The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

“Go on, Clyde,” said the woman. She clapped her hands. “You got to act ferocious.”

Clyde? Edward felt a weariness so intense wash over him that he thought he might actually be able to sigh aloud. Would the world never tire of calling him by the wrong name?

The old woman clapped her hands again. “Get to work, Clyde,” she said. “Scare them birds off.” And then she walked away from him, out of the garden and toward her small house.

The birds were insistent. They flew around his head. They tugged at the loose threads in his sweater. One large crow in particular would not leave the rabbit alone. He perched on the pole and screamed a dark message in Edward’s left ear: Caw, caw, caw, without ceasing. As the sun rose higher and shone meaner and brighter, Edward became somewhat dazed. He mistook the large crow for Pellegrina.

Go ahead, he thought. Turn me into a warthog if you want. I don’t care. I am done with caring.

Caw, caw, said the Pellegrina crow.

Finally, the sun set and the birds flew away. Edward hung by his velvet ears and looked up at the night sky. He saw the stars. But for the first time in his life, he looked at them and felt no comfort. Instead, he felt mocked. You are down there alone, the stars seemed to say to him. And we are up here, in our constellations, together.

I have been loved, Edward told the stars.

So? said the stars. What difference does that make when you are all alone now?

Edward could think of no answer to that question.

Eventually, the sky lightened and the stars disappeared one by one. The birds returned and the old woman came back to the garden.

She brought a boy with her.

16

BRYCE,” SAID THE OLD WOMAN, “GIT away from that rabbit. I ain’t paying you to stand and stare.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Bryce. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and continued to look up at Edward. The boy’s eyes were brown with flecks of gold shining in them.

“Hey,” he whispered to Edward.

A crow settled on Edward’s head, and the boy flapped his arms and shouted, “Go on, git!” and the bird spread his wings and flew away.

“Bryce!” shouted the old woman.

“Ma’am?” said Bryce.

“Git away from that rabbit. Do your work. I ain’t gonna say it again.”

“Yes’m,” said Bryce. He wiped his hand across his nose. “I’ll be back to get you,” he said to Edward.

The rabbit spent the day hanging by his ears, baking in the hot sun, watching the old woman and Bryce weed and hoe the garden. Whenever the woman wasn’t looking, Bryce raised his hand and waved.

The birds circled over Edward’s head, laughing at him.

What was it like to have wings? Edward wondered. If he had had wings when he was tossed overboard, he would not have sunk to the bottom of the sea. Instead, he would have flown in the opposite direction, up, into the deep, bright blue sky. And when Lolly took him to the dump, he would have flown out of the garbage and followed her and landed on her head, holding on with his sharp claws. And on the train, when the man kicked him, Edward would not have fallen to the ground; instead he would have risen up and sat on top of the train and laughed at the man: Caw, caw, caw.

In the late afternoon, Bryce and the old lady left the field. Bryce winked at Edward as he walked past him. One of the crows lighted on Edward’s shoulder and tapped with his beak at Edward’s china face, reminding the rabbit with each tap that he had no wings, that not only could he not fly, he could not move on his own at all, in any way.

Dusk descended over the field, and then came true dark. A whippoorwill sang out over and over again. Whip poor Will. Whip poor Will. It was the saddest sound Edward had ever heard. And then came another song, the hum of a harmonica.

Bryce stepped out of the shadows.

“Hey,” he said to Edward. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and then played another bit of song on the harmonica. “I bet you didn’t think I’d come back. But here I am. I come to save you.”

Too late, thought Edward as Bryce climbed the pole and worked at the wires that were tied around his wrists. I am nothing but a hollow rabbit.

Too late, thought Edward as Bryce pulled the nails out of his ears. I am only a doll made of china.

But when the last nail was out and he fell forward into Bryce’s arms, the rabbit felt a rush of relief, and the feeling of relief was followed by one of joy.

Perhaps, he thought, it is not too late, after all, for me to be saved.

17

BRYCE SLUNG EDWARD OVER HIS shoulder. He started to walk.

“I come to get you for Sarah Ruth,” Bryce said. “You don’t know Sarah Ruth. She’s my sister. She’s sick. She had her a baby doll made out of china. She loved that baby doll. But he broke it.

“He broke it. He was drunk and stepped on that baby’s head and smashed it into a hundred million pieces. Them pieces was so small, I couldn’t make them go back together. I couldn’t. I tried and tried.”

At this point in his story, Bryce stopped walking and shook his head and wiped at his nose with the back of his hand.

“Sarah Ruth ain’t had nothing to play with since. He won’t buy her nothing. He says she don’t need nothing. He says she don’t need nothing because she ain’t gonna live. But he don’t know.”

Bryce started to walk again. “He don’t know,” he said.

Who “he” was, was not clear to Edward. What was clear was that he was being taken to a child to make up for the loss of a doll. A doll. How Edward loathed dolls. And to be thought of as a likely replacement for a doll offended him. But still, it was, he had to admit, a highly preferable alternative to hanging by his ears from a post.

The house in which Bryce and Sarah Ruth lived was so small and crooked that Edward did not believe, at first, that it was a house. He mistook it, instead, for a chicken coop. Inside, there were two beds and a kerosene lamp and not much else. Bryce laid Edward at the foot of one of the beds and then lit the lamp.

“Sarah,” Bryce whispered, “Sarah Ruth. You got to wake up now, honey. I brung you something.” He took the harmonica out of his pocket and played the beginning of a simple melody.

The little girl sat up in her bed and immediately started to cough. Bryce put his hand on her back. “That’s all right,” he told her. “That’s okay.”

She was young, maybe four years old, and she had white-blond hair, and even in the poor light of the lamp, Edward could see that her eyes were the same gold-flecked brown as Bryce’s.

“That’s right,” said Bryce. “You go on ahead and cough.”

Sarah Ruth obliged him. She coughed and coughed and coughed. On the wall of the cabin, the kerosene light cast her trembling shadow, hunched over and small. The coughing was the saddest sound that Edward had ever heard, sadder even than the mournful call of the whippoorwill. Finally, Sarah Ruth stopped.

Bryce said, “You want to see what I brung you?”

Sarah Ruth nodded.