Hello. My name is No. 8

This is my first story. I know that Thanksgiving is an American holiday, and that it was over a while ago, but please just bear with me. I really hope you enjoy this!

Heather, Lindsey, Courtney, Beth and Ezekiel belong to Fresh TV, not me. Hye, Adrien, Annette and Arthur do belong to me. Blue C Sushi and Debden are real places. Twilight and 2012 are real movies (for those of you who care about nothing but TDI and don't watch anything but TDI and never watch commercials and never see previews). This is K+ rated. There is no swearing, violence, or sexual themes, but I found it not quite K because of "thematic elements".Enjoy! And I would appreciate comments telling me what you did and did not like, any typos, or just anything in general! If you feel like flaming, please at least tell me why you didn't like it, instead of saying "this Storie SUXXX!!!1!!!!". This story does feature Courtney, but no Duncan. If you don't like that, I'm sorry.

Life is not fair. And sometimes, it's just plain awful. Sure, maybe there were kids in India who were sold into slavery by their parents, or kids dying of hunger in Central America, or people with malaria or AIDS in Africa, but this was just too much. Heather Chaffee was having the unofficially worst day ever. For two months, she, Courtney and Lindsey were planning the best Black Friday ever. Each minute had been planned to perfection: the three of them were going to stay over at Lindsey's house after Thanksgiving dinner with their respective families, they would get up and get ready at 2:30 a.m. and then leave at 3:45 a.m. for the large mall that Lindsey lived a few minutes from. They would then wait in line outside of the mall until it opened at 4:30 a.m. so that they could get first dibs on all the good deals. Not that Heather needed to, she had plenty of money, she just liked the challenge. Then they would continue to shop until 1:00 p.m. , when they would take a lunch break while everyone who had stopped for lunch would rush back to the stores that most likely had been stripped of all their good merchandise. After lunch at Blue C Sushi, the three of them were planning on seeing a movie, preferably New Moon. When they finished the movie, Heather, Lindsey and Courtney would go back to Lindsey's house and sleep until the next morning, when they would drive themselves home. The plan was perfect. And Heather's mom had to ruin the whole thing; she might as well take a sledgehammer to her daughter's hopes and dreams while she was at it, and being the evil woman that she was, Mrs. Chaffee would do exactly that.

On November 24, 2009, Hye Chaffee strode bravely into the one place that would make mothers on this side of the world tremble, and nonchalantly told her daughter that they would be going to Aunt Annette's home for Thanksgiving. Normally, this would not be such a great feat, but Hye had a daughter named Heather that had decided somewhere along the course of her seventeen years that she deserved to get what she wanted when she wanted and how she wanted and that everyone standing in her way was straight from the devil himself. Why she thought this remained a mystery to Hye, but in the meantime, the woman had to break the news to Heather that she was not going to be able to go shopping with her friends that Thursday because the family was traveling to Debden, Saskatchewan to visit her husband's family for Thanksgiving. Just as she had predicted, Heather was furious. That girl screamed and yelled and shouted, "I HATE YOU!" about two dozen times while Hye just stood there, waiting for the girl to tire herself out. But Heather surprised her mother. She didn't erupt into tears and sob about how hard her life was and how no one cared about her or understood her like she usually did; instead, Heather calmed herself to the point that she was able to growl, "Leave me alone." and then slam the door inches from her mother's face. Hye just hoped her daughter would calm down enough to get packed before they left for the little prairie town the next day.

Lindsey was like, so, so, soooo excited! The next day was the day before Thank-You Day and they like, always had parties in her classes. The funny thing was, Courtney and Heather never had parties in their classes. Maybe it had something to do with what Courtney said about being, "less advanced" than her two friends. Whatever that meant. Sometimes she didn't understand some of the stuff her friends talked about, like right now. Heather had just called and was yelling something about shopping, and prairies, and turkey, and there were some really bad words mixed in her rant; words like s-t-u-p-i-d, or r-e-t-a-r-d-e-d, or d-u-m-b that Heather used to describe her mom, and the strangest thing was, those words had been used to describe Lindsey before, but she didn't know exactly what they meant, only that the teachers told the kids who said those words not to say them. After Heather finished yelling and took a couple of deep breaths, Lindsey suggested that she should come over and have some low-carb snacks and tell her what was going on, to which Heather replied, "You know Lindsey, I think that's a great idea. I'll be right over, and I think I'll just stay at your place tonight and tomorrow, okay?" And Lindsey, not understanding Heather's plan cheerfully chirped, "Okay! See you in ten!"

Adrien Chaffee loved his wife Hye for many different reasons. One of those reasons was that she was such a good mother, she was always patient and loving and always dealt with their daughter when he didn't know what to do. So when she stormed into his office the evening of the 24th, so mad she looked like smoke was going to come out of her ears any second, he knew something was up. He also knew something was up because she had her hand clinging onto the back of their daughter's neck, and said daughter looked equally angry, but for the first time Heather looked slightly worried. "Adrien, we need to have a little family meeting." Hye said not-so-pleasantly through her teeth. Adrien gulped a little. "Sure honey." He paused, "What about?"

After the she-devil told Heather's dad her twisted interpretation of the event in which Heather had attempted to escape the awful fate which would have awaited her had she gone to the dinky little town- if you tried to call it that- of Debden by temporarily seeking refuge in Lindsey's home. Now she was not only stuck in hick-country for FIVE DAYS, she had to be nice and act like she was enjoying herself , and the worst of the requirements, bond with her cousins ; or else she would be grounded until the New Year. Seriously. Her mother was definitely the anti-Christ. Hye's definition of nice involved complimenting people, acting interested in conversations, and not letting everyone and anyone know when she thought someone was a loser. All of these things were against Heather's entire nature. Also, Heather didn't pretend to enjoy herself. When Heather wasn't having an experience she enjoyed, everyone within a 300 foot radius knew. And then her cousins. The last time she had seen her cousins, about two years before, they were all losers. Especially Beth, whose only friend was a pig named Bertha. And Beth, being Heather's age, tried to introduce Heather to Bertha. That did not go over well. Not at all. Thus, Heather decided this would be a great exercise in acting, which she would need if she was ever going to become an international icon and in the spotlight all the time.

The idea of having her relatives over for Thanksgiving weekend had seemed like a wonderful event, much like a Norman Rockwell painting, until they actually arrived. Beth had forgotten that Heather didn't really like Bertha, so she thought it was funny when her pet pig had ran up and jumped on her taller, prettier cousin knocking the girl in the mud, until Heather started screaming at the creature, "Get off or I'll sue you!" Beth was going to have an interesting Holiday, she was sure of that.

Yeah, they all knew that Heather was most likely going to be at least a little defiant to the rules, but having to give her a talk about her attitude on the first hour was new, even for Heather. That evening went smoother, and Heather seemed like she might have actually been enjoying herself when they all gathered around the table for dinner that night, but it might have been because she was pretending that the ham she, Beth, and the rest of the family was enjoying was Beth's pet Bertha. At least Heather acted pleasant.

So maybe she might have laughed at some of the crazy farm stories her Aunts and Uncles were telling at the table, it didn't mean she enjoyed being on the prairie. So what if she actually thought they were funny. And maybe she and Beth talked for an hour and a half before they fell asleep that night. It didn't mean they were friends. And even though she almost completely forgot about the fact that she was going to be spending the most fun shopping day of the entire year in a town of 2,243 people, it didn't mean she wasn't super mad at her mom, just sort of mad. But she was too tired to think about it all, so she went to bed.

When Hye admitted that she hadn't cooked a meal in six months, that their chef usually did that, Annette wasn't sure whether or not she should take the woman seriously. At first she wanted to laugh like it was the funniest joke she'd ever heard, and it was for about two seconds. And then she realized that her brother had gotten educated and rich and moved to the city and had a wife who went to nail salons and probably had spent at least $50 on that lovely red blouse she was wearing that would probably get destroyed by raw meat and flour and grease. So she was going to have to start early and teach Hye and Heather how to cook, and if the latter showed her any attitude, Annette would make her go clean out the horse's stables.

Dinner was threatening to make its way out of her stomach and onto whatever happened to be beneath her, and right now it was her feet. Aunt Annette had made sure that each person had eaten enough for two people and then some. After dinner, Aunt Annette and her family, the Chaffee family, Adrien and Annette's little brother Arthur and his family, and the neighbors, the Pomeroys, all got together in the living room to watch football on the little television. Heather had never understood football, so Beth and her neighbor Ezekiel Pomeroy explained the basics to her, and now everyone was screaming and whooping because the team they were rooting for had won the game 26-23. And Heather didn't care that she had probably gained six pounds that day. Or that Ezekiel and his family smelled like hay. Or that Uncle Arthur was wearing overalls. Because she was actually enjoying herself.

After Lindsey had called Courtney and told her what happened with Heather, Courtney knew that they would have to listen to Heather whine about how awful her weekend was, and both of them knew that it was going to be pretty bad. And it might have been good that Heather wasn't with them, because Courtney and Lindsey didn't get to the mall until 7:30, and none of the stores had good clothes or even good sales. And all the restaurants were packed so they had to get lunch at Taco Bell. And New Moon was sold out so they went to go see 2012, and Courtney had to explain to Lindsey for three whole hours during and after the movie that the world was not going to end in 2012, thus they both missed the entire movie, which they later heard was not that good. So on Monday, when Heather showed up at school smiling and talking about all the things she was thankful for, Courtney became worried that something had happened. But when Heather started talking about some boy named Ezekiel whom both Courtney and Lindsey knew was not related to Heather because she started talking about how "cute he was even though he had a bit of a mullet," and that, "the smell of hay on him was actually kind of nice," they took her to the nurse because they were worried that she might have gotten food poisoning and was delusional because of it.