Setting the Scene

"Raymond's Run" plunges its readers immediately into the world of its narrator Hazel, known in her neighborhood as "Squeaky," a young black girl verging on adolescence. We meet Hazel walking down a street in Harlem with her older—but mentally younger— brother, Raymond. While she guards her mentally challenged brother from dashing into the traffic or soaking himself in the gutters, Hazel resolutely keeps up breathing exercises to train herself as a runner. Known in the neighborhood as "the fastest thing on two feet" she is determined to maintain her reputation by winning the fifty-yard dash at the school May Day track meet the following day. Unlike her schoolmate Cynthia, who pretends to be nonchalant about her abilities, Hazel works hard to be the best and does not care who knows it.

Suddenly Hazel and Raymond come face-toface with Gretchen and her followers...