[Part 2] "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane" by Kate Di Camillo

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CHAPTER XIV.

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AT 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 Tay — 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.

Tay.

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.

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CHAPTER XV.

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IN 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.

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CHAPTER XVI.

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"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.

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.

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CHAPTER XVII.

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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 brought 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 whiteblond 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 brought you?”

Sarah Ruth nodded.

“You got to close your eyes.”

The girl closed her eyes.

Bryce picked up Edward and held him so that he was standing straight, like a soldier, at the end of the bed.

“All right now, you can open them.”

Sarah Ruth opened her eyes, and Bryce moved Edward’s china legs and china arms so it looked as if he were dancing.

Sarah Ruth laughed and clapped her hands.

“Rabbit,” she said.

“He’s for you, honey,” said Bryce.

Sarah Ruth looked first at Edward and then at Bryce and then back at Edward again, her eyes wide and disbelieving.

“He’s yours.”

“Mine?”

Sarah Ruth, Edward was soon to discover, rarely said more than one word at a time.

Words, at least several of them strung together, made her cough.

She limited herself.

She said only what needed to be said.

“Yours,” said Bryce.

“I got him special for you.”

This knowledge provoked another fit of coughing in Sarah Ruth, and she hunched over again.

When the fit was done, she uncurled herself and held out her arms.

“That’s right,” said Bryce.

He handed Edward to her.

“Baby,” said Sarah Ruth.

She rocked Edward back and forth and stared down at him and smiled.

Never in his life had Edward been cradled like a baby.

Abilene had not done it.

Nor had Nellie.

And most certainly Bull had not.

It was a singular sensation to be held so gently and yet so fiercely, to be stared down at with so much love.

Edward felt the whole of his china body flood with warmth.

“You going to give him a name, honey?” Bryce asked.

“Jangles,” said Sarah Ruth without taking her eyes off Edward.

“Jangles, huh?

That’s a good name.

I like that name.”

Bryce patted Sarah Ruth on the head.

She continued to stare down at Edward.

“Hush,” she said to Edward as she rocked him back and forth.

“From the minute I first seen him,” said Bryce, “I knew he belonged to you.

I said to myself, ‘That rabbit is for Sarah Ruth, for sure.’”

“Jangles,” murmured Sarah Ruth.

Outside the cabin, thunder cracked and then came the sound of rain falling on the tin roof.

Sarah Ruth rocked Edward back and forth, back and forth, and Bryce took out his harmonica and started to play, making his song keep rhythm with the rain.

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CHAPTER XVIII.

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BRYCE AND SARAH RUTH HAD A father.

Early the next morning, when the light was gray and uncertain, Sarah Ruth was sitting up in bed, coughing, and the father came home.

He picked Edward up by one of his ears and said, “I ain’t never.”

“It’s a baby doll,” said Bryce.

“Don’t look like no baby doll to me.”

Edward, hanging by one ear, was frightened.

This, he was certain, was the man who crushed the heads of china dolls.

“Jangles,” said Sarah Ruth between coughs.

She held out her arms.

“He’s hers,” said Bryce.

“He belongs to her.”

The father dropped Edward on the bed, and Bryce picked up the rabbit and handed him to Sarah Ruth.

“It don’t matter anyway,” said the father.

“It don’t make no difference.

None of it.”

“It does so matter,” said Bryce.

“Don’t you sass me,” said the father.

He raised his hand and slapped Bryce across his mouth and then he turned and left the house.

“You ain’t got to worry about him,” said Bryce to Edward.

“He ain’t nothing but a bully.

And besides, he don’t hardly ever come home.”

Fortunately, the father did not come back that day.

Bryce went out to work and Sarah Ruth spent the day in bed, holding Edward in her lap and playing with a box filled with buttons.

“Pretty,” she said to Edward as she lined up the buttons on the bed and arranged them into different patterns.

Sometimes, when a coughing fit was particularly bad, she squeezed Edward so tight that he was afraid he would crack in two.

Also, in between coughing fits, she took to sucking on one or the other of Edward’s ears.

Normally, Edward would have found intrusive, clingy behavior of this sort very annoying, but there was something about Sarah Ruth.

He wanted to take care of her.

He wanted to protect her.

He wanted to do more for her.

At the end of the day, Bryce returned with a biscuit for Sarah Ruth and a ball of twine for Edward.

Sarah Ruth held the biscuit in both hands and took small, tentative bites.

“You eat that all up, honey.

Let me hold Jangles,” said Bryce.

“Him and me got a surprise for you.”

Bryce took Edward off in a corner of the room, and with his pocketknife, he cut off lengths of twine and tied them to Edward’s arms and feet and then tied the twine to sticks of wood.

“See, all day I been thinking about it,” Bryce said, “what we’re going to do is make you dance.

Sarah Ruth loves dancing.

Mama used to hold on to her and dance her around the room.

“You eating that biscuit?” Bryce called out to Sarah Ruth.

“Uh-huh,” said Sarah Ruth.

“You hold on, honey.

We got a surprise for you.”

Bryce stood up.

“Close your eyes,” he told her.

He took Edward over to the bed and said, “Okay, you can open them now.”

Sarah Ruth opened her eyes.

“Dance, Jangles,” said Bryce.

And then, moving the strings with the sticks with his one hand, Bryce made Edward dance and drop and sway.

And the whole while, at the same time, with his other hand, he held on to the harmonica and played a bright and lively tune.

Sarah Ruth laughed.

She laughed until she started to cough, and then Bryce laid Edward down and took Sarah Ruth in his lap and rocked her and rubbed her back.

“You want some fresh air?” he asked her.

“Let’s get you out of this nasty old air, huh?”

Bryce carried his sister outside.

He left Edward lying on the bed, and the rabbit, staring up at the smoke-stained ceiling, thought again about having wings.

If he had them, he thought, he would fly high above the world, to where the air was clear and sweet, and he would take Sarah Ruth with him.

He would carry her in his arms.

Surely, so high above the world, she would be able to breathe without coughing.

After a minute, Bryce came back inside, still carrying Sarah Ruth.

“She wants you, too,” he said.

“Jangles,” said Sarah Ruth.

She held out her arms.

So Bryce held Sarah Ruth and Sarah Ruth held Edward and the three of them stood outside.

Bryce said, “You got to look for falling stars.

Them are the ones with magic.”

They were quiet for a long time, all three of them looking up at the sky.

Sarah Ruth stopped coughing.

Edward thought that maybe she had fallen asleep.

“There,” she said.

And she pointed to a star streaking through the night sky.

“Make a wish, honey,” Bryce said, his voice high and tight.

“That’s your star.

You make you a wish for anything you want.”

And even though it was Sarah Ruth’s star, Edward wished on it, too.

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CHAPTER XIX.

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THE DAYS PASSED.

THE SUN ROSE and set and rose and set again and again.

Sometimes the father came home and sometimes he did not.

Edward’s ears became soggy and he did not care.

His sweater had almost completely unraveled and it didn’t bother him.

He was hugged half to death and it felt good.

In the evenings, at the hands of Bryce, at the ends of the twine, Edward danced and danced.

One month passed and then two and then three.

Sarah Ruth got worse.

In the fifth month, she refused to eat.

And in the sixth month, she began to cough up blood.

Her breathing became ragged and uncertain, as if she was trying to remember, in between breaths, what to do, what breathing was.

“Breathe, honey,” Bryce stood over her and said.

Breathe, thought Edward from deep inside the well of her arms.

Please, please breathe.

Bryce stopped leaving the house.

He sat at home all day and held Sarah Ruth in his lap and rocked her back and forth and sang to her; on a bright morning in September, Sarah Ruth stopped breathing.

“Oh no,” said Bryce.

“Oh, honey, take a little breath.

Please.”

Edward had fallen out of Sarah Ruth’s arms the night before and she had not asked for him again.

So, face-down on the floor, arms over his head, Edward listened as Bryce wept.

He listened as the father came home and shouted at Bryce.

He listened as the father wept.

“You can’t cry!” Bryce shouted.

“You got no right to cry.

You never even loved her.

You don’t know nothing about love.”

“I loved her,” said the father.

“I loved her.”

I loved her, too, thought Edward.

I loved her and now she is gone.

How could this be? he wondered.

How could he bear to live in a world without Sarah Ruth?

The yelling between the father and son continued, and then there was a terrible moment when the father insisted that Sarah Ruth belonged to him, that she was his girl, his baby, and that he was taking her to be buried.

“She ain’t yours!” Bryce screamed.

“You can’t take her.

She ain’t yours.”

But the father was bigger and stronger, and he prevailed.

He wrapped Sarah Ruth in a blanket and carried her away.

The small house became very quiet.

Edward could hear Bryce moving around, muttering to himself.

And then, finally, the boy picked Edward up.

“Come on, Jangles,” Bryce said.

“We’re leaving.

We’re going to Memphis.”

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CHAPTER XX.

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“HOW MANY DANCING RABBITS HAVE you seen in your life?” Bryce said to Edward.

“I can tell you how many I seen.

One.

You.

That’s how you and me are going to make some money.

I seen it the last time I was in Memphis.

Folks put on any kind of show right there on the street corner and people pay ’em for it.

I seen it.”

The walk to town took all night.

Bryce walked without stopping, carrying Edward under one arm and talking to him the whole time.

Edward tried to listen, but the terrible scarecrow feeling had come back, the feeling he had when he was hanging by his ears in the old lady’s garden, the feeling that nothing mattered, and that nothing would ever matter again.

And not only did Edward feel hollow; he ached.

Every part of his china body hurt.

He ached for Sarah Ruth.

He wanted her to hold him.

He wanted to dance for her.

And he did dance, but it was not for Sarah Ruth.

Edward danced for strangers on a dirty street corner in Memphis.

Bryce played his harmonica and moved Edward’s strings, and Edward bowed and shuffled and swayed and people stopped to stare and point and laugh.

On the ground in front of them was Sarah Ruth’s button box.

The lid was open to encourage people to drop change inside it.

“Mama,” said a small child, “look at that bunny.

I want to touch him.”

He reached out his hand for Edward.

“No,” said the mother, “dirty.”

She pulled the child back, away from Edward.

“Nasty,” she said.

A man wearing a hat stopped and stared at Edward and Bryce.

“It’s a sin to dance,” he said.

And then after a long pause, he said, “It’s a particular sin for rabbits to dance.”

The man took off his hat and held it over his heart.

He stood and watched the boy and the rabbit for a long time.

Finally, he put his hat back on his head and walked away.

The shadows lengthened.

The sun became an orange dusty ball low in the sky.

Bryce started to cry.

Edward saw his tears land on the pavement.

But the boy did not stop playing his harmonica.

He did not make Edward stop dancing.

An old woman leaning on a cane stepped up close to them.

She stared at Edward with deep, dark eyes.

Pellegrina? thought the dancing rabbit.

She nodded at him.

Look at me, he said to her.

His arms and legs jerked.

Look at me.

You got your wish.

I have learned how to love.

And it’s a terrible thing.

I’m broken.

My heart is broken.

Help me.

The old woman turned and hobbled away.

Come back, thought Edward.

Fix me.

Bryce cried harder.

He made Edward dance faster.

Finally, when the sun was gone and the streets were dark, Bryce stopped playing his harmonica.

“I’m done now,” he said.

He let Edward fall to the pavement.

“I ain’t gonna cry anymore.”

Bryce wiped his nose and his eyes with the back of his hand; he picked up the button box and looked inside it.

“We got us enough money to get something to eat,” he said.

“Come on, Jangles.”

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CHAPTER XXI.

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NEAL'S DINER

THE DINER WAS CALLED NEAL’S.

THE word was written in big, red neon letters that flashed on and off.

Inside, it was warm and bright and smelled like fried chicken and toast and coffee.

Bryce sat at the counter and put Edward on a stool next to him.

He leaned the rabbit’s forehead up against the counter so that he would not fall.

“What you gonna have, sugar?” the waitress said to Bryce.

“Give me some pancakes,” said Bryce, “and some eggs and I want steak, too.

I want a big old steak.

And some toast.

And some coffee.”

The waitress leaned forward and pulled at one of Edward’s ears and then pushed him backward so that she could see his face.

“This your rabbit?” she said to Bryce.

“Yes’m.

He’s mine now.

He belonged to my sister.”

Bryce wiped at his nose with the back of his hand.

“We’re in show business, me and him.”

“Is that right?” said the waitress.

She had a nametag on the front of her dress.

Marlene, it said.

She looked at Edward’s face, and then she let go of his ear and he fell forward so that his head rested against the counter again.

Go ahead, Marlene, thought Edward.

Push me around.

Do with me as you will.

What does it matter?

I am broken.

Broken.

The food came, and Bryce ate all of it without even looking up from his plate.

“Well, you was hungry for sure,” said Marlene as she cleared away the plates.

“I reckon show business is hard work.”

“Yes’m,” said Bryce.

Marlene tucked the check under the coffee cup.

Bryce picked it up and looked at it and then shook his head.

“I ain’t got enough,” he said to Edward.

“Ma’am,” he said to Marlene when she came back and filled up his coffee cup.

“I ain’t got enough.”

“What, sugar?”

“I ain’t got enough money.”

She stopped pouring the coffee and looked at him.

“You’re going to have to talk to Neal about that.”

Neal, it turned out, was both the owner and the cook.

He was a large, red-haired, red-faced man who came out of the kitchen holding a spatula in one hand.

“You came in here hungry, right?” he said to Bryce.

“Yes, sir,” said Bryce.

He wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

“And you ordered some food and I cooked it and Marlene brought it to you.

Right?”

“I reckon,” said Bryce.

“You reckon?” said Neal.

He brought the spatula down on the countertop with a thwack.

Bryce jumped.

“Yes, sir.

I mean, no sir.”

“I. Cooked. It. For. You,” said Neal.

“Yes, sir,” said Bryce.

He picked Edward up off the stool and held him close.

Everyone in the diner had stopped eating.

They were all staring at the boy and the rabbit and Neal.

Only Marlene looked away.

“You ordered it.

I cooked it.

Marlene served it.

You ate it.

Now,” said Neal.

“I want my money.”

He tapped the spatula lightly on the counter.

Bryce cleared his throat.

“You ever seen a rabbit dance?” he said.

“How’s that?” said Neal.

“You ever before in your life seen a rabbit dance?” Bryce set Edward on the floor and started pulling the strings attached to his feet, making him do a slow shuffle.

He put his harmonica in his mouth and played a sad song that went along with the dance.

Somebody laughed.

Bryce took the harmonica out of his mouth and said, “He could dance some more if you want him to.

He could dance to pay for what I ate.”

Neal stared at Bryce.

And then without warning, he reached down and grabbed hold of Edward.

“This is what I think of dancing rabbits,” said Neal.

And he swung Edward by the feet, swung him so that his head hit the edge of the counter hard.

There was a loud crack.

Bryce screamed.

And the world, Edward’s world, went black.

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CHAPTER XXII.

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IT WAS DUSK, AND EDWARD WAS walking down a sidewalk.

He was walking on his own, putting one foot in front of the other without any assistance from anybody.

He was wearing a fine suit made of red silk.

He walked down the sidewalk, and then he turned onto a path that led up to a house with lighted windows.

I know this house, thought Edward.

This is Abilene’s house.

I am on Egypt Street.

Lucy came running out the front door of the house, barking and jumping and wagging her tail.

“Down, girl,” said a deep, gruff voice.

Edward looked up and there was Bull, standing at the door.

“Hello, Malone,” said Bull.

“Hello, good old rabbit pie.

We’ve been waiting for you.”

Bull swung the door wide and Edward walked inside.

Abilene was there, and Nellie and Lawrence and Bryce.

“Susanna,” called Nellie.

“Jangles,” said Bryce.

“Edward,” said Abilene.

She held out her arms to him.

But Edward stood still.

He looked around the room.

“You searching for Sarah Ruth?” Bryce asked.

Edward nodded.

“You got to go outside if you want to see Sarah Ruth,” said Bryce.

So they all went outside, Lucy and Bull and Nellie and Lawrence and Bryce and Abilene and Edward.

“Right there,” said Bryce.

He pointed up at the stars.

“Yep,” said Lawrence, “that is the Sarah Ruth constellation.”

He picked Edward up and put him on his shoulder.

“You can see it right there.”

Edward felt a pang of sorrow, deep and sweet and familiar.

Why did she have to be so far away?

If only I had wings, he thought, I could fly to her.

Out of the corner of his eye, the rabbit saw something flutter.

Edward looked over his shoulder and there they were, the most magnificent wings he had ever seen, orange and red and blue and yellow.

And they were on his back.

They belonged to him.

They were his wings.

What a wonderful night this was!

He was walking on his own.

He had an elegant new suit.

And now he had wings.

He could fly anywhere, do anything.

Why had he never realized it before?

His heart soared inside of him.

He spread his wings and flew off Lawrence’s shoulders, out of his hands and up into the nighttime sky, toward the stars, toward Sarah Ruth.

“No!” shouted Abilene.

“Catch him,” said Bryce.

Edward flew higher.

Lucy barked.

“Malone!” shouted Bull.

And with a terrific lunge, he grabbed hold of Edward’s feet and pulled him out of the sky and wrestled him to the earth.

“You can’t go yet,” said Bull.

“Stay with us,” said Abilene.

Edward beat his wings, but it was no use.

Bull held him firmly to the ground.

“Stay with us,” repeated Abilene.

Edward started to cry.

“I couldn’t stand to lose you again,” said Nellie.

“Neither could I,” said Abilene.

“It would break my heart.”

Lucy bent her face to Edward’s.

She licked his tears away.

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CHAPTER XXIII.

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“EXCEEDINGLY WELL MADE,” SAID the man who was running a warm cloth over Edward’s face, “a work of art, I would say — a surpassingly, unbelievably dirty work of art, but art nonetheless.

And dirt can be dealt with.

Just as your broken head has been dealt with.”

Edward looked into the eyes of the man.

“Ah, there you are,” the man said.

“I can see that you are listening now.

Your head was broken.

I fixed it.

I brought you back from the world of the dead.”

My heart, thought Edward, my heart is broken.

“No, no.

No need to thank me,” the man said.

“It’s my job, quite literally.

Allow me to introduce myself.

I am Lucius Clarke, doll mender.

Your head . . . may I tell you?

Will it upset you?

Well, I always say the truth must be met head-on, no pun intended.

Your head, young sir, was in twenty-one pieces.”

Twenty-one pieces?

Edward repeated mindlessly.

Lucius Clarke nodded.

“Twenty-one,” he said.

“All modesty aside, I must admit that a lesser doll mender, a doll mender without my skills, might not have been able to rescue you.

But let’s not speak of what might have been.

Let us speak instead of what is.

You are whole.

You have been pulled back from the brink of oblivion by your humble servant, Lucius Clarke.”

And here, Lucius Clarke put his hand on his chest and bowed deeply over Edward.

This was quite a speech to wake up to, and Edward lay on his back trying to absorb it.

He was on a wooden table.

He was in a room with sunshine pouring in from high windows.

His head, apparently, had been in twenty-one pieces and now was put back together into one.

He was not wearing a red suit.

In fact, he had no clothes on at all.

He was naked again.

And he did not have wings.

And then he remembered: Bryce, the diner, Neal swinging him through the air.

Bryce.

“You are wondering, perhaps, about your young friend,” said Lucius, “the one with the continually running nose.

Yes.

He brought you here, weeping, begging for my assistance.

‘Put him together again,’ he said.

‘Put him back together.’

“I told him, I said, ‘Young sir, I am a businessman.

I can put your rabbit back together again.

For a price.

The question is, can you pay this price?’

He could not.

Of course, he could not.

He said that he could not.

“I told him then that he had two options.

Only two.

The first option being that he seek assistance elsewhere.

Option two was that I would fix you to the very best of my considerable abilities and then you would become mine — his no longer, but mine.”

Here Lucius fell silent.

He nodded, agreeing with himself.

“Two options only,” he said.

“And your friend chose option two.

He gave you up so that you could be healed.

Extraordinary, really.”

Bryce, thought Edward.

Lucius Clarke clapped his hands together.

“But no worries, my friend.

No worries.

I fully intend to keep up my end of the bargain.

I will restore you to what I perceive to be your former glory.

You shall have rabbit-fur ears and a rabbit-fur tail.

Your whiskers will be repaired and replaced, your eyes repainted to a bright and stunning blue.

You will be clothed in the finest of suits.

“And then, someday, I will reap the return on my investment in you.

All in good time.

In the doll business, we have a saying: there is real time and there is doll time.

You, my fine friend, have entered doll time.”

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CHAPTER XXIV.

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AND SO EDWARD TULANE WAS mended, put together again, cleaned and polished, dressed in an elegant suit and placed on a high shelf for display.

From this shelf, Edward could see the whole shop: Lucius Clarke’s workbench and the windows to the outside world and the door that the customers used to enter and leave.

From this shelf, Edward saw Bryce open the door one day and stand in the threshold, the silver harmonica in his left hand flashing brilliantly in the sunlight flooding in through the windows.

“Young sir,” said Lucius, “I am afraid that we made a deal.”

“Can’t I see him?” asked Bryce.

He wiped his hand across his nose and the gesture filled Edward with a terrible feeling of love and loss.

“I just want to look at him.”

Lucius Clarke sighed.

“You may look,” he said.

“You may look and then you must go and not come back.

I cannot have you in my shop every day mooning over what you have lost.”

“Yes sir,” said Bryce.

Lucius sighed again.

He got up from his workbench and went to Edward’s shelf and picked him up and held him so that Bryce could see him.

“Hey, Jangles,” said Bryce.

“You look good.

The last time I seen you, you looked terrible, your head was busted in and —”

“He is put together again,” said Lucius, “as I promised you he would be.”

Bryce nodded.

He wiped his hand across his nose.

“Can I hold him?” he asked.

“No,” said Lucius.

Bryce nodded again.

“Tell him goodbye,” said Lucius Clarke.

“He is repaired.

He has been saved.

Now you must tell him goodbye.”

“Goodbye,” said Bryce.

Don’t go, thought Edward.

I won’t be able to bear it if you go.

“And now you must leave,” said Lucius Clarke.

“Yes, sir,” said Bryce.

But he stood without moving, looking at Edward.

“Go,” said Lucius Clarke, “go.”

Please, thought Edward, don’t.

Bryce turned.

He walked through the door of the doll mender’s shop.

The door closed.

The bell tinkled.

And Edward was alone.

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CHAPTER XXV.

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TECHNICALLY, OF COURSE, HE WAS not alone.

Lucius Clarke’s shop was filled with dolls — lady dolls and baby dolls, dolls with eyes that opened and closed and dolls with painted-on eyes, dolls dressed as queens and dolls wearing sailor suits.

Edward had never cared for dolls.

He found them annoying and self-centered, twittery and vain.

This opinion was immediately reinforced by his first shelf-mate, a china doll with green glass eyes and red lips and dark brown hair.

She was wearing a green satin dress that fell to her knees.

“What are you?” she said in a high-pitched voice when Edward was placed on the shelf next to her.

“I am a rabbit,” said Edward.

The doll let out a small squeak.

“You’re in the wrong place,” she said.

“This is a shop for dolls.

Not rabbits.”

Edward said nothing.

“Shoo,” said the doll.

“I would love to shoo,” said Edward, “but it is obvious that I cannot.”

After a long silence, the doll said, “I hope you don’t think that anyone is going to buy you.”

Again, Edward said nothing.

“The people who come in here want dolls, not rabbits.

They want baby dolls or elegant dolls such as myself, dolls with pretty dresses, dolls with eyes that open and close.”

“I have no interest in being purchased,” said Edward.

The doll gasped.

“You don’t want somebody to buy you?” she said.

“You don’t want to be owned by a little girl who loves you?”

Sarah Ruth!

Abilene!

Their names went through Edward’s head like the notes of a sad, sweet song.

“I have already been loved,” said Edward.

“I have been loved by a fisherman and his wife and a hobo and his dog.

I have been loved by a boy who played the harmonica and by a girl who died.

Don’t talk to me about love,” he said.

“I have known love.”

This impassioned speech shut up Edward’s shelf-mate for a considerable amount of time.

“Well,” she said at last, “still.

My point is that no one is going to buy you.”

They did not speak to each other again.

The doll was sold two weeks later to a grandmother who was purchasing her for a grandchild.

“Yes,” she said to Lucius Clarke, “that one right there, the one with the green dress.

She is quite lovely.”

“Yes,” said Lucius, “she is, isn’t she?”

And he plucked the doll from the shelf.

Goodbye and good riddance, thought Edward.

The spot next to the rabbit stayed vacant for some time.

Day after day, the door to the shop opened and closed, letting in early morning sun or late afternoon light, lifting the hearts of the dolls inside, all of them thinking when the door swung wide that this time, this time, the person entering the shop would be the one who wanted them.

Edward was the lone contrarian.

He prided himself on not hoping, on not allowing his heart to lift inside of him.

He prided himself on keeping his heart silent, immobile, closed tight.

I am done with hope, thought Edward Tulane.

And then one day at dusk, right before he closed the shop, Lucius Clarke placed another doll on the shelf next to Edward.

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CHAPTER XXVI.

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“THERE YOU ARE, MILADY.

MEET THE rabbit doll,” said Lucius.

The doll mender walked away, turning out the lights one by one.

In the gloom of the shop, Edward could see that the doll’s head, like his, had been broken and repaired.

Her face was, in fact, a web of cracks.

She was wearing a baby bonnet.

“How do you do?” she said in a high, thin voice.

“I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Hello,” said Edward.

“Have you been here long?” she asked.

“Months and months,” said Edward.

“But I don’t care.

One place is the same as another to me.”

“Oh, not for me,” said the doll.

“I have lived one hundred years.

And in that time, I have been in places that were heavenly and others that were horrid.

After a time, you learn that each place is different.

And you become a different doll in each place, too.

Quite different.”

“One hundred years?” said Edward.

“I am old.

The doll mender confirmed this.

He said as he was mending me that I am at least that.

At least one hundred.

At least one hundred years old.”

Edward thought about everything that had happened to him in his short life.

What kind of adventures would you have if you were in the world for a century?

The old doll said, “I wonder who will come for me this time.

Someone will come.

Someone always comes.

Who will it be?”

“I don’t care if anyone comes for me,” said Edward.

“But that’s dreadful,” said the old doll.

“There’s no point in going on if you feel that way.

No point at all.

You must be filled with expectancy.

You must be awash in hope.

You must wonder who will love you, whom you will love next.”

“I am done with being loved,” Edward told her.

“I’m done with loving.

It’s too painful.”

“Pish,” said the old doll.

“Where is your courage?”

“Somewhere else, I guess,” said Edward.

“You disappoint me,” she said.

“You disappoint me greatly.

If you have no intention of loving or being loved, then the whole journey is pointless.

You might as well leap from this shelf right now and let yourself shatter into a million pieces.

Get it over with.

Get it all over with now.”

“I would leap if I was able,” said Edward.

“Shall I push you?” said the old doll.

“No, thank you,” Edward said to her.

“Not that you could,” he muttered to himself.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing,” said Edward.

The dark in the doll shop was now complete.

The old doll and Edward sat on their shelf and stared straight ahead.

“You disappoint me,” said the old doll.

Her words made Edward think of Pellegrina: of warthogs and princesses, of listening and love, of spells and curses.

What if there was somebody waiting to love him?

What if there was somebody whom he would love again?

Was it possible?

Edward felt his heart stir.

No, he told his heart.

Not possible.

In the morning, Lucius Clarke came and unlocked the shop, “Good morning, my darlings,” he called out to them.

“Good morning, my lovelies.”

He pulled up the shades on the windows.

He turned on the light over his tools.

He switched the sign on the door to OPEN.

The first customer was a little girl with her father.

“Are you looking for something special?” Lucius Clarke said to them.

“Yes,” said the girl, “I am looking for a friend.”

Her father put her on his shoulders and they walked slowly around the shop.

The girl studied each doll carefully.

She looked Edward right in the eyes.

She nodded at him.

“Have you decided, Natalie?” her father asked.

“Yes,” she said, “I want the one in the baby bonnet.”

“Oh,” said Lucius Clarke, “you know that she is very old.

She is an antique.”

“She needs me,” said Natalie firmly.

Next to Edward, the old doll let out a sigh.

She seemed to sit up straighter.

Lucius came and took her off the shelf and handed her to Natalie.

And when they left, when the girl’s father opened the door for his daughter and the old doll, a bright shaft of early morning light came flooding in, and Edward heard quite clearly, as if she were still sitting next to him, the old doll’s voice.

“Open your heart,” she said gently.

“Someone will come.

Someone will come for you.

But first you must open your heart.”

The door closed.

The sunlight disappeared.

Someone will come.

Edward’s heart stirred.

He thought, for the first time in a long time, of the house on Egypt Street and of Abilene winding his watch and then bending toward him and placing it on his left leg, saying: I will come home to you.

No, no, he told himself.

Don’t believe it.

Don’t let yourself believe it.

But it was too late.

Someone will come for you.

The china rabbit’s heart had begun, again, to open.

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CHAPTER XXVII.

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Seasons passed, fall and winter and spring and summer.

Leaves blew in through the open door of Lucius Clarke’s shop, and rain, and the green outrageous hopeful light of spring.

People came and went, grandmothers and doll collectors and little girls with their mothers.

Edward Tulane waited.

The seasons turned into years.

Edward Tulane waited.

He repeated the old doll’s words over and over until they wore a smooth groove of hope in his brain: Someone will come; someone will come for you.

And the old doll was right.

Someone did come.

It was springtime.

It was raining.

There were dogwood blossoms on the floor of Lucius Clarke’s shop.

She was a small girl, maybe five years old, and while her mother struggled to close a blue umbrella, the little girl walked around the store, stopping and staring solemnly at each doll and then moving on.

When she came to Edward, she stood in front of him for what seemed like a long time.

She looked at him and he looked back at her.

Someone will come, Edward said.

Someone will come for me.

The girl smiled and then she stood on her tiptoes and took Edward off the shelf.

She cradled him in her arms.

She held him in the same ferocious, tender way Sarah Ruth had held him.

Oh, thought Edward, I remember this.

“Madam,” said Lucius Clarke, “could you please attend to your daughter.

She is holding a very fragile, very precious, quite expensive doll.”

“Maggie,” said the woman.

She looked up from the still-open umbrella.

“What have you got?”

“A rabbit,” said Maggie.

“A what?” said the mother.

“A rabbit,” said Maggie again.

“I want him.”

“Remember, we’re not buying anything today.

We’re looking only,” said the woman.

“Madam,” said Lucius Clarke, “please.”

The woman came and stood over Maggie.

She looked down at Edward.

The rabbit felt dizzy.

He wondered, for a minute, if his head had cracked open again, if he was dreaming.

“Look, Mama,” said Maggie, “look at him.”

“I see him,” said the woman.

She dropped the umbrella.

She put her hand on the locket that hung around her neck.

And Edward saw then that it was not a locket at all.

It was a watch, a pocket watch.

It was his watch.

“Edward?” said Abilene.

Yes, said Edward.

“Edward,” she said again, certain this time.

Yes, said Edward, yes, yes, yes.

It’s me.

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CHAPTER XXVIII. CODA

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Once, there was a china rabbit who was loved by a little girl.

The rabbit went on an ocean journey and fell overboard and was rescued by a fisherman.

He was buried under garbage and unburied by a dog.

He traveled for a long time with the hoboes and worked for a short time as a scarecrow.

Once, there was a rabbit who loved a little girl and watched her die.

The rabbit danced on the streets of Memphis.

His head was broken open in a diner and was put together again by a doll mender.

And the rabbit swore that he would not make the mistake of loving again.

Once there was a rabbit who danced in a garden in springtime with the daughter of the woman who had loved him at the beginning of his journey.

The girl swung the rabbit as she danced in circles.

Sometimes, they went so fast, the two of them, that it seemed as if they were flying.

Sometimes, it seemed as if they both had wings.

Once, oh marvelous once, there was a rabbit who found his way home.