Text Leveling System

Flip-Flop Girl

RDQ:	1619	Max Word/Sent	38	Total Words	2881		Diff Words	797
Lex	840	Ave Word/.Sent	9	Hi Freq occurs	2117	73.5%	Hi freq	363	45.5%
AR	4.5	Long Sentences	10.2	Low Freq occurs	97	3.4%	Low freq	73	9.2%

Mason was making monkey faces again. Jumping in front of the TV so she couldn't see the picture. Vinnie felt little bristles of anger begin to scratch away inside her chest. "Move, Mason. And stop it, right now. You can't play that silly faces game anymore. Daddy's never going to play it with you ever again."
That stopped Mason, at least for the moment. He stood staring at Vinnie with his big ghosty eyes that had dark smudges underneath. Then he made another face. This time he used the ends of his little fingers to push his nose up like a pig snout and his index fingers to pull his eyes sideways.
"I mean it, Mason. Stop it. Your face will freeze like that and then you'll be sorry." She clenched her teeth, trying to keep the anger from piercing through.
Mason added an almost toothless grin to the pig face. "Momma!" Vinnie screamed. But it was her grand-
mother who stuck her head in the door. Grandma's face was round and coated with makeup. Her mouth was bright red-orange, and the lipstick bled up into the wrinkles like a little kid's painting of the sun.
"Lavinia, sweetie pie! Stop teasing your brother. C'mon now. Be a help, love. Please don't go picking on him while we're trying to pack."
She, picking on Mason? If it weren't so sad, it would be funny. Mason did nothing but torment her.
"You don't fool me, Mason," she whispered as soon as Grandma's head disappeared. "I know why you won't talk. It's just to bother me, isn't it? Well, it doesn't bother me at all, in case you're interested. I don't care if you never make another sound as long as you live. I'd like it, in fact. I can remember when you did talk. All you did was whine. Whine whine whine. I'm glad you stopped talking. Really glad."
It didn't work. Mason kept right on inventing new faces, but he never said a word.
Vinnie tried to watch the cartoon, tried to plug up the mucky feeling that leaked into her mind. She'd never told her mother about what happened the day Mason stopped
talking. She had been so scared and mad. "I'm glad Daddy's dead," Mason had said. "He smelled bad."
"How dare you say that?" Vinnie had cried. "How dare you say you're glad your own daddy's dead? You're bad, bad, bad. No wonder Daddy died. Who would want to live with a kid like you?"
Mason had stared at her, wide-eyed with fright.
That evening, when they'd looked at Daddy in the coffin, Mason had tugged at Daddy's suit sleeve and said, "Get up, Daddy. Get up." She had felt a little thrill of terror. Suppose Daddy did get up out of the coffin, rise up like a vampire. What then? She had begun to shake, and
then she had been angry all over again. Furious, in fact, first at Daddy for being dead and then at Mason for being so stupid. "I thought you were glad, Mason. You said so your very own self. Don't say you didn't."
Mason had pretended not to hear her. "Get up." This time he'd whispered the words.
"He's dead, Mason," she'd said between her teeth so Momma couldn't hear from the other side of the room. "He's dead, and there's nothing you can say to change that."
That was the beginning of Mason's problems, the evening in the funeral home when he had looked at her with his scared, wide-eyed look. His face had been chubby then, not skinny as it was now with the blue bruises under his eyes.
But the look had frightened her all the same. "Aren't you happy, now?" she'd asked him, trying to shove away her fear. "You said yourself you were glad."
From then on, Mason had just stopped saying anything at all. Nobody but Vinnie noticed at first. They were all too upset about Daddy, but a few days later, when they saw that Mason was hardly eating as well as not talking, they slobbered all over him. They pleaded with him. They cooked his favorite foods and brought him presents. Momma would sit for hours in the big rocker, holding Mason and rocking him. Mason wasn't so dumb. He was much better off not talking than talking. He got famous for being the little boy who was so sad about his daddy's death that he could hardly eat a bite and refused to say a word.
Vinnie had lost her daddy, too. But no one seemed to care about that. No one held her and rocked her in the big chair. No one cooked spaghetti just for her or brought her presents. Daddy would have noticed. At night in bed
she'd pretend Daddy was still home. He was tucking her in with knock-knock jokes. "Knock knock," he'd say. "Who's there?"
"Vinnie." "Vinnie who?" "Vinnie gonna give me a hug?"
And she'd laugh so much she hardly had the strength to hug him.
"Knock knock." "Who's there?" "Mason." "Mason who?"
"Mason shine on you." The Mason one wasn't as good as the Vinnie one or even the Jesse one, which was the dumbest knock knock Daddy ever made up.
"Knock knock." "Who's there?" "Jesse."
"Jesse who?"
"Jesse minute I'm still in my underwear."
"But why is he standing outside knocking if he's in his underwear?" she'd demand.
"Knock knock."
She'd pretend to ignore him.
"Come on," he'd plead. "Just one more. This one's good."
She'd give a big, dramatic sigh. "Okay, who's there?" "Gidget," he'd say.
"Gidget who?" she'd ask, her body already rolling up into a little knot.
"Gidget gidget gidget goo," he'd yell, tickling her until she couldn't help but giggle.
Vinnie missed him terribly, especially at bedtime. She felt so alone, even with Mason in the other bed-especially
with Mason in the other bed. She would lie awake, waiting for Daddy to come in and say good night, although she knew he wouldn't. Not ever again. He was in a grave on the other side of Washington, lying deep under the ground in a long, gray box. She wondered what it was _	like in the grave. What was happening to Daddy in there? Was his body all rotting and the skin falling off? She lay in her bed, trembling, her arms pressed tightly against her sides, trying not to think, listening for Daddy's step in the hall. But all she could hear was the sound of someone crying in the next room. It had to be Momma, but why would Momma be crying in the night when she never cried during the day? Why couldn't Momma come in and hold her and rock her and cry with her? Vinnie needed someone to cry with her.
But no one cared about how Vinnie was or how she felt. She had a terrible stomachache one day. She knew she was coming down with cancer. That's how Daddy got sick. He had a stomachache and it turned into cancer. She hated to tell Momma about her stomach and upset her, but she had to. If you catch cancer in time, it might not kill you. She owed it to Momma to tell her, but when Vinnie finally did tell her, Momma said she was sure it was nothing to worry about.
No matter how she felt, Vinnie was supposed to forget about herself and be the big sister and help poor little Mason. Vinnie tried to explain to her mother that Mason was playing a trick on everybody just to get attention. Her mother smiled sadly and ran her fingers through Vinnie's long hair, and the next day she took Mason to yet another doctor who she hoped would help Mason start eating right and cure him from not talking.
Her mother hardly had time to miss her daddy or do anything with Vinnie. She was always trying new things
with Mason. And Mason stuck to Momma like he was some kind of second skin. Momma would have to peel him off her just to go to the bathroom. The whole time she was there, he'd stand outside the door with those big, scared eyes, as though he thought she'd disappear and never come out again.
Grandma stayed on after the funeral. She wasn't Daddy's real mother. She'd married Grandpa a couple of years before he died, when Daddy was already grown and married to Momma. You could tell she wasn't Vinnie's real grandmother because she spent all her time fussing about Mason. That meant there were two women hovering over Mason and begging him to eat just one little bite or say just one little word. It made Vinnie sick to her stomach.
She would have gone crazy if it hadn't been for Shawna Watts, who was her best friend. And now Vinnie was going to move and she wouldn't have Shawna to talk to anymore. Momma must have decided to move to Grandma's house even before Daddy died. Grandma and she had kept it a secret between the two of them. They just hadn't told Vinnie they were planning to move. Poor Daddy! They probably could hardly wait until he was dead to get out of there.
Momma thought it was wonderful to have a free house. Vinnie thought it was terrible. Who would want to live in a dumpy little town in Virginia that nobody had ever heard of?
"Of course you've heard of Brownsville," her mother said. "You've been there. That's where Grandma lives." "Well, Shawna's never heard of it."
"Then it's up to you to tell her."
How could someone tell anyone else about a town called Brownsville? Brown was Vinnie's least favorite
color. She pictured the town. Everything was brown-not even a nice brown-if any brown could be called nice, but a yellowish, grayish yucky brown. She felt sick to her stomach. Daddy would never make her move to Brownsville. He'd understand how much she'd hate it. "If I move there," she said, "it'll make me sick." I'll probably get cancer like Daddy, she thought, but she didn't say that part, because Momma never took it seriously. "I'll get really sick and it will all be because of Brownsville."
"Nonsense," her mother said without the least bit of sympathy.
Vinnie decided to work on Mason. "Tell them you'll start talking and eating right if they won't make you move."
Mason just stared at her.
"I mean it, Mason. You'll be sorry. Nobody will feel bad for you there. You won't have this great reputation for the saddest boy that ever lived. Nobody will give a doughnut hole for you. They'll probably just laugh at you and pick on you. I know about these things. I'm four years older than you."
Mason jumped up on the bed and began bouncing up and down like he was crazy.
Grandma went home for a couple of days and then came back to help them finish packing. Only you could hardly call what she did packing. It was more throwing away-throwing away everything that Vinnie needed and wanted. Grandma would have thrown Agnes away if Vinnie hadn't seen her arm poking out of a bunch of papers in the top of the trash bag. "Agnes!" Vinnie cried, snatching out her doll and scattering the papers about.
"Tell Grandma to quit throwing away all my things!" she told her mother, who was in the kitchen trying to
pack dishes with Mason stuck to her shirt, Daddy's old shirt, sucking his thumb.
Her mother turned with a sigh, gently moving Mason to one side. "If you packed your own things, Vinnie-"
"I don't want to pack. I don't want to move."
"You can't have it both ways, Vinnie. If you don't want Grandma throwing away your stuff, you need to pack it yourself."
Vinnie could feel the tears starting in her eyes. She was probably going to damage her eyesight with all this crying. But this time, at least, her mother put her arm out and pulled her close. "I know it's hard for you, Vinnie. But try to understand. If we live with Grandma, we won't have to pay any rent. As hard as I work, I can't make enough to take care of us all and pay the rent, too." She kissed Vinnie's cheek.
"Suppose we move there and you can't get a job?" "Nurses can always get jobs. They just can't get a lot of money." She pushed Vinnie's hair off her face. "Okay, sweetie?"
It was not okay, but what could Vinnie say? In spite of everything, she loved her mother. She really didn't want to make life harder for her. So Vinnie went to the tiny room that she shared with Mason and began to put her things into a plastic bag. But first she got a Magic Marker and wrote in large letters on the white plastic: "Vinnie's Things. Keep Out. Do not Touch. This means you." It made her feel a little better.
"How much further?" Vinnie knew it was a Mason kind of question, but Mason certainly wasn't going to ask anything.
Momma glanced at her in the rearview mirror, well, sort of glanced, but she was looking mostly at Mason,
who was sitting up straight, staring at Momma's hair. She checked Mason out before she answered. "We haven't even gotten to Charlottesville, yet, Vinnie. Brownsville's about an hour from there, right, Mother?"
"Just about," Grandma said. "You kids need a Life Saver?"
Yes, she needed a lifesaver. One that would save her and take her back home to Washington and make her daddy alive again and let her be best friends with Shawna ...
"Here, sweetie pie, take them." Grandma was urging the whole pack into her hand. "And share them with your brother."
Vinnie nodded.
"Thank you, Grandma," Momma prompted.
"Thank you," muttered Vinnie. The top one was red, so she popped it into her mouth, even though she knew it was Mason's favorite. She handed him a green one. "Say 'Thank you, Grandma," she said, knowing full well that Mason wouldn't say anything. She noticed with grim satisfaction that he put the Lifesaver in his mouth and began to suck it. He didn't have any trouble eating Lifesavers-just vegetables and meat and stuff that was good for him.
Brownsville was not all brown. It was gray. By the time they finally got there in the late afternoon, rain was coming down, soaking the boxes they carried from the U-Haul to the house. The house may have been white once, but now it looked gray. There was no grass in the tiny front yard. The little patch was brown-baked brown clay. The rain pounded against it, running off onto the gray sidewalk. Had Grandma's house always looked this dreary? She couldn't remember. The last visit they had made was before Daddy had gotten sick the first time. Mason was
only a baby. That time the doctors promised he would be fine. They stopped promising.
"Well," said her mother in a voice as fake and cheerful as a TV ad, "here we are."
"Welcome home," said Grandma. The little red spots of rouge made her look like a clown, Vinnie thought. Grandma unlocked the front door and rushed in ahead to turn up the thermostat. Vinnie stood in the doorway, holding one of her boxes. The house was cold and damp and dark inside. Big chairs rose in bumps like monuments in a cemetery-where Daddy lay under the ground.
Vinnie shivered. "Why are the chairs all gray?" she whispered to Momma.
Her mother tried to laugh, but that didn't help. "They're dustcovers, Vinnie. Grandma wanted to keep things nice and clean while she was gone. See-" She pulled one off a big armchair. Underneath, the chair was a fuzzy gray. "Oh," said her mother and laughed that funny laugh again.
Grandma came into the living room then and began pulling off the rest of the covers. Not all the chairs were gray, but the flowery ones seemed dingy and faded. They might as well have been gray-or brown like the huge bureaus and cupboards that loomed over the small rooms like prison guards. Vinnie was going to hate it here more than she could have imagined.
Now see," her mother said, "the school
is not gray."
No, it was brick-old dirty red brick with a long flight of stone steps going up to the front door. Beside the building was a concrete playground, gray like a jail yard. Here and there were cracks in the pavement, where grass and weeds had pushed their way through. Behind a high metal fence, caged like sad zoo animals collected from some other planet, were a slide, creaky-looking swings, and an ancient jungle gym.
It was still raining. It had been raining since they moved to Brownsville two days before. In her head, Vinnie had begun to call the town Graysville.
And now this dirty old school. Grandma had apologized for the way it looked. The town was planning to build a new one, she said, but times were hard and people couldn't afford more taxes.

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: No support

Dialog: Multiple speakers

Dialog: Broken dialogue

Dialog: Unlabeled Speaker

Vocabulary: More decoding/definition issues

Language: Many descriptive words

Sentences: Multiple phrases

Text structure: Story/Poem

Inferences: Some implications

Complexity: Several ideas - closely related

Concepts: Abstract/Complex Social

Chapters

Sequence of Events: Mostly chronological

Mature concepts: With common experiences or clear fantasy

Features

Character traits

Character development

Complex Problem/Solution

Clear cause/effect

Theme

Topic

Teacher/Teaching

Death

Honesty

Behaviors

Family

Friendship

Brothers

*Feelings, Behaviors

Low Frequency Words

bristles	brownsville	brownsville's	bureaus	c'mon
cemetery	collected	concrete	cure	dingy
dramatic	dreary	dumbest	dustcovers	eyed
flowery	funeral	furious	further	ghosty
gidget	gonna	grayish	graysville	hovering
ignore	imagined	inventing	knocking	knowing
lavinia	lifesaver	lifesavers	marker	mason's
momma's	monuments	muttered	owed	pavement
pictured	piercing	pleaded	prison	prompted
rearview	refused	reputation	rotting	rouge
satisfaction	seriously	shared	shawna	shawna's
shove	sideways	smudges	snatching	spite
sweetie	sympathy	terribly	terror	thermostat
toothless	torment	underwear	urging	vinnie's
watts	whine	wrinkles