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The 1950's
 Dreamboat - A Fifties Story, Part 3

Dreamboat - A Fifties Story, Part 3
Reading Level
     edHelper's suggested reading level:   high interest, readability grades 4 to 5
     Flesch-Kincaid grade level:   2.86

Vocabulary
     challenging words:    all-not, cafe, coupe, deuce, dreamboat, edgy, Emmons, pusher, rejection, spanking, tree-lined, whatcha, life, wounded, doin, cigarette
     content words:    Your Show, When Teddy, Rogers High

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Dreamboat - A Fifties Story, Part 3
By Toni Lee Robinson 		  
1     Life had changed so much between yesterday and today, Patsy thought. But, she told herself, she wasn't sorry for this afternoon. And somehow she was going with Dell to the race on Saturday.
 
2     It was past ten on Saturday night when she climbed quietly out her window. Dad had come in from the field. He was dozing in front of the television set. She crept around the front yard, staying away from the front room windows. Music from Your Show of Shows, a variety program, floated into the night.
 
3     Patsy walked quickly away from the house. She was glad for the moonlight on the dirt road. That meant she could go faster. Above all, she didn't want to keep Dell waiting. Finally, it seemed she'd found somebody who cared. After the trouble with her father, she'd talked to Dell at school. She'd told him she would slip away to go to the race on Saturday. He'd agreed to pick her up on the gravel road that went by the farm.
 
4     Whew! One mile down, one to go to where the farm road branched off the gravel. Patsy stopped to catch her breath. As her breathing slowed, she thought she heard a sound behind her. She held her breath and listened. Nothing. She was imagining things.
 
5     Patsy hurried along, emerging from the tree-lined path onto the edge of the main road. She rested against a tree, careful not to get dust on her new pedal pusher pants. She was brushing the dirt off the white toes of her saddle oxfords when she heard footsteps behind her. She whirled around.
 
6     "Ha! I caught you!" It was Teddy. "I spied you out, Patsy! I trailed you all along the way." Patsy could see his grin in the dark. "I'm a secret agent guy!" he said. "Hey, whatcha doin' out here, anyway?"
 
7     Patsy groaned. "Teddy, go back home," she said. Then she had an alarming thought. When Teddy went back, her dad would surely find out what she was doing. At that moment, the lights of a car came around the curve in the distance. From the sound of the engine, Patsy could tell it was the deuce coupe. What was she going to do?
 
8     Dell roared up beside them. Gravel sprayed as he skidded to a stop. The passenger door flew open. "What's the kid doing here?" Dell asked. His voice was clipped and edgy.

Paragraphs 9 to 22:
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