一百條裙子（四）

Eleanor Estes

就在大家驚訝、興奮地參觀旺達(dá)的作品時(shí)，梅森老師收到了一封來自旺達(dá)爸爸的信。

Dear teacher：

My Wanda will not come to your school any more. Jake also. Now we move away to big city. No more holler Polack. No more ask why funny name. Plenty of funny names in the big city.

Yours truly， Jan Petronski

A deep lsilence met the reading of this letter. Miss Mason took her glasses off， blew on them and 2）wiped them on her soft white 3）handkerchief. Then she put them on again and looked at the class. When she spoke her voice was very low.

“I am sure none of my boys and girls in Room 13 would purposely and 4 deliberately hurt anyone's feelings because his name happened to be a long unfamiliar one. I prefer to think that what was said was said in thoughtlessness. I know that all of you feel the way I do， that this is a very unfortunate thing to have happen. Unfortunate and sad， both.And I want you all to think about it."

1） silence 【'salens】n.寂靜

2） wipe 【wap】 v.擦拭

3） handkerchief 【'haenkat【f】 n.手帕

4） deliberately 【d'lbaratli】 adv.有意地

敬愛的老師：

旺達(dá)以后不會(huì)再到你們學(xué)校上學(xué)去了。她的哥哥杰克也不再去了?，F(xiàn)在，我們要搬到一個(gè)大城市去。再不會(huì)有人怪叫“嗨，波蘭佬！”，再不會(huì)有人問“怎么會(huì)有這么好笑的名字??？”。在大城市里，有趣的名字多的是。

您誠摯的詹佩特羅斯基

信讀完了，班里一片沉寂。梅森老師摘下眼鏡，吹了吹上面的浮塵，又用她柔軟的白手帕輕輕地擦拭著鏡片。然后，她把眼鏡重新戴好，審視著全班。再開口時(shí)，她的聲音變得相當(dāng)?shù)统痢?/p>

“我相信，我們十三班的同學(xué)是不會(huì)因?yàn)橥_(dá)恰好有一個(gè)又長又少見的名字就故意傷害她的自尊心的。我寧愿相信，一切說錯(cuò)了的話都是有口無心的。我知道，此刻大家和我都有著相同的感受。發(fā)生了這樣的事情，實(shí)在是太遺憾了。遺憾與悲哀，兼而有之。我希望大家好好地想一想?！?/p>