Джеймс Хоу - Bunnicula Meets Edgar Allan Crow

Ms. Pickles started to object, but Miles put his hand on her arm to stop her. I noticed that she let him keep it there.

“But then my books became popular and there were requests for me to speak and visit schools. I didn’t dare, even though at times I thought the loneliness would kill me. Then Edgar came into my life and . . . everything changed. I didn’t want to transform the animals in my stories anymore. I wanted to stop being afraid of animals in real life. I wanted to stop being afraid, period. I thought perhaps if I could get to know other animals . . . and replace Edgar with ... someone else ...”

“Why do you have to replace Edgar?” Pete asked.

“Marjorie ... er, Ms. Pickles . . . was right. He’s a wild animal. He doesn’t belong in a cage or even a house, which is only a bigger cage, after all.”

“But hasn’t Edgar always been with you? Wouldn’t he miss you if you set him free?”

“I believe he would miss me. I know I would miss him. But, no, he hasn’t always been with me. It was a stormy night almost two years ago, a very windy night, when I heard a thump at my front door. I opened it, and there on my doorstep lay a wounded baby crow. I couldn’t believe it. The image of a crow—Edgar Allan Crow—had been part of the FleshCrawlers series from the beginning, but there never was a real Edgar Allan Crow—until now. I nursed him back to health, and he stayed on with me. We became devoted friends. Edgar was, as you say, my muse. I stopped feeling lonely and I began to write with renewed vigor.

“But then one day a large murder of crows appeared in the yard, and I saw a yearning in Edgar I’d never seen before. He wanted to be with his own kind. I was afraid I would lose him—especially after the time he succeeded in escaping. I saw him fly to another crow and I understood that. . .”

“Aha!” said Chester. “The head crow! Now we’re going to get the confession!”

“Edgar had fallen in love.”

“Or not,” said Chester.

“He’s courting,” Ms. Pickles interjected. “That’s the bowing we’ve seen him to do with the female crow.”

Miles’s ashen face turned slightly pink. Was I imagining it, or was he blushing?

“Fearing that Edgar would leave me, I began to have trouble writing. I truly believed I couldn’t do it without Edgar. And my confidence wasn’t helped by the fact that since a certain boy wizard came along, my sales have plummeted like Niagara Falls. Hoping to improve sales and get me writing again, my publisher came up with the idea of this contest.

“When I read Pete’s letter, I thought I had my answer. I would stay in a house with dogs and cats to overcome my fear, and I would spend time with a most unusual rabbit in the hopes that he would inspire me. He has done that, and even more. In a very short time, I have grown quite fond of him. And so now I must ask something . . . difficult . . . for me ... to ask. . . .”

Just then, we were startled by a loud tapping on the window behind the sofa. There, peering in at us, was Edgar Allan Crow.

“Yes, yes,” Miles said, turning to look at him, “I was just getting to it.”

Edgar opened his mouth soundlessly, and Miles turned back. He looked around the room, finally bringing his eyes to rest on Pete and the black-and-white bundle in Pete’s arms.

“Peter,” said Miles, “I know this is a great deal to ask of you and your family. But may I... might I... have Bunnicula?”

TEN

Farewell

Icould hardly believe my ears! Miles Tanner was asking to take Bunnicula away with him—forever! He wanted our bunny to be his new muse and companion. I turned to Chester, who sat dumbfounded, his tongue half out of his mouth, his eyes as glazed as an Easter ham. The whole room had come to a standstill, all except for Howie, who began bouncing around on his back legs and yipping his head off.

“Take me! Take me!” he yipped. “I’m a better muse than Bunnicula! I’m cuter than Bunnicula! I stay awake more than Bunnicula! Sort of. Take me!”

Miles shrank bank into the sofa cushions as Mr. Monroe got Howie to stop his noise.

“I’m sorry,” Mr. Monroe said to Miles.

“No, it’s not Howie’s fault. I guess I still have some work to do on that,” Miles said. “My therapist—Dr. Verrückt Katz—said I should start with stuffed animals and work my way up to the real things.”

“You know Howie isn’t barking at you because he thinks you’re ugly or scary,” said Mrs. Monroe. “He’s excited. I think he likes you.”

“And you’re not ugly or scary at all,” said Marjorie. “On the contrary. As for stuffed animals . . .” She opened her purse and took out a tiny stuffed lion. “I call him C. L.,” she said. “It stands for ‘Cowardly Lion.’ I take him with me everywhere, for courage.”

“Wait right here!” Pete shouted. He stood up and thrust Bunnicula into Miles’s arms before racing up the stairs and back down again in a flash. He held a stuffed koala bear.

“This is Pudgykins,” he told Miles. “I’ve had him since I was real little. Now I keep him under the bed in case ... well, in case I need him, I guess.” He shot a look at Kyle and Toby that said, If you ever tell anybody about this, you are dead meat!

Miles smiled. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for being so kind. I know I’m asking too much of you. I had never intended on asking it. I just wanted to be around Bunnicula, to see if he inspired me. And I was inspired! I began writing a new book last night—even if I did end up turning the rabbit character into a bat. But I got frightened and thought I couldn’t do it without Edgar. And then I realized that Edgar had something else in mind entirely.”

“Edgar?” said Mr. Monroe.

“Yes. You see, I couldn’t understand how it happened that Bunnicula was placed in my room, and why you put a salad next to my bed. And then I discovered an e-mail addressed to you that I had never written. It had to have been written by someone else, and there was only one other ‘someone else’ that could have done it.”

“Edgar,” Mr. Monroe repeated.

Miles nodded. “Edgar is mute. He has never spoken, never uttered a sound. I suspect it’s because of his injury when he was young. But being a crow, and therefore a remarkably clever and adaptive creature, he taught himself how to write by watching me. It was he who wrote that e-mail to you, to ensure that I would spend a good deal of time with Bunnicula and get to see him in action. He wanted Bunnicula to be his replacement. You see, Edgar could have left me long ago, but he doesn’t want me to be alone. He is the most considerate of birds, the gentlest of souls.”

“Ah!” I said, turning to Chester. “So that’s what ‘nefarious’ means!”

“This is no time for jokes,” Chester snarled. “We’re about to lose Bunnicula, can’t you see? If they let Tanner take him away from us ...”

Were my eyes deceiving me? Was that a tear rolling down Chester’s nose?

“Yes,” Pete said. “You can have him.”

The rest of the Monroe family started to object, but they stopped when they saw the look of hope on Miles’s face.

“Really?” he asked.

Chester began to sniffle next to me.

And then I thought I heard Howie barking. I cringed at the sound. But when I saw everyone in the room staring at me, I realized it wasn’t Howie who was barking. It was me. Me, who hates the sound of it. I was barking and Chester was sniffling and the humans didn’t seem to have a clue what to do about any of it.

Were we really going to have to say farewell to our bunny?

“You know, Miles,” Ms. Pickles said then, patting him on the arm, “there may be other ways to solve this. I don’t think the Monroes really want to part with their dear pet. And I don’t think you’d really want to have them do so.”