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Intro
Mrs. Stroud, a Maine social worker, explains to Mr. Hurd, Mrs. Hurd, and their 12-year-old son Jack Hurd facts about Joseph Brook, a 14-year-old boy they may foster. While at a group home, he tried to kill a teacher. Afterward, he was transferred to a juvenile facility, Stone Mountain, where the other boys repeatedly beat him. Also, he has a baby daughter he’s never met. The Hurds, hearing these facts, reaffirm that they want to foster Joseph.
Mrs. Stroud brings Joseph to the Hurds’ farm. The next Monday, Joseph and Jack are boarding the school bus together when the driver, Mr. Haskell, calls Joseph “that kid that has a kid.” When Joseph storms off the bus, Jack follows. The boys walk to school together. Joseph and Jack start walking to school together every day. One day, the vice principal Mr. Canton finds Jack at his locker and warns him that boys who have been to Stone Mountain are troubled and that Joseph is a bad influence. As Joseph and Jack are walking home that afternoon, Jack asks the name of Joseph’s daughter. Joseph explains that she’s named Jupiter, after his and her mother’s favorite planet.
One afternoon, Joseph’s father, Mr. Brook, shows up in the Hurds’ barn while Jack and Mr. Hurd are milking cows and asks where Joseph is. Mr. Hurd insists that Mr. Brook leave, and Mr. Brook does—after cursing.
The Monday after Thanksgiving, while walking home from school, Joseph turns off the road onto a nearby frozen river. When Joseph falls through some thin ice, Jack rushes to the ice’s edge and pulls Joseph to safety. Back at the farm, Mr. Hurd gives the boys a serious talking-to. That night, Jack asks Joseph why he walked onto the ice, and Joseph explains that his daughter’s mother, Madeleine, loved to skate. The next morning, Mr. Hurd insists that the boys start taking the school bus again. On the bus, some friends of Jack’s tell him that a boy in Joseph’s grade, Jay Perkins, wants to get revenge on Joseph because Joseph attacked him for insulting Madeleine.
One day, Joseph asks the Hurds to help him see Jupiter. He tells them his story: he met Madeleine because his father Mr. Brook was her parents’ plumber. Her parents were never around, and Joseph started spending time with her even though his father beat him for doing that rather than working. Eventually, Joseph and Madeleine had sex. When Madeleine’s parents found out, they took out an injunction against Joseph so he couldn’t contact Madeleine. Three months later, social worker Mrs. Stroud visited the Brooks and told Joseph that Madeleine was pregnant and that DHHS had decided to remove him from Mr. Brook’s care into a group home. One day, Mrs. Stroud visited Joseph to convince him to sign away his parental rights so that Jupiter could be adopted. She also revealed that Madeleine had died in childbirth. Joseph, overwhelmed, signed away his rights and rushed into the boys’ bathroom—where another boy, noting his distress, offered him pills. Joseph doesn’t remember what happened after he took them, but he was told that he tried to kill a teacher. He was sent to a higher-security juvenile facility, Stone Mountain, where the other boys beat him. Eventually, Mrs. Stroud found him a foster placement with the Hurds.
The next Friday, at the end of PE, Jay Perkins and two of his friends follow Joseph into the locker room. Jack rushes after them and finds them slamming Joseph into the lockers. Jack tackles Jay Perkins. Eventually, a teacher intervenes. Joseph, Jay Perkins, and Jay’s friends are suspended for the four days before Christmas break. Several teachers visit the Hurds’ farm after school to tutor Joseph so he won’t have to make up work in January. On Christmas, Mr. and Mrs. Hurd give Joseph a paper that says, “We’ll help”—meaning they plan to help him see Jupiter.
On New Year’s Day, the Hurds get a call revealing that Mr. Brook’s new lawyer has secured visitation rights for him. The Monday that Joseph and Jack return to school, Mr. Brook and Mrs. Stroud drive to the Hurds’ house in the afternoon. When Mr. Brook takes Joseph into the empty living room, Mrs. Stroud tells the Hurds that she thinks Mr. Brook and his lawyer are holding up Jupiter’s adoption until Madeleine’s parents, who want Jupiter adopted for closure, pay him. Meanwhile, Mr. Brook, angry about losing custody of Joseph, claims that the Hurds are only fostering him for the checks they get from the state. In response, Mr. Hurd reveals that they’ve been putting all the money they receive from the state into a college fund for Joseph. Mr. Brook tells Joseph that he’ll get Joseph back and leaves.
Though the Hurds ask DHHS to let Joseph see Jupiter, they make little headway. After a meeting in which Mrs. Stroud mentions that Jupiter is in Brunswick, Joseph vanishes. Mr. Hurd and Jack drive out to search for him along the road to Brunswick, but a terrible storm forces them to turn back. After two days, the Hurds drive to Brunswick to search for Joseph. In a public library, Jack shows a librarian Joseph’s photo and explains that Joseph is looking for his daughter Jupiter. When the librarian recognizes the name “Jupiter,” Jack realizes she’s Jupiter’s foster mother. He and the librarian drive to the librarian’s house and find Joseph outside. The librarian brings Joseph and Jack back to Mr. and Mrs. Hurd but promises to write to Joseph regularly about Jupiter. That night at the Hurds’, Joseph thanks Jack for searching for him.
Joseph reads the librarian’s letters avidly and does well in school. Mr. and Mrs. Hurd start making secretive calls—implicitly beginning the process of adopting Jupiter themselves. One day, Joseph and Jack come home from school to find an unfamiliar white pickup outside the house. Joseph, on edge, tells Jack to go into the barn. Jack obeys, but when he hears his father yelling in the house, he runs into the kitchen—only for a drunk, gun-toting Mr. Brook to grab him. Mr. Hurd, Mrs. Hurd, and Joseph are at the other end of the room. When Mr. Brook demands Joseph back, Joseph yells, “You sold her!” Mr. Brook retorts that Joseph would never have gotten custody of Jupiter and that he needed money for a new truck. When Mr. Hurd tells Mr. Brook that the police will find him if he abducts Joseph, Mr. Brook suggests that he’ll take Jack as a hostage. Joseph agrees to go with Mr. Brook if he lets Jack go. Mr. Brook lets Jack go, and they leave. Later, the Hurds learn that Mr. Brook, drunk and driving recklessly, turned onto a derelict bridge over the river. The bridge collapsed under the pickup. At Joseph’s funeral, the Reverend Ballou praises Joseph for “lay[ing] down his life for his friends,” and Jack bursts into tears.
Almost two years later, the Hurds finalize their adoption of Jupiter. Mrs. Stroud drives Jupiter to the Hurds’ house. Jack picks her up and promises that he’ll always know where she is.
