Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane - Kate DiCamillo [14]
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.
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.
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 brung 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 white-blond 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 brung 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