1a. Where does Charley live and work? What hobby does he have?
2a. After Charley finds the third level, how does he know that he has traveled to the past? Where does he want to go?
3a. What happens when Charley tries to buy tickets? How does he prepare for his next visit to the third level?
4a. Where does Charley's friend Sam go? How does Charley know this?
1b. Why is Charley's hobby important to him?
2b. Why does he want to be in that time and place?
3b. Why does Louisa ask Charley to stop looking for the third level?
4b. How does Charley react to this information?
5a. In what ways is Charley's life compared to life in the 1890s?
5b. Why is Charley so attracted to life in this other time and place?
6a. How believable is this story? How would you have reacted to these events if you were Charley?
6b. Suppose Charley and Louisa found the third level again and went to where they wanted to go. What would they do if they didn't like it after all? Explain your answer.
Narrator and Point of View. Which point of view is this story told from? How does this help make the story successful?
Irony. What is ironic about the ending of this story?
Setting. Describe the settings in this story. How are they different from each other? How are they similar?
1. Imagine you are suddenly moving away to a distant land, never to return again, and that you have one night to prepare for the trip. Make a list of what you would bring with you, and indicate briefly why you selected each of the items.
2. Imagine you have the ability to predict the future. Make a prediction, describing a typical day in your life twenty years from now.
3. Think about a building you know relatively well, and imagine a secret level, corridor, or room there. Describe the setting of this secret place.
Semicolons and Colons. A semicolon can be used instead of a comma and conjunction to join two related sentences into one sentence.
Example Well, maybe, but my grandfather didn't need any refuge from reality; things were pretty nice and peaceful in his day, from all I hear, and he started my collection.
A colon is used in running text to introduce a list of items or to combine sentences when the second explains the first.
Example I've taken the obvious step: I talked to a psychiatrist friend of mine, among others.
Rewrite each of the following sentence sets, creating one sentence from each two by using either a semicolon or a colon.
1. The clerk figured the fare. I had enough for two one-way coach tickets.
2. He mentioned my stamp collecting. "It's a temporary refuge from reality," he said.
3. People were dressed like it was eighteen-ninety-something. I never saw so many beards, sideburns, and fancy mustaches.
4. I gathered my things together. The old currency, my stamp collection, and a few articles of clothing.
5. Then I saw why the lights were dim and flickering. They were open-flame gaslights.
6. My $300 only bought $200 in old currency, but I didn't care. Eggs were only 13¢ a dozen in 1894.
7. All I could hear was the empty sound of my own footsteps. I didn't pass a soul.
8. I keep looking for the corridor to the third level. I have never again found it.
9. I quickly ducked out. There's nothing nice about jail, even in 1894.
10. Someone had mailed the letter to my grandfather at his home in Galesburg. That's what the address on the envelope said.
