Snoop

Carter reflects on his growing social isolation at school. In math class, Ethan partners with Ben Havlicek instead of him, and Lacey partners with Maddox. When students split into pairs, three girls ask to form a triple, leaving Carter without a partner, and he volunteers to work alone. Maddox announces that he’s throwing a party on Saturday and has invited everyone in the class except Carter, taunting him through the camera by listing the party’s attractions, including pickleball, mini-golf, and a hot tub. Carter notices Ethan avoiding eye contact and understands that he plans to attend the party.

On Saturday, Carter is frustrated by the perfect weather for the party. His mother and Martin leave him alone for the afternoon. Fixated on the event he has been excluded from, Carter decides to attend remotely using his mother’s drone. He flies it over Maddox’s house and watches guests playing pickleball and mini-golf. He sees Maddox’s father grilling food and notices Ethan eating pizza. When Ethan looks directly at the drone, Carter interprets his expression as guilt followed by pity, recognizing that Ethan has identified the drone as his. Feeling increasingly miserable, Carter reflects on his behavior and recognizes that he has become a compulsive snoop, unsure of how to stop.

Carter watches as Maddox, Lacey, the other Chairmen, and Ethan enter the large hot tub and Mrs. Miller throws pool noodles into the water, leading to chaotic play. As Carter tries to pull the drone away, he overcorrects with the joystick, causing the drone to strike a crystal pitcher of pink lemonade. The pitcher falls and shatters on the patio, spilling liquid and ice and leaving the barefoot partygoers trapped in the hot tub as Mr. and Mrs. Miller rush out to prevent injuries. Carter flies the drone home and puts it away. When his mother returns later, he tells her that his afternoon was better than he expected.

At night, Carter flies the drone to follow a Zippy Airport van, hoping to track the smugglers. He follows the wrong vehicle, a legitimate shuttle dropping off a businessman in a suit at his house, where a woman greets him with a kiss. Carter returns to the courthouse just as another Zippy van speeds away. The van brakes suddenly, and Carter sees a three-toed sloth hanging from telephone wires. A smuggler climbs the pole with a net and recaptures the slow-moving animal. Carter watches conflictedly as the sloth is secured in the back of the van, believing that it may be safer with the smugglers than loose in Sterling. He follows the van back to the courthouse and watches the smugglers carry the sloth down stairs that appear to lead to a basement.

Suddenly, a flashlight beam floods the drone’s camera, revealing that the smugglers have noticed it. Two men jump into the van and begin chasing the drone. Carter evades them by flying over buildings but must land the drone on his patio. He rushes to the garage, making loud noises as the automatic door opens and closes while he stows the drone on its charger. He hears the Zippy van approaching his street. Panicking, he hides in the thick bushes lining the garage with his wheelchair. The van slowly drives down Marblehead Lane while a man in the passenger seat shines a flashlight on houses one by one. The beam passes over Carter’s hiding spot. The van turns around and comes back down the other side of the street. In the glow of the streetlight, Carter gets a clear look at the driver and is shocked to see his teacher, Mr. Grimes.

The morning after seeing Mr. Grimes drive the smugglers’ van, an exhausted Carter face-plants in his cereal at breakfast. He spent the night awake, fearful that Mr. Grimes is involved in the smuggling operation and may know where he lives. He pieces things together, recalling an instance when he saw Mr. Grimes with a woman who was not his wife, and speculates that the teacher may have developed the smuggling scheme after walking past the sixth-grade endangered species display across from his classroom. Despite his fear, Carter insists on attending his Zoom class to avoid arousing Mr. Grimes’s suspicion.

The doorbell rings, and Carter’s mother calls him to the front hall. A uniformed police officer, Officer Pickett, is at the door. He questions Carter about the strange animals he reported seeing and shows him a police sketch of a red panda created from another witness’s description. Carter confirms the animal’s identity. He is tempted to reveal what he suspects about the courthouse but refrains, fearing that he would have to admit that he continued spying after promising to stop. He tells Pickett only that he is no longer accessing the police cameras, as instructed. After Pickett leaves, Carter’s mother praises him for keeping his word. Carter checks and is relieved to find that the garage door is closed. He logs into Mr. Grimes’s class 40 minutes late and is reprimanded, but he doesn’t care because he’s angry at his teacher.

On Saturday afternoon, Carter flies the drone while his mother and Martin attend a bowling party. He worries about the woman who recently gave birth and notes that he can monitor his mother’s SUV at the bowling alley to know when to stow the drone. While flying over downtown, he witnesses Louie and Janine, the rival restaurant owners, erupt into a public confrontation in the middle of the street, brandishing kitchen tools as their security personnel attempt to restrain them and the police eventually force their way in. He notices that the red Maserati is back in its usual spot, with the driver sitting inside and watching. Feeling that spying on people at their worst moments is wrong, he brings the drone home early.

When the doorbell rings, Carter sees Mr. Grimes through the side panel of the front door. Panicked and convinced that Mr. Grimes knows about the drone, Carter hides and refuses to answer. Mr. Grimes speaks through the door, addressing Carter’s social problems at school. He explains that he knows that Carter’s student ambassadors are no longer coming to him and that Ethan has stopped visiting. He compares Carter’s situation to his own unresolved conflict with his brother, warning that toxic problems do not resolve themselves without being confronted. Carter is conflicted, recognizing that much of what Mr. Grimes says about school is accurate while still believing that he’s involved in the smuggling operation. After Mr. Grimes leaves, Carter reflects on how overwhelmed he feels by his injury, his isolation at school, the animal trafficking, and the danger he believes he is in. He realizes that something has to change even though he sees no safe way to ask for help.

Later that Saturday, Carter considers telling his mother about the smugglers before she leaves to photograph a wedding but decides against worrying her or jeopardizing her work. He gives Martin permission to rebuild the Lego Titanic to keep him occupied. Carter tries calling Ethan to repair their friendship, first reaching voicemail on his cell phone. He then calls Ethan’s house, and Mr. Harouni answers, saying that Ethan is out with friends. Carter convinces himself that using the drone again is a matter of safety rather than snooping, reasoning that he needs to keep an eye on Mr. Grimes and the smugglers and stay alert now that he’s responsible for Martin. He flies the drone to the courthouse and is relieved to see the Zippy Airport shuttle parked inside the fence.

While flying over downtown, he spots Ethan with Maddox, Lacey, and the other Chairmen of the Bored. He watches them place a sign reading “JAWS” on a pet-shop window above a small goldfish. Carter is angry and hurt that Ethan appears to have joined the Chairmen. Martin comes outside and discovers Carter flying the drone. He threatens to tell their mother, and Carter begs him not to, offering excuses and assurances without explaining the real reason. Martin stops listening and stares at the controller screen, asking about a large cat. Carter looks at the screen and recognizes the animal as a snow leopard.

Carter explains to Martin that the snow leopard is an escaped animal connected to a smuggling operation based at the old courthouse. Prompted by Martin’s questions, Carter realizes for the first time that the escaped animals could pose a danger to people. Watching the drone feed, he sees the Chairmen of the Bored heading toward the snow leopard, which is prowling nearby. Carter tries calling his mother but reaches voicemail. He then calls the Sterling Police Department, but the dispatcher is dismissive and does not take his report seriously. Carter tells Martin to lock himself inside the house.

Carter races downtown in his wheelchair to warn the others, narrowly avoiding a taxi and later a pickup truck. As he approaches, the snow leopard is rummaging through a trash can while the Chairmen move closer. When the animal reacts to their presence, Carter shouts for the group to run and positions himself between the cat and the kids. The Chairmen scatter as the snow leopard turns its attention to Carter and gives chase. Knowing he cannot outrun the animal, Carter deliberately steers his wheelchair into a streetlight and climbs the pole as the snow leopard attempts to follow, its claws unable to gain purchase on the metal.

A Zippy Airport Service van arrives and fires a tranquilizer dart at the snow leopard, causing it to collapse. Three men load the unconscious animal into the van. Still clinging to the pole, Carter fears being discovered. When the driver enters the van, the streetlight reveals that he is not Mr. Grimes but a man who looks almost identical, distinguished by a mole on his cheek. Carter realizes that this man is Mr. Grimes’s twin brother and that he, not Mr. Grimes, is the smuggler. He also understands that the man he previously saw dining with another woman was the twin, not his teacher.

As the smugglers’ van begins to pull away, Carter notices that the drone is still hovering. He slides down the pole and crawls across the grass to retrieve the damaged but still-functioning controller. He sends the drone into a high arc to build momentum and then launches it in a dive. The drone smashes through the windshield and strikes the driver’s face, causing the van to jump the curb and crash into the front of a barbershop. Police cars arrive moments later, and officers arrest the smugglers, including Mr. Grimes’s twin brother, who is bleeding from cuts caused by the shattered glass.

Carter considers revealing himself but holds back, fearing punishment for using the drone and for the spying that the police have already warned him against. He realizes that he’s stranded on the grass with two broken legs and no way back into his overturned wheelchair. Lacey finds him, helps retrieve the wheelchair, and assists him back into it. When Carter checks the controller, the screen shows “NO SIGNAL,” indicating that the drone is no longer transmitting. Lacey praises him for saving them from what she thought was a panther. Officer Pickett arrives, and Lacey explains that she was the one who called the police. Carter then tells Pickett everything he knows about the smuggling operation and the animals involved.

About 20 minutes later, Carter and Lacey wait nearby as the police use bolt cutters to open the basement entrance of the old courthouse. A strong stench pours out. Inside, they see the animals being held in makeshift cells: a bonobo, a sloth, a tree kangaroo, a swift fox, two red pandas, a giant tortoise, and a black-footed ferret. The cells are crudely reinforced with cardboard, twine, and duct tape. Officer Pickett explains that Animal Control will take the animals that night and that conservation authorities will be contacted in the morning. Pickett later drives Carter and Lacey home, warning Carter that his mother has called the precinct several times after finding Martin alone and Carter missing.

Carter’s reunion with his mother that night is amicable, partly because Officer Pickett explains his role in saving the Chairmen and helping expose the smuggling operation, but mainly because she had already decided she would not be angry if he came back alive. Carter admits that the drone was destroyed, but his mother dismisses the loss, explaining that it was insured and can be replaced. On Monday morning, Carter’s entire class gives him a standing ovation on Zoom. He has reconciled with Ethan, and even Maddox joins in the applause. News of the events appears in the local paper and on television, and the mayor declares the following Saturday “Carter Peregrine Day” (188). Carter notes that the animals are now in the custody of the World Wildlife Federation and will be returned to the wild.

Carter speaks privately with Mr. Grimes and apologizes for his brother’s arrest. Mr. Grimes responds that responsibility lies with his brother’s actions, not Carter, and encourages him to focus on the animals that were saved. Carter explains that his casts will be removed on Wednesday and that he expects to return to school the following week.

On Wednesday, Carter and his mother are delayed by traffic caused by the demolition of the old courthouse. A new sign announces the site as the future location of a banquet hall run jointly by Louie and Janine. At the medical appointment, Carter’s casts are removed and replaced with walking boots and crutches, and his recovery is described as progressing well. Later, his mother returns his phone to him.

While walking downtown, Carter sees the former pregnant woman with her new baby girl and a now well-behaved Frankenkid, who is singing lullabies to his sister. Carter reflects on the change and feels hopeful about his own relationship with Martin. He then notices the red Maserati and decides to resolve the mystery. He speaks to the driver, who explains that he has been waiting there in hopes of seeing a woman he met months earlier at the Paris Art Shop after losing her contact information. As they talk, the woman, Audrey, emerges from the shop, and the two are reunited. Audrey shows Carter the photograph she has purchased: The Diaper Shot. Carter is briefly unsettled until Audrey explains that it will be displayed at her parents’ beach house in California.