On the morning the contest was judged, Wanda Petronski was not in her seat. No one thought much of it; she was often absent, and anyway everyone was looking at the walls. For all around the room, pinned up one after another, were a hundred drawings of dresses. A hundred. Each one different. Each one brilliant, in colours so bright they seemed to light up the dull classroom. The whole class fell silent, then crowded close. The patterns were fine and detailed; the colours were dazzling. These were not the scribbles of a careless child. They were the work of a real artist. There could be no contest at all, really. The decision was unanimous: Wanda had won. But Wanda was not there to hear it. Miss Mason held up a letter that had arrived that morning from Wanda's father. In it he explained, in simple, broken English, that the family was moving away to a big city. No more would people call his children names for being Polish. No more would they ask about their funny name. In the big city, he wrote, there were plenty of funny names, and nobody would be teased for one. Slowly, in the quiet classroom, the girls began to understand what their game had done.