CHAPTER 7 THE LETTER TO ROOM 13
CHAPTER 7 THE LETTER TO ROOM 13 CHAPTER 7 THE LETTER TO ROOM 13 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 that now they were studying about Winfield Scott in school. And they asked her if she liked where she was living now and if she liked her new teacher. They had meant to say they were sorry, but it ended
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CHAPTER 7 THE LETTER TO ROOM 13
CHAPTER 7 THE LETTER TO ROOM 13
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 that now they were studying about Winfield Scott in school.And they asked her if she liked where she was living now 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 X's for love.
They mailed the letter to Boggins Heights, writing "Please Forward" on the envelope.The teacher had not known where Wanda had moved to, so their only hope was that the post office knew.The minute they dropped the letter in the mail box they both felt happier and more carefree.
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.And Maddie remembered the way she hitched her left shoulder up as she walked off to school alone,and how the girls always said, "Why does her dress always hang funny like that,and why does she wear those queer, high, laced shoes?"
They knew she didn't have any mother, but they hadn't thought about it.They hadn't thought she had to do her own washing and ironing.She only had one dress and she must have had to wash and iron it overnight.Maybe sometimes it wasn't dry when it was time to put it on in the morning. But it was always clean.
Several 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 with, "How many dresses have you got?"Before Wanda could press her lips together in a tight line the way she did before answering,Maddie would cry out, "Stop! This girl is just a girl just like you are ..."And then everybody would feel ashamed the way she used to feel.Sometimes she rescued Wanda from a sinking ship or the hoofs of a runaway horse."Oh, that's all right," she'd say when Wanda thanked her with dull pained eyes.
Now it was Christmas time and there was snow on the ground.Christmas bells and a small tree decorated the classroom.And on one narrow blackboard Jack Beggles had drawn a jolly fat Santa Claus in red and white chalk.On the last day of school before the holidays, the children in Peggy's and Maddie's class had a Christmas party.The teacher's desk was rolled back and a piano rolled in.First the children had acted the story or Tiny Tim.Then they had sung songs and Cecile had done some dances in different costumes.The dance called the "Passing of Autumn," in which she whirled and spun like a red and golden autumn leaf was the favorite.
