True Calling

With the school year nearly over, Mr. Douglas discovers that he has forgotten to confirm the Shakespearean troupe scheduled to entertain the students. Liz offers an unusual replacement: Irving Mendelson and Solly Greenfarb, two retired comedy magicians living at a nearby retirement home. Mr. Douglas agrees, relieved that anyone may be able to fill the empty program.

At the same time, Mandy meets with Mr. Douglas to discuss her future. She says she wants to become a writer, but he responds with discouraging facts about jobs, income, and the difficulty of making a living from words. His reaction is shaped by his own past. He once dreamed of designing clothes, but his mother urged him toward a more practical career, and he abandoned the idea.

Mandy begins researching the writing profession and becomes frightened by every gloomy statistic she finds. Whit helps her look at the question differently. Instead of trying to settle her entire life at once, she can consider what she loves, what comes naturally to her, and how her abilities might help other people. She can pray, try different paths, and take the future one step at a time.

Whit admits that he once thought he might pursue horticulture because he enjoyed plants. That interest was real, even though it did not become his life's principal work. Mandy begins to understand that discovering a calling is not the same as receiving a complete map of the future.

Meanwhile, Irving and Solly eagerly agree to perform at the school, but their rehearsal goes badly. Their props are old, their tuxedos no longer fit, and even a mirror needed for a trick breaks. They worry that their familiar jokes and routines have become hopelessly outdated.

Liz tries to help by writing newer jokes for them, but the two men cannot make her material sound like their own. Feeling useless and embarrassed, they decide to escape to Mexico. Their grand flight barely carries them beyond the retirement home before they turn back, but their fear follows them to the school assembly.

Facing an audience of four hundred children, Irving and Solly announce that they cannot perform. Whit responds in an unexpected way. He asks them to explain to Mandy why she should give up writing simply because success may be difficult.

The magicians immediately object. They tell Mandy not to abandon a gift she loves using, and they remember what their own work has meant during a fifty-five-year partnership. Among their most precious memories is performing for children with cancer and giving those children a reason to laugh. As they encourage Mandy, they hear the same lesson for themselves.

Irving and Solly find their courage and go on with the show. Their long experience matters more than perfect props or fashionable jokes, and the students receive the performance with delight. Mandy also decides that uncertainty about employment will not keep her from developing her writing.

Their example reaches Mr. Douglas as well. He resolves to call his mother and begin pursuing the fashion-design dream he set aside years ago. Whit tells Mandy that when she publishes her first work, he will celebrate with a bouquet of Cosmos bipinnatus - a writer's flowers for a young woman learning to follow her calling.