it amuses me that barb and Ken are wearing the same sweater but have opposing views on the situation.
Hey, whatever it takes to get people interested in art I guess?
Dave seems to like dressing couples in matching outfits, sweaters especially (although that last part might have more to do with the seasons this story has been passing through, I must admit.)
Andi’s hair looks so much nicer down to me. Also heh, “I want to have a dialogue about it.” that’s such a funny way to put it. I think she’s right though, they do need to talk about it, for Heathers benefit at the very least. Her dad is good to support his daughter’s choice about not wanting to associate with Amanda anymore, but he’s 100% wrong to want to publicly humiliate Andi for it. He’s gonna be in for a horribly rude awakening to go verbally attacking a woman at a women’s empowermentioned show though… did Heather not mention Amanda was recently adopted and Andi doesn’t currently KNOW about Amanda hitting Heather or the fact that Heather betrayed her trust and Amanda reacted out of extreme hurt? I’m not saying hitting was the right thing to do because it most certainly was not, but Heather isn’t innocent here either. Him lashing out at a little girl and her mom he knows nothing about just makes him an ass.
I get wanting to defend your kid, but don’t be malicious about it. Find the root cause of what’s going on and talk first. It talking fails, then yeah I get being angry, but don’t get angry before you know any better.
It’s not like Amanda is going out of her way right now to pester Heather. In fact, if Heather doesn’t like Amanda, why keep bringing her up? It’s not like anyone was forcing her to go to the art show or even tell her parents about it. She’s kinda going out of her way to shun Amanda at this point. Avoiding her or ignoring her is fine, but making it publicly known you dislike a person is pretty dumb and pointleas, it ends up making you look bad more than the other person.
Heather /did/ betray Amanda’s trust by telling her sworn enemy her deepest darkest secret. I’m not saying Amanda’s swing was justified, but y’know…it happened
Dude no kinda swing amoungst kids is appropriate outside of a game. That said I would gladly pay to watch Kenny and Andi have a battle of wits over kids’ behaviors. Especially when Kenny finds out about the abuse.
What I am REALLY looking forward to, is Heather’s parents already have a history of “WHOOPS” when it comes to Todd. He wont even have to do anything, just be there and say “Hi, this is my kid too” I sense a lot of backpedaling coming up soon.
Seriously, why does anyone expect Heather to try patch things up when Amanda herself has shown no desire or effort on her own part? Just like with Selkie, if Amanda herself apologizes and tries to make amends Heather should try and forgive her, but definitely not before.
You’re defining “forgive” quite narrowly… or too broadly, one of the two. The word covers a wide area and the different parts don’t need to happen at the same time.
For example, imagine an Alice and Bob. Alice hurts Bob badly — maybe cheats on him with his best friend — and then, randomly, she gets hit by a car and dies.
Now, being human, Bob is likely to feel hurt for a long time — angry, frustrated, sad, a combination of negative emotions. This is normal.
But suppose that ten or twelve years go by, and Bob is still thinking about Alice every day, and being angry every time he thinks about her. Is this normal? Is it healthy?
What are those negative feelings doing? Are they getting back at Alice somehow? She’s dead — how can Bob’s feelings hurt her? Are they helping Bob? We’re not made to experience negative feelings indefinitely — if they stick around too long, they’re harmful.
And yeah, it’s one thing to know that and another thing to act on that knowledge. Our emotions can’t be logicked into feeling the sensible way.
But if there is a way for you to do it, then choosing to forgive can let go of a terrible weight, a poison you’ve been hanging onto long after it was doing any good.
Bob can forgive Alice for what she did even if she never repented of it while she was alive, even if she laughed in his face when he tried to convey how much it hurt him. Bob has the freedom to let go of those negative emotions and choose to remember Alice in a more positive way, or, having gotten rid of the negative emotion cycle, perhaps forget her, or think about her only once in a while instead of dwelling on the hurt.
This is one facet of forgiveness, and it does not rely on what Alice does. And it’s not just if Alice is dead: Bob can choose to forgive Alice even if she’s still alive and still having sex with Bob’s best friend. Because this facet of forgiveness has nothing to do with Alice, and everything to do with Bob’s REACTION to Alice. We have some level of control over our reactions, and we can choose to exercise it.
This is not to say that using one facet of forgiveness means you have to use all the rest of them. Bob doesn’t have to say that Alice’s behavior is acceptable. Bob doesn’t have to let her back into his life; he doesn’t have to have a relationship of any kind with her. He doesn’t have to trust her in the future.
But having a relaxed mental attitude toward her? That is something he can choose to do. Maybe it’ll be hard at first, but it’s his decision.
Think about it: There are people in the world who hurt you deeply and have no idea that they did anything of the sort. Maybe a guy cut you off in traffic because he didn’t even realize you were there. Maybe a random stranger said something unkind about your weight when you had been struggling due to medication that made it impossible to stay in shape. Maybe a teacher or a parent said something they thought was encouraging but to you it was devastating.
Assuming a situation where for whatever reason you don’t confront the person who hurt you right away, then you may be carrying around negative feelings that are hurting only you, over a situation where they don’t have the least idea that you were hurt to begin with.
It’s as true today as it was in the time of Iphigenia, whose father decided to sacrifice her in order to secure the gods’ blessings on his war: Sometimes we don’t get a choice in our circumstances, but we always have a choice in how we respond to them. And forgiveness is one of those choices.
I say Heather shouldn’t make the first move because she simply doesn’t want to. No one should be forced to forgive or patch up anything they don’t want to. Sometimes friendships just fade away and end. It’s sad, but it happens.
And sometimes you don’t forgive simply because you’ve let go and moved on. At that point, there’s no reason to forgive that person period, not even for yourself.
If Heather forgives and patches things up on her own, it should be on her schedule. No one else’s. And if that means she never makes an attempt to patch things up, she never patches things up. Sad true, but it happens. Without Heather really wanting to make up with Amanda, the ball is in Amanda’s court.
I definitely agree that no one, least of all children, should be forced into forgiving; forgiveness has to come from within.
If you can manage to forget and move on without forgiveness per se, then forgiveness isn’t really a factor, I guess. I don’t know how common that is. I have thought before that the people who feel guilty for doing something bad carry it around much longer than the people who were hurt by it, but of course that doesn’t apply to people who don’t feel guilty, and I don’t have any facts on which to base my theories.
Though, again, “patch things up” is a facet of forgiveness — I would say the relationship-restoring part? — rather than the range of possible things we lump under the umbrella term “forgiveness.” Heather can forgive Amanda without needing to patch things up with Amanda. Heather can forgive Amanda and never even TELL Amanda that she has. The relationship is separate from some facets of forgiveness.
At least with me, I just gave it up and moved on since I didn’t want to forgive, but it wasn’t worth holding on. I had better things to do with my life. But enough of me.
Heather and Amanda will have a hard battle if they want to keep their friendship. That patch up with both mentioned, along with forgiveness as I do consider them both different elements, admittedly with forgiveness required for patching things up. All we know is they gotta do it on their own time. Anything else is insincere and will cause more problems down the road.
Amanda has a lot to learn about sharing/cooperation, that’s for sure. She bragged earlier on about how cool Andi was, and about Andi doing important-sounding stuff that would get lots of publicity, but now that people are interested, she’s mad that people want to check out Andi’s work. It’s a very strong defensive/possessive streak of “My mom, and none of you can have her!”
Perhaps Amanda’s worried other kids will make a better impression on Andi and Amanda will again be turned away. Having other kids’ parents also come up to tell Andi about how cruel Amanda is doesn’t look good either.
Amanda doesn’t know that Andi was informed of how much of a bully she’d been before adoption, and the parents’ comments or interacting with classmates at the gallery could become a public meltdown that humiliates Amanda (who has displayed a strong resistance to being seen as vulnerable, especially in public).
It also doesn’t bode well for Andi’s networking/career if that happens, or if Amanda attacks anyone influential and gets on their bad side.
Amanda, for a lack of better words, is a b*tch. She is egotistical and doesn’t, maybe even refuses, to see that she did anything wrong.
She thinks the world revolves around her and everyone should just do as she says.
Heather shouldn’t even TRY to patch things up with Amanda. Not before Amanda comes to her first.
Same with Selkie.
You can’t force someone to be kind to people who hurt them.
Uh. She’s also 12. Please don’t call 12 year olds b*tches.
The thing that’s wrong with Kenny’s view here is that he wants to make a public scene. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with him discussing in good faith what happened with Andi, but berating Andi in a public place falls into two fallacies. He probably doesn’t know Amanda was recently re-adopted by Andi, but assuming that Andi isn’t aware of Amanda’s problems and going in hostile would be a mistake when he knows so little of the situation.
That being said, I certainly agree Amanda is the one who bears the responsibility of apologizing to Heather. I’m not saying they can never be friends again, but there are some serious issues, and just brushing over what happened for the sake of making nice wouldn’t help either of them.
Amanda is a dick, and Heather has no requirement to interact with her past “not punching her in the face each time she sees her.” Because as Heather, I’d be sorely tempted.
As with many people, his opinion will be partially formed by his parents. Do the Trunchbulls approve of art as a reflection and shaper of culture, something that forces people to think and should be encouraged? Or do they see it as a frivolous way to spend time, money and resources that could be spent on something productive, and an excuse not to think, therefore something to discourage? Or is it perhaps something Mrs and Mr Trunchbull disagree about?
Am I the only one thinking Ken is teaching an important lesson? Like “Don’t stick in a toxic relationship where you could be physically abused”? I mean, I don’t think Amanda is an abuser but… you know what I mean…
I think so. While yeah, Amanda isn’t an abuser and Heather isn’t ready for such a talk, Ken is making a valuable point about not sticking around toxic people. He’s also making another valuable point about realizing your true value. “You deserve a better class of friend” is ALWAYS a good thing to say to someone you care about that has someone that isn’t good for them in their lives.
I tell my niece that she deserves a high class of friend all the time to simply puff up her sense of self. Where Ken goes wrong is to say he’s going to have some words with Andi. As much as she deserves it, you take it in private. When you humiliate someone in public, you roll in the mud with them and look like a jackass.
Someone needs to teach Heather that when you betray your friends, even inadvertently, there are consequences. She needs to realize she hurt Amanda too. Amanda shouldn’t have hit her in response, but Heather shared a secret that Amanda didn’t want anyone but her closest friends to know and Heather told someone Amanda hated. Of course Amanda is pissed about it.
I think Heather has purposefully left out core elements to the story so that her parents think Amanda hit her for absolutely no reason at all. Heather is well within her right to be angry for being hit, but she needs to understand Amanda has every reason to be angry at her as well.
And I mean, Amanda was taught that being abused gets the abuser the things they want and it also ‘protects’ her from being ‘hurt’ subsequently. This isn’t 100% Amanda’s fault for her upbringing. She kind of knows better in a sense, but at the same time she didn’t have a positive role model or anyone who sat down with her and explained these things.
You’re pretty much right. I don’t think Heather has lied to her parents, though. She has edited what happened in her own mind, as people do, minimizing what she did wrong until it almost vanishes… because, don’t forget, she did have a good reason at the time for telling Selkie. She was trying to do something kind, to convince Selkie that Amanda wasn’t that bad. After the shirt incident, she felt Selkie really was owed some sort of explanation. See here: https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie237/
She thinks she knows very well why Amanda punched her. But it wasn’t just the telling of the secret, was it? It was that… on top of a whole mountain of burning jealousy about Heather herself being adopted and having a family. Here’s the strip: https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie358/
In the larger scheme of things, Heather’s mom is the one who’s closer to the right track. This isn’t about who was right and wrong in that quarrel, and who needs to be told off or taught a lesson. Heather will have to talk this out with an understanding adult… or at any rate, with someone — but maybe the kids will be able to sort it out at their own level. She’s staying mad at Amanda because she doesn’t have the whole picture.
This is the kind of rankling secret that shouldn’t be a secret. It needs to come out, because people aren’t going to be able to understand why Amanda is so thorny until they realize what’s driving her.
As for the punch? Many readers are forgetting that these are eight year olds. They’re going to hit out, and we’ve seen that many in their class do, usually with far less reason than Amanda had. Heather isn’t angry about the punch itself. It hurt a bit, but she’s taken much worse in stride. She’s angry about Amanda’s anger.
Wait, the Pizza is only ONE thumb up? Pizza Uno, Giordano’s, Leona’s, or better, Edwardo’s would be a better choice. Life is too short for Pizza from the Rut, pizza x10^2 or from chess, checkers, or pizza from any kids game, for that matter, it is just not good enough! (Unless there is an exemplary, local aberration deviating from the standard corporate swill)
Arghhhh! Bad pizza is why I try to lead a Good life, for fear of an afterlife tortured with soggy crusts, bad cheese and (shudder) moldy vegetables or rancid meats
what OTHER finger would you want to be flipped up, OTHER than the thumb?
i mean i can think of at least two finger flipping gestures that would NOT be welcome on the cover of your company’s pizza boxes, though one of them would be hard to portray properly in a still photo medium… 😀
I love one of the aberrations near me called The Pie. Lord it is so good. Especially their pepperoni, breakfast bacon, andoullie sausage, and meatball pizza with ghost pepper laden crust. It kills you but the death tastes so good.
andi’s hair dye went down the drain , or was replaced with a much more natural color.
whatever the case is i bet that’s the sign that that tells us that she’s finally mentally mature
(sorry if bad english :/)
it amuses me that barb and Ken are wearing the same sweater but have opposing views on the situation.
Hey, whatever it takes to get people interested in art I guess?
The same sweaters remind me of when we saw Todd’s parents in matching sweaters. Ah, couples …
Dave seems to like dressing couples in matching outfits, sweaters especially (although that last part might have more to do with the seasons this story has been passing through, I must admit.)
Andi’s hair looks so much nicer down to me. Also heh, “I want to have a dialogue about it.” that’s such a funny way to put it. I think she’s right though, they do need to talk about it, for Heathers benefit at the very least. Her dad is good to support his daughter’s choice about not wanting to associate with Amanda anymore, but he’s 100% wrong to want to publicly humiliate Andi for it. He’s gonna be in for a horribly rude awakening to go verbally attacking a woman at a women’s empowermentioned show though… did Heather not mention Amanda was recently adopted and Andi doesn’t currently KNOW about Amanda hitting Heather or the fact that Heather betrayed her trust and Amanda reacted out of extreme hurt? I’m not saying hitting was the right thing to do because it most certainly was not, but Heather isn’t innocent here either. Him lashing out at a little girl and her mom he knows nothing about just makes him an ass.
I get wanting to defend your kid, but don’t be malicious about it. Find the root cause of what’s going on and talk first. It talking fails, then yeah I get being angry, but don’t get angry before you know any better.
It’s not like Amanda is going out of her way right now to pester Heather. In fact, if Heather doesn’t like Amanda, why keep bringing her up? It’s not like anyone was forcing her to go to the art show or even tell her parents about it. She’s kinda going out of her way to shun Amanda at this point. Avoiding her or ignoring her is fine, but making it publicly known you dislike a person is pretty dumb and pointleas, it ends up making you look bad more than the other person.
How is Heather *not* innocent here? She didn’t do anything what would deserve a hit….
Heather /did/ betray Amanda’s trust by telling her sworn enemy her deepest darkest secret. I’m not saying Amanda’s swing was justified, but y’know…it happened
Dude no kinda swing amoungst kids is appropriate outside of a game. That said I would gladly pay to watch Kenny and Andi have a battle of wits over kids’ behaviors. Especially when Kenny finds out about the abuse.
What I am REALLY looking forward to, is Heather’s parents already have a history of “WHOOPS” when it comes to Todd. He wont even have to do anything, just be there and say “Hi, this is my kid too” I sense a lot of backpedaling coming up soon.
“Todd, please give us a complete list of all of your children with issues, so that we can avoid stumbling over them in future.”
I love Heather’s parents.
Seriously, why does anyone expect Heather to try patch things up when Amanda herself has shown no desire or effort on her own part? Just like with Selkie, if Amanda herself apologizes and tries to make amends Heather should try and forgive her, but definitely not before.
You’re defining “forgive” quite narrowly… or too broadly, one of the two. The word covers a wide area and the different parts don’t need to happen at the same time.
For example, imagine an Alice and Bob. Alice hurts Bob badly — maybe cheats on him with his best friend — and then, randomly, she gets hit by a car and dies.
Now, being human, Bob is likely to feel hurt for a long time — angry, frustrated, sad, a combination of negative emotions. This is normal.
But suppose that ten or twelve years go by, and Bob is still thinking about Alice every day, and being angry every time he thinks about her. Is this normal? Is it healthy?
What are those negative feelings doing? Are they getting back at Alice somehow? She’s dead — how can Bob’s feelings hurt her? Are they helping Bob? We’re not made to experience negative feelings indefinitely — if they stick around too long, they’re harmful.
And yeah, it’s one thing to know that and another thing to act on that knowledge. Our emotions can’t be logicked into feeling the sensible way.
But if there is a way for you to do it, then choosing to forgive can let go of a terrible weight, a poison you’ve been hanging onto long after it was doing any good.
Bob can forgive Alice for what she did even if she never repented of it while she was alive, even if she laughed in his face when he tried to convey how much it hurt him. Bob has the freedom to let go of those negative emotions and choose to remember Alice in a more positive way, or, having gotten rid of the negative emotion cycle, perhaps forget her, or think about her only once in a while instead of dwelling on the hurt.
This is one facet of forgiveness, and it does not rely on what Alice does. And it’s not just if Alice is dead: Bob can choose to forgive Alice even if she’s still alive and still having sex with Bob’s best friend. Because this facet of forgiveness has nothing to do with Alice, and everything to do with Bob’s REACTION to Alice. We have some level of control over our reactions, and we can choose to exercise it.
This is not to say that using one facet of forgiveness means you have to use all the rest of them. Bob doesn’t have to say that Alice’s behavior is acceptable. Bob doesn’t have to let her back into his life; he doesn’t have to have a relationship of any kind with her. He doesn’t have to trust her in the future.
But having a relaxed mental attitude toward her? That is something he can choose to do. Maybe it’ll be hard at first, but it’s his decision.
Think about it: There are people in the world who hurt you deeply and have no idea that they did anything of the sort. Maybe a guy cut you off in traffic because he didn’t even realize you were there. Maybe a random stranger said something unkind about your weight when you had been struggling due to medication that made it impossible to stay in shape. Maybe a teacher or a parent said something they thought was encouraging but to you it was devastating.
Assuming a situation where for whatever reason you don’t confront the person who hurt you right away, then you may be carrying around negative feelings that are hurting only you, over a situation where they don’t have the least idea that you were hurt to begin with.
It’s as true today as it was in the time of Iphigenia, whose father decided to sacrifice her in order to secure the gods’ blessings on his war: Sometimes we don’t get a choice in our circumstances, but we always have a choice in how we respond to them. And forgiveness is one of those choices.
I say Heather shouldn’t make the first move because she simply doesn’t want to. No one should be forced to forgive or patch up anything they don’t want to. Sometimes friendships just fade away and end. It’s sad, but it happens.
And sometimes you don’t forgive simply because you’ve let go and moved on. At that point, there’s no reason to forgive that person period, not even for yourself.
If Heather forgives and patches things up on her own, it should be on her schedule. No one else’s. And if that means she never makes an attempt to patch things up, she never patches things up. Sad true, but it happens. Without Heather really wanting to make up with Amanda, the ball is in Amanda’s court.
I definitely agree that no one, least of all children, should be forced into forgiving; forgiveness has to come from within.
If you can manage to forget and move on without forgiveness per se, then forgiveness isn’t really a factor, I guess. I don’t know how common that is. I have thought before that the people who feel guilty for doing something bad carry it around much longer than the people who were hurt by it, but of course that doesn’t apply to people who don’t feel guilty, and I don’t have any facts on which to base my theories.
Though, again, “patch things up” is a facet of forgiveness — I would say the relationship-restoring part? — rather than the range of possible things we lump under the umbrella term “forgiveness.” Heather can forgive Amanda without needing to patch things up with Amanda. Heather can forgive Amanda and never even TELL Amanda that she has. The relationship is separate from some facets of forgiveness.
At least with me, I just gave it up and moved on since I didn’t want to forgive, but it wasn’t worth holding on. I had better things to do with my life. But enough of me.
Heather and Amanda will have a hard battle if they want to keep their friendship. That patch up with both mentioned, along with forgiveness as I do consider them both different elements, admittedly with forgiveness required for patching things up. All we know is they gotta do it on their own time. Anything else is insincere and will cause more problems down the road.
I’m guessing that this is a ploy on Ken’s part to get Heather to make up with Amanda.
For some reason, I do, too. But it also could just be Daddy Bear protectiveness. My guy would do the same thing in that kind of situation.
Nope. No one should apologize to Amanda. She has to realize that she was wrong in her behavior to Selkie and Heather. And others.
On one hand, I sympathize with Heather’s dad.
On the other hand, I think her mom is who’s right…
And meanwhile, hooo boy, Amanda’s got a lot of catching up on ‘normal kid’ stuff to do 😮 ‘sharing is for kindergarteners’ ouch
Amanda has a lot to learn about sharing/cooperation, that’s for sure. She bragged earlier on about how cool Andi was, and about Andi doing important-sounding stuff that would get lots of publicity, but now that people are interested, she’s mad that people want to check out Andi’s work. It’s a very strong defensive/possessive streak of “My mom, and none of you can have her!”
Perhaps Amanda’s worried other kids will make a better impression on Andi and Amanda will again be turned away. Having other kids’ parents also come up to tell Andi about how cruel Amanda is doesn’t look good either.
Amanda doesn’t know that Andi was informed of how much of a bully she’d been before adoption, and the parents’ comments or interacting with classmates at the gallery could become a public meltdown that humiliates Amanda (who has displayed a strong resistance to being seen as vulnerable, especially in public).
It also doesn’t bode well for Andi’s networking/career if that happens, or if Amanda attacks anyone influential and gets on their bad side.
Now I’m imagining Amanda and Heather ending up in the art gallery from Ib.
Think it’d help them patch it up?
What color would their roses be?
I think Amanda might be yellow for jealousy and Heather might be peach for sincerity.
Ooh, peach is a good choice.
I am all about Kenny’s views.
Amanda, for a lack of better words, is a b*tch. She is egotistical and doesn’t, maybe even refuses, to see that she did anything wrong.
She thinks the world revolves around her and everyone should just do as she says.
Heather shouldn’t even TRY to patch things up with Amanda. Not before Amanda comes to her first.
Same with Selkie.
You can’t force someone to be kind to people who hurt them.
Uh. She’s also 12. Please don’t call 12 year olds b*tches.
The thing that’s wrong with Kenny’s view here is that he wants to make a public scene. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with him discussing in good faith what happened with Andi, but berating Andi in a public place falls into two fallacies. He probably doesn’t know Amanda was recently re-adopted by Andi, but assuming that Andi isn’t aware of Amanda’s problems and going in hostile would be a mistake when he knows so little of the situation.
That being said, I certainly agree Amanda is the one who bears the responsibility of apologizing to Heather. I’m not saying they can never be friends again, but there are some serious issues, and just brushing over what happened for the sake of making nice wouldn’t help either of them.
Amanda is a dick, and Heather has no requirement to interact with her past “not punching her in the face each time she sees her.” Because as Heather, I’d be sorely tempted.
Now the real question is how much Truck likes art…
Didn’t even think about that. Now I have. Thanks.
As with many people, his opinion will be partially formed by his parents. Do the Trunchbulls approve of art as a reflection and shaper of culture, something that forces people to think and should be encouraged? Or do they see it as a frivolous way to spend time, money and resources that could be spent on something productive, and an excuse not to think, therefore something to discourage? Or is it perhaps something Mrs and Mr Trunchbull disagree about?
Am I the only one thinking Ken is teaching an important lesson? Like “Don’t stick in a toxic relationship where you could be physically abused”? I mean, I don’t think Amanda is an abuser but… you know what I mean…
I think so. While yeah, Amanda isn’t an abuser and Heather isn’t ready for such a talk, Ken is making a valuable point about not sticking around toxic people. He’s also making another valuable point about realizing your true value. “You deserve a better class of friend” is ALWAYS a good thing to say to someone you care about that has someone that isn’t good for them in their lives.
I tell my niece that she deserves a high class of friend all the time to simply puff up her sense of self. Where Ken goes wrong is to say he’s going to have some words with Andi. As much as she deserves it, you take it in private. When you humiliate someone in public, you roll in the mud with them and look like a jackass.
Someone needs to teach Heather that when you betray your friends, even inadvertently, there are consequences. She needs to realize she hurt Amanda too. Amanda shouldn’t have hit her in response, but Heather shared a secret that Amanda didn’t want anyone but her closest friends to know and Heather told someone Amanda hated. Of course Amanda is pissed about it.
I think Heather has purposefully left out core elements to the story so that her parents think Amanda hit her for absolutely no reason at all. Heather is well within her right to be angry for being hit, but she needs to understand Amanda has every reason to be angry at her as well.
And I mean, Amanda was taught that being abused gets the abuser the things they want and it also ‘protects’ her from being ‘hurt’ subsequently. This isn’t 100% Amanda’s fault for her upbringing. She kind of knows better in a sense, but at the same time she didn’t have a positive role model or anyone who sat down with her and explained these things.
You’re pretty much right. I don’t think Heather has lied to her parents, though. She has edited what happened in her own mind, as people do, minimizing what she did wrong until it almost vanishes… because, don’t forget, she did have a good reason at the time for telling Selkie. She was trying to do something kind, to convince Selkie that Amanda wasn’t that bad. After the shirt incident, she felt Selkie really was owed some sort of explanation. See here: https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie237/
She thinks she knows very well why Amanda punched her. But it wasn’t just the telling of the secret, was it? It was that… on top of a whole mountain of burning jealousy about Heather herself being adopted and having a family. Here’s the strip: https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie358/
In the larger scheme of things, Heather’s mom is the one who’s closer to the right track. This isn’t about who was right and wrong in that quarrel, and who needs to be told off or taught a lesson. Heather will have to talk this out with an understanding adult… or at any rate, with someone — but maybe the kids will be able to sort it out at their own level. She’s staying mad at Amanda because she doesn’t have the whole picture.
This is the kind of rankling secret that shouldn’t be a secret. It needs to come out, because people aren’t going to be able to understand why Amanda is so thorny until they realize what’s driving her.
As for the punch? Many readers are forgetting that these are eight year olds. They’re going to hit out, and we’ve seen that many in their class do, usually with far less reason than Amanda had. Heather isn’t angry about the punch itself. It hurt a bit, but she’s taken much worse in stride. She’s angry about Amanda’s anger.
Wait, the Pizza is only ONE thumb up? Pizza Uno, Giordano’s, Leona’s, or better, Edwardo’s would be a better choice. Life is too short for Pizza from the Rut, pizza x10^2 or from chess, checkers, or pizza from any kids game, for that matter, it is just not good enough! (Unless there is an exemplary, local aberration deviating from the standard corporate swill)
Arghhhh! Bad pizza is why I try to lead a Good life, for fear of an afterlife tortured with soggy crusts, bad cheese and (shudder) moldy vegetables or rancid meats
what OTHER finger would you want to be flipped up, OTHER than the thumb?
i mean i can think of at least two finger flipping gestures that would NOT be welcome on the cover of your company’s pizza boxes, though one of them would be hard to portray properly in a still photo medium… 😀
I love one of the aberrations near me called The Pie. Lord it is so good. Especially their pepperoni, breakfast bacon, andoullie sausage, and meatball pizza with ghost pepper laden crust. It kills you but the death tastes so good.
Sharing is caring :3
andi’s hair dye went down the drain , or was replaced with a much more natural color.
whatever the case is i bet that’s the sign that that tells us that she’s finally mentally mature
(sorry if bad english :/)