Evacuated

Imagine The Impossible

I walked toward my bus at the end of the day when a group of my classmates called my name. "Hey Leslie, what are you gonna write your essay about? Cave life?" Madison remarked, the rest giggling. I ignored them, but I felt dejected. People were making rude remarks about it for the rest of that day. I stepped onto the bus with a miserable look on my face as I made my way to the backseat. I sat down in the middle seat in the back. I heard a few gasps around me but kept my head down. "New kid's in Janice's seat!" a voice from the middle of the bus. "Jess! Jess! The big kids'll kill 'er!" the little girl cried. Janice Avery, the girl who made ya pay a dollar to use the washroom, stormed proudly with her head held high to where I was sitting. Jess pushed ahead of her and grabbed my backpack. "Do you have a death wish, the back row's for eighth graders!" he informed, dragging my shoulder bag out of my arms. "That's right, bean pole" Janice agreed. "Move it" she added. I climbed over the seats and plopped myself down beside Jess, who then set my bag in my lap. I smiled  a straight smile and he returned the gesture. When our stop came, Jess, his six-year-old sister, May Belle and I got off the bus. As it drove ahead, I waved at Janice in a fake sort of way, who was glaring at me out the back window. "You're really asking for it" Jess snarled, May Belle looking at me as if she felt sorry for me. "Seems to me like she gives it out whether you ask for it or not, so might as well have some fun" I smirked back. "Getting Janice all wound up is a strange way of having fun" Jess stated. "Well, what do you like to do for fun?" I asked. "I don't know" Jess brushed it off. "Well, we should do something!" I suggested. "Yeah, let's do something! What should we do?" May Belle cheered happily. "You can't do it" Jess snarled at his sister. "Do what?" she whined. "What we're doing" Jess replied. I smiled. "Tell Mom I'll be home soon" Jess told her. She frowned as she walked towards their house. "Hey May Belle!" I called. She turned to face me. "I don't play with my barbies much anymore. If you want, you can have um" I offered. "To keep for permanent?" she asked hopefully. "Sure" I smiled. "Thanks!" she remarked as she skipped towards their house. "Race ya to the end of the road!" I turned to Jess. We threw our bags on the ground and ran as fast as we could down the road. We went for a long time, down hills, over logs up until we found a forest area and ran into a tree as if it were the finish line. We both laughed as we continued into the forest. "So do you see any sharks when you're scubing or whatever?" Jess asked. "I've never been scuba diving in my whole life" I admitted, stepping onto a tree laying across a ditch. "You lied in your essay?" Jess sounded surprised. "No, I made it up. It's different from lying" I explained. "Those drawings you make" I started, Jess gave me a curious look. "You really seen all those things yourself?" I asked. "No but--" Jess stopped himself. I smiled and pushed him lightly, causing him to loose balance on the tree.

We walked deeper into the forested area. "Hey, look at that!" I cheered, running over to a tree with a rope tied tightly to the branch, hanging over a small creek. I grabbed the rope and tugged it gently. "That's been there forever, I wouldn't trust it" Jess suggested hesitantly. "Come on, just try it" I said. "What are you doing?" he asked, fear in his big brown eyes. "Getting up higher" I answered, stepping up on a log behind me. I jumped onto the rope and swung across the creek. When I got back, I jumped off, handing it to Jess. "That was so fun! You have to try it" I forced Jess. He took the rope and stepped on the log with little confidence, he jumped and came right back, just as I did. He handed it back to me. As I swung across a second time, I held my head back and stared up at the clouds. "Hang your head back and watch the clouds, feels like flying!" I shuddered, handing the rope back to Jess. He did as I said and a smile grew on his small freckled face as his head held back in the wind. "Whoa" he gasped, handing it back to me. I sat down on the log next to Jess and held the rope in my hand. "We need a place. Just for us. Where there's no Scott Hoager's or Janice Avery's" I decided. "Yeah but when we go back to school, there they are waiting" Jess argued. "I mean someplace better than just not being at school" I explained. "What if there was a magical kingdom!" I suggested happily. "I dunno, what if?" Jess shrugged his shoulders. "What if the only way we could enter it was by swinging across this enchanted rope?" I added. "Enchanted rope?" Jess smirked. "C'mon" I stood up and swung on the rope, but this time I let go on the other side and jumped off. I walked deeper into the forest. "Leslie? Leslie!" I heard Jess' voice call, worriedly, from the other side. I walked deeper and explored before turning around to see Jess had crossed behind me. "Come on!" I gestured him in my direction. I kept walking as Jess caught up with me. We walked for a while until we finally found something. "Jess, check this out!" I ran over to an old abandoned truck, rusty old thing with rusted clinking metal hanging from inside mirror. Jess stared at it with no words. "Too bad for them, they got so close" I sighed. "To what?" Jess asked. "The kingdom!" I informed."Come on!" I trailed ahead, Jess slowly following behind me.

"Jess, look at this!" I gasped in shock. An old abandoned treehouse in the middle of the forest, very old looking, and a little unsafe. I saw a lot of potential in it. Jess led his eyes to scan the place. "Amazing" he gasped under his breath. I climbed up to the top of the treehouse, Jess climbing not far behind me. We stopped on the main level of the treehouse as I stared hopefully at the place we had come from. "Warriors!" I gasped. "Try dragonflies" Jess corrected as the little bugs fluttered around us. "No, their warriors" I stated, climbing higher up. "I-I don't know this game" Jess muttered. "What game? This is for real!" I smiled looking down at Jess on the platform below me. I looked up at the sky. "The prisoners of the Dark Master have been held captive here for years" I explained, head up. "Jess, you and I were sent to free them" I smiled down at him. He gave me an expressionless look, he couldn't find the right words. "Prisoners of the Dark Master, we have come to free you!" I shouted into open air. "Can you hear us? Show us that you hear us!" I called. The wind blew stronger at the sound of my voice, trees rattling in the wind. "You just got lucky timing, the wind's been blowing on and off all day" Jess argued. I wasn't ready to give up, I oughta prove to him the magic was real. "Can't hear you!" I shouted into the sky. The wind blew even harder at the sound of my voice. I stretched my arms into the air to embrace the wind. Jess gasped and laughed in surprise.

Later, him and I made our way back home. We parted our own ways when we reach the paths that separated our houses. "See ya!" I called to him. "Yeah, see ya" he responded as we parted. After school the next day, we raced down the road and swung across the rope again. We found wood throughout the forest and I borrowed materials to build from my garage. We build and expanded on our magical kingdom, we ourselves powered the magic of it with our imaginations.

We climbed all the way to the top of a nearby tree. I poked my head out of the whistling leaves between us. "Look at it!" I gasped at the view. "The waters, the castle, the sky and mountains, it's all ours!" I stated. Jess looked out into the distance and only saw what was really there, hills of farmland. "What exactly am I looking for?" he asked. "You'll know it when you see it. Just close your eyes and keep your mind wide open" I told. Jess glued his eyes shut as hard as he could and opened them seconds later to see the mountains, castle and waters I had imagined. "Wow" he gasped. "What do we call this place?" he asked curiously. "Terabithia" I decided, embracing the glory of the forbidden land we had created.

Everyday after school, Jess and I would get off the bus with May Belle. Jess handed her his backpack and him and I were headed off to Terabithia. "I'll see ya later" Jess told his sister. "See ya!" May Belle smiled, taking hers and Jess' backpacks to their house. Jess and I ran deep into the forest, across the rope and into the enchanted land of Terabithia. There were more than just warriors, but creatures of Terabithia that roamed around. They weren't all good creatures. The Dark Master was out to get rid of us. He sent Squogres to scare us away. Part squirrel, part Scott Hoager. Jess and I would fight them off everyday. We were the fastest in Terabithia, no squogre was gonna was gonna scare us away. The Dark Master also sent Hairy Vultures, half vulture, half Gary Fultcher. None of these enemies of Terabithia could defeat us. Jess and I were unstoppable.

One day, Jess and I were continuing to build up Terabithia. He was painting a map of the place we hung inside the treehouse. I was building more to add on to the structure of it. "How come you're so good at that?" Jess asked. "Good at what?" I turned to him. "Building stuff. You're really good at it, for a girl" he suggested casually. "Same way I'm fast...for a girl" I smirked. "You know what I mean" he brushed it off. "You're really good at art! For a boy" I giggled. "Okay okay, truce" Jess laughed as I stepped under the roof. Just then, a tree came crashing down ripping the sheet I hung in front of the window. Jess and I both pushed ourselves backwards to avoid the tree, both of us letting out terrified gasps. "It's a giant troll!" I claimed in shock. "No, it's a giant tree that almost killed us!" Jess argued. "You think that tree fell by itself?" I asked honestly. Jess and I climbed down and examined the damage the tree had caused. "There's no way a giant troll caused that" Jess restated. "Then what's that?" I asked running towards a giant footprint bigger than the both of us, deep in the ground. "No way" Jess stared at it with a blank expression. "If we had a troll hunter, we could track it's scent" I suggested. Jess ignored it and we made our way back home.

We came back to Terabithia often and discovered new wonders to our magical kingdom. We both swore to never tell anyone about it. It was our secret. It would always be the one place we could find ourselves and the magic we created brought life to Jess. I, of course, had embraced the magic before it even existed. It was beautiful, but the story isn't over yet, not in the slightest.