At the April school dance, Tommy and his friends Harvey and Kellen sit on the edge of the stage with the other students who aren’t cool or brave enough to dance with partners. Dwight joins them. At the last event, Dwight decided to dance by himself, bumped into the popular Jennifer and spilled her drink, cleaned it up by sliding around on the spill, then asked her to dance, calling her “m’lady.” She refused. Harvey complains that Dwight makes the rest of them look bad. Dwight replies: “You mean just stand here doing nothing like you guys do? […] Okay” (10). He stands stock-still for the rest of the evening.

Tommy’s friends pester him to ask Hannah to dance. She’s not his favorite—that privilege belongs to Sara—but Hannah is standing nearby, and she’s been nice to him, and any dance is better than none. Tommy nervously works up his courage and begins to walk toward her. Dwight suddenly cuts him off and, holding up his paper puppet, tells Tommy to avoid possible embarrassment and “Ask Origami Yoda” (12). It’s the first time Tommy has done this. Harvey demands that Dwight stop it, but Kellen, curious, asks for advice. Dwight says he doesn’t have any, but Yoda does. In a bad imitation of the Yoda character from Star Wars, he intones: “Rush in fools do” (13).

The kids argue over the meaning of Yoda’s words until Mark, a seventh-grader, shows up. Hannah rushes to him and they kiss. Tommy realizes that Yoda saved him a great deal of public shame.

On the case study manuscript printout, Harvey adds a handwritten comment that calls Yoda a “paperwad”; he insists that, even if Yoda were real, he wouldn’t waste his time counseling Tommy on social moves, and that “fools rush in” is from an Elvis Presley song (16). Tommy writes a rebuttal that points out that Yoda’s advice was spot-on, that Yoda’s not a paperwad but origami, and he helped Kellen out of a jam.

As the school day begins, Kellen is in the school bathroom; on the wall, he sees “Kellen drinks pee” and leans over the sink to erase it (18). Water from the sink stains his pants so it looks like he peed on himself. His shirt isn’t long enough to hide the stain, and Rhondella Carrasquilla, the girl he’s interested in, will see it when he arrives at homeroom. Kellen’s friend Lance Alexander notices it. Kellen asks him to vouch that it’s not pee, but Lance doesn’t want to spend all day doing that. Kellen asks him to retrieve his long coat from a classroom; Lance says there’s no time and leaves.

Kellen can’t stand around waiting for the stain to dry: If he’s late one more time to homeroom, he’ll get in-school suspension, an extremely boring experience. Also, his parents will withhold his PlayStation for two weeks.

Dwight emerges from a stall, sees the situation, and brings out Yoda, who says: “All of pants you must wet” (21). Kellen splashes water all over his clothes and hurries to homeroom. Mr. Howell doesn’t question him about his wet clothes, and Rhondella doesn’t think he peed on himself. In PE class, Kellen changes into dry sweatpants. Grateful for the way things turned out, Kellen decides Yoda is “Jedi wise.”

Harvey says that a real Yoda would have dried Kellen’s pants. Tommy replies that the advice was very good on short notice, and that Dwight can’t possibly be smart enough to think up something that clever. It must, then, be the wisdom of the Yoda puppet.

Mike Coley wants nothing more than to get a hit in softball. Every time, he tries so hard, but he either swings and misses three times or hits a bloop to the pitcher, who throws him out. After each failure, he cries angry tears, and now he’s known as the kid who’s no good at softball and cries a lot.

Mike—who believes in the Force—decides to consult the puppet. At lunch, he asks for Yoda’s advice on hitting homeruns. Yoda asks him why he wants to do that; Mike says he’s tired of the other players thinking they’re better than him. Yoda stares, then says: “Better than you they are” (28), and the other boys laugh. Mike storms off.

Dwight follows Mike and tells him that Yoda isn’t finished: “Let go of your feelings, Mike. Hate and revenge to the dark side only lead” (29). In PE, Mike decides to empty his thoughts when at bat. He doesn’t swing, gets a strike, then two balls—his first ever—then another strike. He decides he needs to swing; he does so, misses, and strikes out.

He asks Dwight why he failed again: Yoda says: “Cry you did not” (31). Mike realizes it’s ok with him that other boys are better at softball. More relaxed, he begins to get walks. He still strikes out a lot, though.

Harvey says that, because the pitching is so bad, anyone can get walks if they just stand there. He approves, though, of Mike no longer crying. Tommy retorts that Harvey completely misses the point—“there are more important things than home runs” (32).

Every morning before school starts, Sara and her friends sit at a library table next to Kellen and Tommy’s group. The boys annoy them with their constant blather. The girls think about moving, but they also like that the guys flirt with them.

Sara writes that Dwight “loves to play dumb, but he’s got this sly smirk on his face” (34). She lives next door to him; over the years, she’s watched him behave “weirdly”—he digs holes in his backyard, sits in them, then fills them back up—but he’s not stupid. Kellen lost his jacket and asks Yoda where it is, and all Yoda says is: “The Twist you must learn” (34). Dwight brings Yoda to the girls’ table, then to all the other tables, and Yoda keeps repeating the Twist advice.

Harvey says “The Twist” is a song in a Spider-Man movie. That night, Sara and Amy look up the song on the Internet; they find an old video that shows a guy singing and dancing. Sara’s grandmother remembers dancing the Twist, and she teaches it to the girls. They catch on quickly and do the Twist together, along with some other dances that Sara’s grandmother knows. Everyone has fun, and Sara’s grandmother seems the happiest she’s been since her recent divorce—or before it, for that matter.

Harvey inks a snarky comment—“a tear is slowly rolling down my cheek” (38). He says that Sara’s report sounds like a corny Hallmark movie. Tommy defends her; he also admits that he “wasted” 30 minutes in his room at home practicing the dance.