Nobody 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. But no one really thought muchabout Wanda Petronski, once she sat in the cornerof 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
Wanda Petronski. Most of the children in RoomThirteen didn’t have names like that. They hadnames easy to say, like Thomas, Smith or Allen.There was one boy named Bounce, Willie Bounce,and people thought that was funny, but not funnyin the same way that Petronski was.
Wanda didn’t have any friends. She came to school alone and went home alone. She always wore a faded blue dress that didn’t hang right. It was clean, but it looked as though it had never been ironed properly. She didn’t have any friends,but a lot of girls talked to her. Sometimes, they surrounded her in the school yard as she stood watching the little girls play hopscotch on the worn hard ground
She worked her arithmetic problems absentmindedly. “Eight times eight — let’s see…” She wished she had the nerve to write Peggy a note,because she knew she never would have the courage to speak right out to Peggy, to say, “Hey, Peg, let’s stop asking Wanda how many dresses she has.”When she finished her arithmetic she did start a note to Peggy. Suddenly she paused and shuddered.She pictured herself in the school yard, a new target for Peggy and the girls. Peggy might ask her where she got the dress that she had on, and Maddie would have to say it was one of Peggy’s old ones that Maddie’s mother had tried to disguise with new trimmings so no one in Room Thirteen would recognise it