Stargirl appears on the first day of junior year, singing and playing her ukulele among the cafeteria tables while students stare in silent amazement.

Hillari Kimble insists Stargirl is a planted actress hired by school administrators to boost morale and spreads rumors to keep students from accepting her.

Stargirl crashes the football game halftime show, dancing across the field with the band before punting the ball and running out of the stadium.

The cheerleading captain convinces Stargirl to join the squad, and Stargirl begins practicing and wearing the uniform while still acting like her free-spirited self.

Stargirl becomes the most popular girl at Mica High as students begin imitating her kindness and embracing their own individuality for the first time.

Leo and Kevin finally invite Stargirl to appear as a guest on their school television show, Hot Seat, and she accepts.

Hillari Kimble takes over the Hot Seat jury and demands Stargirl explain why she cannot simply be normal like everyone else.

An angry fan throws a tomato at Stargirl's face during a basketball playoff loss, and the Mica crowd laughs and applauds.

Stargirl leads Leo to her enchanted desert spot and teaches him to sit in silence until the universe speaks.

Leo tells Stargirl that something must change between them because no one at school will speak to him anymore.

Stargirl adopts the name Susan and transforms her appearance — jeans, makeup, no ukulele — to look and act like everyone else.

Susan delivers an unconventional mockingbird-inspired speech at the state oratorical finals and earns a thunderous standing ovation from the auditorium.

Susan returns home from the competition expecting a celebrating crowd but finds only two teachers and Dori Dilson waiting in the parking lot.

Hillari slaps Stargirl at the Ocotillo Ball, and Stargirl responds by kissing her on the cheek before leaving the dance forever.

Adult Leo receives a mysterious porcupine necktie in the mail on his most recent birthday, suggesting Stargirl still remembers him.

A free-spirited girl named Stargirl arrives at Mica Area High School and immediately captivates the student body with her singing, dancing, and radical kindness. Her popularity peaks as students begin imitating her positivity, but the tide turns when her all-inclusive cheerleading is blamed for the basketball team's playoff loss. After a brutal interrogation on the school television show Hot Seat, Stargirl is fully shunned, and Leo pressures her to give up her identity and become an ordinary girl named Susan. Susan's attempt to win acceptance through an oratorical competition fails when she returns home to an empty parking lot, and she quickly reverts to her true self. Stargirl's final act at the Ocotillo Ball — leading a joyful dance and meeting Hillari's slap with a kiss — seals her legend before she disappears from Mica forever. Years later, Leo still hopes to see her again, sustained by the enduring memory of her love.

The headline story of Stargirl's rise, fall, and lasting impact.

Leo's mother mentions his wish for porcupine neckties in the local newspaper, and days later an anonymous sender mails him one.

Leo secretly follows Stargirl after school and watches her drop an unsigned letter in a mailbox before walking into the desert.

Stargirl sings Happy Birthday at lunchtime using Leo's name instead of Hillari's, embarrassing Leo while secretly making him happy.

Leo and Kevin visit their friend Archie, who confirms he helped homeschool Stargirl for years and assures them she is genuinely unique.

Inspired by Stargirl, students across Mica High begin starting clubs, dyeing their hair, and expressing their individuality for the first time.

Stargirl attends the funeral of a student's grandfather uninvited and is angrily expelled from the post-funeral luncheon by the girl's mother.

The Mica basketball team starts winning for the first time while Stargirl cheerfully cheers for points scored by both teams.

The cheerleading squad tricks Stargirl and deliberately leaves her stranded at an away game while the team bus returns to Mica.

Faculty advisor Mr. Robineau destroys the Hot Seat videotape so Stargirl's chaotic episode never airs on the local cable channel.

Stargirl slips a valentine into Leo's notebook signed with a small star and stick-figure drawing that reads 'I love you.'

Leo walks to Stargirl's house, hides behind a parked car, and nervously talks to her while confessing he thinks she is cute.

Leo realizes that other students will not speak to him or meet his eyes whenever he is walking alongside Stargirl.

Stargirl and Leo play a mall game, following strangers for fifteen minutes to imagine what encouraging greeting card each person might need.

Stargirl posts a giant sign at school reading 'Stargirl Loves Leo,' publicly declaring her feelings and mortifying Leo in front of everyone.

Leo discovers that Stargirl's house is completely empty and listed for sale during the summer after the Ocotillo Ball.

Before Stargirl ever became famous at Mica High, she was already quietly watching over the people around her, as revealed by the mysterious porcupine necktie she sent to a lonely new student years earlier. The months of her arrival are filled with small but pivotal moments — a secret walk into the desert, a birthday serenade in disguise, and a visit to a wise old teacher named Archie who vouches for her authenticity. As her popularity sparked a brief renaissance of individuality, Stargirl was also committing acts of unsolicited kindness that some found touching and others found intrusive, earning her new enemies. The basketball season brought both triumph and cruelty, with cheerleaders stranding her at an away game and fans turning hostile. Leo's relationship with Stargirl deepened through private moments — hiding outside her house, wandering a mall together, and discovering a hidden Valentine — but the growing social cost of being associated with her became impossible to ignore. The final discovery of her empty house captures both the abruptness of her departure and the quiet mystery she left behind.

The overlooked moments that quietly shaped Stargirl's story.

As moonlight fills his bedroom at night, Leo concludes that Stargirl is genuinely real and not a planted actress as Hillari claimed.

After Leo marvels at the positive changes Stargirl brought to school, Archie solemnly warns him that miracles do not last long.

Stargirl anonymously arranges for a sick nine-year-old boy to receive a new bicycle, confusing his entire family who cannot trace the gift.

Stargirl walks out of a basketball game midway through because she cannot bear to watch the opposing team losing so badly.

During Hot Seat filming, Cinnamon escapes and startles the jury, giving the episode an unexpectedly lighthearted opening before the mood turns dark.

Stargirl tells the Hot Seat jury that the reason she left homeschooling and enrolled at Mica High was simply to make friends.

Archie asks Leo directly whose affection he values more — Stargirl's or the other students' — and Leo pretends not to understand.

While walking with Stargirl, Leo suddenly realizes she was the anonymous person who mailed him the porcupine necktie years earlier.

Leo knocks Cinnamon from his shoulder in embarrassed frustration, and the entire student body turns its full shunning onto Leo.

Stargirl calmly tells Leo that she already knows he will not invite her to the upcoming Ocotillo Ball.

After returning from the oratorical competition to an empty parking lot, Stargirl abandons the Susan persona entirely and returns to her old self by Monday.

Stargirl arrives at the Ocotillo Ball in a flower-covered bicycle sidecar pedaled by Dori, with Cinnamon riding in a basket, stunning all onlookers.

Stargirl requests the bunny hop from the band and leads a joyful chain of dancers off into the dark golf course.

Archie shows Leo Stargirl's secret workshop and reveals that on her town birthday calendar, only Leo's birthday was marked with a red heart.

Kevin reports at every class reunion that all former students still talk and wonder about Stargirl, and her positive influence endures throughout the school.

The most transformative events in Stargirl are not always the dramatic public scenes but the quiet realizations and small choices that shift everything. From the moment Leo concludes by moonlight that Stargirl is genuinely real, to the instant he learns she secretly sent him a cherished gift years before, his understanding of her deepens with each new revelation. Archie acts as an oracle throughout, pressing Leo to recognize his own divided loyalties before it is too late, while Stargirl's own candid moments — confessing why she came to school, calmly predicting Leo will not take her to the dance — reveal how clearly she sees everything. The turning points accelerate: Leo's failure to protect Cinnamon triggers the full fury of the school's shunning, and Susan's reversion to Stargirl after the empty parking lot marks the end of her attempt at conformity. In the story's final act, Stargirl's grand entrance at the Ocotillo Ball and the joyful bunny hop she leads are the purest expression of who she has always been. Archie's buried skull and the secret red-hearted calendar are the last clues confirming that her love was always real and lasting.