Daddy’s eyebrow went up. He put his heavy silver fork down a little too hard on the white tablecloth. He looked right at me. “Is that right?” he asked.
“She brought by her very own letter to the newspaper editor, didn’t you, dearie?” Mrs. Simpson took a bite of her mashed potatoes, then started cutting her roast beef. She was smiling at me as if writing to the Hanging Moss Tribune might just be fine and dandy.
I held on to my water goblet so tight I worried it would break. Daddy wrinkled his forehead up. He does that sometimes when he’s thinking hard what to say. But Jesslyn spoke up first.
“You wrote a letter to the newspaper, Glory?” she asked. “You didn’t tell me that.”
I took a sip of iced tea, hoping that would settle my belly flops down. “I wrote to say I didn’t think it was right to close our pool. Emma was the only one who helped me, and mostly what she did was make sure some of the words were spelled right. When I asked her to.” I put my hand up to my mouth. Oh, no! I hoped I hadn’t gotten Emma in trouble. I looked at Daddy. “Do you think maybe it worked? Jesslyn and I saw a sign there today saying the pool’s opening to everybody.”
He turned to Mrs. Simpson. “I’ve tried to teach my girls to speak up when they see a wrong being done. But I didn’t read Glory’s letter in the paper this week,” he said. “That’s good news about the pool.”
Mrs. Simpson finished chewing with her mouth completely closed like Emma always tells us is polite, touched her napkin to the corner of her lip, and cleared her throat. “Perhaps the editor didn’t find Glory’s letter appropriate for our readers,” she said. “And I don’t know what you mean about the pool opening. Of course, my Esthers and I hate to see it closed.” She patted her greenish hair and smiled. “But repairs are needed. That’s that. My group will be swimming at a friend’s pool. Not quite as large as our community pool, but it will have to do.” Mrs. Simpson looked down the table at Jesslyn and me. “I’m sure you girls can find another place to swim, can’t they, Brother Joe?”
Our daddy taught us to respect our elders. I wasn’t supposed to talk back to members of First Fellowship, in particular. But I couldn’t help myself.
“No, we can’t find another place to swim. We want our pool to stay open. Did you even take my letter out of that drawer where you hid it? Did you show it to the editor?” I asked. I looked from Mrs. Simpson to Daddy, then to Jesslyn. “Somebody must’ve seen it. Maybe the editor gave it to the mayor. Why else do you think they put that new sign at the pool?”
Jesslyn sat up straight at the table. “If it’s really opening like the sign says, I bet it was Glory’s letter.” Jesslyn was actually sticking up for me. “What exactly was in that letter?”
“Why, I may just have a copy right here.” Mrs. Simpson pushed away from the table. She walked to the sideboard and opened a drawer. “Glory, would you like to share it since the only person who seems to have seen this is your maid?” She narrowed her eyes and looked from me to Daddy. She handed me the letter like it was written with a poison pen.
I took a sip of iced tea and almost choked swallowing it. I felt like I was smothering to death in Mrs. Simpson’s dining room. I glanced down at the white paper covered with my best script writing. Oh, no! I shouldn’t have said all that! What if I my daddy gets in big trouble? By now, my stomach was flopping so hard I could hardly hold the letter up.
But I unfolded it and began to read.
June 26, 1964
Dear Editor,
I love our Community Pool. My birthday party has been there every single summer since forever. But my forever is over now. My forever has been shut down with no plans of opening.
Some stupid Town Council committee locked the gates up tight. They claim they’re making the pool better, fixing cracks and broken fences. I don’t believe that for a minute. They can lie all the livelong day. But they can’t lock up the hot-as-fire rage burning inside me. They can hammer their Pool Closed signs, but they better not expect me to stay closed.
Does anybody think just ’cause I’m not a grownup that I can’t see everything clear as day? The people in this town dumb enough to agree to shut down a pool to keep Negroes out — and lying about it by saying it’s the pool that needs fixing — they are the fools who can’t see.
I hadn’t lifted my eyes from that paper once. I was afraid to look at my daddy’s disappointed face. My hands were shaking, but I willed myself to keep reading.
What’s really broken and needs fixing most of all are the backward people running this town and the others who won’t do a thing about it.
You know what? Maybe I’m the fool. And blind. Or, should I say, I was a fool who used to be blind. I was dumb enough to fall for the ugly lies. I was blind to hatred that stings more than a bucketful of the pool’s strongest chlorine.
But guess what. I, Gloriana June Hemphill, can swim underwater with my eyes open. I can look through the cloudiest, strongest chlorine. And I don’t blink, even underwater. I see what’s going on in Hanging Moss. You ignorant people who act like you own our town aren’t fooling me one bit.
I took a deep breath to slow down my heart and let the words sit for a while over the silent table. Nobody talked. Even Mrs. Simpson’s clock seemed to stop its ticking.
I finished reading.
Every summer there’s bothersome mosquito bites that set me to scratching all night. Sweat that makes my shirt stick to my skin. Heat that makes me nauseous. But the worse thing is when I step in a pile of what some mangy dog left behind and the mess gets all over my shoes and it stinks to high heaven.
That’s what closing the pool feels like to me. Hateful prejudice and dog doo are a lot alike. They both make me sick.
Gloriana June Hemphill, age 11
My throat was burning dry when I was done reading. My knuckles were as white as the paper I was clutching. I couldn’t hardly believe I’d written that! My daddy would skin me alive. But I meant every word.
Jesslyn’s mouth was open wider than Mrs. Simpson’s gleaming round dinner plates.
Daddy had his head down, shaking it slowly back and forth.
Mrs. Simpson looked like she’d stepped in dog doo herself.
It felt like all the air had been sucked right out of that hot dining room.
I choked back angry tears. But Daddy reached over and grabbed my hand. He squeezed it hard.
Even though I was the one crying, something in Daddy looked so sad. “I was watching your mother coming through you,” he said quietly. “She was like that. Opinionated, strong in her convictions. Too outspoken to be a good preacher’s wife.” He laughed just a little. “You and Jesslyn remind me more and more of her every day. Your mother would have been right pleased to hear you just now. I’m proud of you, Glory.”
I wiped the tears off my face, but I didn’t think I could answer yet. I took a swallow of air and told myself to breathe. Then Jesslyn smiled down the table at me, and Daddy beamed at both of us, and I felt light enough to float off my chair and out of that hot, stuffy room.
Till Mrs. Simpson’s hateful voice brought me right back to the dining room table when she announced, “Whatever happened to Gloriana’s original letter after I shared it with the editor is not my business.”
“Maybe you should make it your business, Mrs. Simpson,” Daddy said. “You’re on the Town Council. You could have spoken up, you know, about opening the pool to everyone.”
“Many of our citizens prefer to see it closed, rather than what might happen if we allow people with germs, some who don’t bathe regularly, to swim with us.” She stuck her nose up in the air like she was smelling something bad. “I speak for the town, and I don’t know a thing about the Community Pool opening for the remainder of this summer. Or ever again for that matter.”
“You don’t speak for all the town.” Daddy’s voice got louder. He folded his napkin and started to push his chair back. “You don’t speak for me.”
Jesslyn and I looked across the table at each other. That
was our daddy and his choir director. Our daddy, who, while we were eating our Sunday dinners with his church people, didn’t talk about more than the spring rains coming or the new driveway going in at the bank. Now here he was, standing up to Mrs. Simpson over the pool closing. Miss Bloom was right. Maybe one letter — my letter — could make a difference.
Mrs. Simpson picked up her fork and jabbed at her roast beef. Then she clanked down the fork so loud I jumped. “The pool needs repairs. There’s no two ways about that. It will stay closed.”
“No, ma’am.” I stuck that ma’am in to be polite, like Emma taught me. “We saw the sign, didn’t we, Jesslyn?”
For a quick minute, a worried look crossed my sister’s face. “We saw a sign,” she said, frowning. “It seemed real.”
“A sign saying the pool’s opening by July Fourth, my birthday. Frankie showed us,” I said. “And his daddy’s on some committee, too.”
Jesslyn said, “Somebody important must’ve read what you wrote, Glory. I bet it’ll be in the paper next week.” She looked right at Mrs. Simpson. “Daddy’s taught me a lot. He says the newspaper is one good way to learn what’s happening in the world.”
But Mrs. Simpson had crossed her knife and fork on her plate decorated with gold leaves and pink roses. She’d folded her napkin by her iced tea glass. “The pool is closed,” she said again. She rang a little bell for the maid to come take our plates, and even though I smelled something sweet as chocolate cake coming from inside the kitchen, it didn’t seem like dessert was on the menu today.
“I don’t believe you,” I said, just waiting for my daddy to hush me up. But he didn’t. Across the table, Jesslyn looked real happy to be my big sister. “My letter, that’s why we’ll be swimming at the Community Pool on the Fourth of July,” I said. “You’re right, Jesslyn — somebody important read my letter.”
Laura came to my house the next morning saying Miss Bloom needed us to help at the library. I grabbed her hand and headed out the front door.
“The pool’s opening up! Maybe today. Let’s go see the new sign.” We headed for the library by way of the Community Pool. I was talking nonstop about my pool party in five more days and how we’d have water balloon races and eat orange sno-cones and Emma’s special cake, and how much I hoped she’d come. But when I saw Jesslyn and Robbie at the pool, I stopped dead still. Jesslyn squinted across the sidewalk at me. My heart sped up when I thought about Robbie’s secret I’d blabbed to Frankie. But Frankie was nowhere in sight. Maybe I was safe for now.
Jesslyn stood in front of the pool sign with one hand on her hip and her nose wrinkled up. A few kids in bathing suits dry as a bone held rolled-up towels and elbowed each other. Inside the fence, nobody was splashing, belly flopping, or playing loud radios.
“What’s happening?” I asked Jesslyn. “Is the pool open? Or do we have to wait till July Fourth to swim?”
“We have to wait longer than that.” She pointed to the sign that said Pool Closed Until Further Notice.
My stomach tied itself in a knot bigger than those dry towels. “‘Further notice’? What’s that mean? That’s a mistake for sure. We were here yesterday. If it’s not open yet, it will be soon.”
Jesslyn said, “Just like that busybody Mrs. Simpson told us, it was a lie that the pool would open. Nobody’s admitting to putting up that sign yesterday, about the pool opening. Maybe it was a trick.”
Robbie leaned against the fence, staring inside. “Your friend Frankie has a mean streak in him. He’s the one who pulled a prank.”
“Frankie?” I looked up at the new sign. “He did it?”
“As a joke. I heard talk, just now.” Robbie shrugged his shoulders. “Some people said his brother, J.T., dared him.”
I took a deep breath, smelling the chlorine and the coconut suntan lotion, trying to remember hot dogs frying on the snack bar grill, and the lifeguards’ whistles. I stood between Jesslyn and Laura with the warm sunshine beating down on my neck.
“You remember last July Fourth?” I asked Jesslyn. “The watermelon race? Me and you and Frankie and our cousins at my birthday party? And that cake you and Emma made me, shaped like a cat? Remember?” They weren’t really questions I was asking Jesslyn. I just needed us to remember.
“I’m sorry, Glory,” Laura said.
“I don’t think the Pool Committee’s worried about your birthday” was all Jesslyn said.
Here I was, sure that one little part of this town had changed. That maybe people like Frankie’s daddy finally got together to decide opening the pool up for everybody, just in time for a Fourth of July celebration, was the kind of thing you should do on our country’s birthday. But I was wrong. My thinking was all mixed up.
“A lot of things are different this summer, Glory,” Jesslyn said, the corners of her mouth turned down like maybe she wished it was last summer. “Including your friend.”
“How could Frankie think tricking us into believing the pool was opening is funny?” I asked. Jesslyn just shook her head and walked off with Robbie.
When I peered through those hard metal fence links at the bluest, cleanest water, I was so mad I wanted to spit. I vowed never to speak to that hateful Frankfurter Smith if I lived to be a hundred.
Two days later, when Frankie showed up at our kitchen door busting his britches to tell me something, I ignored him. Emma and I were reading Nancy Drew together, searching for clues in the old clock. Emma looked up once, shook her head, then turned to the next chapter.
It was the first of July, and even though I was happy that my birthday month was here, I was still red-hot-mad at Frankie. I wasn’t speaking to him, no matter how hard he knocked at my door.
“Open up, Glory! I’ve got something to tell you!”
“I know what you did,” I yelled back. “Get out of here, Frankie.” I took to reading my chapter to Emma even louder.
“I didn’t do anything.” Frankie pushed open the door and scooted his chair next to the kitchen table, but he wouldn’t look straight at me.
I slammed the book shut and moved as far away from him as I could. “It was you who put up that fake sign about the pool opening. I’m not talking to you.”
Emma stood and laid our book carefully on the shelf next to her cookbooks. She didn’t turn to face us. Even with her back turned, I could tell she was listening by the way her shoulders hunched up.
“I didn’t do anything. But your friend, that Yankee, did something bad. She’s in trouble.” Frankie looked around the kitchen. “She’s not here, is she? That Laura girl. She and some of them other Freedom people committed a crime!”
“A crime? What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Laura broke into the pool and stole something.”
“That’s a bald-faced lie, Frankfurter Smith!”
Frankie leaned up close. His voice got quieter. “Somebody went over there last night and messed with the pool lockers. And they took candy from the snack bar. Laura and her friends did it.”
“You’re loony, Frankie. Laura wouldn’t do that.”
“Well, she did. They found one of her dumb black socks dropped on the dressing room floor.” He pushed his glasses up on his nose and slicked back his hair, looked me straight in the eye like he was telling the gospel truth. “You know how you’re always trying to get her to take those ugly socks off and go barefooted? This time your stupid friend did take off her socks.”
Emma spoke up quietly, without turning around. “Frankie, mind your manners. Glory’s friend Laura wouldn’t hurt a flea.”
“Yeah, Frankie. Laura wouldn’t break into any old lockers. You’re making that up,” I said. “You’re telling a lie.”
“Your Yankee friend’s in big trouble. There’s a police car over there now. Come see for yourself if you don’t believe me.” Frankie took a step toward the back door just as Emma turned around fast.
Emma put her hand on my shoulder. “Brother Joe will skin you alive, getting mixed up in that mess. You’re staying put,
Glory.”
“We won’t be gone long, Miss Emma,” Frankie said. “We’ll just ride our bikes slow, so Glory can see. My daddy’s there. We’ll be okay.”
Emma shook her head. “No, Glory’s not going — that’s that.” She turned her back again to take out peaches, flour, and sugar for a pie. She started peeling the peaches.
I needed to prove Frankie was lying. I was even willing to risk getting skinned alive by Brother Joe and peeled like a peach by Emma.
I hightailed it out of there before Emma turned around to stop me.
When we parked our bikes in front of the pool, Frankie had a goofy smile on his face. Across the street was a policeman talking to his daddy. Mr. Smith had both hands on his hips and his legs wide apart. He looked like he was ready to slap somebody good. He walked right in the pool gate and slammed it hard behind him, rattling the new Pool Closed sign.
Frankie said, “See? Daddy’s talking to a policeman. Didn’t I tell you?”
“Tell me what? I don’t believe a word you say. Laura wouldn’t break into this pool. You don’t know anything.” But when I saw the policeman holding up Laura’s black sock, I got an awful feeling about the whole mess.
When I got home, I could smell Emma’s pie baking. I tried to sneak back into the kitchen, but there was no getting around her. “Don’t you ever disobey me like that again!” Emma was holding a pie server.
“I’m sorry. I just wanted to —”
She pointed the server at me. “Sorry’s not enough. You’re my responsibility when your father’s away. I have a good mind to put this server to your backside.”
Emma never spanked me, but oh, did she look mad now. I felt my feet ease away from her. She said, “Yes, that’s right — take a step back, Glory. Step back in your thinking, too. Pause before you act, child. The sun rises slowly over Hanging Moss, and so should you.”
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