The Pretty Good Samaritan

Connie gives her Sunday school class creative assignments based on Bible stories. Brenda Perry plans a puppet show about the ten lepers Jesus healed, only one of whom returned to thank him. Charles Thompson chooses the Good Samaritan, intending to represent the characters with decorated Popsicle sticks. He understands the story easily: two men ignore an injured stranger, while a third stops to help.

At school, Charles is assigned a new seat beside Glenn Adams. Glenn is friendly but endlessly talkative. He rejects Charles’s pencil because it is the wrong hardness, warns him about killer bees, distracts him from a geography test, criticizes his posture, and even comments on his breathing. Charles repeatedly gets blamed for the talking and quickly decides that Glenn is unbearable.

While Charles and Brenda work on their projects, Brenda finds a reminder from her mother to write thank-you notes for birthday gifts she received months ago. She sees no point because her relatives have probably forgotten what they sent. The two children then design the selfish characters in their Bible presentations to be ugly and obnoxious. Charles imagines the men who pass the injured traveler saying that they have better things to do than get their hands dirty.

Glenn invites Charles to his birthday party and admits that it will be his first party since moving to Odyssey. He has made few friends and considers Charles the best one he has. Rather than accept, Charles asks Brenda to pretend she has invited him shopping on the same evening. He fears that attending the party will make Glenn think they are friends.

Afterward, Glenn claims the party was wonderful and describes presents, food, air hockey, and games of Capture the Flag. Charles notices that Glenn’s story cannot be true because a severe thunderstorm had covered their neighborhood that night. Cornered by the questions, Glenn finally admits that there was no party. He had handed out one hundred invitations, but no one came. Only Glenn and his parents were there.

That night Charles dreams that he finds Glenn bruised and helpless beside the road after an attack. Even in the dream, Glenn gives fussy instructions about being carried safely. Charles refuses to help because he does not like him and repeats the cruel lines he had prepared for the Good Samaritan play. Glenn begs as Charles walks away, and Charles wakes with the sound of those cries in his mind.

During Sunday school, Brenda performs the story of the healed lepers. Charles then begins his Good Samaritan presentation, but when his Popsicle-stick Levite passes the injured man, Charles becomes overwhelmed by the connection to his own choice. He stops the play and asks to finish it another week. Later he tells Brenda about the dream and admits that using Glenn’s irritating behavior as an excuse is no better than the excuses in the parable.

Brenda realizes that the lesson applies to her as well. When Connie has gone home after making ice cream for the class, Brenda runs after her simply to say thank you. She is the only student who has done so. Charles visits Glenn, apologizes, and invites him to play catch. Glenn immediately begins recommending goggles and powerful sunscreen, but this time Charles tries to accept his new friend as he is. Living out the Good Samaritan’s example, he discovers, will be much harder than making a play about it.