Nell

There’s lots of things that she doesn’t do.

She doesn’t go to concerts. She doesn’t talk to people she doesn’t know on the Internet. She doesn’t get a Facebook. She doesn’t join clubs. She doesn’t write or draw or sing.

But she never speaks. Especially in front of a class. Speeches are her kryptonite.

And there’s no way she’s going through with it.

She tries to speak to her teacher about it, but she’s waved away. The teacher can barely hear her for how softly she speaks, and it’s for a grade.

She might not be good with some things, but she knows how to work a computer. And the next day she comes in with notes from her ‘mother’ and her ‘therapist’, kindly requesting that she just have to turn in a simple paper on the subject that the rest of the class is speaking on.

The teacher grudgingly accepts it, but gives her more to write than the rest of the class will be speaking.

She doesn’t care.

She never speaks in front of people. It makes her start to hyperventilate, and her palms sweat, and her head spins like a carnival ride.

She’s never going to faint again.

She’d rather stay silent than be known as Nell-who-had-the-fainting-spell.