Bobby Gene lifts Susie to check her diaper and Cory Cormier mistakenly accepts her as a trade for his bag of fireworks.

Mom returns from work, notices Susie missing from her crib, and drives straight to the Cormier house to retrieve her.

Both mothers spontaneously decide the boys must complete one extra hour of chores daily for four weeks as punishment.

Caleb and Bobby Gene stumble upon Styx Malone in the woods while rushing to hide the fireworks from Cory.

Styx arrives at the Franklin house and convinces Cory Cormier to accept fifty dollars for the fireworks and walk away.

Styx explains the Great Escalator Trade plan and takes the boys to see a green moped in the hardware store window.

Styx leads the boys over a fence into Robo's junkyard and trades the fireworks for cash and a wagonful of car parts.

Styx trades the wagonful of car parts to farmer Mr. Maddox in exchange for a broken riding mower.

Styx takes Caleb and Bobby Gene on a freight train to steal a motor from a property belonging to a man named Mr. Pike.

Mr. Pike tracks down the Franklin house by caller ID and tells Mom and Dad what the boys did, getting them grounded.

Caleb sneaks out while grounded and he and Bobby Gene trade Harley-Davidson memorabilia to Mr. Davis for the green moped.

DCS workers wait at Styx's foster house; Styx accuses Caleb of betrayal, grabs his backpack, and flees on the moped.

Styx is struck by a pickup truck while riding the moped and an ambulance takes him to a hospital in Indianapolis.

Mr. Pike arrives at the hospital and tells the boys that Styx lived with him for three years before DCS removed him.

Mr. Pike surprises the group at Styx's foster home by arriving to take Styx home permanently, and the Franklin family begins traveling beyond Sutton.

Caleb and Bobby Gene Franklin accidentally trade their baby sister Susie for a bag of fireworks at a Fourth of July picnic, setting off a chain of consequences. After stumbling upon sixteen-year-old Styx Malone in the woods, the brothers are drawn into his ambitious Great Escalator Trade scheme aimed at acquiring a green moped nicknamed the Grasshopper. The trades escalate from fireworks to car parts to a broken riding mower and finally to Harley-Davidson memorabilia, which the boys secretly exchange for the moped itself. Their rule-breaking unravels when the man they stole a motor from tracks down the Franklin house and exposes them, getting the boys grounded. Styx flees on the moped when DCS arrives but is hit by a pickup truck and hospitalized, where the mystery of his foster care past begins to surface. The summer ends with Styx's former foster father Mr. Pike arriving to take him home permanently, and the Franklin family beginning to venture beyond the limits of Sutton.

The core trades and turning points that drive Styx's Great Escalator scheme from fireworks to freedom.

Caleb watches Cory Cormier command a crowd of kids at the union hall picnic with his giant bag of fireworks.

After warming up to the brothers, Styx hands them his business card reading "Styx Malone: Anything Man."

Caleb jumps up to fight Cory during garden weeding, gets tangled in a tomato cage, and the three boys laugh together.

Caleb empties his piggy bank to contribute to Styx's plan, but Bobby Gene refuses to give up his larger savings.

Styx joins the Franklin family for dinner and charms Dad by asking about his football days at Indiana University.

Caleb and Bobby Gene visit Styx's foster house and meet Penny, a white girl who insists on being called Pixie.

Mr. Davis at the hardware store tells the boys his son always wanted a Harley-Davidson and rejected the moped as a gift.

Styx scrubs the rusty metal lunchbox with rust remover until a Superman image is revealed on its surface.

DCS removes Pixie from the foster home for a new placement; Styx tells the boys missing her will not change anything.

The Franklin family hosts a bonfire and Styx, who has never cooked outdoors, drops his first two hot dogs into the ashes.

Bobby Gene calls Pike's Place Auto Parts to make amends for the stolen motor but hangs up when Mr. Pike answers.

A nurse reveals to Mom at the hospital that it was Dad who called DCS to report Styx's influence on his sons.

Caleb, Bobby Gene, and Cory refuse to do their chore hour when Mom will not take the boys back to visit Styx.

Bobby Gene and Caleb stay up late and prepare a detailed plan proposing that Styx move into the Franklin house.

Dad takes Bobby Gene, Caleb, Styx, Pixie, and Cory to the Indianapolis Children's Museum for a full day of exploration.

While the main plot races toward the moped, the summer of Styx Malone is also shaped by quieter but meaningful moments of friendship and discovery. Caleb is captivated from the start by Cory Cormier's power over a crowd and later by Styx's mysterious business card, two early glimpses of the charisma and control Caleb craves for himself. The boys bond over shared meals, bonfire nights, and visits to Styx's foster house where they meet the irrepressible foster sister Pixie. Beneath the adventure, warning signs accumulate: Bobby Gene hoards his savings, Pixie is suddenly removed by DCS, and the boys realize Styx's stories don't always hold up. When the aftermath of the moped scheme reaches the hospital, Caleb discovers that his own father was the one who called DCS on Styx, deepening his guilt and complicating the summer's lessons about loyalty. The season closes with a hard-won trip to the Indianapolis Children's Museum that Dad once flatly refused to allow, marking a new and more open chapter for the entire Franklin family.

The friendships, discoveries, and smaller moments that fill out the summer's full story.

Dad walks home from the union hall without noticing Susie is gone, too preoccupied with union politics to look back.

Caleb convinces Styx that any profits from trading the fireworks must be divided evenly three ways among all of them.

Styx pauses after a successful trade with Mr. Maddox to admit he has never personally experienced a happy ending of his own.

Mom pulls Caleb aside after dinner and warns him that Styx's difficult life may have left him rough around the edges.

Caleb boldly suggests they all swim at the forbidden pond, pushing past his parents' rules with Styx's example in mind.

On the train ride home after the motor theft, Caleb links arms with Bobby Gene and chooses his brother over Styx.

Caleb confronts Styx about the motor theft and Styx reveals that he once lived with Mr. Pike for several years.

Caleb notices Cory's uncle arriving on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and devises a plan to trade the riding mower for Harley memorabilia.

Styx and the boys replace the broken mower engine and Styx drives the repaired mower along the road to Cory's uncle's house.

Styx slips out of his hospital room and walks down the hallway to tell Bobby Gene and Caleb he is all right.

Bobby Gene and Caleb search Styx's abandoned backpack and find runaway supplies, confirming Styx planned to flee without them.

Styx tells Caleb privately that they both know they are more than what others see, emboldening Caleb to face his father.

Bobby Gene speaks honestly to Dad about the importance of the summer's events and reaches his hand to Caleb as a bridge.

Caleb tells his parents that a misunderstanding may have caused Styx's removal from Mr. Pike's home, prompting Mom to call DCS.

Caleb hears Bobby Gene pronounce "extra-ordinary" the way Dad always did and finally understands his father meant it as a compliment.

Beneath the trading scheme, the summer is driven by a series of pivotal choices and discoveries that force Caleb to grow up fast. Early warning signs are easy to overlook, from Dad's obliviousness at the union hall to Mom's quiet worry about Styx's rough edges, but they accumulate into a reckoning. The theft of the motor from Mr. Pike's property marks the moment Caleb truly chooses his brother over his hero, linking arms with Bobby Gene on the frightening train ride home. Caleb then steps into the leader's role himself, devising the Harley memorabilia trade and making the emotional appeal that finally wins the moped from Mr. Davis. In the aftermath of the crash, the truth surfaces piece by piece: Styx was always planning to run, Mr. Pike never wanted to lose him, and a summer's worth of misunderstandings between fathers and sons begins to untangle. The season ends with Caleb grasping that his father's "extra-ordinary" was always a compliment, completing his arc from restless, overlooked boy to someone who can finally see the worth in what he already has.

The revelations, brave decisions, and emotional shifts that change Caleb and everyone around him.