The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (5 page)

L
OLLY WAS A LUMPY WOMAN WHO spoke too loudly and who wore too much lipstick. She entered the house and immediately spotted Edward sitting on the living-room couch.

“What’s this?” she said. She put down her suitcase and picked Edward up by one foot. She held him upside down.

“That’s Susanna,” said Nellie.

“Susanna!” shouted Lolly. She gave Edward a shake.

His dress was up over his head and he could see nothing. Already, he had formed a deep and abiding hatred for Lolly.

“Your father found her,” said Nellie. “She came up in a net and she didn’t have no clothes on her, so I made her some dresses.”

“Have you gone skivvy?” shouted Lolly. “Rabbits don’t need clothes.”

“Well,” said Nellie. Her voice shook. “This one seemed to.”

Lolly tossed Edward back on the couch. He landed face-down with his arms over his head and his dress still over his face, and he stayed that way through dinner.

“Why have you got out that old highchair?” shouted Lolly.

“Oh, don’t pay it no mind,” said Nellie. “Your father was just gluing on a missing piece, wasn’t you, Lawrence?”

“That’s right,” said Lawrence, without looking up from his plate.

Of course, after dinner Edward did not go outside and stand beneath the stars to have a smoke with Lawrence. And Nellie, for the first time since Edward had been with her, did not sing him a lullaby. In fact, Edward was ignored and forgotten about until the next morning, when Lolly picked him up again and pulled his dress down away from his face and stared him in the eye.

“Got the old folks bewitched, don’t you?” said Lolly. “I heard the talk in town. That they’ve been treating you like a rabbit child.”

Edward stared back at Lolly. Her lipstick was a bright and bloody red. He felt a cold breeze blow through the room.

Was a door open somewhere?

“Well, you don’t fool me,” she said. She gave him a shake. “We’ll be taking a trip together, you and me.”

Holding Edward by the ears, Lolly marched into the kitchen and shoved him face-down in the garbage can.

“Ma!” Lolly shouted, “I’m taking the truck. I’m going to head on out and do some errands.”

“Oh,” came Nellie’s tremulous voice, “that’s wonderful, dear. Goodbye, then.”

Goodbye, thought Edward as Lolly hauled the garbage can out to the truck.

“Goodbye,” Nellie called again, louder this time.

Edward felt a sharp pain somewhere deep inside his china chest.

For the first time, his heart called out to him.

It said two words: Nellie. Lawrence.

E
DWARD ENDED UP AT THE DUMP. He lay on top of orange peels, coffee grounds, rancid bacon, and rubber tires. The first night, he was at the top of the garbage heap, and so he was able to look up at the stars and find comfort in their light.

In the morning, a short man came climbing through the trash and rubble. He stopped when he was standing on top of the highest pile. He put his hands under his armpits and flapped his elbows.

The man crowed loudly. He shouted, “Who am I? I’m Ernest, Ernest who is king of the world. How can I be king of the world? Because I am king of garbages. And garbages is what the world is made of. Ha. Ha, ha! Therefore, I am Ernest, Ernest who is king of the world.” He crowed again.

Edward was inclined to agree with Ernest’s assessment of the world being made of garbage, especially after his second day at the dump, when a load of trash was deposited directly on top of him. He lay there, buried alive. He could not see the sky. He could not see the stars. He could see nothing.

What kept Edward going, what gave him hope, was thinking of how he would find Lolly and exact his revenge. He would pick
her
up by the ears! He would bury
her
under a mountain of trash!

But after almost forty days and nights had passed, the weight and the smell of the garbage above and below him clouded Edward’s thoughts, and soon he gave up thinking about revenge and gave in to despair. It was worse, much worse, than being buried at sea. It was worse because Edward was a different rabbit now. He couldn’t say how he was different; he just knew that he was. He remembered, again, Pellegrina’s story about the princess who had loved nobody. The witch turned her into a warthog
because
she loved nobody. He understood that now.

He heard Pellegrina say: “You disappoint me.”

Why? he asked her. Why do I disappoint you?

But he knew the answer to that question, too. It was because he had not loved Abilene enough. And now she was gone from him. And he would never be able to make it right. And Nellie and Lawrence were gone, too. He missed them terribly. He wanted to be with them.

The rabbit wondered if that was love.

Day after day passed, and Edward was aware of time passing only because every morning he could hear Ernest performing his dawn ritual, cackling and crowing about being king of the world.

On his one hundred and eightieth day at the dump, salvation arrived for Edward in a most unusual form. The garbage around him shifted, and the rabbit heard the sniffing and panting of a dog. Then came the frenzied sound of digging. The garbage shifted again, and suddenly, miraculously, the beautiful, buttery light of late afternoon shone on Edward’s face.

E
DWARD DID NOT HAVE MUCH TIME to savor the light, for the dog suddenly appeared above him, dark and shaggy, blocking his view. Edward was pulled out of the garbage by his ears, dropped, and then picked up again, this time around the middle, and shaken back and forth with a great deal of ferocity.

The little dog growled deep in its throat and then dropped Edward again and looked him in the eye. Edward stared back.

“Hey, get out of here, you dog!” It was Ernest, king of garbages and therefore king of the world.

The dog grabbed Edward by his pink dress and took off running.

“That’s mine, that’s mine, all garbages is mine!” Ernest shouted. “You come back here!”

But the little dog did not stop.

The sun was shining and Edward felt exhilarated. Who, having known him before, would have thought that he could be so happy now, crusted over with garbage, wearing a dress, held in the slobbery mouth of a dog and being chased by a mad man?

But he was happy.

The dog ran and ran until they reached a railroad track. They crossed over the tracks, and there, underneath a scraggly tree, in a circle of bushes, Edward was dropped in front of a large pair of feet.

The dog began to bark.

Edward looked up and saw that the feet were attached to an enormous man with a long, dark beard.

“What’s this, Lucy?” said the man.

He bent and picked up Edward. He held him firmly around the middle. “Lucy,” said the man, “I know how much you enjoy rabbit pie.”

Lucy barked.

“Yes, yes, I know. Rabbit pie is a true delight, one of the pleasures of our existence.”

Lucy let out a hopeful yip.

“And what we have here, what you have so graciously delivered to me, is definitely a rabbit, but the best chef in the world would be hard-pressed to make him into a pie.”

Lucy growled.

“This rabbit is made of china, girl.” The man held Edward closer to him. They looked each other in the eye. “You’re made of china, aren’t you, Malone?” He gave Edward a playful shake. “You are some child’s toy, am I right? And you have been separated, somehow, from the child who loves you.”

Edward felt, again, the sharp pain in his chest. He thought of Abilene. He saw the path leading up to the house on Egypt Street. He saw the dusk descending and Abilene running toward him.

Yes, Abilene had loved him.

“So, Malone,” said the man. He cleared his throat. “You are lost. That is my guess. Lucy and I are lost, too.”

At the sound of her name, Lucy let out another yip.

“Perhaps,” said the man, “you would like to be lost with us. I have found it much more agreeable to be lost in the company of others. My name is Bull. Lucy, as you may have surmised, is my dog. Would you care to join us?”

Bull waited for a moment, staring at Edward; and then with his hands still firmly around Edward’s waist, the man reached one enormous finger up and touched Edward’s head from behind. He pushed it so it looked as if Edward were nodding his head in agreement.

“Look, Lucy. He is saying yes,” said Bull. “Malone has agreed to travel with us. Isn’t that swell?”

Lucy danced around Bull’s feet, wagging her tail and barking.

And so it was that Edward took to the road with a hobo and his dog.

T
HEY TRAVELED ON FOOT. THEY traveled in empty railcars. They were always on the move.

“But in truth,” said Bull, “we are going nowhere. That, my friend, is the irony of our constant movement.”

Edward rode in Bull’s bedroll, slung over Bull’s shoulder with only his head and ears sticking out. Bull was always careful to position the rabbit so that he was not looking down or up, but was, instead, forever looking behind him, at the road they had just traveled.

At night, they slept on the ground, under the stars. Lucy, after her initial disappointment about Edward being unfit for consumption, took a liking to him and slept curled up beside him; sometimes, she even rested her muzzle on his china stomach, and then the noises she made in her sleep, whimpering and growling and chuffing, resonated inside Edward’s body. To his surprise, he began to feel a deep tenderness for the dog.

During the night, while Bull and Lucy slept, Edward, with his ever-open eyes, stared up at the constellations. He said their names, and then he said the names of the people who loved him. He started with Abilene and then went to Nellie and Lawrence and from there to Bull and Lucy, and then he ended again with Abilene: Abilene, Nellie, Lawrence, Bull, Lucy, Abilene.

See? Edward told Pellegrina. I am not like the princess. I know about love.

There were times, too, when Bull and Lucy gathered around a campfire with other tramps. Bull was a good storyteller and an even better singer.

“Sing for us, Bull,” the men shouted.

Bull sat with Lucy leaning against his leg and Edward balanced on his right knee and he sang from somewhere deep inside himself. Just as Edward could feel Lucy’s whimpers and growls resonate through his body at night, he could also feel the deep, sad sound of Bull’s songs move through him. Edward loved it when Bull sang.