The Safe Place (Bridge To Terabithia) || ✓

Ch. 13 - New friend

"Please explain this."

Jess and Leslie exchanged confused looks and then looked back to the two photographs  on the desk. They knew exactly how to explain why there were such holes there, but not the vandalism on a row of lockers.

     It started when the new kid lost to someone in school for the first time. He had dared for another rematch, to which he just lost pathetically for the third time to Leslie, a girl to make matters even worse. And in such frustration, he began to kick the ground, causing holes to appear and then threw a number of insults at Jess and Leslie, going as far as to even grab Jess and throw him to the ground, hard, wrestling him. Fortunately the older kids broke them apart before anything could physically be broken. As they had been far off from the school building, no teacher saw it.

     "Principal Turner," Leslie said politely. "We didn't make the holes in the field or drew things on lockers."

     "I would like to believe you, Leslie, but one of the students had told me that you and Jesse had made the holes in the ground and vandalized the students' lockers." Mr Turner explained with a sigh, as if disappointed with the two.

     "Who?" Jess asked.

Leslie leaned to Jess and then scoffed. "I have a pretty good guess about who it is." Jess raised an eye brow.

"Thomas Roy. He joined the school two weeks ago. Perhaps you've talked to him a few times."

     "And my guess is right." Leslie mumbled and rolled her eyes. "What if we can prove that we didn't do it? The truth."

"And what exactly is the truth?"

"It was Thomas who made the holes in the field during recess." Jess answered quickly.

"Thomas is probably just using us as scapegoat for his vandalism of school property, too." Leslie added.

"Accusing the witness for being the offender? That is a serious accusation, Leslie, Jesse." Mr Turner looked appalled.

"But—" the two said at the same time in desperation, only to be interrupted by the principal's shake of finger. They both knew the punishment of destroying school property and making holes in the field was definitely destroying school property, considering how deep the holes were and how many there were.

"I'll be giving you both detention for a week, cleaning the school facilities."

Leslie opened her mouth to object but Mr Turner cut her off before anything could be said. "That's my final decision, Leslie."

Defeated, Leslie merely nodded her head and accepted the punishment. Principal Turner handed them both a slip of paper that stated the time arrangement for their detention and exactly why they would need to stay in school for three more hours before going back home. Then, they left.

     Doing their homework in their stronghold, Jess was startled when Leslie suddenly shrilled, got up and then walked outside. He put his paper and pen away and slowly walked over to her.

     "What is it?"

     "We're going to detention because of Thomas!" Leslie groaned and turned to look at him. He could really see that she was pissed from the way she was looking at him.

     "Yeah... but we can't do anything about it." Jess told her with a shrug.

     "We need a witness, to clear our names." Leslie told him seriously and rubbed her lips with her hand, just like how she would when she was frustrated.