Triumph Over Adversity 3-in-1 Collection

‘You can go with Miss if you want,’ Shona told her. ‘Or you can come with me an’ Molly.’ She put an arm around her waist – a friendly gesture that was so typical of her. ‘If you wanna come with us, just nod, and if you don’t, that’s okay. You can go with Miss and she’ll look after you instead.’

Imogen’s nod was almost immediate, and before I could add anything further the three of them were already halfway out of the classroom.

‘’Bye then, girls,’ I said, then, turning to Kelly, mouthed ‘wow’.

‘A turn-up for the books,’ she agreed, once the girls had disappeared off down the corridor.

‘Not that I’m counting my chickens,’ I said, ‘but bloody hell – what about Shona today? So maternal, bless her. Maybe she’ll be the key to unlocking whatever Imogen has locked in.’

That and that home visit, I remembered. Which it seemed was definitely going to happen, Donald passing on the news, once I’d gone up for some lunch myself, that the Hinchcliffes were happy for me to visit at 5 p.m. that Thursday.

Though, with the afternoon going as productively as the morning had before it, by home time I was even beginning to wonder if Imogen might speak sooner rather than later, after all. Perhaps I’d been pessimistic. Perhaps it wouldn’t be too long.

Perhaps it would turn out that in my head I’d been making a mountain out of a molehill. We would see. It was a nice thought, at least.

Chapter 6 (#uc374aa13-50dd-54e0-95f2-ea1005475a74)

My optimistic mood took me all the way home and, as I got inside and saw the enormous grin on Kieron’s face, I had an inkling it might be set to continue.

‘Here, let me get that, Mum,’ he said, rushing to help me pull my large satchel off my shoulder and relocate it to the back of one of the dining-room chairs. The teachers mostly carried briefcases but I rather liked my school bag. It might have seemed sentimental – and maybe it was – but it was also very practical.

‘Thanks, love,’ I said gratefully. ‘And what’s the grin for?’

It grew wider still. Kieron was obviously bursting to tell me something. ‘It’s because I have big news!’ he beamed.

I rolled my sleeves up and headed towards the kitchen to put the kettle on and start on tea. ‘Big news, eh?’

‘Very big news,’ he confirmed, following me in there. ‘You know Si, my mate.’

‘Indeed I do,’ I said, nodding. I would do, after all. They’d been in nursery school together.

‘Well, he’s changed his course at college. He was doing some sports science course, but he wasn’t really enjoying it, so they let him change it. To that one Dad was talking about – you know? That Media Studies thing, or whatever it is. Anyway, Si loves it. And from what he’s told me, it sounds well good.’

I smiled as I rummaged in the fridge to check out the options. For Kieron to think something was ‘well good’ meant it was borderline spectacular. He wasn’t one for bestowing compliments lightly. ‘Does it now?’ I said, rising. ‘So what’s it to be? Spag bol or sausages?’

‘Mum!’ he said, rolling his eyes. ‘Are you even listening? I’m talking about my future here, you know. It’s really important!’

‘Of course I’m listening,’ I told him. ‘I’m just multi-tasking, love. It’s what we women do best. And I’m hearing that the course Dad told you about the other day seems much more appealing now that Simon is already on it – have I got that bit right? And the next bit is that because of that you’ve decided you’re going to give it a go yourself, yes?’

Kieron looked at me open-mouthed. ‘Who are you?’ he said incredulously. ‘Derren Brown or something? You just read my mind!’

I grinned. ‘Derren Brown is a magician, sweetie, not a mind-reader. But, yes, I reckon I did, right?’

I gave him a hug. I was playing it cool, but this was the best news imaginable. All he had to do now was actually follow through. ‘I am so proud of you, love,’ I said, ‘and I’m sure it will really suit you. So. Have you phoned up and asked if there’s actually a place left on it for you?’

It seemed it was Kieron’s turn to do a bit of mind-reading. ‘I knew you’d ask that,’ he said. ‘And I’ve beaten you to it, as it happens. I’ve done even better. I’ve been down there with Si and I’ve filled all the forms in and everything. And even though I’ve already missed the first fortnight – obviously – they told me that’s okay because I can just catch up. Oh, and I can start there tomorrow! Well, as long as I take in my passport, that is. Where is my passport? I’ve been looking for it but I can’t find it anywhere.’

Now it was my jaw hanging open. I yanked it back into position. Then sent up a quick prayer of gratitude for there being a friend called Si in this world.

‘That’s amazing,’ I said. ‘Fabulous news, love! Now I feel even prouder. And don’t worry about your passport. Dad will have just put it somewhere safe. And you know what? I think we’ll forget cooking and order in pizzas for tea, to celebrate. Like the sound of that?’

He liked the sound of it very much. There was still the small matter of actually finding his passport – Kieron didn’t like holidays so we tended not to do them, and I knew dinner wouldn’t happen till the offending article had been tracked down – but, all in all, it was definitely a cause for celebration. Whenever Kieron was upset or stressed, it played out in all sorts of little ways, which couldn’t help but have an effect on the rest of us, so I knew Mike and Riley would be up for a celebration as well. Plus no one in our house ever said no to a big slab of take-away pizza. What kind of normal person would, after all?

My working day, in contrast, was invariably far from ‘normal’. Work, for me, usually meant taking a deep breath and preparing for the unexpected. That was the central irony of working in the sort of unit I did. That what was designed to be a place of calm, routine and order for the kids that came to me, was, in terms of teaching strategies and decisions about how to handle conflicts and flare-ups, also a place where two days were never going to be the same.

My current six – Molly and Shona, Gavin, Henry and Ben, and, of course, now Imogen – seemed, in my short experience, to represent a fairly standard spread. Some the bullied, some the bullies, all of them united in their need to be heard and understood, and then carefully managed, and helped to re-integrate where possible.

And, by and large, I had a handle on them both as individuals and collectively, and sufficient strategy to see the way ahead. By that Thursday, however – the day of my meeting with Imogen’s grandparents – I was beginning to realise that understanding Imogen was going to be particularly tricky. How could you hear a child who didn’t speak? And if she didn’t talk, how could you get to know her? As for understanding her – well, I was closer to taking wing and flying round the playground.

I was also aware that Imogen was beginning to disassociate from the group. Poor Molly and Shona were trying their best but I could see they were beginning to flag now. There was only so much you could do when you weren’t getting any feedback. The boys, equally dispiritingly, were off on another tack altogether. Having clearly reached the conclusion that ignoring her was boring, they had started to tease her about both her silence and her hair colour – particularly Gavin.

‘Why don’t you whinge like all the other girls?’ he wanted to know as he raced round and round the girls’ table, like a Duracell bunny, his Ritalin having obviously been administered a little on the late side today. ‘I know why!’ he added, grinning at his own powers of deduction. ‘It’s because if you did you’d be a ginger whinger, that’s what you’d be!’

‘Gavin!’ I said, making a beeline for him, brows knitted. ‘Please go and sit in the reading area and wait quietly for me. You know we don’t tease others in here, don’t you? Now, go on, off to the book corner and choose a book, please.’

I underlined this instruction with a bit of firm, purposeful guidance, which he didn’t resist. He never did. He was just like the human equivalent of one of those bouncy rubber superballs, which boinged around in whichever direction they were sent.

My book corner was a godsend, simple though it was. And it was simple; just two bookcases, set at right angles to form an L shape, but with the book side facing inwards, towards the corner. This meant it created a cosy, square-shaped area in a previously unused corner and, with the addition of a square of old carpet and a selection of bean bags and cushions, a place where children like Gavin could have a separate and solitary place to calm down.

‘I was only messing, Miss!’ he protested, as he invariably did. ‘I don’t want to sit on my own!’

‘Well, you should have thought about that, shouldn’t you?’ I said, pointing back towards a gloomy-looking Imogen. ‘Ten minutes, then you can come back out and apologise to Imogen for being so thoughtless towards her.’

Gavin scowled. ‘Why should I, Miss? What’s the point?’ he huffed. ‘She never speaks to me, so why should I be made to speak to her?’

I was expecting the usual giggles – Gavin always liked to work an audience – but on this occasion, perhaps because they’d noticed my expression, they refrained and looked on silently while I pointed again to the corner, and Gavin, knowing the game was up, slunk behind the shelves out of sight.

I went back to my desk. Of course, there could be another reason for his classmates’ silence. It could equally be that he was beginning to get on their nerves, just as he had in his mainstream classes. I made a mental note to speak to his parents about his medication. He was supposed to be with me for just a term, while he got used to it, but it was crucial that he took it at the same time each morning, as well as early enough for it to have kicked in by the time he arrived in school.

There would seem to be no such practical solutions for Imogen, however, who I decided to keep a close eye on throughout the day, in preparation for my visit to her home later. With Shona really her only anchor among her eccentric little bunch of classmates, I noticed she was following her almost every move, so it would be interesting to see how she approached the task I had planned for the morning – whether she’d come up with her own ideas or just do what she mostly had being doing: letting someone else be the one who led the way.

We were working, as we often did, on conflict resolution. And having first resolved the earlier conflict between Imogen and Gavin (up to a point, anyway; he mumbled a sorry and she said nothing), it seemed the perfect time. Conflict resolution was a big part of what we did in the Unit, and not only as a consequence of day-to-day squabbles. We actively included it in the curriculum as well, because it was a big part of the reason why the kids we worked with needed to be with us; they had insufficient strategies to deal with the many conflicts an average day in a child’s life could throw up. It was drama based, and required teamwork, which meant collaboration and discussion – again, things that we worked hard to encourage.

The activity took the form of a comic strip, which had the normal run of pictures, but no dialogue; it was the children’s job to decide who said what and when. The scene was classroom-based, starting with a frustrated-looking teacher standing at a blackboard, glowering as two of her pupils were obviously arguing with one another, while the rest of the class all looked on.

The idea was that the children had to decide what was happening and plan two short plays around it, one with what they considered to be a ‘good’ outcome, and one where the outcome was ‘bad’. They would then perform both plays, and I’d film as they were doing so, in order that we could all watch and discuss the plays afterwards.

This sort of exercise was helpful for two reasons. It was obviously a good way for them to practise skills such as listening and negotiating, as well as making them think about such concepts as a ‘moral code’. But it was also helpful for me, being a chance to get to know what made their minds work; seeing what they’d come up with in terms of solutions without any influence from me.

I got them started, then went over to my desk, ostensibly to do some paperwork but partly so that I could watch them discreetly. I was particularly interested in how Imogen might be allocated a part in the finished plays.

And I was looking forward to seeing what they came up with. What I hadn’t figured on, however, was that Shona might be having a bad day.

With the children planning quietly, and mostly harmoniously, I was browsing the internet for Shakespeare quotes when I heard Shona’s raised voice. ‘No!’ she snapped. ‘Why does it have to be that?’

I looked up to see her looking daggers at Henry.

‘Because, Miss Bossy Boots, that’s what we chose!’ he shouted back.