Frankie yanked at his towel. " I hope the pool's even open, " he mumbled. "Wait a minute, " I said. "It'll be open. I'm going swimming . Why would thye close the Community Pool now, when everybody needs a place to swim?". ""I heard something." nobody's closing our pool. Where'd you hear that?" "My daddy. But it's a secret, " Frankie answered, and headed off like he hadn't said a thing. I raced after him, all the time thinking why in tarnation would our pool be closing on the hottest day of the summer, just twelve days before the Fourth of July, my twelfth birthday? And what was the big secret anyhow?. An important read that raises powerful racial issues of the 1960's American south ( back cover)