HUNDRED DRESSES - PART 2

-Eleanor Estes
Characters:
NARRATOR – AJEAAY, HABEEB AND ADI
MISS MASON - MANISH
WANDA PETRONSKI - MANISH
JAN PETRONSKI – AJEAAY
PEGGY - SAB
MADDIE – HABEEB
Narrator - Ajeaay: WHILE the class was circling the room, the
monitor
from the principal’s office brought Miss Mason a note.
Miss Mason read it several times and studied it
thoughtfully for a while. Then she clapped her hands.

Miss Mason - Manish: “Attention, class. Everyone, back to their

seat.”
When the shuffling of feet had stopped and the
room was still and quiet, Miss Mason said,
“I have a letter from Wanda’s father that I want to read to you.”

Narrator - Adithyan: Miss Mason stood there a moment and the

silence in the room grew tense and expectant. The
teacher adjusted her glasses slowly and deliberately.
Her manner indicated that what was coming — this
letter from Wanda’s father — was a matter of great
importance. Everybody listened closely as Miss
Mason read the brief note.

Jan Petronski - Ajeaay:

Dear Teacher:

My Wanda will not come to your school any more. Jake

also. Now we move away to big city. No more holler ‘Pollack’.
No more ask why funny name. Plenty of funny names in
the big city.

Yours truly,
Jan Petronski

Narrator - Ajeaay: A deep silence met the reading of this letter.

Miss Mason took off her glasses, blew on them and
wiped them on her soft white handkerchief. Then
she put them on again and looked at the class.
When she spoke her voice was very low.

Miss Mason - Manish: “I am sure that none of the boys and girls in
Room Thirteen would purposely hurt anyone’s feelings because his or
her name
happened to be a long, unfamiliar one. I prefer listened closely
listened with attention to think that what was said was said in
thoughtlessness. I know that all of you feel the way
I do, that this is a very unfortunate thing to have both.
And I want you all to think about it.”

Narrator - Adithyan: The first period was a study period. Maddie

tried
to prepare her lessons, but she could not put her
mind on her work. She had a very sick feeling. True, she had
not enjoyed listening to Peggy ask Wanda how many dresses
she had in her closet, but she had said nothing. She had
stood by silently, and that was just as bad as what
Peggy had done. Worse. She was a coward. At least
Peggy hadn’t considered they were being mean but
she, Maddie, had thought they were doing wrong.
Goodness! Wasn’t there anything she could do?
If only she could tell Wanda she hadn’t meant to
hurt her feelings. She looked at Peggy, but Peggy did not look
up. She seemed to be studying hard. Well, whether Peggy
felt badly or not, she, Maddie, had to do something.
She had to find Wanda Petronski. Maybe she had
not yet moved away. Maybe Peggy would climb the
Heights with her, and they would tell Wanda she
had won the contest, that they thought she was
smart and the hundred dresses were beautiful.
Narrator - Ajeaay: When school was dismissed in the afternoon,
Peggy said casually,

Peggy - Sabhareesh: “Hey, let’s go and see if that kid has left town
or not.”
Narrator -Ajeaay: So Peggy had had the same idea! Maddie glowed.
Peg was really all right. The two girls hurried out of the building, up
the street toward Boggins Heights, the part of town that wore such a
forbidding air on this kind of a November afternoon, drizzly, damp
and dismal.

Peggy - Sabhareesh: “Well, at least, I never did call her a foreigner

or make fun of her name. I never thought she had the sense to know
we were making fun of her anyway. I thought she was too dumb. And
gee, look how she can draw!”

Narrator - Adithyan: Maddie could say nothing. All she hoped was
that they would find Wanda. She wanted to tell her that they were
sorry they had picked on her, and how wonderful the whole school
thought she was, and please, not to move away and everybody would
be nice. She and Peggy would fight anybody who was not nice. The
two girls hurried on. They hoped to get to the top of the hill before
dark.

Maddie - Habeeb: “I think that’s where the Petronskis live,”

Narrator - Ajeaay: said Maddie, pointing to a little white house. The

house looked shabby but clean. It reminded Maddie of Wanda’s one
dress, her faded blue cotton dress. There was not a sign of life about
the house. Peggy knocked firmly on the door, but there was no
answer. She and Maddie went around to the back yard and knocked
there. Still there was no answer. There was no doubt about it. The
Petronskis were gone. How could they ever make amends? They
turned slowly and made their way back down the hill.
Peggy - Sabhareesh: Well, anyway, she’s gone now, so what can we
do? Besides, when I was asking her about all her dresses, she
probably was getting good ideas for her drawings. She might not even
have won the contest, otherwise.

Narrator - Adithyan: Maddie turned this idea carefully over in her

head, for if there were anything in it she would not have to feel so
badly. But that night she could not get to sleep. She thought about
Wanda and her faded blue dress and the little house she had lived in.
And she thought of the glowing picture those hundred dresses made
— all lined up in the classroom. At last Maddie sat up in bed and
pressed her forehead tight in her hands and really thought. This was
the hardest thinking she had ever done. After a long, long time, she
reached an important conclusion. She was never going to stand by and
say nothing again. If she ever heard anybody picking on someone
because they were funny looking or because they had strange names,
she’d speak up. Even if it meant losing Peggy’s friendship. She had
no way of making things right with Wanda, but from now on she
would never make anybody else that unhappy again. On Saturday
Maddie spent the afternoon with Peggy. They were writing a letter to
Wanda Petronski. It was just a friendly letter telling about the contest
and telling Wanda she had won. They told her how pretty her
drawings were. And they asked her if she liked where she was living
and if she liked her new teacher. They had meant to say they were
sorry, but it ended up with their just writing a friendly letter, the kind
they would have written to any good friend, and they signed it with
lots of love.
Narrator – Habeeb :
They mailed the letter to Boggins Heights, writing ‘Please Forward’
on the envelope. Days passed and there was no answer, but the letter
did not come back, so maybe Wanda had received it. Perhaps she was
so hurt and angry she was not going to answer. You could not blame
her. Weeks went by and still Wanda did not answer. Peggy had begun
to forget the whole business, and Maddie put herself to sleep at night
making speeches about Wanda, defending her from great crowds of
girls who were trying to tease her. Now it was Christmas time and
there was snow on the ground. Christmas bells and a small tree
decorated the classroom. On the last day of school before the
holidays, the teacher showed the class a letter she had received that
morning.

Miss Mason - Manish: You remember Wanda Petronski, the gifted

little artist who won the drawing contest? Well, she has written me,
and I am glad to know where she lives, because now I can send her
medal. I want to read her letter to you.
Wanda Petronski - Manish: Dear Miss Mason,
How are you and Room Thirteen? Please tell the girls they can keep
those hundred dresses, because in my new house I have a hundred
new ones, all lined up in my closet. I’d like that girl Peggy to have
the drawing of the green dress with the red trimming, and her friend
Maddie to have the blue one. For Christmas, I miss that school and
my new teacher does not equalise with you. Merry Christmas to you
and everybody.
Yours truly,
Wanda Petronski
Narrator - Ajeaay: On the way home from school Maddie and Peggy
held their drawings very carefully. All the houses had wreaths and
holly in the windows. Outside the grocery store, hundreds of
Christmas trees were stacked, and in the window, candy peppermint
sticks and cornucopias of shiny transparent paper were strung. The air
smelled like Christmas and light shining everywhere reflected
different colours on the snow.

Peggy - Sabhareesh: Boy! This shows she really likes us. It shows
she got our letter and this is her way of saying that everything’s all
right. And that’s that.

Maddie - Habeeb: I hope so...

Narrator - Adithyan: She felt sad because she knew she would never
see the little tight-lipped Polish girl again and couldn’t ever really
make things right between them. She went home and she pinned her
drawing over a torn place in the pink-flowered wallpaper in the
bedroom. The shabby room came alive from the brilliancy of the
colours. Maddie sat down on her bed and looked at the drawing. She
had stood by and said nothing, but Wanda had been nice to her,
anyway.

Narrator - Ajeaay: Tears blurred her eyes and she gazed for a long
time at the picture. Then hastily she rubbed her eyes and studied it
intently. The colours in the dress were so vivid that she had scarcely
noticed the face and head of the drawing. But it looked like her,
Maddie! It really looked like her own mouth. Why it really looked
like her own self! Wanda had really drawn this for her. Excitedly, she
ran over to Peggy’s.

Maddie - Habeeb: Peg!”, “let me see your picture.”

Peggy - Sabhareesh: “What’s the matter?
Maddie - Habeeb: “Look! She drew you. That’s you!”
Peggy: What did I say!” said Peggy, “She must have really liked us,
anyway.”
Maddie: “Yes, she must have”
Narrator - Adithyan: she blinked away the tears that came every
time she thought of Wanda standing alone in that sunny spot in the
school yard, looking stolidly over at the group of laughing girls after
she had walked off, after she had said, “Sure, a hundred of them, all
lined up