W-O-R-R-Y

Erica Clark dreads class-picture day because every school year has given her another embarrassing photograph. Hoping this year will be different, she visits a beauty salon and asks for only a small trim. The distracted hairdresser talks to everyone around her while cutting, and Erica leaves with what she considers the worst haircut in history. She hides it beneath her father’s large hunting hat and tells Jack that another terrible yearbook picture is now certain.

Sam Johnson has a worry of his own. He enters the school’s Academic Olympics expecting to do well, but the final event will be a spelling bee in front of the entire school. Sam is an excellent student and won the competition last year, yet spelling is his weakest subject. He begins reading the dictionary from the beginning, then despairs at how many words remain. When Erica joins him, the two decide to pray: Sam asks God to get him out of the spelling bee, and Erica asks for help with her hair.

At home, Erica’s mother refuses to let her keep moping. With a little restyling and the promise of a bow, she makes the uneven haircut look better than it did before. Erica joyfully concludes that God has answered her prayer. Sam also believes his problem may disappear. Since he is leading after four events, a strong score in history and geography could put him so far ahead that the spelling bee would not matter.

Their confidence does not last. During a bicycle race, Erica’s brakes fail and she falls, scratching her cheek the day before pictures. A helmet has protected her from serious injury, but all Erica can see is another ruined photograph. Sam then learns that he has not secured his lead; he and Kim Peterson are tied for first place. The winner will be decided by the very spelling bee he hoped to avoid.

The photographer cannot persuade Erica to face the camera without hiding her scratch, but he offers her another chance when he returns for retakes. Erica is grateful, yet she becomes afraid that something else will spoil the new picture. She avoids her bicycle, treats drinking straws as hazards, and worries about pimples, illness, and flying stones. Meanwhile, Sam prays for an earthquake, a hurricane, or even a snowstorm to cancel the spelling bee.

Jack helps both children understand that trusting God does not always mean doing the same thing. Erica cannot control every possible accident, so worrying will not protect her; she can be reasonably careful and entrust the rest to God. Sam, however, can improve his situation through work. Using the excuse that God will handle everything would only help him avoid his responsibility. Jack begins teaching him spelling rules and shows him how to picture each word in his mind.

At the Academic Olympics, Kim wins the trophy and Sam finishes third. He is not ashamed of losing. After practicing instead of panicking, he has spelled far better than he expected and congratulates Kim sincerely. When she asks what changed, he explains, “I just stopped worrying.”

Later, Erica brings her unopened packet of school pictures to Jack. She still feels nervous, but she now knows she will be all right even if the photograph is imperfect. Jack teasingly pretends something is wrong before revealing a perfectly ordinary picture. Erica gazes at it with delight: at last, she looks normal.