Marlee freezes at the top of the high dive at the public pool and has to be rescued by her older sister Judy.

A confident new student named Liz sits down uninvited at Marlee's lunch table and immediately charms the other girls.

Liz asks Marlee to be her history project partner after Marlee spots a magic squares puzzle in Liz's notebook.

Liz vanishes from school on the morning of their joint presentation, and rumors spread that she is a colored girl who has been passing for white.

Marlee delivers the history class presentation entirely alone and receives warm applause from her classmates.

Mr. Nisbett announces at a restaurant dinner that Judy will be sent to live with their grandmother in Pine Bluff so she can attend school.

Marlee meets Liz secretly at the zoo and learns Liz is being shunned by both white and colored students; the two agree to keep meeting in secret.

After a Sunday school meeting, Marlee secretly donates money to the WEC and signs up to join the committee working to reopen the schools.

Red discovers a box of dynamite at the old rock crusher quarry and threatens to use it against Liz's family.

At a packed PTA meeting, Mrs. Nisbett gives a speech urging the community to take a stand and support school integration.

Marlee's parents form the STOP committee and begin collecting petition signatures to force a special school board election.

Marlee and Liz steal the dynamite from Red's car trunk at the zoo, but the lid accidentally slams shut with Marlee still inside.

Red throws two sticks of dynamite through the front window of Pastor George's home, causing a damaging explosion.

The school board election results are announced and the pro-integration candidates win the majority of seats.

Marlee climbs to the top of the high dive at the public pool and finally jumps, hearing her friends and the lions cheering.

Painfully shy Marlee Nisbett struggles to connect with others in Little Rock until a bold new classmate named Liz Fullerton pulls her out of her shell. Their friendship is shattered when Liz vanishes from school after being exposed as a colored girl who had been passing for white. Refusing to abandon the friendship despite community hostility, Marlee begins crossing racial lines and finding her voice in the process. As her confidence grows, she joins the Women's Emergency Committee and helps her family rally the community behind a campaign to reopen the segregated schools. A showdown over stolen dynamite forces Marlee to act with startling courage and ultimately helps bring Red Dalton to justice. By the time integrated schools reopen and Marlee jumps from the high dive she once fled in terror, she has become a completely different person.

The central story of Marlee's friendship with Liz and the fight to integrate Little Rock's schools.

The Nisbett family watches a TV broadcast announcing the governor has shut down all Arkansas high schools to block federally ordered integration.

JT charms Marlee into arriving early to tutor him in math but takes her completed homework and never shows up for the session.

Liz picks up a crow's feather at the zoo and gives it to Marlee as a talisman to carry during their upcoming class presentation.

Marlee and Judy visit the abandoned rock crusher quarry where Marlee rides a horse and slices her hand on a barbed wire fence.

Marlee asks Betty Jean what happens to colored people who pass for white, and Betty Jean warns that those who are caught risk being lynched.

Marlee rides her bicycle to a Negro church on South Chester Street and asks Pastor George to deliver a secret note to Liz.

Mrs. Nisbett announces she will teach at a segregationist private school, but a federal marshal arrives and blocks her from breaking her public school contract.

Betty Jean arrives at the colored movie theater and vouches for Marlee's character to a neighbor who is suspicious of a white girl in their midst.

On Halloween, Red catches Marlee witnessing his vandalism and forces her to throw an egg at an elderly woman's house to make her complicit.

Betty Jean's son Curtis is arrested for the Halloween egging simply for being nearby; Mr. Nisbett pays the fifty-dollar fine and secures his release.

At a WEC meeting, chairwoman Mrs. Brewer refuses to allow colored women to join the committee, disappointing both Marlee and Miss Winthrop.

Marlee discovers she loves flying during the family's first airplane trip and calls Liz afterward to say she is ready to face other fears.

Mrs. Nisbett arranges for Marlee to tutor JT and plans for them to attend a skating party together without ever asking Marlee's opinion.

Judy and Marlee take a bus to visit David at college, and he warns them that the governor plans to fire state employees who support integration.

Marlee finds a fragment of her engraved letter opener inside Red's car trunk, providing proof of his guilt; the Dalton family confronts Red and calls the police.

While Marlee and Liz's friendship forms the heart of the story, a web of secondary relationships and events propels the larger struggle forward. The governor's school shutdown creates ripple effects across the Nisbett household, pitting family members against one another over the question of integration. Marlee's dealings with JT, Betty Jean, and the colored community expose her to the realities of racism in ways her sheltered white world never had. The Women's Emergency Committee fights institutional obstacles, including being barred from accepting colored members, while canvassing a deeply divided neighborhood for petition signatures. Red's campaign of intimidation escalates from Halloween bullying to a dynamite attack, but a fragment of an engraved letter opener ultimately provides the evidence needed to hold him accountable. These secondary threads weave together to show how systemic change requires courage from ordinary people on every level of a community.

The supporting moments and secondary storylines that shaped the path toward integration.

Marlee announces to her family at dinner that she managed to speak five whole words to a new student at school, delighting everyone.

Liz takes Marlee to the zoo to rehearse the class presentation by speaking directly to the animals, since the animals will not judge her.

Mr. Nisbett tells Marlee that the Ku Klux Klan sent threatening messages to him after he invited a Black minister to speak at their church.

Marlee's mother reveals that Marlee was named after actress Marlene Dietrich, making Marlee realize how rarely the two of them actually talk.

Marlee secretly slips a Bible verse into her mother's purse, hoping the message will inspire Mrs. Nisbett to support integration despite her fears.

Marlee receives a menacing anonymous phone call warning her to stop spending time with Liz.

Marlee and Liz meet at the rock crusher to fold flyers for the school board election while Marlee privately wishes they could do ordinary things together.

While home sick with the measles, Marlee finds her mother reading about the school crisis at the kitchen table and the two fold WEC flyers together.

At the rock crusher, Liz overcomes her fear of crawdads while Marlee conquers hers by climbing to the top of a tall tree.

Leaving the roller-skating party early, Marlee finally tells her mother the full truth about Red's threats and JT's math-cheating scheme.

Backstage before the PTA meeting, Marlee presses Liz's crow feather talisman into her mother's hand to give her courage before taking the stage.

After the PTA meeting, Marlee insists to her parents that she will stay home rather than be sent away to safety in Pine Bluff.

Liz calls Marlee after the school board election to say the dynamite attack has made it too dangerous for them to keep seeing each other.

When the integrated high schools reopen, police arrest the segregationist protesters gathered outside, and Mr. Nisbett grabs Marlee's hand and nearly cries.

Liz and Marlee share a final meeting by the lion cage at the zoo, and Liz encodes her new phone number inside a magic square in Marlee's book.

Beneath the public drama of school integration lies a quieter story of personal transformation, traced through a series of revelations and brave choices. Marlee begins as a girl who can barely speak five words in a day, yet each small act of courage — rehearsing a speech for zoo animals, slipping a Bible verse into her mother's purse — chips away at her fear. The friendship with Liz forces both girls to confront their own limitations, with Liz learning to hold her tongue while Marlee learns to speak up. Turning points accumulate until Marlee finally tells her mother the truth about Red's harassment and hands her the crow feather talisman, setting off a chain reaction that brings Mrs. Nisbett to a podium before the entire community. Even after Liz calls to say their friendship is too dangerous to continue, Marlee refuses to accept permanent silence and finds a way to keep the door open. When integrated schools finally reopen and Marlee stands at the top of the high dive, every small act of courage has led to this moment.

The key decisions and emotional breakthroughs that transformed Marlee and those around her.