by Lawana Johnson

Created on: January 20, 2009

The Hungry Dog and the Cheese Snoodles

It had been raining day and night for two days, and finally the sun was breaking through the clouds.

Twelve-year-old Gretchen Walker was putting on her raincoat and boots to go to the field house to jump rope with her friends. She had already cleaned the house to her mom's satisfaction. Every corner had to be thoroughly cleaned and inspected before she could even begin her spring vacation, or as her mom called it, clean-up week, which she said in her day they used to call it.

"Gretchen, did you feed Raleigh," Janet's mom called out after her.

Gretchen hurriedly ran out of the house, and didn't hear her mom. Two days had been wasted already because of the steady rains and she didn't want to waste any more time to get into some serious rope jumping with her friends at the field house. She felt like today would be the day she was going to beat her loud-mouthed friend, Janet Ridley at double-dutch if that was the last thing she would ever do.

At Jackson Park's field house, there were many games of double-dutch going, as well as basketball, and other fun activities. Once inside Gretchen saw Janet.

"Come on, Gretchen, what took you so long," said Janet, untangling a set of jumping ropes.

"Wait", Gretchen said while hanging up her raincoat in the locker provided by the park district for the kids, "I have to put my coat and boots up."

After finding a spot where they could commence with their game, Linda Harper ran over to where they were, and picked up one end of the rope.

"Come on girl, I want to see if you can beat Janet's score from the other day," Linda said.

She was twelve and a half and 5' 8" and a head taller than Janet and two heads taller than Gretchen, and always chewing on something, and therefore given the affectionate nickname, Chomper. Even though she was the heaviest of the three of them, no one ever made fun of her weight because they knew that as they got older, she would probably be the fittest of the trio, because she loved to jump rope, and play basketball, even more than Gretchen did.

"Just hold your horses, Chomper, and Janet make sure you turn the rope right," laughed Gretchen.

Gretchen hunched over making back and forth movements with her 5'6" frame. She was wearing an off-white sweatshirt with the name of her grade school written across the front and tight, straight leg jeans. Her dark auburn hair was curly and to the shoulders. She eased closer to the ropes. When she jumped in, the girls turning started

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