Ten-year-old Jess Aarons (Josh Hutcherson) is an aspiring yet shy elementary school boy living in a financially-struggling family and 10-year-old Leslie Burke (AnnaSophia Robb) is the new girl at Jess' school, just arriving on the school's athletics day. She enters a running event which she wins with ease, despite her classmates calling it a 'boys only' race. Jess is, at first, quite sour about this and wants nothing to do with Leslie, but Leslie's persistence in meeting him soon pays off, and soon the two become good friends. Their friendship starts when Leslie offers Jess a piece of gum on the bus, and he accepts. Jess shares his secret love of drawing with Leslie. Together they venture into the woods, where they swing across a rope and find an abandoned tree house on the other side. Here, the two friends invent a new world they call Terabithia, and it comes to life through their eyes as they explore together. Jess and Leslie base the menacing creatures of Terabithia on the people that give them a hard time at school.