Search for a Sunflower

Connie Kendall is helping her friend Penny Bassett hang paintings at Jacques Henri's art gallery for a special show. Penny plans to sell three of her flower paintings, Sunflower Silence, Lilac Luxury, and Loving Lilies, to pay for free art classes she wants to teach at the Children's Hospital, where thirty-five students have already signed up. But when the two friends go out to Penny's car to fetch the paintings, they find the window smashed and all three canvases gone.

The police are too busy to come right away, and Mr. Henri reacts in a way nobody expects: he is thrilled. "Only the greatest artists in the world have their paintings stolen," he declares, and he rushes off to call the newspapers, certain the theft will make Penny famous. Meanwhile, Connie and Penny study the gallery's security footage. After a false alarm in which Penny points an accusing finger at a suspicious-looking cyclist who turns out to be Eugene, they spot a man Penny remembers. He visited the gallery days earlier asking questions, and Penny realizes she told him all about her show and about a valuable Philadelphia art collection arriving soon. Detective Polehaus recognizes the man instantly: Addison Scott, a professional art thief released from Lakeview Prison just two weeks before. The detective takes photos of the paintings but warns the eager Penny, "Police work isn't like ordering hamburgers at a drive-thru."

Unwilling to just wait, Connie drags Penny around the local pawn shops. At the last one, Penny is stunned to spot Sunflower Silence sitting beside the dumpster. Inside, the owner, Tony, explains that a pale, skinny stranger tried to sell him three paintings that morning, but Tony never buys art, and the man stormed out angry. The other two paintings are not in the dumpster, but Tony mentions Sam, an elderly man he lets pick treasures out of his trash, and gives the girls his address.

Sam turns out to be a gruff old fellow who nearly slams the door on them, until he learns Penny is the artist. His shabby apartment is full of surprising beauty: a portrait made of bottle caps and a rosebush built from tin cans. And there, hanging by the window where the light brings out their colors, are Penny's two missing paintings. Sam rescued them from the trash and loves them; he was a landscape painter himself before his eyesight failed, and he tells Penny he can almost smell her lilacs. He gladly hands the paintings back when he hears about the fundraiser.

At the police station, Detective Polehaus has caught Addison Scott. Watching through a two-way mirror, Penny hears the thief confess that he grabbed the wrapped paintings thinking they were the expensive Philadelphia collection, then dumped what he calls amateur junk some girl slapped together in her garage. Penny is crushed and hides in the bathroom, while Mr. Henri wants to parade her distress in front of reporters. But when Penny emerges, she has made a decision. She remembers her high school art teacher, Mrs. Beauchamp, who taught that art uplifts the spirit and that famous paintings were expensive because they were beautiful, not beautiful because they were expensive. Penny realizes God gave her this talent to touch people, not to win fame, interviews, and price tags.

So instead of returning to the show, Penny drives back to Sam's apartment and gives him all three paintings, saying nobody else would appreciate her lilacs the way he does. She even invites him to be her assistant teacher at the hospital art class. Sam protests that she needs the money for those kids, but Penny trusts that the class will be taken care of somehow.

When Penny and Connie finally arrive at the art show, they find a wonderful surprise. Tony and Detective Polehaus are waiting, because Connie texted Jacques, who spread the story of Penny's kindness everywhere. "I must toot the goose for you," he explains cheerfully, mangling the saying as usual. The officers at the police station have taken up a collection, and Tony has chipped in extra money from the pawn shop, so the art class is fully funded after all. As Penny stands amazed and grateful, the detective announces that he came for the food and demands to be led to the cheese platter.