"Well, you're right for once. Nobody with any sense would call that stick a girl." Brenda pushed her face right into his and grinned the word "girl" through her big painted lips. Something huge and hot swelled right up inside of him, and if he hadn't jumped out of the chair and walked away, he would have smacked her.

"What are you giving your girl friend, Jess?" Brenda screwed her face up in that ugly way she had. He tried to ignore her. He was reading one of Leslie's books, and the adventures of an assistant pig keeper were far more important to him than Brenda's sauce.

Christmas was almost a month away, but at Jess's house the girls were already obsessed with it. This year Ellie and Brenda both had boyfriends at the consolidated high school and the problem of what to give them and what to expect from them was cause of endless speculation and fights. Fights, because as usual, their mother was complaining that there was hardly enough money to give the little girls something from Santa Claus, let alone a surplus to buy record albums or shirts for a pair of boys she'd never set eyes on.

"Don't you know, Brenda?" Ellie joined in. "Jess ain't got no girl friend."

He tried to figure out later what had made him so angry. Partly, of course, it made him furious that anyone as dumb as Brenda would think she could make fun of Leslie. Lord, it hurt his guts to realize that it was Brenda who was his blood sister, and that really, from anyone else's point of view, he and Leslie were not related at all. Maybe, he thought, I was a foundling, like in the stories. Way back when the creek had water in it, I came floating down it in a wicker basket waterproofed with pitch. My dad found me and brought me here because he'd always wanted a son and just had stupid daughters. My real parents and brothers and sisters live far away -- farther away than West Virginia or even Ohio. Somewhere I have a family who have rooms filled with nothing but books and who still grieve for their baby who was stolen.

He shook himself back to the source of his anger. He was angry, too, because it would soon be Christmas and he had nothing to give Leslie. It was not that she would expect something expensive; it was that he needed to give her something as much as he needed to eat when he was hungry.

By the last week of school before the holiday, he was growing desperate. There was no one he could ask for help or advice. His dad had told him he would give him a dollar for each member of the family, but even if he cheated on the family presents, there was no way he could get from that enough to buy Leslie anything worth giving her. Besides, May Belle had her heart set on a Barbie doll, and he had already promised to pool his money with Ellie and Brenda for that. Then the price had gone up, and he found he would have to go over into every one else's dollar to make up the full amount for May Belle. Somehow this year May Belle needed something special. She was always moping around. He and Leslie couldn't include her in their activities, but that was hard to explain to someone like May Belle. Why didn't she play with Joyce Ann? He couldn't be expected to entertain her all the time. Still -- still, she ought to have the Barbie.

He thought about making her a book of his drawings. He even stole paper and crayons from school to do it with. But nothing he drew seemed good enough, and he would end up scrawling across the half-finished page and poking it into the stove to burn up.

So there was no money, and he seemed paralyzed in his efforts to make anything for Leslie. She wouldn't be like Brenda or Ellie. She wouldn't laugh at him no matter what he gave her. But for his own sake he had to give her something that he could be proud of.

If he had the money, he'd buy her a TV. One of those tiny Japanese ones that she could keep in her own room without bothering Judy and Bill. It didn't seem fair with all their money that they'd gotten rid of the TV. It wasn't as if Leslie would watch the way Brenda did -- with her mouth open and her eyes bulging like a goldfish, hour after hour. But every once in a while, a person liked to watch. At least if she had one, it would be one less thing for the kids at school to sneer about. But, of course, there was no way that he could buy her a TV. It was pretty stupid of him even to think about it.

Lord, he was stupid. He gazed miserably out the window of the school bus. It was a wonder someone like Leslie would even give him the time of day. It was because there was no one else. If she had found anyone else at that dumb school -- he was so stupid he had almost gone straight past the sign without catching on. But something in a corner of his head clicked, and he jumped up, pushing past Leslie and May Belle.

"See you later," he mumbled, and shoved his way up the aisle through pair after pair of sprawling legs.

"Lemme off here, Miz Prentice, will you?"

"This ain't your stop."

"No'm. Thanks."

He swung off the bus before it had really stopped and ran back toward the sign.

"Puppies," it said. "Free."

"Long as you don't get me into trouble." She eased the brakes.

"Gotta do an errand for my mother," he lied.

Jess told Leslie to meet him at the castle stronghold on Christmas Eve afternoon. The rest of his family had gone to the Millsburg Plaza for last-minute shopping, but he stayed behind. The dog was a little brown-and-black thing with great brown eyes. Jess stole a ribbon from Brenda's drawer, and hurried across the field and down the hill with the puppy squirming in his arms. Before he got to the creek bed, it had licked his face raw and sent a stream down his jacket front, but he couldn't be mad. He tucked it tightly under his arm and swung across the creek as gently as he could. He could have walked through the gully. It would have been easier, but he couldn't escape the feeling that one must enter Terabithia only by the prescribed entrance. He couldn't let the puppy break the rules. It might mean bad luck for both of them.

There was no mistaking the delight in Leslie's eyes. She dropped to her knees on the cold ground, picked the puppy up, and held it close to her face.

Once in a rare while there was something he could teach Leslie. "Boy," he said happily.

Leslie moved it out a little way. "Is it male or female?"

"Then we'll name him Prince Terrien and make him the guardian of Terabithia."

Later that afternoon Leslie gave Jess his present. It was a box of watercolors with twenty-four tubes of color and three brushes and a pad of heavy art paper.

She put the puppy down and got to her feet.

"To the grove of the pines," she answered. "This is a time of greatest joy."

At the stronghold he tied the ribbon around the puppy's neck, laughing as it backed out of the loop and chewed at the ends of the ribbon. It was a clever, lively little thing -- a present Jess could be proud of.

"Watch it," Jess cautioned. "It sprays worse'n a water pistol."

"Lord," he said. "Thank you." He tried to think of a better way to say it, but he couldn't. "Thank you," he repeated.

"Where you going?"

He wanted to tell her how proud and good she made him feel, that the rest of Christmas didn't matter because today had been so good, but the words he needed weren't there. "Oh, yeah, yeah," he said, and then got up on his knees and began to bark at Prince Terrien. The puppy raced around him in circles, yelping with delight.

"It's not a great present like yours," she said humbly, "but I hope you'll like it."

"R-r-r-oof," wailed Prince Terrien, rolling his eyes skyward. Jess and Leslie both collapsed. They were in pain from the laughter.

Leslie began to laugh. It egged Jess on. Everything the dog did, he imitated, flopping down at last with his tongue lolling out. Leslie was laughing so hard she had trouble getting the words out. "You -- you're crazy. How will we teach him to be a noble guardian? You're turning him into a clown."

"What about his name?"

"Maybe," said Leslie at last. "We'd better make him court jester."

"Oh, we'll let him keep his name. Even a prince"-- this in her most Terabithian voice --"even a prince may be a fool."

"Naw, Joyce Ann. He knows the way. He knows everything." She squenched up her right cheek in a vain effort to return his wink. She was a good kid. He really liked old May Belle.

That night the glow of the afternoon stayed with him. Even his sisters' squabbling about when presents were to be opened did not touch him. He helped May Belle wrap her wretched little gifts and even sang "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" with her and Joyce Ann. Then Joyce Ann cried because they had no fireplace and Santa wouldn't be able to find the way, and suddenly he felt sorry for her going to Millsburg Plaza and seeing all those things and hoping that some guy in a red suit would give her all her dreams. May Belle at six was already too wise. She was just hoping for that stupid Barbie. He was glad he'd splurged on it. Joyce Ann wouldn't care that he only had a hair clip for her. She would blame Santa, not him, for being cheap.

He put his arm awkwardly around Joyce Ann. "C'mon Joyce Ann. Don't cry. Old Santa knows the way. He don't need a chimney, does he, May Belle?" May Belle was watching him with her big, solemn eyes. Jess gave her a knowing wink over Joyce Ann's head. It melted her.

Joyce Ann was lying on her bed screaming because she had yanked the string out of her talking doll and it was no longer talking. Brenda had her lip stuck out because Ellie had gotten a pair of panty hose in her Christmas stocking and she had only bobby socks. Ellie wasn't helping matters, prancing around in her new hose, making a big show of helping Momma with the ham and sweet potatoes for dinner. Lord, sometimes Ellie was as snotty as Wanda Kay Moore.

He had received a racing-car set, which he tried to run to please his father. It wasn't one of these big sets that they advertised on TV, but it was electric, and he knew his dad had put more money into it than he should have. But the silly cars kept falling off at the curves until his father was cursing at them with impatience. Jess wanted it to be OK. He wanted so much for his dad to be proud of his present, the way he, Jess, had been proud of the puppy.

The next morning he helped her dress and undress her Barbie at least thirty times. Slithering the skinny dress over the doll's head and arms and snapping the tiny fasteners was more than her chubby six-year-old fingers could manage.

"It's really great. Really. I just ain't got the hang of it yet." His face was red, and he kept shoving his hair back out of his eyes as he leaned over the plastic figure-eight track.

"Cheap junk." His father kicked at the floor dangerously near the track. "Don't get nothing for your money these days."

"Jesse Oliver Aarons, Jr., if you can stop playing with those fool cars long enough to milk the cow, I'd be most appreciative. Miss Bessie don't take no holiday, even if you do."

Jess jumped up, pleased for an excuse to leave the track which he couldn't make work to his dad's satisfaction. His mother seemed not to notice the promptness of his response but went on in a complaining voice, "I don't know what I'd do without Ellie. She's the only one of you kids ever cares whether I live or die." Ellie smiled like a plastic angel first at Jess and then at Brenda, who glared back.

Leslie must have been watching for him because as soon as he started across the yard he could see her running out of the old Perkins place, the puppy half tripping her as it chased circles around her.

They met at Miss Bessie's shed. "I thought you'd never come out this morning."

"Yeah, well, Christmas, you know."

"Yeah." It felt like Christmas again.

Prince Terrien began to snap at Miss Bessie's hooves. She stamped in annoyance. Leslie picked him up, so Jess could milk. The puppy squirmed and licked, making it almost impossible for her to talk. She giggled happily. "Dumb dog," she said proudly.