The Year Mara Stopped Talking

Mara had been Lukas's best friend since they were three.

They had grown up two streets apart. They had gone to the same nursery, the same primary school, the same after-school club. They had both been the kind of small, watchful child who notices what other children do not. They had recognised each other early.

Mara had always been quiet, but she had not been silent. With Lukas, she had been very chatty. With teachers, she had answered questions. In class plays, she had had small parts. She had not loved the spotlight, but she had managed.

In September of Year Six, something changed.

On the first day of school, Lukas had said good morning to Mara at the gate. Mara had looked at him with the same kind eyes she always had, but she had not answered. She had nodded. He had thought she was tired.

By the end of the first week, Mara had not spoken to anyone at school. Not a teacher. Not a classmate. Not even, when asked, the question of where she lived or what year she was in. She had nodded, shaken her head, sometimes pointed. She had not said a single word.

Out of school — Lukas knew, because they walked home together, because he had been to her house on Saturday — Mara was completely normal. She talked to her mum. She talked to her cat. She talked to him on the way home, although less than usual.

In the playground, in the classroom, in the corridors of school, she wassilent.

The teacher, Mrs Tannen, was kind. She did not force Mara. After two weeks she said quietly, in a parents' meeting, that Mara had something called selective mutism. It was a real thing. It happened to some children. It was not Mara being rude or strange. It was the way her anxiety was working at the moment.

The grown-ups understood, mostly. The other children — most of them — did not.

By October, the other children were quietly leaving Mara out of things. Not meanly. Just because Mara was hard work. You couldn't ask her something. You couldn't joke with her. So mostly they didn't.

Lukas was upset. Lukas was angry. Lukas was — and this was the part that hurt him most — also sometimes tired of it. Of having to be the one who knew her. Of being looked at, in the way you are looked at when you are friends with the strange child.

He did not say any of this to Mara. He did not say any of it to anyone else either.

He just kept showing up.