Raymond’s Run is a story written by Toni Cade Bambara who describes the events that take place in the life of a skinny girl named Hazel Elizabeth Deborah Parker, a little African-American girl with a squeaky voice (which gives her the nickname “Squeaky”) that has passion to run. In this story Hazel changes her views about things a lot in this story. Such as her POV on Raymond, Gretchen and others in general/
Raymond suffers a metal disease. He’s bigger and older than Hazel, but a lot of people call him Hazel's little brother because he needs to be looked after. “Squeaky” often takes strolls down Broadway so she can practice her breathing exercises while she keeps an eye on her brother all the time. She makes Raymond walk on the inside because he always makes fantasies so he starts thinking he's a circus performer and that the curb is a tightrope strung high in the air. Hazel used to thing
She hates a girl named Gretchen and her friends Mary Louise Williams from Baltimore because Gretchen’s a rival for the fifty-yard dash. She believes “she’s tough, not a strawberry or someone who enjoys dancing on her toes, she likes to run and this passion had made her to win many trophies, ribbons and it’s because of her velocity.” She says in this story
Every time just before she takes off in a race, she feels like she is in a dream, the kind you have when you've fever and feel hot and weightless. She usually dreams she flies over a sandy beach in the early morning sun, touching the leaves of the trees. She also perceives the smell of apples just like in the fields.