Bound Together

Chapter 15

Elena enters the room. She gets out her notepad and pencil case just in case she needs to write any notes.

"Hello there, you must be the mischievous Elena! I've heard an awful lot about you from the delightful Mrs Fletcher."

Is this woman brain dead or mind numbingly stupid to think that Mrs Fletcher is a delightful human being thought Elena.

"I hope you mean mischievous in a good way and not in its literal meaning."

What a suck up thought, Elena.

"I see you have a lovely sense of humour then! I'm Miss Hildy. Today, we shall be evaluating you for whether or not you actually deserve extra time in exams."

It felt to Elena as though she was in a detention centre being forced into an interrogation against her will at this stage, and it hadn't even been 10 minutes into the hourly long session.

"But Miss Hildy, I have medical notes that do, in fact, confirm that I'm dyspraxic, I can even get my doctor to email..."

"Oh, Mrs Fletcher really wasn't lying when she said you were going to be quite a challenging young lady." Miss Hildy proceeds to laugh.

"Anyways, I'm here purely so the school can cover themselves in case some kook of a doctor has wrongfully made a diagnosis of a young person. Think of me as a more perfected doctor if you must. We shall do some activities within the next 50 minutes, and then I'll be able to identify if you are, in fact, as your parents claim you are "disabled."

"Isn't there an app for diagnosing your disabilities yet." Said Elena with a frustrated tone.

"I get it. You're a teen. You don't want to hang with us oldies. Look the sooner we get this done. the faster you can leave, It's as simple as that."

"Fine," mutters Elena

Whatever Elena wanted to say on this premises, it was blatantly obvious that people were going to refuse to listen to her. She felt trapped. The tests might as well have come from a child's puzzle book for all she cared. She'd done these kinds of assessments most of her life to help with her cognitive reading skills.

The hour is almost up, and Miss Hildy is smiling. This can't be a good thing, thought Elena. Her heartbeat was doing that fast, almost heart attack like thing again. She's smiling just like Mrs Fletcher. She needed to remove herself.

"Miss Robinson, I can confirm to you that the school was, in fact, right. According to this assessment here, you are NOT disabled."

"But I have doctors notes and evi..."

"Miss Robinson, please understand that naturally, parents will go to all kind of lengths simply to prove that their child is, in fact disabled. If anything, I can only offer you 10% extra time."

"But my parents wouldn't lie they wouldn't have gotten me unnecessary assessments if they didn't believe that I had a disability."

Miss Hildy puts her hands on the table and reaches forward to stroke Elena's hands. "It's a common result I'm afraid for young people to get defensive over disabilities they never had or never will have. If anyone is at fault it is none other than their parents.

Elena feels speechless how dare this bitch be so condescending. There was no point arguing because either way, it wouldn't change anything.

"But what is the 10% extra time for exactly? Only I'm a bit puzzled. If I'm NOT disabled then why do I still get extra time?"

"Oh yes, that's because you have Auditory Processing Disorder or APD for short. It means you can't hear syllabuls very coherently. In your case, when there are words with up to 3 syllabuls, you attempt to read fastly so that that way people won't notice that you're struggling. It's hardly ever picked up on in women, but with guys, it presents itself more obliviously."

OK so she's NOT a total bitch afterall she's more of a hitman in the movies. When someone is too much of a coward to murder someone else, they pay someone to do their dirty work.

Elena couldn't help but wonder how is it that all these decades later and still women with hidden disabilities are getting ignored?