#91: Claudia and the First Thanksgiving
I’m starting with a gripe. This book and Stacey and the Haunted Masquerade both include Halloween and the versions of Halloween do not match up; plus, if you were recapping Halloween you wouldn’t mention the unbalanced lady who appeared at your middle school dance for revenge after sabotaging all the plans for it? I mean. I know time is kind of… ~fluid~ in Stoneybrook, but this is a bit egregious.
Anyway, in their newest Short Takes class, Claudia, Stacey, and Abby’s group is tasked with putting on a play for the Stoneybrook Elementary School third-graders about the first Thanksgiving. Their play is about a girl named Alice who falls asleep and travels to the first Thanksgiving, where she tells the participants about how things are different now, and then she wakes up back in modern day. Some teachers and parents of the third-graders start attending rehearsals and some of them don’t like what they see and hear. They call the play’s truth-telling “un-American” (WHERE HAVE I HEARD THIS BEFORE?? OH YEAH, 2020). Ms. Garcia, the Short Takes teacher, stands up for her students and defends their research as entirely accurate.
I friggin’ love Abby, who yells right back at the jagweeds. TELL ‘EM, QUEEN. There’s also a relatable moment when Jessi looks around at the crowd of angry parents and is relieved not to see any BSC clients in the crowd. It’s kind of like these days, being relieved not to see any red hats at your family reunion.
“They’re scared,” said Jessi. “It’s easier for them to believe fiction than fact.” - page 91
The next day Ms. Garcia grimly delivers the news that SES has demanded that the play be rewritten to reflect the “traditional” Thanksgiving story, or it won’t go on. The Short Takes class is angry and disappointed, but they don’t want to let down the third-graders who are excited to do the play. So they decide to do a rewritten version at the elementary school (under protest, wearing CENSORED buttons and stamping CENSORED across the programs) and put on the real version at the middle school. A bunch of the disgruntled ding-dongs attend the uncensored middle school performance, where they PICKET outside and BOO THE PERFORMERS. WHO ARE MIDDLE SCHOOLERS. What a bunch of assholes.
Meanwhile, all of the BSC members’ families’ Thanksgiving plans have fallen through, so they decide to have one big Thanksgiving together at Kristy’s manse — all thirty-six of them. They’make it a potluck and the BSC baby-sits the little kids and help clean up afterward. And then Dawn shows up, so I start booing. Just kidding, but #TeamAbby for sure.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone, and please be safe!
