I remember feeling like such a failure, and Mrs. E didn’t help. She’d sneer down her nose at me like I hadn’t tried. The others all got A+++++ and I counted myself lucky to pass. The other kids’ projects were displayed in the cafeteria because they were “true representatives of a fifth-grader’s ingenuity and talent.” All I had to offer was a pile of painted mud and a coffee can of crispy bugs. My projects were left in the “Hall of Shame” (back in the classroom).