Not What I Expected

At Whit's End, eighth graders Emily Jones and Zoe Grant tell Connie about the career assessments they have taken at school, tests that match each student with a profession and a week-long internship. Emily is thrilled with her result: she will intern at the law office of Fenwick and Gobstein, and since being a lawyer is all about pursuing justice and truth, it suits her almost as well as her dream of detective work. Zoe is horrified by hers. The test says she would make a good funeral home director, which seems all wrong for a happy, upbeat person, but she is assigned to Cowanga's Funeral Home anyway. Things get worse when Jay Smouse bounds in with what he calls glad tidings: he has been assigned to the funeral home too, so they can be "funeral friends, embalming buddies."

Meanwhile, Jillian Marshall, a newcomer to Odyssey who has already had nineteen jobs in fourteen cities, sets up a booth called Jillian's Jaw-Dropping Jewelry in front of Jason Whittaker's antique shop. Jason objects, but Detective Polehaus arrives and explains the real problem: the land is public property, and selling there requires a permit from City Hall. Jillian cheerfully produces a permit she wrote and signed herself, then offers the detective a discount on jewelry, which sounds uncomfortably like a bribe, so he marches her to the station. There Emily, running an errand for her internship, finds Jillian and takes up her cause. "You just got yourself a lawyer," Emily declares, agreeing to be paid in jewelry, and the two head for City Hall.

At the funeral home, Zoe braces for a gloomy week, but Mr. Ellis Cowanga turns out to be a relentlessly cheerful joke-teller who claims, "I put the fun in funeral." He explains that his work is really about facilitating beautiful goodbyes, helping people say farewell to loved ones in the most peaceful way possible. Jay, who insists he never gets queasy, faints cold the moment Mr. Cowanga starts describing embalming. Later a girl named Abigail comes in with items for her grandmother Judy Reynolds's funeral, including a ring her grandmother wore every day and twisted on her finger as a reminder to pray. Zoe listens kindly as Abigail shares her memories.

At City Hall, the clerk Miss Pickett, grumpy about her shrinking lunch break, shows the girls the Burkholder Law: privately owned standing sales booths are allowed only at occasional city-organized markets. Discouraged, Jillian talks of giving up her lifelong dream, and Connie suspects she gives up whenever things get complicated. But Emily refuses to quit, because detective work has taught her there is always more to the story. Digging through musty old court records, she and Connie find the case behind the law: in 1929 Ida Burkholder sold boysenberry pies from a booth that killed the grass in front of City Hall, and a rival baker got booths banned from public land. Just then Connie gets a call. Jillian has been picked up again, this time for selling jewelry out of her car in a public parking lot, and has managed to handcuff herself to a chair while decorating the cuffs.

Back at the funeral home, Jay admits after his second fainting spell that he never actually read the aptitude test; he copied Zoe's answers so he could spend the week with her. Zoe is outraged: "That's like stealing my personality!" When Abigail returns, tearful and missing her grandmother, Zoe gently returns the ring, suggesting her grandmother would be glad for it to become just as meaningful to Abigail, and offers to sit and listen.

Emily springs Jillian with her discovery: the mayor of 1929 loved Mrs. Burkholder's pies so much that he amended the law to ban only standing booths. So, with ropes and Connie's help, they hoist Jillian's booth into the air from a tree limb in front of Jason's shop. Since it never touches the ground, it is perfectly legal, and even Jason has to admit it is very clever. As the friends admire the hanging booth, Emily decides that what she loved most was digging for clues, so she will stick with being a detective no matter what the assessment says. Zoe surprises everyone by saying she actually enjoyed her internship, because being a funeral director is really about helping people through a difficult time, and she might be kind of good at that. Then Jay appears, and Zoe asks Emily for one last bit of lawyering: "I was hoping you could help me get a restraining order."