"Why are you wearing your red dress?" asked Sherry, my classmate in sixth grade. The look on my face must have indicated that I didn't understand the question. She asked again, "Your red dress... Why are you wearing it? Today is a blue-dress day."
I rarely noticed what other people wore, so it never occurred to me that anyone would notice I had only two school dresses: a red dress with little yellow flowers and a blue one with navy trim around the neck. The red dress was my favorite, so I wore it on Mondays and Tuesdays. I put on the blue one on Wednesdays and Thursdays, then back to red each Friday.
"Oh," I stammered (结结巴巴地说). "I, uh, dropped chili (辣椒) on it yesterday at lunch. I, uh, can't wear it until Mama washes it."
There was no judgment in Sherry's question, just curiosity. For the first time in my life, though, I wondered, "Am l poor? Do my friends feel sorry for me?"
Until the day when Sherry asked about my red dress, I had never compared my clothes, my little white house, or my life with anyone else's.
After school, I hung my red dress in the closet I shared with my older sister, Debra. I put on play clothes and went outside to sulk (生闷气). I climbed to the lowest branch of a scrawny oak and stared at my house.
My mother called through the screen door for me to come set the table. I climbed down from my tree and shuffled into the kitchen. Mama was mashing potatoes in a big, green bowl.
I opened a cabinet door and reached for five dinner plates. "Mama, are we poor?" I asked.
I thought my question might make her feel bad. Instead, she asked, "What do you mean by' poor'?"
"You know, not enough money. Not enough food or clothes. No place to live."
注意：
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"We don't have a lot of extra money," she answered, "but we get by."
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After dinner, Mama said to me, "I washed and ironed your blue dress today."
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