The next day, Cally finally must see Dr. Colborn, which she has been dreading. She is a small woman with “[t]iny blue eyes, [a] small freckled face, [and] very short grayish hair” (161). Once Mrs. Brooks leaves Cally alone with Dr. Colborn, the doctor pulls out a file with Cally’s name on it. She directly tells Cally that she has a policy of never listening to others’ opinions, good or bad, about someone she has never met. Instead, she wants to find things out for herself and draw her own conclusions.

Dr. Colborn tells Cally she’s sorry about her mom. Then, she asks if she’s going to speak again. Cally doesn’t know how to respond, so she shrugs. Dr. Colborn tells her about some of the different reasons kids stop talking and are afraid of their voices, but she adds that she doesn’t think those instances apply to Cally. She says:

[I]f you’d shaken your head, meaning no, then that would mean I would have to help you. And you wouldn’t want that, would you? […] If you nodded, that might have meant one of two things. Either you were just saying yes to keep me happy, or you were waiting for a particular thing to happen (166).