One of the meanings of the title of Gary Schmidt's novel
The Wednesday Wars concerns the protagonist, Holling Hoodhood,
having to spend every Wednesday afternoon alone at school with his seventh-grade
teacher, Mrs. Baker--who, by the way, hates Holling (according to him). While the novel
is about what happens on those Wednesday afternoons, your question refers to why Holling
is the only one left in class once a week.
Half of the
kids in Holling's class are Jewish, so every Wednesday afternoon they go to Temple
Beth-El to attend Hebrew school. The other half of the kids are Catholic, so the leave
and go to catechism. Holling is a Presbyterian with nowhere to go, so he has to stay in
school alone with Mrs. Baker.
The Catholic students attend
Saint Adelbert's church. Every Saturday afternoon, his Catholic friends attend mass at
this church
which had gone modern and figured that it dodn't
need to wake parishioners up
early.
This is quite
different than Holling's church, Saint Andrew Presbyterian Church, which holds services
early on Sunday morning.
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