Karen

Word travels fast through Whit's End. A girl who was walking home one day felt a pain in her leg, and what everyone assumed was a muscle cramp turned out to be bone cancer. The girl is Karen Crosby, and the news leaves the other kids uneasy and full of questions.

Donna Barclay, Karen's best friend, is heading to the hospital with John Whittaker and a bag of Karen's favorite books. Donna admits she does not like hospitals at all - the smell, the needles, the whole idea of them - and by the time they reach room 312 she is so nervous she has to whisper a prayer before going in. What she finds is simply Karen, delighted to be rid of daytime television, joking about the food, and happily introducing her roommate Mrs. Murray. Karen asks after her cat, whom Donna has been looking after, and makes Donna promise one thing above all: do not let anyone give away her part in the school fall festival. She has been waiting forever to do that dance. Whit and Donna walk out feeling better than when they walked in.

At school, David is ready to replace Karen in the program, but Donna pleads her case and Mr. Roth overrules his director and keeps Karen's spot open. Then Mary Barclay meets her daughter at the hospital with hard news. New x-rays showed the cancer was worse than anyone knew, and to keep it from spreading, the doctors had to amputate Karen's leg.

Karen faces it with startling steadiness. Surrounded by cards and flowers from her Sunday school class, she jokes about phantom feelings, then tells Donna a secret she has told no one else. While she was asleep for the operation, she dreamed of Jesus healing people, and to those He did not heal He said, "I have something better for you." Then He turned and said it to her, too. Karen does not expect her leg back, but she believes the promise completely.

She keeps her promise as well. At the fall festival she comes out on crutches, wearing a hat because the chemotherapy has taken her hair, and instead of dancing she recites the words of an old hymn about heaven that her grandfather used to sing to her, dedicating it to Mrs. Murray.

Later a phone call reaches Whit at Whit's End: Karen is back in the hospital and the cancer is spreading. Connie Kendall asks the question everyone is thinking, and Whit answers honestly that some things are beyond understanding, and that all he can do is hold on to his faith that God is in control. Donna arrives in tears for a different reason - Karen's cat has run away and she does not know how to tell her. Karen only laughs it off and says he always disappears when you need him most, and that he will come back. Then she tells Donna gently that the doctors think she may die, and that it is all right, because they both love Jesus and will have all of forever to be friends. It is like a door, she says, into a big, beautiful room that is warm and full of God.

After the funeral, Whit finds Donna sitting alone in the quiet of the Bible Room. She cannot work out why God let Karen die, and she confesses her deepest fear: that she will forget her best friend. Whit offers her the words of Scripture about the victory over death, about every tear wiped away, and about comforting one another. And just then Connie comes in carrying a stray she found in the alley - Karen's cat, home at last, exactly as Karen said he would be.