Bridge to Terabithia

“Um. ‘Don’t tell any—don’t tell nobody. 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!”