Text Leveling System

A Wrinkle in Time

RDQ:	2244	Max Word/Sent	71	Total Words	3457		Diff Words	983
Lex	940	Ave Word/.Sent	10	Hi Freq occurs	2553	73.9%	Hi freq	435	44.3%
AR	5.4	Long Sentences	15.5	Low Freq occurs	207	6%	Low freq	176	17.9%

MRS. WHATSIT
It was a dark and stormy night.
In her attic bedroom Margaret Murry wrapped in an
old patchwork quilt sat on the foot of her bed and 
watched the trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of 
the wind. Behind the trees clouds scudded frantically 
across the sky. Every few moments the moon ripped
through them creating wraithlike shadows that raced 
along the ground
The house shook.
Wrapped in her quilt Meg shook.
She wasn't usually afraid of weather.-It's not just 
the weather she thought. -It's the weather on top of 
everything else. On top of me. On top of Meg Murry 
doing everything wrong.
School. School was all wrong. She'd been dropped 
down to the lowest section in her grade. That morning 
one of her teachers had said crossly "Really 
Meg I don't understand how a child with parents as 
brilliant as yours are supposed to be can be such a
poor student. If you don't manage to do a little better 
you'll have to stay back next year."
During lunch she'd rough-housed a little to try to 
make herself feel better and one of the girls said 
scornfully "After all Meg we aren't grammar-school 
kids any more. Why do you always act like such a
baby?"]]
And on the way home from school walking up the 
road with her arms full of books one of the boys had 
said something about her "dumb baby brother:' At 
this she'd thrown the books on the side of the road 
and tackled him with every ounce of strength she 
had and arrived home with her blouse torn and a big 
bruise under one eye.
Sandy and Dennys her ten-year-old twin brothers 
who got home from school an hour earlier than she 
did were disgusted. "Let us do the fighting when it's 
necessary" they told her.
--A delinquent that's what I am she thought 
grimly. That's what they'll be saying next. Not 
Mother. But Them. Everybody Else. I wish Father-
But it was still not possible to think about her father 
without the danger of tears. Only her mother could 
talk about him in a natural way saying "When your 
father gets back - "
Gets back from where? And when? Surely her 
mother must know what people were saying must be 
aware of the smugly vicious gossip. Surely it must hurt 
her as it did Meg. But if it did she gave no outward 
sign. Nothing ratted the serenity of her expression.
--Why can't I hide it too? Meg thought. Why do I 
always have to show everything?
The window rattled madly in the wind and she 
pulled the quilt close about her. Curled up on one of 
her pillows a gray fluff of kitten yawned showing its 
pink tongue tucked its head under again and went 
back to sleep.
Everybody was asleep. Everybody except Meg. Even 
Charles Wallace the "dumb baby brother" who had 
an uncanny way of knowing when she was awake 
and unhappy and who would come so many nights]]
tiptoeing up the attic stairs to her-even Charles Wallace
was asleep.
How could they sleep? All day on the radio there 
had been hurricane warnings. How could they leave 
her up in the attic is the rickety brass bed knowing 
that the roof might be blown right off the house and
she tossed out into the wild night sky to land who
knows where?
Her shivering grew uncontrollable.
You asked to have the attic bedroom she told 
herself savagely. Mother let you have it because
you're the oldest. It's a privilege not a punishment.
"Not during a hurricane it isn't a privilege:" she
said aloud. She tossed the quilt down on the foot of 
the bed and stood up. The kitten stretched luxuriously 
and looked up at her with huge innocent eyes.
 "Go back to sleep Meg said. "Just be glad you're a 
kitten and not a monster like me." She looked at herself 
in the wardrobe mirror and made a horrible face 
baring a mouthful of teeth covered with braces. Automatically 
she pushed her glasses into position ran her 
fingers through her mouse-brown hair so that it stood 
wildly on end and let out a sigh almost as noisy as
the wind.
The wide wooden floorboards were cold against 
her feet. Wind blew in the crevices about the window 
frame in spite of the protection the storm sash 
was supposed to offer. She could hear wind howling in 
the chimneys. From all the way downstairs she could
hear Fortinbras the big black dog starting to bark.
He must be frightened too. What was he barking at? 
Fortinbras never barked without reason.
Suddenly she remembered that when she had gone 
to the post office to pick up the mail she'd heard about 
a tramp who was supposed to have stolen twelve sheets]]
from Mrs. Buncombe the constable's wife. They 
hadn't caught him and maybe he was heading for the 
Murrys' house right now isolated on a back road as 
it was; and this time maybe he'd be after mom than 
sheets. Meg hadn't paid much attention to the talk 
about the tramp at the time because the postmistress 
with a sugary smile had asked if she'd heard from 
her father lately.
She left her little room and made her way through 
the shadows of the main attic bumping against the 
ping-pong table. --Now I'll have a bruise on my hip on 
top of everything else she thought.
Neat she walked into her old dolls' house Charles 
Wallace's rocking horse  the twins' electric trains. 
"Why must everything happen to me?" She demanded 
of a large teddy bear.
At the foot of the attic stairs she stood still and 
listened. Not a sound from Charles Wallace's room 
on the right. On the left in her parents' room not a 
rustle from her mother sleeping alone in the great 
double bed. She tiptoed down the hall and into the 
twins' room pushing again at her glasses as though 
they could help her to see better in the dark. Dennys 
was snoring. Sandy murmured something about baseball
and subsided. The twins didn't have any problems. 
They weren't great students but they weren't 
bad ones either. They were perfectly content with a 
succession of B's and an occasional A or C. They 
were strong and fast runners and good at games and 
when cracks were made about anybody in the Murry 
family they weren't made about Sandy and Dennys.
She left the twins' room and went on downstairs 
avoiding the creaking seventh step. Fortinbras had 
stopped barking. It wasn't the tramp this time then. 
Fort would go on barking if anybody was around.]]
-But suppose the tramp does come? Suppose he has 
a knife? Nobody lives near enough to hear if we 
screamed and screamed and screamed. Nobody'd 
care anyhow.
I'll make myself some cocoa she decided. 
That'll cheer me up and if the roof blows off at 
least I won't go off with it.
In the kitchen a light was already on and Charles 
Wallace was sitting at the table drinking milk and 
eating bread and jam. He looked very small and 
vulnerable sitting there alone in the big old-fashioned 
kitchen a blond little boy in faded blue Dr. Dentons 
his feet swinging a good six inches above the floor.
"Hi" he said cheerfully. "I've been waiting for YOU."
From under the table where he was lying at 
Charles Wallace's feet hoping for a crumb or two 
Fortinbras raised his slender dark head in greeting to 
Meg and his tail thumped against the floor. Fortinbras 
had arrived on their doorstep a half-grown puppy 
scrawny and abandoned one winter night. He was 
Meg's father had decided part Llewellyn setter and 
part greyhound and he had a slender dark beauty 
that was all his own.
"Why didn't you come up to the attic?" Meg asked 
her brother speaking as though he were at least her 
own age "I've been scared stiff."
"Too windy up in that attic of yours" the little boy 
said. "I knew you'd be down. I put some milk on the 
stove for you. It ought to be lot by now."
How did Charles Wallace always know about her? 
How could he always tell? He never knew--or 
seemed to care-what Dennys or Sandy were thinking. 
It was his mother's mind and Meg's that he 
probed with frightening accuracy.]]
Was it because people were a little afraid of him that they whispered about the Murrys youngest child who was rumored to be not quite bright? "I've heard that clever people often have subnormal children" Meg had once overheard. "The two boys seem to be nice regular children but that unattractive girl and the baby boy certainly aren't all there."
It was true that Charles Wallace seldom spoke when anybody was around so that many people thought he'd never learned to talk. And it was true that he hadn't talked at all until he was almost four. Meg would turn white with fury when people looked at him and clucked shaking their heads sadly.
"Don't worry about Charles Wallace Meg" her father had once told her. Meg remembered it very clearly because it was shortly before he went away. "There's nothing the matter with his mind. He just does things in his own way and in his own time."
"I don't want him to grow up to be dumb like me" Meg had said.
"Oh my darling you're not dumb" her father answered. "You're like Charles Wallace. Your development has to go at its own pace. It just doesn't happen to be the usual pace."
"How do you know?" Meg had demanded. "How do you know I'm not dumb? Isn't it just because you love me?"
"I love you but that's not what tells me. Mother and I've given you a number of tests you know."
Yes that was true. Meg had realized that some of the "games" her parents played with her were tests of some kind and that there had been more for her and Charles Wallace than for the twins. "I Q tests you mean?"
"Yes some of them."]]
"Is my I Q okay?" 
"More than okay."
"What is it?"
"That I'm not going to tell you. But it assures me that both you and Charles Wallace will be able to do pretty much whatever you like when you grow up to yourselves. You just wait till Charles Wallace starts to talk. You'll see."
How right he had been about that though he himself had left before Charles Wallace began to speak suddenly with none of the usual baby preliminaries using entire sentences. How proud he would have been! 
"You'd better check the milk" Charles Wallace said to Meg now his diction clearer and cleaner than that of most five-year-olds. "You know you don't like it when it gets a skin on top."
"You put in more than twice enough milk." Meg peered into the saucepan.
Charles Wallace nodded serenely. "I thought Mother might like some."
"I might like what?" a voice said and there was their mother standing in the doorway.
"Cocoa" Charles Wallace said "Would you like a liverwurst-and-cream-cheese sandwich? I'll be happy to make you one."
"That would be lovely" Mrs. Murry said "but I can make it myself if you're busy."
"No trouble at all." Charles Wallace slid down from his chair and trotted over to the refrigerator his pajamaed feet padding softly as a kitten's. "How about you Meg?" he asked. "Sandwich?"
"Yes please" she said "But not liverwurst. Do we have any tomatoes?"
Charles Wallace peered into the crisper. "One. All right if I use it on Meg Mother?"
"To what better use could it be put?" Mrs. Murry]]
smiled "But not so loud please Charles. That is unless you want the twins downstairs too."
"Let's be exclusive" Charles Wallace said. "That's my new word for the day. Impressive isn't it?" "Prodigious" Mrs. Murry said. "Meg come let me look at that bruise."
Meg knelt at her mother's feet. The warmth and light of the kitchen had relaxed her so that her attic fears were gone. The cocoa steamed fragrantly in the saucepan; geraniums bloomed on the window sills and there was a bouquet of tiny yellow chrysanthemums in the center of the table. The curtains red with a blue and green geometrical pattern were drawn and seemed to reflect their cheerfulness throughout the room. The furnace purred like a great sleepy animal; the lights glowed with steady radiance; outside alone in the dark the wind still battered against the house but the angry power that had frightened Meg while she was alone in the attic was subdued by the familiar comfort of the kitchen. Underneath Mrs. Murry's chair Fortinbras let out a contented sigh.
Mrs. Murry gently touched Meg's bruised cheek. Meg looked up at her mother half in loving admiration half in sullen resentment. It was not an advantage to have a mother who was a scientist and a beauty as well. Mrs. Murry's flaming red hair creamy skin and violet eyes with long dark lashes seemed even more spectacular in comparison with Meg's outrageous plainness. Meg's hair had been passable as long as she wore it tidily in braids. When she went into high school it was cut and now she and her mother struggled with putting it up but one side would come out curly and the other straight so that she looked even plainer than before.
"You don't know the meaning of moderation do you my darling?" Mrs. Murry asked. "A happy medium ]]
is something I wonder if you'll ever learn. That's a nasty bruise the Henderson boy gave you. By the way shortly after you'd gone to bed his mother called up to complain about how badly you'd hurt him. I told her that since he's a year older and at least twenty-five pounds heavier than you are I thought I was the one who ought to be doing the complaining. But she seemed to think it was all your fault."
"I suppose that depends on how you look at it" Meg said. "Usually no matter what happens people think it's my fault even if I have nothing to do with it at all. But I'm sorry I tried to fight him. It's just been an awful week. And I'm full of bad feeling."
Mrs. Murry stroked Meg's shaggy head. "Do you know why?"
"I hate being an oddball" Meg said. "It's hard on Sandy and Dennys too. I don't know if they're really like everybody else or if they're just able to pretend they are. I try to pretend but it isn't any help:'
"You're much too straightforward to be able to pretend to be what you aren't" Mrs. Murry said. "I'm sorry Meglet. Maybe if Father were here he could help you but I don't think I can do anything till you've managed to plow through some more time. Then things will be easier for you. But that isn't much help right now Is it?"
"Maybe if I weren't so repulsive-looking--maybe if I were pretty like you -"
"Mother's not a bit pretty; she's beautiful" Charles Wallace announced slicing liverwurst. "Therefore I bet she was awful at your age."
"How right you are" Mrs. Murry said. "Just give yourself time Meg."
"Lettuce your sandwich Mother?" Charles Wallace asked.
"No thanks."]]
He cut the sandwich into sections, put it on a plate, and set it in front of his mother. "Yours'll be along in just a minute, Meg. I think I'll talk to Mrs. Whatsit about you." "Who's Mrs. Whatsit?" Meg asked.
"I think I want to be exclusive about her for a while," Charles Wallace said. "Onion salt?"
"Yes, please."
"What's Mrs. Whatsit stand for?" Mrs. Murry asked. "That's her name," Charles Wallace answered. "You know the old shingled house back in the woods that the kids
won't go near because they say it's haunted? That's where they live."
"They?"
"Mrs. Whatsit and her two friends. I was out with Fortinbras a couple of days ago-you and the twins were at school, Meg. We like to walk in the woods, and suddenly he took off after a squirrel and I took off after him and we ended up by the haunted house, so I met them by accident, as you might say."
"But nobody lives there," Meg said.
"Mrs. Whatsit and her friends do. They've very enjoyable."
"Why didn't you tell me about it before?" Mrs. Murry asked. "And you know you're not supposed to go off our property without permission, Charles."
"I know," Charles said. "That's one reason I didn't tell you. I just rushed off after Fortinbras without thinking. And then I decided, well, I'd better save them for an emergency, anyhow."
A fresh gust of wind took the house and shook it, and suddenly the rain began to lash against the windows.
"I don't think I like this wind," Meg said nervously. "We'll lose some shingles off the roof, that's certain," Mrs. Murry said. "But this house has stood for almost two hundred years and I think it will last a little longer, Meg. There's been many a high wind up on this hill."
"But this is a hurricane!" Meg wailed. "The radio kept saying it was a hurricane!"
"It's October," Mrs. Murry told her. "There've been storms in October before."
As Charles Wallace gave Meg her sandwich Fortinbras came out from under the table. He gave a long, low growl, and they could see the dark fur slowly rising on his back. Meg felt her own skin prickle.
"What's wrong?" she asked anxiously.
Fortinbras stared at the door that opened into Mrs. Murry's laboratory which was in the old stone dairy right off the kitchen. Beyond the lab a pantry led outdoors, though Mrs. Murry had done her best to train the family to come into the house through the garage door or the front door and not through her lab. But it was the lab door and not the garage door toward which Fortinbras was growling.
"You didn't leave any nasty-smelling chemicals cooking over a Bunsen burner, did you, Mother?" Charles Wallace asked.
Mrs. Murray stood up. "No. But I think I'd better go see what's upsetting Fort, anyhow."
"It's the tramp, I'm sure it's the tramp," Meg said nervously.
"What tramp?" Charles Wallace asked.
"They were saying at the post office this afternoon that a tramp stole all Mrs. Buncombe's sheets."
"We'd better sit on the pillow cases, then," Mrs. Murry said lightly. "I don't think even a tramp would be out on a night like this, Meg."
"But that's probably why he is out," Meg wailed, "trying to find a place not to be out."
"In which case I'll offer him the barn till morning. " Mrs. Murry went briskly to the door.
"I'll go with you." Meg's voice was shrill.
"No, Meg, you stay with Charles and eat your sandwich." "Eat!" Meg exclaimed as Mrs. Murry went out through the lab. "How does she expect me to eat?"
"Mother can take care of herself," Charles said. "Physically, that is." But he sat in his father's chair at the table and his legs kicked at the rungs; and Charles Wallace, unlike most small children, had the ability to sit still.
After a few moments that seemed like forever to Meg, Mrs. Murry came back in, holding the door open for-was it the tramp? It seemed small for Meg's idea of a tramp. The age or sex was impossible to tell, for it was completely bundled up in clothes. Several scarves of assorted colors were tied about the head, and a man's felt hat perched atop. A shocking pink stole was knotted about a rough overcoat, and black rubber boots covered the feet.
"Mrs. Whatsit," Charles said suspiciously, "what are you doing here? And at this time of night, too?"
"Now don't you be worried, my honey." A voice emerged from among turned-up coat collar, stole, scarves, and hat, a voice like an unoiled gate, but somehow not unpleasant.
"Mrs.-uh-Whatsit says she lost her way," Mrs. Murry said. "Would you care for some hot chocolate, Mrs. Whatsit?"
"Charmed, I'm sure," Mrs. Whatsit answered, taking off
the hat and the stole. "It isn't so much that I lost my way as that I got blown off course. And when I realized that I was at little Charles Wallace's house I thought I'd just come in and rest a bit before proceeding on my way."
"How did you know this was Charles Wallace's house?" Meg asked.

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: No support

Dialog: Multiple speakers

Dialog: Broken dialogue

Dialog: Unlabeled Speaker

Vocabulary: Many difficult words

Language: Many descriptive words

Sentences: Some Long/Complex

Text structure: Story/Poem

Inferences: Several Implications

Complexity: Several ideas - closely related

Concepts: Abstract/Difficult

Chapters

Features

Integral Setting - Futuristic

Complex plot

Symbolism

Mood/tone

Topic

Time

*Fictional Ideas/Charac

Low Frequency Words

abandoned	ability	accuracy	admiration	advantage
announced	anxiously	assorted	assures	baring
bouquet	charmed	cheerfulness	chemicals	chrysanthemums
comparison	constable's	content	contented	crevices
crisper	curled	curtains	delinquent	dentons
diction	drawn	emerged	emergency	enjoyable
exclusive	familiar	fashioned	fault	flaming
fortinbras	fragrantly	frantically	frenzied	frightening
furnace	fury	geometrical	geraniums	gossip
grammar	greyhound	grimly	haunted	heavier
henderson	hoping	housed	hurricane	impressive
innocent	isolated	kitten's	knelt	knotted
knowing	laboratory	lash	lashes	lashing
lightly	liverwurst	llewellyn	luxuriously	madly
manage	medium	meglet	moderation	moments
mouthful	murmured	murray	murry's	nervously
nobody'd	occasional	olds	onion	ought
ounce	outrageous	outward	overcoat	overheard
pace	pajamaed	pantry	passable	patchwork
peered	perched	permission	physically	plainer
plainness	pong	postmistress	preliminaries	prickle
privilege	probed	proceeding	prodigious	property
protection	radiance	ratted	reflect	refrigerator
repulsive	resentment	rickety	rough	rumored
rungs	rustle	saucepan	savagely	scarves
scientist	scornfully	scrawny	scudded	section
sections	seldom	serenely	serenity	setter
seventh	shaggy	shingled	shingles	shortly
shrill	slender	slicing	smugly	spectacular
spite	straightforward	subdued	subnormal	subsided
succession	sugary	sullen	surely	suspiciously
that'll	there've	throughout	tidily	tiptoeing
unattractive	uncanny	uncontrollable	unoiled	upsetting
vicious	vulnerable	wardrobe	warmth	warnings
whatsit	wraithlike	yawned	youngest	yours'll
yourselves