Typescript Form for Miscue Analysis
Book Title: A Wrinkle in Time
Author: Madeleine L’Engle
1. It was a dark and stormy night.
2. In her attic bedroom Margaret Murry, wrapped in an old patchwork
quilt, sat on the foot of her bed and watched the trees tossing in the
frenzied lashing of the wind.
3. Behind the trees clouds scudded frantically across the sky.
4. Every few moments the moon ripped through them, creating
wraithlike shadows that raced along the ground.
5. The house shook.
6. Wrapped in her quilt, Meg shook.
7. She wasn’t usually afraid of weather.
8. –It’s not just the weather, she thought.
9. –It’s the weather on top of everything else.
1.________
2.________
3.________
4.________
5.________
6.________
7.________
8.________
9.________
10. On top of me.
10._______
11. On top of Meg Murry doing everything wrong.
11._______
12. School.
12._______
13. School was all wrong.
13._______
14. She’d been dropped down to the lowest section in her grade.
14._______
15. That morning one of her teachers had said crossly, “Really, Meg,
I don’t understand how a child with parents as brilliant as yours are
supposed to be can be such a poor student.
15._______
16. If you don’t manage to do a little better you’ll have to stay back
next year.”
16._______
17. During lunch she’d roughhoused a little to try to make herself feel
better, and one of the girls said scornfully, “After all, Meg, we aren’t
grammar-school kids anymore.
17._______
18. Why do you always act like such a baby?”
18._______
19. And on the way home from school, walking up the road with her
arms full of books, one of the bys had said something about her
“dumb baby brother.”
19._______
20. At this she’d thrown the books on the side of the road and tackled
him with every ounce of strength she had, and arrived home with her
blouse torn and a big bruise under one eye.
20._______
21. Sandy and Dennys, her ten-year-old twin brothers, who got home
from school an hour earlier than she did, were disgusted.
21._______
22. “Let us do the fighting when it’s necessary,” they told her.
22._______
23. –A delinquent, that’s what I am, she thought grimly.
23._______
24. –That’s what they’ll be saying next.\
24._______
25. Not Mother.
25._______
26. But Them.
26._______
27. Everybody Else.
27._______
28. I wish Father–
28._______
29. But it was still not possible to think about her father without the
danger of tears.
29._______
30. Only her mother could talk about him in a natural way, saying,
“When your father gets back– ”
30._______
31. Gets back from where?
31._______
32. And when?
32._______
33. Surely her mother must know what people were saying, must be
aware of the smugly vicious gossip.
33._______
34. Surely it must her as it did Meg.
34._______
35. But if it did she gave no outward sign.
35._______
36. Nothing ruffled the serenity of her expression.
36._______
37. –Why can’t I hide it, too?
37._______
38. Meg thought.
38._______
39. Why do I always have to show everything?
39._______
40. The window rattled madly in the wind, and she pulled the quilt
close about her.
40._______
41. Curled up on one of her pillows, a gray fluff of kitten yawned,
showing its pink tongue, tucked its head under again, and went back
to sleep.
41._______
42. Everybody was asleep.
42._______
43. Everybody except Meg.
43._______
44. Even Charles Wallace, the “dumb baby brother,” who had an
uncanny way of knowing when she was awake and unhappy, and who
would come, so many nights, tiptoeing up the attic stairs to her – even
Charles Wallace was asleep.
44._______
45. How could they sleep?
45._______
46. All day on the radio there had been hurricane warnings.
46._______
47. How could they leave her up in the attic in the rickety brass bed,
knowing that the roof might be blown right off the house, and she
tossed out into the wild night sky to land who knows where?
47._______
48. Her shivering grew uncontrollable.
48._______
49. –You asked to have the attic bedroom, she told herself savagely.
49._______
50. –Mother let you have it because you’re the oldest.
50._______
51. It’s a privilege, not a punishment.
51._______
52. “Not during a hurricane, it isn’t a privilege,” she said aloud.
52._______
53. She tossed the quilt down on the foot of the bed, and stood up.
53._______
54. The kitten stretched luxuriously, and looked up at her with huge,
innocent eyes.
54._______
55. “Go back to sleep,” Meg said.
55._______
56. “Just be glad you’re a kitten and not a monster like me.”
56._______
57. She looked at herself in the wardrobe mirror and made a horrible
face, baring a mouthful of teeth covered with braces.
57._______
58. Automatically she pushed her glasses into position, ran her
fingers through her mouse-brown hair, so that it stood wildly on end,
and let out a sigh almost as noisy as the wind.
58._______
59. The wide wooden floorboards were cold against her feet.
59._______
60. Wind blew in the crevices about the window frame, in spite of the
protection the storm sash was supposed to offer.
60._______
61. She could hear wind howling in the chimneys.
61._______
62. From all the way downstairs she could hear Fortinbras, the big
black dog, starting to bark.
62._______
63. He must be frightened, too.
63._______
64. What was he barking at?
64._______
65. Fortinbras never barked without reason.
65._______
66. Suddenly she remembered that when she had gone to the post
office to pick up the mail, she’d heard about a tramp who was
supposed to have stolen twelve sheets from Mrs. Buncombe, the
constable’s wife.
66._______
67. They hadn’t caught him, maybe he was heading for the Murrys’
house right now, isolated on a back road as it was; and this time
maybe he’d be after more than sheets.
67._______
68. Meg hadn’t paid much attention to the talk about the tramp at the
time, because the postmistress, with a sugary smile, had asked if she’d
heard from her father lately.
68._______
69. She left her little room and made her way through the shadows of
the main attic, bumping against the Ping-Pong table.
69._______
70. –Now I’ll have a bruise on my hip on top of everything else, she
thought.
70._______
71. Next she walked into her old dolls’ house, Charles Wallace’s
rocking horse, the twins’ electric trains.
71._______
72. “Why must everything happen to me?” she demanded of a large
teddy bear.
72._______
73. At the foot of the attic stairs she stood still and listened.
73._______
74. Not a sound from Charles Wallace’s room on the right.
74._______
75. On the left, in her parents’ room, not a rustle from her mother
sleeping alone in the great double bed.
75._______
76. She tiptoed down the hall and into the twins’ room, pushing again
at her glasses as they could help her to see better in the dark.
76._______
77. Dennys was snoring.
77._______
78. Sandy murmured something about baseball and subsided.
78._______
79. The twins didn’t have any problems.
79._______
80. They weren’t great students, but they weren’t bad ones, either.
80._______
81. They were perfectly content with a succession of B’s and an
occasional A or C.
81._______
82. They were strong and fast runners and good at games, and when
cracks were made about anybody in the Murry family, they weren’t
made about Sandy and Dennys.
82._______
83. She left the twins’ room and went on downstairs, avoiding the
creaking seventh step.
83._______
84. Fortinbras had stopped barking.
84._______
85. It wasn’t the tramp this tie, then.
85._______
86. Fort would go on barking if anybody was around.
86._______
87. –But suppose the tramp does come?
87._______
88. Suppose he has a knife?
88._______
89. Nobody lives near enough to hear if we screamed and screamed
and screamed.
89._______
90. Nobody’d care, anyhow.
90._______
91. –I’ll make myself some cocoa, she decided.
91._______
92. –That’ll cheer me up, and if the roof blows off at least I won’t go
off with it.
92._______
93. In the kitchen a light was already on, and Charles Wallace was
sitting at the table drinking milk and eating bread and jam.
93._______
94. He looked very small and vulnerable sitting there alone in the big
old-fashioned kitchen, a blond little boy in faded blue Dr. Dentons, his
feet swinging a good six inches above the floor.
94._______
95. “Hi,” he said cheerfully.
95._______
96. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
96._______
97. From under the table where he was lying at Charles Wallace’s
feet, hoping for a crumb or two, Fortinbras raised his slender dark
head in greeting to Meg, and his tail thumped against the floor.
97._______
98. Fortinbras had arrived on their doorstep, a half-grown puppy,
scrawny and abandoned, one winter night.
98._______
99. He was, Meg’s father had decided, part Llewellyn setter and part
greyhound, and he had a slender, dark beauty that was all his own.
99._______
100. “Why didn’t you come up to the attic?”
100.______
101. Meg asked her brother, speaking as though he were at least her
own age.
101.______
102. “I’ve been scared stiff.”
102.______
103. “Too windy up in that attic of yours,” the little boy said.
103.______
104. “I knew you’d be down.
104.______
105. I put some milk on the stove for you.
105.______
106. It ought to be hot by now.”
106.______
107. How did Charles Wallace always know about her?
107.______
108. How could he always tell?
108.______
109. He never knew-or seemed to care-what Dennys or Sandy were
thinking.
109.______
110. It was his mother’s mind, and Meg’s, that he probed with
frightening accuracy.
110.______
111. Was it because people were a little afraid of him that they
whispered about the Murrys’ youngest child, who was rumored to be
not quite bright?
111.______
112. “I’ve heard that clever people often have subnormal children,”
Meg had once overheard.
112.______
113. “The two boys seem to be nice, regular children, but that
unattractive girl and the baby boy certainly aren’t all there.”
113.______
114. It was true that Charles Wallace seldom spoke when anybody
was around, so that many people thought he’d never learned to talk.
114.______
115. And it was true that he hadn’t talked at all until he was almost
four.
115.______
116. Meg would turn white with fury when people looked at him and
clucked, shaking their heads sadly.
116.______
117. “Don’t worry about Charles Wallace, Meg,” her father had once
told her.
117.______
118. Meg remembered it very clearly because it was shortly before he
went away.
118.______
119. “There’s nothing the matter with his mind.
119.______
120. He just does things in his own way and in his own time.”
120.______
121. “I don’t want him to grow up to be dumb like me,” Meg had
said.
121.______
122. “Oh, my darling, you’re not dumb,” her father answered.
122.______
123. “You’re like Charles Wallace.
123.______
124. Your development has to go at its own pace.
124.______
125. It just doesn’t happen to be the usual pace.”
125.______
126. “How do you know?”
126.______
127. Meg had demanded.
127.______
128. “How do you know I’m not dumb?
128.______
129. Isn’t it just because you love me?”
129.______
130. “I love you, but that’s not what tells me.
130.______
131. Mother and I’ve given you a number of tests, you know.”
131.______
132. Yes, that was true.
132.______
133. Meg had realized that some of the “games” her parents played
with her were tests of some kind, and that there had been more for her
and Charles Wallace than for the twins.
133.______
134. “IQ tests, you mean?”
134.______
135. “Yes, some of them.”
135.______
136. “Is my IQ okay?”
136.______
137. “More than okay.”
137.______
138. “What is it?”
138.______
139. “That I’m not going to tell you.
139.______
140. But it assures me that both you and Charles Wallace will be able
to do pretty much whatever you like when you grow up to yourselves.
140.______
141. You just wait til Charles Wallace starts to talk.
141.______
142. You’ll see.”
142.______
143. How right he had been about that, though he himself had left
before Charles Wallace began to speak, suddenly, with none of the
usual baby preliminaries, using entire sentences.
143.______
144. How proud he would have been!
144.______
145. “You’d better check the milk,” Charles Wallace said to Meg
now, his diction clearer and cleaner than that of most five-year-olds.
145.______
146. “You know you don’t like it when it gets a skin on top.”
146.______
147. “You put in more than twice enough milk.”
147.______
148. Meg peered into the saucepan.
148.______
149. Charles Wallace nodded serenely.
149.______
150. “I thought Mother might like some.”
150.______
151. “I might like what?” a voice said, and there was their mother
standing in the doorway.
151.______
152. “Cocoa,” Charles Wallace said.
151.______
153. “Would you like a liverwurst-and-cream-cheese sandwich?
152.______
154. I’ll be happy to make you one.”
153.______
155. “That would be lovely,” Mrs. Murry said,” but I can make it
myself if you’re busy.”
154.______
156. “No trouble at all.”
155.______
157. Charles Wallace slid down from his chair and trotted over to the
refrigerator, his pajamaed feet padding softly as a kitten’s.
156.______
157. “How about you, Meg?” he asked.
157.______
158. “Sandwich?”
158.______
159. “Yes, please,” she said.
159.______
160. “But not liverwurst.
160.______
161. Do we have any tomatoes?”
161.______
162. Charles Wallace peered into the crisper.
162.______
163. “One.
163.______
164. All right if I use it on Meg, Mother?”
164.______
165. “To what better use could it be put?”
165.______
166. Mrs. Murry smiled.
166.______
167. “But not so loud, please, Charles.
167.______
168. That is, unless you want the twins downstairs, too.”
168.______
169. “Let’s be exclusive,” Charles Wallace said.
169.______
170. “That’s my new word for the day.
170.______
171. Impressive, isn’t it?”
171.______
172. “Prodigious,” Mrs. Murry said.
172.______
173. “Meg, come let me look at that bruise.”
173.______
174. Meg knelt at her mother’s feet.
174.______
175. The warmth and light of the kitchen ahd relaxed her so that her
attic fears were gone.
175.______
176. The cocoa steamed fragrantly in the saucepan; geraniums
bloomed on the windowsills and there was a bouquet of tiny yellow
chrysanthemums in the center of the table.
176.______
177. The curtains, red, with a blue and green geometrical pattern,
were drawn, and seemed to reflect their cheerfulness throughout the
room.
177.______
178. The furnace purred like a great, sleepy animal; the lights glowed
with steady radiance; outside, alone in the dark, the wind still battered
against the house, but the angry power that had frightened Meg while
she as alone in the attic was subdued by the familiar comfort of the
kitchen.
178.______
179. Underneath Mrs. Murry’s chair fortinbras let out a contented
sigh.
179.______
180. Mrs. Murry gently touched Meg’s bruised cheek.
180.______
181, Meg looked up at her mother, half in loving admiration, half in
sullen resentment.
181.______
182. It was not an advantage to have a mother who was a scientist
and a beauty as well.
182.______
183. Mrs. Murry’s flaming red hair, creamy skin, and violet eyes with
long dark lashes seemed even more spectacular in comparison with
Meg’s outrageous plainness.
183.______
184. Meg’s hair had been passable as long as she wore it tidily in
braids.
184.______
185. When she went into high school it was cut, and now she and her
mother struggled with putting it up, but one side would come out
curly and the other straight, so that she looked even plainer than
before.
185.______
186. “You don’t know the meaning of moderation, do you, my
darling?”
187. Mrs. Murry asked.
188. “A happy medium is something I wonder if you’ll ever learn.
189. That’s a nasty bruise the Henderson boy gave you.
190. By the way, shortly after you’d gone to bed his mother called up
to complain about how badly you’d hurt him.
191. I told her that since he’s a year older and at least twenty-five
pound heavier than you are, I thought I was the one who ought to be
doing the complaining.
186.______
187.______
188.______
189.______
190.______
191.______
192.______
192. But she seemed to think it was all your fault.”
193. “I suppose that depends on how you look at it,” Meg said.
193.______
194. “Usually no matter what happens people think it’s my fault,
even if I have nothing to do with it at all.
194.______
195. But I’m sorry I tried to fight him.
195.______