Ms. Hempel Chronicles by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum

eighth grade level, which I think would be more suited to his ability. Even though he would miss Spanish every day, 1 think that Spanish is an inferior classfor any person of his mental state, and is simply
    ruining his skills. I haveframed many of his works and find them all inspirational, especially his poetry. William is an inspirational character and 1 will never forget him. I suggest that you encourage him to use his skills constantly. Sincerely,
    Beatrice Hempel

    Will Bean looked nothing like his mother. He was small and impish and pale, and had assumed the role of a friendly, benign irritant, someone who pops up from behind desks and briskly waves. His greatest joy was a series of books about a religious community made up of mice, voles, and hedgehogs. They had taken the Benedictine vows, and created a devout but merry life for themselves. Will frequently alluded to them. He produced a radio play in which he performed all the parts: the sonorous voice of the badger abbot, the tittering of the field mice, who were still novices and had to work in the monastery’s kitchens. He pestered Ms. Hempel into borrowing a tape deck and making the whole class listen to his production. In anecdotal terms, he could be described as whimsical, or inventive, or delightfully imaginative.
    Ms. Bean, however, was tall and gaunt and harried. When Ms. Hempel saw her standing outside the school’s gates, she was swaddled in bags: one for her computer, another for her dry cleaning, for her groceries, for Will’s soccer uniform. It was strange, how clearly Ms. Hempel could picture her students' lives—Will had tae kwon do on Tuesday afternoons, and every Wednesday night he spent with his dad—and how murky their parents' lives seemed by comparison. All she could see in Ms. Bean was evidence of a job, an exhausting one.
    “Do you have a moment,” she said.
    Ms. Hempel said of course.
    "I wanted to speak with you about the assignment.”
    Would she find it deceitful, and dishonest, as Mrs. Woo did? Or maybe, like Mrs. Galvani, she had telephoned all the relatives, even the ones in California, to tell them the wonderful news. It was unlikely, though, that she loved the assignment, thought it original and brilliant and bold. Only Mr. Radinsky seemed to feel that way.
    What Ms. Bean wanted her to know was that she felt the assignment to be unkind. Or maybe not unkind. Maybe just unfair. Because she had been waiting a long time for someone else to finally notice what she had always known about Will. And then to discover that it was an assignment, merely.
    The disappointment was terrible—could she understand that?
    Mr. Dunne, her college counselor, was the one who first noticed the discrepancy. Impressive scores, mediocre grades. A specialist was consulted, a series of tests administered, and a medication prescribed. The bitter pills, her father used to call them. The prescription made her hands shake a little, but that wore off after a while. And then: a shy, newfound composure. Her mother entrusted her with the holiday newsletter. She wrote film reviews for the university paper. She had a nice way with words, a neat way of telling a story.
    To her ears, though, her stories sounded smushed, as if they had been sat upon by accident. None of the interesting parts survived. Yes, her father flashed the headlights, and yes, she waved at him before she stepped inside. Those details were resilient. Not these: how she waved glamorously, and smiled radiantly, how the headlights heralded the arrival of a star. How her shadow, projected onto the snow, looked huge.
    “That was beautiful,’ her aunt said to her when she returned to her pew. “I can see Oscar doing just that—making sure you got in safely.”
    Beautiful was not what she intended. Her story was not about safety and concern and anxious attentions. It was a tale of danger, intrigue; a story from the days before her medicine, the days of their collusion, when they communicated in