Changing Rodney

Mandy excels in an advanced high-school mathematics class even though she is younger than the other students. Her teacher, Miss Hamer, announces a major test worth half the semester's grade. Rodney Rathbone, who has already taken the class several times, responds with jokes instead of a plan to study. In the hall, he knocks Mandy's belongings down, belittles her for being a little kid, and boasts about the problems he intends to cause.

At Whit's End, Mandy tells Eugene that she wishes she could teach Rodney a lesson. Eugene remembers how the kindness of Whit and Tom helped change his own heart and suggests returning Rodney's meanness with extraordinary kindness. He believes a proper influence might reach Rodney just as the love of people in Odyssey has influenced Connie and himself.

Mandy begins by offering Rodney a large cookie. He searches for a trick before accepting it, then steals her lunchbox anyway. She tries giving him her lunch money, searching his past for an explanation, praising the least insulting things he says, and logically describing the consequences of treating people badly. Rodney takes advantage of every effort and uses her own reasoning to confuse or mock her.

The first promising moment comes when Rodney admits that he needs help passing the math test. Mandy agrees to tutor him simply because he asks, needs help, and helping is right. Rodney is bewildered that anyone would treat him kindly after the way he has behaved. He still demands that she keep it secret so his reputation will not suffer, but Mandy believes she has finally found a way to reach him.

Their study sessions reveal how little Rodney knows and how naturally he turns to threats and cheating instead of work. Mandy challenges him to practice kindness. He reluctantly eats a piece of Connie's disastrous homemade cake rather than insult her, then helps Miss Hamer pick up a stack of papers she drops in the hallway. The simple helpful act leaves him feeling unexpectedly lighter, and he even thanks Mandy for her influence.

Rodney later confesses that he stole the answer key from Miss Hamer's papers during that helpful moment. He and the Bones had planned to memorize it, but he claims guilt will no longer let him cheat. Because Miss Hamer will never trust him, he asks Mandy to put the key back. She agrees only if he accompanies her so that he must take responsibility himself.

They enter Miss Hamer's room and find it empty. Mandy refuses to leave the key without an explanation and begins writing a note. Miss Hamer returns, catches Mandy holding the answer sheet, and finds no sign of Rodney, who has slipped away to the parking lot. She takes Mandy to Principal Skinner while Mandy insists that Rodney can explain everything.

When Rodney finally appears, he pretends he tried to stop Mandy from stealing the answers. He solemnly claims that she refused his advice and that honesty requires him to report the truth. Though Principal Skinner admits the act sounds more like Rodney than Mandy, all the visible evidence points to her. Mandy receives two weeks of detention, and Rodney leaves without confessing.

Furious and betrayed, Mandy confronts him. Rodney says he wanted tutoring, not a new personality, and never asked her to change him. Whit later agrees that Mandy cannot take responsibility for transforming another person's heart. She may love someone, set a good example, and pray, but only God can produce genuine change. She also cannot demand a visible result in return for doing what is right.

Connie's attempts to become a chef for her father provide a lighter example of the same mistake. Although she believes God wants her at Whit's End and the Timothy Center, she tries to reshape her life around her father's ambitions. Her failed bread, mashed potatoes, cake, and brownies make it clear that neither of them can force her into a calling that does not fit.

Rodney's deception remains hidden from the school, and Mandy's punishment still stands. Yet her kindness has not been entirely wasted. When another boy asks for the copied answers, Rodney says Miss Hamer has changed the test and refuses to cheat this time. Alone, he admits that his troublesome new conscience is the real reason. Mandy has not changed Rodney, but the truth she modeled has begun to trouble him.