NCERT Class 10 English The Hundred Dresses 1

The Hundred Dresses 1

BEFORE YOU READ

• How do we judge the people around us — by their money, wealth and possessions? Or is there something of more enduring value to look for in a person?

• This story is a sensitive account of how a poor young girl is judged by her classmates. Wanda Petronski is a young Polish girl who goes to school with other American children in an American town. These other children see Wanda as ‘different’ in many ways. Can you guess how they treat her?

• Read the information in the box below. Find out more about this community (or about a related topic) from an encyclopedia, or the Internet.

TODAY, Monday, Wanda Petronski was not in her seat. But nobody, not even Peggy and Madeline, the girls who started all the fun, noticed her absence. Usually Wanda sat in the seat next to the last seat in the last row in Room Thirteen. She sat in the corner of the room where the rough boys who did not make good marks sat, the corner of the room where there was most scuffling of feet, most roars of laughter when anything funny was said, and most mud and dirt on the floor. 

Wanda did not sit there because she was rough and noisy. On the contrary, she was very quiet and rarely said anything at all. And nobody had ever heard her laugh out loud. Sometimes she twisted her mouth into a crooked sort of smile, but that was all.

Nobody knew exactly why Wanda sat in that seat, unless it was because she came all the way from Boggins Heights and her feet were usually caked with dry mud. But no one really thought much about Wanda Petronski, once she sat in the corner of the room.

The time when they thought about Wanda was outside of school hours — at noon-time when they were coming back to school or in the morning early before school began, when groups of two or three, or even more, would be talking and laughing on their way to the school yard. Then, sometimes, they waited for Wanda — tohave fun with her.

The next day, Tuesday, Wanda was not in school, either. And nobody noticed her absence again. But on Wednesday, Peggy and Maddie, who sat down front with other children who got good marks and who didn’t track in a whole lot of mud, did notice that Wanda wasn’t there. Peggy was the most popular girl in school. She was pretty, she had many pretty clothes and her hair was curly. Maddie was her closest friend. The reason Peggy and Maddie noticed Wanda’s absence was because Wanda had made them late to school. They had waited and waited for Wanda, to have some fun with her, and she just hadn’t come. They often waited for Wanda Petronski — to have fun with her.

Think about the text

1. How is Wanda seen as different by the other girls? How do they treat her?

2. How does Wanda feel about the dresses game? Why does she say that she has a hundred dresses?

3. Why does Maddie stand by and not do anything? How is she different from Peggy? (Was Peggy’s friendship important to Maddie? Why? Which lines in the text tell you this?)

4. What does Miss Mason think of Wanda’s drawings? What do the children think of them? How do you know?

Please refer to attached file for NCERT Class 10 English The Hundred Dresses 1