Tara is a target for bullies. Being the only deaf kid at her mainstream school, several of the hearing kids find it hilarious and entertaining to pick on her about her cochlear implant, her sign language and her efforts to speak. The attacks come anytime, anywhere - on email, to her mobile phone, in the school yard or on the bus home.

She frequently tells her mum she is too ill to go to school after she was sexually assaulted by one of the boys in her class in the school yard earlier this year. Now the school kids have added ‘slut’ to their bullying repertoire.

Desperate for some kind of friendship, she now chats to strangers on chat sites. In an effort to escape her thoughts of suicide, she has resorted to drinking huge amounts of alcohol and even experimenting with different kinds of drugs. Her mother cries herself to sleep most nights, worried that if the bullying issues aren’t immediately dealt with, Tara will end up destroying her future.