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“How do you know?”
“You can just feel it. Listen.”
At first he heard only the stillness. It was the stillness that had always frightened him before, but this time it was like the moment after Miss Edmunds finished a song, just after the chords hummed down to silence. Leslie was right. They stood there, not moving, not wanting the swish of dry needles beneath their feet to break the spell. Far away from their former world came the cry of geese heading southward.
Leslie took a deep breath. “This is not an ordinary place,” she whispered. “Even the rulers of Terabithia come into it only at times of greatest sorrow or of greatest joy. We must strive to keep it sacred. It would not do to disturb the Spirits.”
He nodded, and without speaking, they went back to the creek bank where they shared together a solemn meal of crackers and dried fruit.
FIVE
The Giant Killers
Leslie liked to make up stories about the giants that threatened the peace of Terabithia, but they both knew that the real giant in their lives was Janice Avery. Of course, it wasn’t only Jess and Leslie that she was after. She had two friends, Wilma Dean and Bobby Sue Henshaw, who were almost as big as she was, and the three of them would roam the playground, grabbing up hopscotch rocks, running through jump ropes, and laughing while second graders screamed. They would even stand outside the girls’ room first thing every morning and make the little girls give them their milk money before they’d let them go to the bathroom.
May Belle, unfortunately, was a slow learner. Her daddy had brought her a package of Twinkies, and she was so proud that as soon as she got on the bus she forgot everything she knew and yelled to another first grader, “Guess what I got in my lunch today, Billy Jean?”
“What?”
“Twinkies!” she shouted so loud you could have heard her in the back seat even if you were deaf in both ears. Out of the corner of his eye, Jess thought he saw Janice Avery perk up.
When they sat down, May Belle was still screeching about her dadgum Twinkies over the roar of the motor. “My daddy brung ’um to me from Washington!”
Jess threw another look at the back seat. “You better shut up about those dang Twinkies,” he said in her ear.
“You just jealous ’cause Daddy didn’t bring you none.”
“OK.” He shrugged across her head at Leslie to say I warned her, didn’t I? and Leslie nodded back.
Neither of them was too surprised to see May Belle come screaming toward them at recess time.
“She stole my Twinkies!”
Jess sighed. “May Belle, didn’t I tell you?
”
“You gotta kill Janice Avery. Kill her! Kill her! Kill her!”
“Shhh,” Leslie said, stroking May Belle’s head, but May Belle didn’t want comfort, she wanted revenge.
“You gotta beat her up into a million pieces!”
He’d sooner tangle with Mrs. Godzilla herself. “Fighting ain’t gonna get back nothing, May Belle. Them Twinkies is well on the way to padding Janice Avery’s bottom by now.”
Leslie snickered, but May Belle was not to be distracted. “You’re just yeller, Jesse Aarons. If you wasn’t yeller, you’d beat somebody up if they took your little sister’s Twinkies.” She broke into a fresh round of sobbing.
Jess stiffened. He avoided Leslie’s eyes. Lord, there was no escape. He’d have to fight the female gorilla now.
“Look, May Belle,” Leslie was saying. “If Jess picks a fight with Janice Avery, you know perfectly well what will happen.”
May Belle wiped her nose on the back of her hand. “She’ll beat him up.”
“Noooo. He’ll get kicked out of school for fighting a girl. You know how Mr. Turner is about boys who pick on girls.”
“She stole my Twinkies.”
“I know she did, May Belle. And Jess and I are going to figure out a way to pay her back for it. Aren’t we Jess?”
