“Yeah?”
“And those two—two—” She looked for a word vile enough to describe Janice Avery’s friends and found none. “Those two girls blabbed it all over the seventh grade.”
Pity for Janice Avery swept across him.
“Even the teacher knows about it.”
“Boy.” The word came out like a sigh. There was a rule at Lark Creek, more important than anything Mr. Turner made up and fussed about. That was the rule that you never mixed up troubles at home with life at school. When parents were poor or ignorant or mean, or even just didn’t believe in having a TV set, it was up to their kids to protect them. By tomorrow every kid and teacher in Lark Creek Elementary would be talking in half snickers about Janice Avery’s daddy. It didn’t matter if their own fathers were in the state hospital or the federal prison, they hadn’t betrayed theirs, and Janice had.
“Do you know what else?”
“What?”
“I told Janice about not having a TV and everyone laughing. I told her I understood what it was like to have everyone think I was weird.”
“What’d she say to that?”
“She knew I was telling the truth. She even asked me for advice as if I was Dear Abby.”
“Yeah?”
“I told her just to pretend she didn’t know what on earth Wilma and Bobby Sue had said or where they had got such a crazy story and everybody would forget about it in a week.” She leaned forward, suddenly anxious. “Do you think that was good advice?”
“Lord, how should I know? Make her feel better?”
“I think so. She seemed to feel a lot better.”
“Well, it was great advice then.”
She leaned back, happy and relaxed. “Know what, Jess?”
“What?”
“Thanks to you, I think I now have one and one-half friends at Lark Creek School.”
It hurt him for it to mean so much to Leslie to have friends. When would she learn they weren’t worth her trouble? “Oh, you got more friends than that.”
“Nope. One and one-half. Monster Mouth Myers doesn’t count.”
There in their secret place, his feelings bubbled inside him like a stew on the back of the stove—some sad for her in her lonesomeness, but chunks of happiness, too. To be able to be Leslie’s one whole friend in the world as she was his—he couldn’t help being satisfied about that.
That night as he started to get into bed, leaving the light off so as not to wake the little girls, he was surprised by May Belle’s shrill little “Jess.”
“How come you still awake?”
“Jess. I know where you and Leslie go to hide.”
“What d’you mean?”
“I followed ya.”
He was at her bedside in one leap. “You ain’t supposed to follow me!”
“How come?” Her voice was sassy.
He grabbed her shoulders and made her look him in the face. She blinked in the dim light like a startled chicken.
“You listen here, May Belle Aarons,” he whispered fiercely, “I catch you following me again, your life ain’t worth nothing.”
“OK, OK.”—she slid back into the bed—“Boy, you’re mean. I oughta tell Momma on you.”
“Look, May Belle, you can’t do that. You can’t tell Momma ’bout where me and Leslie go.”
She answered with a little sniffing sound.
He grabbed her shoulders again. He was desperate. “I mean it, May Belle. You can’t tell nobody nothing!” He let her go. “Now, I don’t want to hear about you following me or squealing to Momma ever again, you hear?”
“Why not?”
“’Cause if you do—I’m gonna tell Billy Jean Edwards you still wet the bed sometimes.”
“You wouldn’t!”
“Boy, girl, you just better not try me.”
He made her swear on the Bible never to tell and never to follow, but still he lay awake a long time. How could he trust everything that mattered to him to a sassy six-year-old? Sometimes it seemed to him that his life was delicate as a dandelion. One little puff from any direction, and it was blown to bits.
EIGHT
Easter
Even though it was nearly Easter, there were still very few nights that it was warm enough to leave Miss Bessie out. And then there was the rain. All March it poured. For the first time in many years the creek bed held water, not just a trickle either, enough so that when they swung across, it was a little scary looking down at the rushing water below. Jess took Prince Terrien across inside his jacket, but the puppy was growing so fast he might pop the zipper any time and fall into the water and drown.
Ellie and Brenda were already fighting about what they were going to wear to church. Since Momma got mad at the preacher three years back, Easter was the only time in the year that the Aarons went to church and it was a big deal. His mother always cried poor, but she put a lot of thought and as much money as she could scrape together into making sure she wouldn’t be embarrassed by how her family looked. But the day before she planned to take them all over to Millsburg Plaza for new clothes, his dad came home from Washington early. He’d been laid off. No new clothes this year.
A wail went up from Ellie and Brenda like two sirens going to a fire. “You can’t make me go to church,” Brenda said. “I ain’t got nothing to wear, and you know it.”
“Just ’cause you’re too fat,” May Belle muttered.
“Did you hear what she said, Momma? I’m gonna kill that kid.”
“Brenda, will you shut your mouth?” his mother said sharply; then more wearily, “We got lot more than Easter clothes to worry about.”
His dad got up noisily and poured himself a cup of black coffee from the pot on the back of the stove.
“Why can’t we charge some things?” Ellie said in her wheedling voice.
Brenda burst in. “Do you know what some people do? They charge something and wear it, and then take it back and say it didn’t fit or something. The stores don’t give ’em no trouble.”
Her father turned in a kind of roar. “I never heard such a fool thing in my life. Didn’t you hear your mother tell you to shut your mouth, girl!”
Brenda stopped talking, but she popped her gum as loudly as she could just to prove she wasn’t going to be put down.
Jess was glad to escape to the shed and the complacent company of Miss Bessie. There was a knock. “Jess?”
“Leslie. Come on in.”
She looked first and then sat on the floor near his stool. “What’s new?”
“Lord, don’t ask.” He tugged the teats rhythmically and listened to the plink, plink, plink, in the bottom of the pail.
“That bad, huh?”
“My dad’s got laid off, and Brenda and Ellie are fit to fry ’cause they can’t have new clothes for Easter.”
“Gee, I’m sorry. About your dad, I mean.”
Jess grinned. “Yeah. I ain’t too worried about these girls. If I know them, they’ll trick new clothes out of somebody. It would make you throw up to see how these girls make a spectacle of themselves in church.”
“I never knew you went to church.”
“Just Easter.” He concentrated on the warm udders. “I guess you think that’s dumb or something.”
She didn’t answer for a minute. “I was thinking I’d like to go.”
He stopped milking. “I don’t understand you sometimes, Leslie.”
“Well, I’ve never been to a church before. It would be a new experience for me.”
He went back to work. “You’d hate it.”
“Why?”
“It’s boring.”
“Well, I’d just like to see for myself. Do you think your parents would let me go with you?”
“You can’t wear pants.”
“I’ve got some dresses, Jess Aarons.” Would wonders never cease?
“Here,” he said. “Open your mouth.”
“Why?”
“Just open your mouth.” For once she obeyed. He se
nt a stream of warm milk straight into it.
“Jess Aarons!” The name was garbled and the milk dribbled down her chin as she spoke.
“Don’t open your mouth now. You’re wasting good milk.”
Leslie started to giggle, choking and coughing.
“Now if I could just learn to pitch a baseball that straight. Lemme try again.”
Leslie controlled her giggle, closed her eyes, and solemnly opened her mouth.
But now Jess was giggling, so that he couldn’t keep his hand steady.
“You dunce! You got me right in the ear.” Leslie hunched up her shoulder and rubbed her ear with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. She collapsed into giggles again.
“I’d be obliged if you’d finish milking and come on back to the house.” His dad was standing right there at the door.
“I guess I’d better go,” said Leslie quietly. She got up and went to the door. “Excuse me.” His dad moved aside to let her pass. Jess waited for him to say something more, but he just stood there for a few minutes and then turned and went out.
Ellie said she would go to church if Momma would let her wear the see-through blouse, and Brenda would go if she at least got a new skirt. In the end everyone got something new except Jess and his dad, neither of whom cared, but Jess got the idea it might give him a little bargaining power with his mother.
“Since I ain’t getting anything new, could Leslie go to church with us?”
“That girl?” He could see his mother rooting around in her head for a good reason to say no. “She don’t dress right.”
“Momma!”—his voice sounded as prissy as Ellie’s—“Leslie’s got dresses. She got hundreds of ’um.”
His mother’s thin face drooped. She bit the outside of her bottom lip in a way Joyce Ann sometimes did and spoke so softly Jess could hardly hear her. “I don’t want no one poking up their nose at my family.”
Jess wanted to put his arm around her the way he put it around May Belle when she was in need of comfort. “She don’t poke her nose up at you, Momma. Honest.”
His mother sighed. “Well, if she’ll look decent….”
Leslie looked decent. Her hair was kind of slicked down, and she wore a navy-blue jumper over a blouse with tiny old-fashioned-looking flowers. At the bottom of her red knee socks were a pair of shiny brown leather shoes that Jess had never seen before as Leslie always wore sneakers like the rest of the kids in Lark Creek. Even her manner was decent. Her usual sparkle was toned way down, and she said “Yes’m” and “No’m” to his mother just as though she were aware of Mrs. Aaron’s dread of disrespect. Jess knew how hard Leslie must be trying, for Leslie didn’t say “ma’am” naturally.
In comparison to Leslie, Brenda and Ellie looked like a pair of peacocks with fake tail feathers. They both insisted on riding in the front of the pickup with their parents, which was some kind of a squeeze with Brenda’s shape to consider. Jess and Leslie and the little girls climbed happily into the back and sat down on the old sacks his dad had put against the cab.
The sun wasn’t exactly shining, but it was the first day in so long that the rain wasn’t actually coming down that they sang “O Lord, What a Morning,” “Ah, Lovely Meadows,” and “Sing! Sing a Song” that Miss Edmunds had taught them, and even “Jingle Bells” for Joyce Ann. The wind carried their voices away from them. It made the music seem mysterious, which filled Jess with a feeling of power over the hills rolling out from behind the truck. The ride was much too short, especially for Joyce Ann, who began to cry because the arrival interrupted the first verse of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” which after “Jingle Bells” was her favorite song. 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.
They were a little late, which didn’t bother Ellie and Brenda for it meant that they got to flounce down the entire length of the aisle to the first pew, making sure that every eye in the church was on them, and every expression of every eye a jealous one. Lord, they were disgusting. And his mother had been scared Leslie might embarrass her. Jess hunched his shoulders and slunk into the pew after the string of womenfolks and just before his dad.
Church always seemed the same. 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.
Once or twice he was aware of being on his feet with the loud not really tuneful singing all around him. At the edge of his consciousness he could hear Leslie singing along and drowsily wondered why she bothered.
The preacher had one of those tricky voices. It would buzz along for several minutes quite comfortably, then bang! he was screaming at you. Each time Jess would jump, and it would take another couple of minutes to relax again. Because he wasn’t listening to the words, the man’s red face with sweat pouring down seemed strangely out of place in the dull sanctuary. It was like Brenda throwing a tantrum over Joyce Ann touching her lipstick.
It took a while to get Ellie and Brenda pulled away from the front yard of the church. Jess and Leslie went ahead and put the little girls in the back and settled down to wait.
“Gee, I’m really glad I came.”
Jess turned to Leslie in unbelief.
“It was better than a movie.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not.” And she wasn’t. He could tell by her face. “That whole Jesus thing is really interesting, isn’t it?”
“What d’you mean?”
“All those people wanting to kill him when he hadn’t done anything to hurt them.” She hesitated. “It’s really kind of a beautiful story—like Abraham Lincoln or Socrates—or Aslan.”
“It ain’t beautiful,” May Belle broke in. “It’s scary. Nailing holes right through somebody’s hand.”
“May Belle’s right.” Jess reached down into the deepest pit of his mind. “It’s because we’re all vile sinners God made Jesus die.”
“Do you think that’s true?”
He was shocked. “It’s in the Bible, Leslie.”
She looked at him as if she were going to argue, then seemed to change her mind. “It’s crazy, isn’t it?” She shook her head. “You have to believe it, but you hate it. I don’t have to believe it, and I think it’s beautiful.” She shook her head again. “It’s crazy.”
May Belle had her eyes all squinched as though Leslie was some strange creature in a zoo. “You gotta believe the Bible, Leslie.”
“Why?” It was a genuine question. Leslie wasn’t being smarty.
“’Cause if you don’t believe the Bible”—May Belle’s eyes were huge—“God’ll damn you to hell when you die.”
“Where’d she ever hear a thing like that?” Leslie turned on Jess as though she were about to accuse him of some wrong he had committed against his sister. He felt hot and caught by her voice and words.
He dropped his gaze to the gunnysack and began to fiddle with the raveled edge.
“That’s right, ain’t it, Jess?” May Belle’s shrill voice demanded. “Don’t God damn you to hell if you don’t believe the Bible?”
Jess pushed his hair out of his face. “I reckon,” he muttered.
“I don’t believe it,” Leslie said. “I don’t even think you’ve read the Bible.”
“I read most of it.” Jess said, still fingering the sack. “S’bout the only book we got around our place.” He looked up at Leslie and half grinned.
She smiled. “OK,” she said. “But I still don’t think God goes around damning people to hell.”
They smiled at each other trying to ignore May Belle’s anxious little voice. “But Leslie,” she insisted. “What if you die? What’s going to happen to you if you die?”
NINE
The Evil Spell
On Easter Monday the rain began again in earnest. It was as though the elements were conspiring to ruin thei
r 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 taillights.
Jess stood up, too. “What d’ya 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….”