Joey Vass wasn't a swimmer, but since his family bought a house on the shore of a lake, he decided he'd better learn how. Everything is going along fine until a guy on the school swimming team starts to tease him constantly.
Angered by the teasing, Joey decides to become expert at a different kind of swimming long distance. Joey swears that before he leaves high school he'll swim the length of the lake: a distance of twenty-one miles.

