Cat Running by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Fast Cat Kinsley, the fastest runner at Brownwood School. She took first in the Play Day races last year, even though she was only a short skinny fifth-grader then. But she beat out all the boys, even the sixth-grade ones, from Lincoln and Elmwood too.

Cat loves running. It makes her feel free, the way her legs burn and her lungs ache and everything seems to kind of fade away. She can forget about bossy Ellen and teasing Cliff, about frail Mama and stern Father, about the fact that she won't be running in the Play Day races this year...

And that's all Father's fault, and he'd better know it. Every other girl at school will be wearing slacks for Play Day, but Cat will be stuck in a dress, because Father is too old-fashioned and too stubborn and won't pay a dime for anything Cat wants. Won't he feel guilty when Brownwood loses the games and don't get the prize money to buy new gloves and bats for the kids to play with.

But Browntown School does win, and all because of That Zane Perkins. He's a newcomer to school, one of the Okies who set up camp down by Mr. Otis' farm looking for work after the great dust storms out in Oklahoma and Texas chased them out of their homes. He wears shirts and overalls that are patched and worn and too big or too small, and he runs the Play Day races barefoot! Cat's refusing to run because she'd have to wear a dress instead of slacks, and that Zane Perkins runs it barefoot, like he doesn't know any better!

Cat hates that Zane Perkins. She'll hate him 'til the day she dies.

But she doesn't hate little Sammy Perkins. And when Sammy needs them, Cat just might have to team up with that Zane Perkins in a race against time itself...