Bridge to Terabithia

She was going on seven, and she worshiped him which was OK sometimes.

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...

But one day--April the twenty-second, a drizzly Monday, it had been--he ran ahead of them all, the red mud slooching up through the holes in the bottome of his sneakers.

Jess pumped his arms harder and bent his head for the distant fence.

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

She looked as if her mouth was set to say no, but instead she said, "You shouldn't ought to beat me in the head," and went off obediently to fetch his T-shirt.

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.

Of course, her temper had been terrible, and she screamed at Jess all afternoon and was now too tired to fix any supper.

Joyce Ann's lip went out. They both watched it tremble.

Then her pudgy body shuddered, and she let out a great cry.

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

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

He managed to endure the whole boring week of school for that one half hour on Friday afternoons when they'd sit on the worn out rug on the floor of the teachers' room and sing songs...

Friday, their hearts thumping with anticipation as they listened to the joyful pandemonium pouring out from the teachers' room...

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."

"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.

Miss Bessie's bag was tight, and she was fidgeting with discomfort.

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

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

Jess roused himself and went to the front.

Gary smirked.

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

Wanda Moore turned around, all priss-face. "Jess Aarons. That noise is pure repulsive."

He glared at her hard and gave another slurp.

He wanted to look back and see where the others were, but he resisted the temptation.