Bridge to Terabithia - Katherine Paterson [30]
He wondered what it would be like to have a mother whose stories were inside her head instead of marching across the television screen all day long. He followed Leslie up the hall to where she was pulling things out of a closet. She handed him a beige raincoat and a peculiar round black woolly hat.
“No boots.” Her voice was coming out of the depths of the closet and was muffled by a line of overcoats. “How about a pair of clumps?”
“A pair of what?”
She stuck her head out between the coats. “Cleats. Cleats.” She produced them. They looked like size twelves.
“Naw. I’d lose ’em in the mud. I’ll just go barefoot.”
“Hey,” she said, emerging completely. “Me, too.”
The ground was cold. The icy mud sent little thrills of pain up their legs, so they ran, splashing through the puddles and slushing in the mud. P.T. bounded ahead, leaping fishlike from one brown sea to the next, then turning back to herd the two of them forward, nipping at their heels and further splashing their already sopping jeans.
When they got to the bank of the creek, they stopped. It was an awesome sight. Like in The Ten Commandments on TV when the water came rushing into the dry path Moses had made and swept all the Egyptians away, the long dry bed of the creek was a roaring eight-foot-wide sea, sweeping before it great branches of trees, logs, and trash, swirling them about like so many Egyptian chariots, the hungry waters licking and sometimes leaping the banks, daring them to try to confine it.
“Wow.” Leslie’s voice was respectful.
“Yeah.” Jess looked up at the rope. It was still twisted around the branch of the crab apple tree. His stomach felt cold. “Maybe we ought to forget it today.”
“C’mon, Jess. We can make it.” The hood of Leslie’s raincoat had fallen back, and her hair lay plastered to her forehead. She wiped her cheeks and eyes with her hand and then untwisted the rope. She unsnapped the top of her coat with her left hand. “Here,” she said. “Stick P.T. in here for me.”
“I’ll carry him, Leslie.”
“With that raincoat, he’ll slip right out the bottom.” She was impatient to be gone, so Jess scooped up the sodden dog and shoved him rear-first into the cave of Leslie’s raincoat.
“You gotta hold his rear with your left arm and swing with your right, you know.”
“I know. I know.” She moved backward to get a running start.
“Hold tight.”
“Good gosh, Jess.”
He shut his mouth. He wanted to shut his eyes, too. But he forced himself to watch her run back, race for the bank, leap, swing, and jump off, landing gracefully on her feet on the far side.
“Catch!”
He stuck his hand out, but he was watching Leslie and P.T. and not concentrating on the rope, which slipped off the end of his fingertips and swung in a large arc out of his reach. He jumped and grabbed it, and shutting his mind to the sound and sight of the water, he ran back and then speeded forward. The cold stream lapped his bare heels momentarily, but then he was into the air above it and falling awkwardly and landing on his bottom. P.T. was on him immediately, muddy paws all over the beige raincoat, and pink tongue sandpapering Jess’s wet face.
Leslie’s eyes were sparkling. “Arise”—she barely swallowed a giggle—“arise, king of Terabithia, and let us proceed into our kingdom.”
The king of Terabithia snuffled and wiped his face on the back of his hand. “I will arise,” he replied with dignity, “when thou removes this fool dog off my gut.”
They went to Terabithia on Tuesday and again on Wednesday. The rain continued sporadically, so that by Wednesday the creek had swollen to the trunk of the crab apple and they were running through ankle-deep water to make their flight into Terabithia. And on the opposite bank Jess was more careful to land on his feet. Sitting in cold wet britches for an hour was no fun even in a magic kingdom.
For Jess the fear of the crossing rose with the height of the creek. Leslie never seemed to hesitate, so Jess could not hang back. But even though he could force his body to follow after, his mind hung back, wanting to cling to the crab apple tree the way Joyce