“No!” Jess was yelling now. “I don’t believe you. You’re lying to me!” He looked around again wildly for someone to agree. But they all had their heads down except May Belle, whose eyes were wide with terror. But, Leslie, what if you die?
“No,” he said straight at May Belle. “It’s a lie. Leslie ain’t dead.” He turned around and ran out the door, letting the screen bang sharply against the house. He ran down the gravel to the main road and then started running west away from Washington and Millsburg—and the old Perkins place. An approaching car beeped and swerved and beeped again, but he hardly noticed.
Leslie—dead—girl friend—rope—broke—fell—you—you—you. The words exploded in his head like corn against the sides of the popper. God—dead—you—Leslie—dead—you. He ran until he was stumbling but he kept on, afraid to stop. Knowing somehow that running was the only thing that could keep Leslie from being dead. It was up to him. He had to keep going.
Behind him came the baripity of the pickup, but he couldn’t turn around. He tried to run faster, but his father passed him and stopped the pickup just ahead, then jumped out and ran back. He picked Jess up in his arms as though he were a baby. For the first few seconds Jess kicked and struggled against the strong arms. Then Jess gave himself over to the numbness that was buzzing to be let out from a corner of his brain.
He leaned his weight upon the door of the pickup and let his head thud-thud against the window. His father drove stiffly without speaking, though once he cleared his throat as though he were going to say something, but he glanced at Jess and closed his mouth.
When they pulled up at his house, his father sat quietly, and Jess could feel the man’s uncertainty, so he opened the door and got out, and with the numbness flooding through him, went in and lay down on his bed.
He was awake, jerked suddenly into consciousness in the black stillness of the house. He sat up, stiff and shivering, although he was fully dressed from his windbreaker down to his sneakers. He could hear the breathing of the little girls in the next bed, strangely loud and uneven in the quiet. Some dream must have awakened him, but he could not remember it. He could only remember the mood of dread it had brought with it. Through the curtainless window he could see the lopsided moon with hundreds of stars dancing in bright attendance.
It came into his mind that someone had told him that Leslie was dead. But he knew now that that had been part of the dreadful dream. Leslie could not die any more than he himself could die. But the words turned over uneasily in his mind like leaves stirred up by a cold wind. If he got up now and went down to the old Perkins place and knocked on the door, Leslie would come to open it, P.T. jumping at her heels like a star around the moon. It was a beautiful night. Perhaps they could run over the hill and across the fields to the stream and swing themselves into Terabithia.
They had never been there in the dark. But there was enough moon for them to find their way into the castle, and he could tell her about his day in Washington. And apologize. It had been so dumb of him not to ask if Leslie could go, too. He and Leslie and Miss Edmunds could have had a wonderful day—different, of course, from the day he and Miss Edmunds had had, but still good, still perfect. Miss Edmunds and Leslie liked each other a lot. It would have been fun to have Leslie along. I’m really sorry, Leslie. He took off his jacket and sneakers, and crawled under the covers. I was dumb not to think of asking.
S’OK, Leslie would say. I’ve been to Washington thousands of times.
Did you ever see the buffalo hunt?
Somehow it was the one thing in all Washington that Leslie had never seen, and so he could tell her about it, describing the tiny beasts hurtling to destruction.
His stomach felt suddenly cold. It had something to do with the buffalo, with f
alling, with death. With the reason he had not remembered to ask if Leslie could go with them to Washington today.
You know something weird?
What? Leslie asked.
I was scared to come to Terabithia this morning.
The coldness threatened to spread up from his stomach. He turned over and lay on it. Perhaps it would be better not to think about Leslie right now. He would go to see her the first thing in the morning and explain everything. He could explain it better in the daytime when he had shaken off the effects of his unremembered nightmare.
He put his mind to remembering the day in Washington, working on details of pictures and statues, dredging up the sound of Miss Edmunds’ voice, recalling his own exact words and her exact answers. Occasionally into the corner of his mind’s vision would come a sensation of falling, but he pushed it away with the view of another picture or the sound of another conversation. Tomorrow he must share it all with Leslie.
The next thing he was aware of was the sun streaming through the window. The little girls’ bed was only rumpled covers, and there was movement and quiet talking from the kitchen.
Lord! Poor Miss Bessie. He’d forgotten all about her last night, and now it must be late. He felt for his sneakers and shoved his feet over the heels without tying the laces.
His mother looked up quickly from the stove at the sound of him. Her face was set for a question, but she just nodded her head at him.
The coldness began to come back. “I forgot Miss Bessie.”
“Your daddy’s milking her.”
“I forgot last night, too.”
She kept nodding her head. “Your daddy did it for you.” But it wasn’t an accusation. “You feel like some breakfast?”
Maybe that was why his stomach felt so odd. He hadn’t had anything to eat since the ice cream Miss Edmunds had bought them at Millsburg on the way home. Brenda and Ellie stared up at him from the table. The little girls turned from their cartoon show at the TV to look at him and then turned quickly back.
He sat down on the bench. His mother put a plateful of pancakes in front of him. He couldn’t remember the last time she had made pancakes. He doused them with syrup and began to eat. They tasted marvelous.
“You don’t even care. Do you?” Brenda was watching him from across the table.
He looked at her puzzled, his mouth full.