When a grown-up tells you not to worry, you had better start—first rule of thumb, Sallee Mackey, age seven. She is already more than a little bit wary of the adults in her late 1950's, Southern world with good reason. Sallee's mother Ginny is flat out dangerous; her father Joe is on his way out the door; and Mr. Dabney the bigoted neighbor next door seems to be just a little too interested with the goings on at Sallee's house—like he knows something no one else does.
The only adult to be trusted is Ethel, the family maid, who has known Sallee's mother since Ethel and Ginny were both girls. That complicated relationship started the day Ethel spied Ginny kissing the black stable boy years ago. While Ginny has conveniently forgotten that she even knew Ethel back then, Sallee has not as she constantly lobs questions at Ethel about her mother's girlhood.
From Sallee's oft times humorous and always guileless vantage, grownups have a most mixed up view of the world. What does skin color have to do with learning? Closing schools rather than have black and white children in the same classroom, what's the sense of that? Ethel gives her very own biased account of her shared history with Ginny while Sallee hones her vigilance and stealth, skills she and her brother and two sisters have acquired in an attempt to understand the drama that swirls around them.
Rocks are thrown through windows, a car filled with angry white men shout racial slurs at the children at play and a tragic poisoning threatens the entire family's sense of security. When Joe Mackey asks Ethel to testify on his behalf in a custody suit, her conflicted loyalties throw the entire family into even more turmoil. Fortunately for Sallee, no one took the time to teach her to hate a person because they didn't share the same color skin.
