This chapter takes readers more deeply into the story of Irwin Brunson, the fourth grader who is one of the first Black children to integrate St. Augustine schools in 1963-64. As autumn unfolded, many of the city’s deepening racial tensions bled into the atmosphere at the Fullerwood School, where Irwin is feeling increasingly isolated and targeted by bullying classmates.

Readers learn more about Irwin’s parents, Charles and Ruby, and their journey as deaf people. Charles works as a chef at the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind, where he had met Ruby. Charles also works on the weekends, gardening and doing odd jobs for white neighbors, often bringing Irwin and his older brother Billy along. One of the people they work for is A.H. Tebault Jr., who runs the St. Augustine Record. The family gets a daily copy of the paper, and Irwin follows the growing trouble in the city through its pages: everything from the shooting death of William Kinard in Lincolnville to the mysterious conviction of Robert Hayling for assaulting Klansmen at the rally where he had been severely beaten.