Recitatif

"It was one thing to be taken out of your own bed early in the morning—it was something else to be stuck in a strange place with a girl from a whole other race."

Twyla is vulnerable and scared. She finds herself taken from her home and put in a strange environment early in the morning. This shows the lack of stability in her life and also shows why she greatly craves order and predictability later in life, marrying the very stable James, who is "comfortable as a house slipper" (250). Not only is she taken from her familiar environment but she is disturbed to be rooming with someone of another race, an Other. Her mother has taught her to dislike those of another race. But her mother's influence is not strong enough to overcome Twyla's need for support, which she gets from Roberta, who quickly becomes like a sister.

"'Oh,' she nodded her head and I liked the way she understood things so fast."

Roberta doesn't judge Twyla. While the other girls mock Twyla and her mother, Roberta easily accepts Twyla's simple explanation for her mother's inability to care for her. She appreciates that Roberta does not pry for more information, nor make fun of her for her mother's irresponsible ways.

"We didn't like each other all that much at first, but nobody else wanted to play with us because we weren't real orphans with beautiful dead parents in the sky. We were dumped."

The other girls in the orphanage are just as vulnerable as Roberta and Twyla. Unlike Twyla and Roberta, however, the other kids are "real orphans" since their parents are dead.