Answer:“Be good, be good, be good, be good, my Junie,”
my mother sang as she combed my hair; a song,
a story, a croon,1
a plea. “It’s just you and me, two
women alone in the world, June darling of my
heart; we have enough troubles getting by, we
surely don’t need a single one more, so you keep
your sweet self out of fighting and all that bad
stuff. People can be little-hearted, but turn the
other cheek, smile at the world, and the world’ll
surely smile back.”
We stood in front of the mirror as she combed
my hair, combed and brushed and smoothed.
Her head came just above mine; she said when I grew another inch, she’d stand on a stool to brush my
hair. “I’m not giving up this pleasure!” And she laughed her long honey laugh.
My mother was April, my grandmother had been May, I was June. “And someday,” said my mother,
“you’ll have a daughter of your own. What will you name her?”
“January!” I’d yell when I was little. “February! No, November!” My mother laughed her honey laugh. She
had little emerald eyes that warmed me like the sun.
Every day when I went to school, she went to work. “Sometimes I stop what I’m doing,” she said, “lay
down my tools, and stop everything, because all I can think about is you. Wondering what you’re doing
and if you need me. Now, Junie, if anyone ever bothers you — ”
“ — I walk away, run away, come on home as fast as my feet will take me,” I recited.
“Yes. You come to me. You just bring me your trouble, because I’m here on this earth to love you and
take care of you.”
I was safe with her. Still, sometimes I woke up at night and heard footsteps slowly creeping up the
stairs. It wasn’t my mother, she was asleep in the bed across the room, so it was robbers, thieves, and
Explanation:
