A Quiet Kind of Thunder(3)

‘Come up to the front if you’re one of those new faces,’ Mr Stafford is saying.

Tem:

How’s it going?!

I almost miss those manky halls ;) xxxxx



I grin down at the screen, flooded with affection and relief. OK, so Tem isn’t here with me. It’s going to be hard. But we’re still connected.

Steffi:

Crap. I miss you.

COME BACK!!!! xxxx



‘Twelve new students!’

I glance up, taking in the slouching, affectedly disinterested teenagers now standing beside Mr Stafford. None of them looks like they could be a Tem replacement. That’s because there is no one like Tem in the world.

Tem:

Just SAY THE WORD, Brons!

Go on. SAY IT. xxx



My eyes slide along the line until they snag at the face of the one person who is looking back at me. Rhys. When our eyes meet, he grins. I can’t help it; I grin back.

Steffi:

DON’T MAKE MUTE JOKES ON MY FIRST

DAY ALONE AT SCHOOL! You MONSTER! xxxx



Tem:

You are awesome. Your voice is like a flowing stream on a warm spring day. No one in the world is youer than you. Etc. SPEAK YOUR TRUTH, EVEN IF YOUR VOICE SHAKES!!!



Actually, scrap that. Your voice is so awesome I just want

to keep it to myself. DO NOT TALK, Steffi. That’s an order.



I’m bent over my phone, smiling at the screen as if Tem is looking right back at me, when my skin starts to prickle. I look up slowly, pre-emptive dread already sliding down my back, and everyone is looking at me. Horror of horrors . . . everyone.

Panic explodes in my chest, sending sparks through my bloodstream, down my veins, into the tips of my fingers, electrifying my hair. I try very, very hard not to vomit.

‘So just speak to Stefanie if you’d like to learn any BSL,’ Mr Stafford, devil incarnate, is saying. And then he points at me. As if he expects me to stand up and give a speech. Shockingly, I do not.

Someone mutters, ‘Speak to Steffi?’ and a low laugh ripples across the room.

‘Or you could just talk to me,’ Rhys says. His voice is a surprise, thick and slightly drawled, like he’s speaking with his mouth full. The volume is slightly off, a little too loud at the beginning and then fading towards the end. He grins. ‘I don’t bite.’

The faces that had been turned to me all jerk towards him, meerkat-like, when he speaks.

‘This is hello,’ Rhys adds. He lifts his hand into the BSL wave of greeting. He puts a hand to his chest. ‘Rhys.’

And to my total surprise almost everyone in the room lifts their hand in response. He has the sixth form saying hello to him and I am simultaneously impressed and jealous. And also, weirdly, a bit betrayed. He can talk? That’s just not fair, is it?

‘Wonderful,’ Mr Stafford says. He looks thrilled. ‘Now we have the introductions out of the way, let’s get on to housekeeping matters.’ He claps his hands in a way that makes me think that’s how he thinks heads of sixth form are supposed to behave. ‘The common room is open to you at all hours of the day, though we ask that you work to keep it clean and tidy. Any breakages will be paid for.’ He waits for a laugh, which doesn’t come. ‘Your free periods are yours to spend as you please, though we do advise that you use them for studying.’

I stop listening, my eyes sliding back to Rhys, who is watching Mr Stafford’s face intently as he speaks. Every time Mr Stafford turns his head or moves out of Rhys’s eyeline, I see him tense. It makes me want to run up to the front of the crowd and grab Mr Stafford so I can yell, ‘Just keep your head still! Can’t you see he’s trying to read?’

But my name is Steffi Brons and I don’t speak, let alone yell. I move slowly so people won’t notice I’m there, because running in public is as loud as a shout. I like to wear jumpers with long sleeves that go right down over my wrists and hands and fingers. Meekness is my camouflage; silence is my force field.

So I don’t.

The ten stupidest things people say to you when you don’t talk

10) What if you were, like, dying or something?

9) What if I was dying?

8) Can you talk if you close your eyes?

7) OK, but what if I close my eyes?

6) Cat got your tongue?

5) Just say something. Really, just anything, I don’t care.

4) Is your voice really weird or something?

3) You should just have a glass of wine.

2) Just relax.

1) You’re quiet!





Here are three separate but similar things: shyness, introversion and social anxiety. You can have one, two or all three of these things simultaneously. A lot of the time people think they’re all the same thing, but that’s just not true. Extroverts can be shy, introverts can be bold, and a condition like anxiety can strike whatever kind of social animal you are.

Lots of people are shy. Shy is normal. A bit of anxiety is normal. Throw the two together, add some kind of brain-signal error – a NO ENTRY sign on the neural highway from my brain to my mouth, perhaps, though no one really knows – and you have me. Silent Steffi.

So what am I? I’m a natural introvert with severe social anxiety and a shyness that is basically pathological. When I was a kid, this manifested as a form of mutism, known as selective mutism. The ‘selective’ part sometimes confuses people, because it makes it sound as if I had the control over when to ‘select’ my speech, but that’s not the case. Selective means it’s out of my control. Progressive mutism is when your childhood mutism gets worse as you get older.