Text Leveling System

2095

RDQ:	1109	Max Word/Sent	40	Total Words	3136		Diff Words	859
Lex	760	Ave Word/.Sent	8	Hi Freq occurs	2256	71.9%	Hi freq	366	42.6%
AR	3.8	Long Sentences	4.8	Low Freq occurs	140	4.5%	Low freq	102	11.9%

ONE
"Hey buddy, what's your number?" said a metal
voice with a Brooklyn accent.
"I think that vacuum cleaner is talking to you,"
said Fred.
I looked around the small room. There was an
old-fashioned phone on the desk, big round glass
lamps, and one of those record players with a hand
crank that you see in history books. It looked like a
room from a hundred years ago.
The only piece that seemed out of place was the
metal thing floating in midair right in front of us.
And Fred was right. It did look kind of like an overgrown
vacuum cleaner.
The robot-vacuum thing floated closer. A beam of
light shot out of its head and swept over us from
head to toe.
"Hey buddy, what's your number?"
"It was the vacuum talking," said Fred.]]
"I don't think that's a vacuum," Sam whispered.
"I'll bet it's a police robot. And now it's going to
blast us with its death laser if we don't give it our
numbers."
"I don't understand," I said. "We tapped the
magic square to go one hundred years into the future.
But except for the robot, it looks like we've
gone one hundred years into the past."
Sam rolled his eyes. "What a surprise. We've
never had any trouble with The Book before."
The droid floated closer. Its metal voice sounded
meaner now.
"Hey buddy, what's your number?"
"Let's run for it," said Sam.
We moved left. The robot moved left.
We moved right. The robot moved right.
"Joe, you're the magician," said Fred. "Talk to it.
Show it a trick. Give it some dust balls to suck up."
I didn't know exactly what to say to a robot, but
I figured a trick might impress it.
"Hello Mr. Vacuum-or Robot-Guy. Have you
ever seen a human bend metal?" I took a quarter
out of my pocket and tapped it on the table. "Solid,
right?" I held it out in front of me, at opposite
edges, between the tips of my thumbs and forefingers.
"Observe."]]
A little red light on the robot's head blinked.
I wiggled the quarter back and forth until it
looked like it was bending. "Now. I'll straighten it
out." I stopped and pretended to press the quarter
flat. "Pretty amazing, huh?"
The red light on the robot's head blinked twice. It
raised one arm and pointed something at us that
looked an awful lot like a laser gun.]]
"Don't shoot. We surrender. Take us to your
leader," said Sam, holding up both hands.
"Hey buddy, what's your number?" Another robot
arm extended a number pad at us.
"Give it a number," said Sam. "Quick!"
I punched in my phone number.
The red light blinked three times. "Wrong number."
Fred kicked the back of the robot. "Maybe we
can knock out its power."
The red light blinked three times. "You got five
seconds, buddy."
Sam covered his head with both arms. "I can't believe
I'm going to be zapped by a vacuum cleaner.
Good-bye, cruel world."
"Three, two, one," said the robot. It jetted back a
bit to get us all in its sights, then pointed its weapon
directly at us.]]
TWO
But before the Time Warp Trio meets its end by
vacuum cleaner, let me freeze time, then go back in
time to explain how we got to this time.
It was all our teacher's fault. It was Mr. Chester's
brainstorm to take our class on a field trip to the
American Museum of Natural History "To learn
about how to live in the future from how people
used to live in the past." That's what he said. Honest.
We had to write it down on our Museum Worksheet.
Now don't get me wrong. I love the Museum. It's
one of the best places in New York City. They've got
a prehistoric alligator skull that's bigger than you, a
herd of charging stuffed elephants, and a car with a
hole in it from where it got bashed by a meteorite. If
you sit close enough to the animal exhibits, it feels
like you're right in the jungle or the mountain or the
desert. And on hot summer days I like to go sit under ]]
the blue whale hanging from the ceiling in the
ocean life room. It's blue, and quiet, and cool. And
it has an excellent pack of killer whales.
But going to the museum on a class trip is a whole
different story. You can't go look at the war clubs in
the Iroquois longhouse. You can't hang around the
stuffed gorillas. And you can never check out the
rubber ants in the gift shop. You always have to stay
together and answer the questions on the dreaded
Museum Worksheet.]]
So there we were-standing under the huge
Barosaurus skeleton in the museum lobby with our
whole class, listening to Mr. Chester.
 which some people didn't even believe
existed. Does anyone know its name? It says
Barosaurus on the plaque. Right. Now we'll go in
and look at the exhibits that show how people lived
from 1890 up to 1990. Take a look and think about
what things have changed in a hundred years. Stay
together. You can either take notes for your worksheet
or write out the complete answers as we go.
Questions? No, you cannot check out the rubber
ants in the gift shop."
The whole mob of us trailed behind Mr. Chester.
We stopped at the 1890s room. There was an old fashioned
phone on the desk, big round glass lamps,
and one of those record players with a hand crank
that you see in history books. A lady mannequin
dressed in a long dress stood by the table. A boy and
a girl model were posed on the floor surrounded by
marbles, checkers, and jacks.
"Oh boy," whispered Fred. "Just what I was hoping
to see. Dummies dressed in old clothes."
"How did those poor kids live?" said Sam. "No
TV, no Walkman, no computer, no fun."
"But look," said Fred. "That ad out the window ]]
says BEER . I'll bet pizza was a penny."
" and changed the way people lived," Mr.
Chester droned on. "Question Two on your sheet
says, 'List five inventions we use today that people
didn't use one hundred years ago.' Can anyone tell
me one?"
Sam's hand shot up.
"Yes, Sam?"
"The zipper, invented by W. L. Judson in 1893.
Or the electric vacuum cleaner, invented by Hubert
Cecil Booth in 1901. Or the airplane the Wright
brothers flew for the first time in 1903. Or frozen
peas-"
"Thank you, Sam-"
"-invented by Clarence Birdseye in 1924. Scotch
Tape, invented in 1929. And-"
"Thank you, Sam," said Mr. Chester.
Mr. Chester led our class to the next room. Fred,
Sam, and I slowly worked our way to the back of
the class, then sat down on a ledge in the 1920s
room. Three gangsters were loading boxes. One
held his machine gun ready.
"You've been reading the almanac again, haven't
you?" asked Fred.
"How could you tell?" said Sam.
"Do you have a book of world records too?"]]
asked Fred. "I love that stuff like the biggest pizza
ever."
"122 feet, 8 inches in diameter," I said, flipping a
quarter up in the air.
"Wow," said Fred. "Now that's the kind of question
I wouldn't mind answering."
I held up the quarter. "Would you like to see me
bend metal with a little magic?"
Fred took out his Museum Worksheet. "No. But I
would like to see you fill out this worksheet with a
little magic. Why do we have to answer this stuff
anyway? We should tell Mr. Chester if he really
wants to find out this junk, he should travel back a
hundred years with The Book."
"I'm sure that would go over big," said Sam.
"Just like Joe's excuse that we couldn't do our math
homework because we almost got run over by a
woolly mammoth."
"Or your history paper on Blackbeard's awful
singing," I said. "That was a real winner."
"What we really need," said Sam, "is someone
who can show us how to use The Book the right
way. Then we can travel around in time without
worrying about getting killed while we look for
The Book to get us home."
"Yeah," said Fred. "Whatever happened to your ]]
uncle Joe? He gave you The Book. He should know
how to use it."
"I don't know," I said. "My mom says he comes
and goes ... whatever that means."
"Then what about your mom?" said Sam. "She
gave The Book to your uncle Joe. Let's ask her how
to work it."
"Well, she did show me this one page." I reached
into my backpack and took out a dark blue book
with twisting silver designs.
Sam jumped behind the corner of the gangster exhibit.
"Oh no you don't. Put that thing down. It
might be loaded."
"Don't worry," I said. "This is foolproof." I
flipped open The Book. "It's called a magic square."
I showed them this page:]]
Sam peeked around the corner. "What's so magic
about that?"
"It has all nine numbers, one through nine. Add
any three in a line and they always equal fifteen."
"So?"
"So all we have to do is tap the numbers of the
year we want to travel to."
"What's with the zero?" said Fred.
"Magic squares don't usually have zeros, but
it's here for time travel to years with a zero."
"Cool," said Fred. "Let's go."
"We could watch them build the pyramids in
Egypt," I said .
Sam unfolded his Museum Worksheet. "We could
go back a hundred years and find out what life was
really like then."
Fred took off his Yankees hat and whacked us
both on the head with it. "You dweebs. Forget
studying! Let's just go goof around someplace.
Someplace like ... the future."
"I don't know," said Sam, adjusting his glasses.
"In every time-travel book I ever read, people get in
trouble when they go into the future. They either
get caught by Time Police Robots, or they run into
themselves and blow up."]]
"So we'll go a hundred years into the future,"
said Fred. "Then we can't run into ourselves. We'll
be dead. Plus it will be great to see what New York
looks like in a hundred years."
"1995 plus 100 equals 2095," I said and tapped
out 2 ... 0 ... 9 ... 5.
The magic square seemed to spin on the page. The
People through Time exhibit began to fade behind a
pale green mist. Mr. Chester and the rest of our
class vanished. And we were gone.
When we opened our eyes, we were standing in a
small room. We saw an old-fashioned phone on the
desk, big round glass lamps, one of those record
players with a hand crank that you see in history
books, and something that looked like an overgrown
vacuum cleaner looking at us.]]
THREE
The Vacuum Cleaner Death Droid began to blink
and hum.
I closed my eyes and waited for the sound of the
Death Ray blasting us into dust balls. But instead, I
heard the sound of a human voice.
"Oh, there you are!"
A tall woman with dark green hair and a gown
that lit up like a Christmas tree pushed aside the
killer robot and grabbed Sam by the shoulders.
"Those old-fashioned sight mods are perfect."
"You like my glasses?" said Sam.
"Hey lady, what's your number?" said the nagging
metal voice.
The green-haired lady let out a gasp. "Oh no.
This SellBot was going to spec you?"
Fred nodded. "He had us dead in his sights."
"You didn't give it your number did you?"
"Just my phone number," I said.]]
"Thank goodness," said the lady.
"Hey lady-"
The lady punched a quick series of numbers in
the SellBot's keypad. It turned and floated out of the
room. Our rescuer turned and looked Fred over.
"Where on earth did they find that antique Yankees
hat? It's magnificent."
Then she spied me. "And those shoes." I looked
at my beat-up, unlaced sneakers. "They look so authentic!
But why are you in the 1890s room? I told
the agency to have you report to the 1990s room."
Fred, Sam, and I looked at each other. We couldn't ]]
quite figure out where we were. The lady and the
robot looked like something from a hundred years
in the future. Everything else looked like a hundred
years in the past.
"I'm Director Green," said the lady. "I'm in
charge of the Rooms of the Past exhibits." She
walked over and touched the wall. A panel of tiny
pictures, lines, and shapes appeared. "The exhibits
open in ten minutes. Let's transport to the 1990s
room and get you boys set up.
She touched the glowing part of the wall, moved
four blue triangles onto the middle of a maze, then
punched a blinking red arrow. The thing chirped
like a cricket, and we were instantly standing in a
completely different room.
"A transporter," whispered Sam. "So we must be
in the future."
"Then why does it look like my bedroom?" said
Fred.
We looked around and saw Fred was right. Now
it looked like we were in the 1990s.
Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck were blasting each
other on the TV. A couch, and a table stacked with
board games, baseball cards, papers, a pencil, and
string filled the middle of the room.
"Doesn't it make you feel just like you're standing]]
in the middle of the twentieth century?" said Director
Green.
 I wondered how we could be standing in the middle
of the twentieth century with robots and transporters.
I wondered why Director Green looked so
different but sounded so much like Mr. Chester.
And that's when I figured it out.
"What's the date today?" I asked.
Director Green slid her finger across another
panel. The blue numbers 9/28/95 appeared.
"September 28," she said.
"And that 95 doesn't stand for 1995 does it?"
Director Green laughed. "Only in this room.
Your job is to play the way children from the 1990s
might have played. Down the hall it's 2025. Then
we have the 2045 room, the Swinging 2060s, and
the 2075 room. For everyone else out there, it's
2095 all year long."
Fred, Sam, and I looked at each other.
We were a hundred years in the future, standing
in a museum exhibit of a hundred years past.
"So we're supposed to be dummies from 1995?"
said Fred.
"That shouldn't be too hard for some people I
know," said Sam.
Director Green handed me a book from the shelf.]]
"Why don't you pretend you are scanning this. It's
called a book. You've probably seen vids of people
using these in the old days. Can you imagine? People 
used to scan the output and project stories on
their own."
I looked at the book. "Green Eggs and Ham!
That was my favorite when I was a kid."]]
Director Green handed Fred a remote. "And this
controls the vid display. This early system was
called television. No one had even thought of brain
stim. Images could only be beamed to this large
box. Children used to sit in front of it and file data
via visual interface."
Fred took the remote and stretched out on the
couch. "I'm not sure what you said, but I definitely
know how to watch cartoons. This is the one where
Bugs and Daffy fight over rabbit season and duck
season. Watch this. Daffy's going to blow his own
beak to the top of his head."
Director Green gave us a funny look. "It's wonderful
that you boys know so much about the
1990s. I'll be sure to mention it to your agency."
She looked around the room for something for Sam.
"This would be perfect for you. It's called a pencil.
You could pretend to be looking through your old fashioned
spectacles and outputting text and picture
files by hand."
"You want me to doodle?" asked Sam.
"Oh, that's a perfect old slang word, too," said
Director Green. "You could fool anyone into thinking
they were watching three boys from the 1990s
at play."
Fred, Sam, and I tried not to laugh.]]
"All set then," said Director Green. The Museum
of Natural History People of the Past exhibit
is now officially open." She pressed a wavy red sign
on the wall control panel. The wall nearest the hall
disappeared but the pictures on it stayed right
where they were. "I've turned on the InvisiWalL No
one can get in. Use your code numbers to get out."
She tapped a string of numbers on the control
panel. A door appeared in the invisible wall and she
turned to leave. But when she opened the door, our
real troubles began.]]
Three guys in funny-looking blue jeans and fake looking
T-shirts walked into the room. "Sorry we're
 late. The agency sent us for the 1990s exhibit," said
 the kid in front.
"But that can't be," said Director Green. "You're
already here."
The second kid handed a disk to Director Green.
She popped it into a slot in the control panel. She
looked at us, then the three kids, then us, then the
three kids again.
"That is the agency contract. But if you are you,
who-" she turned to us-"are they?"]]
FOUR
Who are we?" repeated Sam. "Uh, we are-"
Fred stepped in front of Sam. "I'll tell you who we
are. We are magicians."
Director Green looked puzzled.
The three guys cheered. "Magic!"
Fred put his arm around my shoulder. "Joe, the
Magnificent, will show you an amazing trick."
I gave Fred my best evil eye, then tried to think of
a quick trick. I took the pencil from Sam.
"Have you ever seen anything float in midair with
no support?" I said.
"Of course we have," said the lead guy. "You
think we've never seen an anti-gravity disk?"
I had a sudden feeling it was going to be tough to
impress kids a hundred years in the future.
"Make it disappear," said the second.
".Blow it up!" said the third.
"I can do better than that," I said. "I'll turn it to ]]
rubber right before your very eyes." I banged the 
pencil on the table. "Solid, right?"
Director Green jumped. "Careful, please. There
aren't many of those antiques left."
"I say the magic words three times-Banana
bones, banana bones, banana bones." I held the
pencil horizontal at eye level and wiggled it up and
down. "Presto, it's rubber!"
My audience looked completely unimpressed .
"I can also stick the pencil through my head." I
put the eraser end of the pencil in my left ear and
pushed my right cheek out with my tongue. I pulled
the pencil down and moved my tongue up. Pencil
up, tongue down. Pencil down, tongue up.]]

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: Little support

Dialog: Multiple speakers

Dialog: Broken dialogue

Dialog: Unlabeled Speaker

Vocabulary: More decoding/definition issues

Language: Few descriptive words

Sentences: Some Long/Complex

Text structure: Story/Poem

Features

Integral Setting - Futuristic

First Person

Topic

Technology

Changes

Inventions/Inventors

Museums

*Technology & Progress

Low Frequency Words

accent	adjusting	agency	almanac	antique
antiques	audience	authentic	barosaurus	birdseye
brainstorm	cecil	charging	cruel	daffy
diameter	dreaded	droid	dummies	dweebs
edges	excellent	exhibit	exhibits	fashioned
fault	foolproof	forefingers	future	gangster
gangsters	haired	herd	honest	hoping
horizontal	impress	instantly	interface	inventions
invisible	invisiwall	iroquois	jeans	judson
laser	ledge	level	lobby	longhouse
magician	magicians	magnificent	mammoth	mannequin
mention	meteorite	midair	model	observe
officially	opposite	ourselves	output	overgrown
plaque	posed	prehistoric	project	pyramids
rescuer	scanning	scotch	season	sellbot
sellbot's	series	spec	spectacles	spied
stim	straighten	surrender	surrounded	swept
transport	transporter	transporters	triangles	trio
twentieth	unfolded	unimpressed	vacuum	via
visual	walkman	warp	wavy	woolly
worksheet	yankees