Anna settled herself comfortably in her chair and waited for her classmates to do the same and for the history class to begin. Everyone was busy scrounging for pens and pencils and shuffling books and notes until the long-legged teacher strode in. Then it was so quiet that Anna hardly wanted to move.

Mr. Hanlon gave an assignment due the following week: a book report on the American Revolution. "Oh, no!" Anna moaned to herself, and could hear the person behind her groan. She was relieved at the mutual distaste for the assignment. "I detest book reports. I just detest them — and on the Revolutionary War." She spent the rest of the class complaining to herself about the horrid assignment.

Several days passed, and she forced herself to go to the library to look for a book for the dreaded report. After spending half an hour examining books, she checked out one she wanted to read, but it certainly wasn't on the Revolutionary War. "I'll come tomorrow," she kept putting it off.

Finally, with one day to go before the report was due, she made her way back to the library shelf to find that all the books she'd previously considered possibilities were gone and she was left with the worst of the worst.

"Maybe I just won't do the paper," she pondered.

Since it was nearly the end of the term, she had to do the paper. Anna studied all the book titles and finally found one she thought would be bearable. She really had to hurry and read the book and write a report because she had other homework due the next day, too. She was beginning to feel a little frantic with all the work piled upon her, but told herself she'd go right home from school and start work and by bedtime she'd have everything finished.

As she was getting on the bus to go home, she met a girl friend who asked her to roller-skate after school. Anna at first said No, she had too much work to do, but when her friend persisted Anna gave in. "I'll just come for a little while, then I must go home and study."

Anna was having such a good time at the roller rink that she barely made it home in time for dinner. But she wasn't worried; she had all evening to work.

As soon as she gulped down her dinner, she rushed to her room and started on her assignments. After struggling with her math, she started on English composition, then science problems. It was getting awfully late (she kept yawning), and she still had more to do for science class and hadn't started working on her book report yet. She decided to complete her science homework and get up early to skim the history book and whip up a paper. Confident she could get everything done, she dozed off complacently after setting her alarm clock for six thirty.

Morning came too soon for Anna, but she jumped out of bed, dressed, and started skimming her book on the Revolutionary War while nibbling a piece of toast. She skimmed a few pages but realized she hadn't understood what she'd read, as her thoughts were elsewhere.

"Time for the bus," she was reminded.

She grabbed her coat and books and tore out the door just in time. Every spare moment she had she pored over that book, but still she had no idea of what to write. In the study hall before history class she started to scribble a few disorganized thoughts. Then she noticed that on the flap of the red jacket quite a bit was written about the book, and it sounded impressive. She used some of the exact words in her report thinking that Mr. Hanlon wouldn't notice. She felt quite pleased with herself and handed the paper in with a sigh of relief.

She forgot all about the paper until the next week when the history teacher was to return the book reports. That day he lectured the class on cheating and copying other people's words and using them for your own. Then he read Anna's report out loud in front of the whole class and turned to Anna and asked her if those were her own words.

Anna was so ashamed she hadn't made time to do her work as she should have. What could she do to make her teacher and classmates know she really was honest, that she had merely been lazy and careless? She just felt terrible after that and couldn't speak to anyone.

Anna went home and shut herself in her room to think about what she had done and should do. She thumbed through her Science and Health and found a helpful passage where Mrs. Eddy says: "Honesty is spiritual power. Dishonesty is human weakness, which forfeits divine help. You uncover sin, not in order to injure, but in order to bless the corporeal man; and a right motive has its reward." ^{Science and Health, p. 453.}

She knew that in being dishonest she had not practiced what she knew from Christian Science. She had given in to a very wrong impulse that had urged her to cheat. The real man has no weakness, and has nothing to do with dishonesty. Anna also saw that she could not be hurt by the teacher pointing her out as having cheated, but that she would learn more about God and her relation to Him and consequently be blessed by the experience.

With these thoughts in mind she wrote a note of apology to Mr. Hanlon asking for another opportunity to do the book report and put it on his desk. After class a few days later he told Anna he had never received a note like that from a student. He allowed her to do the report again and treated her in a friendly way when she turned it in.

Anna smiled inside and out and raced a friend to the bus.