The Hundred Dresses(I) 百条裙子（一）

Eleanor Estes

每个女孩可能都无比渴望过拥有花色繁多、各式各样的裙子。有一本获得“纽伯瑞儿童文学奖银奖”的书就与裙子有关一《一百条裙子》。而故事的主人公旺达，她在他人眼中是一个什么样的女孩子呢？

TODAY， Monday， Wanda Petronski was notin tier seat. But nobody， not even Peggy and Madeline， the girls who started all the fun， noticed her absence. Usually Wanda sat m the next to the last seat in the last row in Room 13. She sat in the corner of the room where the rough boys who did not make good marks on their report cards 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 that she picked up coming down the country roads. Maybe the teacher liked to keep all the children who were apt to come in with dirty shoes in one corner of the room. But no one reallythought much about Wanda Petronski once she was in the classroom. The time they thought about her was outside of school hours， at noontime 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--to have fun with her.

今天，星期一，旺達，佩特罗斯基的座位是空着的。没人注意到她没来上学，就连佩琪和玛蒂埃也忽略了这一点，要知道这两个女孩可几乎是所有恶作剧的挑头人。

旺达的座位在十三班最靠里一排倒数第二个位置。她就坐在这个属于学习成绩差，而且举止又粗鲁的男生们的角落里;坐在这间脚步声杂乱，无论什么好玩儿的话都能引起哄堂大笑，并且地面上总是又脏又乱的教室的角落里。

而旺达坐在这里，并不是因为她也粗鲁，爱叫爱闹，恰恰相反她总是那么安静，几乎不怎么说话，甚至没人听见她放声大笑过。偶尔，她将嘴角向上翘一翘，就算是笑了。

要不是旺达每天都要从波金斯山的乡间小路一路走着来上学而且经常弄得脚上满是泥巴的话，班里是没有人确切知道她为什么要坐在那个角落里的。或许，老师是这么想的：就让穿着脏鞋子的孩子坐到角落里去吧。而一旦旺达.佩特罗斯基坐在教室里，也就没有人关注她了。同学们想起她的时候，通常是在课余时间里在他们午休后返回学校上课的途中，或者是在早晨课前三五成群说笑着去操场的路上。

有时，他们也会等一等旺达，拿她开开玩笑什么的。