Bridge to Terabithia (6 page)

Leslie's favorite place besides the castle stronghold was the pine forest. There the trees grew so thick at the top that the sunshine was veiled. No low bush or grass could grow in that dim light, so the ground was carpeted with golden needles.

“I used to think this place was haunted,” Jess had confessed to Leslie the first afternoon he had revved up his courage to bring her there.

“Oh, but it is,” she said. “But you don't have to be scared. It's not haunted with evil things.”

“How do you know?”

“You can just feel it. Listen.”

At first he heard only the stillness. It was the stillness that had always frightened him before, but this time it was like the moment after Miss Edmunds finished a song, just after the chords hummed down to silence. Leslie was right. They stood there, not moving, not wanting the swish of dry needles
beneath their feet to break the spell. Far away from their former world came the cry of geese heading southward.

Leslie took a deep breath. “This is not an ordinary place,” she whispered. “Even the rulers of Terabithia come into it only at times of greatest sorrow or of greatest joy. We must strive to keep it sacred. It would not do to disturb the Spirits.”

He nodded, and without speaking, they went back to the creek bank where they shared together a solemn meal of crackers and dried fruit.

Leslie liked to make up stories about the giants that threatened the peace of Terabithia, but they both knew that the real giant in their lives was Janice Avery. Of course, it wasn't only Jess and Leslie that she was after. She had two friends, Wilma Dean and Bobby Sue Henshaw, who were almost as big as she was, and the three of them would roam the playground, grabbing up hopscotch rocks, running through jump ropes, and laughing while second graders screamed. They would even stand outside the girls' room first thing every morning and make the little girls give them their milk money before they'd let them go to the bathroom.

May Belle, unfortunately, was a slow learner. Her daddy had brought her a package of Twinkies, and
she was so proud that as soon as she got on the bus she forgot everything she knew and yelled to another first grader, “Guess what I got in my lunch today, Billy Jean?”

“What?”

“Twinkies!” she shouted so loud you could have heard her in the back seat even if you were deaf in both ears. Out of the corner of his eye, Jess thought he saw Janice Avery perk up.

When they sat down, May Belle was still screeching about her dadgum Twinkies over the roar of the motor. “My daddy brung 'um to me from Washington!”

Jess threw another look at the back seat. “You better shut up about those dang Twinkies,” he said in her ear.

“You just jealous 'cause Daddy didn't bring you none.”

“OK.” He shrugged across her head at Leslie to say
I warned her, didn't I
? and Leslie nodded back.

Neither of them was too surprised to see May Belle come screaming toward them at recess time.

“She stole my Twinkies!”

Jess sighed. “May Belle, didn't I tell you?”

“You gotta kill Janice Avery. Kill her! Kill her! Kill her!”

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

“You gotta beat her up into a million pieces!”

He'd sooner tangle with Mrs. Godzilla herself. “Fighting ain't gonna get back nothing, May Belle. Them Twinkies is well on the way to padding Janice Avery's bottom by now.”

Leslie snickered, but May Belle was not to be distracted. “You're just yeller, Jesse Aarons. If you wasn't yeller, you'd beat somebody up if they took your little sister's Twinkies.” She broke into a fresh round of sobbing.

Jess stiffened. He avoided Leslie's eyes. Lord, there was no escape. He'd have to fight the female gorilla now.

“Look, May Belle,” Leslie was saying. “If Jess picks a fight with Janice Avery, you know perfectly well what will happen.”

May Belle wiped her nose on the back of her hand. “She'll beat him up.”

“Noooo.
He'll
get kicked out of school for fighting a girl. You know how Mr. Turner is about boys who pick on girls.”

“She stole my Twinkies.”

“I know she did, May Belle. And Jess and I are going to figure out a way to pay her back for it. Aren't we Jess?”

He nodded vigorously. Anything was better than promising to fight Janice Avery.

“Whatcha gonna do?”

“I don't know yet. We'll have to plan it out very carefully, but I promise you, May Belle, we'll get her.”

“Cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die?”

Leslie solemnly crossed her heart. May Belle turned expectantly to Jess, so he crossed his, too, trying hard not to feel like a fool, crossing his heart to a first grader in the middle of the playground.

May Belle snuffled loudly. “It ain't as good as seeing her beat to a million pieces.”

“No,” said Leslie, “I'm sure it isn't, but with Mr. Turner running this school, it's the best we can do, right, Jess?”

“Right.”

 

That afternoon, crouched in the stronghold of Terabithia, they held a council of war. How to get Janice Avery without ending up squashed or suspended—that was their problem.

“Maybe we could get her caught doing something.” Leslie was trying out another idea after they had both rejected putting honey on her bus seat and glue in her hand lotion. “You know she smokes in the girls' room. If we could just get Mr. Turner to walk past while the smoke is pouring out—”

Jess shook his head hopelessly. “It wouldn't take her five minutes to find out who squawked.” There was a moment of silence while they both considered what Janice Avery might do to anyone who reported her to the principal. “We gotta get her without her knowing who done it.”

“Yeah.” Leslie chewed away at a dried apricot. “You know what girls like Janice hate most?”

“What?”

“Being made a fool of.”

Jess remembered how Janice had looked that day he'd made everyone laugh at her on the bus. Leslie
was right. There was a crack in the old hippo hide. “Yeah.” He nodded, beginning to smile. “Yeah. Do we get her about being fat?”

“How about,” Leslie began slowly, “how about boys? Who's she stuck on?”

“Willard Hughes, I reckon. Every girl in the seventh grade slides to the ground when he walks by.”

“Yeah.” Leslie's eyes were shining. The plan came all in a rush. “We write her a note, you see, and pretend it's from Willard.”

Jess was already getting a pencil from the can and yanking a piece of notebook paper out from under a rock. He handed them to Leslie.

“No, you write. My handwriting is too good for Willard Hughes.”

He got set and waited.

“OK,” she said. “Um. ‘Dear Janice.' No. ‘Dearest Janice.'”

Jess hesitated, doubtful.

“Believe me, Jess. She'll eat it up. OK. ‘Dearest Janice.' Don't worry about punctuation or anything. We have to make it look as if Willard Hughes really wrote it. OK. ‘Dearest Janice, Maybe you
won't believe me, but I love you.'”

“You think she'll…?” he asked as he wrote it down.

“I told you, she'll eat it up. Girls like Janice Avery believe just what they want to in this kind of situation. OK, now. ‘If you say you do not love me, it will break my heart. So please don't. If you love me as much as I love you, my darling—'”

“Hold it. I can't write that fast.”

Leslie waited, and when he looked up, she continued in a moony voice, “‘Meet me behind the school this afternoon after school. Do not worry about missing your bus. I want to walk home with you and talk about US'—put ‘us' in capitals—‘my darling. Love and kisses, Willard Hughes.'” “Kisses?”

“Yeah, kisses. Put a little row of x's in there, too.” She paused, looking over his shoulder while he finished. “Oh, yes. Put ‘P.S.'”

He did.

“Um. ‘Don't tell any—don't tell
no
body. Let our love be a secret for only us two right now.'”

“Why'cha put that in?”

“So she'll be sure to tell somebody, stupid.” Leslie
reread the note, nodding approval. “Good. You misspelled ‘believe' and ‘two.'” She studied it a minute longer. “Gee, I'm pretty good at this.”

“Sure. You probably had some big secret love down in Arlington.”

“Jess Aarons, I'm going to kill you.”

“Hey, girl, you kill the king of Terabithia, and you're in trouble.”

“Regicide,” she said proudly.

“Regi-what?”

“Did I ever tell you the story of Hamlet?”

He rolled over on his back. “Not yet,” he said happily. Lord, he loved Leslie's stories. Someday, when he was good enough, he would ask her to write them in a book and let him do all the pictures.

“Well,” she began, “there was once a prince of Denmark, named Hamlet….”

In his head he drew the shadowy castle with the tortured prince pacing the parapets. How could you make a ghost come out of the fog? Crayons wouldn't do, of course, but with paints you could put one thin color on top of another so that you would begin to see a pale figure moving from deep inside the
paper. He began to shiver. He knew he could do it if Leslie would let him use her paints.

 

The hardest part of the plan to get Janice Avery was to plant the note. They sneaked into the building the next morning before the first bell. Leslie went several yards ahead so that if they were caught, no one would think they were together. Mr. Turner was death on boys and girls he caught sneaking around the halls together. She got to the door of the seventh-grade classroom and peeked in. Then she signaled Jess to come ahead. The hairs prickled up his neck. Lord.

“How'll I find her desk?”

“I thought you knew where she sat.”

He shook his head.

“I guess you'll have to look in every one until you find it. Hurry. I'll be lookout for you.” She closed the door quietly and left him shuffling through each desk, trying to be careful not to make a mess, but his stupid hands were shaking so much he could hardly pull anything out to look for names.

Suddenly he heard Leslie's voice. “Oh,
Mrs.
Pierce
, I've just been standing here
waiting
for you.”

Lord. The seventh-grade teacher was right out there in the hall, heading for this room. He stood frozen. He couldn't hear what Mrs. Pierce was saying back to Leslie through the closed door.

“Yes, ma'am. There is a very interesting nest on the south end of the building, and since”—Leslie raised her voice even louder—“you know so much about science, I was hoping you could take a minute to
look at it with me
and tell me what built it.”

There was the mumble of a reply.

“Oh,
thank you
, Mrs. Pierce”—Leslie was practically screaming—“It won't take but a
minute
, and it would mean so much to me!”

As soon as he heard their retreating footsteps, he flew around the remaining desks until, oh, joy, he found one with a composition book that had Janice Avery's name on it. 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.

At recess time Janice Avery was in a tight huddle with Wilma and Bobby Sue. Then, instead of teasing
the little girls, the three of them wandered off arm in arm to watch the big boys' football. As the trio passed them, Jess could see Janice's face all pink and prideful. He rolled his eyes at Leslie, and she rolled hers back at him.

As the bus was about to pull out that afternoon, one of the seventh-grade boys, Billy Morris, yelled up to Mrs. Prentice that Janice Avery wasn't on the bus yet.

“It's OK, Miz Prentice,” Wilma Dean called up. “She ain't riding this evening.” Then in a loud whisper, “Reckon you all know that Janice has a heavy date with you know who.”

“Who?” asked Billy.

“Willard Hughes. He's so crazy about her he can't hardly stand it. He's even walking her all the way home.”

“Yeah? Well the 304 just pulled out with Willard Hughes on the back seat. If he's got a big date, he don't seem to know much about it.”

“You lie, Billy Morris!”

Billy yelled a cuss word, and the entire back seat plunged into a heated discussion as to whether Janice
Avery and Willard Hughes were or were not in love and were or were not seeing each other secretly.

As Billy got off the bus, he hollered to Wilma, “You just better tell Janice that Willard is gonna be mad when he hears what she's spreading all over the school!”

Wilma's face was crimson as she screamed out the window, “OK, you dummy! You talk to Willard. You'll see. Just ask him about that letter! You'll see!”

“Poor old Janice Avery,” Jess said as they sat in the castle later.

“Poor old Janice? She deserves everything she gets and then some!”

“I reckon.” He sighed. “But, still—”

Leslie looked stricken. “You're not sorry we did it, are you?”

“No. I reckon we had to do it, but still—”

“Still what?”

He grinned. “Maybe I got this thing for Janice like you got this thing for killer whales.”

She punched him in the shoulder. “Let's go out and find some giants or walking dead to fight. I'm sick of Janice Avery.”

The next day Janice Avery stomped onto the bus, her eyes daring everyone in sight to say a word. Leslie nudged May Belle.

May Belle's eyes went wide. “Did 'cha—?”

“
Shhh.
Yes.”

May Belle turned completely around and stared at the back seat; then she turned back and poked Jess. “You made her
that
mad?”

Jess nodded, trying to move his head as little as possible as he did so.

“We wrote that letter,” Leslie whispered. “But you mustn't tell anyone, or she'll kill us.”

“I know,” said May Belle, her eyes shining. “I know.”