Bridge to Terabithia

One time last year Jesse had won. Not just the first heat but the whole shebang. Only once. But it had put into his mouth a taste for winning. Ever since he’d been in first grade he’d been that “crazy little kid that draws all the time.” But one day—April the twenty-second, a drizzly Monday, it had been—he ran ahead of them all, the red mud slooching up through the holes in the bottom of his sneakers.

For the rest of that day, and until after lunch on the next, he had been “the fastest kid in the third, fourth, and fifth grades,” and he only a fourth grader. On Tuesday, Wayne Pettis had won again as usual. But this year Wayne Pettis would be in the sixth grade. He’d play football until Christmas and baseball until June with the rest of the big guys. Anybody had a chance to be the fastest runner, and by Miss Bessie, this year it was going to be Jesse Oliver Aarons, Jr.

Jess pumped his arms harder and bent his head for the distant fence. He could hear the third-grade boys screaming him on. They would follow him around like a country-music star. And May Belle would pop her buttons. Her brother was the fastest, the best. That ought to give the rest of the first grade something to chew their cuds on.

Even his dad would be proud. Jess rounded the corner. He couldn’t keep going quite so fast, but he continued running for a while—it would build him up. May Belle would tell Daddy, so it wouldn’t look as though he, Jess, was a bragger. Maybe Dad would be so proud he’d forget all about how tired he was from the long drive back and forth to Washington and the digging and hauling all day. He would get right down on the floor and wrestle, the way they used to. Old Dad would be surprised at how strong he’d gotten in the last couple of years.

His body was begging him to quit, but Jess pushed it on. He had to let that puny chest of his know who was boss.

“Jess.” It was May Belle yelling from the other side of the scrap heap. “Momma says you gotta come in and eat now. Leave the milking til later.”

Oh, crud. He’d run too long. Now everyone would know he’d been out and start in on him.

“Yeah, OK.” He turned, still running, and headed for the scrap heap. Without breaking his rhythm, he climbed over the fence, scrambled across the scrap heap, thumped May Belle on the head (“Owww!”), and trotted on to the house.

“We-ell, look at the big O-lympic star,” said Ellie, banging two cups onto the table, so that the strong, black coffee sloshed out. “Sweating like a knock-kneed mule.”

Jess pushed his damp hair out of his face and plunked down on the wooden bench. He dumped two spoonfuls of sugar into his cup and slurped to keep the hot coffee from scalding his mouth.

“Oooo, Momma, he stinks.” Brenda pinched her nose with her pinky crooked delicately. “Make him wash.”

“Get over here to the sink and wash yourself,” his mother said without raising her eyes from the stove. “And step on it. These grits are scorching the bottom of the pot already.”

“Momma! Not again,” Brenda whined.

Lord, he was tired. There wasn’t a muscle in his body that didn’t ache.

“You heard what Momma said,” Ellie yelled at his back.

“I can’t stand it, Momma!” Brenda again. “Make him get his smelly self off this bench.”

Jess put his cheek down on the bare wood of the tabletop.

“Jess-see!” His mother was looking now. “And put on a shirt.”

“Yes’m.” He dragged himself to the sink. The water he flipped on his face and up his arms pricked like ice. His hot skin crawled under the cold drops.

May Belle was standing in the kitchen door watching him.

“Get me a shirt, May Belle.”

She looked as if her mouth was set to say no, but instead she said, “You shouldn’t ought to beat me in the head,” and went off obediently to fetch his T-shirt. Good old May Belle. Joyce Ann would have been screaming yet from that little tap. Four-year-olds were a pure pain.

“I got plenty of chores needs doing around here this morning,” his mother announced as they were finishing the grits and red gravy. His mother was from Georgia and still cooked like it.

“Oh, Momma!” Ellie and Brenda squawked in concert. These girls could get out of work faster than grasshoppers could slip through your fingers.

“Momma, you promised me and Brenda we could go to Millsburg for school shopping.”

“You ain’t got no money for school shopping!”

“Momma. We’re just going to look around.” Lord, he wished Brenda would stop whining so. “Christmas! You don’t want us to have no fun at all.”

“Any fun,” Ellie corrected her primly.

“Oh, shuttup.”

Ellie ignored her. “Miz Timmons is coming by to pick us up. I told Lollie Sunday you said it was OK. I feel dumb calling her and saying you changed your mind.”

“Oh, all right. But I ain’t got no money to give you.”

Any money, something whispered inside Jess’s head.

“I know, Momma. We’ll just take the five dollars Daddy promised us. No more’n that.”

“What five dollars?”