“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. bounded 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”—she 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 h
ouse 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.
TEN
The Perfect Day
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 goose-bumpy. 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?”
“Umm.”
“Don’t worry. I 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 hugeness—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 shoulders. 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.
Bridge to Terabithia Page 8