down on the nearest table.

‘I’m fine, Henry,’ I told him. ‘And you’re sounding chirpy. Have a good weekend?’

‘Miss, it was epic .’

Henry’s problem with the world seemed to be rooted in a lack of empathy. He was the youngest of five boys, living with a mum on benefits – there was no dad on the scene – and it seemed he struggled with his place in the home hierarchy. He’d only ever had hand-me-downs (clothes and toys) for obvious reasons, which didn’t automatically mean he’d be emotionally scarred – far from it; lots of kids had next to nothing and were fine. But Henry wasn’t. His main problem seemed to be that he was treated as the runt of the family, getting picked on mercilessly by his older brothers. He would then, understandably, come into school full of anger, and would then transfer that to children younger or smaller than him. He was also unkempt and dirty, which was another of his issues – one of the things I’d already been able to establish was that one particular teacher had tended to pick on him too – showing him up in front of the other kids. In fact the first indication I’d had that I could perhaps make some progress with Henry was when he confided that this teacher had humiliated him in front of everyone. ‘I always know when you’ve arrived in class, Henry,’ he told him, ‘because you’re quickly followed by a bad smell.’

But he seemed in good spirits this morning, and full of what had obviously been a good weekend, and I didn’t doubt he’d have been about to tell me why it had been so ‘epic’, only at that point he was joined by another of my current trio of boys, who, there being some important footballing victory to be discussed, immediately commanded his attention. Gavin, who was 11 and had just joined the school, had ADHD ; he was on Ritalin and had been sent to me for a ‘calming’ period of two months, to try and help improve his behaviour and concentration.

Third to arrive was Ben, who was new to both school and area. He’d been excluded from his primary before the end of the last school year and had not been in education for six months. Ben lived with his dad, his mum having died shortly after giving birth to him, and, for a million reasons, he was angry all the time. My job with Ben, in the short term, was simply to assess him, so that some sort of strategy could be developed to help soothe his troubled soul.

And Ben wasn’t the only child who was bereaved. Shona, too – a sweet 12-year-old – had lost both her parents. Leaving Shona, an only child, with an uncle, aunt and cousins, they’d gone on a brief second honeymoon and been killed in a car crash when travelling home from the airport.

Shona, who was understandably finding it difficult to cope, had been with me since not long after I’d taken up my post. My heart went out to her, but there at least seemed to be a little progress. Since the arrival 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.

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