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The Last Days of Fraggle Rock

RDQ:	847	Max Word/Sent	29	Total Words	1250		Diff Words	464
Lex	710	Ave Word/.Sent	9	Hi Freq occurs	805	64.4%	Hi freq	194	41.8%
AR	3.4	Long Sentences	8.7	Low Freq occurs	87	7%	Low freq	56	12.1%

Junior Catches a cold
The whole thing started the day that Junior Gorg caught a
cold.
It was a grayish morning in the Gorgs' Garden right outside
Fraggle Rock. Junior was there weeding around the
tomato plants. And Mokey Fraggle was there looking for a 
nice crisp radish to have for breakfast.
Junior didn't notice Mokey which was just as well. She
was doing the best she could to keep out of his way. Junior
doesn't like the Fraggles very much especially when they
pick radishes from his Garden. So Mokey who has a job of]]
picking radishes for the Fraggles had become very good at
avoiding Junior.
She was sneaking under a Gargonzalea bush with her
chosen radish in her arms when a big drop of rain fell on her
tail. At the same time another drop plopped on Junior
Gorg's nose. A big gray cloud had just reached the Garden
and it was trying to decide if it felt like becoming a good old-
fashioned thunder-and-lightning storm.
Hmm Mokey thought. It looks like rain. I'd better get back
to Fraggle Rock in a hurry.
"Hmm" said Junior Gorg out loud. "It looks like rain. I'd 
better finish my chores in a hurry."]]
Mokey made a dash for the hole in the ground that let to 
Fraggle Rock. But in her rush to miss the rain she wasn't as
careful as she might have been. Junior had just gotten to the
cucumbers when he looked up and noticed a flashing tail
disappearing behind the watermelon patch. "Fwaggle!" he
cried his eyes lighting up. "I'm gonna catch me a Fwaggle!"
And he made a flying leap for Mokey - just as the cloud
made up its mind to let loose a shower of rain on the Garden.
Mokey reached the hole a Doozer-length ahead of Junior.
Whew! she thought as she trotted down the tunnel that led 
to Fraggle Rock. That was close! At least I didn't get caught - 
or wet!
The same could not be said for Junior however. By the
time he gave up on Mokey putting his gardening tools away and
got inside the castle he was soaked to the skin.
"Junior" Ma said as he stood dripping on the welcome]]
mat. "You get out of those clothes this instant or you're
going to catch your death of cold."
"Yes Ma" said Junior. If you could say nothing else about
Junior you had to admit that he was a very obedient son. He
put on dry clothes right away and dried his hair as well as he
could. (Since he had hair all over his body this took quite a
bit of doing. He had used seventeen towels by the time he
was through!) But he still had a bit of a sniffle that evening at
dinner. And by the next morning he was running a Gorg-
size temperature.
"You poor thing" Ma said to Junior. "I'll make you some
nice turnip and lima bean soup." Junior was so sick that he
only groaned slightly when Ma mentioned the soup. Junior
hates turnip and lima bean soup.
"Gorg fever" Ma Gorg said to Pa Gorg later as Junior
stared at his soup. "He'll be sick for at least a week."
"The only thing to do is to go someplace to rest and
recuperate" Pa replied. "A week or two in the swamp will fix
Junior up in a jiffy. Besides light of my life you and I haven't
been to the swamp in ages."
"But what about the Garden?" Junior sniffled. "Who will
take care of my beautiful wadishes?"
"Come on Junior" said Ma patting him on his big hot
head. "You wouldn't want the radishes to catch Gorg fever
would you? They'll be just fine. And you can plant a whole
new batch when we get home again!"
That was how the whole thing started. What happened
next was the most momentous event that had ever occurred 
in Fraggle Rock!]]
A Strange Occurrence
The next day Mokey Fraggle was headed out to pick up her
daily quota of radishes when she ran into her roommate
Red. Red was rigging up a new kind of diving board at the 
edge of the Fraggle Pond. It was made out of bouncebush
wood. "When you jump on it" Red explained to the Fraggles 
who were gathered around "you'll be able to bounce higher
than you ever have before. So a triple tow-loop dive should be
as easy as radish pie!"
To show them what she meant she took the first dive off
the new board. Boing! went the board and Red went flying.
"Wow!" she cried. "Bouncy wood!"]]
Red flew over the Fraggle Pond rebounded off a wall
bounced headfirst into Morris Fraggle and finally fell into
the Pond with a huge splash.
"Hey Mokey!" she cried coming up for air. "Neat dive
huh?"
"I think you could use just a little less bounce Red"
Mokey said laughing.
"Where are you headed?" Red asked pulling herself out of
the water and wringing out her tail.
"Over to the Garden" Mokey replied. "Want to come
along?"]]
"Sure!" Red said. "Ouch! Morris sure has a hard head."
And the two friends walked off to the Garden together.
It was a beautiful day outside and the garden was very
green and pleasant. Junior was nowhere to be seen so the
two Fraggles took their time picking out the juiciest radishes
and enjoying the sunshine.
"Gee" Red said pulling hard on a watercress stem. "It
sure can be nice out here when the Gorgs aren't around."
"I know" said Mokey shading her eyes from the sun. "I
get inspired to write some of my best poems when I'm in the
Garden."]]
"Why does the Universe need Gorgs anyway?" Red asked
shaking her head. "All they seem to do is bother Fraggles.
Wouldn't it be great if they just went away? Then we could 
get food whenever we wanted to."
"That would be nice" Mokey sighed. "But it will never
happen. There have been Gorgs outside of Fraggle Rock as
long as there have been Fraggles inside."
"Well I wish they'd just disappear" grumbled Red.
Mokey remembered Red's words later that afternoon. She
was out in the Garden again to pick up a few more radishes
when the door to the castle opened. Oh no she thought. A
Gorg! She hid under a greaseberry leaf and held her breath.
It was a Gorg all right. As a matter of fact it was three
Gorgs. And all three of them were carrying big lumpy bags.
"Good-bye castle!" Mokey heard Junior say. "And good-
bye Garden. Good-bye my lovely wadishes. Sleep tight. 
Junior is going away. But he loves you all." And then to
Mokey's astonishment the three Gorgs opened the gate and
left the Garden!
Mokey could hardly believe her ears or her eyes. She had
never seen the Gorgs leave the Garden before. And they had
said good-bye! Where were they going? What was happening?
She forgot all about gathering radishes and took off for
Fraggle Rock as fast as her legs could carry her.
"Red! Gobo! Wembley! Boober!" she cried as she reached
the Great Hall. All four of her best friends were there.
Red Gobo and Wembley were playing Splash'em in the 
Pond while Boober sat nearby on a ledge trying not to
get wet. "If I get wet I'll catch a cold" he explained to]]

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: Some support

Dialog: Multiple speakers

Dialog: Broken dialogue

Dialog: Unlabeled Speaker

Vocabulary: More decoding/definition issues

Language: Many descriptive words

Sentences: Some Long/Complex

Text structure: Story/Poem

Inferences: Several Implications

Complexity: Several ideas - closely related

Concepts: Concrete/Simple Social

Features

Clear cause/effect

Simple Plot

Topic

*Plants

Cooperation

*Community

Gardens/Gardening

*Home Arts & Food

Low Frequency Words

astonishment	bouncebush	disappearing	doozer	fashioned
fraggle	fraggles	fwaggle	gardening	gargonzalea
gathering	gobo	gonna	gorg	gorg's
gorgs	grayish	greaseberry	headfirst	inspired
instant	juiciest	junior	ledge	lighting
lima	mentioned	mokey	mokey's	momentous
nowhere	obedient	occurred	occurrence	pleasant
poems	quota	rebounded	recuperate	rigging
roommate	shading	shower	sniffle	sniffled
splash'em	swamp	tow	turnip	universe
wadishes	watercress	watermelon	wembley	wringing