Post 71 A medical Misunderstanding

 Maisie and Michael Simpson were ten year old twins.    Both were good looking kids but there the similarity ended.    Michael was bright, always near the top of the class, getting good reports at school.

   He was also a promising athlete and sportsman.    He played for the school teams at football and cricket and as a result was popular and had many friends.

  Maisie on the other hand struggled; in class she lacked concentration and was frequently reprimanded for being disruptive.    Out of school, she showed little interest in sport; she couldn’t catch a ball to save her life.    Her brother regarded her as being clumsy and belittled her, making fun of her in front of his friends.

 Her parents just assumed they had been blessed with children of different abilities, but they were proud of their son and his achievements, and invested much time and energy to his development.   He had extra football coaching and was encouraged to participate in after

school activities.   As a result Maisie spent much of her time either playing with her dolls in her room or being dragged by her parents to watch Michael play sport.     Throughout her young life she lived in the shadow of her brother and perhaps this made her behaviour worse.

Her teachers however had a different view and called her parents for a special meeting.     They expressed their concern about Maisie’s slow development.

‘She puzzles us,’ Miss Blake the form teacher said.    ‘Certainly at times she’s dull and disinterested in what’s going on in class but just occasionally she does something or says something to suggest that she really rather intelligent.’

‘Such as?’ Mr Simpson asked, without enthusiasm.

‘Well, we were doing some verbal reasoning with the children recently in a question and answer exercise and not only did she participate, she got most of the answers right.’

‘Don’t you think she’s just a bit slow and rather lazy?’ Mrs Simpson suggested.

‘Not really,’ Miss Bake replied.    ‘Usually these children prove to have a problem with their sight.’

‘But she's had her eyes tested at school,’ her mother commented.

‘Yes, the whole class had their sight checked twice by the school nurse, once in year one, and again in year four. On each occasion Maisie passed with flying colours.’

Nothing further was done about the matter until Maisie went to senior school. Within a month her teacher became concerned that Maisie was short sighted and called her mother in for a meeting.

Mrs Simpson explained that two tests had disproved that diagnosis but shrugged her shoulders when the

new teacher insisted on a retest.    Maisie duly had her eyes tested by a High Street optician and was found to have a significant degree of visual impairment.

 Her mother’s reaction was a mixture of relief and anger; relief that a cause for Maisie’s problems had been identified and anger that the previous school tests had been wrong.

Before venting her anger on the primary school she spoke to Maisie about the earlier tests.

 ‘Well Mummy, we get lots and lots of tests at school, spelling tests, reading tests and sums and I really do try to get a good mark, honest I do.    So when we had the eye test I made sure I was the last to be tested.    I memorised what the other children said.   I was dead pleased. I got them all right!’

Peter Sykes' latest collection of short stories entitled  'Laughter is the Best Medicine'  is now available on Amazon Books