Glory Be by Augusta Scattergood Read Free Book Online

said. “Robbie Fox.”
    “How’d you know who I am?” I asked.
    “Seen you around,” he said.
    J.T. yelled out to Robbie, “You, pretty boy, ready to quit? Too hot for you, Elvis?”
    Robbie turned his back to J.T. and started down the field. I hurried to keep up with him.
    “Wait up. Why’d he call you Elvis?” I asked.
    “Something stupid about my hair, I guess.”
    “Are you new in town?” I was running along the fence, trying to keep up with Robbie Fox.
    “Just moved here. Living with my aunt.”
    “Who’s your aunt anyhow?” I called out. “Are you my sister’s boyfriend?”
    “You ask too many questions. I gotta go.” When Robbie took off across the field, I moseyed back to sprawl out under a scrawny tree. The clouds drifted by and I turned the shapes into shells and ice-cream cones, thinking about this boy Robbie. Why was he here living with his aunt?
    Pretty soon Frankie plopped down in the grass next to me. “Who’s that you were talking to?” he asked.
    “Jesslyn’s friend, Robbie.”
    “My brother says Robbie Fox thinks he’s hot snot. He brags all the time.” Frankie pulled up clumps of grass and tossed them at the fence. “About how many touchdowns he made at his other school.”
    “J.T. and the rest of the stupid team oughta be happy. The Hornets stink at football,” I said. Frankie didn’t have an answer to that. He had plenty of book smarts from his encyclopedias, just didn’t know diddly-squat about football. I wiped the sweat off my face with the back of my arm and scooted closer to the skinny shade tree. “It’s hot as Hades out here. Let’s get our bathing suits and head to the pool later.”
    “It closed.” Frankie announced this like the pool was something we didn’t give a toe bone about. Might as well have been saying the Piggly Wiggly was closed.
    “ What? The Community Pool’s really closed ? Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “Don’t have a cow, Glory.” Frankie looked past me, over at the football players running around the field and the pep squad girls hollering cheers to empty bleachers. “You were so mad from last night, I didn’t want to say anything,” he said. “Daddy and the Town Council put a sign up this morning saying they’re fixing the cracks.”
    “There aren’t any cracks .”
    “Daddy’s committee had a meeting. He told me and J.T. it’s really to keep the colored people out.” Frankie took off his glasses, started cleaning them on his shirt. His voice got quiet. “I’m not supposed to tell.”
    “Well, what’re we gonna do about it? I’ll have a sun-stroke if I have to spend the rest of the summer with no pool. I’m not swimming in the Pee Pool where all the babies go wading.”
    “I don’t know” was all Frankie said.
    “It’s not right for some stupid committee of old people to decide who swims in a pool and who doesn’t. Why’s it a secret anyhow? A secret from who?”
    Frankie put his glasses back on and shrugged his shoulders at me. “A secret from people like you who’d get mad about it, I guess,” he said.
    “Well, it’s worth getting mad about. And what about the Fourth of July picnic and parade?” I asked him. “What about my birthday party in eight more days? It’ll open back up by then, I’m sure.”
    Frankie pulled up a few more chunks of grass. He didn’t say anything for a minute or two. “I don’t know, Glory. My brother says it’s a good thing they don’t let colored people and Yankees in there to swim,” he said. “J.T. thinks coloreds and Yankees stink.”
    “You wanna know who stinks? J.T. stinks, that’s who. He doesn’t know anything. And your daddy doesn’t run this town, does he?”
    Frankie may have thought his daddy knew everything, but what he said about the pool didn’t seem right. “I’m going to see for myself.”
    We walked our bikes to the sidewalk. Then we rode real slow down the block. Maybe if I didn’t get there and read the sign, the pool wasn’t closed. But