The public pool that Neddy must cross inverts all the pleasures he takes in swimming. Where he prefers to dive right in, he must now wash himself in a chemical solution. Where he’d prefer to be alone with the water, lifeguards are there to check him. The mention of chemicals in the “cloudy and bitter solution” and the water that “stank of chlorine” challenge Neddy’s fantasy of wild natural exploration, and it takes some convincing for him to believe that this is still the “Lucinda River” of his imagination. The “sapphire water at the Bunkers’” might support the idea that…