Text Leveling System

The Princess Plot

RDQ:	2073	Max Word/Sent	79	Total Words	3832		Diff Words	1084
Lex	910	Ave Word/.Sent	8	Hi Freq occurs	2938	76.7%	Hi freq	481	44.4%
AR	5.1	Long Sentences	10.5	Low Freq occurs	248	6.5%	Low freq	197	18.2%

Scandia was in morning.
Above the palace the flag flew at half-mast, and thousands of umbrellas lined the boulevard. The gun carriage bearing the coffin proceeded at walking pace. It was covered with flowers in the national colors and drawn by six black horses that pulled it slowly up the hill to the cemetery.
The Little Princess walked behind the coffin alone, upright, shedding no tears. Her shoulders were straight and her gaze was unseeing. She did not look at the crowds of people, who would have given anything for a glance so that they might encourage her with a nod or comfort her with a smile, and she did not look at the coffin in which her father was making his last journey.
She'd refused to let anyone shield her from the rain, which had been falling incessantly since morning out of a sky of unbroken gray, and her wet hair lay in rain-heavy, rain-darkened strands over her face.
"Poor child," whispered a woman in the second row, and pressed up close to her husband for shelter beneath an inappropriately bright and cheerful umbrella. "She may have her crown, her estates, her jewelry, gold, and silver, but they're not much use to her now, are they?"
"Nothing but bad luck," murmured her husband. He held the umbrella over her, so that the rain began to drip down the back of his neck. "The whole family. Nothing but bad luck."
Just a few steps behind the Little Princess, walking straight-backed and alone, came her only living relative: her uncle, Norlin. From now on he would be dealing with the business of government in her name. Norlin had instructed a black-clad court official to walk two paces behind him with an umbrella. His hair was immaculate, elegantly styled, its silver-blue sheen in contrast to his still-young face. But his mouth was twisted with sorrow, and everyone in the crowd could see how deeply he, too, was grieving.
"She's lucky to have him there, at any rate," the woman whispered, as the government ministers filed past them in the cortege. "The little girl won't be completely alone."
"Let's hope they'll get along," her husband whispered back.
The woman brushed aside his misgivings. "At least her guardian's a relative," she whispered, "and not a stranger. After all, it'll be more than four years till she comes of age, poor mite."
A young man in front of them turned and frowned. "Can you keep your voices down?" he demanded. "This is hardly (he time for a chat. If you want to talk, go home and do it!"
Cameras whirred, and two helicopters circled high above I lie funeral procession. The princess was already well out of sight, and yet the crowd remained standing there, motionless, silent, and sad.
Only when the ten-gun salute rang out from Cemetery Hill, to tell the country that its king had been laid to rest alongside his wife in the royal tomb, did a collective sigh pass through he crowd of mourners, and they began to make their way home.
"If we hurry," said the woman as the crowd dispersed, "we can get the bus at quarter past. And I don't care what you say; with all the misery she's had to bear it's a blessing the little one still has her uncle. But if I was superstitious, I'd say there was a curse on this family."
"Never mind that now! There's our bus!" cried the man. I He closed the umbrella and began to run. "Come on, we can Mill catch it!"
They pushed their way through to the back of the bus with a crowd of other mourners, and eventually managed to find seats.
"It's a good thing you're not superstitious," the man said, finally responding to his wife's comments. "A curse? We're not living in a fairy tale! If people encounter trouble and strife, my dear, they've generally brought it on themselves."
"Malena," said Norlin. He had insisted that he and the princess travel back to the palace together in the royal limousine. "Malena, what can I do to comfort you?"
The Little Princess sat there expressionless, as if she hadn't even heard him.
"The best thing is to get back into your routine, Malena." He was sitting a little apart from her, because her coat was so wet. "Today and tomorrow you'll stay in the palace so that both of us can sign the thank-you letters for people's condolences." He leaned forward. "Did you hear me, Malena? After that, you'll go back to school. Back to your friends. That'll help take your mind off all this. And in two months' time it'll be your fourteenth birthday."
Slowly, very slowly, Malena looked up. It still seemed as if she hadn't heard him. But then, without saying a word, she nodded her head.
The sun disappeared	behind a cloud, and the
two girls on the patio could feel the coolness as evening approached. The change of seasons had come at last, and the tender green of late spring was gradually turning into the rich colors of high summer. For the first time this year, they had done their homework in the garden, and now Bea gathered her pencils together in a single sweep.
"They shouldn't be allowed to assign us history homework like this," she said. She scowled at the large sheet of paper with its lines, and its lines coming out of lines. "History's so boring!"
Jenna sighed. "Everybody thinks that, and that's why she gives us such stupid homework," she said. "Miss Black wants to make herself seem important. I'll bet you that's the only reason why we're stuck here doing this now."
"Anyway, I'm getting cold," said Bea. "And that means goodbye to the family tree, and she can moan about it as much as she likes tomorrow. I'm going inside, and I'm not going to do any more."
Jenna looked thoughtfully at her sheet of paper, then she rolled it up and fastened it with a rubber band. "Maybe I'll ask my mother about it," she said. "There's hardly anything at all on mine."
"That's because of 'the foreigner, said Bea, but then, guiltily, she stopped herself and started over. "No, no, that came out wrong! You know what I mean. It's not fair for you to have to do this when your mother won't tell you who your father is. You can't put in any of that grandmother and great-grandmother stuff. You'll just have to hand in half a family tree."
Jenna shook her head. "My mother's side's not much better!" she said. "I don't know much about them, either!"
Bea's mother poked her head out of the French doors. "Girls!" she said. "It's getting too cold for you to be outside."
Bea twisted her lips. "No worries, Mom! We're OK out here," she said.
"Don't you `no worries' me," said her mother, undeterred. "Dinner's ready. Aren't you girls hungry?"
Jenna shook her head. "I think I'd better be going home," she said. "You know what my mom's like. She gets worried even if I'm just a couple of minutes late."
Bea tapped her watch severely. "It's seven o'clock, sweetie," she said. "Time for a baby's bedtime story. Your mom's such a worrier. You really need to train her better."
Bea's mother put her hand on Jenna's arm. "Don't listen to her," she said. "Why don't you send your mom a text message? Tell her you're having dinner with us."
Jenna nodded and switched on her cell phone. She knew
her mother would be annoyed. Daughters shouldn't just send their mothers text messages to say where they are and where they're staying. Daughters should call to ask if they can stay. Still @ Bea's, she typed, hoping that her mother had actually  switched on her cell. She was always forgetting to do that.
B back b4 dark. Love, Jenna
Then she switched off her phone. She didn't want to get a message from her mother saying she must come home at once.
"Done!" she said, and plunked herself down on the fourth chair in the kitchen. (Bad manners. Sit down slowly and sit up straight.)
Jenna loved Bea's kitchen. It was always a bit of a mess, with a few dirty dishes, or washed ones still draining in the rack next to the sink, and on the wall behind the table there were so many notes pinned to a bulletin board that every so often one of them would come fluttering down onto the food: The Flying Pizzaman Telephone Orders 24 hours a day, or TV and Computer Repairs Prompt, Reliable, and Reasonable, or District Drugstore Opening Hours 1997. 1997  wow! Jenna was convinced that Bea's mother had never taken a single one of those flyers off the board. She just kept pinning new ones on it. Jenna's mom would have died.
"Finished your homework?" asked Bea's father.
That was another reason why Jenna loved Bea's kitchen, Bea's house, and every meal in Bea's house. Because they were
a real family. Father, mother, and child. Two children, when Jenna ate with them. And because Bea's father was always himself friendly, a bit absentminded, never loud. Of course, she had no experience with fathers herself, but she was certain a good father must be just like that. Bea's always made her feel that he was happy to see her.
"No, you can't ever really finish the homework we had today," Bea was saying, while twisting a piece of salami in her fingers and then wrinkling up her nose before dropping it back onto the plate of cold cuts. "We had to do a family tree."
"Cool!" said her father. Jenna's mom would have passed out on the spot. (Grown men should talk properly) "Well, did you get it all in?"
Bea tapped her forehead. "How could we?" she asked. "Do you know the names of Grandma Biggin's parents?"
Her father gave an earnest nod. "Ronald, Baron of Cowdung, and Betty, Baroness of Pigswill,  Chickenfeed," he said. "Do you want their dates of birth?"
Jenna giggled.
"Maybe making it up isn't such a bad idea. I'll think of something later," she said. "I've got nowhere near enough relatives. Otherwise our teacher will make my life miserable tomorrow."
"Do you need a few convincing names?" asked Bea's father, resting his knife on the bread.
Jenna shook her head and laughed. "Not like the ones you just said!" All the same, some help would have been useful. She
found it especially hard to think of foreign names Turkish might be the simplest, and would also better match her appearance. But Bea's father probably wouldn't be much good at those.
Bea's mother passed around the bread basket. "I wouldn't worry about it," she said. "You'll be out of school for the summer in a week's time. They must have finished grading the report cards ages ago, so it won't really matter what you come up with now. Though of course I shouldn't be telling you that."
At this moment the doorbell rang.
"Hello," said Bea's father, "are we expecting anybody?" But Jenna knew exactly who was at the door.
"What do you mean, disappeared?" cried Norlin. "Surely security must have had people there! The school was under surveillance twenty-four hours a day!"
The official hunched his shoulders as if he was expecting a beating  though of course there was no question of that in a civilized country like Scandia. "Apparently, Your Highness," he said, "just at that moment . . . apparently . . . there was a diversion . . ."
"So?" yelled Norlin. The curtains had not yet been drawn across the windows, and from the square in front of the palace the reddish-yellow streetlamps cast their light into the gloomy room. "What does the house mistress have to say? The headmaster? What do they think happened? Does it look like a kidnapping?"
The official took a cautious step backward, as if he really was about to bear the full brunt of the regent's fury.
"One can hardly imagine it being anything else, Your Highness," he said. "But the strange thing . . . the strange thing is . . ."
"Well?" demanded Norlin.
"The security men swear," said the official, "that there were no cars anywhere in the vicinity during the hours before she disappeared. And, as you know, you can see for miles across the countryside around the school."
"Only if you take the trouble to look!" growled Norlin. "And I hardly need to ask if anyone saw a helicopter, or a delivery van, or a horse and cart."
"Nothing, Your Highness!" said the official with complete conviction, and bowed. "The men are absolutely certain."
"Then whoever did it must have been very clever," murmured Norlin. He looked at the messenger and drummed his fingers on his desk. "Perhaps there's an underground passage. But I'm sure the whole area was thoroughly searched before my brother-in-law sent Malena to the school."
"An underground passage is unlikely, Your Highness," said the official, and bowed again. "The subsoil is too rocky. The leader of the search party "
Norlin interrupted. "I want to talk to him!" he said. "Now!"
The messenger bowed his way backward to the door. "Of course, Your Highness," he said. "I'll get him to come straightaway."
"And not a word to the press!" said Norlin. "Do you hear? Do you hear? I need to know more first. Good grief, one word, one small blunder, anything you hear? anything could put my niece in terrible danger!" It seemed as if he had only now realized the implications of the news.
"I'll pass on your orders, Your Highness," said the official, reaching behind his back for the door handle. "And I'll tell the leader of the search party . . ."
"I want to see Bolstrom," said the regent, and sank back, exhausted, into his chair. "Send Bolstrom here, no matter where he is."
"Bolstrom, yes, of course," said the messenger, and now his voice sounded not only eager to serve but also relieved. "I'll send people to look for him."
And as he closed the door behind him, he thought what a good thing it was that, since the death of the king, Norlin had been working so closely with Bolstrom, the head of the Secret Service. Bolstrom would be better than the police.
"Won't you come in for a moment?" asked Bea's mother. "We're in the kitchen."
"Hello, Mom," said Jenna, without looking up.
Her mother stood in the kitchen doorway and smiled.
She's so beautiful, thought Jenna. The exact opposite of me. Tall, blonde, and elegant. Of course she needs to be, for her work. But I can see that somehow she intimidates people, even just by standing in front of them.
"I thought I'd come by and pick you up," said Jenna's mother, still smiling. "I got your text message, but it's getting a little late. I thought it would be safer."
Bea's father wolfed down his dinner. (Don't take large bites. Don't talk with your mouth full. Bea's father never obeyed the rules.)
"Won't you sit for a moment?" he asked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. (Don't do that, either.) "I'd have taken Jenna home myself. But I thought she'd be fine, since it's still light outside now that it's summer . . ."
Jenna's mother smiled and Bea's father broke off. "Of course," she said. "Thank you very much. But I think we should be going now."
Jenna looked at the remains of the bread on her plate. She could hardly leave it there, but she couldn't just stuff it into her mouth, either her mom definitely wouldn't approve of that.
Jenna stood and picked up the piece of bread. (Rude behavior, too.) "Thanks for everything," she said. "See you tomorrow, Bea. I'm really looking forward to history." She rolled her eyes.
"Stuff history!" said Bea.
"Bea!" cried her mother. (Even Bea's parents had their limits.)
There were shoes scattered around the hallway, and in the middle of these was a blue plastic bag with empty bottles sticking out of it. A dust bunny bobbed across the floor.
Jenna hadn't noticed any of it before her mom had arrived, but she did now.
"Later!" she called as her mother gently pushed her out the front entrance. "Bye!" Bea's mother waved and closed the door behind them.
"Mom," said Jenna, extracting her arm from her mother's as they walked down the driveway. "You always make me look stupid!"
"You're only fourteen," said her mother. "You don't know what terrible things can happen to a young girl in the city."
The sun was still shining brightly, even if it had sunk a little toward the horizon. Children were still playing out in the streets.
"Bolstrom!" said Norlin. "What on earth are we going to do now?" The servant quietly closed the door from the outside, leaving Norlin and Bolstrom alone.
"What did she take with her?" asked Bolstrom. The room was in almost complete darkness. Only the glow from the streetlights and the green shade of the reading lamp formed little islands of brightness, which made the areas around them seem all the darker. "Did she take anything at all?"
"What do you mean?" asked Norlin.
"Did she pack anything?" asked Bolstrom. "Did she take a hag with her? If so, my dear Norlin, then maybe she wasn't kidnapped after all."
"What do you mean?" Norlin asked again.
"Think about it," said Bolstrom. "If no one saw a car, she might simply have run away of her own accord."
Norlin stood up. "She didn't pack anything," he said. He went to the window and drew the curtains.
Bolstrom shook his head and switched on the light.
"All right, so she didn't pack anything," he said. "Well, her father just died, Norlin! Have you any idea what might be going through a child's head in that situation? She's desperate. She's confused. She's finding life unbearable. She . . ."
"You think she might have . . . done harm to herself?" cried Norlin, shocked by the very thought.
"Well, as far as I know, nobody has found her body," said Bolstrom, "though that doesn't mean a great deal. But she might just have gone off . . . wandering around the country-side. Didn't you say that after the funeral she seemed to be confused? Anything is possible."
"Good heavens!" cried Norlin, shocked anew.
"Well, confused wandering is still better than a kidnapping, you have to agree," said Bolstrom. "Now listen,. Norlin. Let the Secret Service handle it. The important thing is that the public not know what's happened. It mustn't. Certainly not for now otherwise we might . . . lose control of the situation. That's the real danger."
"brats and darnation!" Norlin muttered. "And it's her birthday next week!"
"I know," said Bolstrom.
"We must . . ." whispered Norlin. "Bolstrom! How can we . . . ?"
Bolstrom put his arm around Norlin's shoulder. "You're worried sick," he said. "Perfectly understandable. But that's why I'm here."
Norlin stiffened.
"I'm depending on you, Bolstrom," he said. "You know how the people love their princess."
"Your parents' names, at least!" cried Jenna. "You must know the names of your own parents!"
Her mother had taken off her shoes and stowed them away in the closet. Now she was putting her jacket on a hanger, and pulling it straight.
"I do know the names of my parents," she said, looking in the mirror and brushing a blonde hair away from her face. "And I know the names of my grandparents, too. I even know the names of my great-grandparents, and my great-great grandparents." She went into the living room and sat down in front of the television. "But I'm not thrilled at the thought of teachers nosing into family affairs. And that's exactly what this family tree business amounts to. Teachers should teach you, and they should help you, but your private life is none of their business."
"Please, Mom!" pleaded Jenna.
Mom shook her head. "Sit down and watch the news. End of discussion."
Jenna stared at her, then ran to her room and slammed the door. (One must expect occasional fits of temper during
adolescence. Good manners are no longer guaranteed, even from children who are extremely well brought up.) Maybe her teacher didn't have the right to poke into a mother's private affairs, but surely that didn't apply to a daughter to a student. Everybody wanted to know about their family. Why wouldn't her mother tell her what her father looked like? She had once let it slip that he was from another country and had a dark complexion like Jenna, but what did he do, and who were her grandparents?
Jenna flopped down on her bed. Whenever she asked about her father, Mom always changed the subject ASAP. Of course, Jenna could sort of understand why. It just didn't fit with Mom's image: She should have had a smart husband who worked in a bank, wore Armani suits and handmade shirts not some weird foreigner she was ashamed of.
Jenna rolled the rubber band off the family tree and sat down at her desk. The only time her mother had ever told her anything about her background was on her last birthday. They'd gone to a restaurant to celebrate. Jenna had had a glass of Coke, and Mom had had some wine, and then suddenly Mom had looked her up and down and said, "You're growing up. You're gradually growing up. When I was your age . . "
Jenna had listened in silence, holding her breath.
"Not long after that, I met your father," Mom had said. "We were head over heels in love, Jenna madly in love."
Still Jenna said nothing. She didn't want to spoil the moment.
"And one day, when it was my birthday, my eighteenth, we just ran away. We didn't bother with celebrations we simply went to the seaside, near Saarstad. We sat on the beach, hut it was still quite cold at that time of year, and as I had
he key . . ."
"What key?" Jenna had blurted out, and straightaway she'd known she'd blown it.
"Never mind," her mother had said, startled, and she'd pushed away her wine glass to the center of the table. "Well, congratulations, Jenna. You're no longer a child, so I hope you'll have a wonderful time in your teens."
Back to reality. Jenna looked at the almost-empty sheet lying in front of her on the desk. Maybe it would be fun to invent vent a few names.
She stood up and switched on the light, even though it was only just beginning to get dark.
Outside, across the street, a man moved back into a doorway and waited.
She was clearly visible through the window: a small, slightly curvy figure with dark hair, standing in her room on the second floor and energetically pulling something from a shelf. Only when she sat back down at her desk was the brightly lit rectangle empty again.

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: No support

Dialog: Multiple speakers

Dialog: Broken dialogue

Dialog: Unlabeled Speaker

Vocabulary: Many difficult words

Language: Many descriptive words

Sentences: Multiple phrases

Text structure: Story/Poem

Inferences: Some implications

Complexity: Several ideas - closely related

Concepts: Concrete/Simple Social

Chapters

Sequence of Events: Chronological

Mature Concepts: With some uncommon experiences

Features

Character development

Integral Setting - Cultural/Regional

Clear cause/effect

Complex plot

Mood/tone

Difficult names

Topic

Fathers

Secrets

Princes/Princesses

Friendship

Kings/Queens

*Family & Friends

*Global Issues

Relationships

Low Frequency Words

absentminded	absolutely	accord	adolescence	alongside
anew	annoyed	apparently	approached	approve
armani	assign	baroness	biggin's	blurted
bolstrom	boulevard	brunt	carriage	cautious
cemetery	chickenfeed	civilized	collective	complexion
condolences	congratulations	contrast	conviction	convinced
convincing	cortege	cowdung	curse	curtains
curvy	darnation	dealing	discussion	dispersed
diversion	drawn	earnest	elegant	elegantly
encounter	encourage	estates	eventually	exhausted
expressionless	extracting	extremely	fastened	foreign
foreigner	fourteenth	funeral	fury	generally
glance	government	grading	gradually	grief
grieving	guaranteed	guardian's	guiltily	handmade
headmaster	highness	history's	hoping	horizon
hunched	image	immaculate	implications	inappropriately
incessantly	instructed	interrupted	intimidates	islands
jenna's	jewelry	kidnapped	kidnapping	limits
limousine	madly	malena	mast	messages
messenger	ministers	miserable	misery	misgivings
mistress	mite	motionless	mourners	murmured
mustn't	muttered	national	niece	norlin
norlin's	nowhere	obeyed	occasional	official
opposite	otherwise	pace	paces	passage
pigswill	pizzaman	pleaded	plunked	private
proceeded	procession	prompt	properly	public
reality	reasonable	rectangle	reddish	refused
regent	regent's	relative	relatives	reliable
relieved	responding	restaurant	routine	royal
rude	saarstad	salami	scandia	scowled
seaside	seasons	security	servant	service
severely	shedding	shield	side's	simplest
situation	sorrow	startled	stiffened	stowed
straightaway	strands	streetlamps	streetlights	strife
styled	subsoil	suits	superstitious	surely
surveillance	swear	sweetie	that'll	thoroughly
thoughtfully	tomb	turkish	unbearable	unbroken
understandable	undeterred	unseeing	upright	vicinity
visible	wandering	weird	whirred	wolfed
worrier	wrinkling