The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

In the evening, Lawrence came home from the sea and there was dinner and Edward sat at the table with the fisherman and his wife. He sat in an old wooden highchair; and while at first he was mortified (a highchair, after all, was a chair designed for babies, not for elegant rabbits), he soon became used to it. He liked being up high, looking out over the table instead of staring at the tablecloth as he had at the Tulane household. He liked feeling like a part of things.

Every night after dinner, Lawrence said that he thought he would go out and get some fresh air and that maybe Susanna would like to come with him. He placed Edward on his shoulder as he had that first night when he walked him through town, bringing him home to Nellie.

They went outside and Lawrence lit his pipe and held Edward there on his shoulder; and if the night was clear, Lawrence said the names of the constellations one at a time, Andromeda, Pegasus, pointing at them with the stem of his pipe. Edward loved looking up at the stars, and he loved the sounds of the constellation names. They were sweet in his ears.

Sometimes, though, staring up at the night sky, Edward remembered Pellegrina, saw again her dark and glowing eyes, and a chill would go through him.

Warthogs, he would think. Witches.

But Nellie, before she put him to bed each night, sang Edward a lullaby, a song about a mockingbird that did not sing and a diamond ring that would not shine, and the sound of Nellie’s voice soothed the rabbit and he forgot about Pellegrina.

Life, for a very long time, was sweet.

And then Lawrence and Nellie’s daughter came for a visit.

10

LOLLY WAS A LUMPY WOMAN WHO spoke too loudly and who wore too much lipstick. She entered the house and immediately spotted Edward sitting on the living-room couch.

“What’s this?” she said. She put down her suitcase and picked Edward up by one foot. She held him upside down.

“That’s Susanna,” said Nellie.

“Susanna!” shouted Lolly. She gave Edward a shake.

His dress was up over his head and he could see nothing. Already, he had formed a deep and abiding hatred for Lolly.

“Your father found her,” said Nellie. “She came up in a net and she didn’t have no clothes on her, so I made her some dresses.”

“Have you gone skivvy?” shouted Lolly. “Rabbits don’t need clothes.”

“Well,” said Nellie. Her voice shook. “This one seemed to.”

Lolly tossed Edward back on the couch. He landed face-down with his arms over his head and his dress still over his face, and he stayed that way through dinner.

“Why have you got out that old highchair?” shouted Lolly.

“Oh, don’t pay it no mind,” said Nellie. “Your father was just gluing on a missing piece, wasn’t you, Lawrence?”

“That’s right,” said Lawrence, without looking up from his plate.

Of course, after dinner Edward did not go outside and stand beneath the stars to have a smoke with Lawrence. And Nellie, for the first time since Edward had been with her, did not sing him a lullaby. In fact, Edward was ignored and forgotten about until the next morning, when Lolly picked him up again and pulled his dress down away from his face and stared him in the eye.

“Got the old folks bewitched, don’t you?” said Lolly. “I heard the talk in town. That they’ve been treating you like a rabbit child.”

Edward stared back at Lolly. Her lipstick was a bright and bloody red. He felt a cold breeze blow through the room.

Was a door open somewhere?

“Well, you don’t fool me,” she said. She gave him a shake. “We’ll be taking a trip together, you and me.”

Holding Edward by the ears, Lolly marched into the kitchen and shoved him face-down in the garbage can.

“Ma!” Lolly shouted, “I’m taking the truck. I’m going to head on out and do some errands.”

“Oh,” came Nellie’s tremulous voice, “that’s wonderful, dear. Goodbye, then.”

Goodbye, thought Edward as Lolly hauled the garbage can out to the truck.

“Goodbye,” Nellie called again, louder this time.

Edward felt a sharp pain somewhere deep inside his china chest.

For the first time, his heart called out to him.

It said two words: Nellie. Lawrence.

11

EDWARD ENDED UP AT THE DUMP. He lay on top of orange peels, coffee grounds, rancid bacon, and rubber tires. The first night, he was at the top of the garbage heap, and so he was able to look up at the stars and find comfort in their light.

In the morning, a short man came climbing through the trash and rubble. He stopped when he was standing on top of the highest pile. He put his hands under his armpits and flapped his elbows.

The man crowed loudly. He shouted, “Who am I? I’m Ernest, Ernest who is king of the world. How can I be king of the world? Because I am king of garbages. And garbages is what the world is made of. Ha. Ha, ha! Therefore, I am Ernest, Ernest who is king of the world.” He crowed again.

Edward was inclined to agree with Ernest’s assessment of the world being made of garbage, especially after his second day at the dump, when a load of trash was deposited directly on top of him. He lay there, buried alive. He could not see the sky. He could not see the stars. He could see nothing.

What kept Edward going, what gave him hope, was thinking of how he would find Lolly and exact his revenge. He would pick her up by the ears! He would bury her under a mountain of trash!

But after almost forty days and nights had passed, the weight and the smell of the garbage above and below him clouded Edward’s thoughts, and soon he gave up thinking about revenge and gave in to despair. It was worse, much worse, than being buried at sea. It was worse because Edward was a different rabbit now. He couldn’t say how he was different; he just knew that he was. He remembered, again, Pellegrina’s story about the princess who had loved nobody. The witch turned her into a warthog because she loved nobody. He understood that now.

He heard Pellegrina say: “You disappoint me.”

Why? he asked her. Why do I disappoint you?

But he knew the answer to that question, too. It was because he had not loved Abilene enough. And now she was gone from him. And he would never be able to make it right. And Nellie and Lawrence were gone, too. He missed them terribly. He wanted to be with them.

The rabbit wondered if that was love.

Day after day passed, and Edward was aware of time passing only because every morning he could hear Ernest performing his dawn ritual, cackling and crowing about being king of the world.

On his one hundred and eightieth day at the dump, salvation arrived for Edward in a most unusual form.