Bridge to Terabithia - Katherine Paterson [11]
“I want to read this composition aloud. For two reasons. One, it is beautifully written. And two, it tells about an unusual hobby—for a girl.” Mrs. Myers beamed her first-day smile at Leslie. Leslie stared at her desk. Being Mrs. Myers’ pet was pure poison at Lark Creek. “‘Scuba Diving’ by Leslie Burke.”
Mrs. Myers’ sharp voice cut Leslie’s sentences into funny little phrases, but even so, the power of Leslie’s words drew Jess with her under the dark water. Suddenly he could hardly breathe. Suppose you went under and your mask filled all up with water and you couldn’t get to the top in time? He was choking and sweating. He tried to push down his panic. This was Leslie Burke’s favorite hobby. Nobody would make up scuba diving to be their favorite hobby if it wasn’t so. That meant Leslie did it a lot. That she wasn’t scared of going deep, deep down in a world of no air and little light. Lord, he was such a coward. How could he be all in a tremble just listening to Mrs. Myers read about it? He was worse a baby than Joyce Ann. His dad expected him to be a man. And here he was letting some girl who wasn’t even ten yet scare the liver out of him by just telling what it was like to sight-see underwater. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
“I am sure,” Mrs. Myers was saying, “that all of you were as impressed as I was with Leslie’s exciting essay.”
Impressed. Lord. He’d nearly drowned.
In the classroom there was a shuffling of feet and papers. “Now I want to give you a homework assignment”—muffled groans—“that I’m sure you’ll enjoy.”—mumblings of unbelief—“Tonight on Channel 7 at 8 P.M. there is going to be a special about a famous underwater explorer—Jacques Cousteau. I want everyone to watch. Then write one page telling what you learned.”
“A whole page?”
“Yes.”
“Does spelling count?”
“Doesn’t spelling always count, Gary?”
“Both sides of the paper?”
“One side will be enough, Wanda Kay. But I will give extra credit to those who do extra work.”
Wanda Kay smiled primly. You could already see ten pages taking shape in her pointy head.
“Mrs. Myers.”
“Yes, Leslie.” Lord, Mrs. Myers was liable to crack her face if she kept up smiling like that.
“What if you can’t watch the program?”
“You inform your parents that it is a homework assignment. I am sure they will not object.”
“What if”—Leslie’s voice faltered; then she shook her head and cleared her throat so the words came out stronger—“what if you don’t have a television set?”
Lord, Leslie. Don’t say that. You can always watch on mine. But it was too late to save her. The hissing sounds of disbelief were already building into a rumbling of contempt.
Mrs. Myers blinked her eyes. “Well. Well.” She blinked some more. You could tell she was trying to figure out how to save Leslie, too. “Well. In that case one could write a one-page composition on something else. Couldn’t one, Leslie?” She tried to smile across the classroom upheaval to Leslie, but it was no use. “Class! Class! Class!” Her Leslie smile shifted suddenly and ominously into a scowl that silenced the storm.
She handed out dittoed sheets of arithmetic problems. Jess stole a look at Leslie. Her face, bent low over the math sheet, was red and fierce.
At recess time when he was playing King of the Mountain, he could see that Leslie was surrounded by a group of girls led by Wanda Kay. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he could tell by the proud way Leslie was throwing her head back that the others were making fun of her. Greg Williams grabbed him then, and while they wrestled, Leslie disappeared. It was none of his business, really, but he threw Greg down the hill as hard as he could and yelled to no one in particular, “Gotta go.”
He stationed himself across from the girls’ room. Leslie