Mr. Neely gives Natalie's class a yearlong assignment to choose a question and keep observations in a science journal.

Natalie notices her mother has stopped going to work, sleeps all day, and has let all the greenhouse plants die.

Mr. Neely suggests Natalie enter a local egg-drop competition as her science project for the year.

Natalie sneaks into her parents' locked bedroom while her mother sleeps to retrieve her mother's book about cobalt blue orchids.

Natalie concludes that Mrs. Menzer fired her mother from the university lab, causing her depression, and vows to fix things.

Natalie decides to enter the egg-drop competition, hoping to win the prize money to take her mother to see the orchids in New Mexico.

Dari Kapoor joins Natalie and Twig's team after his usual lab partners are absent during a classroom magnets experiment.

Natalie's dad takes her to a first appointment with therapist Dr. Doris, but Natalie refuses to discuss her family at all.

On Christmas morning, Alice refuses to leave her bedroom, and Natalie breaks down and smashes eggs in the greenhouse.

Twig comes over on Christmas and Natalie finally tells her best friend the full truth about her mother's depression.

On New Year's Eve, Natalie and her dad make Korean dduk together, and Alice comes downstairs and joins them.

At the egg-drop competition, Natalie, Twig, and Dari's egg breaks when it is dropped from the three-story building.

Natalie, Twig, and Dari take a late-night bus and use Alice's lab keys to break into the university building.

Natalie discovers her mother's lab office is still intact with family photos inside, realizing Alice was never actually fired.

Alice explains the seed was always an iris and not an orchid, that she was not fired, and openly acknowledges her depression.

Natalie begins seventh grade with a yearlong science journal assignment while her mother's depression quietly takes hold of their household. Determined to help, Natalie enters an egg-drop competition hoping to win prize money for a trip she believes will cure her mother. She builds a team with her best friend Twig and the brilliant Dari Kapoor, and begins reluctant sessions with a therapist. A breaking point at Christmas finally forces Natalie to open up to Twig and then to her therapist, giving her the courage to take drastic action. After the competition ends in failure, Natalie orchestrates a nighttime break-in at her mother's old lab, which ultimately leads to the honest family conversation she has needed all along.

The headline events of Natalie's quest to help her mother.

Natalie and Twig dissect frogs in science class and discover a fully intact grasshopper inside their frog's stomach.

Natalie's dad initially tells her to come home and stop avoiding the situation before reluctantly allowing her to go to Twig's house.

Natalie visits the greenhouse, sees the dead cobalt blue orchid stem, and reads about the miraculous orchids that survived toxic chemicals in New Mexico.

Alice suggests using a cereal-filled bag to protect the egg, but Natalie ignores the idea and never shares it with her team.

Mr. Neely tells Natalie that Twig can officially join her as a partner on the egg-drop project.

Natalie's Korean grandmother arrives for Thanksgiving with gifts, and Alice acts unusually lively and talkative throughout the visit.

The morning after Thanksgiving, Alice refuses to leave her bedroom for a planned family brunch, and Natalie retreats to her own room in response.

The trio sneaks into school on a Saturday to test egg designs by dropping them from a third-floor window, nearly getting caught.

Natalie's dad takes her Christmas shopping at the mall, where they unexpectedly run into Mikayla and Mrs. Menzer.

Over winter break at Dari's house, the team celebrates when their marshmallow-and-chocolate S'meggs design survives the drop from his window.

Natalie opens up to Dr. Doris for the first time, beginning with a happy memory about making dduk on New Year's Eve.

At the competition, the cereal-protected egg also breaks, and Dari realizes his house was shorter than the actual competition building.

A security guard discovers the three children inside the lab after they trigger an alarm by entering the wrong code too many times.

Natalie's dad reveals that Alice had depression once before when Natalie was a baby, and the two of them spent a month in bed together.

Natalie, Twig, and Dari present their egg-drop experiment findings to science class as the school year comes to an end.

While Natalie wrestles with her mother's depression at home, a series of smaller but meaningful events shape the world around her. Friendships are tested through silences and unexpected kindnesses, and the egg-drop project moves forward through a series of trials and failures. Family visits and holiday rituals reveal both the strain on the Napoli household and the small sparks of hope that keep Natalie going. The competition itself ends in defeat, but the aftermath forces honesty from multiple directions. By the story's close, the hard truths that were hidden from Natalie all year finally surface through the people around her.

The supporting moments of friendship, setbacks, and discovery.

Natalie is unable to choose a science question when asked in class and deflects with jokes about her teacher's hashtags.

Natalie reasons that her mother is like a dormant perennial plant and holds onto hope that something can reignite her passion for life.

Natalie asks her father why someone would stop caring about their family, and he tells her the illness has nothing to do with her.

Natalie's dad suggests she see a therapist outside the family rather than letting him treat her, making Natalie feel abandoned.

After winter break, Dari permanently rejoins Natalie and Twig's group, and the team nominates Natalie as their captain.

Natalie chooses a resilient Korean fire plant as her mother's Christmas gift because it blooms even through harsh winter conditions.

Visiting Dari's house, Natalie notices his family proudly celebrates their Indian heritage and wonders about her dad rejecting his Korean roots.

On Christmas morning, Natalie hears a hint of anger in her father's voice, which frightens her more than her mother's behavior.

After losing the competition, Twig insists that Operation Orchid is still possible and refuses to give up on helping Alice.

After losing, Natalie suddenly remembers the last orchid seed she grew came from Mrs. Menzer's lab, not New Mexico, and forms a plan.

Twig arrives uninvited at Natalie's house with Dari in tow, revealing she told him about Alice's depression without permission.

Inside Mrs. Menzer's office, Natalie finds a blue bag labeled iris but convinces herself it must be mislabeled and takes one seed.

Mrs. Menzer drives the children home, tells Natalie the orchids are not magical, and urges her to ask her mother for the truth.

Alice discovers the Korean fire plant Natalie gave her and begins tending the greenhouse again, also planting the stolen iris seed.

Natalie approaches Mikayla and learns she never intentionally ended their friendship, and the two girls agree to move forward in peace.

Beneath the surface of Natalie's egg-drop project lies a deeper investigation: understanding depression, identity, and what it means to let people in. Natalie repeatedly reaches the edge of honesty only to pull back, forming false theories and making decisions in isolation that slowly close her off from everyone she loves. A string of quiet revelations — about her father's anger, her own cultural roots, and the true nature of the orchids — gradually dismantles the story she has built to explain her mother's illness. The lab break-in becomes the catalyst that forces the truth into the open, from both her mother and Mrs. Menzer. In the aftermath, Natalie rebuilds — not toward the old version of her family, but toward a more honest one.

The key decisions, breakthroughs, and discoveries that reshape Natalie's understanding.