Badges of Honor

Olivia Parker and Zoe Grant are practicing first aid at their American Heritage Girls meeting, but Olivia can barely concentrate. Two other members, Marcy Perryman and Marcy Cahill, seem to be good at everything - one was student of the month, the other just won a half marathon, and between them they have earned nearly every badge on the troop leader's chart. Marcy Perryman has even teased Olivia, saying, "I noticed you have fewer badges than my little sister." Feeling like she can't do anything right, Olivia perks up when Zoe insists she does things well when she puts her mind to them. The two friends make a pact: they will prove they can be the best badge earners in all of American Heritage Girls.

Their badge blitz begins at Whit's End, where Mr. Whittaker and Buck Meltsner are decorating for the shop's anniversary party. The girls talk Whit into letting them decorate the celebration cake for their cake-decorating badge, and Buck offers to lend them his dog Sparky so they can work on pet care. But the next morning the cake goes horribly wrong. The frosting slides down the sides until "Congratulations, Whit's End" reads only "hit send," the front counter looks like a bathtub, and their attempt at fixing things produces a big gray blob they hopefully call an Imagination Station. Whit kindly serves the cake anyway, saying it exemplifies creativity, but Olivia is suspicious - the Marcys stopped by earlier, and she is sure they tampered with the frosting.

Next comes boat safety. Buck takes the girls fishing on Trickle Lake and secretly lets the boat run out of gas so they can learn what to do in an emergency. The lesson collapses when the spare gas can Olivia was supposed to load is missing, and so are the oars Zoe was in charge of. Both girls are sure they carried them to the boat, and Olivia declares they have been sabotaged again. A frustrated Buck groans, "Why does it always work when Mr. Whittaker tries to teach lessons?" before swimming back to shore to fetch a tow.

The girls' luck gets worse at the park, where they are walking Sparky for their pet care badge. When they spot the Marcys exercising down the hill and turn away for just a moment, Sparky disappears. Whit drives the heartbroken girls all over Odyssey searching for him, and along the way he gently points out that people who chase accomplishments over everything else sound a lot like Olivia and Zoe themselves. Working hard is good, he explains, but achievements are things you do, not who you are. He reminds them of the troop's Daughter of the King badge, whose whole point is that their identity is in Christ: "Our identity comes from being loved by God."

Just then the girls spot Sparky in a parking lot across the street. When they call to him, he bolts toward them into traffic and is struck by a car - driven, terribly, by Buck himself, who never saw him coming. Remembering their first aid training, the girls tie a tourniquet around Sparky's leg to slow the bleeding, and everyone rushes him to the vet.

While they wait anxiously at the clinic, Whit shares two discoveries: surveillance footage from the Whit's End kitchen shows the Marcys pouring water into the frosting, and the marina manager saw two girls matching their description carrying off a gas can and oars. Olivia was right all along - they really were sabotaged - and Whit promises to tell the troop leader. But Olivia finds that being vindicated doesn't matter much anymore; all she and Zoe want is for Sparky to be okay. Dr. Pat finally emerges with news both good and hard: Sparky survived surgery, and the girls' tourniquet probably saved his life, but his leg was too badly hurt and had to be amputated. Buck takes it bravely, saying he'll love Sparky just as much as ever - maybe even more.

Whit ties it all together for the guilt-stricken girls: just as Buck loves Sparky whether he has four legs or three, God loves us despite our flaws and mistakes. Our value doesn't come from our achievements, and our failures don't make us worthless. Later, the girls happily fuss over the recovering Sparky with pillows and treats, and when Buck asks why they aren't off chasing more badges, they tell him badges aren't the most important thing in the world - taking care of Sparky is.