BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA

TWO - LESLIE BURKE

                         Ellie and Brenda weren't back by seven. Jess had finished all the picking and helped hismother can the beans. She never canned except when it was scalding hot anyhow, and all theboiling turned the kitchen into some kind of hellhole. Of course, her temper had been terrible,and she had screamed at Jess all afternoon and was now too tired to fix any supper. 

                          Jess made peanut-butter sandwiches for the little girls and himself, and because thekitchen was still hot and almost nauseatingly full of bean smell, the three of them wentoutside to eat. 

                          The U-Haul was still out by the Perkins place. He couldn't see anybody moving outside,so they must have finished unloading. 

                         "I hope they have a girl, six or seven," said May Belle. "I need somebody to play with." 

                         "You got Joyce Ann." 

                         "I hate Joyce Ann. she's nothing but a baby." 

                         Joyce Ann's lip went out. They both watched it tremble. Then her pudgy body shuddered,and she let out a great cry. 

                         "Who's teasing the baby?" his mother yelled out the screen door. 

                        Jess sighed and poked the last of his sandwich into Joyce Ann's open mouth. Her eyeswent wide, and she clamped her jaws down on the unexpected gift. Now maybe he could havesome peace. 

                         He closed the screen door gently as he entered and slipped past his mother, who wasrocking herself in the kitchen chair watching TV. In the room he shared with the little ones, hedug under his mattress and pulled out his pad and pencils. Then, stomach down on the bed, hebegan to draw. 

                        Jess drew the way some people drink whiskey. The peace would start at the top of hismuddled brain and seep down through his tired and tensed-up body. Lord, he loved to draw.Animals, mostly. Not regular animals like Miss Bessie or the chickens, but crazy animals withproblems-for some reason he liked to put his beasts into impossible fixes. This one was ahippopotamus just leaving the edge of the cliff, turning over and over - you could tell by thecurving lines - in the air toward the sea below where surprised fish were leaping goggle-eyedout of the water. There was a balloon over the hippopotamus - where his head should havebeen but his bottom actually was - "Oh!" it was saying. "I seem to have forgotten my glasses." 

                        Jess began to smile. If he decided to show it to May Belle, he would have to explain thejoke, but once he did, she would laugh like a live audience on TV. 

                        He would like to show his drawings to his dad, but he didn't dare. When he was in firstgrade, he had told his dad that he wanted to be an artist when he grew up. He'd thought hisdad would be pleased. He wasn't. "What are they teaching in that damn school?" he hadasked. "Bunch of old ladies turning my only son into some kind of a..." He had stopped on theword, but Jess had gotten the message. It was one you didn't forget, even after four years. 

                        The devil of it was that none of his regular teachers ever liked his drawings. When they'dcatch him scribbling, they'd screech about wasted time, wasted paper, wasted ability. ExceptMiss Edmunds, the music teacher. She was the only one he dared show anything to, and she'donly been at school one year, and then only on Fridays. 

                       Miss Edmunds was one of his secrets. He was in love with her. Not the kind of silly stuffEllie and Brenda giggled about on the telephone. This was too real and too deep to talk about,even to think about very much. Her long swishy black hair and blue, blue eyes. She couldplay the guitar like a regular recording star, and she had this soft floaty voice that made Jesssquish inside. Lord, she was gorgeous. And she liked him, too.