PSSA Practice Test 1

The Kite for Windy Hill

¹Spring Kite Day at Windy Hill Park was only two days away, and Delia Brooks had a plan. She would build her own kite, fly it higher than anyone else's, and maybe even win the blue ribbon for "Best Homemade Kite."

²"Kits are easy," she told her older brother, Ezra, as she dumped a bag of wooden sticks, paper, and string onto the kitchen table. "I'll be done before dinner."

³Ezra picked up the folded instructions. "Step four says to let the glue dry overnight before you attach the sail."

⁴"Overnight?" Delia groaned. "That's way too long. A little glue will dry in an hour." She squeezed a thick line of glue where the two sticks crossed, pressed them together, and counted to sixty. Then she taped the paper sail to the frame, tied on the string, and raced outside.

⁵The wind tugged at the kite as soon as she lifted it. For one wonderful second, it climbed. Then there was a soft crack. The cross stick slid sideways, the sail folded in half, and the kite spun into the grass like a dropped leaf.

⁶Delia stomped back inside. "This kit is junk," she said. "I'm going to ask Mom to buy one at the store."

⁷Ezra didn't argue. Instead, he pointed at the crooked birdhouse on the windowsill. "Do you know why that roof leans?" he asked. "I built it when I was your age. I nailed it together before the paint dried, and the whole thing slid. The second one I made is the one the wrens live in now."

⁸Delia looked at the birdhouse for a long moment. Then she sighed and pulled the broken kite toward her.

⁹This time she read every step out loud. She measured the cross stick with a ruler so it sat exactly in the middle. She wrapped thread around the joint before adding glue, just as the instructions showed. Then she did the hardest thing of all: she left the frame on the table and went to bed. The next morning the joint was rigid, as hard as stone. She stretched the sail tight, checked each knot twice, and wound the string neatly around a cardboard tube.

¹⁰On Kite Day, the air over Windy Hill was barely moving. Bright store-bought kites rose a few feet and then flopped back down. Delia ran, let out a little string, waited, and let out a little more. Slowly, steadily, her red kite climbed until it was a small square against the clouds.

¹¹Near the bottom of the hill, a girl of about six named Fiona was crying over a tangle of string. Delia handed her own spool to Ezra and knelt beside her. "Don't pull," she said. "Pick out one loop at a time." Together they freed the string, and soon Fiona's kite wobbled into the sky beside Delia's.

¹²Delia didn't win the blue ribbon. It went to a boy whose kite was shaped like a dragon. But when the judge asked how she had gotten her kite to fly on such a calm day, Delia grinned. "I waited for the glue to dry," she said.