Text Leveling System

Maniac Magee

RDQ:	2113	Max Word/Sent	62	Total Words	3305		Diff Words	987
Lex	920	Ave Word/.Sent	10	Hi Freq occurs	2459	74.4%	Hi freq	415	42%
AR	5.1	Long Sentences	16.1	Low Freq occurs	231	7%	Low freq	186	18.8%

They say Maniac Magee was born in a dump. 
They say his stomach was a cereal box and his heart 
a sofa spring.
They say he kept an eight-inch cockroach on a leash 
and that rats stood guard over him while he slept.
They say if you knew he was coming and you sprinkled 
salt on the ground and he ran over it within two 
or three blocks he would be as slow as everybody 
else.
They say.

What's true what's myth? It's hard to know. 
Finsterwald's gone now yet even today you'll never 
find a kid sitting on the steps where he once lived. 
The Little League field is still there and the band shell. 
Cobble's Corner still stands at the corner of Hector 
and Birch and if you ask the man behind the counter 
he'll take the clump of string out of a drawer and let 
you see it.]] 
Grade school girls in Two Mills still jump rope and chant:

Ma-niac Ma-niac
He's so cool
Ma-niac Ma-niac
Don't go to school
Runs all night
Runs all right
Ma-niac Ma-niac
Kissed a bull!

And sometimes the girl holding one end of the rope 
is from the West side of Hector and the girl on the 
other end is from the East side; and if you're looking 
for Maniac Magee's legacy or monument that's as 
good as any  - even if it wasn't really a bull.
But that's okay because the history of a kid is one 
part fact two parts legend and three parts snowball. 
And if you want to know what it was like back when 
Maniac Magee roamed these parts well just run your 
hand under your movie seat and be very very careful 
not to let the facts get mixed up with the truth.]] 
Maniac Magee was not born in a dump. He 
was born in a house a pretty ordinary house right 
across the river from here in Bridgeport. And he had 
regular parents a mother and a father.
But not for long.
One day his parents left him with a sitter and took 
the P & W high-speed trolley into the city. On the 
way back home they were on board when the P & 
W had its famous crash when the motorman was 
drunk and took the high trestle over the Schuylkill 
River at sixty miles an hour, and the whole kaboodle 
took a swan dive into the water.
And just like that Maniac was an orphan. He was 
three years old.
Of course to be accurate he wasn't really Maniac 
then. He was Jeffrey. Jeffrey Lionel Magee.

Little Jeffrey was shipped off to his nearest relatives 
Aunt Dot and Uncle Dan. They lived in Hollidaysburg 
in the western part of Pennsylvania.]] 
Aunt Dot and Uncle Dan hated each other but 
because they were strict Catholics they wouldn't get 
a divorce. Around the time Jeffrey arrived they 
stopped talking to each other. Then they stopped 
sharing.
Pretty soon there were two of everything in the 
house. Two bathrooms. Two TVs. Two refrigerators. 
Two toasters. If it were possible they would have had 
two Jeffreys. As it was they split him up as best they 
could. For instance he would eat dinner with Aunt 
Dot on Monday with Uncle Dan on Tuesday and so
on.
Eight years of that.
Then came the night of the spring musicale at 
Jeffrey's school. He was in the chorus. There was only 
one show and one auditorium so Aunt Dot and 
Uncle Dan were forced to share at least that much. 
Aunt Dot sat on one side Uncle Dan on the other.
Jeffrey probably started screaming from the start 
of the song which was "Talk to the Animals" but 
nobody knew it because he was drowned out by all 
the other voices. Then the music ended and Jeffrey 
went right on screaming his face bright red by now 
his neck bulging. The music director faced the singers 
frozen with his arms still raised. In the audience faces 
began to change. There was a quick smatter of giggling 
by some people who figured the screaming kid was 
some part of the show some funny animal maybe. 
Then the giggling stopped and eyes started to shift 
and heads started to turn because now everybody 
could see that this wasn't part of the show at all that]] 
little Jeffrey Magee wasn't supposed to be up there 
on the risers pointing to his aunt and uncle bellowing 
out from the midst of the chorus: "Talk! Talk will 
ya! Talk! Talk! Talk!"
No one knew it then but it was the birth scream 
of a legend.
And that's when the running started. Three springy 
steps down from the risers - girls in pastel dresses 
screaming the music director lunging - a leap from 
the stage out the side door and into the starry sweet 
onion-grass-smelling night.
Never again to return to the house of two toasters. 
Never again to return to school.]] 
Everybody knows that Maniac Magee (then 
Jeffrey) started out in Hollidaysburg and wound up 
in Two Mills. The question is: What took him so long? 
And what did he do along the way?
Sure two hundred miles is a long way especially 
on foot but the year that it took him to cover it was 
about fifty-one weeks more than he needed - 
figuring the way he could run even then.
The legend doesn't have the answer. That's why 
this period is known as The Lost Year.
And another question: Why did he stay here? Why 
Two Mills?
Of course there's the obvious answer that sitting 
right across the Schuylkill is Bridgeport where he 
was born. Yet there are other theories. Some say he 
just got tired of running. Some say it was the butterscotch 
Krimpets. And some say he only intended to 
pause here but that he stayed because he was so happy 
to make a friend.]] 
If you listen to everybody who claims to have seen 
Jeffrey-Maniac Magee that first day there must have 
been ten thousand people and a parade of fire trucks 
waiting for him at the town limits. Don't believe it. 
A couple of people truly remember and here's what 
they saw: a scraggly little kid jogging toward them 
the soles of both sneakers hanging by their hinges and 
flopping open like dog tongues each time they came 
up from the pavement.
But it was something they heard that made him 
stick in their minds all these years. As he passed them 
he said "Hi." Just that - "Hi" and he was gone. 
They stopped they blinked they turned they stared 
after him they wondered: Do I know that kid? 
Because people just didn't say that to strangers out of 
the blue.]] 
As for the first person to actually stop and talk 
with Maniac that would be Amanda Beale. And it 
happened because of a mistake.
It was around eight in the morning and Amanda 
was heading for grade school like hundreds of other 
kids all over town. What made Amanda different was 
that she was carrying a suitcase and that's what caught 
Maniac's eye. He figured she was like him running 
away so he stopped and said "Hi."
Amanda was suspicious. Who was this white 
stranger kid? And what was he doing in the East End 
where almost all the kids were black? And why was 
he saying that?
But Amanda Beale was also friendly. So she 
stopped and said "Hi" back.
"Are you running away?" Jeffrey asked her.
"Huh?" said Amanda.
Jeffrey pointed at the suitcase.
Amanda frowned then thought then laughed. She]] 
laughed so hard she began to lose her balance so she set the suitcase down and sat on it so she could laugh more safely. When at last she could speak she said "I'm not running away. I'm going to school."
She saw the puzzlement on his face. She got off the suitcase and opened it up right there on the sidewalk.
Jeffrey gasped. "Books!"
Books all right. Both sides of the suitcase crammed with them. Dozens more than anyone would ever need for homework.
Jeffrey fell to his knees. He and Amanda and the suitcase were like a rock in a stream; the school-goers just flowed to the left and right around them. He turned his head this way and that to read the titles. He lifted the books on top to see the ones beneath. There were fiction books and nonfiction books who-did-it books and let's-be-friends books and what-is-it books and how-to books and how-not-to books and just-regular-kid books. On the bottom was a single volume from an encyclopedia. It was the letter A.
"My library" Amanda Beale said proudly.
Somebody called "Gonna be late for school girl!"
Amanda looked up. The street was almost deserted. She slammed the suitcase shut and started hauling it along. Jeffrey took the suitcase from her. "I'll carry it for you."
Amanda's eyes shot wide. She hesitated; then she snatched it back. "Who are you?" she said.
"Jeffrey Magee."
"Where are you from? West End?"
"No."]]
She stared at him, at the flap-soled sneakers. Back in those days the town was pretty much divided. The East End was blacks, the West End was whites. "I know you're not from the East End."
"I'm from Bridgeport."
"Bridgeport? Over there? That Bridgeport?" Yep.
"Well, why aren't you there?"
"It's where I'm from, not where I am." "Great. So where do you live?"
Jeffrey looked around. "I don't know ... maybe ... here?"
"Maybe?" Amanda shook her head and chuckled. "Maybe you better go ask your mother and father if you live here or not."
She speeded up. Jeffrey dropped back for a second, then caught up with her. "Why are you taking all these books to school?"
Amanda told him. She told him about her little brother and sister at home, who loved to crayon every piece of paper they could find, whether or not it already had type all over it. And about the dog, Bow Wow, who chewed everything he could get his teeth on. And that, she said, was why she carried her whole library to and from school every day.
First bell was ringing; the school was still a block away. Amanda ran. Jeffrey ran.
"Can I have a book?" he said. "They're mine," she said. "Just to read. To borrow." "No."
"Please. What's your name?" "Amanda."
"Please, Amanda. Any one. Your shortest one." "I'm late now and I'm not gonna stop and open up this thing again. Forget it."
He stopped. "Amanda!"
She kept running, then stopped, turned, glared. What kind of kid was this, anyway? All grungy. Ripped shirt. Why didn't he go back to Bridgeport or the West End, where he belonged? Bother some white girl up there? And why was she still standing here?
"So what if I loaned you one, huh? How am I gonna get it back?"
"I'll bring it back. Honest! If it's the last thing I do. What's your address?"
"Seven twenty-eight Sycamore. But you can't come there. You can't even be here."
Second bell rang. Amanda screamed, whirled, ran. "Amanda!"
She stopped, turned. "Ohhhh," she squeaked. She tore a book from the suitcase, hurled it at him - "Here!" - and dashed into school.
The book came flapping like a wounded duck and fell at Jeffrey's feet. It was a story of the Children's Crusade. Jeffrey picked it up, and Amanda Beale was late to school for the only time in her life.
Jeffrey made three other appearances that first day.
The first came at one of the high school fields, during eleventh-grade gym class. Most of the students were playing soccer. But about a dozen were playing football, because they were on the varsity, and the gym teacher happened to be the football coach. The star quarterback, Brian Denehy, wound up and threw a sixty-yarder to his favorite receiver, James "Hands" Down, who was streaking a fly pattern down the sideline.
But the ball never quite reached Hands. Just as he was about to cradle it in his big brown loving mitts, it vanished. By the time he recovered from the shock, a little kid was weaving upfield through the varsity football players. Nobody laid a paw on him. When the kid got down to the soccer field, he turned and punted the ball. It sailed back over the up-looking gym-classers, spiraling more perfectly than anything
Brian Denehy had ever thrown, .and landed in the outstretched hands of still stunned Hands Down. Then the kid ran off.
There was one other thing, something that all of them saw but no one believed until they compared notes after school that day: up until the punt, the kid had done everything with one hand. He had to, because in his other hand was a book.
Later on that first day, there was a commotion in the West End. At 803 Oriole Street, to be exact. At the backyard of 803 Oriole, to be exacter.
This, of course, was the infamous address of Finsterwald. Kids stayed away from Finsterwald's the way old people stay away from Saturday afternoon matinees at a two-dollar movie. And what would happen to a kid who didn't stay away? That was a question best left unanswered. Suffice it to say that occasionally, even today, if some poor, raggedy, nicotine stained wretch is seen shuffling through town, word will spread that this once was a bright, happy, normal child who had the misfortune of blundering onto Finsterwald's property.
That's why, if you valued your life, you never chased a ball into Finsterwald's backyard. Finsterwald's backyard was a graveyard of tennis balls and baseballs and footballs and Frisbees and model airplanes and one way boomerangs.
That's why his front steps were the only un-sat-on front steps in town.
And why no paperkid would ever deliver there. And why no kid on a snow day would ever shovel that sidewalk, not for a zillion dollars.
So, it was late afternoon, and screams were coming from Finsterwald's.
Who? What? Why?
The screamer was a boy whose name is lost to us, for after this day he disappears from the pages of history. We believe he was about ten years old. Let's call him Arnold Jones.
Arnold Jones was being hoisted in the air above Finsterwald's backyard fence. The hoisters were three or four high school kids. This was one of the things they did for fun. Arnold Jones had apparently forgotten one of the cardinal rules of survival in the West End: Never let yourself be near Finsterwald's and high school kids at the same time.
So, there's Arnold Jones, held up by all these hands, flopping and kicking and shrieking like some poor Aztec human sacrifice about to be tossed off a pyramid. "No! No! Please!" he pleads. "Pleeeese!"
So of course, they do it. The high-schoolers dump him into the yard. And now they back off, no longer laughing, just watching, watching the back door of the house, the windows, the dark green shades.
As for Arnold Jones, he clams up the instant he hits the ground. He's on his knees now, all hunched and puckered. His eyes goggle at the back door, at
the door knob. He's paralyzed, a mouse in front of the yawning maw of a python.
Now, after a minute or two of breathless silence, one of the high-schoolers thinks he hears something. He whispers: "Listen." Another one hears it. A faint, tiny noise. A rattling. A chittering. A chattering. And getting louder - yes - chattering teeth. Arnold Jones's teeth. They're chattering like snare drums. And now, as if his mouth isn't big enough to hold the chatter, the rest of his body joins in. First it's a buzzlike trembling, then the shakes, and finally it's as if every bone inside him is clamoring to get out. A high schooler squawks: "He's got the finsterwallies!"
"Yeah! Yeah!" they yell, and they stand there cheering and clapping.
Years later, the high-schoolers' accounts differ. One says the kid from nowhere hopped the fence, hopped it without ever laying a hand on it to boost himself over. Another says the kid just opened the back gate and strolled on in. Another swears it was a mirage, some sort of hallucination, possibly caused by evil emanations surrounding 803 Oriole Street.
Real or not, they all saw the same kid: not much bigger than Arnold Jones, raggedy, flap-soled sneakers, book in one hand. They saw him walk right up to Arnold, and they saw Arnold look up at him and
faint dead away. Such a bad case of the finsterwallies did Arnold have that his body kept shaking for half a minute after he conked out.
The phantom Samaritan stuck the book between his teeth, crouched down, hoisted Arnold Jones's limp carcass over his shoulder, and hauled him out of there like a sack of flour. Unfortunately, he chose to put Arnold down at the one spot in town as bad as Finsterwald's backyard - namely, Finsterwald's front steps. When Arnold came to and discovered this, he took off like a horsefly from a swatter.
As the stupefied high-schoolers were leaving the scene, they looked back. They saw the kid, cool times ten, stretch out on the forbidden steps and open his book to read.
About an hour later Mrs. Valerie Pickwell twanged open her back screen door, stood on the step, and whistled.
As whistles go, Mrs. Pickwell's was one of the all time greats. It reeled in every Pickwell kid for dinner every night. Never was a Pickwell kid ever late for dinner. It's a record that will probably stand forever. The whistle wasn't loud. It wasn't screechy. It was a simple two-note job - one high note, one low. To an outsider, it wouldn't sound all that special. But to the ears of a Pickwell kid, it was magic. Somehow it had the ability to slip through the slush of five o'clock noises to reach its targets.
So, from the dump, from the creek, from the tracks, from Red Hill - in ran the Pickwell kids for dinner, all ten of them. Add to that the parents, baby Didi, Grandmother and Grandfather Pickwell, Great grandfather Pickwell, and a down-and-out taxi driver whom Mr. Pickwell was helping out (the Pickwells
were always helping out somebody) - all that, and you had what Mrs. Pickwell called her "small nation." Only a Ping-Pong table was big enough to seat them all, and that's what they ate around. Dinner was spaghetti. In fact, every third night dinner was spaghetti. When dinner was over and they were all bringing their dirty dishes to the kitchen, Dominic Pickwell said to Duke Pickwell, "Who's that kid?"
"What kid?" said Duke.
"The kid next to you at the table."
"I don't know. I thought Donald knew him."
"I don't know him," said Donald. "I thought Dion knew him."
"Never saw him," said Dion. "I figured he was Deirdre's new boyfriend."
Deirdre kicked Dion in the shins. Duke checked back in the dining room. "He's gone!"
The Pickwell kids dashed out the back door to the top of Rako Hill. They scanned the railroad tracks. There he was, passing Red Hill, a book in his hand. He was running, passing the spear field now, and the Pickwell kids had to blink and squint and shade their eyes to make sure they were seeing right - because the kid wasn't running the cinders alongside the tracks, or the wooden ties. No, he was running - running - where the Pickwells themselves, where every other kid, had only ever walked - on the steel rail itself!

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: No support

Dialog: Multiple speakers

Dialog: Broken dialogue

Dialog: Unlabeled Speaker

Vocabulary: Some difficult words

Language: Many descriptive words

Sentences: Many Long Complex

Text structure: Story/Poem

Inferences: Several Implications

Complexity: Several unrelated ideas

Concepts: Abstract/Complex Social

Chapters

Sequence of Events: Chronological

Features

Character traits

Topic

Inclusion

Homes

*Community

Heroes

Helping

Legends

Low Frequency Words

ability	accounts	accurate	alongside	apparently
audience	auditorium	birch	blundering	boomerangs
borrow	breathless	bulging	buzzlike	carcass
cardinal	chittering	chorus	cinders	clamoring
classers	cobble's	commotion	conked	crouched
crusade	deirdre	deirdre's	denehy	didi
differ	dion	divorce	dominic	drawer
drowned	emanations	encyclopedia	exacter	fiction
figuring	finsterwald	finsterwald's	finsterwallies	flopping
giggling	glared	goers	goggle	gonna
greats	grungy	hallucination	hauling	hesitated
hinges	hoisted	hoisters	hollidaysburg	honest
horsefly	hunched	hurled	infamous	instance
instant	intended	jogging	kaboodle	knob
krimpets	league	legacy	legend	limits
lionel	loaned	lunging	magee	magee's
maniac	maniac's	matinees	maw	midst
mirage	model	monument	motorman	musicale
myth	namely	nation	niac	nicotine
nonfiction	nowhere	obvious	occasionally	onion
ordinary	oriole	outsider	paperkid	paralyzed
pause	pavement	pennsylvania	phantom	pickwell
pickwell's	pickwells	pleads	pleeeese	pong
property	puckered	punt	punted	puzzlement
pyramid	python	quarterback	raggedy	rako
rattling	reeled	refrigerators	relatives	risers
roamed	sacrifice	samaritan	schooler	schoolers
schuylkill	scraggly	screamer	shins	shovel
shuffling	sideline	slush	smatter	snare
snatched	soled	soles	speeded	spiraling
springy	squawks	squint	streaking	strolled
stunned	stupefied	suffice	surrounding	survival
suspicious	swan	swears	sycamore	theories
toasters	tongues	trolley	truly	twanged
unanswered	unfortunately	upfield	valued	varsity
volume	weaving	whirled	whispers	whistled
whistles	whites	wretch	yarder	yawning
zillion