Typescript Form for Miscue Analysis
Book Title: Bridge to Terabithia
Author: Katherine Paterson
1. Ba-room, ba-room, ba-room, baripity, baripity, baripity, baripity –
Good.
2. His dad had the pickup going.
3. He could get up now.
4. Jess slid out of bed and into his overalls.
5. He didn’t worry about a shirt because once he began running he
would be hot as popping grease even if the morning air was chill, or
shoes because the bottoms of his feet were by now as tough as his
worn-out sneakers.
6. “Where you going, Jess?” May Belle lifted herself up sleepily from
the double bed where she and Joyce Ann slept.
7. “Sh.”
8. He warned.
1.________
2.________
3.________
4.________
5.________
6.________
7.________
8.________
9. The walls were thin.
9.________
10. Momma would be mad as flies in a fruit jar if they woke her up at
this time of day.
10._______
11. He patted may Belle’s hair and yanked the twisted sheet up to her
small chin.
11._______
12. “Just over the cow field,” he whispered.
12._______
13. May Belle smiled and snuggled down under the sheet.
13._______
14. “Gonna run?”
14._______
15. “Maybe.”
15._______
16. Of course he was going to run.
16._______
17. He had gotten up early every day all summer to run.
17._______
18. He figured if he worked at it – and Lord, had he worked – he
could be the fastest kid runner in the fifth grade when school opened
up.
18._______
19. He had to be the fastest – not one of the fastest or next to the
fastest, but the fastest.
19._______
20. The very best.
20._______
21. He tiptoed out of the house.
21._______
22. The place was so rattly that it screeched whenever you put your
foot down, but Jess had found that if you tiptoed, it gave only a low
moan, and he could usually get outdoors without waking Momma or
Ellie or Brenda or Joyce Ann.
22._______
23. May Bell was another matter.
23._______
24. She was going on seven, and she worshiped him, which was OK
sometimes.
24._______
25. When you were the only boy smashed between four sisters, and
the older two had despised you ever since you stopped letting them
dress you up and wheel you around in their rusty old doll carriage, and
the littlest one cried if you looked at her cross-eyed, it was nice to
have somebody who worshiped you.
25._______
26. Even if it got unhandy sometimes.
26._______
27. He began to trot across the yard.
27._______
28. His breath was coming out in little puffs – cold for August.
28._______
29. But it was early yet.
29._______
30. By noontime when his mom would have him out working, it
would be hot enough.
30._______
31. Miss Bessie stared at him sleepily as he climbed across the scrap
heap, over the fence, and into the cow field.
31._______
32. “Moo-oo,” she said, looking for all the world like another May
Belle with her big, brown droopy eyes.
32._______
33. “Hey, Miss Bessie,” Jess said soothingly.
33._______
34. “Just go on back to sleep.”
34._______
35. Miss Bessie strolled over to a greenish patch – most of the field
was brown and dry – and yanked up a mouthful.
35._______
36. “That’a girl.
36._______
37. Just eat your breakfast.
37._______
38. Don’t pay me no mind.”
38._______
39. He always started at the northwest corner of the field, crouched
over like the runners he had seen on Wide World of Sports.
39._______
40. “Bang,” he said, and took off flying around the cow field.
40._______
41. Miss Bessie strolled toward the center, still following him with
her droopy eyes, chewing slowly.
41._______
42. She didn’t look very smart, even for a cow, but she was plenty
bright enough to get out of Jess’s way.
42._______
43. His straw-colored hair flapped hard against his forehead, and his
arms and legs flew out every which way.
43._______
44. He had never happened to run properly, but he was long-legged
for a ten-year-old, and no one had more grit than he.
44._______
45. Lark Creek Elementary was short on everything, especially
athletic equipment, so all the balls went to the upper grades at recess
time after lunch.
45._______
46. Even if a fifth grader started out the period with a ball, it was sure
to be in the hands of a sixth or seventh grader before the hour was half
over.
46._______
47. The older boys always took the dry center of the upper field for
their ball games, while the girls claimed the small top section for
hopscotch and jump rope and hanging around talking.
47._______
48. So the lower-grade boys had started this running thing.
48._______
49. They would all line up on the far side of the lower field, where it
was either muddy or deep crusty ruts.
49._______
50. Earle Watson who was no good at running, but had a big mouth,
would yell “Bang!” and they’d race to a line they’d toed across at the
other end.
50._______
51. One time last year Jesse had won.
51._______
52. Not just the first heat but the whole shebang.
52._______
53. Only once.
53._______
54. But it had put into his mouth a taste for winning.
54._______
55. Ever since he’d been in first grade he’d been that “crazy little kid
that draws all the time.”
55._______
56. But one day – April the twenty-second, a drizzly Monday, it had
been – he ran ahead of them all, the red mud slooching up through the
holes in the bottom of his sneakers.
56.______
57. For the rest of the day, and until after lunch on the next, he had
been “the fastest kid in the third, fourth, and fifth grades,” and he only
a fourth grader.
57.______
58. On Tuesday, Wayne Pettis had won again as usual.
58.______
59. But this year Wayne Pettis would be in the sixth grade.
59.______
60. He’d play football until Christmas and baseball until June with
the rest of the big guys.
60.______
61. Anybody had a chance to be the fastest runner, and by Miss
Bessie, this year it was going to be Jesse Oliver Aarons, Jr.
61.______
62. Jess pumped his arms harder and bent his head for the distant
fence.
62.______
63. He could hear the third-grade boys screaming him on.
63.______
64. They would follow him around like a country-music star.
64.______
65. And May Belle would pop her buttons.
65.______
66. Her brother was the fastest, the best.
66._______
67. That ought to give the rest of the first grade something to chew
their cuds on.
67._______
68. Even his dad would be proud.
68._______
69. He couldn’t keep going quite so fast, but he continued running for
a while – and it would build him up.
69._______
70. May Belle would tell Daddy, so it wouldn’t look as though he,
Jess, was a bragger.
70._______
71. Maybe Dad would be so proud he’d forget all about how tired he
was from the long drive back and forth to Washington and the digging
and hauling all day.
71._______
72. He would get right down on the floor and wrestle, the way they
used to.
72._______
73. Old Dad would be surprised at how strong he’d gotten in the last
couple of years.
73._______
74. His body was begging him to quit, but Jess pushed it on.
74._______
75. He had to let that puny chest of his know who was boss.
75._______
76. “Jess.”
76._______
77. It was May Belle yelling from the other side of the scrap heap.
77._______
78. “Momma says you gotta come in and eat now.
78._______
79. Leave the milking til later.”
79._______
80. Oh, crud.
80._______
81. He’d run too long.
81._______
82. Now everyone would know he’d been out and start in on him.
82._______
83. “Yeah, OK.”
83._______
84. He turned, still running, and headed for the scrap heap.
84._______
85. Without breaking his rhythm, he climbed over the fence,
scrambled across the scrap heap, thumped May Belle on the head
(“Owww!”), and trotted on to the house.
85._______
86. “We-ell, look at the big O-lympic star,” said Ellie, banging two
cups onto the table, so that the strong, black coffee sloshed out.
86._______
87. “Sweating like a knock-kneed mule.”
87._______
88. Jess pushed his damp hair out of his face and plunked down on
the wooden bench.
88._______
89. He dumped two spoonfuls of sugar into his cup and slurped to
keep the hot coffee from scalding his mouth.
89._______
90._______
90. “Oooo, Momma, he stinks.”
91. Brenda pinched her nose with her pinky crooked delicately.
91._______
92. “Make him wash.”
92._______
93. “Get over here to the sink and wash yourself,” his mother said
without raising her eyes from the stove.
93._______
94. “And step on it.
94._______
95. These grits are scorching the bottom of the pot already.”
95._______
96. “Momma!
96._______
97. Not again!” Brenda whined.
97._______
98. Lord, he was tired.
98._______
99. There wasn’t a muscle in his body that didn’t ache.
99._______
100. “You heard what Momma said,” Ellie yelled at his back.
100.______
101. “I can’t stand it, Momma!” Brenda again.
101.______
102. “Make him get his smelly self off this bench.”
102.______
103. Jess put his cheek down on the bare wood of the tabletop.
103.______
104. “Jess-see!”
104.______
105. His mother was looking now.
105.______
106. “And put on a shirt.”
106.______
107. “Yes’m.”
107.______
108. He dragged himself to the sink.
108.______
109. The water he flipped on his face and up his arms pricked like
ice.
109.______
110. His hot skin crawled under the cold drops.
110.______
111. May Belle was standing in the kitchen door watching him.
111.______
112. “Get me a shirt, May Belle.”
112.______
113. She looked as if her mouth was set to say no, but instead she
said, “You shouldn’t ought to beat me in the head,” she went off
obediently to fetch his T-shirt.
113.______
114. Good old May Belle.
114.______
115. Joyce Ann would have been screaming yet from that little tap.
115.______
116. Four-year-olds were a pure pain.
116.______
117. “I got plenty of chores needs doing around here this morning,”
his mother announced as they were finishing the grits and red gravy.
117.______
118. His mother was from Georgia and still cooked like it.
118.______
119. “Oh, Momma!” Ellie and Brenda squawked in concert.
119.______
120. Those girls could get out of work faster than grasshoppers could
slip through your fingers.
120.______
121. “Momma, you promised me and Brenda we could go to
Millsburg for school shopping.”
121.______
122. “You ain’t got no money for school shopping!”
122.______
123. “Momma.
123.______
124. We’re just going to look around.”
124.______
125. Lord, he wished Brenda would stop whining so.
125.______
126. “Christmas!
126.______
127. You don’t want us to have no fun at all.”
127.______
128. “Any fun,” Ellie corrected her primly.
128.______
129. “Oh, shuttup.”
129.______
130. Ellie ignored her.
130.______
131. “Miz Timmons is coming by to pick us up.
131.______
132. I told Lollie Sunday you said it was OK.
132.______
133. I feel dumb calling her and saying you changed your mind.
133.______
134. “Oh, all right.
134.______
135. But I ain’t got no money to give you.”
135.______
136. Any mondy, something whispered inside Jess’s head.
136.______
137. “I know, Momma.
137.______
138. We’ll just take the five dollars Daddy promised us.
138.______
139. No more’n that.”
139.______
140. “What five dollars?”
140.______
141. “Oh, Momma, you remember.”
141.______
142. Ellie’s voice was sweeter than a melted Mars Bar.
142.______
143. “Daddy said last we girls were going to have to have something
for school.”
143.______
144. “Oh, take it,” his mother said angrily, reaching for her cracked
vinyl purse on the shelf above the stove.
144.______
145. She counted out five wrinkled bills.
145.______
146. “Momma’ – Brenda was starting again – “can’t we have just one
more?
146.______
147. So it’ll be three each?”
147.______
148. “No!”
148.______
149. “Momma, you can’t buy nothing for two fifty.
149.______
150. Just one little pack of notebook paper’s gone up to…”
150.______
151. “No!”
151.______
152. Ellie got up noisily and began to clear the table.
152.______
153. “Your turn to wash, Brenda,” she said loudly.
153.______
154. “Awww, Ellie.”
154.______
155. Ellie jabbed her with a spoon.
155.______
156. Jesse saw that look.
156.______
157. Brenda shut up her whine halfway out of her Rose Lustre
lipsticked mouth.
157.______
158. She wasn’t as smart as Ellie, but even she knew not to push
Momma too far.
158.______
159. Which left Jess to do the work as usual.
159.______
160. Momma never sent the babies out to help, although if he worked
it right he could usually get May Belle to do something.
160.______
161. He put his head down on the table.
161.______
162. The running had done him in this morning.
162.______
163. Through his top ear came the sound of the TImmonses’ old
Buick – “Wants oil,” his dad would say – and the happy buzz of
voices outside the screen door as Ellie and Brenda squashed in among
the seven Timmonses.
163.______
164. “All right, Jesse.
164.______
165. Get your lazy self off that bench.
165.______
166. Miss Bessie’s bag is probably dragging ground by now.
166.______
167. And you still got beans to pick.”
167.______
168. Lazy.
168.______
169. He was the lazy one.
169.______
170. He gave his poor deadweight of a head one minute more on the
tabletop.
170.______
171. “Jess-see!”
171.______
172. “OK, Momma.
172.______
173. I’m going.”
173.______
174. It was may Belle who came to tell him in the bean patch that
people were moving into the old Perkins place down on the next farm.
174.______
175. Jess wiped his hair out of his eyes and squinted.
175.______
176. Sure enough.
176.______
177. A U-Haul was parked right by the door.
177.______
178. One of those big jointed one.
178.______
179. Those people had a lot of junk.
179.______
180. But they wouldn’t last.
180.______
181. The Perkins place was one of those ratty old country houses you
moved into because you had no decent place to go and moved out of
as quickly as you could.
181.______
182. He thought later how peculiar it was that here was probably the
biggest thing in his life, and he had shrugged it off as nothing.
182.______
183. The flies were buzzing around his sweating face and shoulders.
183.______
184. He dropped the beans into the bucket and swatted with both
hands.
184.______
185. “Get me my shirt, May Belle.”
185.______
186. The flies were more important than any U-Haul.
186.______
187. May Belle jogged to the end of the row and picked up his T-shirt
from where it had been discarded earlier.
187.______
188. She walked back holding it with two fingers way out in front of
her.
188.______
189. “Oooo, it stinks,” she said, just as Brenda would have.
189.______
190. “Shuttup,” he said and grabbed the shirt away from her.
190.______