The Girl Stood Up at the School Assembly. She Hadn't Spoken in Two Years.

Synopsis

Selective mutism. That's the clinical name. The name adults use when a child stops talking and the silence isn't defiance — it's survival. Lily was nine when she stopped speaking. After the divorce. After the move. After the new school where nobody knew her name and she decided that if nobody knew her name, then nobody could use it against her. Two years of…