CLOZE PROCEDURE

The House on Mango Street

Name: __________________________________ I don't remember when I first noticed him looking at me-Sire. But I know he was looking. Every time. All the time I walked past his house. Him and his friends__________ on their bikes in __________ of the house, pitching __________. They didn't scare me. __________did, but I wouldn't __________them know. I don't __________the street like other __________. Straight ahead, straight eyes. __________walked past. I knew __________was looking. I had__________ prove to me I __________ scared of nobody's eyes, __________even his. I had __________look back hard, just, __________, like he was glass. __________I did. I did__________. But I looked too long when he rode his __________past me. I looked __________I wanted to be __________, straight into the dusty__________ of his eyes__________ the bikes stopped and __________bumped into a parked__________, bumped, and I walked__________. It made your blood__________ to have somebody look __________you like that. Somebody __________ at me. Somebody looked. __________his kind, his ways. __________ is a punk, Papa __________, and Mama says not __________talk to him. And __________ his girlfriend came. Lois __________heard him call her. __________is tiny and pretty __________smells like baby's skin. __________see her sometimes running __________ the store for him. __________ once when she was __________next to me at __________ grocery she was barefoot, __________ I saw her barefoot __________ toenails all painted pale __________pink, like little pink, __________ and she smells pink __________babies do. She's got __________ girl hands, and her __________ are long like ladies'__________, and she wears makeup __________. But she doesn't know __________ to tie her shoes. __________ do. Sometimes I hear them laughing late, beer cans and cats and the trees talking to themselves: wait, wait, wait. Sire lets Lois ride his bike around the block, or they take walks together. I watch them.

Weir, 2000