So this is my first Bridge to Terabithia fanfic...hope you guys like it! Please review!

P.S. Obviously what happens at the end of the book doesn't happen...I was so upset by it that I decided to do a bunch of stories where Leslie...I mean, it doesn't happen... I'm going to re-write the ending, too, the way I think it should have ended.

Of course, Jess, Leslie, and Terabithia don't belong to me...they belong to their amazing author Katherine Paterson (I hope I spelled that right...)

Anyway. Enjoy and please review!

Jess was walking to his English class when he saw them. The Clan—as five of the cruelest tenth graders was called—was in the hallway next to the lockers, with arms folded across their chests and looking at him with the same expression of a wolf looking at a deer when it is hungry. Ready to attack. Ready to kill.

Jess swallowed and kept on walking. He had another drawing to show Leslie in class. He couldn't get distracted—

"Hey, Aarons," one of the gang members—Parker—said and they were closed in around him, faces sneering and ugly. "Where's your girlfriend?"

Ignoring them, Jess roughly tried to push past the guy blocking the door and almost instantly he was on the ground, head spinning wildly and something wet trickling down the side of his face. He cringed, putting a hand to his face. Not again.

"Stand up and face me like a man," the sophomore howled at him as a crowd started to form. "You gonna hide down there like a little girl?"

Jess closed his eyes and focused on the drawing he had made for Leslie. It was of PT, sitting on the porch of her house with his ears all perked up and his mouth open, tongue lolling out. And there was a tree off to the side, the sun shedding light on its leaves…

"Get up!" barked one of the gang members and Jess felt a rough kick on his side. The people looking onward laughed. Jess set his teeth and was almost ready to get up and throw a punch or two to protect his pride, when a shout echoed through the hall.

"Stop!" The voice rang out like a bell and sent relieved shivers down Jess's spine. He was able to get to his feet in time to see Leslie charging down the hallway, parting the people effortlessly. Her eyes were bright and determined and her fists were clenched.

"What kind of pleasure do you get from hitting other people?" she asked, head thrown back as she faced Parker, the leader of the Clan. He blinked.

"Stay out of this, girl," he said warningly.

"Only horrid people like you would knock someone down," Leslie continued in a strong voice, acting as though Parker had not spoken. "That's why Jess won't hit you, in case you were wondering. He wouldn't waste his time."

Jess looked at her in gratitude. Leslie never made it seem as though she were truly defending him. She always made him seem stronger—something that he felt he wasn't.

"Ain't that cute?" Parker smirked. The entire hallway was listening now. "Jessie Wessie has to be rescued from horrid people like me by a cute little tramp."

Jess, boiling with anger, moved toward him but Leslie got there first. She swung her arm out and slapped Parker across the face, hitting him squarely in the jaw. The crowd gasped as he recoiled backwards and the other gang members made a move to grab Leslie; Jess blocked them as one of them tried to slam her against the wall.

"Let's go!" he said and they walked hurriedly down the wall as the late bell rang, the teachers poking their heads out the door to break up the crowd and send them to their classes. The members of the Clan were muttering angrily; Parker was shouting. Not one of the teachers did anything but herd them into the classrooms. Fights broke out in the hallways every day; no one tried to stop them anymore.

Jess and Leslie walked to the janitor's closet—their hiding place for when they had to run from the school bullies—and waited until the hallway was empty again before hurrying into it. Leslie flicked on the light switch and Jess closed the door. Sometimes they just had to skip.

They sat down on the ground, quiet.

"Thanks," said Jess quietly as he looked at his best friend, smiling at her. Leslie smiled back at him reassuringly and reached around on the ground for the box of tissues their janitor kept there. She pulled some out.

"You're bleeding," she said softly as she started dabbing Jess's face. "Those stupid guys…Does it hurt?"

"No," Jess said, trying to hold his head up a little higher. Leslie laughed at him.

"I bet it does," she said, pushing down on his face with the tissue. Jess winced.

"Okay, yeah, it does."

"Told you."

"Why is it I'm the only Parker and his gang want to knock down all the time?"

Leslie sighed and shook her head. "Jess, they knock everyone down. You have to be more assertive. Be in control and don't let them get to you. You're a king, remember?"

Jess smiled. When they were kids, they used to pretend to fight off enemies and rule over subjects in their private land—Terabithia. Indeed, they were still King and Queen in their tree house over the creek in the forest; they just didn't "play" too often. But that didn't diminish Terabithia's—and his—power.

"I remember," he said, fingering his shoelace.

When they heard the bell rang they bolted out of the closet just as the hallways started filling up. They still had two more periods to go. Throughout the day they only had gym, English, and history together. 6th period was science and 7th was history for Jess. Leslie had to go to a Woman's Studies class in 6th period, to learn to sew and cook and do things she hated to do. Jess knew that the girls in there were preppy and were mean to her, and it disturbed him.

"Don't worry," she told him now like she did every day before they parted for 6th period, her face bright with a smile. "I'm a Queen and they don't bother me."

Jess was never so sure. As she walked down the hallway he always watched her go to her door to make sure the Clan didn't bother her, before walking into his own classroom. Today he saw, as he always did, the girls in Leslie's class turn and stare at her, snickering and whispering behind their hands. Leslie held her head high and didn't even notice them, except to say a polite, "Excuse me," to those who blocked her way.

Jess couldn't help but smile. In the six years they had known each other, Leslie had transformed into a spirited, headstrong beauty that attracted dirty looks from all the other girls in school. Her eyes always shone with one wild story or another she had made up, and her smile melted Jess's heart whenever he was upset about school. He had insisted she grow her hair out back in the 6th grade so he could play with it whenever he was bored, and now—having abandoned her boy cut after much convincing—her blonde hair fell halfway to her waist.

The other girls smeared makeup on their faces and wore tight clothes and stabbed each other in the back with their hurtful words. They all tried to look the prettiest; they all tried to be the best. Leslie didn't even try to win the unspoken battle, didn't even recognize it, and she was the most beautiful girl in the world—at least, she was in Jess's eyes. She held her head high wherever she went and her heart was pure.

She was the true Queen of Terabithia.