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But still: we feel held, loved, seen. Someone trusted us enough to tell us the truth; and because of that, the room is golden, brimful of light. —Kate DiCamillo
Dennis and 1 other person liked this
Lord, Leslie. Don’t say that. You can always watch on mine.
At recess time when he was playing King of the Mountain, he could see that Leslie was surrounded by a group of girls led by Wanda Kay. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he could tell by the proud way Leslie was throwing her head back that the others were making fun of her.
which someone long forgotten had hung a rope.
“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.”
There were parts of the woods that Jess did not like.
Dark places where it was almost like being underwater, but he didn’t say so.
Like God in the Bible, they looked at what they had made and found it very good.
“You better shut up about those dang Twinkies,” he said in her ear.
Parents were what they were; it wasn’t up to you to try to puzzle them out. There was something weird about a grown man wanting to be friends with his own child. He ought to have friends his own age and let her have hers.
John Gilbert liked this
Jess and Leslie went ahead and put the little girls in the back and settled down to wait.
“Your girl friend’s dead, and Momma thought you was dead, too.”
“No,” he said straight at May Belle. “It’s a lie. Leslie ain’t dead.” He turned around and ran out
“You don’t even care. Do you?” Brenda was watching him from across the table. He looked at her puzzled, his mouth full. “If Jimmy Dicks died, I wouldn’t be able to eat a bite.”
You think it’s so great to die and make everyone cry and carry on. Well, it ain’t.
He, Jess, was the only one who really cared for Leslie. But Leslie had failed him. She went and died just when he needed her the most. She went and left him. She went swinging on that rope just to show him that she was no coward. So there, Jess Aarons. She was probably somewhere right now laughing at him. Making fun of him like he was Mrs. Myers. She had tricked him. She had made him leave his old self behind and come into her world, and then before he was really at home in it but too late to go back, she had left him stranded there—like an astronaut wandering about on the moon. Alone.
A cardinal flew down to the bank, cocked its brilliant head, and seemed to stare at the wreath. P. T. let out a growl which sounded more like a purr. Jess put his hand on the dog to quiet him.
“Everybody gets scared.”
