Terabithia Times
Read It To Know It!
THE BIRTH OF TERABITHIA
By: Leslie Burke
‘Terabithia’ is a secret country ruled by my best friend, Jesse Oliver Aarons Jr., (the King) and me(the Queen). As we did not intend to let anyone knows Terabithia, thus it is situated a few yards into the woods beyond the creek bed. It can only be entered by swinging on the enchanted rope which hangs from an old crab apple tree.
To anyone without imagination, Terabithia is just a patch of normal forest. However, it is a place of great adventure, full of helpful spirits, evil monsters, brave warriors and a castle to us. In Terabithia, we could never be defeated, unlike in our daily lives where we taunted, judged and bullied by our schoolmates.
We feel that in Terabithia, we could see and feel the magic in the mundane and in the shadowy light of the stronghold, everything seemed possible. To us, Terabithia was not haunted but the stillness was like the chords hummed down to silence after Miss Edmunds, our Music teacher, had finished a song.
I feel that even rulers of Terabithia came into it only at times of greatest sorrow or joy thus we must keep it sacred so as not to disturb the Spirits. My favourite place was the pine forest beside the castle stronghold. The trees grew so thick at the top that the sunshine was veiled and as no low bush or grass could grow in that dim light, the ground was carpeted with golden needles.
To Jesse, whenever he just walked down the hill towards the woods, he felt something warm and liquid stealing through his body. The closer e came to the dry creek bed and the crab apple tree rope, the more he could feel the beating of his heart. A kind of wild exhilaration zoomed through his body as he grabbed the end of the rope and swung out towards the other bank, landing gently on my feet. He felt taller, stronger and wiser in Terabithia.