Clarissa is Cracked

Summary
Grandma Thora lends D.W. an antique porcelain doll for a week, but D.W. accidentally makes a mess of the doll.

Plot
The episode begins with D.W. at Grandma Thora's house. D.W. likes Clarissa, the porcelain doll Thora keeps in her cabinet. Thora agrees to let D.W. take care of Clarissa for the week, much to her joy. Over the next week, D.W. has fun playing with Clarissa, but does not take good care of the doll, ruining its hair and clothes.

On the day D.W. is supposed to return Clarissa, she is jumping on the bed, causing the doll to fall and her right eye being broken off. Her parents discover this and are mad at D.W. for not being more careful with Clarissa. At first, D.W. simply believes they can replace it, but David points out that just because Clarissa is old doesn't make it okay to break the doll because it is very special to Grandma Thora.

David and Jane bring out an old photo album that has various pictures from Thora's childhood--as it turns out, Thora grew up as the youngest and only daughter of four kids, and Thora's parents had gotten Clarissa for her as a birthday present when she turned 5. Up until Thora received Clarissa, all the toys she ever had were hand-me-downs from her rambunctious, but well-meaning older brothers. Thora took very good care of Clarissa, and the doll held a lot of sentimental value for her.

After learning all this, D.W. feels guilty about how she's been treating Clarissa. Jane takes D.W. to the local doll hospital to have Clarissa fixed, but the "doctor" who runs it is on vacation and won't be back until next month. The family tries finding other doll hospitals to fix Clarissa, but they're all booked for months. D.W. tries fixing Clarissa's broken face with a headband, but that doesn't work either. Arthur ends up enlisting the help of Mr. Ratburn, who agrees to fix the doll after the kids explain the situation to him (noting that the material used for Clarissa is pretty similar to the marionettes he uses in his puppet shows).

D.W. and her family return for Clarissa two hours after leaving her with Mr. Ratburn, but when they get there, D.W. gets worried that Mr. Ratburn is destroying Clarissa. However, it turns out that Clarissa is good as new and that all the commotion D.W. heard was just Mr. Ratburn making a bookshelf.

Later that evening, D.W. returns Clarissa to Thora, who praises her granddaughter for taking good care of the doll. However, D.W. can't handle the guilt of not telling the truth, and confesses that she wrecked the doll and Mr. Ratburn fixed it. Rather than get mad at her granddaughter, Thora explains that she's broken Clarissa many times over the years, but always managed to get her fixed. She proud of D.W. for telling the truth and notes that it was very responsible of her to get Clarissa fixed. In the end, Thora decides to let D.W. keep the doll for herself.

Major

 * D.W. Read
 * Thora Read
 * Arthur Read

Minor

 * Jane Read
 * David Read
 * Nigel Ratburn

Trivia

 * This is the only episode seeing Thora as a child, she looks a lot like D.W. her age and she sounds like D.W. too, which is because she's voiced by the same voice actor Michael Caloz who also voices D.W. from the early episodes.
 * D.W. mentions her Snowball once again from D.W.'s Snow Mystery.
 * This is the first episode Mr. Ratburn calls D.W. by her name.

Errors

 * When Clarissa is repaired, she appears as if she had never been damaged before, and Grandma Thora even reveals that Clarissa was damaged many times even before D.W. damaged the doll. This is considered a plot hole, because in reality, these types of cracks cannot be retracted and would require the use of gelatin-like applications to be masked.

Gallery
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Screenshots
 CIC 001.png Thora's Parents and relatives.PNG }}