The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo Read Free Book Online Page A

eat. And in the sixth month, she began to cough up blood. Her breathing became ragged and uncertain, as if she was trying to remember, in between breaths, what to do, what breathing was.
    “Breathe, honey,” Bryce stood over her and said.
    Breathe, thought Edward from deep inside the well of her arms. Please, please breathe.
    Bryce stopped leaving the house. He sat at home all day and held Sarah Ruth in his lap and rocked her back and forth and sang to her; on a bright morning in September, Sarah Ruth stopped breathing.
    “Oh no,” said Bryce. “Oh, honey, take a little breath. Please.”
    Edward had fallen out of Sarah Ruth’s arms the night before and she had not asked for him again. So, face-down on the floor, arms over his head, Edward listened as Bryce wept. He listened as the father came home and shouted at Bryce. He listened as the father wept.

    “You can’t cry!” Bryce shouted. “You got no right to cry. You never even loved her. You don’t know nothing about love.”
    “I loved her,” said the father. “I loved her.”
    I loved her, too, thought Edward. I loved her and now she is gone. How could this be? he wondered. How could he bear to live in a world without Sarah Ruth?
    The yelling between the father and son continued, and then there was a terrible moment when the father insisted that Sarah Ruth belonged to him, that she was his girl, his baby, and that he was taking her to be buried.
    “She ain’t yours!” Bryce screamed. “You can’t take her. She ain’t yours.”
    But the father was bigger and stronger, and he prevailed. He wrapped Sarah Ruth in a blanket and carried her away. The small house became very quiet. Edward could hear Bryce moving around, muttering to himself. And then, finally, the boy picked Edward up.
    “Come on, Jangles,” Bryce said. “We’re leaving. We’re going to Memphis.”



 
    H OW MANY DANCING RABBITS HAVE you seen in your life?” Bryce said to Edward. “I can tell you how many I seen. One. You. That’s how you and me are going to make some money. I seen it the last time I was in Memphis. Folks put on any kind of show right there on the street corner and people pay ’em for it. I seen it.”
    The walk to town took all night. Bryce walked without stopping, carrying Edward under one arm and talking to him the whole time. Edward tried to listen, but the terrible scarecrow feeling had come back, the feeling he had when he was hanging by his ears in the old lady’s garden, the feeling that nothing mattered, and that nothing would ever matter again.
    And not only did Edward feel hollow; he ached. Every part of his china body hurt. He ached for Sarah Ruth. He wanted her to hold him. He wanted to dance for her.
    And he did dance, but it was not for Sarah Ruth. Edward danced for strangers on a dirty street corner in Memphis. Bryce played his harmonica and moved Edward’s strings, and Edward bowed and shuffled and swayed and people stopped to stare and point and laugh. On the ground in front of them was Sarah Ruth’s button box. The lid was open to encourage people to drop change inside it.
    “Mama,” said a small child, “look at that bunny. I want to touch him.” He reached out his hand for Edward.
    “No,” said the mother, “dirty.” She pulled the child back, away from Edward. “Nasty,” she said.
    A man wearing a hat stopped and stared at Edward and Bryce.
    “It’s a sin to dance,” he said. And then after a long pause, he said, “It’s a particular sin for rabbits to dance.”
    The man took off his hat and held it over his heart. He stood and watched the boy and the rabbit for a long time. Finally, he put his hat back on his head and walked away.
    The shadows lengthened. The sun became an orange dusty ball low in the sky. Bryce started to cry. Edward saw his tears land on the pavement. But the boy did not stop playing his harmonica. He did not make Edward stop dancing.
    An old woman leaning on a cane stepped up close to them. She stared at