The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

by Kate DiCamillo

“Now, Edward,” she said to him after she was done winding the watch, “when the big hand is on the twelve and the little hand is on the three, I will come home to you.”

Abilene’s parents found it charming that Abilene considered Edward real, and that she sometimes requested that a phrase or story be repeated because Edward had not heard it. “Papa,” Abilene would say, “I’m afraid that Edward didn’t catch that last bit.”

On clear nights, the stars shone, and their pinprick light comforted Edward in a way that he could not quite understand. Often, he stared at the stars all night until the dark finally gave way to dawn.

Edward did not care at all for the word bunny. He found it derogatory in the extreme.

And then he remembered Pellegrina’s description of the beautiful princess. She shone as bright as the stars on a moonless night. For some reason, Edward found comfort in these words and he repeated them to himself — as bright as the stars on a moonless night, as bright as the stars on a moonless night — over and over until, at last, the first light of dawn appeared.

“Does he wind up somewhere?” asked Amos. “No,” said Abilene, “he does not wind up.” “What’s the point of him then?” said Martin. “The point is that he is Edward,” said Abilene.

A breeze was blowing in off the sea, and the silk scarf wrapped around his neck billowed out behind him. On his head, he wore a straw boater. The rabbit was thinking that he must look quite dashing.

He sank and sank and sank. He kept his eyes open the whole time. Not because he was brave, but because he had no choice. His painted-on eyes witnessed the blue water turning to green and then to blue again. They watched as it finally became as black as night.

the china rabbit landed, finally, on the ocean floor, face-down; and there, with his head in the muck, he experienced his first genuine and true emotion. Edward Tulane was afraid.

Edward, for lack of anything better to do, began to think. He thought about the stars. He remembered what they looked like from his bedroom window. What made them shine so brightly, he wondered, and were they still shining somewhere even though he could not see them? Never in my life, he thought, have I been farther away from the stars than I am now.

“I suppose you think I’m daft, talking to a toy. But it seems to me that you are listening, Susanna.”

But Nellie, before she put him to bed each night, sang Edward a lullaby, a song about a mockingbird that did not sing and a diamond ring that would not shine, and the sound of Nellie’s voice soothed the rabbit and he forgot about Pellegrina.

He missed them terribly. He wanted to be with them. The rabbit wondered if that was love.

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.

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.

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

“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.”

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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 o...

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.

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.

Perhaps, he thought, it is not too late, after all, for me to be saved.

“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.”

“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.

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.

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.

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.

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

“I have already been loved,” said Edward. “I have been loved by a girl named Abilene. 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.”

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.

“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.”

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

“Open your heart,” she said gently. “Someone will come. Someone will come for you. But first you must open your heart.”