LaVaughn spots a babysitting flyer on her school's job board and calls the number, connecting with a girl named Jolly.

LaVaughn visits Jolly's apartment and discovers Jolly is only 17, already raising a 2-year-old son and a baby girl.

Jeremy reaches up and takes LaVaughn's hand during the interview, and she decides to accept the babysitting job.

LaVaughn's mother agrees to the babysitting job but warns that letting her grades slip will cause LaVaughn to be sorry from her life.

LaVaughn brings a pot of soil and lemon seeds to Jolly's apartment and helps Jeremy plant them.

Jolly comes home one night with her face badly scraped, telling LaVaughn she has no family to call for help.

LaVaughn calls her own mother, who arrives with a first-aid kit to help clean and treat Jolly's wound.

Jolly is fired from her factory job after fighting back against her boss's sexual harassment in a supply closet.

Jolly calls her former employer fourteen times to report her boss's harassment but receives no response and no justice.

When Jolly asks to borrow LaVaughn's babysitting money, LaVaughn refuses, resolving never to let anything threaten her college savings.

LaVaughn calls the Moms Up Program on Jolly's behalf and makes an appointment for her; Jolly reluctantly agrees to attend.

Jolly begins earning Bs and then As in the Moms Up Program, feeling pride in her accomplishments for the first time.

Jilly chokes on a plastic spider leg and Jolly drops to her knees, performing CPR with skills she learned in school.

Jeremy runs to the phone and dials the number 9, helping LaVaughn complete the 911 call that summons the ambulance.

Jolly briefly stops LaVaughn in the school hallway to tell her that Jeremy's lemon seeds have finally sprouted into growth.

LaVaughn, a 14-year-old determined to reach college, answers a babysitting ad and discovers it was posted by 17-year-old Jolly, a single mother struggling to raise two small children in poverty. Despite concerns from her own mother, LaVaughn takes the job and begins building a bond with Jolly and her children. After Jolly is sexually harassed and fired, her situation grows desperate, and LaVaughn must draw a firm line between helping Jolly and protecting her own future. LaVaughn eventually helps Jolly join the Moms Up Program at school, where Jolly finds pride in academic achievement for the first time. The climax arrives when Jolly uses her newly learned CPR skills to save baby Jilly from choking, proving her dedication as a mother. The novel closes with a small but powerful symbol of hope, as Jolly tells LaVaughn that the lemon seeds they planted together have finally sprouted.

The core story of LaVaughn's babysitting journey and Jolly's transformation.

LaVaughn's friends Myrtle and Annie warn her that the babysitting job at Jolly's will hurt her grades and cause problems.

During her first babysitting week, LaVaughn notices a spider web trembling over Jilly's high chair every time the baby cries.

LaVaughn gets a C-minus on a test after her babysitting duties leave her too tired to study properly.

With only three diapers left, LaVaughn successfully potty-trains Jeremy, and baby Jilly forms what LaVaughn calls a committee of congratulations.

LaVaughn enlists Jeremy's help to scrub Jolly's apartment floor until they discover it is a surprising blue color underneath all the grime.

LaVaughn teaches Jeremy to make his bed with no wrinkles, telling him to do it out of self-respect.

LaVaughn and Jolly mute the TV and invent silly dialogue together, laughing until neither of them feels any pain.

Jolly reveals to LaVaughn that she once lived on the streets as a Box Girl in a refrigerator box with other homeless kids.

LaVaughn babysits Jolly's children for free while Jolly searches for work and spends her own money to buy Jeremy new shoes.

LaVaughn takes Jolly to Steam Class at school; Jolly hides her nervousness behind a pretense of snobbish indifference.

A teacher notices LaVaughn is performing better and recommends Leadership Class, Financial Aid Seminar, and Grammar Build-Up for her future.

Jeremy catches chickenpox, forcing Jolly to stay home from school and causing her hard-earned grades in the Moms Up Program to fall.

LaVaughn and Jolly have their biggest fight when LaVaughn makes a sharp comment about Jolly handling birth control only part way.

The daycare staff notices Jeremy struggling with coordination and puzzles, and Jolly takes him to the doctor, where he is fitted for glasses.

After Jolly no longer needs her help, LaVaughn starts a new job cleaning a church several times a week.

While the headline events of LaVaughn's time with Jolly involve crises and turning points, the texture of their relationship is built through smaller, equally significant moments. From LaVaughn's friends warning her about the job to her quietly potty-training Jeremy and scrubbing the filthy apartment floor, LaVaughn slowly takes on a parenting role that transforms her. Jolly and LaVaughn also share moments of genuine joy, like laughing helplessly over a muted TV, even as the weight of poverty and bad luck presses down on them both. As Jolly enters the Moms Up Program, new challenges arise, including Jeremy's chickenpox derailing Jolly's academic progress and the girls' most painful personal fight coming to a head. Jeremy eventually receives the glasses he has long needed, and despite every strain, their friendship leaves lasting marks on both girls. By the novel's end, LaVaughn has moved on to a new job, but the time she spent caring for Jeremy and Jilly has quietly changed who she is.

The everyday moments and setbacks that shape LaVaughn and Jolly's relationship.

LaVaughn's mother tells her that no one in their building has ever gone to college but insists somebody got to be the first.

LaVaughn wipes a spot off Jolly's dirty mirror to see herself more clearly and feels sudden fear about her own future.

Jeremy sneaks up on Jilly and cuts off her trademark curl, and LaVaughn counts to twenty to stop herself from hitting him.

Jolly asks LaVaughn about her father, and LaVaughn reveals he was shot and killed accidentally during gang violence at a playground.

LaVaughn urges Jolly to return to school and accept welfare, but Jolly flatly refuses, terrified the state will take her children.

LaVaughn reflects on how her mother transformed into a big Mom after her father's death, expanding to fill the role of both parents.

LaVaughn approaches the Steam Class teacher about helping Jolly and is shaken to realize the teacher thinks she is exploiting Jolly.

Jolly tries to explain her feeling of total isolation by describing an astronaut floating in space with a cord that could break.

For a school assignment, Jolly writes a letter to a billionaire and, for the first time, calmly corrects her own spelling mistakes.

Jolly reveals she once had a loving foster mother she called Gram, who taught her that soil must be rototilled or nothing grows.

Jolly excitedly retells a story she heard in school about a poor blind woman who makes lemonade for her hungry children.

Jilly takes her very first independent steps across Jolly's apartment floor, not knowing whether she is going to fall down or fly.

A letter arrives from the billionaire Jolly wrote to, promising her a check when she successfully earns her GED certificate.

LaVaughn tells her mother what happened to Jilly, and her mother lifts Jeremy into the air, spinning him and declaring him a hero.

After the choking crisis, Jolly stops calling LaVaughn entirely, and LaVaughn realizes she has been broken off like part of Jolly's bad past.

Beneath the surface events of Make Lemonade lies a series of revelations that reframe how both LaVaughn and the reader understand each character. LaVaughn's fierce drive toward college is rooted in her mother's early declaration that someone from their building must be the first to go, while a glimpse in Jolly's dirty mirror makes LaVaughn fear she could end up like Jolly if she isn't careful. Jolly's past unfolds gradually, from the accidental shooting that took LaVaughn's father to Jolly's own revelation about Gram, the foster mother who once gave her a real home and taught her that you have to rototill or nothing grows. Critical turning points include Jolly learning to correct her own mistakes for the first time, hearing the lemonade story that reframes her entire life, and applying her CPR training when Jilly's life hangs in the balance. The aftermath brings a final revelation of a different kind, as Jolly pulls away from LaVaughn, leaving her to grieve the relationship while holding onto the image of her mother twirling Jeremy in joyful praise.

The discoveries, decisions, and emotional shifts that drive each character's growth.