Page 25 of The Rest is History
Grace opens her mouth, but I touch her arm. It won’t do any good, and Mum’s not wrong. A little exercise is not an awful idea.
Mum turns her attention on me. ‘You’re looking awfully dehydrated, Liddie Loulou. Are you drinking enough water during the day?’
Forget being treated like a teenager. She makes me feel like a small kid. I roll my eyes.
‘I drink water all day long, Mum. I’m just a bit tired.’
At least she hasn’t asked me what colour my pee is today.
Dad appears in the doorframe, holding a dog toy and pinching the bridge of his nose. His permanent air of world-weariness (no surprise, given who he chose to spend his life with) hides a heart of pure gold. The man is an utter softie.
‘How’s my little Olive?’ He opens his arms wide, and Olive slips out from under Grace’s hands and goes to him. He enfolds her in a silent hug. These two, at least, are perfectly paired.
‘I don’t know why I get stressed leaving her there.’ Grace grips the steering wheel aggressively as she drives us the short distance to Woodland House.
‘Because you’re in hyper-alert mode. Because her father pissed off and left you both, and you feel a crushing sense of responsibility to be the parent who shows up for her, and to notice if she’s struggling with abandonment issues on top of everything else she has going on.’
She glances in my direction. ‘Do you think she does?’
‘She’ll have some shit to deal with, that’s for sure. But she’s doing brilliantly. You both are. She’s had a big year—Jake leaving, your house move, new school… I’d say she’s showing incredible amounts of resilience. And if and when she stumbles, she has a seriously strong group of people around her to help her through it.’
‘Yeah.’ Grace exhales. ‘You’re right, obviously. I’m sure I’m projecting. It’s like she’s so okay that it seems weird. And because she plays her cards so close to her chest, I worry she’s holding stuff in.’
‘Of course you do. But she seems to be on pretty good form, all things considered. Let’s see what her teachers say.’
Her teachers have a lot to say.
I have an unfortunate, but unavoidable, habit of analysing other teachers through the lens of being a teacher myself. And the Woodland House crew measures up.
These educators may even put me to shame.
I’m distracted by an unwelcome thought about Charlie. I have no idea if he has kids—I’d guess not, though I have no proof despite his seeming hostility to anyone without a graduate-level education—but I wonder what he’d be like as a parent at a parent-teacher conference.
Horrific, I imagine.
Patronising.
Superior.
Unwilling to hear the teachers voice any opinion that differs from his own view of his kids.
Ugh.
Well, I will not be that parent. I mean aunt. Especially not when this team of professionals is jaw-droppingly impressive.
Woodland House’s ethos is simple. Provide children who have special education needs with the tools they need to unlock their ability to grasp the core subjects, while providing a rich curriculum that goes way beyond maths and literacy and allows its pupils to discover their passions and their talents.
This two-pronged attack builds confidence in children who may have been left behind at their previous schools. In many cases, a few years at Woodland House will equip a kid sufficiently that they can attend any secondary school they choose.
We meet with Olive’s art teacher, who waxes lyrical about her insane creative passion and ability. Olive is an observer of the world around her, and it shows in the inspiration she finds everywhere. We joke about her current immovable fixation with cross-stitch, but her work across other media dominates the airy art room. Stunning, intricate line drawings of birds. Beautifully constructedpapier mâchémasks. And most encouragingly, some vibrant acrylic paintings that show far more flair and less fastidiousness than we’d expect from our neat, colour-within-the-lines little girl.
But it’s her literacy teachers, Mr Hope and Miss Lytton, who have the most encouraging news for Grace and me.
When Olive arrived at Woodland House at the start of Year Four, she had a biological age of eight years and six months, and a reading age of six years and nine months. Reading, along with output and working memory, has been one of the areas where she’s struggled the most in the past. In the two terms she’sbeen here, her reading age has improved by a whole year. She’s closing the gap with her biological age. Fast. Grace and I are open-mouthed when we see the stats.
‘She has an incredible vocabulary,’ Miss Lytton tells us.
‘She devours audiobooks,’ Grace says. ‘It costs me a fortune.’
