The Hungry Dog and the Cheese Snoodles

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 chanting a rhythmic melody, “Engine, engine number nine rolling down the Chicago line...”

         When they started on the second verse, Gretchen’s shoestrings became tangled in the rope, but before she took her second turn, she sat on the worn, scuffed up floor to take her shoes off.  They were white, high top, Air Force Ones.  They seemed to be new. 

Janet hollered out, “Dang, Gretchen, no wonder you had on those ugly galoshes, you didn’t want to get your new kicks messed up.”

         “You know that’s right, now I’m taking my shoes off ‘cause I can’t move the way I want to with them on,” Gretchen said.

         “Well, hurry up.  I want my turn before I have to go, I’m getting hungry” said Chomper.

         “Okay, wait a minute,” Gretchen said.

         Gretchen stood up and prepared herself for her second turn.  The brow of her head was sweaty, seemingly because of strong concentration over this next turn.  Her tawny brown skin glistened under the pale lights of the gymnasium.  She was about ready to jump in, when Janet dropped her end of the rope.

         “Sorry ‘bout that,” said Janet.

         Gretchen said, “You just don’t want me to beat you.”

         “Yeah, right,” said Janet, picking up the rope.  “You just come on.  I’m ready now.”

         The ropes were slapping against the hardwood floor.  Gretchen poised herself, and in a split second, she jumped into the ropes.  The girls began the chant again.

         Gretchen hopped around on one foot, criss-crossed her foot in a scissor-like fashion a few times, and then she twirled around!  She kept going faster and faster!  She placed her feet together and started moving from side to side.  A few seconds passed; then, all of a sudden she jumped out from between the double ropes, ran around to the other side, bounced back into the ropes, and continued her enigmatic moves.

         When the girls finished the chant, they started another.  Gretchen, out of breath, yelled, “Hey, Janet, “U” can’t touched this!

         “Maybe I should take my shoes off when I jump,” laughed Janet.

         When Gretchen surpassed Janet’s score, she started laughing and flinging her arms.  She fell to the floor still laughing, in a tone that underlined the softness of her bright eyes, her pug nose, and her full mouth, Gretchen said, “Now, let’s see you beat that.”

         “I will.  Come on Chomper, your turn,” Janet said.

         As the girls were laughing and taking turns jumping rope, Gretchen received a call from her mom about her dog.  It seems that someone left their backyard gate open and Raleigh, her twenty-five pound retriever/Dalmatian/hound dog, or as Gretchen’s father called him, The Mutt, escaped.

         “Okay, I gotta go, Raleigh is loose.  I forgot to feed him and you know what that means, he’ll be at everybody’s back door within a fifteen-mile radius begging for scraps.  Although, he looks dangerous because of his size, some people don’t understand that he’s just a big marshmallow with legs, Gretchen said.

         “Maybe we can help you look for him,” Janet suggested.

         “Sure, and then after we find him we can stop at the store and get something to snack on, jumping rope has made me hungry, and I only have this one bag of Cheese Snoodles” Chomper said.

         Gretchen and Janet looked at each other and started laughing, because it was a large bag.

         As the girls were searching and calling out Raleigh’s name, they heard someone or something below the bridge making a kind of whining noise.  The girls looked down and saw Raleigh stuck in what seemed to be very deep and sticky mud.  As they ran down the slope leading to the riverbank, Gretchen realized that they didn’t have anything to pull the dog out of the gooey slop.  She immediately thought about the jump rope they left at the field house.  Janet figured that with the three of them together they could pull Raleigh out easy.

         “Hey Gretchen, I’m going back to the field house to get the rope so that we can put around Raleigh’s two front legs to pull him out with,” Janet said.

         “Okay,” Gretchen said with tears in her eyes.

         Gretchen felt that if anything happened to Raleigh she could never forgive herself.  If only she’d made sure that the backyard gate was securely latched.

         Janet scrambled her 5’ 7” frame back up the slope and ran all the way back to the field house.  She was so out of breath the other kids still at the field house came to where she was with a cup of water and asked her what was the matter.  As she told the tale of the stuck dog, it seemed that just about every kid in the field house came over to where she was to listen to the story.  After finishing the story, Janet found the rope, and began to leave, all the kids followed, along with one of the park coordinators.  He wanted to make sure that the kids were safe during this daring rescue mission.

         When everyone approached the overpass to where Gretchen, Chomper and Raleigh were, Janet looked over and saw that the spot was vacant where the rescue operation was to take place.  As Janet surveyed the scene, she saw muddy foot and paw prints going up the slope, then she heard one of the kids yell out, “Look, there’s Raleigh and it looks like he’s sitting on somebody!”

         Janet and the rest of the kids ran to where the kid was pointing and sure enough, there was a very muddy Raleigh lying across a very tall, very round, and very angry Chomper.

         “What happened,” Janet asked.

         “Well, while we were waiting for you to come back with a rope, Chomper and I started calling out to Raleigh to hold on, and not to move around so much.  Wouldn’t you know it, Chomper pulled out a bag of Cheese Snoodles and Raleigh went wild.  He kept squirming and lurching forward that he pulled himself right out of the mud, and that’s when Chomper noticed Raleigh’s tongue hanging out of his mouth and his tail wagging.  Chomper was like, uh oh and she took off running.  Then Raleigh chased her up the slope and down the street.  When he caught up with her, he just pounced on her, retrieved the bag right out of her hand, and started eating the Snoodles.  Guess he didn’t get a chance to make his snack time visits to the neighbors back doors yet,” Janet said laughing.

         “Help, get this big ol’ hound off me,” Chomper yelled, “and you owe me a bag of Cheese Snoodles, Gretchen.  Raleighhhhhh, stop licking my face, Eeewwwww!”