Well, here's the beginning of a story that I've started writing. I've seen the Bridge to Terabithia movie and I got interested in writing something like this. I warn you, this chapter is heavy in cussing. I hope you like it, please read and review.

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First of All, the Beginning

1

Jess hadn't at first realized the danger of allowing Maybelle into Terabithia.

He thought Leslie would be okay with it. God, Leslie was dead, Maybelle said she was goin' to hell. The tears came back to his eyes whenever he thought of it. Before, he had just been that little creep that hung around, trying to be friends. He had no friends.

Not anymore.

Jess had underestimated Maybelle's imagination. Jess didn't know what his mother and father had been arguing and crying and sulking about. They thought it was maybe about Leslie, the funeral, the goddamn funeral, and Dad had liked PT. Dad did like Prince Terrien, and Mother hated goddamn funerals. He hadn't realized that they had gone to the midnight showing of The Chronicles of Narnia just after Jess went to sleep, after Jess and Maybelle came home, after Jess showed Maybelle their kingdom, Terabithia.

They had been coming home, and they were talking about the characters. Everyone loved adorable Lucy, and agreed that Edmund was a monster until Aslan came along, and that everyone cried when Aslan died, and then screamed in triumph when he came back to life. But not Maybelle. When they discussed who their favorite character was on the drive home, Maybelle didn't act tired. She wasn't tired. She was hypnotized.

By the witch. The White Witch. Maybelle liked the White Witch. Maybelle loved the White Witch. Maybelle idolized the White Witch, and she didn't care that she was goin' to hell. The White Witch would be in hell, won't she? She asked in a prayer later. Won't she?

2

Silently, Jess got up. It had been a week, and mom and Father were still sulking and crying and arguing. Why the hell is this? Jess thought while he remembered it during school. Once or twice, he would realize that he said it aloud and would hurriedly look around to see if anyone saw. Good, nobody, hell hell hell hell hell hell hell.

Of course, he realized that people didn't care if you said damn or hell or shit or fuck here. This was school. He had been so isolated, so goddamn alone, he hadn't sworn except maybe at home and he would say "Damn it to hell!" Other than that, that was just about it. He thought that cussin' was for slobs that didn't have any other good vocabulary.

Knew it, he thought rapidly. I'm turning into a goddamn nerd. A. God. Damn. Nerd. Who says vocabulary?

He didn't swear at all that entire day at school, but pretended to mouth it during lunch (like he would purposely drop a fry just to attract attention, and he would mouth "vacuum!" Most people thought he said something else and was a pretty good smooth swearer.

He dropped off the bus and realized that he had left his picture for Maybelle of the Terabithian's Wind Giant, help out her imagination a bit, and started swearin', but then realized that Maybelle was still on the bus and he blushed; the bus driver had heard him. And he rode the bus with a ton of eighth graders in the back, and a bunch of kindergarten kids in the front. Goddamn idiot, he thought. He hurried back onto the bus, grinned sychophantically at the bus driver, got his rucksack and Maybelle out of her seat (she's been drawin' something. She does worship me!). They hurried out of the bus and hurried home.

Once they got there, up into Jess' room, just Jess and Maybelle, Maybelle asked softly, so no one else would hear, "Do you have a map of Terabithia? I want to see it."

"What for? I don't have good detail on it, and the Terabithian map doesn't work here, remember?" he replied quickly. "Here, you can have it anyways." He reached into his art pack that Leslie bought him when they discovered Terabithia ("You have to be the cartographer here, got it?") and got the picture on top, with touch brown shaded paper that he stole from art class, the Map of Jessian Terrabithia. (Jessian? What the hell does Jessian mean?! Why not Jessish, or even Jessean, but no Jessian, that sounded absolutely gay.) He handed it to Maybelle.

"Thanks." She took it quickly like snake, and started almost scrutinizing it. It looked creepy, and Jess decided Maybelle was starting to scare the shit out of him. He didn't say anything, let Maybelle say something. "Where are the major gateways?"

He hadn't been paying attention. What did she say? Was it that shit-scaring face that distracted him? Hmm. "Wadja say, May?"

"The major gateways. I need to know a major gateway, we don't want Darkman to come into our world and wreck havoc, do we?" Damn, where did Maybelle learn these words?

"Who-"

"It's what. Darkman is a what, not a who, Darkman isn't a human, it isn't even an animal." She interrupted him without looking up from he map. "I suspect that the Darkwoman has already come out, don't you remember her?"

"What? Darkwoman?"

"Janice Avery, you dunce, she was the darkwoman!" she said impatiently. "Come on Jess, just show me that major gateways, I need to seal them except for us."

He didn't know what to say to that, and Maybelle had just learned about Terabithia a week ago, she may be the princess there, but not any higher than him, King Jesse, she was equivalent (nerd. Definitely a nerd.) to a goddamn dog that had, in Jess' opinion, betrayed Terabithia by not rescuing his mistress Queen Leslie.

Nevertheless, he took a red crayon and circled the four corners, and the very middle. "The bridge leads to all these gateways. It also leads to some minor-"

Maybelle screeched. She looked at Jess as if she had been scandalized, and then scowled, and muttered something about "Stupid greedy unintelligent king" (maybe nerd genes come in the family, where the hell does May know those words?) Then, she snapped out of it and shouted, "Minor? Minor gateways, why haven't we gone through some of those?"

"Because!" Jess answered angrily. "They are tunnels, stupid tunnels that lead to dangerous places in Terabithia! Do we really want to go to the Vampire Templae?" He looked at her, stunned, then calmed down. "Besides, I didn't really want to know, one of them leads to my stash."

Maybelle sighed. Her brother really was a stupid, unintelligent, abusive and crude ruler of a gorgeous land that really needed a smartass, intelligent, philanthropic and beautiful ruler. Maybelle was glad she restored the yin, the feminity, the darkness to this place. Leslie had been a good creator, but a lousy ruler. It was her turn to inherit the throne.

"Circle all the gateways, every single one," she declared, as she smiled delightedly. "I'm blocking everything, and plus I have an experiment, a beautiful experiment that I'm doing in Terabithia."

"What is it?" Jess was a curious cat. Soon to be struck by stupid lightning.

"Oh," Maybelle said, "you'll see, I promise that, once you arrive, then I'll let you see, and you'll love it. You'll drop, you'll be so proud, it'll be so beautiful it'll hurt your eyes." Maybelle looked at Jess, looked at the dopey look that he had. She told the truth all the time, and not pretending that it wouldn't do exactly what she said would be a lie, and she'd go to hell if she told a lie.

Oh yeah, the witch was going to hell. That means I gotta lie more.