CHAPTER 3 A BRIGHT BLUE DAY
CHAPTER 3 A BRIGHT BLUE DAY CHAPTER 3 A BRIGHT BLUE DAY SOMEHOW Maddie could not buckle down to work. She sharpened her pencil, turning it around carefully in the little red sharpener, letting the shavings fall in a neat heap on a piece of scrap paper, and trying not to get any of the dust from the lead on her clean arithmetic paper. A slight frown puckered her forehead. In the first place she didn't like being late to school. And in the second place she kept thinking about Wanda. Somehow Wa
登录后可以听外教原声朗读。
CHAPTER 3 A BRIGHT BLUE DAY
CHAPTER 3 A BRIGHT BLUE DAY
SOMEHOW Maddie could not buckle down to work.
She sharpened her pencil, turning it around carefully in the little red sharpener,letting the shavings fall in a neat heap on a piece of scrap paper,and trying not to get any of the dust from the lead on her clean arithmetic paper.
A slight frown puckered her forehead. In the first place she didn't like being late to school.And in the second place she kept thinking about Wanda.Somehow Wanda's desk, though empty, seemed to be the only thing she saw when she looked over to that side of the room.
How had the hundred dresses game begun in the first place, she asked herself impatiently.It was hard to remember the time when they hadn't played that game with Wanda; hard to think all the way back from now,when the hundred dresses was like the daily dozen, to then, when everything seemed much nicer.Oh, yes. She remembered. It had begun that day when Cecile first wore her new red dress.Suddenly the whole scene flashed swiftly and vividly before Maddie's eyes.
It was a bright blue day in September.No, it must have been October, because when she and Peggy were coming to school, arms around each other and singing,Peggy had said, "You know what? This must be the kind of day they mean when they say, 'October's bright blue weather.'"
Maddie remembered that because afterwards it didn't seem like bright blue weather any more,although the weather had not changed in the slightest.
As they turned from shady Oliver Street into Maple, they both blinked.For now the morning sun shone straight in their eyes.Besides that, bright flashes of color came from a group of a half-dozen or more girls across the street.Their sweaters and jackets and dresses, blues and golds and reds,and one crimson one in particular, caught the sun's rays like bright pieces of glass.
A crisp, fresh wind was blowing, swishing their skirts and blowing their hair in their eyes.The girls were all exclaiming and shouting and each one was trying to talk louder than the others.Maddie and Peggy joined the group, and the laughing, and the talking.
"Hi, Peg! Hi, Maddie!" they were greeted warmly. "Look at Cecile!"
What they were all exclaiming about was the dress that Cecile had on - a crimson dress with cap and socks to match.It was a bright new dress and very pretty.Everyone was admiring it and admiring Cecile.For long, slender Cecile was a toe dancer and wore fancier clothes than most of them.And she had her black satin bag with her precious white satin ballet slippers slung over her shoulders.Today was the day for her dancing lesson.
Maddie sat down on the granite curbstone to tie her shoelaces.She listened happily to what they were saying.They all seemed especially jolly today, probably because it was such a bright day. Everything sparkled.Way down at the end of the street the sun shimmered and turned to silver the blue water of the bay.Maddie picked up a piece of broken mirror and flashed a small circle of light edged with rainbow colorsonto the houses, the trees, and the top of the telegraph pole.
And it was then that Wanda had come along with her brother Jake.
They didn't often come to school together.Jake had to get to school very early because he helped old Mr. Heany, the school janitor, with the furnace,or raking up the dry leaves, or other odd jobs before school opened. Today he must be late.
