hippies are bad drivers

Sometimes, I feel like the people who wrote our school curriculum might have been smoking weed. It could explain for the things they write better than bad English. For example, a touching short story for you:

Jacob has really long purple hair. His hair is 10 feet long. Jacob has a dolphin named Donna. Jacob and Donna like to race cars.
"I'm going to travel around Italy. There are a lot of car races in Italy," Jacob said to his sister.
His sister said he would not follow through. Jacob told her she was jumping to conclusions.
"I am not a flake," said Jacob.
So Jacob and Donna went to Italy and they went to a car race. A race car driver looked at Jacob.
"Hippies are bad drivers," he said.
"You are judging a book by its cover," said Jacob.
Later than day, Jacob and Donna won the race. It was a bonding experience.
When Jacob looks back on the race, it makes him smile.

Yeah...