[Part 3] "Bridge to Terabithia" by Katherine Paterson

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CHAPTER IX. THE EVIL SPELL

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On Easter Monday the rain began again in earnest.

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

Jess and Leslie sat cross-legged on the porch at the Burkes', watching the wheels of a passing truck shoot huge sprays of muddy water to its rear.

"That ain't no fifty-five miles per hour," Jess muttered.

Just then something came out of the window of the cab.

Leslie jumped to her feet.

"Litterbug!" she screamed after the already disappearing tail lights.

Jess stood up, too.

"What'dya want to do?"

"What I want to do is go to Terabithia," she said, looking out mournfully at the pouring rain.

"Heck, let's go," he said.

"OK," she said, suddenly brightening.

"Why not?"

She got her boots and raincoat and considered the umbrella.

"D'ya think we could swing across holding the umbrella?"

He shook his head.

"Nah."

"We better stop by your house and get your boots and things."

He shrugged.

"I don't have nothing that fits.

I'll just go like this."

"I'll get you an old coat of Bill's." She started up the stairs.

Judy appeared in the hallway.

"What are you kids doing?" It was the same words that Jess's mother might have used, but it didn't come out the same way.

Judy's eyes were kind of fuzzed over as she spoke, and her voice sounded as though it were being broadcast from miles away.

"We didn't mean to bother you, Judy."

"That's all right, "I'm stuck right now.

I might as well stop.

Have you had any lunch?"

"S'all right, Judy.

We can get something ourselves."

Judy's eyes focused slightly.

"You've got your boots on."

Leslie looked down at her feet.

"Oh, yeah," she said, as though she were just noticing them herself.

"We thought we'd go out for a while."

"Is it raining again?"

"Yeah."

"I used to like to walk in the rain." Judy smiled the kind of smile May Belle did in her sleep.

"Well, if you two can manage . . ."

"Sure."

"Is Bill back yet?"

"No.

He said he wouldn't be back until late, not to worry."

"Fine," she said.

"Oh," she said suddenly, and her eyes popped wide open.

"Oh!" She almost ran back to her room, and the plinkety-plink of the typewriter began at once.

Leslie was grinning.

"She came unstuck."

He wondered what it would be like to have a mother whose stories were inside her head instead of marching across the television screen all day long.

He followed Leslie up the hall to where she was pulling things out of a closet.

She handed him a beige raincoat and a peculiar round black woolly hat.

"No boots." Her voice was coming out of the depths of the closet and was muffled by a line of overcoats.

"How about a pair of clumps?"

"A pair of what?"

She stuck her head out between the coats.

"Cleats.

Cleats." She produced them.

They looked like size twelves.

"Naw.

I'd lose 'em in the mud.

I'll just go barefoot."

"Hey," she said, emerging completely.

"Me, too."

The ground was cold.

The icy mud sent little thrills of pain up their legs, so they ran, splashing through the puddles and slushing in the mud.

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.

When they got to the bank of the creek, they stopped.

It was an awesome sight.

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 eight-foot-wide sea, sweeping before 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.

"Wow." Leslie's voice was respectful.

"Yeah." Jess looked up at the rope.

It was still twisted around the branch of the crab apple tree.

His stomach felt cold.

"Maybe we ought to forget it today."

"C'mon, Jess.

We can make it." The hood of Leslie's raincoat had fallen back, and her hair lay plastered to her forehead.

She wiped her cheeks and eyes with her hand and then untwisted the rope.

She unsnapped the top of her coat with her left hand.

"Here," she said.

"Stick P. T. in here for me."

"I'll carry him, Leslie."

"With that raincoat, he'll slip right out the bottom." 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.

"You gotta hold his rear with your left arm and swing with your right, you know."

"I know.

I know." She moved backward to get a running start.

"Hold tight."

"Good gosh, Jess."

He shut his mouth.

He wanted to shut his eyes, too.

But he forced himself to watch her run back, race for the bank, leap, swing, and jump off, landing gracefully on her feet on the far side.

"Catch!"

He stuck his hand out, but he was watching Leslie and P. T. and not concentrating on the rope, which slipped off the end of his fingertips and swung in a large arc out of his reach.

He jumped and grabbed it, and shutting his mind to the sound and sight of the water, he ran back and then speeded forward.

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.

P. T. was on him immediately, muddy paws all over the beige raincoat, and pink tongue sandpapering Jess's wet face.

Leslie's eyes were sparkling.

"Arise" - he barely swallowed a giggle - "Arise, king of Terabithia, and let us proceed into our kingdom."

The king of Terabithia snuffled and wiped his face on the back of his hand.

"I will arise," he replied with dignity, "when thou removes this fool dog off my gut."

They went to Terabithia on Tuesday and again on Wednesday.

The rain continued sporadically, so that by Wednesday the creek had swollen to the trunk of the crab apple and they were running through ankle-deep water to make their flight into Terabithia.

And on the opposite bank Jess was more careful to land on his feet.

Sitting in cold wet britches for an hour was no fun even in a magic kingdom.

For Jess the fear of the crossing rose with the height of the creek.

Leslie never seemed to hesitate, so Jess could not hang back.

But even though he could force his body to follow after, his mind hung back, wanting to cling to the crab apple tree the way Joyce Ann might cling to Momma's skirt.

While they were sitting in the castle on Wednesday, it began suddenly to rain so hard that water came through the top of the shack in icy streams.

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

"Dost know what is in my mind, o king?" Leslie dumped the contents of one coffee can on the ground and put the can under the worst leak.

"What?"

"Methinks some evil being has put a curse on our beloved kingdom."

"Damn weather bureau." In the dim light he could see Leslie's face freeze into its most queenly pose - the kind of expression she usually reserved for vanquished enemies.

She didn't want to kid.

He instantly repented his unkingly manner.

Leslie chose to ignore it.

"Let us go even up into the sacred grove and inquire of the Spirits what this evil might be and how we must combat it.

For of a truth I perceive that this is no ordinary rain that is falling upon our kingdom."

"Right, queen," Jess mumbled and crawled out of the low entrance of the castle stronghold.

Under the pines even the rain lost its driving power.

Without the filtered light of the sun it was almost dark, and the sound of the rain hitting the pine branches high above their heads filled the grove with a weird, tuneless music.

Dread lay on Jess's stomach like a hunk of cold, undigested doughnut.

Leslie lifted her arms and face up toward the dark green canopy.

"O Spirits of the grove," she began solemnly.

"We are come on behalf of our beloved kingdom which lies even now under the spell of some evil, unknown force.

Give us, we beseech thee, wisdom to discern this evil, and power to overcome it." She nudged Jess with her elbow.

He raised his arms.

"Um. Uh." He felt the point of her sharp elbow again.

"Um. Yes. Please listen, thou Spirits."

She seemed satisfied.

At least she didn't poke him again.

She just stood there quietly as if she was listening respectfully to someone talking to her.

Jess was shivering, whether from the cold or the place, he didn't know.

But he was glad when she turned to leave the grove.

All he could think of was dry clothes and a cup of hot coffee and maybe just plunking down in front of the TV for a couple of hours.

He was obviously not worthy to be king of Terabithia.

Whoever heard of a king who was scared of tall trees and a little bit of water?

He swung across the creek almost too disgusted with himself to be afraid.

Halfway across he looked down and stuck his tongue out at the roaring below.

Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?

Tra-la-la-la-la, he said to himself, then quickly looked up again toward the crab apple tree.

Plodding up the hill through the mud and beaten-down grasses, he slammed his bare feet down hard.

Left, left, he addressed them inside his head.

Left my wife and forty-nine children without any gingerbread, think I did right?

Right.

Right by my . . .

"Why don't we change our clothes and watch TV or something over at your house?"

He felt like hugging her.

"I'll make us some coffee," he said joyfully.

"Yuk," she said smiling and began to run for the old Perkins place, that beautiful, graceful run of hers that neither mud nor water could defeat.

It had seemed to Jess when he went to bed Wednesday night that he could relax, that everything was going to be all right, but he awoke in the middle of the night with the horrible realization that it was still raining.

He would just have to tell Leslie that he wouldn't go to Terabithia.

After all, she had told him that when she was working on the house with Bill.

And he hadn't questioned her.

It wasn't so much that he minded telling Leslie that he was afraid to go; it was that he minded being afraid.

It was as though he had been made with a great piece missing - one of May Belle's puzzles with this huge gap where somebody's eye and cheek and jaw should have been.

Lord, it would be better to be born without an arm than to go through life with no guts.

He hardly slept the rest of the night, listening to the horrid rain and knowing that no matter how high the creek came, Leslie would still want to cross it.

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CHAPTER X. THE PERFECT DAY

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He heard his dad start the pickup.

Even though there was no job to go to, he left every morning early to look.

Sometimes he just hung around all day at the unemployment office; on lucky days he got picked up to unload furniture or do cleaning.

Jess was awake.

He might as well get up.

He could milk and feed Miss Bessie, and get that over with.

He pulled on a T-shirt and overalls over the underwear he slept in.

"Where you going?"

"Go back to sleep, May Belle."

"I can't. The rain makes too much noise."

"Well, get up then."

"Why are you so mean to me?"

"Will you shut up, May Belle?

You'll have everyone in the whole house woke up with that big mouth of yours." Joyce Ann would have screamed, but May Belle made a face.

"Oh, c'mon," he said.

"I'm just gonna milk Miss Bessie.

Then maybe we can watch cartoons if we keep the sound real low."

May Belle was as scrawny as Brenda was fat.

She stood a moment in the middle of the floor in her underwear, her skin white and goosebumpy.

Her eyes were still drooped from sleep, and her pale brown hair stuck up all over her head like a squirrel's nest on a winter branch.

That's got to be the world's ugliest kid, he thought, looking her over with genuine affection.

She threw her jeans into his face.

"I'm gonna tell Momma." He threw the jeans back at her.

"Tell Momma what?"

"How you just stand there staring at me when I ain't got my clothes on."

Lord.

She thought he was enjoying it.

"Yeah, well," he said, heading for the door so she wouldn't throw anything else at him.

"Pretty girl like you.

Can't hardly help myself." He could hear her giggling as he crossed the kitchen.

The shed was filled with Miss Bessie's familiar smell.

He clucked her gently over and set his stool at her flank and the pail beneath her speckled udder.

The rain pounded the metal roof of the shed so that the plink of milk in the pail set up a counter-rhythm.

If only it would stop raining.

He pressed his forehead against Miss Bessie's warm hide.

He wondered idly if cows were ever scared - really scared.

He had seen Miss Bessie jitter away from P.T., but that was different.

A yapping puppy at your heels is an immediate threat, but the difference between him and Miss Bessie was that when there was no P. T. in sight she was perfectly content, sleepily chewing her cud.

She wasn't staring down at the old Perkins place, wondering and worrying.

She wasn't standing there on her tippytoes while anxiety ate holes through all her stomachs.

He stroked his forehead across her flank and sighed.

If there was still water in the creek come summer, he'd ask Leslie to teach him how to swim.

How's that? he said to himself.

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

Maybe I'll even learn scuba diving.

He shuddered.

He may not have been born with guts, but he didn't have to die without them.

Hey, maybe you could go down to the Medical College and get a gut transplant.

No, Doc, I got me a perfectly good heart.

What I need is a gut transplant.

How 'bout it?

He smiled.

He'd have to tell Leslie about wanting a gut transplant.

It was the kind of nonsense she appreciated.

Of course - he broke the rhythm of the milking long enough to shove his hair out of his face - of course what I really need is a brain transplant.

I know Leslie.

I know she's not going to bite my head off or make fun of me if I say I don't want to go across again till the creek's down.

All I gotta do is say "Leslie, I don't wanta go over there today." Just like that.

Easy as pie.

"Leslie, I don't want to go over there today." "How come?" "How come.

Because, because, well because.

"I called ya three times already." May Belle was imitating Ellie's prissiest manner.

"Called me for what?"

"Some lady wants you on the telephone.

I had to get dressed to come get you."

He never got phone calls.

Leslie had called him exactly once, and Brenda had gone into such a song and dance with her about Jess's getting a call from his sweetheart that Leslie had decided it was simpler to come to the house and get him when she wanted to talk.

"Sounds kinda like Miss Edmunds."

It was Miss Edmunds.

"Jess?" her voice flowed through the receiver.

"Miserable weather, isn't it?"

"Yes'm." He was scared to Say more for fear she'd hear the shake.

"I was thinking of driving down to Washington - maybe go to the Smithsonian or the National Gallery.

How would you like to keep me company?"

He broke out in a cold sweat.

"Jess?"

He licked his lips and shoved his hair off his face.

"You still there, Jess?"

"Yes'm." He tried to get a deep breath so he could keep talking.

"Would you like to go with me?"

Lord.

"Yes'm."

"Do you need to get permission?" she asked gently.

"Yes - yes'm." He had somehow managed to twist himself up in the phone cord.

"Yes'm. Just-just a minute." He untangled himself, put the phone down quietly, and tiptoed into his parents' room.

His mother's back made a long hump under the cotton blanket.

He shook her shoulder very gently.

"Momma?" he was almost whispering.

He wanted to ask her without really waking her up.

She was likely to say no if she woke up and thought about it.

She jumped at the sound but relaxed again, not fully awake.

"Teacher wants me to go to Washington to the Smithsonian."

"Washington?" The syllables were blurred.

"Yeah. Something for school." He stroked her upper arm.

"Be back before too late. OK?"

"Don't worry.

I'm done milking."

"Umm." She pulled the blanket to her ears and turned on her stomach.

Jess crept back to the phone.

"It's OK, Miss Edmunds.

I can go."

"Great.

I'll pick you up in twenty minutes.

Just tell me how to get to your house."

As soon as he saw her car turn in, Jess raced out the kitchen door through the rain and met her halfway up the drive.

His mother could find out the details from May Belle after he was safely up the road.

He was glad May Belle was absorbed in the TV.

He didn't want her waking Momma up before he got away.

He was scared to look back even after he was in the car and on the main road for fear he'd see his mother screaming after him.

It didn't occur to him until the car was past Millsburg that he might have asked Miss Edmunds if Leslie could have come, too.

When he thought about it, he couldn't suppress a secret pleasure at being alone in this small cozy car with Miss Edmunds.

She drove intently, both hands gripping the top of the wheel, peering forward.

The wheels hummed and the windshield wipers slicked a merry rhythm.

The car was warm and filled with the smell of Miss Edmunds.

Jess sat with his hands clasped between his knees, the seat belt tight across his chest.

"Damn rain," she said.

"I was going stir crazy."

"Yes'm," he said happily.

"You, too, huh?" She gave him a quick smile.

He felt dizzy from the closeness.

He nodded.

"Have you ever been to the National Gallery?"

"No, ma'am." He had never even been to Washington before, but he hoped she wouldn't ask him that.

She smiled at him again.

"Is this your first trip to an art gallery?"

"Yes'm."

"Great," she said.

"My life has been worthwhile after all." He didn't understand her, but he didn't care.

He knew she was happy to be with him, and that was enough to know.

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.

Leslie had seen all these places a million times.

She had even gone to school with a girl whose father was a congressman.

He thought he might tell Miss Edmunds later that Leslie was a personal friend of a real congressman.

Miss Edmunds had always liked Leslie.

Entering the gallery was like stepping inside the pine grove - the huge vaulted marble, the cool splash of the fountain, and the green growing all around.

Two little children had pulled away from their mothers and were running about screaming to each other.

It was all Jess could do not to grab them and tell them how to behave in so obviously a sacred place.

And then the pictures - room after room, floor after floor.

He was drunk with color and form and hues - and with the voice and perfume of Miss Edmunds always beside him.

She would bend her head down close to his face to give some explanation or ask him a question, her black hair falling across her shoulder.

Men would stare at her instead of the pictures, and Jess felt they must be jealous of him for being with her.

They ate a late lunch in the cafeteria.

When she mentioned lunch, he realized with horror that he would need money, and he didn't know how to tell her that he hadn't brought any - didn't have any to bring, for that matter.

But before he had time to figure anything out, she said, "Now I'm not going to have any argument about whose paying.

I'm a liberated woman, Jess Aarons.

When I invite a man out, I pay."

He tried to think of some way to protest without ending up with the bill, but couldn't, and found himself getting a three-dollar meal, which was far more than he had meant to have her spend on him.

Tomorrow he would check out with Leslie how he should have handled things.

After lunch, they trotted through the drizzle to the Smithsonian to see the dinosaurs and the Indians.

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.

It was a three-dimensional nightmare version of some of his own drawings.

He felt a frightening sense of kinship with it.

"Fascinating, isn't it?" Miss Edmunds said, her hair brushing his cheek as she leaned over to look at it.

He touched his cheek.

"Yes'm." To himself he said, I don't think I like it, but he could hardly pull himself away.

When they came out of the building, it was into brilliant spring sunshine.

Jess blinked his eyes against the glare and the glisten.

"Wow!" Miss Edmunds said.

"A miracle!

Behold the sun!

I was beginning to think she had gone into a cave and vowed never to return, like the Japanese myth."

He felt good again.

All the way home in the sunshine Miss Edmunds told funny stories about going to college one year in Japan, where all the boys had been shorter than she, and she hadn't known how to use the toilets.

He relaxed.

He had so much to tell Leslie and ask her.

It didn't matter how angry his mother was.

She'd get over it.

And it was worth it. This one perfect day of his life was worth anything he had to pay.

One dip in the road before the old Perkins place, he said, "Just let me out at the road, Miss Edmunds.

Don't try to turn in.

You might get stuck in the mud."

"OK, Jess," she said.

She pulled over at his road.

"Thank you for a beautiful day."

The western sun danced on the windshield dazzling his eyes.

He turned and looked Miss Edmunds full in the face.

"No, ma'am." His voice sounded squeaky and strange.

He cleared his throat.

"No ma'am, thank you.

Well - " He hated to leave without being able to really thank her, but the words were not coming for him now.

Later, of course, they would, when he was lying in bed or sitting in the castle.

"Well - " He opened the door and got out.

"See you next Friday."

She nodded, smiling.

"See you."

He watched the car go out of sight and then turned and ran with all his might to the house, the joy jiggling inside of him so hard that he wouldn't have been surprised if his feet had just taken off from the ground the way they sometimes did in dreams and floated him right over the roof.

He was all the way into the kitchen before he realized that something was wrong.

His dad's pickup had been outside the door, but he hadn't taken it in until he came into the room and found them all sitting there: his parents and the little girls at the kitchen table and Ellie and Brenda on the couch.

Not eating.

There was no food on the table.

Not watching TV.

It wasn't even turned on.

He stood unmoving for a second while they stared at him.

Suddenly his mother let out a great shuddering sob.

"O my God.

O my God." She said it over and over, her head down on her arms.

His father moved to put his arm around her awkwardly, but he didn't take his eyes off Jess.

"I told ya he just gone off somewhere," May Belle said quietly and stubbornly as though she had repeated it often and no one had believed her.

He squinted his eyes as though trying to peer down a dark drain pipe.

He didn't even know what question to ask them.

"What - ?" he tried to begin.

Brenda's pouting voice broke in, "Your girl friend's dead, and Momma thought you was dead, too."

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CHAPTER XI. NO!

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Something whirled around inside Jess's head.

He opened his mouth, but it was dry and no words came out.

He jerked his head from one face to the next for someone to help him.

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

"They found the Burke girl this morning down in the creek."

"No," he said, finding his voice.

Leslie wouldn't drown.

She could swim real good."

"That old rope you kids been swinging on broke." His father went quietly and relentlessly on.

"They think she musta hit her head on something when she fell."

"No." He shook his head.

"No."

His father looked up.

"I'm real sorry, boy."

"No!" Jess was yelling now.

"I don't believe you.

You're lying to me!" He looked around again wildly for someone to agree.

But they all had their heads down except May Belle, whose eyes were wide with terror.

But, Leslie, what if you die?

"No," he said straight at May Belle.

"It's a lie.

Leslie ain't dead." He turned around and ran out the door, letting the screen bang sharply against the house.

He ran down the gravel to the main road and then started running west away from Washington and Millsburg - and the old Perkins place.

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

Leslie-dead-girl-friend-rope-broke-fell-you-you-you.

The words exploded in his head like corn against the sides of the popper.

God-dead-you-Leslie-dead-you.

He ran until he was stumbling but he kept on, afraid to stop.

Knowing somehow that running was the only thing that could keep Leslie from being dead.

It was up to him.

He had to keep going.

Behind him came the baripity of the pickup, but he couldn't turn around.

He tried to run faster, but his father passed him and stopped the pickup just ahead, then jumped out and ran back.

He picked Jess up in his arms as though he were a baby.

For the first few seconds Jess kicked and struggled against the strong arms.

Then Jess gave himself over to the numbness that was buzzing to be let out from a corner of his brain.

He leaned his weight upon the door of the pickup and let his head thud - thud against the window.

His father drove stiffly without speaking, though once he cleared his throat as though he were going to say something, but he glanced at Jess and closed his mouth.

When they pulled up at his house, his father sat quietly, and Jess could feel the man's uncertainty, so he opened the door and got out, and with the numbness flooding through him, went in and lay down on his bed.

He was awake, jerked suddenly into consciousness in the black stillness of the house.

He sat up, stiff and shivering, although he was fully dressed from his windbreaker down to his sneakers.

He could hear the breathing of the little girls in the next bed, strangely loud and uneven in the quiet.

Some dream must have awakened him, but he could not remember it.

He could only remember the mood of dread it had brought with it.

Through the curtainless window he could see the lopsided moon with hundreds of stars dancing in bright attendance.

It came into his mind that someone had told him that Leslie was dead.

But he knew now that that had been part of the dreadful dream.

Leslie could not die any more than he himself could die.

But the words turned over uneasily in his mind like leaves stirred up by a cold wind.

If he got up now and went down to the old Perkins place and knocked on the door, Leslie would come to open it, P. T. jumping at her heels like a star around the moon.

It was a beautiful night.

Perhaps they could run over the hill and across the fields to the stream and swing themselves into Terabithia.

They had never been there in the dark.

But there was enough moon for them to find their way into the castle, and he could tell her about his day in Washington.

And apologize.

It had been so dumb of him not to ask if Leslie could go, too.

He and Leslie and Miss Edmunds could have had a wonderful day - different, of course, from the day he and Miss Edmunds had had, but still good, still perfect.

Miss Edmunds and Leslie liked each other a lot.

It would have been fun to have Leslie along.

I'm really sorry, Leslie.

He took off his jacket and sneakers, and crawled under the covers.

I was dumb not to think of asking.

S'OK, Leslie would say.

I've been to Washington thousands of times.

Did you ever see the buffalo hunt?

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.

His stomach felt suddenly cold.

It had something to do with the buffalo, with falling, with death.

With the reason he had not remembered to ask if Leslie could go with them to Washington today.

You know something weird?

What? Leslie asked.

I was scared to come to Terabithia this morning.

The coldness threatened to spread up from his stomach.

He turned over and lay on it.

Perhaps it would be better not to think about Leslie right now.

He would go to see her the first thing in the morning and explain everything.

He could explain it better in the daytime when he had shaken off the effects of his unremembered nightmare.

He put his mind to remembering the day in Washington, working on details of pictures and statues, dredging up the sound of Miss Edmunds' voice, recalling his own exact words and her exact answers.

Occasionally into the corner of his mind's vision would come a sensation of falling, but he pushed it away with the view of another picture or the sound of another conversation.

Tomorrow he must share it all with Leslie.

The next thing he was aware of was the sun streaming through the window.

The little girls' bed was only rumpled covers, and there was movement and quiet talking from the kitchen.

Lord!

Poor Miss Bessie.

He'd forgotten all about her last night, and now it must be late.

He felt for his sneakers and shoved his feet over the heels without tying the laces.

His mother looked up quickly from the stove at the sound of him.

Her face was set for a question, but she just nodded her head at him.

The coldness began to come back.

"I forgot Miss Bessie."

"Your daddy's milking her."

"I forgot last night, too."

She kept nodding her head.

"Your daddy did it for you." But it wasn't an accusation.

"You feel like some breakfast?"

Maybe that was why his stomach felt so odd.

He hadn't had anything to eat since the ice cream Miss Edmunds had bought them at Millsburg on the way home.

Brenda and Ellie stared up at him from the table.

The little girls turned from their cartoon show at the TV to look at him and then turned quickly back.

He sat down on the bench.

His mother put a plateful of pancakes in front of him.

He couldn't remember the last time she had made pancakes.

He doused them with syrup and began to eat.

They tasted marvelous.

"You don't even care, do you?" Brenda was watching him from across the table.

He looked at her puzzled, his mouth full.

"If Jimmy Dicks died, I wouldn't be able to eat a bite."

The coldness curled up inside of him and flopped over.

"Will you shut your mouth, Brenda Aarons?" His mother sprang forward, the pancake turner held threateningly high.

"Well, Momma, he's just sitting there eating pancakes like nothing happened.

I'd be crying my eyes out."

Ellie was looking first at Mrs. Aarons and then at Brenda.

"Boys ain't supposed to cry at times like this.

Are they, Momma?"

"Well, it don't seem right for him to be sitting there eating like a brood sow."

"I'm telling you, Brenda, if you don't shut your mouth . . ." He could hear them talking but they were farther away than the memory of the dream.

He ate and he chewed and he swallowed, and when his mother put three more pancakes on his plate, he ate them, too.

His father came in with the milk.

He poured it carefully into the empty cider jugs and put them into the refrigerator.

Then he washed his hands at the sink and came to the table.

As he passed Jess, he put his hand lightly on the boy's shoulder.

He wasn't angry about the milking.

Jess was only dimly aware that his parents were looking at each other and then at him.

Mrs. Aarons gave Brenda a hard look and gave Mr. Aarons a look which was to say that Brenda was to be kept quiet, but Jess was only thinking of how good the pancakes had been and hoping his mother would put down some more in front of him.

He knew somehow that he shouldn't ask for more, but he was disappointed that she didn't give him any.

He thought, then, that he should get up and leave the table, but he wasn't sure where he was supposed to go or what he was supposed to do.

"Your mother and I thought we ought to go down to the neighbors and pay respects." His father cleared his throat.

"I think it would be fitting for you to come, too." He stopped again.

"Seeing's you was the one that really knowed the little girl."

Jess tried to understand what his father was saying to him, but he felt stupid.

"What little girl?" He mumbled it, knowing it was the wrong thing to ask.

Ellie and Brenda both gasped.

His father leaned down the table and put his big hand on top of Jess's hand.

He gave his wife a quick, troubled look.

But she just stood there, her eyes full of pain, saying nothing.

"Your friend Leslie is dead, Jesse.

You need to understand that."

Jess slid his hand out from under his father's.

He got up from the table.

"I know it ain't a easy thing - " Jess could hear his father speaking as he went into the bedroom.

He came back out with his windbreaker on.

"You ready to go now?" His father got up quickly.

His mother took off her apron and patted her hair.

May Belle jumped up from the rug.

"I wanta go, too," she said.

"I never seen a dead person before."

"No!" May Belle sat down again as though slapped down by her mother's voice.

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

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CHAPTER XII. STRANDED

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

There were four or five cars parked outside.

His father raised the knocker.

Jess could hear P. T. barking from the back of the house and rushing to the door.

"Hush, P. T.," a voice which Jess did not know said.

"Down." The door was opened by a man who was half leaning over to hold the dog back.

At the sight of Jess, P. T. snatched himself loose and leapt joyfully upon the boy.

Jess picked him up and rubbed the back of the dog's neck as he used to when P. T. was a tiny puppy.

"I see he knows you," the strange man said with a funny half smile on his face.

"Come in, won't you." He stood back for the three of them to enter.

They went into the golden room, and it was just the same, except more beautiful because the sun was pouring through the south windows.

Four or five people Jess had never seen before were sitting about, whispering some, but mostly not talking at all.

There was no place to sit down, but the strange man was bringing chairs from the dining room.

The three of them sat down stiffly and waited, not knowing what to wait for.

An older woman got up slowly from the couch and came over to Jess's mother.

Her eyes were red under her perfectly white hair.

"I'm Leslie's grandmother," she said, putting out her hand.

His mother took it awkwardly.

"Miz Aarons," she said in a low voice.

"From up the hill."

Leslie's grandmother shook his mother's and then his father's hands.

"Thank you for coming," she said.

Then she turned to Jess.

"You must be Jess," she said.

Jess nodded.

"Leslie - " Her eyes filled up with tears.

"Leslie told me about you."

For a minute Jess thought she was going to say something else.

He didn't want to look at her, so he gave himself over to rubbing P. T., who was hanging across his lap.

"I'm sorry - " Her voice broke.

"I can't bear it." The man who had opened the door came up and put his arm around her.

As he was leading her out of the room, Jess could hear her crying.

He was glad she was gone.

There was something weird about a woman like that crying.

It was as if the lady who talked about Polident on TV had suddenly burst into tears.

It didn't fit.

He looked around at the room full of red-eyed adults.

Look at me, he wanted to say to them.

I'm not crying.

A part of him stepped back and examined this thought.

He was the only person his age he knew whose best friend had died.

It made him important.

The kids at school Monday would probably whisper around him and treat him with respect - the way they'd all treated Billy Joe Weems last year after his father had been killed in a car crash.

He wouldn't have to talk to anybody if he didn't want to, and all the teachers would be especially nice to him.

Momma would even make the girls be nice to him.

He had a sudden desire to see Leslie laid out.

He wondered if she were back in the library or in Millsburg at one of the funeral parlors.

Would they bury her in blue jeans?

Or maybe that blue jumper and the flowery blouse she'd worn at Easter.

That would be nice.

People might snicker at the blue jeans, and he didn't want anyone to snicker at Leslie when she was dead.

Bill came into the room.

P. T. slid off Jess's lap and went to him.

The man leaned down and rubbed the dog's back.

Jess stood up.

"Jess." Bill came over to him and put his arms around him as though he had been Leslie instead of himself.

Bill held him close, so that a button on his sweater was pressing painfully into Jess's forehead, but as uncomfortable as he was, Jess didn't move.

He could feel Bill's body shaking, and he was afraid that if he looked up he would see Bill crying, too.

He didn't want to see Bill crying.

He wanted to get out of this house.

It was smothering him.

Why wasn't Leslie here to help him out of this?

Why didn't she come running in and make everyone laugh again?

You think it's so great to die and make everyone cry and carry on.

Well, it ain't.

"She loved you, you know." He could tell from Bill's voice that he was crying.

"She told me once that if it weren't for you . . ." His voice broke completely.

"Thank you," he said a moment later.

"Thank you for being such a wonderful friend to her."

Bill didn't sound like himself.

He sounded like someone in an old mushy movie.

The kind of person Leslie and Jess would laugh at and imitate later.

Boo-hooooooo, you were such a wonderful friend to her.

He couldn't help moving back, just enough to get his forehead off the stupid button.

To his relief, Bill let go.

He heard his father ask Bill quietly over his head about "the service."

And Bill answering quietly almost in his regular voice that they had decided to have the body cremated and were going to take the ashes to his family home in Pennsylvania tomorrow.

Cremated.

Something clicked inside Jess's head.

That meant Leslie was gone.

Turned to ashes.

He would never see her again.

Not even dead.

Never.

How could they dare?

Leslie belonged to him.

More to him than anyone in the world.

No one had even asked him.

No one had even told him.

And now he was never going to see her again, and all they could do was cry.

Not for Leslie.

They weren't crying for Leslie.

They were crying for themselves.

Just themselves.

If they'd cared at all for Leslie, they would have never brought her to this rotten place.

He had to hold tightly to his hands for fear he might sock Bill in the face.

He, Jess, was the only one who really cared for Leslie.

But Leslie had failed him.

She went and died just when he needed her the most.

She went and left him.

She went swinging on that rope just to show him that she was no coward.

So there, Jess Aarons.

She was probably somewhere right now laughing at him.

Making fun of him like he was Mrs. Myers.

She had tricked him.

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.

Alone.

He was never sure later just when he left the old Perkins place, but he remembered running up the hill toward his own house with angry tears streaming down his face.

He banged through the door.

May Belle was standing there, her brown eyes wide.

"Did you see her?" she asked excitedly.

"Did you see her laid out?"

He hit her.

In the face.

As hard as he had ever hit anything in his life.

She stumbled backward from him with a little yelp.

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.

Ellie was standing in the bedroom door fussing at him.

He pushed past her.

From the couch Brenda, too, was complaining, but the only sound that really entered his head was that of May Belle whimpering.

He ran out the kitchen door and down the field all the way to the stream without looking back.

The stream was a little lower than it had been when he had seen it last.

Above from the crab apple tree the frayed end of the rope swung gently.

I am now the fastest runner in the fifth grade.

He screamed something without words and flung the papers and paints into the dirty brown water.

The paints floated on top, riding the current like a boat, but the papers swirled about, soaking in the muddy water, being sucked down, around, and down.

He watched them all disappear.

Gradually his breath quieted, and his heart slowed from its wild pace.

The ground was still muddy from the rains, but he sat down anyway.

There was nowhere to go.

Nowhere.

Ever again.

He put his head down on his knee.

"That was a damn fool thing to do." His father sat down on the dirt beside him.

"I don't care.

I don't care." He was crying now, crying so hard he could barely breathe.

His father pulled Jess over on his lap as though he were Joyce Ann.

"There.

There," he said, patting his head.

"Shhh.

Shhh."

"I hate her," Jess said through his sobs.

"I hate her.

I wish I'd never seen her in my whole life."

His father stroked his hair without speaking.

Jess grew quiet.

They both watched the water.

Finally his father said, "Hell, ain't it?" It was the kind of thing Jess could hear his father saying to another man.

He found it strangely comforting, and it made him bold.

"Do you believe people go to hell, really go to hell, I mean?"

"You ain't worrying about Leslie Burke?"

It did seem peculiar, but still - "Well, May Belle said . . ."

"May Belle? May Belle ain't God."

"Yeah, but how do you know what God does?"

"Lord, boy, don't be a fool.

God ain't gonna send any little girls to hell."

He had never in his life thought of Leslie Burke as a little girl, but still God was sure to.

She wouldn't have been eleven until November.

They got up and began to walk up the hill.

"I didn't mean that about hating her," he said.

"I don't know what made me say that." His father nodded to show he understood.

Everyone, even Brenda, was gentle to him.

Everyone except May Belle, who hung back as though afraid to have anything to do with him.

He wanted to tell her he was sorry, but he couldn't.

He was too tired.

He couldn't just say the words.

He had to make it up to her, and he was too tired to figure out how.

That afternoon Bill came up to the house.

They were about to leave for Pennsylvania, and he wondered if Jess would take care of the dog until they got back.

"Sure." He was glad Bill wanted him to help.

He was afraid he had hurt Bill by running away this morning.

He wanted, too, to know that Bill didn't blame him for anything.

But it was not the kind of question he could put into words.

He held P. T. and waved as the dusty little Italian car turned into the main road.

He thought he saw them wave back, but it was too far away to be sure.

His mother had never allowed him to have a dog, but she made no objection to P. T. being in the house.

P. T. jumped up on his bed, and he slept all night with P.T.'s body curled against his chest.

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CHAPTER XIII. BUILDING THE BRIDGE

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He woke up Saturday morning with a dull headache.

It was still early, but he got up.

He wanted to do the milking.

His father had done it ever since Thursday night, but he wanted to go back to it, to somehow make things normal again.

He shut P. T. in the shed, and the dog's whimpering reminded him of May Belle and made his headache worse.

But he couldn't have P. T. yapping at Miss Bessie while he tried to milk.

No one was awake when he brought the milk in to put it away, so he poured a warm glass for himself and got a couple of pieces of light bread.

He wanted his paints back, and he decided to go down and see if he could find them.

He let P. T. out of the shed and gave the dog a half piece of bread.

It was a beautiful spring morning.

Early wild flowers were dotting the deep green of the fields, and the sky was clean and blue.

The creek had fallen well below the bank and seemed less terrifying than before.

A large branch was washed up into the bank, and he hauled it up to the narrowest place and laid it bank to bank.

He stepped on it, and it seemed firm, so he crossed on it, foot over foot, to the other side, grabbing the smaller branches which grew out from the main one toward the opposite bank to keep his balance.

There was no sign of his paints.

He landed slightly upstream from Terabithia.

If it was still Terabithia.

If it could be entered across a branch instead of swung into.

P. T. was left crying piteously on the other side.

Then the dog took courage and paddled across the stream.

The current carried him past Jess, but he made it safely to the bank and ran back, shaking great drops of cold water on Jess.

They went into the castle stronghold.

It was dark and damp, but there was no evidence there to suggest that the queen had died.

He felt the need to do something fitting.

But Leslie was not here to tell him what it was.

The anger which had possessed him yesterday flared up again.

Leslie, I'm just a dumb dodo, and you know it.

What am I supposed to do?

The coldness inside of him had moved upward into his throat constricting it.

He swallowed several times.

It occurred to him that he probably had cancer of the throat.

Wasn't that one of the seven deadly signs?

Difficulty in swallowing.

He began to sweat.

He didn't want to die.

Lord, he was just ten years old.

He had hardly begun to live.

Leslie, were you scared?

Did you know you were dying?

Were you scared like me?

A picture of Leslie being sucked into the cold water flashed across his brain.

"C'mon, Prince Terrien," he said quite loudly.

"We must make a funeral wreath for the queen."

He sat in the clear space between the bank and the first line of trees and bent a pine bough into a circle, tying it with a piece of wet string from the castle.

And because it looked cold and green, he picked spring beauties from the forest floor and wove them among the needles.

He put it down in front of him.

A cardinal flew down to the bank, cocked its brilliant head, and seemed to stare at the wreath.

P. T. let out a growl which sounded more like a purr.

Jess put his hand on the dog to quiet him.

The bird hopped about a moment more, then flew leisurely away.

"It's a sign from the Spirits," Jess said quietly.

"We made a worthy offering."

He walked slowly, as part of a great procession, though only the puppy could be seen, slowly forward carrying the queen's wreath to the sacred grove.

He forced himself deep into the dark center of the grove and, kneeling, laid the wreath upon the thick carpet of golden needles.

"Father, into Thy hands I commend her spirit."

He knew Leslie would have liked those words.

They had the ring of the sacred grove in them.

The solemn procession wound its way through the sacred grove homeward to the castle.

Like a single bird across a stormcloud sky, a tiny peace winged its way through the chaos inside his body.

"Help! Jesse! Help me!" A scream shattered the quietness.

Jess raced to the sound of May Belle's cry.

She had gotten halfway across on the tree bridge and now stood there grabbing the upper branches, terrified to move either forward or backward.

"OK, May Belle." The words came out more steadily than he felt.

"Just hold still.

I'll get you." He was not sure the branch would hold the weight of them both.

He looked down at the water.

It was low enough for him to walk across, but still swift.

Suppose it swept him off his feet.

He decided for the branch.

He inched out on it until he was close enough to touch her.

He'd have to get her back to the home side of the creek.

"OK," he said.

"Now, back up."

"I can't!"

"I'm right here, May Belle.

You think I'm gonna let you fall?

Here." He put out his right hand.

"Hold on to me and slide sideways on the thing."

She let go with her left hand for a moment and then grabbed the branch again.

"I'm scared, Jesse.

I'm too scared."

"'Course you're scared.

Anybody'd be scared.

You just gotta trust me, OK?

I'm not gonna let you fall, May Belle.

I promise you."

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

Jess gripped her tightly.

"OK, now.

It ain't far - just slide your right foot a little way, then bring your left foot up close."

"I forgot which is right."

"The front one," he said patiently.

"The one closest to home."

She nodded again and obediently moved her right foot a few inches.

"Now just let go of the branch with your other hand and hold on to me tight."

She let go the branch and squeezed his hand.

"Good.

You're doing great.

Now slide a little ways more." She swayed but did not scream, just dug her little fingernails into the palm of his hand.

"Great.

Fine.

You're all right." The same quiet, assuring voice of the paramedics on Emergency, but his heart was banging against his chest.

"OK. OK. A little bit more, now."

When her right foot came at last to the part of the branch which rested on the bank, she fell forward, pulling him down.

"Watch it, May Belle!" He was off balance, but he fell, not into the stream, but with his chest across May Belle's legs, his own legs waving in the empty air above the water.

"Whew!" He was laughing with relief.

"Whatcha trying to do, girl, kill me?"

She shook her head a solemn no.

"I know I swore on the Bible not to follow you, but I woke up this morning and you was gone."

"I had to do some things."

She was scraping at the mud on her bare legs.

"I just wanted to find you, so you wouldn't be so lonesome." She hung her head.

"But I got too scared."

He pulled himself around until he was sitting beside her.

They watched P. T. swimming across, the current carrying him too swiftly, but he not seeming to mind.

He climbed out well below the crab apple and came running back to where they sat.

"Everybody gets scared sometimes, May Belle.

You don't have to be ashamed." He saw a flash of Leslie's eyes as she was going in to the girls' room to see Janice Avery.

"Everybody gets scared."

"P. T. ain't scared, and he even saw Leslie."

"It ain't the same for dogs.

It's like the smarter you are, the more things can scare you."

She looked at him in disbelief.

"But you weren't scared."

"Lord, May Belle, I was shaking like Jello."

"You're just saying that."

He laughed.

He couldn't help being glad she didn't believe him.

He jumped up and pulled her to her feet.

"Let's go eat." He let her beat him to the house.

When he walked into the basement classroom, he saw Mrs. Myers had already had Leslie's desk taken out of the front of the room.

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Of course, by Monday Jess knew; but still, but still, at the bus stop he looked up, half expecting to see her running up across the field, her lovely, even, rhythmic run.

Maybe she was already at school - Bill had dropped her off, as he did some days when she was late for the bus - but then when Jess came into the room, her desk was no longer there.

Why were they all in such a rush to be rid of her?

He put his head down on his own desk, his whole body heavy and cold.

He could hear the sounds of the whispers but not the words.

Not that he wanted to hear the words.

He was suddenly ashamed that he'd thought he might be regarded with respect by the other kids.

Trying to profit for himself from Leslie's death.

I wanted to be the best - the fastest runner in the school and now I am.

Lord, he made himself sick.

He didn't care what the others said or what they thought, just as long as they left him alone - just so long as he didn't have to talk to them or meet their stares.

They had all hated Leslie.

Except maybe Janice.

Even after they'd given up trying to make Leslie miserable, they'd kept on despising her - as though there was one of them worth the nail on Leslie's little toe.

And even he himself had entertained the traitorous thought that now he would be the fastest.

Mrs. Myers barked the command to stand for the allegiance.

He didn't move.

Whether he couldn't or wouldn't, he didn't really care.

What could she do to him, after all?

"Jesse Aarons. Will you step out into the hall.

Please."

He raised his leaden body and stumbled out of the room.

He thought he heard Gary Fulcher giggle, but he couldn't be sure.

He leaned against the wall and waited for Monster Mouth Myers to finish singing "O Say Can You See?" and join him.

He could hear her giving the class some sort of assignment in arithmetic before she came out and quietly closed the door behind her.

OK. Shoot. I don't care.

She came over so close to him that he could smell her dime-store powder.

"Jesse." Her voice was softer than he had ever heard it, but he didn't answer.

Let her yell.

He was used to that.

"Jesse," she repeated.

"I just want to give you my sincere sympathy." The words were like a Hallmark card, but the tone was new to him.

He looked up into her face, despite himself.

Behind her turned-up glasses, Mrs. Myers' narrow eyes were full of tears.

For a minute he thought he might cry himself.

He and Mrs. Myers standing in the basement hallway, crying over Leslie Burke.

It was so weird he almost laughed instead.

"When my husband died" - Jess could hardly imagine Mrs. Myers ever having had a husband - "people kept telling me not to cry, kept trying to make me forget." Mrs. Myers loving, mourning.

How could you picture it?

"But I didn't want to forget." She took her handkerchief from her sleeve and blew her nose.

"Excuse me," she said.

"This morning when I came in, someone had already taken out her desk." She stopped and blew her nose again.

"It-it-we-I never had such a student.

In all my years of teaching.

I shall always be grateful - "

He wanted to comfort her.

He wanted to unsay all the things he had said about her - even unsay the things Leslie had said.

Lord, don't let her ever find out.

"So - I realize.

If it's hard for me, how much harder it must be for you.

Let's try to help each other, shall we?"

"Yes'm." He couldn't think of anything else to say.

Maybe some day when he was grown, he would write her a letter and tell her that Leslie Burke had thought she was a great teacher or something.

Leslie wouldn't mind.

Sometimes like the Barbie doll you need to give people something that's for them, not just something that makes you feel good giving it.

Because Mrs. Myers had helped him already by understanding that he would never forget Leslie.

He thought about it all day, how before Leslie came, he had been a nothing - a stupid, weird little kid who drew funny pictures and chased around a cow field trying to act big - trying to hide a whole mob of foolish little fears running riot inside his gut.

It was Leslie who had taken him from the cow pasture into Terabithia and turned him into a king.

He had thought that was it.

Wasn't king the best you could be?

Now it occurred to him that perhaps Terabithia was like a castle where you came to be knighted.

After you stayed for a while and grew strong you had to move on.

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?

(Handle with care - everything - even the predators.)

Now it was time for him to move out.

She wasn't there, so he must go for both of them.

It was up to him to pay back to the world in beauty and caring what Leslie had loaned him in vision and strength.

As for the terrors ahead - for he did not fool himself that they were all behind him - well, you just have to stand up to your fear and not let it squeeze you white.

Right, Leslie?

Right.

Bill and Judy came back from Pennsylvania on Wednesday with a U-Haul truck.

No one ever stayed long in the old Perkins place.

"We came to the country for her sake.

Now that she's gone . . ." They gave Jesse all of Leslie's books and her paint set with three pads of real watercolor paper.

"She would want you to have them," Bill said.

Jess and his dad helped them load the U-Haul, and noon-time his mother brought down ham sandwiches and coffee, a little scared the Burkes wouldn't want to eat her food, but needing, Jess knew, to do something.

At last the truck was filled, and the Aaronses and the Burkes stood around awkwardly, no one knowing how to say good-bye.

"Well," Bill said.

"If there's anything we've left, that you want, please help yourself."

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

"Yes, of course.

Anything you see." Bill hesitated, then continued.

"I meant to give you P. T.," he said.

"But" - he looked at Jess and his eyes were those of a pleading little boy - "but I can't seem to give him up."

"It's OK.

Leslie would want you to keep him."

The next day after school, Jess went down and got the lumber he needed, carrying it a couple of boards at a time to the creek bank.

He put the two longest pieces across at the narrow place upstream from the crab apple tree, and when he was sure they were as firm and even as he could make them, he began to nail on the crosspieces.

"Whatcha doing, Jess?" May Belle had followed him down again as he had guessed she might.

"It's a secret, May Belle."

"Tell me."

"When I finish, OK?"

"I swear on the Bible I won't tell nobody.

Not Billy Jean, not Joyce Ann, not Momma - " She was jerking her head back and forth in solemn emphasis.

"Oh, I don't know about Joyce Ann.

You might want to tell Joyce Ann sometime."

"Tell Joyce Ann something that's a secret between you and me?" The idea seemed to horrify her.

"Yeah, I was just thinking about it."

Her face sagged.

"Joyce Ann ain't nothing but a baby."

"Well, she wouldn't likely be a queen first off.

You'd have to train her and stuff."

"Queen? Who gets to be queen?"

"I'll explain it when I finish, OK?"

And when he finished, he put flowers in her hair and led her across the bridge - the great bridge into Terabithia - which might look to someone with no magic in him like a few planks across a nearly dry gully.

"Shhh," he said.

"Look."

"Where?"

"Can't you see 'em?" he whispered.

"All the Terabithians standing on tiptoe to see you.

"Me?"

"Shhh, yes.

There's a rumor going around that the beautiful girl arriving today might be the queen they've been waiting for."

THE END.