Text Leveling System

Sam Samurai

RDQ:	1194	Max Word/Sent	50	Total Words	3138		Diff Words	838
Lex	780	Ave Word/.Sent	8	Hi Freq occurs	2276	72.5%	Hi freq	359	42.8%
AR	3.9	Long Sentences	6	Low Freq occurs	148	4.7%	Low freq	96	11.5%

ONE
Sam stood frozen in his ready karate pose. He
spoke in a low voice.
"Do not move an inch.
If we're where I think we are,
We are dead meat."
"What are you talking
about?" said Fred loudly.
"So we're probably in
Japan. I'll bet we can
get some great noodles
and sushi."
I wasn't sure exactly where Sam thought we were,]]
but I knew we weren't in Sam's house anymore.
Fred, Sam, and I were standing on a low wooden
platform that covered most of a small dirt floor
room. A flickering fire burned in a rectangular pit
cut into the side of the platform near the dirt
floor. A metal teapot hung over the fire from a
long hook in the ceiling. In the jumpy light I could
just make out a few mats around the fire pit.
There were no chairs, no tables, no beds.
I whispered to Sam and Fred as I looked
around the room, "It sure looks like Japan, but I
think we are okay because there aren't any
samurai.
A crazy, wild scream exploded out of me. All
three of us jumped against the wall, because there
in the farthest, darkest corner of the room, looking
just like the guy in the picture Sam had shown
us, sat a samurai warrior in full battle gear.
Layers of shiny black and red strips of armor
covered his shoulders. A breastplate and skirt kind
of thing of the same strips tied with gold cords covered
his chest and lower body. He wore black
leather and chain arm covers, padded shin guards
and foot covers, and a wild gold-horned black helmet ]]
sprouting side flaps. A thin gold sliver shaped
like a new moon topped everything off.
He sat motionless in the corner, staring at us like
we were rats in a trap.
"Oh ... my ... ga-ga-gosh," gasped Sam. "I
told you this is what would happen."
Even Fred, who is pretty hard to rattle, sucked
in a nervous breath.
I quickly bowed my most serious bow like I had
seen in Sam's samurai movies. "Gee Mr. Samurai
guy, we are very sorry for time warping into your ]]
house like this. All we have to do is find our Book
and then we'll be on our way. Okay?"
The samurai stared back at us, motionless.
"Fine? Is good? Hola? Si?"
The samurai stared back at us, motionless.
"Oh great," I said. "I think something's wrong
with the Auto-Translator. He's not getting a word
I say. Sam, you know some Japanese words. Get
up here and use them."
"No way," said Sam, edging behind Fred. "I said
I learned a few words. I didn't say I learned how
to beg a fully armed samurai warrior not to slice
off our heads with his razor-sharp sword."
Fred pushed Sam forward. "Well just say whatever
you've got-hello, sorry, see ya. I don't think
we want to mess with this guy."
Light glinted off the samurai's red-lipped black
metal faceplate. Sam inched forward.
"Um ... well ... konichiwa, samurai. My friends
and I-Joe-san, Fred-san, Sam-san-are so sorry ...
um, so zannen ... for coming into your house."
A stick fell in the fire and shot up a blaze of
light. The samurai seemed to look down at Sam's
feet and frown. Sam looked down at his sneakers.
"Oh no." He turned to us. "Quick, take your ]]
shoes off and throw them over there on the dirt
 part of the room."
"What?" said Fred. "He doesn't like the smell
of our sneakers? This guy is starting to sound like
my mom."
"No," said Sam. "It's terribly impolite to ever
wear your shoes in anyone's home in Japan. He
 could cut our heads off for such an insult."
 "He's definitely starting to sound like my mom," I said.
 But it didn't seem worth it to lose our head over
shoes, so we slipped them off and tossed them over
 onto the dirt floor. Sam bowed. Fred and I bowed
if:   "So sorry. So sorry," said Sam. "We are sorry,
very sorry, I can't tell you how sorry, so please don't-
do-anything-with-your-sword-there-because we-
were-wearing-shoes-inside-your-house-and-we are-
stupid-heads sorry."
 "Hey, speak for yourself," said Fred.
The fire blazed up again. The samurai in the
shadows seemed to look down again.
"Oh right," said Sam. "We're supposed to kneel
down in front of him because he is a samurai."
Sam knelt down. Fred and I copied him.]]
The samurai stared at us and said nothing.
Seconds drifted by. No one said anything. We
looked at him. He looked at us. Seconds turned
into minutes. No one said anything.
"I think he's testing us," Sam half whispered out
of one side of his mouth.
"Well, I think I've had about enough testing,"
said Fred. "Tell him it's been real, it's been nice, but
we've got a Book to catch."
"Patience," whispered Sam. "Samurai are impressed
by patience and control."
"Maybe we can patiently back out of here," I
said. "My knees are killing me."
"Please don't use that k-word," whispered Sam.]]
"Hey, check it out," said Fred. He nodded toward 
the wall closest to us. Three long spear poles
 with machete-style blades at the ends leaned
against the wall.
Those are closer to us than they are to him," said 
 Fred. "There are three of us and only one of him." 
Sam turned completely ghost white. "No, no,
no. Don't you remember Blade of Lightning?
Samurai are fast enough to take on ten guys with
 spears and swords."
 It was too late. I could tell Fred had already made up his mind. He got up slowly, pretending to stretch his legs.
"Oh, that's it. Just needed to stretch the old-"
Then it all happened in a second.
Fred jumped for the machete-spear
weapon. His shadow flashed across
the samurai.
"Look out Fred!" yelled Sam.
"He's going for his sword!"
I dove for the samurai's feet and
smacked my head on his shin guards. The
samurai fell toward Fred. Fred grabbed the spear.
He spun around to face the samurai, and as he ]]
turned the swung the spear with him. The samurai
lunged. The blade of the spear caught the samurai
just under the chin and sliced his head right off his
shoulders.
The armored body part crashed to the floor. The
helmeted head rolled and rolled and came to rest
next to the fire pit. The red-lipped black faceplate
stared at us in the light of the dying fire.
Sam and I stood up. Fred looked at the blade of
the spear.
"Sorry?"]]
TWO
First of all, I want you to know that Fred and
Sam and I are very sorry for any trouble we might
have accidentally caused in the universe by slicing
 off someone's head five hundred years before we
were born.
Maybe one of your ancestors got turned into a
monkey or a pig because of Fred's spear chop.
Maybe you are a monkey or a pig because of Fred's
 spear chop. I don't know. We're not exactly sure
what happens when someone messes with the past
 like we sometimes do. But we are working on it.
And we are sorry. So . . . well . . . sorry, or " or "oink oink."
Secondly, before we lose our own heads for
being so impolite, for wearing shoes indoors, for
moving a guy's head closer to the fire, I' d like to
try to explain how we got into this latest Time
Warp jam.]]
If you are still reading this, and haven't
stomped off to go yell at the bookstore owner or
teacher or librarian who would let children read
such terrible things, you probably already know
this is all because of a book. The Book. A dark
blue book covered with strange silver writing and
signs.
I got The Book as a birthday present from my
Uncle Joe. He's kind of a magician. Oh, and did I
mention that The Book can send its readers anywhere
in time and space? Did I mention that the
only way to return to the present is to find The
Book in that past or future time? Did I mention
that The Book always disappears no matter what
we do and leaves us stranded when we Time Warp?
Did I mention this is beginning to drive me
crazy!!??
Sorry.
I guess I just get a little annoyed because Fred
and Sam and I are having a hard time making this
time warping thing work when even our own
great-granddaughters, who are girls, and a hundred
years younger than us, can figure it out and-
I'm screaming again. Sorry. This messing around
with time gets very complicated. Here, why don't  ]]
I just tell you what happened. Maybe you can figure it out. If you do, send me a postcard, and we'll
be happy to try your idea for hanging on to The
Book. If you don't have any bright ideas ( or are
 still yelling at the bookstore owner, teacher, or librarian), 
save your stamp.
We were over at Sam's house, working on our
 homework.
"Write three different examples of haiku," Sam
read from the assignment sheet. "Use the form five
syllables for the first line, seven syllables for the
second line, and five syllables for the last line.
Remember the examples we studied in class."
"Oh man," said Fred. "I can't believe it. This is
such a goofball thing. Writing poetry."
Sam squinted at Fred and adjusted his glasses
like he does when he's thinking. "Two more and
you're done."
Fred pushed his Yomiuri Giants hat back on his
head. "What?"
"You've got your first haiku," said Sam.
"I can't believe it.
This is such a goofball thing.
Writing poetry.]]
"Wow," said Fred. "I'm a natural." He pulled
out a half-ripped piece of paper and started writing
it down.
"Fred, I was kidding. Hand that in to Ms.
Basho, and she will freak out." Sam squinted
again. "Though that's a pretty decent haiku, too.
"Fred, I was kidding.
Hand that in to Ms. Basho,
And she will freak out."
"Come on, guys. Let's get serious and finish this
homework. I want to show you this trick I figured]]
out," I said. "Didn't Ms. Basho say we have to
write about Japanese things like cherry blossoms
or ninjas?"
"No, no, no," said Sam. "Why does every
American kid think Japan is all about ninjas?"
"Because you see them in every computer game,
cartoon, and kung-fu movie?" said Fred.
"Historical research shows most ninjas were just
hired robbers. The real warriors in Japan were the
samurai," said Sam. "Let me show you these
guys."
Sam scooped up a pile of books from his mom's
desk, dumped them on the kitchen table, and
started flipping through them like a maniac. In
case you haven't noticed, Sam's like that. He's a
maniac for something different every week. Last
week he knew everything about sharks. This week
it was everything about Japanese samurai warriors.
I don't know where he gets it. Though now
that I think of it, I guess he does get a lot of that
craziness from his mom. Sam lives with just his
mom. She writes stuff for magazines and books
and computer sites. She knows all kinds of stuff,
and she's always going crazy over whatever she's
working on.]]
"Look at these stone castles. Four hundred, five
hundred years old. Look at these armies. Check
out these swords." Sam flopped open a book to a
picture of two beautiful swords, one long, one
short. "The long one is called a katana. The short
one is called a wakizashi. If you were a samurai,
you carried both swords tucked into your sash.
And here's how sharp they were."
Sam opened another book to a black-and-white
drawing of samurai warriors looking at two
shelves. The shelves were full of heads. Yes-heads.
Just ... heads.
"Oh man," said Fred. "I guess they were the losers."
"Definitely," said Sam. "The winning general
had the heads of the losers in battle washed and
combed. Then he inspected them. If the eyes were
looking up, that was unlucky. Eyes looking down
or closed were lucky."
"Either way sounds pretty unlucky for the guy
losing his head," I said.
Sam threw out more pictures of armored and
helmeted samurai in battle. "And you've got to see
these movies I've been watching with my mom.
She's writing this article on samurai. We've seen]]
Seven Samurai, Shogun, Ran, Samurai-"
"Aren't they all in Japanese?" said Fred. "I hate
those movies where you have to read them."
"There's not many words in the good action
scenes," said Sam. "And I started to learn some
Japanese just from listening."
I looked up from the samurai warlords book.
"Hey that's the trick I was going to show you.
Remember when you asked how come everyone
speaks English no matter where we time warp?"
"Yeah," said Sam.
"Well, you were right. I found a part in The
Book that explains the Auto-Translator. It automatically
translates everything into The Book user's
language. Look." I pulled a thin blue book covered
with silver writing and designs out of my backpack.
Sam jumped up from the kitchen table. "Are you
crazy? Put that away! You know if you get that
thing anywhere near those samurai books something
is going to happen and the next thing you
 know, .we'll be back in sixteen-hundred Japan with
armored samurai trying to slice off our heads."
"Ah, calm down," said Fred, slapping Sam with
his hat. "This sounds good. Maybe there is an
  Auto-Haiku Writer or an Auto-Homework Doer]]
in there. We could put our empty papers in there.
Go get a slice of pizza. Come back, and we're finished."
"I don't know," I said. "But look in the back
here. I think I finally found the section that explains
how The Book works."
That got Sam interested. "Really?" He moved
one step closer. "Just don't anybody touch any pictures
or read anything from The Book out loud."
I opened The Book to some strange diagrams
and charts in the back. But that wasn't what got
us in trouble. It was what happened next.
"So what cranks The Book?" said Fred.
"What triggers the time warping?" I said.
"You mean the green mist?" said Sam.
A wisp of that very mist leaked out and curled
around the samurai books.
Sam jumped into his ready karate position.
"Stop! No! Yamero! lie!"
"What did we do?" said Fred. "What did we
say?"
The whirlpool of green time-traveling mist
swirled around Sam's kitchen. And just before we
were flushed down four hundred years, I saw the
answer. Time travel haiku.]]
"So what cranks The Book?
What triggers the time warping?
You mean the green mist?]]
THREE
Fred, Sam, and I stared at the helmeted head resting
by the fire. It stared back at us. We were too
freaked out to move.
"I guess he wasn't as fast as that guy in
Lightning Samurai," I finally said.
Fred carefully leaned the spear back against the
wall, then put his hands in his pockets. "You
helped slow him down by taking out his legs, Joe.
And you saved me by yelling a warning, Sam. But
I didn't mean to whack his head off. I was just
going to keep him covered while we found The
Book." "Speaking of which," said Sam. "Now I think
we'd definitely better get The Book and get the
heck out of here. I don't know all of the samurai
customs, but I'm pretty sure it's not polite to remove
a samurai's head."
"Shouldn't we at least clean him up or put him ]]
back together?" I said. "Maybe no one will notice
for a while."
"That is disgusting," said Sam. "How are we
going to clean-" Sam looked at the armored
body. Then he looked back at the head.
Soft daylight filtered into the room from outside.
I heard birds chirping. The morning sun began to r light the corners of the room.
Sam looked at the armor again. He looked at the
head. Then he started to laugh.
"Uh-oh," said Fred. "He's losing it."
I grabbed Sam by the shoulders. "Hang on, Sam.
Don't worry. We'll find The Book. We'll get back
to your house."
Sam shook his head and only laughed harder. He
tried to say something, pointing at the head. But
the only sound that came out of him was something
like, "Eep ooh eh urh."
Fred looked at me. "Lost it."
I nodded.
Sam broke away from me. He picked up the
head and tossed it to me.
I didn't want to catch it, but I couldn't help myself.
I caught the head and closed my eyes. It
seemed oddly light. I opened one eye. I turned the ]]
helmet and mask over. That's when I saw what
Sam had realized. It wasn't a head. It was an empty
helmet and mask.
Sam laughed. "That was no samurai. We just
beat up a suit of armor."
Fred picked up the body. The arms and legs
flopped loosely. Fred looked hugely relieved. The
morning sun poured into the room. Now we could
see we had taken on a suit of armor sitting in a
dark corner. The shadows from the flickering fire
had made it look like it was alive.
We all sat down on the edge of the wooden platform
in our socks. It felt good to be alive. I held ]]
the helmeted faceplate in my lap and looked it in
the eye. "You want some more of that?"
Yeah, come on, metalhead," said Fred. We
both laughed.
"Though I do think you're right, Joe," said Sam,
cleaning his glasses with his T-shirt.
"About what?"
"We should put everything back just like it was,
find The Book, and get out of here."
For once, we all agreed. Fred sat the samurai
armor back on its stool. I gave him back its head.
Sam searched the room for The Book.
We met back at the fire pit.
"As usual," said Sam. "Nothing. Nada. No
Book. Nowhere. Don't you guys think this is starting
to get ridiculous? I mean we get thrown around
time by looking at a picture, or touching some
numbers, and now from saying a group haiku! And
what's with the disappearing Book? Why can't we
ever hang on to it?"
Fred frowned and pulled on his hat. That's how
I could tell he was thinking. "Yeah, what's the deal
with that, Joe?"
"That's what I was trying to show you," I said.
"In that same section where I found out about the ]]

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: No support

Dialog: Multiple speakers

Dialog: Broken dialogue

Dialog: Unlabeled Speaker

Vocabulary: More decoding/definition issues

Language: Many descriptive words

Sentences: Some Long/Complex

Text structure: Story/Poem

Features

First Person

Foreign words

Topic

Time

*History

*Fictional Ideas/Charac

Low Frequency Words

accidentally	adjusted	ancestors	annoyed	article
assignment	breastplate	combed	complicated	cranks
craziness	curled	decent	diagrams	disappearing
edging	faceplate	farthest	flickering	flushed
freaked	fully	future	general	glinted
guy's	haiku	helmeted	historical	hola
hugely	impolite	impressed	inched	inspected
insult	japanese	karate	kneel	knelt
kung	language	librarian	lipped	loosely
lunged	machete	magazines	magician	maniac
mention	messes	motionless	nowhere	oddly
patience	patiently	pockets	poetry	pose
razor	rectangular	relieved	research	ridiculous
samurai	scenes	secondly	section	shelves
shown	slicing	sliver	smacked	sprouting
squinted	stranded	studied	sushi	swirled
sword	swords	syllables	terribly	translates
triggers	universe	unlucky	warp	warping
warrior	warriors	wisp	worth	writer
younger