Eleanor "Cookie" Burke

Reflections66 Eleanor "Cookie" Burke

We called ourselves the Salt & Pepa of West Philadelphia. Michelle Peterson, who was light-skinned like Salt, was the loud mouth of the group. She was always ready to fight. I figured she was like that because she moved out of the projects from the Bronx. She was about 5ft tall, and had enough chest to make you wonder if she and Dolly Parton were related. Portia Daniels was brown-skinned like Pepa, but slimmer. She was the wise cracking intellectual one, and to me, the perfect girl. Most people thought she was nerdy because she was so smart. Not hardly. Portia would cuss you out outside the classroom, go inside, ace a test, and come back out and tell you off again if she had to. And then there was me, the in between sister. I was called Spindarella of the group, because of my light-brown eyes (thanks to my grandmother) and because at Portia?s sister?s graduation party, the DJ allowed me to try and spin on his turn table. Now you know I didn?t do anything but make noise.