Broken Tongue (Disney and Warner)

In winter it snows at her place, their back yard would be covered with snow, thick, white and cold, she and her brother would wear their coats and gloves and make a snowman by the help of their mother. They would put buttons as his eyes and a stick as his nose. When it starts snowing again they go inside and search in their VHSs for a good movie. They usually choose Mary Poppins or L’apperentie Sorciere, Musical movies, full of magic and other worlds. They sing and dance with the characters and act as if they were not in their living room, not in their house, not in this world. She was 5 at the time she discovered another world, the world of where she could talk not fluent yet she wasn't bothered by her talk; she started adding some characters to her world and joins her brother sometimes. Her world was every where, at home, at class, in the playground, when watching TV, when listening to a story or reading a book. In her world she had a friend called Casper who would come for her rescue when ever she needed. Everything in her world could talk and fly except for her, she could jump high, dance as a ballerina, and talk as a mild stammerer. She would talk so much in her world that the caterpillars would call her "chatterbox". Her mild stammer was obscure, which made her think for a while that she was fluent as others. At six they had to move south where she started attending in a new school. In her class some kids were mean and started calling her Porky the pig; it's when she went to her world searching for Casper who refused to come and help her. She started being aggressive; once she pushed a girl on the ground and another time she pulled one's hair. If her tongue couldn't defend her, her hands could, she thought. Her teachers were so nice with her and never forced her to read loud, she would only read in a group and only if she felt like it. But they never gave her an important rule in school plays thinking that she might spoil the show and not knowing that acting was never a problem to her. She felt jealous of the other kids and wanted badly to take a rule in a play but she never said that to any. She would instead do those rules in front of the mirror with her imaginary friends and brother. Her talking disorder produced other habits that would accompany her talk. Squeezing her hands and lips, shaking her head, stamping her feet and closing her eyes tight, were habits that would accompany her talk to force her words out. Talking quickly until loosing her breath which caused for losing her voice at the end of every sentence would make her repeat it again. Switching words and saying something but meaning another, asking for something but wanting something else were other habits produced by her disorder.

One morning Billy’s mother sent him for lemons, and he returned with a purchase of oranges. Why, she wanted to know, did he bring oranges instead of lemon? “Because the man didn’t have any lemon” said Billy. Whereupon she determined to return the oranges herself and give the grocer a piece of her mind. She went and Billy started after her with fear- stricken eyes. Then he hid him self in the bedroom. “Billy” she said, quite beside herself with anger, when she returned, “Why did you lie to me?”. A flood of pent up tears rushed down Billy’s cheeks. The mother gathered him in her arms. “Come, son” she consoled “Tell your mother your mother what is the matter” she knows her little man wouldn’t deliberately story to her. And Billy, amid violent sobs, said “I couldn’t say the words” Abraham H. Kanter & Abe S. Kohn – And The Stutterer Talked

To be continued