Science journalist Erik Vance decides to get cursed by a witch doctor for science, and after taking a rock from Mauna Loa, volcanologist Jess Phoenix starts to worry that her offering to the volcano goddess Pele was not enough.

Kambri Crews attempts to smuggle a gift into prison for her father, who is deaf, and as Kristine Lycke enters kindergarten, her mother starts treatment for a mysterious illness.

In the third grade, Lylianna Allala finds out that her partner on the class solar system project isn't allowed to come over to her house, and after surviving leukemia in her childhood and becoming a cancer research scientist, Vicky Forster finds herself working alongside the same doctor who saved her life.