Claudia and the Terrible Truth (6-10)
Okay so, as I was saying, this is the kind of book that happens when Ann tries to tackle a real life issue she knows nothing about (and really, judging by all of the failures of books that tried to cover sensitive real life subjects, Ann knew nothing about ANYTHING). I really wish Ann had just stayed away from the sensitive real stuff and just continued writing tween girl fantasies about a bunch of middle schoolers becoming the best babysitters in the world and doing things way too mature for their age. Because that's what she was best at--fantasy. But when you try to put real life in fantasy, it ends up...like this book and many others.
Chapter 6
So, in case you don't remember, Mr. Nicholls outed himself as an abusive asshole by yelling about peanut butter and then calling his sons dumb and slobby. And also apparently by having a clean kitchen and overly polite sons that respect the house rules. But fuck that, the only thing I care about is the whole "dumb and slobby" thing if we're talking abuse red flags here. In case you also don't remember, Claudia is waaaaaay too fucking obsessed with her baby cousin Lynn, who she is now cooing over as she bounces her on her knee and likely fantasizes about all of the different possible ways she can leave the state with her before the real parents come back. She laments that sitting for the Nicholls boys is cutting into her precious Lynn time and if that's such a problem, why is she continuing to take sitting jobs knowing that she already has a baby to look after? Just go "I can't do any other jobs this week, I have Lynn." And punch Kristy in the face when she inevitably gives you the dreaded Look. I just really want Kristy to get punched in the face okay.
So, not only that, but Claudia is fleeing on a sitting job in the last few hours she has to look after Lynn before her parents get home. That is, unless she decides to do what we all know she's thinking about: take the baby and flee the state! Then she can be Lynn's forever mommy, foreeeeeverrr! Her thoughts shift from her creepy obsession with a baby over to her creepy obsession with a stranger's kids. She ponders over the Nicholls' environment, but says that in spite of how Mr. Nicholls behaved, she still doesn't want to be too quick to judge him. This is actually a surprisingly realistic train of thought for a 13-year-old facing this for the first time. Wild realism appeared! But you know it's gonna flee in about two paragraphs. It's like a running legendary in these books. Claudia ruminates on how she's lucky her parents are perfect, loving, idealistic angels and THAT IS BULLSHIT. BULLSHIT, I SAY. Claudia can't even read her favorite books out in the open without her parents bitching at her about how dare she not read classic literature, even knowing that Claud is a very reluctant reader. Claudia's parents are overbearing quasi-tiger-parents who ignore the shit out of her and her interests/talents in favor of Janine's "genius." As subtle as it may be, Claudia's parents view their daughter as an underachieving, lazy slacker instead of acknowledging that she has genuine talent. They didn't even go to her prizewinning art show in Book 101, as far as I remember! But they're all up Janine's ass about her academic awards. I hate Claudia's parents. They're not physically abusive and don't yell at her, but they're still shits in their own special way.
Claudia gets to the Nicholls, and his kindness towards her starts giving her doubts about whether or not he's really as much of an asshole as she thought. Again, another rare example of realism in one of these books. This kind of thing is like the framework of abusers. But then he starts mouthing off to his wife in front of her and all doubt leaves her. He is very much an asshole to his wife and unlike with the whole "clean room=abusive" thing, it's not really in question. You don't talk to your wife like that, it's disrespectful as hell.
Claudia finds the boys pretending to enjoy TV. Along this part of the book, the evidence starts piling up for real that something is very wrong in this house. Claudia offers to let the boys help her make dinner, and then the boys reveal that their father never lets them do that and that they aren't allowed to talk during meals. Then Claudia spills a drink and the boys are like "Oh god you are up shit's creek now," which makes Claudia feel a little uneasy. And then after that, they start going into how the boys' politeness and good behavior--getting ready for bed without having to be told, folding their clothes, making their beds--is yet another sign of abuse, and it's still a load of crap because NO. NO IT'S NOT. Everything the fuck else is, but the fact that they know when their bedtime is and don't give you a fucking fight about it is not! I thought ya'll hated the Impossible Three, but now you're shitting yourself because not every kid can be the Impossible Three?
So Claudia starts looking for the stuffed animals, which is odd because not EVERY kid has to have a stuffed animal. Some are allergic. Some just plain don't like them. I could see boys thinking they've "outgrown" stuffed animals. But no, it turns out that their father has thrown all of the stuffed animals away. Lol, I'm 23 and if you do that to my stuffed animals YOU might be the one who wakes up in the dumpster. They then beg Claudia to tell their father they went to sleep right away if he asks. I'm going to go off on a little bit of a personal tangent here, but I grew up in an abusive household. My mother has Narcissistic Personality Disorder and everything about my childhood was a battle for control. I existed not as a person, but as a piece to fulfill her fantasies of what an idealistic family life ought to be like. Before I found out about the nature of NPD and other personality/mental disorders that contribute to abuse in a home, I had no idea what prompted the father to abuse his kids, and it bothered me to read this book because of it. I just didn't get it. Why even throw out your kids' stuffed animals? Why even yell at them for leaving peanut butter on the counter? Why did they have to go to sleep immediately after they got in bed? And then I found out about NPD and related disorders after finding out about my mother, and realized: it's all control. It's all about how THEY think children should behave and what a family should be like. Mr. Nicholls did not want kids or a wife anymore than my mother wanted kids or a husband. She wanted an idealistic fantasy of a family, and if anything at all went against that, she would rage. That's what Mr. Nicholls is doing to these kids.
And it is way, way too fucking much for a 13-year-old to deal with. I can't even wrap my head around it entirely and I am 10 years older than Claudia...
Chapter 7
Claudia is all stressed out about what's been going on with the Nicholls', and as I said, it's way too much for a 13-year-old to handle. So she goes to several other 13-year-olds to share the burden...it really is just sharing the burden. What can they do? It's too much for any of them. She ruminates over what she or any of her friends can do...and comes to the conclusion that the answer is "nothing." It's far too much over her pay grade, especially living in Stoneybrook, the idealistic little gingerbread town right out of a 50s sitcom. She is just not prepared for the real world any more than Ann was prepared to insert it into her fantasy land. She decides that all she can do is continue to stick around and be a friend to the boys, and that she will keep on sitting for them even though Mr. Nicholls creeps her right the fuck out.
So Claudia takes another sitting job at the Nicholls'. Claudia wants to bring the boys to the neighbor's house to work on some St. Patrick's Day parade, and Mr. Nicholls says no, they won't be going anywhere because they fucked up. They're grounded, have to do chores all day, and can't have snacks. Unless they set something on fire or beat someone up or something, three punishments all at once is way too fucking much for a 5 and 7-year-old. All-day chores is way too fucking much for a 5 and 7-year-old no matter what the hell they did. Claudia goes to help the boys out with the chores. Joey tells her that it's not fair that Nate gets punished because it's his fault, and that this henious act that earned both him and his brother the wrath of the prison warden was...he moved his dad's briefcase off to the side while playing nearby it. Not broke it. Not threw it. Not hid it. Just moved it from one position to another. Nothing in it was damaged. He probably didn't even know he wasn't supposed to move it aside. A normal parent might go, "Hey, don't touch that" or "Please don't move the briefcase, there are important things in it I don't want to get ruined." My mother used to hurl insults at me for moving things or touching things when I didn't even know what they were. I would have preferred all-day chores to being told "ARE YOU STUPID? YOU JUST HAVE NO GOOD SENSE AT ALL, DO YOU?! ARE YOU THAT DUMB?!"
Claudia turns the cleaning into a game to try to keep the boys' spirit up, and then Mr. Nicholls walks in and yells at them for leaving a mop in the hallway. Claudia tries to step in by showing him how well the boys did at the chores, but Mr. Nicholls throws some money at her and tells her to get lost. Then he goes and yells "WHAT DID YOU LITTLE JERKS DO WITH MY NEWSPAPER" at the boys and smacks one of them across the face for mixing it in with the recycling by accident. Claudia is paralyzed with fear and confusion because holy shit, this kind of thing just plain doesn't happen in her world. I feel so, so sorry for her. For an adult, there's no excuse for standing around and watching abuse happen. But a 13-year-old girl, who only just now learned that such abuse DOES happen? Somebody get her out of that house, please. She is in DANGER. Do NOT keep sending her over to that house! ANN, 13-YEAR-OLDS CANNOT. FIX. EVERYTHING. I'm just glad they didn't take it the OTHER way, and have Claudia assume the boys must be bad if their father got mad enough at them to hit them. That happens too!
Chapter 8
This is a babysitting chapter with the Pikes, Rodowskis, and Arnolds. They're doing some art project and the Pikes are cracking the same terrible ass jokes that they always do. God, these kids are so fucking boring. I know these "awww, kid antics!" chapters are meant to be adorable. They're not adorable. They're just stupid. Jackie pulls his cuh-raaaazy Walking Disaster antics and they're just like "THAT'S OUR JACKIE! HAHAHAHAHA." Then Claudia ruminates on how each and every one of these kids will be going back to a safe home, unlike Joey and Nate. Yeah, a safe home where they're neglected to the point where they can't pour their own drinks at 10 years old and their 11-year-old sister has to do everything for them. A safe home where their parents dump them off on teenaged babysitters at every opportunity. A safe home where the mother of two identical twins forces them to wear the same clothes, do the same things, and hold the same identities because that's totally what identical twin means, mmkay? Safe home. But at least they're not being hit, amirite?
Chapter 9
Claudia's all fucked up from actually watching Mr. Nicholls hit the kids. I want to hug her so much, and then take her to one of the invisible social workers that never appear in these books but sure as hell NEED to. But since the social workers are invisible and smart people cannot actually magically transport themselves into these books to get shit done, she has no one to rely on but the BSC. Or at least, she thinks she does. In these books, the recurring theme is that you go to your friends first and foremost before you go to an adult, no matter what the issue is. Maybe social workers don't exist in these books, but you know what does exist? Teachers. Parents. Authority figures. Trusted adults in general. Claudia should absolutely be going to one of these WAY before going to a group of middle school girls about a very serious issue. But since Claudia is in a BSC book, she will go to the BSC first because that is the way things are in these books. "Friends" before all else. BSC before all else. And this is why these books frustrate me and I'm sure they frustrate you too. This is why an issue like this has no place in these books.
So Claudia spills to the BSC that she saw Mr. Nicholls hit the kids, and they all overreact like teenagers facing a serious issue are wont to do. I must say, though the story itself is the definition of Clueless Aesop, the reactions of the characters are the most realistic I've seen in any BSC book. Kristy gets on her superiority soapbox and starts spouting off statistics about child abuse from her school report. Abby is shocked that moving a briefcase earns them the kind of punishment that it did--"Since when is that a crime?!" Mary Anne gets dramatic, and it's probably the only time her getting dramatic has actually made sense. And Jessi is actually the one who suggests calling the authorities, which causes the girls to have some doubt about what if it turned out to be a misunderstanding, or it was just a spank instead of a slap, etc. And then Abby finally tells Claudia to go to a parent.
A BSC BOOK IN WHICH THE MAIN CHARACTERS REALIZE THEY NEED ADULT INTERVENTION??? HOLY CRAP, IT'S A CHRISTMAS-IN-JUNE MIRACLE!!!
And Mary Anne suggesting they talk to Richard, who is both in the legal field and is one of the few parents in Stoneybrook with an actual brain, is actually an excellent idea. I wish she had decided to take her up on that. But instead, she goes to her own mother, who knows Mr. Nicholls' wife personally. At least she is going to a parent at all. This is actually brilliant!
Chapter 10
So Claudia tells her mom what she saw, and her mom's like "Judging by the way Mrs. Nicholls carries herself, I'm really not surprised." They start discussing where to go from there, and it turns out social workers do exist in Stoneybrook, they just only come out at a convenient time when the plot summons them. Then they go back into their cave for 100 more books. They go into a little bit of the psychology behind child abuse. Mrs. Kishi says those who abuse their kids were often abused when they were younger. This is true, for various reasons; both because "they see abuse as normal" and because child abuse and neglect is what plants the seed of the type of personality disorders that cause people to act abusively. These disorders are created if something was missing in the child's developmental years, due to abusive or neglectful parenting. And yet still, there are some that can just occur. There are abusers that come out of loving households. There are abusers that come out of abusive households. There is no one answer to why abuse occurs. They then go into how Mrs. Nicholls won't defend the boys because she feel powerless and doesn't know how. What is not mentioned in the book is there's also the possibility that her fear of being alone without a husband trumps her horror at watching him abuse the boys. Her devotion to him as her husband might trump her devotion to her boys. I could go all day about the psychology of enablers, but I'll save it for now.
So they summon the social worker who is going to stick around for the rest of this book and then go into her 100-book hibernation, and then Mrs. Kishi decides to have a talk with Mrs. Nicholls. I already know how this is going to turn out. It sucks because the abused spouse is the LEAST reliable source when it comes to discussing an abusive household--she is terrified of making her husband out to be a bad guy, he might leave her and then she'll be alone, there's just no way he could be abusing them because then it means her family life is toxic and abnormal, he didn't do anything I swear he just loves the boys so much even if his methods are a little unorthodox, etc etc etc--and yet unfortunately you can't really progress farther in an abuse case without input from the abused spouse. In high school, I told counselors and social workers and therapists everything about what my mother's been doing. But the only thing they could do was call in my parents. Who would immediately tell them I was overreacting and everything was just fine at home. I was fed and had clothes, after all, and the abuse was not physical so there were no bruises or marks...
So, for once in a BSC book's life, Claudia is forced to step aside and let the adults handle things. Something that, y'know, should have happened in SEVERAL books and not just this one. Don't worry, once it's over they'll go back to the tween fantasy where middle schoolers are the smartest and most capable people in the world.
(PS: Can I have a snarker tag please? (: )
Chapter 6
So, in case you don't remember, Mr. Nicholls outed himself as an abusive asshole by yelling about peanut butter and then calling his sons dumb and slobby. And also apparently by having a clean kitchen and overly polite sons that respect the house rules. But fuck that, the only thing I care about is the whole "dumb and slobby" thing if we're talking abuse red flags here. In case you also don't remember, Claudia is waaaaaay too fucking obsessed with her baby cousin Lynn, who she is now cooing over as she bounces her on her knee and likely fantasizes about all of the different possible ways she can leave the state with her before the real parents come back. She laments that sitting for the Nicholls boys is cutting into her precious Lynn time and if that's such a problem, why is she continuing to take sitting jobs knowing that she already has a baby to look after? Just go "I can't do any other jobs this week, I have Lynn." And punch Kristy in the face when she inevitably gives you the dreaded Look. I just really want Kristy to get punched in the face okay.
So, not only that, but Claudia is fleeing on a sitting job in the last few hours she has to look after Lynn before her parents get home. That is, unless she decides to do what we all know she's thinking about: take the baby and flee the state! Then she can be Lynn's forever mommy, foreeeeeverrr! Her thoughts shift from her creepy obsession with a baby over to her creepy obsession with a stranger's kids. She ponders over the Nicholls' environment, but says that in spite of how Mr. Nicholls behaved, she still doesn't want to be too quick to judge him. This is actually a surprisingly realistic train of thought for a 13-year-old facing this for the first time. Wild realism appeared! But you know it's gonna flee in about two paragraphs. It's like a running legendary in these books. Claudia ruminates on how she's lucky her parents are perfect, loving, idealistic angels and THAT IS BULLSHIT. BULLSHIT, I SAY. Claudia can't even read her favorite books out in the open without her parents bitching at her about how dare she not read classic literature, even knowing that Claud is a very reluctant reader. Claudia's parents are overbearing quasi-tiger-parents who ignore the shit out of her and her interests/talents in favor of Janine's "genius." As subtle as it may be, Claudia's parents view their daughter as an underachieving, lazy slacker instead of acknowledging that she has genuine talent. They didn't even go to her prizewinning art show in Book 101, as far as I remember! But they're all up Janine's ass about her academic awards. I hate Claudia's parents. They're not physically abusive and don't yell at her, but they're still shits in their own special way.
Claudia gets to the Nicholls, and his kindness towards her starts giving her doubts about whether or not he's really as much of an asshole as she thought. Again, another rare example of realism in one of these books. This kind of thing is like the framework of abusers. But then he starts mouthing off to his wife in front of her and all doubt leaves her. He is very much an asshole to his wife and unlike with the whole "clean room=abusive" thing, it's not really in question. You don't talk to your wife like that, it's disrespectful as hell.
Claudia finds the boys pretending to enjoy TV. Along this part of the book, the evidence starts piling up for real that something is very wrong in this house. Claudia offers to let the boys help her make dinner, and then the boys reveal that their father never lets them do that and that they aren't allowed to talk during meals. Then Claudia spills a drink and the boys are like "Oh god you are up shit's creek now," which makes Claudia feel a little uneasy. And then after that, they start going into how the boys' politeness and good behavior--getting ready for bed without having to be told, folding their clothes, making their beds--is yet another sign of abuse, and it's still a load of crap because NO. NO IT'S NOT. Everything the fuck else is, but the fact that they know when their bedtime is and don't give you a fucking fight about it is not! I thought ya'll hated the Impossible Three, but now you're shitting yourself because not every kid can be the Impossible Three?
So Claudia starts looking for the stuffed animals, which is odd because not EVERY kid has to have a stuffed animal. Some are allergic. Some just plain don't like them. I could see boys thinking they've "outgrown" stuffed animals. But no, it turns out that their father has thrown all of the stuffed animals away. Lol, I'm 23 and if you do that to my stuffed animals YOU might be the one who wakes up in the dumpster. They then beg Claudia to tell their father they went to sleep right away if he asks. I'm going to go off on a little bit of a personal tangent here, but I grew up in an abusive household. My mother has Narcissistic Personality Disorder and everything about my childhood was a battle for control. I existed not as a person, but as a piece to fulfill her fantasies of what an idealistic family life ought to be like. Before I found out about the nature of NPD and other personality/mental disorders that contribute to abuse in a home, I had no idea what prompted the father to abuse his kids, and it bothered me to read this book because of it. I just didn't get it. Why even throw out your kids' stuffed animals? Why even yell at them for leaving peanut butter on the counter? Why did they have to go to sleep immediately after they got in bed? And then I found out about NPD and related disorders after finding out about my mother, and realized: it's all control. It's all about how THEY think children should behave and what a family should be like. Mr. Nicholls did not want kids or a wife anymore than my mother wanted kids or a husband. She wanted an idealistic fantasy of a family, and if anything at all went against that, she would rage. That's what Mr. Nicholls is doing to these kids.
And it is way, way too fucking much for a 13-year-old to deal with. I can't even wrap my head around it entirely and I am 10 years older than Claudia...
Chapter 7
Claudia is all stressed out about what's been going on with the Nicholls', and as I said, it's way too much for a 13-year-old to handle. So she goes to several other 13-year-olds to share the burden...it really is just sharing the burden. What can they do? It's too much for any of them. She ruminates over what she or any of her friends can do...and comes to the conclusion that the answer is "nothing." It's far too much over her pay grade, especially living in Stoneybrook, the idealistic little gingerbread town right out of a 50s sitcom. She is just not prepared for the real world any more than Ann was prepared to insert it into her fantasy land. She decides that all she can do is continue to stick around and be a friend to the boys, and that she will keep on sitting for them even though Mr. Nicholls creeps her right the fuck out.
So Claudia takes another sitting job at the Nicholls'. Claudia wants to bring the boys to the neighbor's house to work on some St. Patrick's Day parade, and Mr. Nicholls says no, they won't be going anywhere because they fucked up. They're grounded, have to do chores all day, and can't have snacks. Unless they set something on fire or beat someone up or something, three punishments all at once is way too fucking much for a 5 and 7-year-old. All-day chores is way too fucking much for a 5 and 7-year-old no matter what the hell they did. Claudia goes to help the boys out with the chores. Joey tells her that it's not fair that Nate gets punished because it's his fault, and that this henious act that earned both him and his brother the wrath of the prison warden was...he moved his dad's briefcase off to the side while playing nearby it. Not broke it. Not threw it. Not hid it. Just moved it from one position to another. Nothing in it was damaged. He probably didn't even know he wasn't supposed to move it aside. A normal parent might go, "Hey, don't touch that" or "Please don't move the briefcase, there are important things in it I don't want to get ruined." My mother used to hurl insults at me for moving things or touching things when I didn't even know what they were. I would have preferred all-day chores to being told "ARE YOU STUPID? YOU JUST HAVE NO GOOD SENSE AT ALL, DO YOU?! ARE YOU THAT DUMB?!"
Claudia turns the cleaning into a game to try to keep the boys' spirit up, and then Mr. Nicholls walks in and yells at them for leaving a mop in the hallway. Claudia tries to step in by showing him how well the boys did at the chores, but Mr. Nicholls throws some money at her and tells her to get lost. Then he goes and yells "WHAT DID YOU LITTLE JERKS DO WITH MY NEWSPAPER" at the boys and smacks one of them across the face for mixing it in with the recycling by accident. Claudia is paralyzed with fear and confusion because holy shit, this kind of thing just plain doesn't happen in her world. I feel so, so sorry for her. For an adult, there's no excuse for standing around and watching abuse happen. But a 13-year-old girl, who only just now learned that such abuse DOES happen? Somebody get her out of that house, please. She is in DANGER. Do NOT keep sending her over to that house! ANN, 13-YEAR-OLDS CANNOT. FIX. EVERYTHING. I'm just glad they didn't take it the OTHER way, and have Claudia assume the boys must be bad if their father got mad enough at them to hit them. That happens too!
Chapter 8
This is a babysitting chapter with the Pikes, Rodowskis, and Arnolds. They're doing some art project and the Pikes are cracking the same terrible ass jokes that they always do. God, these kids are so fucking boring. I know these "awww, kid antics!" chapters are meant to be adorable. They're not adorable. They're just stupid. Jackie pulls his cuh-raaaazy Walking Disaster antics and they're just like "THAT'S OUR JACKIE! HAHAHAHAHA." Then Claudia ruminates on how each and every one of these kids will be going back to a safe home, unlike Joey and Nate. Yeah, a safe home where they're neglected to the point where they can't pour their own drinks at 10 years old and their 11-year-old sister has to do everything for them. A safe home where their parents dump them off on teenaged babysitters at every opportunity. A safe home where the mother of two identical twins forces them to wear the same clothes, do the same things, and hold the same identities because that's totally what identical twin means, mmkay? Safe home. But at least they're not being hit, amirite?
Chapter 9
Claudia's all fucked up from actually watching Mr. Nicholls hit the kids. I want to hug her so much, and then take her to one of the invisible social workers that never appear in these books but sure as hell NEED to. But since the social workers are invisible and smart people cannot actually magically transport themselves into these books to get shit done, she has no one to rely on but the BSC. Or at least, she thinks she does. In these books, the recurring theme is that you go to your friends first and foremost before you go to an adult, no matter what the issue is. Maybe social workers don't exist in these books, but you know what does exist? Teachers. Parents. Authority figures. Trusted adults in general. Claudia should absolutely be going to one of these WAY before going to a group of middle school girls about a very serious issue. But since Claudia is in a BSC book, she will go to the BSC first because that is the way things are in these books. "Friends" before all else. BSC before all else. And this is why these books frustrate me and I'm sure they frustrate you too. This is why an issue like this has no place in these books.
So Claudia spills to the BSC that she saw Mr. Nicholls hit the kids, and they all overreact like teenagers facing a serious issue are wont to do. I must say, though the story itself is the definition of Clueless Aesop, the reactions of the characters are the most realistic I've seen in any BSC book. Kristy gets on her superiority soapbox and starts spouting off statistics about child abuse from her school report. Abby is shocked that moving a briefcase earns them the kind of punishment that it did--"Since when is that a crime?!" Mary Anne gets dramatic, and it's probably the only time her getting dramatic has actually made sense. And Jessi is actually the one who suggests calling the authorities, which causes the girls to have some doubt about what if it turned out to be a misunderstanding, or it was just a spank instead of a slap, etc. And then Abby finally tells Claudia to go to a parent.
A BSC BOOK IN WHICH THE MAIN CHARACTERS REALIZE THEY NEED ADULT INTERVENTION??? HOLY CRAP, IT'S A CHRISTMAS-IN-JUNE MIRACLE!!!
And Mary Anne suggesting they talk to Richard, who is both in the legal field and is one of the few parents in Stoneybrook with an actual brain, is actually an excellent idea. I wish she had decided to take her up on that. But instead, she goes to her own mother, who knows Mr. Nicholls' wife personally. At least she is going to a parent at all. This is actually brilliant!
Chapter 10
So Claudia tells her mom what she saw, and her mom's like "Judging by the way Mrs. Nicholls carries herself, I'm really not surprised." They start discussing where to go from there, and it turns out social workers do exist in Stoneybrook, they just only come out at a convenient time when the plot summons them. Then they go back into their cave for 100 more books. They go into a little bit of the psychology behind child abuse. Mrs. Kishi says those who abuse their kids were often abused when they were younger. This is true, for various reasons; both because "they see abuse as normal" and because child abuse and neglect is what plants the seed of the type of personality disorders that cause people to act abusively. These disorders are created if something was missing in the child's developmental years, due to abusive or neglectful parenting. And yet still, there are some that can just occur. There are abusers that come out of loving households. There are abusers that come out of abusive households. There is no one answer to why abuse occurs. They then go into how Mrs. Nicholls won't defend the boys because she feel powerless and doesn't know how. What is not mentioned in the book is there's also the possibility that her fear of being alone without a husband trumps her horror at watching him abuse the boys. Her devotion to him as her husband might trump her devotion to her boys. I could go all day about the psychology of enablers, but I'll save it for now.
So they summon the social worker who is going to stick around for the rest of this book and then go into her 100-book hibernation, and then Mrs. Kishi decides to have a talk with Mrs. Nicholls. I already know how this is going to turn out. It sucks because the abused spouse is the LEAST reliable source when it comes to discussing an abusive household--she is terrified of making her husband out to be a bad guy, he might leave her and then she'll be alone, there's just no way he could be abusing them because then it means her family life is toxic and abnormal, he didn't do anything I swear he just loves the boys so much even if his methods are a little unorthodox, etc etc etc--and yet unfortunately you can't really progress farther in an abuse case without input from the abused spouse. In high school, I told counselors and social workers and therapists everything about what my mother's been doing. But the only thing they could do was call in my parents. Who would immediately tell them I was overreacting and everything was just fine at home. I was fed and had clothes, after all, and the abuse was not physical so there were no bruises or marks...
So, for once in a BSC book's life, Claudia is forced to step aside and let the adults handle things. Something that, y'know, should have happened in SEVERAL books and not just this one. Don't worry, once it's over they'll go back to the tween fantasy where middle schoolers are the smartest and most capable people in the world.
(PS: Can I have a snarker tag please? (: )