rrr

ra
aaar
raymond
yy ym
mm
mo
mooon
ndd’’ss
rrr
ru
r
ru
uuun
run n
Toni Cade Bambara

don’t have much work to do around the house like some girls. My mother
I does that. And I don’t have to earn my pocket money by hustling; George
runs errands for the big boys and sells Christmas cards. And anything else From her posture and
that’s got to get done, my father does. All I have to do in life is mind my her expression, what can
you infer about the girl
brother Raymond, which is enough. in this photograph?
Sometimes I slip and say my little brother Raymond. But as any fool can
see he’s much bigger and he’s older too. But a lot of people call him my little
brother cause he needs looking after cause he’s not quite right. And a lot of
smart mouths got lots to say about that too, especially when George was
10 minding him. But now, if anybody has anything to say to Raymond, anything
to say about his big head,1 they have to come by me. And I don’t play the
dozens2 or believe in standing around with somebody in my face doing a lot of
talking. I much rather just knock you down and take my chances even if I am
a little girl with skinny arms and a squeaky voice, which is how I got the name
Squeaky. And if things get too rough, I run. And as anybody can tell you, I’m
the fastest thing on two feet. a a PLOT: EXPOSITION
There is no track meet that I don’t win the first place medal. I used to What have you learned
win the twenty-yard dash when I was a little kid in kindergarten. Nowadays, about Squeaky so far?
it’s the fifty-yard dash. And tomorrow I’m subject to run the quarter-meter
20 relay all by myself and come in first, second, and third. The big kids call me relay (rCPlA) n. a race
Mercury 3 cause I’m the swiftest thing in the neighborhood. Everybody knows in which several team
that—except two people who know better, my father and me. He can beat members take turns
running to complete
me to Amsterdam Avenue with me having a two fire hydrant headstart and
the race
him running with his hands in his pockets and whistling. But that’s private
information. Cause can you imagine some thirty-five-year-old man stuffing
himself into PAL shorts to race little kids? So as far as everyone’s concerned, I’m

1. big head: a result of hydrocephalus, or fluid in parts of the brain, that causes enlargement of the skull.
2. play the dozens: exchange rhyming insults.
3. Mercury: in Roman mythology, the swift messenger of the gods.

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 the girl and the background
are two separate pieces —
an alternate background may
have to be found if we can’t
locate this photographer

image of girl or group of

girls (african-american)

possibly set on harlem

street with sidewalks
(not present-day)

fpo

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 the fastest and that goes for Gretchen, too, who has put out the tale that she is
going to win the first-place medal this year. Ridiculous. In the second place, she’s
got short legs. In the third place, she’s got freckles. In the first place, no one can
30 beat me and that’s all there is to it.
I’m standing on the corner admiring the weather and about to take a
stroll down Broadway so I can practice my breathing exercises, and I’ve got
Raymond walking on the inside close to the buildings, cause he’s subject to
fits of fantasy and starts thinking he’s a circus performer and that the curb is
a tightrope strung high in the air. And sometimes after a rain he likes to step
down off his tightrope right into the gutter and slosh around getting his shoes
and cuffs wet. Then I get hit when I get home. Or sometimes if you don’t
watch him he’ll dash across traffic to the island in the middle of Broadway
and give the pigeons a fit. Then I have to go behind him apologizing to all
40 the old people sitting around trying to get some sun and getting all upset with
the pigeons fluttering around them, scattering their newspapers and upsetting
the waxpaper lunches4 in their laps. So I keep Raymond on the inside of me,
and he plays like he’s driving a stage coach which is O.K. by me so long as he
doesn’t run me over or interrupt my breathing exercises, which I have to do on
account of I’m serious about my running, and I don’t care who knows it. b b MAKE INFERENCES
Now some people like to act like things come easy to them, won’t let on Reread lines 31–45. How
that they practice. Not me. I’ll high-prance down 34th Street like a rodeo do you think Squeaky
feels about taking care
pony to keep my knees strong even if it does get my mother uptight so that
of her brother? Use an
she walks ahead like she’s not with me, don’t know me, is all by herself on a equation to note your
50 shopping trip, and I am somebody else’s crazy child. Now you take Cynthia inference.
Procter for instance. She’s just the opposite. If there’s a test tomorrow, she’ll
say something like, “Oh, I guess I’ll play handball this afternoon and watch
television tonight,” just to let you know she ain’t thinking about the test. Or
like last week when she won the spelling bee for the millionth time, “A good
thing you got ‘receive,’ Squeaky, cause I would have got it wrong. I completely
forgot about the spelling bee.” And she’ll clutch the lace on her blouse like it clutch (klOch) v. to grasp
was a narrow escape. Oh, brother. But of course when I pass her house on my and hold tightly
early morning trots around the block, she is practicing the scales on the piano
over and over and over and over. Then in music class she always lets herself get
60 bumped around so she falls accidentally on purpose onto the piano stool and is
so surprised to find herself sitting there that she decides just for fun to try out prodigy (prJdPE-jC)
the ole keys. And what do you know—Chopin’s waltzes5 just spring out of her n. a person with an
fingertips and she’s the most surprised thing in the world. A regular prodigy. exceptional talent
I could kill people like that. I stay up all night studying the words for the
spelling bee. And you can see me any time of day practicing running. I never
walk if I can trot, and shame on Raymond if he can’t keep up. But of course liable (lFPE-bEl) adj.
he does, cause if he hangs back someone’s liable to walk up to him and get likely to

4. waxpaper lunches: sandwiches wrapped in wax paper.

5. Chopin’s (shIPpBnzQ) waltzes: music by composer Frédéric Chopin.

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 smart, or take his allowance from him, or ask him where he got that great big
pumpkin head. People are so stupid sometimes.
70 So I’m strolling down Broadway breathing out and breathing in on counts
of seven, which is my lucky number, and here comes Gretchen and her
sidekicks: Mary Louise, who used to be a friend of mine when she first moved sidekick (sFdPkGkQ) n.
to Harlem from Baltimore and got beat up by everybody till I took up for her a close friend
on account of her mother and my mother used to sing in the same choir when
they were young girls, but people ain’t grateful, so now she hangs out with the
new girl Gretchen and talks about me like a dog; and Rosie, who is as fat as I
am skinny and has a big mouth where Raymond is concerned and is too stupid
to know that there is not a big deal of difference between herself and Raymond
and that she can’t afford to throw stones. So they are steady coming up
80 Broadway and I see right away that it’s going to be one of those Dodge City6
scenes cause the street ain’t that big and they’re close to the buildings just as
we are. First I think I’ll step into the candy store and look over the new comics
and let them pass. But that’s chicken and I’ve got a reputation to consider.
So then I think I’ll just walk straight on through them or even over them if
necessary. But as they get to me, they slow down. I’m ready to fight, cause like
I said I don’t feature a whole lot of chit-chat, I much prefer to just knock you
down right from the jump and save everybody a lotta precious time. c c PLOT: RISING
“You signing up for the May Day races?” smiles Mary Louise, only it’s not ACTION
What is the conflict
a smile at all. A dumb question like that doesn’t deserve an answer. Besides,
between Gretchen and
90 there’s just me and Gretchen standing there really, so no use wasting my breath Squeaky?
talking to shadows.
“I don’t think you’re going to win this time,” says Rosie, trying to signify
with her hands on her hips all salty, completely forgetting that I have whupped
her behind many times for less salt than that.
“I always win cause I’m the best,” I say straight at Gretchen who is, as far
as I’m concerned, the only one talking in this ventriloquist-dummy routine. VISUAL
Gretchen smiles, but it’s not a smile, and I’m thinking that girls never really VOCABULARY
smile at each other because they don’t know how and don’t want to know how
and there’s probably no one to teach us how, cause grown-up girls don’t know
100 either. Then they all look at Raymond who has just brought his mule team to a
standstill. And they’re about to see what trouble they can get into through him.
“What grade you in now, Raymond?”
“You got anything to say to my brother, you say it to me, Mary Louise
Williams of Raggedy Town, Baltimore.”
“What are you, his mother?” sasses Rosie.
“That’s right, Fatso. And the next word out of anybody and I’ll be their
mother too.” So they just stand there and Gretchen shifts from one leg to ventriloquist-dummy n.
the other and so do they. Then Gretchen puts her hands on her hips and is A ventriloquist controls
about to say something with her freckle-face self but doesn’t. Then she walks his or her voice and
moves the mouth of a
puppet, or dummy, to
make it appear to be
talking.
6. Dodge City: an Old West town, famous for showdowns between outlaws and lawmen.

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 110 around me looking me up and down but keeps walking up Broadway, and
her sidekicks follow her. So me and Raymond smile at each other and he says,
“Gidyap” to his team and I continue with my breathing exercises, strolling
down Broadway toward the ice man on 145th with not a care in the world
cause I am Miss Quicksilver7 herself.
I take my time getting to the park on May Day because the track meet is
the last thing on the program. The biggest thing on the program is the May
Pole dancing, which I can do without, thank you, even if my mother thinks
it’s a shame I don’t take part and act like a girl for a change. You’d think my
mother’d be grateful not to have to make me a white organdy dress with a big
120 satin sash and buy me new white baby-doll shoes that can’t be taken out of
the box till the big day. You’d think she’d be glad her daughter ain’t out there
prancing around a May Pole getting the new clothes all dirty and sweaty and
trying to act like a fairy or a flower or whatever you’re supposed to be when
you should be trying to be yourself, whatever that is, which is, as far as I am
concerned, a poor Black girl who really can’t afford to buy shoes and a new
dress you only wear once a lifetime cause it won’t fit next year. d d MAKE INFERENCES
I was once a strawberry in a Hansel and Gretel pageant when I was in Reread lines 115–126.
nursery school and didn’t have no better sense than to dance on tiptoe with my What do you think
Squeaky’s relationship
arms in a circle over my head doing umbrella steps and being a perfect fool just
with her mother is like?
130 so my mother and father could come dressed up and clap. You’d think they’d
know better than to encourage that kind of nonsense. I am not a strawberry. I
do not dance on my toes. I run. That is what I am all about. So I always come
late to the May Day program, just in time to get my number pinned on and
lay in the grass till they announce the fifty-yard dash.
I put Raymond in the little swings, which is a tight squeeze this year and
will be impossible next year. Then I look around for Mr. Pearson, who pins
the numbers on. I’m really looking for Gretchen, if you want to know the
truth, but she’s not around. The park is jam-packed. Parents in hats and
corsages and breast-pocket handkerchiefs peeking up. Kids in white dresses
140 and light-blue suits. The parkees8 unfolding chairs and chasing the rowdy e MAKE INFERENCES
kids from Lenox9 as if they had no right to be there. The big guys with their Reread lines 135–136.
caps on backwards, leaning against the fence swirling the basketballs on How is Squeaky’s life
affected by having to
the tips of their fingers, waiting for all these crazy people to clear out the take care of Raymond?
park so they can play. Most of the kids in my class are carrying bass drums Think about how
and glockenspiels10 and flutes. You’d think they’d put in a few bongos or she might deal with
something for real like that. e Raymond next year.
Then here comes Mr. Pearson with his clipboard and his cards and pencils
and whistles and safety pins and 50 million other things he’s always dropping
all over the place with his clumsy self. He sticks out in a crowd because he’s

7. Miss Quicksilver: a reference to how fast quicksilver (mercury) flows.

8. parkees: people who regularly gather in the park.
9. Lenox: street in Harlem in New York City.
10. glockenspiels (glJkPEn-spClzQ): musical instruments with tuned metal bars played with light hammers.

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 150 on stilts. We used to call him Jack and the Beanstalk to get him mad. But I’m
the only one that can outrun him and get away, and I’m too grown for that
silliness now.
“Well, Squeaky,” he says, checking my name off the list and handing me
number seven and two pins. And I’m thinking he’s got no right to call me
Squeaky, if I can’t call him Beanstalk.
“Hazel Elizabeth Deborah Parker,” I correct him and tell him to write it
down on his board.
“Well, Hazel Elizabeth Deborah Parker, going to give someone else a break
How does the boy in this
this year?” I squint at him real hard to see if he is seriously thinking I should picture compare with
160 lose the race on purpose just to give someone else a break. “Only six girls the way you imagine
running this time,” he continues, shaking his head sadly like it’s my fault all Raymond?

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 of New York didn’t turn out in sneakers. “That new girl should give you a run
for your money.” He looks around the park for Gretchen like a periscope11 in a
submarine movie. “Wouldn’t it be a nice gesture if you were . . . to ahhh . . .”
I give him such a look he couldn’t finish putting that idea into words.
Grownups got a lot of nerve sometimes. I pin number seven to myself and GRAMMAR IN
stomp away, I’m so burnt. And I go straight for the track and stretch out on CONTEXT
the grass while the band winds up with “Oh, the Monkey Wrapped His Tail Line 165 is a complete
Around the Flag Pole,” which my teacher calls by some other name. The man sentence because it
contains both a subject
170 on the loudspeaker is calling everyone over to the track and I’m on my back and a predicate. A
looking at the sky, trying to pretend I’m in the country, but I can’t, because sentence fragment
even grass in the city feels hard as sidewalk, and there’s just no pretending you would be missing one of
are anywhere but in a “concrete jungle” as my grandfather says. these two elements.

he twenty-yard dash takes all of two minutes cause most of the little kids
T don’t know no better than to run off the track or run the wrong way or
run smack into the fence and fall down and cry. One little kid, though, has got
the good sense to run straight for the white ribbon up ahead so he wins. Then
the second-graders line up for the thirty-yard dash and I don’t even bother to
turn my head to watch cause Raphael Perez always wins. He wins before he
180 even begins by psyching the runners, telling them they’re going to trip on their
shoelaces and fall on their faces or lose their shorts or something, which he
doesn’t really have to do since he is very fast, almost as fast as I am. After that
is the forty-yard dash which I used to run when I was in first grade. Raymond
is hollering from the swings cause he knows I’m about to do my thing cause
the man on the loudspeaker has just announced the fifty-yard dash, although
he might just as well be giving a recipe for angel food cake cause you can
hardly make out what he’s sayin for the static. I get up and slip off my sweat
pants and then I see Gretchen standing at the starting line, kicking her legs
out like a pro. Then as I get into place I see that ole Raymond is on line on
190 the other side of the fence, bending down with his fingers on the ground just
like he knew what he was doing. I was going to yell at him but then I didn’t. It
burns up your energy to holler. f f PLOT: RISING
Every time, just before I take off in a race, I always feel like I’m in a dream, ACTION
What details in this
the kind of dream you have when you’re sick with fever and feel all hot and
paragraph increase the
weightless. I dream I’m flying over a sandy beach in the early morning sun, excitement and tension?
kissing the leaves of the trees as I fly by. And there’s always the smell of apples,
just like in the country when I was little and used to think I was a choo-choo
train, running through the fields of corn and chugging up the hill to the
orchard. And all the time I’m dreaming this, I get lighter and lighter until I’m
200 flying over the beach again, getting blown through the sky like a feather that
weighs nothing at all. But once I spread my fingers in the dirt and crouch over crouch v. to stoop with
the Get on Your Mark, the dream goes and I am solid again and am telling bent knees

11. periscope: a tube with mirrors or prisms inside through which a person can see the reflection of an
object at the other end.

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 myself, Squeaky you must win, you must win, you are the fastest thing in
the world, you can even beat your father up Amsterdam if you really try. g g MAKE INFERENCES
And then I feel my weight coming back just behind my knees then down to Why do you think
my feet then into the earth and the pistol shot explodes in my blood and I am Squeaky always feels
this way before a race?
off and weightless again, flying past the other runners, my arms pumping up
and down and the whole world is quiet except for the crunch as I zoom over
the gravel in the track. I glance to my left and there is no one. To the right, a
210 blurred Gretchen, who’s got her chin jutting out as if it would win the race all
by itself. And on the other side of the fence is Raymond with his arms down to
his side and the palms tucked up behind him, running in his very own style,
and it’s the first time I ever saw that and I almost stop to watch my brother
Raymond on his first run. But the white ribbon is bouncing toward me and I
tear past it, racing into the distance till my feet with a mind of their own start
digging up footfuls of dirt and brake me short. Then all the kids standing on
the side pile on me, banging me on the back and slapping my head with their
May Day programs, for I have won again and everybody on 151st Street can
walk tall for another year.
220 “In first place . . .” the man on the loudspeaker is clear as a bell now. But Language Coach
then he pauses and the loudspeaker starts to whine. Then static. And I lean Similes A simile is
down to catch my breath and here comes Gretchen walking back, for she’s a comparison using
overshot the finish line too, huffing and puffing with her hands on her hips the words like or
taking it slow, breathing in steady time like a real pro and I sort of like her a as. Reread line 220.
A simile compares
little for the first time. “In first place . . .” and then three or four voices get all the voice on the
mixed up on the loudspeaker and I dig my sneaker into the grass and stare at loudspeaker to the
Gretchen who’s staring back, we both wondering just who did win. I can hear sound of a bell. Would
old Beanstalk arguing with the man on the loudspeaker and then a few others it be easy or hard to
running their mouths about what the stopwatches say. Then I hear Raymond hear a voice that is
230 yanking at the fence to call me and I wave to shush him, but he keeps rattling “clear as a bell”?
the fence like a gorilla in a cage like in them gorilla movies, but then like a
dancer or something he starts climbing up nice and easy but very fast. And
it occurs to me, watching how smoothly he climbs hand over hand and
remembering how he looked running with his arms down to his side and with
the wind pulling his mouth back and his teeth showing and all, it occurred to
me that Raymond would make a very fine runner. Doesn’t he always keep up
with me on my trots? And he surely knows how to breathe in counts of seven
cause he’s always doing it at the dinner table, which drives my brother George
up the wall. And I’m smiling to beat the band cause if I’ve lost this race, or if
240 me and Gretchen tied, or even if I’ve won, I can always retire as a runner and h PLOT: CLIMAX
begin a whole new career as a coach with Raymond as my champion. After all, What decision does
Squeaky make as
with a little more study I can beat Cynthia and her phony self at the spelling she waits for the
bee. And if I bugged my mother, I could get piano lessons and become a star. announcement? Note
And I have a big rep as the baddest thing around. And I’ve got a roomful of what incidents influence
ribbons and medals and awards. But what has Raymond got to call his own? h this decision.

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 What can you infer
about how the girl in red
feels about herself? Tell
what clues you used to
make your inference.

So I stand there with my new plans, laughing out loud by this time as
Raymond jumps down from the fence and runs over with his teeth showing
and his arms down to the side, which no one before him has quite mastered as
a running style. And by the time he comes over I’m jumping up and down so
250 glad to see him—my brother Raymond, a great runner in the family tradition.
But of course everyone thinks I’m jumping up and down because the men on
the loudspeaker have finally gotten themselves together and compared notes
and are announcing, “In first place—Miss Hazel Elizabeth Deborah Parker.”
(Dig that.) “In second place—Miss Gretchen P. Lewis.” And I look over at
Gretchen wondering what the “P” stands for. And I smile. Cause she’s good,
no doubt about it. Maybe she’d like to help me coach Raymond; she obviously
is serious about running, as any fool can see. And she nods to congratulate me
and then she smiles. And I smile. We stand there with this big smile of respect i PLOT: FALLING
ACTION AND
between us. It’s about as real a smile as girls can do for each other, considering RESOLUTION
260 we don’t practice real smiling every day, you know, cause maybe we too busy How does Squeaky react
being flowers or fairies or strawberries instead of something honest and worthy to the announcement
of respect . . . you know . . . like being people.  i that she won the race?

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