Wanda Petronski, a third-grader, lives way up in a shabby house in Boggins Heights, and she doesn't have any friends. Every day she wears a faded blue dress, which wouldn't be too much of a problem if she didn't tell her classmates that she had a hundred dresses at homeall silk, all colors, velvet too. The children at Franklin Elementary don't know what to make of this peculiar new girl with the strange accent. Soon Maddie, Peggy, Jack and their classmates make a game of teasing Wanda about her hundred dresses until one day she disappears from school, leaving just an empty seat where she once sat. As feelings of guilt overtake the children, Maddie and the others decide they must find out what happened to Wanda and make amends for the way they treated her. But is it too late?