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BEFORE YOU READ - NCERT

BEFORE YOU READ How do we judge the people around us by their money, wealthand possessions? Or is there something of more enduring valueto look for in a person? This story is a sensitive account of how a poor young girl isjudged by her classmates. Wanda Petronski is a young Polishgirl who goes to school with other American children in an Americantown. These other children see Wanda as different in manyways. Can you guess how they treat her? Read the information in the box below. Find out more about thiscommunity (or about a related topic) from an encyclopedia, orthe Internet.

But nobody, not even Peggy and Madeline, the girls who started all the fun, noticed her absence. ... Anybody could tell that that was a lie. Why did she want to lie? And she wasn’t just an ordinary person, ... somebody’s hand-me-down clothes. Thank goodness, she didn’t live up on Boggins Heights or have a funny name.

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Transcription of BEFORE YOU READ - NCERT

1 BEFORE YOU READ How do we judge the people around us by their money, wealthand possessions? Or is there something of more enduring valueto look for in a person? This story is a sensitive account of how a poor young girl isjudged by her classmates. Wanda Petronski is a young Polishgirl who goes to school with other American children in an Americantown. These other children see Wanda as different in manyways. Can you guess how they treat her? Read the information in the box below. Find out more about thiscommunity (or about a related topic) from an encyclopedia, orthe Internet.

2 The Polish-American Communityin the United StatesThe first Polish immigrants arrived in America in 1608, butthe largest wave of Polish immigration occurred in the earlytwentieth century, when more than one million Poles migratedto the United States. The Polish State did not exist at thattime, and the immigrants were identified according to theircountry of origin rather than to ethnicity. They were identifiedas Russian Poles, German Poles and Austrian of the most notable Polish-American communitiesis in Chicago and its suburbs; so Chicago is sometimes calledthe second largest Polish city in the world, next only toWarsaw, the capital of Poland.

3 Polish-Americans weresometimes discriminated against in the United States, aswere the Irish, Italians, and to the United States 2000 Census, 667,414 Americans of age five years and older reported Polish as thelanguage spoken at home, which is about per cent ofthe people who speak languages other than English, per cent of the FlightTODAY, Monday, Wanda Petronski was not in herseat. But nobody , not even Peggy and Madeline, thegirls who started all the fun, noticed her Wanda sat in the seat next to the last seatin the last row in Room Thirteen.

4 She sat in thecorner of the room where the rough boys who didnot make good marks sat, the corner of the roomwhere there was most scuffling of feet, most roarsof laughter when anything funny was said, and mostmud and dirt on the did not sit there because she was roughand noisy. On the contrary, she was very quiet andrarely said anything at all. And nobody had everheard her laugh out loud. Sometimes she twistedher mouth into a crooked sort of smile, but thatwas knew exactly why Wanda sat in that seat,unless it was because she came all the way fromBoggins Heights and her feet were usually cakedwith dry mud.

5 But no one really thought muchabout Wanda Petronski, once she sat in the cornerof the time when they thought about Wanda wasoutside of school hours at noon-time when theywere coming back to school or in the morning earlybefore school began, when groups of two or three,or even more, would be talking and laughing ontheir way to the school , sometimes, they waited for Wanda tohave fun with next day, Tuesday, Wanda was not in school,either. And nobody noticed her absence on Wednesday, Peggy and Maddie, who satdown front with other children who got good marksand who didn t track in a whole lot of mud, didnotice that Wanda wasn t there.

6 Peggy was the mostpopular girl in school. She was pretty, she hadmany pretty clothes and her hair was curly. Maddiewas her closest friend. The reason Peggy and Maddienoticed Wanda s absence was because Wanda hadmade them late to school. They had waited andscuffling of feetnoisy, draggingmovements of thefeet on the ground65 The Hundred Dresses Iwaited for Wanda, to have some fun with her, andshe just hadn t often waited for Wanda Petronski to havefun with Comprehension Check1. Where in the classroom does Wanda sit and why?2. Where does Wanda live?

7 What kind of a place do you think it is?3. When and why do Peggy and Maddie notice Wanda s absence?4. What do you think to have fun with her means?Wanda Petronski. Most of the children in RoomThirteen didn t have names like that. They hadnames easy to say, like Thomas, Smith or was one boy named Bounce, Willie Bounce,and people thought that was funny, but not funnyin the same way that Petronski didn t have any friends. She came toschool alone and went home alone. She alwayswore a faded blue dress that didn t hang right.

8 Itwas clean, but it looked as though it had neverbeen ironed properly. She didn t have any friends,but a lot of girls talked to her. Sometimes, theysurrounded her in the school yard as she stoodwatching the little girls play hopscotch on the wornhard ground. Wanda, Peggy would say in a most courteousmanner as though she were talking to Miss Mason. Wanda, she d say, giving one of her friends a nudge, tell us. How many dresses did you say you hadhanging up in your closet? didn t hang rightdidn t fit properlyhopscotcha game in whichchildren hop into andover squares markedon the groundnudgea gentle push66 First Flight A hundred, Wanda would say.

9 A hundred! exclaimed all the little girlsincredulously, and the little ones would stop playinghopscotch and listen. Yeah, a hundred, all lined up, said her thin lips drew together in silence. What are they like? All silk, I bet, said Peggy. Yeah, all silk, all colours. Velvet, too? Yeah, velvet too. A hundred dresses, Wandawould repeat stolidly. All lined up in my closet. Then they d let her go. And then BEFORE she dgone very far, they couldn t help bursting intoshrieks and peals of hundred dresses!

10 Obviously, the only dressWanda had was the blue one she wore every day. Sowhy did she say she had a hundred? What a story! How many shoes did you say you had? Sixty pairs. All lined up in my closet. Cries of exaggerated politeness greeted this. Allalike? Oh, no. Every pair is different. All colours. Alllined up. Peggy, who had thought up this game, andMaddie, her inseparable friend, were always thelast to leave. Finally Wanda would move up thestreet, her eyes dull and her mouth closed, hitchingher left shoulder every now and then in the funnyway she had, finishing the walk to school was not really cruel.


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