Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussions of physical and sexual abuse, child sex trafficking, lynching, infanticide, and segregation. The source material includes racial slurs and ableist and anti-gay language, which is replicated in this guide only in direct quotes.

Thirteen-year-old Tangy Mae Quinn accompanies her mother, Rozelle, for her last day of work as a domestic servant for the white Munford family. Rozelle claims she’s dying. Rozelle expects Tangy to take over her job, so she shows Tangy how to do chores and steal inconspicuously. Tangy doesn’t want to work for the Munfords, as she’d have to drop out of school. She’s remained in school longer than her siblings.

Tangy and Rozelle visit Miss Janie Jay, who teaches Sunday school at the church that Tangy and her siblings attend. Rozelle does not attend. Tangy loves her mother but feels trapped by her. She thinks school will set her free.

Tangy lives with her mother and her siblings—Harvey, Sam, Tarabelle, Martha Jean, Wallace, Laura, and Edna—in a decaying, small house. Their older sister, Mushy, moved to Ohio. The children sleep on pallets in the kitchen or living area, and Rozelle sleeps in a bed upstairs. Tangy worries that the house will be destroyed by a storm someday.