Mary Ann Bird has writes this story from her childhood. It’s entitled, “The Whisper Test.”

I grew up knowing I was different, and I hated it. I was born with a cleft palate, and when I started school, my classmates made it clear to me how I must look to others: a girl with a misshapen lip, crooked nose, lopsided teeth and garbled speech.

“When schoolmates would ask, ‘What happened to your lip?’ I’d tell them I’d fallen and cut it on a piece of glass. Somehow it seemed more acceptable to have suffered an accident than to have been born different. I was convinced that no one outside my family could love me.

“There was, however, a teacher in the second grade that we all adored – Mrs. Leonard by name. She was short, round, happy – a sparkling lady. Annually, we would take a hearing test. I …