Katherine Paterson's "Bridge to Terabithia"

Not the kind of silly stuff Ellie and Brenda giggled about on the telephone.

Leslie snickered, but May Belle was not to be distracted.

When Jess finally got to Terabithia, Leslie was huddled next to one of the cracks below the roof trying to get enough light to read.

The name was garbled and the milk drib- bled down her chin as she spoke.

"To the grove of the pines," she answered.

He stumbled and without a word began half walking, half trotting over to the starting line.

They would all line up on the far side of the lower field, where it was either muddy or deep crusty ruts.

"Leslie, If she was an animal predator, we'd be obliged to try to help her."

"My parents are reassessing their value structure."

"Just over the cow field," he whispered.

He turned his back and pretended to concentrate on Fulcher's high-pitched commands.

With a yelp, the boys were pushing for first place at the door.

He doused them with syrup and began to eat.

Like in The Ten Commandments on TV when the water came rushing into the dry path Moses had made and swept all the Egyptians away, the long dry bed of the creek was a roaring

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eight-foot-wide sea, sweeping be- fore it great branches of trees, logs, and trash, swirling them about like so many Egyptian chariots, the hungry waters licking and sometimes leaping the banks, daring them to try to confine it.

Ellie ignored her.

Gary smirked.

His feet pounded the uneven ground, and he thrashed his arms harder and harder.

The syllables rolled through his head like a ripple of guitar chords.

They met at Miss Bessie's shed.

Maybe Dad would be so proud he'd forget all about how tired he was from the long drive back and forth to Washington and the digging and hauling all day.

She was quiet for a moment, thinking, Jess decided, about her former school, which he saw as bright and new with a gleaming gymnasium larger than the one at the consolidated high school.

He would take her there, of course, for he wasn't such a coward that he would mind a little exploring now and then farther in amongst the ever-darkening columns of the tall pines.

But as a regular thing, as a permanent place, this was where he would choose to be - here where the dogwood and redwood played hide and seek between the oaks and evergreens, and the sun flung itself in golden streams through the trees to splash warmly at their feet.

Ellie said in her wheedling voice.

But it was she who was the diamond, sparkling out of that muddy, grassless, dirty-brick setting.

The name was garbled and the milk drib- bled down her chin as she spoke.

Momma would he mad as flies in a fruit jar if they woke her up this time of day He patted May Belle's hair and yanked the twisted sheet up to her small chin.

He stared out the window, but he knew she had come and was sitting across the aisle from them.

Without breaking his rhythm, he climbed over the fence, scrambled across the scrap heap, thumped May Belle on the head ("Owww!"), and trotted on to the house.

That ought to give the rest of the first grade something to chew their cuds on.

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Even his dad would be proud.

Sniffing "hippie" and "peacenik" even though the Vietnam War was over and it was supposed to be OK again to like peace, the kids would make fun of Miss Edmunds' lack of lipstick or the cut of her jeans.

Somehow it was the one thing in all Washington that Leslie had never seen, and so he could tell her about it, describing the tiny beasts hurtling to destruction.

She leaned back, happy and relaxed.

"Now I want to give you a homework assignment" - muffled groans - "that I'm sure you'll enjoy." - mumblings of unbelief - "Tonight on Channel 7 at 8 P.M. there is going to be a special about a famous underwater explorer - Jacques Cousteau.

She broke into a fresh round of sobbing.

After school Leslie got on the bus before he did and went straight to the corner of the long back seat-right to the seventh graders' seat.

He moved a tiny bit to the left, but she didn't seem to notice.

"I got plenty of chores needs doing around here this morning," his mother announced as they were finishing the grits and red gravy.

In her fantasy, Mrs. Myers was one of the foodaholics who would hide bits of candy bars in odd places - up the hot water faucet ! - only to be found out and publicly humiliated before all the other fat ladies.

Slithering the skinny dress over the doll's head and arms and snapping the tiny fasteners was more than her chubby six-year-old fingers could manage.

He dumped two spoonfuls of sugar into his cup and slurped to keep the hot coffee from scalding his mouth.

He didn't mean it in a daring way, he was just dumbfounded by the idea of Leslie being scared.

The water he nipped on his face and up his arms pricked like ice.

He paused in midair like a stop-action TV shot and turned, almost losing his balance, to face the questioner, who was sitting on the fence nearest the old Perkins place, dangling bare brown legs.

He fumbled around with the name for a couple more days, but it came more easily with practice.

Everything the dog did, he imitated, flopping down at last with his tongue lolling out.

Lord, she was gorgeous.

It was like Brenda throwing a tantrum over Joyce Ann touching her lipstick.

Next they got the old wallpaper off the living- room wall-all five garish layers of it.

She leaned back, happy and relaxed.

So there was no money, and he seemed paralyzed in his efforts to make anything for Leslie.

The peace would start at the top of his muddled brain and seep down through his tired and tensed-up body.

"Regicide," she said proudly.

In her fantasy, Mrs. Myers was one of the foodaholics who would hide bits of candy bars in odd places - up the hot water faucet ! - only to be found out and publicly humiliated before all the other fat ladies.

The peace would start at the top of his muddled brain and seep down through his tired and tensed-up body.

We must strive to keep it sacred.

He figured if he worked at it - and Lord, had he worked-he could be the fastest runner in the fifth grade when school opened up.

Of course he was going to run.

So the students of Lark Creek Elementary sat at their desks all Friday, their hearts thumping with anticipation as they listened to the joyful pandemonium pouring out from the teachers' room, spent their allotted half hours with Miss Edmunds under the spell of her wild beauty and in the snare of her enthusiasms, and then went out and pretended that they couldn't be suckered by some hippie in tight jeans with make- up all over her eyes but none on her mouth.

He rubbed his hair.

Jess never quite knew how he knew things, so he'd shrug and let Bill and Leslie praise him to each otherthough the work itself was praise enough.

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First they ripped out the boards that covered the ancient fireplace, coming upon the rusty bricks like prospectors upon the mother lode.

Jess's feelings about Leslie's father poked up like a canker sore.

He always started at the northwest corner of the field, crouched over like the runners he had seen on Wide World of Sports.

They were all sitting there primly dressed in their spring Sunday best.

"It's a very complicated situation.

Old Dad would be surprised at how strong he'd gotten in the last couple of years.

Old Dad would be surprised at how strong he'd gotten in the last couple of years.

The cold stream lapped his bare heels momentarily, but then he was into the air above it and falling awkwardly and landing on his bottom.

He couldn't see anybody moving outside, so they must have finished unloading.

Thirty pairs of eyes were suddenly focused on desk4op scratches.

He glared at her hard and gave another slurp.

"Fascinating, isn't it?"

Miss Edmunds would play her guitar and let the kids take turns on the autoharp, the triangles, cymbals, tambourines, and bongo drum.

An approaching car beeped and swerved and beeped again, but he hardly noticed.

He said it loudly enough to make sure Fulcher could hear him and then concentrated on the runners.

But whenever possible, he stole a few minutes on Friday just to stand close to her and hear her voice, soft and smooth as suede, assuring him that he was a "neat kid."

The syllables rolled through his head like a ripple of guitar chords.

She was always moping around.

The boys quivered on the edges of their seats like moths fighting to be freed of cocoons.

This one was a hippopotamus just leaving the edge of the cliff, turning over and over you could tell by the curving lines - in the air toward the sea below where surprised fish were leaping goggle-eyed out of the water.

And May Belle would pop her buttons.

Jess ran his forefinger around the heart with two pairs of initials, BR + SK, trying to figure out whose desk he had inherited.

Jess was aware that Leslie Burke stayed at his elbow, but he was careful not to look her way.

It was as though the elements were conspiring to ruin their short week of freedom.

He'd play football until Christmas and baseball until June with the rest of the big guys.

"Shhh," Leslie said, stroking May Belle's head, but May Belle didn't want comfort, she wanted revenge.

When you were the only boy smashed between four sisters, and the older two had despised you ever since you stopped letting them dress you up and wheel you around in their rusty old doll carriage, and the littlest one cried if you looked at her cross-eyed, it was nice to have somebody who worshiped you.

"Then we'll name him Prince Terrien and make him the guardian of Terabithia."

You can always watch at my...

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But she had wheeled around again, and was zooming down the hall.

He grabbed the end of the rope and swung out toward the other bank with a kind of wild exhilaration and landed gently on his feet, taller and stronger and wiser in that mysterious land.

It was a glorious autumn day, and if you looked up as you swung, it gave you the feeling of floating.

The peace would start at the top of his muddled brain and seep down through his tired and tensed-up body.

The Haunted Hippo?

No low bush or grass could grow in that dim light, so the ground was carpeted with golden needles.

She was impatient to be gone, so Jess scooped up the sodden dog and shoved him rear-first into the cave of Leslie's raincoat.

She was about his height-not quite though, he was pleased to realize as she came nearer.

Or maybe it was the time of year-the last dregs of winter spoiling the taste of every- thing.

Jess found he was really useful to him, not a nuisance to be tolerated or set out on the porch like P. T. "You're amazing," Bill would say. "where did you learn that, Jess?"

He crept down the hall after her and hid behind the nearest alcove to the girls' room door.

"You're the proverbial diamond in the rough," she'd said to him once, touching his nose lightly with the tip of her electrifying finger.

Just one little pack of notebook paper's gone up to - " "No!" Ellie got up noisily and began to clear the table.

Anybody had a chance to be the fastest runner, and by Miss Bessie, this year it was going to be Jesse Oliver Aarons, Jr. Jess pumped his arms harder and bent his head for the distant fence.

"Leslie, If she was an animal predator, we'd be obliged to try to help her."

A few of the younger boys drifted off to play King of the Mountain on the slope between the upper and lower fields.

I'm a liberated woman, Jess Aarons.

He went into the bedroom and felt under the mattress until he retrieved all his paper and the paints that Leslie had given him at Christmastime.

"We don't even know where she's laid out at, May Belle," Mr. Aarons said more gently.

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TWELVE - Stranded They walked slowly across the field and down the hill to the old Perkins place.

He ought to choose one chief character and do a story about it.

There they came upon a display case holding a miniature scene of Indians disguised in buffalo skins scaring a herd of buffalo into stampeding over a cliff to their death with more Indians waiting below to butcher and skin them.

The boys quivered on the edges of their seats like moths fighting to be freed of cocoons.

Everything the dog did, he imitated, flopping down at last with his tongue lolling out.

"Get over here to the sink and wash yourself," his mother said without raising her eyes from the stove.

Even his sisters' squabbling about when presents were to be opened did not touch him.

He had to let that puny chest of his know who was boss.

Anybody had a chance to be the fastest runner, and by Miss Bessie, this year it was going to be Jesse Oliver Aarons, Jr. Jess pumped his arms harder and bent his head for the distant fence.

It wouldn't help to try to defend Miss Edmunds against their unjust and hypocritical attacks.

See, he told himself, you can stand up to a creep like Fulcher.

Jess and Leslie both collapsed.

"It sprays worse'n a water pistol."

Jess slid out of bed and into his overalls.

I promise you."

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She nodded, her eyes still wide with fear, but she let go the branch and took his hand, straightening a little and swaying tic gripped her tightly.

And although their car was small and dusty, it was Italian and looked expensive, too.

"Could I have some of the lumber on the back porch?"

Jess was glad to escape to the shed and the complacent company of Miss Bessie.

"OK. Now. We'll have eliminations like always.

"Just go on back to sleep."

3


Miss Bessie strolled over to a greenish patch - most of the field was brown and dry and yanked up a mouthful.

There was no TV at the Burkes', but there were mountains of records and a stereo set that looked like something off Star Trek.

She eased the brakes.

When you were the only boy smashed between four sisters, and the older two had despised you ever since you stopped letting them dress you up and wheel you around in their rusty old doll carriage, and the littlest one cried if you looked at her cross-eyed, it was nice to have somebody who worshiped you.

And here he was letting some girl who wasn't even ten yet scare the liver out of him by just telling what it was like to sight-see under water.

The place was so ratty that it screeched whenever you put your foot down, but Jess had found that if you tiptoed, it gave only a low moan, and he could usually get outdoors without waking Momma or Ellie or Brenda or Joyce Ann. May Belle was another matter.

He stuffed the note on top of everything else inside the desk and raced out of the room to the boys' room, where he hid in one of the stalls until the bell rang to go to homeroom.

It was not the kind of best that counted either at school or at home, but it was a genuine kind of best.

Jess followed, still trying to figure out why two grown people and a smart girl like Leslie wanted to leave a comfort- able life in the suburbs for a place like this.

Ellie ignored her.

Jess could tune it out the same way he tuned out school, with his body standing up and sitting down in unison with the rest of the congregation but his mind numb and floating, not really thinking or dreaming but at least free.

"Sure," Jess agreed quickly, relieved that there was no need to plunge deeper into the woods.

She tried to smile across the classroom upheaval to Leslie, but it was no use.

Joyce Ann would stare, her index finger pulling down her mouth and making her drool.

He dropped his gaze to the gunnysack and began to fiddle with the unraveled edge.

They dragged boards and other materials down from the scrap heap by Miss Bessie's pasture and built their castle stronghold in the place they had

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found in the woods.

You're turning him into a clown."

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"R-r-oof," wailed Prince Terrien, rolling his eyes skyward.

Finally his father spoke, his big rough hand stroking his wife's hair and his eyes downcast watching the motion.

For the rest of that day, and until after lunch on the next, he had been "the fastest kid in the third, fourth, and fifth grades," arid he only a fourth grader.

Then the shape was there in his sideways vision.

Without making any noise, she pulled it a few inches forward from the radiator and settled herself into it.

He began to trot across the yard.

He paused in midair like a stop-action TV shot and turned, almost losing his balance, to face the questioner, who was sitting on the fence nearest the old Perkins place, dangling bare brown legs.

Jess wouldn't argue that, but he saw her as a beautiful wild creature who had been caught for a moment in that dirty old cage of a schoolhouse, perhaps by mistake.

There ought to be a way of making the whale shimmering white against the dark water.

Jess tried to huddle away from the worst of them, but there was no escaping the miserable invaders.

On the last word, Mrs. Myers flashed her famous first-day-of-school smile.

"Oh, anything."

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Miss Edmunds picked a few odd chords and then began to sing, more quietly than usual for that particular song: "I see a land bright and clear And the time's coming near When we'll live in this land You and me, hand in hand."

She had made him leave his old self behind and come into her world, and then before he was really at home in it but too late to go back, she had left him stranded there like an astronaut wandering about on the moon.

May Belle screamed with delight and started running for the road.

It occurred to Jess that she, too, wished to postpone regular school as long as possible.

"Just go on back to sleep."

3


Miss Bessie strolled over to a greenish patch - most of the field was brown and dry and yanked up a mouthful.

As he passed Leslie's desk, she grinned and rippled her fingers low in a kind of wave.

"Sure," he repeated himself, nodding vigorously.

Besides, she was beyond such stupid behavior.

This one was a hippopotamus just leaving the edge of the cliff, turning over and over you could tell by the curving lines - in the air toward the sea below where surprised fish were leaping goggle-eyed out of the water.

People began to join in, quietly at first to match her mood, but as the song built up at the end, their voices did as well, so that by the time they got to the final "Free to be you and me," the whole school could hear them.

She said he was "unusually talented," and she hoped he wouldn't let anything discourage him, but would "keep it up."

She swung a pointed glance at Mr. Turner's retreating form.

Leslie whirled and began to duel the imaginary foe.

I'm a liberated woman, Jess Aarons.

Even as he spoke, he could feel the bigger kids pushing up behind him down the narrow aisle.

It couldn't touch her.

Thirty pairs of eyes were suddenly focused on desk4op scratches.

Jess wouldn't argue that, but he saw her as a beautiful wild creature who had been caught for a moment in that dirty old cage of a schoolhouse, perhaps by mistake.

"You gotta beat her up into a million pieces!"

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He'd sooner tangle with Mrs. Godzilla herself.

"Next thing," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm, "next thing you're gonna want to let some girl run."

She was impatient to be gone, so Jess scooped up the sodden dog and shoved him rear-first into the cave of Leslie's raincoat.

"Sh." He warned.

For hadn't Leslie, even in Terabithia, tried to push back the walls of his mind and make him see beyond to the shining world - huge and terrible and beautiful and very fragile?

As the trio passed them, Jess could see Janice's face all pink and prideful.

Even in the rain he could make out the landmarks, looking surprisingly the way the books had pictured them-the Lee Mansion high on the hill, the bridge, and twice around the circle, so he could get a good look at Abraham Lincoln looking out across the city, the White House and the Monument and at the other end the Capitol.

Then she turned once more to gaze at the rest of the class.

Fights, because as usual, their mother was complaining that there was hardly enough money to give the little girls something from Santa Claus, let alone a surplus to buy record albums or shirts for a pair of boys she'd never set eyes on.

Jess tickled her to get her giggling again, so that when the four of them clambered down over the tail gate, they were flushed-faced and happy once more.

She would blame Santa, not him, for being cheap.

A few days after the encounter with the enemies of Terabithia, they had an encounter of a different sort at school.

"Get over here to the sink and wash yourself," his mother said without raising her eyes from the stove.

He automatically pumped harder.

She didn't look very smart, even for a cow, but she was plenty bright enough to get out of Jess's way.

They were always nice to Jess when he went over, but then they would suddenly begin talking about French politics or string quartets (which he at first thought was a square box made out of string), or how to save the timber wolves or redwoods or singing whales, and he was scared to open his mouth and show once and for all how dumb he was.

The ground was rutted from past rains, but had hardened in the late summer drought, so they had to give up on sneaker toes and draw the line with a stick.

He thought later how peculiar it was that here was probably the biggest thing in his life, and he had shrugged it off as nothing.

7


The flies were buzzing around his sweating face and shoulders.

I'll just grab that old terror by the shoulders and shake the daylights out of it.

P. T. hounded ahead, leaping fishlike from one brown sea to the next, then turning back to herd the two of them forward, nipping at their heels and further splashing their already sopping jeans.

For all his smartness with politics and music, Mr. Burke was inclined to be absent-minded.

They might become extinct."

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He gave her back the book.

She even asked me for advice as if I was Dear Abby."

"Everybody gets seared sometimes, May Belle.

After they had watched May Belle tearing up the hill, clutching her new treasure, Jess and Leslie turned and ran up over the empty field behind the old Perkins place and down to the dry creek bed that separated farmland from the woods.

"Sure," he repeated himself, nodding vigorously.

"Hey," she said, emerging completely.