Text Leveling System

Something Upstairs

RDQ:	1825	Max Word/Sent	39	Total Words	2216		Diff Words	786
Lex	870	Ave Word/.Sent	9	Hi Freq occurs	1596	72%	Hi freq	320	40.7%
AR	4.7	Long Sentences	12.8	Low Freq occurs	123	5.6%	Low freq	111	14.1%

AS FAR AS KENNY HULDORF WAS CONcerned 
Los Angeles California was perfect. 
All his life he had lived in nothing but spring 
and summer weather. It never rained. The 
sidewalk trees were oranges and lemons. 
There were flowers on every street. When he 
planned to do something outside he could do 
it even a beach picnic on Christmas day - a 
Huldorf family tradition.
Kenny could and did play baseball most 
days. True-blue fan that he was he carried a 
good luck Dodger key chain in his pocket 
wherever he went. So when Kenny's parents 
announced that they had taken new jobs and 
had already bought a house across the country 
in Providence Rhode Island he was not 
happy. He wasn't even sure he knew where 
Rhode Island was other than near the Atlantic ]]
Ocean three thousand miles from the Pacific.
He checked an atlas and discovered that the 
state - the smallest in the Union - is so small 
that the city of Los Angeles couldn't be fit into 
it. "Little Rhodey" people call it.
Rhode Island he learned calls itself "The 
Ocean State." Its motto is "Hope." But hopeful 
was not what Kenny felt. On the day he 
was informed they were moving - the last week 
in April - it snowed in Providence. Kenny had 
seen snow on mountain peaks but only from 
a distance.
Kenny finished his school year. The family 
packed. They drove east. And it was mid
August when they rolled off the interstate. His 
father took three left turns and there they 
were: Sheldon Street. Their new 
neighborhood.
"Welcome to Providence" his mother 
announced.
What Kenny saw that day was as different 
from Los Angeles as he could imagine. The 
street was narrow crowded and old. The air 
was muggy. No majestic palms or sweet
scented orange blossoms cheered the senses 
only a few skimpy trees and old-fashioned 
lamp posts. Though a few buildings were 
brick most were wooden. Many had plaques 
which bore odd names and dates from long 
ago.
"When the houses were built" his mother 
explained.]]
"There's ours" his father said pointing 
across the way to number fifteen.
Kenny looked. It was a broad cream
colored three-story building with wooden 
siding shuttered windows and a high-pitched 
roof covered with shingles. A central door 
painted dark brown stood above a couple of 
stone steps which rose from the narrow brick 
sidewalk. There was a plaque on it which read: 
DANIEL STILLWELL HOUSE
BUILT 1789
Inside was a central hallway and a steep 
flight of steps. On each side were the main 
rooms rather small.
Kenny drifted from room to room downstairs 
and up. The movers hadn't arrived so 
there was nothing in any of them. And yet he 
remembers having the distinct sensation that 
the house was not empty.
"What do you think?" his mother asked. 
"It's okay" Kenny told her trying to sort 
out his feelings. "Which is going to be my 
room?"
"We had an idea" his father said. "Follow 
me." He headed for the kitchen and a door 
Kenny had not noticed. It led to a narrow 
flight of steps that corkscrewed up two flights. 
Kenny followed his father. His mother 
followed him.
At the top they came into a long open attic. 
There were two low windows that hugged the 
floor ceiling beams above a floor freshly]]
sanded and oiled. A new bathroom. The whole 
area was bright but hot with stale air. 
"How's this?" his mother began. She was 
smiling broadly.
Kenny looked around. "For me?" he asked. 
His father grinning too nodded to the 
question.
"Really?" said Kenny. For the first time since 
he entered the house he felt like smiling. What 
he saw was more space than he'd ever had 
both private and special.
His mother went on. "It hasn't been lived in 
for years. We did it completely over. If you 
want it it's yours."
"It does get cooler" his father added. He 
reached toward a skylight and pulled a pole. 
Opened wide the skylight seemed to gulp like 
a gasping mouth. The air began to cool.
Kenny walked the length of the attic thinking 
of ways he could fix it up.
"If you'd prefer" his father offered "you 
can have one of the downstairs bedrooms." 
"I'll take this" Kenny said.
At the far end of the attic he came upon 
two doors. He pulled one open and looked in. 
It was a small room no more than nine feet 
by twelve the ceiling steeply pitched. Too big 
for a closet but hardly big enough for much 
else.
His father looked over his shoulder. "Must 
have been where the servants lived" he 
suggested.
"It's so tiny" Kenny said.
 "The good old days . . ."]]
"Those are the original floors" his mother 
told him. "And walls. Mr. Bosco the inspector 
who checked the house for us got excited 
when he saw them."
Kenny said "Looks dirty."
His mother laughed. "Think original" she 
said.
Kenny pulled open the second door and 
peered in. It was a smaller room than the first 
dingy hot with a harsh musty smell. There 
were no windows. Yellowing paper hung from 
the walls like the skins of tired bananas. A 
dark stain covered the center of the floor.
When Kenny stepped in he felt an 
immediate sense of unease. And the next moment 
he thought he heard a faint rustling sound. 
He turned expecting it to be one of his parents. 
Neither one was there.
"Dad?" he called. "Mom?"
"Going down!" came a shout from the stairwell.
Certain he'd heard something Kenny 
turned back into the small room. The stain on 
the floor caught his eye again. As he looked 
at it the thought came to him that it had 
something to do with a human death.
And with that thought came a sensation of 
shame as if he in some way bore some 
responsibility.
He shook his head and the moment was 
gone. He was fine. And the stain was just that 
a stain.]]
A NEW CITY. A NEW HOUSE. UNOPENED 
boxes piled high. On most of the windows 
no curtains. Things to sort and put away. 
Endless fixing up to do. Rooms to paint. No 
time to do any of it.... And the heat was 
high a record drought hot enough to bring 
sweat just with breathing. TV weathermen 
were speaking ominously of no letup and 
they were right. The streets were deserted 
as people huddled around their air 
conditioners.
Kenny remembers being bored. Restless. 
Edgy. He kept trying hard to find a place for 
himself but without much success. His 
parents had started working immediately and 
since he had no friends and school was still 
weeks off he spent most of his days alone. This 
gave him time - more time than he wanted - 
to wander about. What he discovered was that 
Providence was not an ordinary city.
There were stone posts on curbs for tying 
up horses blocks to mount for climbing into 
carriages. There were cobblestones in 
courtyards and curious names on plaques names 
such as Esek Ormsbee and Peleg Quimby. Two 
streets from his house was a building two 
hundred and fifty years old. Older than the 
Revolution. Older than the French and Indian 
War.
The Huldorfs' new home was one of the old 
buildings. In fact after they moved in their 
real estate agent brought them a scrapbook 
which provided the history of the house and]]
the land on which it sat - information from 
1636 up to the present. Maps deeds and for 
recent times photographs of the area things 
that helped Kenny visualize the place as it had 
been.
Though he had never been particularly 
interested in history Kenny now felt an urge to 
know about the old days. More than once he 
asked himself Who were the people of this 
house? What did they look like? Did they wear 
funny suits wigs dresses? Were there any kids? 
How did they live? And for that matter--how 
did they die?
WHAT KENNY RECALLS IS THAT A FEW 
nights after they moved in the heat had 
become so awful it was particularly hard for him 
to fall asleep. And then when he did a 
mosquito awakened him. At least Kenny thought 
it was a mosquito.
Half awake he fumbled for his bedside 
flashlight and shined it at his clock. It read 
two-thirty-five A.M. He looked about. Though
the attic corners were still caught in darkness 
enough moonlight seeped through the open 
skylight to give the room a soft yellow glow 
thick and hazy.
He tried to settle himself to find a cool spot 
on his pillow. But he kept thinking about 
something his father had said that servants 
once lived in the small rooms off the attic. 
How could they have stood it on such a hot 
night?
He heard a sound. His first notion was that]]
it was an owl. Or a bat. He lay still listening 
hard.
It came again. He describes it as a scraping 
sound the kind of noise you'd make if you 
put light sandpaper to wood and rubbed 
slowly.
Sitting up now Kenny tried to pinpoint 
where the sound had come from using his 
bedside flashlight to probe the corners. He 
couldn't see a thing. Perhaps he had imagined 
it.
Determined to sleep he flopped down only 
to hear the sound once more. This time he 
was certain it came from the far end of the 
attic-where the small rooms were.
Taking up the flashlight Kenny slipped out 
of bed.... A mouse didn't bother him. He 
wasn't too sure about a rat. That thought made 
him snatch up a shoe as well and hold it by 
the toe hammer fashion.
Kenny crept forward as quietly as possible 
stopping every couple of feet. Sometimes he 
heard the soft scraping. Sometimes he didn't. 
It was he thought the sound of something 
being pushed or dragged along the floor.
He reached the first of the doors but 
instead of barging in he waited. He wanted to 
make sure he had the right room afraid that 
if he went into the wrong one he'd scare off 
whatever was making the sound.
After a while when no sound came he 
tucked the flashlight under his arm reached 
for the doorknob and twisted it carefully]]
pulling the door open. Clutching the flashlight 
again he leaned forward and looked. 
Light from the single window fell upon a 
couple of cartons his parents had stored 
inside. That was all that he could see. He 
switched on the flashlight but saw nothing 
else. Still Kenny waited hoping the sound 
would come again. When it did it came from 
the other smaller room. Kenny turned off the 
flashlight drew breath moved to that door 
pulled it open and cautiously looked in.
A white glow almost shiny; and brightest on 
the floor filled the windowless space. And 
what Kenny saw - or thought he saw - were 
two hands then two arms reaching up from 
the stain pushing away a box of his mother's 
old books that was sitting on it. These hands 
and arms seemed to be not flesh and blood 
but sculptured glowing smoke. It was as if 
from under that box a body was struggling to 
be free.
Astonished Kenny stood staring telling 
himself that what he was seeing was not real. 
A dream perhaps. Some kind of fancy. But no 
not real.
Bit by bit the arms edged the box off the 
stain. It seemed like hard work. Their muscles 
bulged with effort. Sometimes as if tired the 
arms would seem to rest. Then the hands 
with their small but perfect fingers would curl 
around the box's edge flexing out apparent 
pain.
It took an hour for the carton to be pushed 
away. Kenny watched it all. When the job was]]
done the hands reached from the floor held 
onto the box and ... pulled.
A head rose from the stain. Then came a 
neck. Then shoulders. The rest of the body. 
Soon the whole thing stood upon the floor - 
still and waiting. A soft pale pulsing glow 
radiated from its body a glow which formed a 
vague boundary between air and mass in 
equal parts nothing and something.
Except it was clearly not a thing. It was a 
shape like a human being.
The figure had no shoes. But Kenny recollects 
seeing trousers and a shirt not tucked in 
whose frayed sleeves reached midway between 
elbows and wrists. A stain was spread upon 
the back of the shirt.
The more Kenny looked the more certain 
he was that this was a boy.
As Kenny watched the boy approached the 
far wall where he began to feel about its surface 
as if he were in search of something as 
if he were looking for a way out.
He tried the second wall. The third.
Kenny fumbled for the flashlight switch 
and turned it on aiming it right at the form. 
The light went through him. He cast no 
shadow.
Just then Kenny saw with a mixture of thrill 
and horror that the boy was about to move 
toward the door wall. They would come face 
to face.
The figure turned. Their eyes met. Unexpectedly 
the boy's hand reached toward 
Kenny. Taken completely off guard Kenny ]]

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: No support

Dialog: Multiple speakers

Dialog: Broken dialogue

Dialog: Unlabeled Speaker

Vocabulary: Some difficult words

Language: Many descriptive words

Sentences: Some Long/Complex

Text structure: Story/Poem

Inferences: Several Implications

Concepts: Abstract/Difficult

Chapters

Features

Character traits

Complex plot

Difficult names

Topic

Time

*History

Ghosts

Slavery

Houses

Moving

Low Frequency Words

agent	announced	apparent	approached	astonished
awakened	boundary	bulged	carriages	cautiously
cobblestones	concerned	conditioners	corkscrewed	curbs
curious	curtains	determined	dingy	dodger
drought	edged	edgy	esek	estate
fashion	fashioned	flexing	frayed	gasping
gulp	harsh	hopeful	hoping	horror
huldorf	huldorfs	imagined	immediate	immediately
informed	inspector	interstate	letup	majestic
midway	moonlight	mount	muggy	musty
neighborhood	notion	oiled	ominously	ordinary
original	pacific	palms	particularly	peered
peleg	photographs	pinpoint	plaque	plaques
private	probe	provided	providence	pulsing
radiated	recalls	recent	recollects	responsibility
restless	revolution	rhodey	rustling	sanded
sandpaper	scented	scrapbook	sculptured	sensation
servants	sheldon	shingles	shuttered	siding
skimpy	skylight	snatch	stairwell	stillwell
suits	sweat	tradition	trousers	tying
unease	unexpectedly	union	unopened	urge
vague	visualize	wander	weathermen	windowless
wrists