The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (6 page)

And he was grateful to Bull, too, for sensing that a dress was not the right kind of clothing for Edward.

“Malone,” said Bull one night, “it’s not my desire to offend you or to comment negatively on your choice of garb, but I’m forced to tell you that you stick out like a sore thumb in that princess dress. And also, again, with no wish to offend you, the dress has seen better days.”

Nellie’s beautiful dress had not fared well at the dump or in its subsequent ramblings with Bull and Lucy. It was so torn and dirty and full of holes that it barely resembled a dress anymore.

“I have a solution,” said Bull, “and I hope that it meets with your approval.”

He took his own knit stocking cap and cut a big hole in the top of it and two small holes on the side of it and then he took off Edward’s dress.

“Look away, Lucy,” he said to the dog, “let’s not embarrass Malone by staring at his nakedness.” Bull slid the hat over Edward’s head and pulled it down and poked his arms through the smaller holes. “There you go,” he said to Edward. “Now you just need some pants.”

The pants Bull made himself, cutting up several red handkerchiefs and sewing them together so that they formed a makeshift covering for Edward’s long legs.

“Now you have the proper outlaw look,” said Bull, standing back to admire his work. “Now you look like a rabbit on the run.”

A
T FIRST, THE OTHERS THOUGHT that Edward was a great good joke.

“A rabbit,” the hoboes said, laughing. “Let’s chop him up and put him in the stew pot.”

Or when Bull sat with Edward carefully balanced on his knee, one of them would call out, “Got yourself a little dolly, Bull?”

Edward, of course, felt a surge of anger at being referred to as a dolly. But Bull never got angry. He simply sat with Edward on his knee and said nothing. Soon, the men became accustomed to Edward, and word of his existence spread. So it was that when Bull and Lucy stepped up to a campfire in another town, another state, another place entirely, the men knew Edward and were glad to see him.

“Malone!” they shouted in unison.

And Edward felt a warm rush of pleasure at being recognized, at being known.

Whatever it was that had begun in Nellie’s kitchen, Edward’s new and strange ability to sit very still and concentrate the whole of his being on the stories of another, became invaluable around the hobo campfire.

“Look at Malone,” said a man named Jack one evening. “He’s listening to every dang word.”

“Certainly,” said Bull, “of course he is.”

Later that night, Jack came and sat next to Bull and asked if he could borrow the rabbit. Bull handed Edward over, and Jack sat with Edward upon his knee. He whispered in Edward’s ear.

“Helen,” Jack said, “and Jack Junior and Taffy — she’s the baby. Those are my kids’ names. They are all in North Carolina. You ever been to North Carolina? It’s a pretty state. That’s where they are. Helen. Jack Junior. Taffy. You remember their names, okay, Malone?”

After this, wherever Bull and Lucy and Edward went, some tramp would take Edward aside and whisper the names of his children in Edward’s ear. Betty. Ted. Nancy. William. Jimmy. Eileen. Skipper. Faith.

Edward knew what it was like to say over and over again the names of those you had left behind. He knew what it was like to miss someone. And so he listened. And in his listening, his heart opened wide and then wider still.

The rabbit stayed lost with Lucy and Bull for a long time. Almost seven years passed, and in that time, Edward became an excellent tramp: happy to be on the road, restless when he was still. The sound of the wheels on the train tracks became a music that soothed him. He could have ridden the rails forever. But one night, in a railroad yard in Memphis, as Bull and Lucy slept in an empty freight car and Edward kept watch, trouble arrived.

A man entered the freight car and shone a flashlight in Bull’s face and then kicked him awake.

“You bum,” he said, “you dirty bum. I’m sick of you guys sleeping everywhere. This ain’t no motel.”

Bull sat up slowly. Lucy started to bark.

“Shut up,” said the man. He delivered a swift kick to Lucy’s side that made her yelp in surprise.

All his life, Edward had known what he was: a rabbit made of china, a rabbit with bendable arms and legs and ears. He was bendable, though, only if he was in the hands of another. He could not move himself. And he had never regretted this more deeply than he did that night when he and Bull and Lucy were discovered in the empty railcar. Edward wanted to be able to defend Lucy. But he could do nothing. He could only lie there and wait.

“Say something,” said the man to Bull.

Bull put his hands up in the air. He said, “We are lost.”

“Lost, ha. You bet you’re lost.” And then the man said, “What’s this?” and he shone the light on Edward.

“That’s Malone,” said Bull.

“What the heck?” said the man. He poked at Edward with the toe of his boot. “Things are out of control. Things are out of hand. Not on my watch. No, sir. Not when I’m in charge.”

The train suddenly lurched into motion.

“No, sir,” said the man again. He looked down at Edward. “No free rides for rabbits.” He turned and flung open the door of the railcar, and then he turned back and with one swift kick, he sent Edward sailing out into the darkness.

The rabbit flew through the late spring air.

From far behind him, he heard Lucy’s anguished howl.

Arroooooooooo, ahhhhrrrrrrooo,
she cried.

Edward landed with a most alarming
thump,
and then he tumbled and tumbled and tumbled down a long dirty hill. When he finally stopped moving, he was on his back, staring up at the night sky. The world was silent. He could not hear Lucy. He could not hear the train.

Edward looked up at the stars. He started to say the names of the constellations, but then he stopped.

“Bull,” his heart said. “Lucy.”

How many times, Edward wondered, would he have to leave without getting the chance to say goodbye?

A lone cricket started up a song.

Edward listened.

Something deep inside him ached.

He wished that he could cry.

I
N THE MORNING, THE SUN ROSE and the cricket song gave way to bird song and an old woman came walking down the dirt road and tripped right over Edward.

“Hmph,” she said. She pushed at Edward with her fishing pole.

“Looks like a rabbit,” she said. She put down her basket and bent and stared at Edward. “Only he ain’t real.”

She stood back up. “Hmph,” she said again. She rubbed her back. “What I say is, there’s a use for everything and everything has its use. That’s what I say.”

Edward didn’t care what she said. The terrible ache he had felt the night before had gone away and had been replaced with a different feeling, one of hollowness and despair.

Pick me up or don’t pick me up, the rabbit thought. It makes no difference to me.

The old lady picked him up.

She bent him double and put him in her basket, which smelled of weeds and fish, and then she kept walking, swinging the basket and singing, “Nobody knows the troubles I seen.”

Edward, in spite of himself, listened.

I’ve seen troubles, too, he thought. You bet I have. And apparently they aren’t over yet.

Edward was right. His troubles were not over.

The old woman found a use for him.

She hung him from a pole in her vegetable garden. She nailed his velvet ears to the wooden pole and spread his arms out as if he were flying and attached his paws to the pole by wrapping pieces of wire around them. In addition to Edward, pie tins hung from the pole. They clinked and clanked and shone in the morning sun.

“Ain’t a doubt in my mind that you can scare them off,” the old lady said.

Scare who off? Edward wondered.

Birds, he soon discovered.

Crows. They came flying at him, cawing and screeching, wheeling over his head, diving at his ears.

“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.

B
RYCE,” 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.