Text Leveling System

Weetzie Bat

RDQ:	3343	Max Word/Sent	105	Total Words	1778		Diff Words	705
Lex	1100	Ave Word/.Sent	11	Hi Freq occurs	1118	62.9%	Hi freq	254	36%
AR	9.0	Long Sentences	15.8	Low Freq occurs	157	8.8%	Low freq	127	18%

Weetzie and Dirk
The reason Weetzie Bat hated high school
was because no one understood. They didn't
even realize where they were living. They
didn't care that Marilyn's prints were practically in their backyard at Graumann's; that you could buy tomahawks and plastic palm tree wallets at Farmer's Market, and the wildest, cheapest cheese and bean and hot dog and pastrami burritos
at Oki Dogs; that the waitresses wore skates at the Jetson-style Tiny Naylor's; that there was a fountain that turned tropical soda-pop colors, and a canyon where Jim Morrison and Houdini used to live, and all-night potato knishes at Canter's, and not too far away was Venice, with columns, and canals, even, like the real Venice but maybe cooler because of the surfers. There was no one who cared. Until Dirk.
Dirk was the best-looking guy at school. He wore his hair in a shoe-polish-black Mohawk and he drove a red '55 Pontiac. All the girls were infatuated with Dirk; he wouldn't pay any attention to them. But on the first day of the semester, Dirk saw Weetzie in his art class. She was a skinny girl with a bleach-blonde flat-top. Under the pink Harlequin sunglasses, strawberry lipstick, earrings dangling charms, and sugar-frosted eye shadow she was really almost beautiful. Sometimes she wore Levi's with white-suede fringe sewn down the legs and a feathered Indian headdress, sometimes old fifties' taffeta dresses covered with poetry written in glitter, or dresses made of kids' sheets printed with pink piglets or Disney characters.
"That's a great outfit," Dirk said. Weetzie was wearing her feathered headdress and her moccasins and a pink fringed mini dress.
"Thanks. I made it," she said, snapping her strawberry bubble gum. "I'm into Indians," she said. "They were here first and we treated them like shit."
"Yeah," Dirk said, touching his Mohawk. He smiled. "You want to go to a movie tonight? There's a Jayne Mansfield film festival. The Girl Can't Help It."
"Oh, I love that movie!" Weetzie said in her scratchiest voice.
Weetzie and Dirk saw The Girl Can't Help It, and Weetzie practiced walking like Jayne Mansfield and making siren noises all the way to the car.
"This really is the most slinkster-cool car I have ever seen!" she said.
"His name's Jerry," Dirk said, beaming. "Because he reminds me of Jerry Lewis. I think Jerry likes you. Let's go out in him again."
Weetzie and Dirk went to shows at the Starwood, the Whiskey, the Vex, and Cathay de Grande. They drank beers or bright-colored canned Club drinks in Jerry and told each other how cool they were. Then they went into the clubs dressed to kill in sunglasses and leather, jewels and skeletons, rosaries and fur and silver. They held on like waltzers and plunged in slamming around the pit below the stage. Weetzie spat on any skinhead who was too
rough, but she always got away with it by batting her eyelashes and blowing a bubble with her gum. Sometimes Dirk dove offstage into the crowd. Weetzie hated that, but of course everyone always caught him because, with his black leather and Mohawk and armloads of chain and his dark-smudged eyes, Dirk was the coolest. After the shows, sweaty and shaky, they went to Oki Dogs for a burrito.
In the daytime, they went to matinees on Hollywood Boulevard, had strawberry sundaes with marshmallow topping at Schwab's, or went to the beach. Dirk taught Weetzie to surf. It was her life long dream to surf along with playing the drums in front of a stadium of adoring fans while wearing gorgeous pajamas. Dirk and Weetzie got tan and ate cheese-and-avocado sandwiches on whole-wheat bread and slept on the beach. Sometimes they skated on the boardwalk. Slinkster Dog went with them wherever they went.
When they were tired or needed comforting, Dirk and Weetzie and Slinkster Dog went to Dirk's Grandma Fifi's cottage, where Dirk had lived since his parents died. Grandma Fifi was a sweet, powdery old lady who baked tiny, white, sugar-coated pastries for them, played them tunes on a music box with a little dancing monkey on top, had two canaries she sang to, and had hair Weetzie envied perfect white hair that sometimes had lovely blue or pink tints. Grandma Fifi had Dirk and Weetzie bring her groceries, show her their new clothes, and answer the same questions over and over again. They felt very safe and close in Fifi's cottage.
"You're my best friend in the whole world," Dirk said to Weetzie one night. They were sitting in Jerry drinking Club coladas with Slinkster Dog curled up between them.
"You're my best friend in the whole world," Weetzie said to Dirk.
Slinkster Dog's stomach gurgled with pleasure. He was very happy, because Weetzie was so happy now and her new friend Dirk let him ride in Jerry as long as he didn't pee, and they gave him pizza pie for dinner instead of that weird meat that Weetzie's mom, Brandy-Lynn, tried to dish out when he was left at home.
One night, Weetzie and Dirk and Slinkster Dog were driving down Sunset in Jerry on their way to the Odyssey. Weetzie was leaning out the window holding Rubber Chicken by his long, red toe. The breeze was filling Rubber Chicken so that he blew up like a fat, pocked balloon.
At the stoplight, a long, black limo pulled up next
to Jerry. The driver leaned out and looked at Rubber Chicken.
"That is one bald-looking chicken!"
The driver threw something into the car and it landed on Weetzie's lap. She screamed.
"What is it?" Dirk exclaimed.
A hairy, black thing was perched on Weetzie's knees.
"It's a hairpiece for that bald eagle you've got there. Belonged to Burt Reynolds," the driver said, and he drove off.
Weetzie put the toupee on Rubber Chicken. Really, it looked quite nice. It made Rubber Chicken look just like the lead singer of a heavy-metal band. Dirk and Weetzie wondered how they could have let him go bald for so long.
"Weetzie, I have something to tell you," Dirk said.
"What?"
"I have to wait till we get to the Odyssey."
At the Odyssey, Weetzie and Dirk bought a pack of cigarettes and two Cokes. Dirk poured rum from the little bottle he kept in his jacket pocket into the Cokes. They sat next to the d.j. booth watching the Lanka girls in spandy-wear dancing around.
"What were you going to tell me?" Weetzie asked. "I'm gay," Dirk said.
"Who, what, when, where, how well, not how," Weetzie said. "It doesn't matter one bit, honey-honey," she said, giving him a hug.
Dirk took a swig of his drink. "But you know I'll always love you the best and think you are a beautiful, sexy girl," he said.
"Now we can Duck hunt together," Weetzie said, taking his hand.
Duck Hunting
There were many kinds of Ducks Buff
Ducks, Skinny Ducks, Surf Ducks, Punk-
Rock Ducks, Wild Ducks, Shy Ducks,
Fierce Ducks, Cuddly Ducks, Sleek, Chic G.Q. Ducks, Rockabilly Ducks with creepers and ducktails, Rasta Ducks with dreads, Dancing Ducks, and Skate-Date Ducks, Ducks in Duckmobiles racing around the city.
Weetzie and Dirk went to find the Ducks of their respective dreams.
At a gig at Cathay de Grande, Weetzie stood in front of the stage feeling Buzz's sweat flinging off him as he sang. He was bald, with tattoos all over his arms. Weetzie stared up into the lights.
"That is no Duck," Dirk said. "That is one wild vulture bird."
"But he is gorgeous, isn't he?" Weetzie said, watching Buzz's nostrils flare.
She was pretty drunk by the end of the gig. Buzz came out from backstage and grabbed her wrists. "How was I?" he asked.
"You were okay." Weetzie swallowed.
"Okay? I was hot."
"You think you are pretty sexy, don't you?" "Yes. So are you. Come and get a beer with me." He turned and backed Weetzie up against the
wall. She smelled leather and beer.
"Put your arms around my neck."
She did it, pretending to choke him, and he pulled her up onto his glossy, white back.
"Put me down!"
She tried to kick him with her engineer boots but he carried her toward the bar.
After he had let her down, he felt the pockets of his Levi's for change.
"Shit." He turned to Weetzie. "Let's go to my place. I got some beers."
He looked about twelve suddenly, even with the shaved head, the eyeliner, and the skull earring. Weetzie started to walk away.
"Come on," he said softly.
Weetzie clung to Buzz's body as they rode his motorcycle through the night. Wind blew on their faces, a summer wind thick with the smell of all night taco stands.
Buzz lived in the basement of an old house. The walls were covered with graffiti for his band, Head of Skin, and there was a mattress in one corner. Weetzie glimpsed the handcuffs for a second before Buzz had her down on the mattress. She kept her eyes on the bare bulb until it blinded her.
Iii the morning, Weetzie tried to wake Buzz but he grunted when she touched him and pulled the sheets over his head. She got out of bed, wincing, still drunk, and called Dirk. He came and picked her up outside.
"Are you okay?" she asked him. His eyes were red. He had met someone in a video booth at a local sex store and they had groped around there for a while, then gone to the guy's apartment. Dirk had awakened, looked at the unfamiliar face, and gone home fast.
"About the same as you, I think."
They went to Canter's for bagels, which comforted Weetzie because she had teethed on Canter's bagels when she was a baby. While they ate, a cart of pickles wheeled by, the green rubbery pickles bobbing.
"Oh, God, that's all I need to see after last night," Dirk said.
"There are no Ducks, it feels like," Weetzie said.
"What is that?" Dirk asked the next day, noticing a tattoo-like bruise on Weetzie's arm.
"Nothing," she said.
"You aren't seeing that Buzz vulture anymore," Dirk said.
Weetzie kept falling for the wrong Ducks.
She met a Gloom-Doom Duck Poet who said, "My
heart is a canker sore. I cringed at the syringe." She met a toothy blonde Surf Duck, who, she
learned later, was sleeping with everyone.
She met an Alcoholic Art Duck with a ponytail,

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: No support

Dialog: Multiple speakers

Dialog: Broken dialogue

Dialog: Unlabeled Speaker

Vocabulary: Some difficult words

Language: Colorful, figurative

Sentences: Some Long/Complex

Text structure: Story/Poem

Inferences: Required

Complexity: Several unrelated ideas

Concepts: Abstract/Complex Social

Chapters

Author's purpose: Subtle, difficult to identify

Prior Knowledge: Familiarity

Mature Concepts: With some uncommon experiences

Features

Character traits

Integral Setting

Simple Plot

Figurative Language

Dialect/Accents

Unusual use of vocabulary

Topic

Family

*Family & Friends

Relationships

Low Frequency Words

adoring	alcoholic	armloads	awakened	bagels
beers	boulevard	buff	burrito	burritos
canaries	canker	chic	cigarettes	coladas
columns	cringed	curled	dangling	disney
dreads	duckmobiles	ducktails	earring	earrings
engineer	envied	eyeliner	feathered	fifi
fifties	fringed	frosted	gig	glossy
gorgeous	graffiti	grande	graumann's	groceries
groped	grunted	gurgled	guy's	hairpiece
handcuffs	harlequin	headdress	houdini	infatuated
jewels	knishes	lanka	limo	marshmallow
matinees	mattress	mini	mohawk	morrison
naylor's	nostrils	noticing	odyssey	oki
pastrami	pastries	perched	piglets	pleasure
plunged	pocked	pockets	poet	poetry
powdery	practically	practiced	rasta	realize
respective	reynolds	rockabilly	rosaries	rough
rubbery	schwab's	scratchiest	semester	sewn
siren	skinhead	sleek	slinkster	smudged
spandy	spat	stadium	starwood	stoplight
suede	sundaes	surf	surfers	swallowed
sweat	swig	syringe	taffeta	teethed
tomahawks	toupee	tropical	unfamiliar	venice
vex	vulture	waitresses	wallets	waltzers
weetzie	weetzie's	weird	wheeled	whiskey
wildest	wincing	wrists