Chapter 3 - The tablet was not cheap, but cost was not the point
The communication tablet cost nearly four thousand dollars after:
Protective casing.
Speech software.
Custom vocabulary programming.
Mounting hardware.
Backup cloud configuration.
Insurance covered part.
We paid the rest.
The school had documentation saying:
The device was an accessibility tool.
Not optional.
Not recreational.
Not to be confiscated as ordinary personal electronics.
When staff retrieved it from the fountain, water poured from the charging port.
Destroyed.
The assistive technology specialist later confirmed:
Main board corrosion.
Screen failure.
Internal speaker damage.
Not recoverable.
Could data be restored?
Yes.
Cloud backup existed.
Emma would not lose her vocabulary system permanently.
That mattered.
But replacement took time.
During that time, the school offered a loaner device.
Emma refused at first.
Not because she was difficult.
Because the loaner voice sounded unfamiliar.
Its layout was different.
Words she could find instantly on her own device took twenty seconds there.
For someone who already had to wait for everyone else to finish talking before getting space to respond, twenty seconds can feel like disappearance.
At home that night, she typed on my laptop:
THEY KNEW I COULD NOT ANSWER FAST WITHOUT IT.
That sentence changed the incident.
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They had not thrown a random tablet.
They had targeted the thing that made it possible for Emma to participate.
