Kate DiCamillo: The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

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.

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.

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.