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Grade 9

110.31.b.7 

JIM AT BAT
(from JIM THE BOY by Tony Earley)

1. A summer pasture at twilight: 

2. The boy cannot hit the baseball to his satisfaction. Though he makes contact almost every time he swings the bat, he does not strike the mighty blow he sees in his mind. The ball does not leap scalded into the sky, but hops into the tall grass as if startled by a noise; it buzzes mildly, a dying beetle tied to a piece of thread, and rolls to a disappointing stop. 

3. Uncle Zeno pitches. He tracks the ball into the grass every time the boy hits it, and retrieves it without complaint from each new hiding place. He blames himself for the boy's lack of success. The bat is simply too heavy. He knew this for fact when he bought it; he had not wanted to buy a new bat every time the boy grew an inch. He silently chides himself for being cheap. 

4. Uncle Coran and Uncle Al man the field at improbably optimistic distances behind their brother. Their faces are indistinct in the coming darkness, their forms identical except that Uncle Coran wears a baseball glove on his left hand, while Uncle Al, who is left-handed, wears one on the right. They shout encouragement each time the boy swings the bat. They pound their fists into their gloves, though only for their nephew's benefit; their bodies no longer believe the ball will ever make it out to their place in the field. They do not creep closer because it would make the boy feel bad. 

5. All three of the uncles wear the small, pocketless, old-fashioned baseball gloves they have had since they were boys. Uncle Al's mitt was made for a right-handed fielder, but he has worn it on the wrong hand for so long that he no longer notices that it doesn't fit. Each uncle would still gladly play a game of baseball, should anyone ask, although no one has asked for years. They keep their tiny, relic gloves properly oiled, however, as if such invitations were not only commonplace, but imminent. 

6. The boy studies Uncle Zeno until Uncle Zeno's face seems to light up from the inside, weakly, like a moon seen through clouds. It changes into a hundred unfamiliar faces, twists into a hundred strange smiles, until the boy blinks hard and wills his eyes to see only what is there. 

7. "Okay, Doc," Uncle Zeno says. "Keep your eye on the ball. Here it comes." 

8. The baseball in Uncle Zeno's hand is almost invisible, a piece of smoke, a shadow. The woods on the far side of the pasture are already dark as sleep; the river twists through them by memory. Uncle Zeno tosses the ball gently toward the boy, who does not see it until its arc carries it above the black line of trees, where it hangs for a moment like an eclipse in the faintly glowing sky. The boy is arm-weary; he swings as hard as he is able. The bat and ball collide weakly. The ball drops to the ground at the boy's feet. It lies there stunned, quivering, containing flight beneath its smooth skin. The boy switches the bat into his left hand, picks up the ball with his right, and throws it back to Uncle Zeno. 

9. "I hit it just about every time," the boy says. 

10. "Batter, batter, batter, batter," Uncle Al chirps in the field. 

11. "Say, whatta-say, whatta-say, whatta-say," chants Uncle Coran in the ancient singsong of ballplayers. The uncles are singing to the boy. He has never heard anything so beautiful. He does not want it to stop. 12 "Okay, Doc," says Uncle Zeno. "One more. Now watch.


(From JIM THE BOY by Tony Earley. Copyright © 2000 by Tony Earley. By permission of Little, Brown and Company.)

THE 1928 PACKARD
by Richard Peck

1. The other day I was making a speech somewhere about being a writer. Afterward, an old gent in a slouch hat came up. He'd brought his grandson, who he said was a faithful reader of my books.

2. "Do you have time for a story?" the grandfather asked. Of course I had time for a story. I'm a writer. His gaze grew filmy, and his grandson looked like he was about to hear a tale he'd heard before. "At around fourteen I was a handful," the old gent said. "So you know how busy I was around Halloween.

3. "My dad drove a 1942 Buick Eight."

4. I stirred. I too was from a world where a man was known by what he drove.

5. "At the other end of our street, a beat-up old 1928 Packard coupe was always parked at the curb, big as a Tiger tank." (The Tiger was a type of heavy German tank used during World War II.)

6. He had my full attention now.

7. "I ought to have known better," he said, "but I dearly loved pinning horns." Pinning car horns was a sacred Halloween ritual. If you could get into a car, you jammed one end of a stick into the horn and wedged the other end against the back of the driver's seat. Then you ran like the devil, and the owner had to come out and unstick the horn before the battery ran down. Horns went off all over town on Halloween, like car alarms do every night now.

8. "I skulked up the dark street," the old gent said, "and like a miracle the front window of the Packard was down. Why didn't this look too good to be true? I guess because I was fourteen."

9. I hung on his every word now, though his grandson's mind was wandering.

10. "I had me a stick just the right length. All I had to do was reach in the car window with it. I didn't even have to open the door. When I leaned inside with the stick, a hand shot up from the dark, and a fist the size of a ham grabbed my wrist. My heart stopped. I haven't been that scared since. The Packard's owner sat up in the seat and said, 'What can I do for you, son?'

11. "'You can turn me loose,' I said when I could breathe, and in three minutes I was back home in bed. I guess you know who the Packard belonged to."

12. I did. It was my dad's. Who else would own a twenty-year-old Hummer-esque Packard coupe for a fishing car? Who but my dad would lie all Halloween evening across the broken springs of its seat, waiting to catch a Halloweener just for the fun of it? And why couldn't the neighborhood kids remember that my dad looked forward to Halloween more than they did?

13. It was Skippy Oglesby my dad nabbed that particular Halloween night: Skippy Oglesby, the nearest thing our neighborhood had to a bully. And there he was again all these years and miles later, disguised by time as somebody's doting grandfather, to tell me another story about my dad.

14. And why not? My father was the perfect dad; he thought like a kid, but he was bigger than a bully. In fact, he was larger than life, older than the other dads but weirdly young, with a shoulder bunged up in World War I, and a Harley-Davidson he rode to work on mornings the Packard's engine wouldn't turn over. A big guy with a big grin and lures on his fishing hat.

15. Everything I write is an homage to him. Some of my stories are woven out of his memories. Some are memories of him. And some are things that didn't happen to him-to us-and I wish they had. But everything I write invites him back. Nobody a writer ever loved is dead.

© 2005 "The 1928 Packard" by Richard Peck from GUYS WRITE FOR GUYS READ: BOYS' FAVORITE AUTHORS WRITE ABOUT BEING BOYS. Reprinted by permission of Wernick & Pratt Agency.

In Bengali tradition children are given two names at birth: an informal name used only at home and a formal name, or "good name," used in public. In this excerpt, Gogol's parents, Ashoke and Ashima, want to give him a good name to use at school.

from THE NAMESAKE
by Jhumpa Lahiri

1. There is a reason Gogol doesn't want to go to kindergarten. His parents have told him that at school, instead of being called Gogol, he will be called by a new name, a good name, which his parents have finally decided on, just in time for him to begin his formal education. The name, Nikhil, is artfully connected to the old. Not only is it a perfectly respectable Bengali good name, meaning "he who is entire, encompassing all," but it also bears a satisfying resemblance to Nikolai, the first name of the Russian Gogol. Ashoke had thought of it recently, staring mindlessly at the Gogol spines in the library, and he had rushed back to the house to ask Ashima her opinion. He pointed out that it was relatively easy to pronounce, though there was the danger that Americans, obsessed with abbreviation, would truncate it to Nick. She told him she liked it well enough, though later, alone, she'd wept, thinking of her grandmother, who had died earlier in the year, and of the letter, forever hovering somewhere between India and America, containing the good name she'd chosen for Gogol. Ashima still dreams of the letter at times, discovering it after all these years in the mailbox on Pemberton Road, opening it up only to find it blank.

2. But Gogol doesn't want a new name. He can't understand why he has to answer to anything else. "Why do I have to have a new name?" he asks his parents, tears springing to his eyes. It would be one thing if his parents were to call him Nikhil, too. But they tell him that the new name will be used only by the teachers and children at school. He is afraid to be Nikhil, someone he doesn't know. Who doesn't know him. His parents tell him that they each have two names, too, as do all their Bengali friends in America, and all their relatives in Calcutta. It's a part of growing up, they tell him, part of being a Bengali. They write it for him on a sheet of paper, ask him to copy it over ten times. "Don't worry," his father says. "To me and your mother, you will never be anyone but Gogol."

3. At school, Ashoke and Gogol are greeted by the secretary, Mrs. McNab, who asks Ashoke to fill out a registration form. He provides a copy of Gogol's birth certificate and immunization record, which Mrs. McNab puts in a folder along with the registration. "This way," Mrs. McNab says, leading them to the principal's office. CANDACE LAPIDUS, the name on the door says. Mrs. Lapidus assures Ashoke that missing the first week of kindergarten is not a problem, that things have yet to settle down. Mrs. Lapidus is a tall, slender woman with short white-blond hair. She wears frosted blue eye shadow and a lemon yellow suit. She shakes Ashoke's hand and tells him that there are two other Indian children at the school, Jayadev Modi in the third grade and Rekha Saxena in fifth. Perhaps the Gangulis know them? Ashoke tells Mrs. Lapidus that they do not. She looks at the registration form and smiles kindly at the boy, who is clutching his father's hand. Gogol is dressed in powder blue pants, red and white canvas sneakers, a striped turtleneck top.

4. "Welcome to elementary school, Nikhil. I am your principal, Mrs. Lapidus."

5. Gogol looks down at his sneakers. The way the principal pronounces his new name is different from the way his parents say it, the second part of it longer, sounding like "heel."

6. She bends down so that her face is level with his, and extends a hand to his shoulder. "Can you tell me how old you are, Nikhil?"

7. When the question is repeated and there is still no response, Mrs. Lapidus asks, "Mr. Ganguli, does Nikhil follow English?"

8. "Of course he follows," Ashoke says. "My son is perfectly bilingual."

9. In order to prove that Gogol knows English, Ashoke does something he has never done before, and addresses his son in careful, accented English. "Go on, Gogol," he says, patting him on the head. "Tell Mrs. Lapidus how old you are."

10. "What was that?" Mrs. Lapidus says.

11. "I beg your pardon, madam?"

12. "That name you called him. Something with a G."

13. "Oh that, that is what we call him at home only. But his good name should be-is"-he nods his head firmly-"Nikhil."

14. Mrs. Lapidus frowns. "I'm afraid I don't understand. Good name?"

15. "Yes."

16. Mrs. Lapidus studies the registration form. She has not had to go through this confusion with the other two Indian children. She opens up the folder and examines the immunization record, the birth certificate. "There seems to be some confusion, Mr. Ganguli," she says. "According to these documents, your son's legal name is Gogol."

17. "That is correct. But please allow me to explain-"

18. "That you want us to call him Nikhil."

19. "That is correct."

20. Mrs. Lapidus nods. "The reason being?"

21. "That is our wish."

22. "I'm not sure I follow you, Mr. Ganguli. Do you mean that Nikhil is a middle name? Or a nickname? Many of the children go by nicknames here. On this form there is a space-"

23. "No, no, it's not a middle name," Ashoke says. He is beginning to lose patience. "He has no middle name. No nickname. The boy's good name, his school name, is Nikhil."

24. Mrs. Lapidus presses her lips together and smiles. "But clearly he doesn't respond."

25. "Please, Mrs. Lapidus," Ashoke says. "It is very common for a child to be confused at first. Please give it some time. I assure you he will grow accustomed."

26. He bends down and this time in Bengali, calmly and quietly, asks Gogol to please answer when Mrs. Lapidus asks a question. "Don't be scared, Gogol," he says, raising his son's chin with his finger. "You're a big boy now. No tears."

27. Though Mrs. Lapidus does not understand a word, she listens carefully, hears that name again. Gogol. Lightly, in pencil, she writes it down on the registration form.

28. Ashoke hands over the lunch box, a windbreaker in case it gets cold. He thanks Mrs. Lapidus. "Be good, Nikhil," he says in English. And then, after a moment's hesitation, he is gone.

29. When they are alone, Mrs. Lapidus asks, "Are you happy to be entering elementary school, Gogol?"

30. "My parents want me to have another name in school."

31. "And what about you, Gogol? Do you want to be called by another name?"

32. After a pause, he shakes his head.

33. "Is that a no?"

34. He nods. "Yes."

35. "Then it's settled. Can you write your name on this piece of paper?"

36. Gogol picks up a pencil, grips it tightly, and forms the letters of the only word he has learned thus far to write from memory, getting the "L" backward due to nerves. "What beautiful penmanship you have," Mrs. Lapidus says. She tears up the old registration form and asks Mrs. McNab to type up a new one. Then she takes Gogol by the hand, down a carpeted hallway with painted cement walls. She opens a door, and Gogol is introduced to his teacher, Miss Watkins, a woman with hair in two braids, wearing overalls and clogs. Inside the classroom it's a small universe of nicknames-Andrew is Andy, Alexandra Sandy, William Billy, Elizabeth Lizzy. It is nothing like the schooling Gogol's parents have known, fountain pens and polished black shoes and notebooks and good names and sir or madam at a tender age. Here the only official ritual is pledging allegiance first thing in the morning to the American flag. For the rest of the day, they sit at a communal round table, drinking punch and eating cookies, taking naps on little orange cushions on the floor. At the end of his first day he is sent home with a letter to his parents from Mrs. Lapidus, folded and stapled to a string around his neck, explaining that due to their son's preference he will be known as Gogol at school. What about the parents' preference? Ashima and Ashoke wonder, shaking their heads. But since neither of them feels comfortable pressing the issue, they have no choice but to give in.

(Excerpt from THE NAMESAKE by Jhumpa Lahiri. Copyright © 2003 by Jhumpa Lahiri. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.)

In 1966, Mao Zedong was the communist leader of China, and he started a violent revolution to assert his authority. During this period, many Chinese citizens suffered or were killed. In this excerpt, Ping Fu reflects upon a memory of her grandfather during this time.

from BEND, NOT BREAK: A LIFE IN TWO WORLDS
by Ping Fu

1. Every night as I lay in bed trying to fall asleep, I would be haunted by images of my grandfather hovering above me. I would see him in my eight-year-old mind's eye as an elegant aging man at the start of the Cultural Revolution. Spring 1966.

2. My grandfather had a collection of traditional Chinese "scholar arts": inkwells from dynasties past, fans hand painted by famous artists, zitan wooden brush holders, chicken-blood stamp stones, and rare books of calligraphy. For two months before I was taken away from our Shanghai home, every night before he went to sleep, my grandfather would pull these objects carefully out of their wrapping papers and examine them. He would touch them delicately, as though they were dear old friends. Then he would select one object to keep on the nightstand next to his bed. The following day, a mask of sorrow covering his usually serene face, he would go out into the streets of Shanghai and sell it for a pittance.

3. Mao's Red Guard had shut down the farmers' markets and taken control of the city's food supply. Each family was given limited rations of rice, cooking oil, sugar, vegetables, and meat. Sometimes it wasn't enough to feed everyone in my household. A few farmers were selling produce on the black market because they didn't have enough money to support their families. As a merchant-class family, we had always had enough money to eat. But in those days food was increasingly hard to come by. My grandfather knew that if he wasn't willing to part with his precious heirlooms, his family might go hungry. It was a sacrifice he was willing to make.

4. Each night when my grandfather took out the valuable pieces that he planned to sell the next day, he would describe to me why he loved them. One night, he showed me a fan that had been painted by a famous Chinese opera singer, Mei Lanfang. As he told me the story of how he'd gotten the fan-it had been a gift from his beloved wife, who had gone to extraordinary lengths to purchase it for his sixtieth birthday-he touched his fingers to it gently. Then he held it up to the light and fanned it out, revealing a picture of plum flowers that sparkled like fairy dust.

5. Another evening, my grandfather drew a small gold nugget out of his pocket and massaged it between his fingers as he spoke. Although it was a simple, rough chunk of metal, he had rubbed it so often that it had developed a fine, smooth finish.

6. "Once, many years ago," my grandfather explained, "I was walking down the street when I caught notice of a blind man playing the erhu"-a traditional Chinese musical instrument. "About three hundred children were gathered around to listen, so I stopped as well. The blind man's music was enchanting. After he finished his song, I left him a few coins, expecting to continue on my way. But the man began tugging at my robe.

7. "'I want to sell you this gold nugget,' the blind man said. 'Won't you buy it from me? I need the money to feed my children.'

8. "'No, I don't collect gold nuggets,' I replied, refusing to buy this one from the blind man. I said good-bye and walked away.

9. "The next day, I saw the same man playing. Once again, I was enchanted by his music and stopped to listen. Once again, the blind man pulled at my robe and asked me to buy his gold nugget, but I refused.

10. "It went on like this day after day. Finally, on the fifth day, when the blind man begged me to buy the nugget so that he could feed his children, I caved. I probably paid far more than it was worth because I emptied out my pockets and gave the blind man all my cash. But it wasn't about the value of the gold. I simply felt moved to help this gentle soul who made such beautiful music. I wanted him to be able to care for his family."

11. My grandfather sighed heavily. "Tomorrow, I'll sell this nugget to a pawnshop for maybe seventy yuan-about one one-thousandth what I paid for it. What makes me most sorrowful is not the money. It's the fact that I'll be selling my lucky charm. You see, ever since that day when I bought this gold nugget, I've carried it with me in my pocket and rubbed it to bring our family good luck. That's why it has been polished to this glossy sheen."

12. At that moment, my grandfather's lips turned up into a heart-breaking smile. "Then again, it seems right, somehow. Buying this nugget was how I once helped a man save his children. Now, in selling it, I'll be saving my own children. I guess this gold nugget has done what it was supposed to do."

from CHASING REDBIRD
by Sharon Creech

1. Beyond the ash tree was a rose garden: twenty bushes planted by Uncle Nate the year that baby Rose died. Aunt Jessie loved those roses. She could see them from her bedroom window, and that summer, she and I would walk through them, counting the blooms.

2. When the first frost came in November, Aunt Jessie fretted. She stared out the window at the few remaining blossoms, stiff and matted with frost. "They'll all die soon," she said. It sent a shiver through me.

3. Each year after that, she was thrilled in the spring when the first rosebud appeared, and each year, with the arrival of winter, she became dejected all over again, as if she didn't believe or didn't remember that spring would come again.

4. Several years after Uncle Nate had planted the roses, I was with my family one Saturday at a store in Chocton. Each of us kids had a dollar. The boys were sifting through the candy, May and Gretchen were at the makeup counter, and Bonnie and I were wandering around the store, unable to make up our minds what to choose. Then I saw it. It was perfect: a red plastic rose on a stiff green stem. I bought it and kept it in my closet until October, when I snuck it into the rosebushes in the yard, tying it to a branch.

5. When Aunt Jessie started to fret over the frost and the dying buds, I'd say, each morning, "There's still a few left," and, finally, "There's still one left." She didn't seem impressed and said, "It'll be dead soon."

6. By December, after we'd had two snowfalls, she could no longer ignore the single rose still blooming in the garden. On one of our walks, she headed for the bushes. "I want to see this rose," she said. I tried to discourage her, tried to pull her in another direction, but she was determined. She reached across the bush in front and touched my plastic rose.

7. "What?" she said, tugging at it. "What-?" She pulled it loose, and the look on her face I'll never forget: such disappointment, such dismay. She threw the rose to the ground. "It's fake! Who would do such a mean and nasty thing?"

8. My own face must have betrayed my guilt.

9. "You?" she said. "You did that? How could you?"

10. I ran to the barn, ashamed and confused.

11. Later, she apologized, saying that she knew I hadn't meant to hurt her, that I must have thought it would please her. She didn't know why she had reacted the way she did. "I so much wanted that rose to be alive," she said.

12. Shortly afterward, she restored the red plastic rose to the rose garden, and it has bloomed there year round ever since, faded nearly to white, but still there. When Aunt Jessie died, Uncle Nate bought a second plastic rose and added it to the other one in the rose garden.

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Grade 9
ELAR (2009)
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS)

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Measures 1 skill fromGrade 9ELAR (2009)Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS)

Our brand new solo games combine with your quiz, on the same screen

Measures 1 skill from
Grade 9
ELAR (2009)
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS)