Junie

Sixteen-year-old Junie is an enslaved person living on Bellereine Plantation in Lowndes County, Alabama. She wakes up outside one morning, horrified that she fell asleep in the woods again. She sees her grandfather, whom she calls “Granddaddy,” approaching the main house in a carriage with their enslaver, William McQueen. She watches from the bushes while William stumbles out of the carriage, intoxicated, and vomits on Grandaddy’s boots. Granddaddy covers for Junie so that she can return to the cookhouse. On the way, she pulls a fragment of a William Wordsworth poem out of her apron and reads to calm herself down.

Junie crouches outside the gate of the main house, studying its imposing facade and remembering her late sister, Minnie. Junie misses her and wishes that she could have been as good as Minnie. Back in the house, Junie’s great-aunt Marilla scolds her for disappearing. Marilla’s daughter, Bess, is annoyed with Junie for shirking her laundry responsibilities, too. Junie begs her not to tell her grandmother Muh that she was out all night.

In the main house, Junie helps prepare and serve the McQueens’ breakfast. Mrs. Innis McQueen and her daughter,