Page 36 - SpringBoard_ELA_Grade8_Flipbook

aCTIvITy 1.3
continued
3 This was so. As the skipping rope hit the pavement, so did the ball. As the rope curved over the head of the jumping child, the child with the ball caught the ball. Down came the ropes. Down came the balls. Over and over again. Up. Down. All in rhythm. All identical. Like the houses. Like the path. Like the flowers.
4 Then the doors of all the houses opened simultaneously, and out came women
like a row of paper dolls. The print of their dresses was different, but they all gave the appearance of being the same. Each woman stood on the steps of her house. Each clapped. Each child with the ball caught the ball. Each child with the skipping rope folded the rope. Each child turned and walked into the house. The doors clicked shut behind them.
5 “How can they do it?” Meg asked wonderingly. “We couldn’t do it that way if we tried. What does it mean?”
6 “Let’s go back.” Calvin’s voice was urgent.
7 “Back?” Charles Wallace asked. “Where?”
8 “I don’t know. Anywhere. Back to the hill. Back to Mrs Whatsit and Mrs Who and
Mrs Which. I don’t like this.”
9 “But they aren’t there. Do you think they’d come to us if we turned back now?”
10 “I don’t like it.” Calvin said again.
11 “Come on.” Impatience made Meg squeak. “You know we can’t go back.
Mrs Whatsit said to go into the town.” She started on down the street and the two boys followed her. The houses, all identical, continued, as far as the eye could reach.
12 Then, all at once, they saw the same thing, and stopped to watch. In front of one
of the houses stood a little boy with a ball, and he was bouncing it. But he bounced it rather badly and with no particular rhythm, sometimes dropping it and running after it with awkward, furtive leaps, sometimes throwing it up into the air and trying to catch it. The door of his house opened and out ran one of the mother figures. She looked wildly up and down the street, saw the children and put her hand to her mouth as though to stifle a scream, grabbed the little boy and rushed indoors with him. The ball dropped from his fingers and rolled out into the street.
Second Read
• Reread the excerpt to answer these text-dependent questions.
• Write any additional questions you have about the text in your Reader/Writer Notebook.
1. Craft and Structure: Look at paragraph 4. What are some synonyms of the word simultaneously? Why did L’Engle choose “simultaneously”?
2. Key Ideas and Details: Make an inference about Calvin’s reaction in paragraph 6. Why does he react that way?
my Notes
Unit 1 • The Challenge of Heroism 9
furtive: sneaky or shifty
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