Bridge to Terabithia

175 Pages·2005·2.46 MB·English

by  Katherine Paterson

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Two lives are bridged—
and nothing will be the same.

• G
' greatest ambition is to be the fastest
runner in the fifth grade. He's been practicing all
summer and can't wait to see his classmates' faces
when he beats them all. But on the first day of school, a new
kid, a new girl, boldly crosses over to the boys' side of the
playground and outruns everyone.
That's not a very promising beginning for a friendship,

but Jess and Leslie Burke become inseparable. It doesn't
matter to Jess that Leslie dresses funny, or that her family
has a lot of money—but no TV. Leslie has imagination.
Together, she and Jess create Terabithia, a magical kingdom
in the woods where the two of them reign as king and
queen, and their imaginations set the only limits. Then one
morning a terrible tragedy occurs. Only when Jess is able to
come to grips with this tragedy does he finally understand
the strength and courage Leslie has given him.

Winner of the 1978 Newbery Medal

'The story is one of remarkable richness and depth,

beaut if ully written."
—The Horn Book

"Eloquent and assured."—TheKirkus Reviews

ISBN 0-7587-0003-2

9 "780758"700032

"A place just for us. "

Jess and Leslie turned and ran up over the empty field
behind the old Perkins place and down to the dry
creek bed that separated the farmland from the
woods. There was an old crab apple tree there, just at
the bank of the creek bed, from which someone long
forgotten had hung a rope.
They took turns swinging across the gully on the
rope. It was a glorious autumn day, and if you looked
up as you swung, it gave you the feeling of floating.
Jess leaned back and drank the rich, clear color of the
sky. He was drifting, drifting like a fat white lazy
cloud across the blue.
"Do you know what we need?" Leslie called to him.
Intoxicated as he was with the heavens, he couldn't
imagine needing anything on earth.
"We need a place," she said, "just for us. It would be
so secret that we would never tell anyone in the whole
world about it." Jess came swinging back and dragged
his feet to stop. She lowered her voice almost to a whis-
per. "It might be a whole secret country," she contin-
ued, "and you and I would be the rulers of it."

Katherine Paterson

Bridge
to
Terabithia

Illustrated by Donna Diamond

mm HarperTrophy®
An Imprint of

The song "Free To Be . . . You and Me"
by Stephen Lawrence and Bruce Hart. Copyright © 1972.
Ms. Foundation for Women, Inc. Used by permission.

Harper Trophy® is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

Bridge to Terabithia
Copyright © 1977 by Katherine Paterson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced
in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of
brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Printed in the United States of America. For information address
HarperCollins Children's Books, a division of HarperCollins Publishers,
1350 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Paterson, Katherine.
Bridge to Terabithia.
Summary: The life of a ten-year-old boy in rural Virginia expands when he becomes
friends with a newcomer who subsequently meets an untimely death trying to reach
their hideaway, Terabithia, during a storm.
ISBN 0-690-01359-0 — ISBN 0-690-04635-9 (lib. bdg.)
ISBN 0-06-440184-7 (pbk.)

[1. Friendship—Fiction. 2. Death—Fiction.] I. Diamond, Donna, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.P273Br
77-2221
[Fie]

Typography by Nicole de las Heras
•
First Harper Trophy edition, 1987
Visit us on the World Wide Web!
www.harperchildrens.com

I wrote this book
for my son
David Lord Paterson,
but after he read it
he asked me to put Lisa's name
on this page as well,
and so I do.
For David Paterson and Lisa Hill,
banzai

C O N T E N T S

O N E
Jesse Oliver Aarons, Jr. 1

T W O
Leslie Burine 11

T
H
R
E
E
The Fastest Kid in the Fifth Grade 24

F O U R
Rulers of Terabithia 37

F I V E
The Giant Killers 61

s i x
The Coming of Prince Terrien 72

S E V E N
The Golden Room 83

E I G H T
Easter 100

N I N E
The Evil Spell 110

T E N
The Perfect Day 120

E
L
E
V
E
N
No! 131

T W E L V E
Stranded 141

T
H
I
R
T
E
E
N
Building the Bridge 150

Bridge to Terabithia

O N E
Jesse Oliver Aarons, Jr.

Ba-room, ba-room, ba-room, baripity, baripity, baripity,
baripity—Good. His dad had the pickup going. He could
get up now. Jess slid out of bed and into his overalls. He
didn't worry about a shirt because once he began running
he would be hot as popping grease even if the morning air
was chill, or shoes because the bottoms of his feet were by
now as tough as his worn-out sneakers.
"Where you going, Jess?" May Belle lifted herself up
sleepily from the double bed where she and Joyce Ann slept.
"Sh" He warned. The walls were thin. Momma would be
mad as flies in a fruit jar if they woke her up this time of day.
He patted May Belle's hair and yanked the twisted
sheet up to her small chin. "Just over the cow field," he
whispered. May Belle smiled and snuggled down under
the sheet.
"Gonna run?"
"Maybe."

2
B R I D G E
TO
T E R A B I T H I A

Of course he was going to run. He had gotten up early
every day all summer to run. He figured if he worked at
it—and Lord, had he worked—he could be the fastest
runner in the fifth grade when school opened up. He had
to be the fastest—not one of the fastest or next to the
fastest, but the fastest. The very best.
He tiptoed out of the house. The place was so rattly that
it screeched whenever you put your foot down, but Jess had
found that if you tiptoed, it gave only a low moan, and he
could usually get outdoors without waking Momma or
Ellie or Brenda or Joyce Ann. May Belle was another
matter. She was going on seven, and she worshiped him,
which was OK sometimes. When you were the only boy
smashed between four sisters, and the older two had
despised you ever since you stopped letting them dress you
up and wheel you around in their rusty old doll carriage,
and the littlest one cried if you looked at her cross-eyed, it
was nice to have somebody who worshiped you. Even if it
got unhandy sometimes.
He began to trot across the yard. His breath was coming
out in little puffs—cold for August. But it was early yet. By
noontime when his mom would have him out working, it
would be hot enough.
Miss Bessie stared at him sleepily as he climbed across
the scrap heap, over the fence, and into the cow field.

Jesse Oliver Aarons, Jr.
3

"Moo—oo, " she said, looking for all the world like another
May Belle with her big, brown droopy eyes.
"Hey, Miss Bessie," Jess said soothingly. "Just go on back
to sleep."
Miss Bessie strolled over to a greenish patch—most of
the field was brown and dry—and yanked up a mouthful.
"That'a girl. Just eat your breakfast. Don't pay me no
mind."
He always started at the northwest corner of the field,
crouched over like the runners he had seen on Wide World

of Sports.
"Bang," he said, and took off flying around the cow
field. Miss Bessie strolled toward the center, still following
him with her droopy eyes, chewing slowly. She didn't look