The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

The chapter introduces Edward’s new life with the fisherman and his wife: “And so Edward Tulane became Susanna” (69). Nellie makes Edward many handmade outfits. The outfits are “so simple, so plain. They lacked the elegance and artistry of his real clothes. But then Edward remembered lying on the ocean floor, the muck in his face, the stars so far away, and he said to himself, What difference does it make really? Wearing a dress won’t hurt me” (70).

Edward grows to appreciate his life with Lawrence and Nellie. Nellie loves to bake, and she puts Edward on the counter while she cooks and tells him stories about her life. She says that she has a daughter, Lolly, and two boys: “Ralph, who was in the army, and Raymond, who had died of pneumonia when he was only five years old” (71). Concerning Raymond, she says, “It is a horrible, terrible thing, the worst thing, to watch somebody you love die right in front of you and not be able to do nothing about it. I dream about him most nights” (71).

Edward realizes that he actually loves hearing Nellie’s stories, and that they seem like “the most important thing in the world.” (71). He listens “as if his life depended on what she said” (71). This is very unlike his experience with Abilene whose stories “had seemed so boring, so pointless” (71). He thinks about this contrast and wonders if being at the bottom of the ocean for so long has damaged him in some way.

In the evenings, Lawrence and Nellie place Edward in a highchair and eat dinner together. After dinner, Lawrence puts Edward on his shoulder and takes him outside to look at the stars. He tells him the names of the constellations, and Edward loves looking up at the stars: “Sometimes, though, staring up at the night sky, Edward remembered Pellegrina, saw again her dark and glowing eyes, and a chill would go through him” (73).

At night Nellie tucks Edward into bed, and her voice soothes him. He begins to forget about Pellegrina, and “[l]ife, for a very long time, was sweet” (73). 

Nellie and Lawrence’s daughter, Lolly, comes to visit. She is a “lumpy woman who spoke too loudly and who wore too much lipstick” (77). She comes into the house and immediately question’s Edward’s presence. She shakes Edward until his dress is over his head, and he instantly “formed a deep and abiding hatred for Lolly” (77). Nellie tries to defend Edward, saying that Lawrence found him. But it’s clear Lolly isn’t satisfied. The rumor around town is that her parents are treating Edward like some rabbit child, and she finds it embarrassing.

She throws Edward into the trash when her parents aren’t looking, and Edward “felt a sharp pain somewhere deep inside his chest. For the first time, his heart called out to him. It said two words: Nellie. Lawrence” (80).

After Lolly discards Edward, he finds himself in an unfortunate situation: “Edward 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” (83).

In the morning, a short man climbs onto the top of the trash pile and declares himself: “Ernest who is the 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” (84). The next day, a load of trash is dumped on top of Edward, and at night he can no longer see the stars. The only thing that keeps him going is thinking about getting revenge on Lolly.

After forty days and nights, Edward gives up thinking and falls into despair: “It was worse, much worse, that 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” (85). He thinks about Pellegrina’s story about the princess who had loved no one: “The witch turned her into a warthog because she loved nobody. He understood that now” (85). He remembers Pellegrina saying that he disappointed her, and at first, he didn’t know why. However, now he realizes it was because he hadn’t loved Abilene enough.

He thinks about how Abilene is gone and how “he would never be able to make it right. And Nellie and Lawrence gone, too. He missed them terribly. He wanted to be with them. The rabbit wondered if that was love” (85).After 180 eighty days under the garbage pile, a dog digs Edward out.

The dog shakes Edward around and catches Ernest’s attention. Ernest says that the rabbit, along with all other trash, belongs to him. But the dog doesn’t listen and instead runs away with Edward: “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” (90).

After running for a long while, the dog finally stops in front of “an enormous man with a long, dark beard” (90). He asks Lucy, the dog, what she has brought him. He picks up Edward and says, “You’re made of china, aren’t you, Malone? […] You are some child’s toy, am I right? And you have been separated, somehow, from the child who loves you” (91). Edward feels pained to think of Abilene.

The man explains that he and his dog Lucy are lost as well:“Perhaps […] you would like to be lost with us. I have found it much more agreeable to be lost in the company of others” (92). The man says his name is Bull, and “so it was that Edward took to the road with a hobo and his dog” (93). 

The trio is always on the move, traveling by foot or on empty railcars, and Bull relays the reality of their situation: “But in truth […] we are going nowhere. That, my friend, is the irony of our constant movement” (97). Bull carries Edward on his back in a bedroll, allowing Edward to forever look out “at the road they had just traveled” (97).

Lucy snuggles next to Edward every night while she and Bull sleep, and to his surprise “he began to feel a deep tenderness for the dog” (98). Since Edward can’t sleep, every night he stares up at the constellations “with his ever-open eyes […] He said their names, and then he said the names of the people who loved him” (98). He thinks of Pellegrina and tells himself that he’s nothing like the princess because he knows about love. On many occasions, they gather around campfires with other vagabonds. Bull is a great singer, and Edwards loves to hear him.

Bull calls Edward “Malone” and says that a dress just isn’t fitting for him. He cuts holes in his hat and makes it into a sweater for Edward, sewing together handkerchiefs for his pants. Proud of his handiwork, Bull says, “Now you have the proper outlaw look […] Now you look like a rabbit on the run” (102). 

At first, the other vagabonds think that Edward is a joke and make fun of Bull for having a doll: “Edward, of course, felt a surge of anger at being referred to as a dolly. But Bull never got angry. He simply sat with Edward on his knee and said nothing. Soon, the men became accustomed to Edward, and the word of his existence spread” (106). In this way, the men of each town grew expectantly excited to see the rabbit: “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” (106).

The men begin to believe that Edward is listening to their every word, and they tell him sad stories about the families they’ve left behind. The men whisper the names of their children over and over in Edward’s ear, and he “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, his heart opened wide and then wider still” (107).

Seven years pass, and “in that time, Edward became an excellent tramp: happy to be on the road, restless when he was still” (108). But one night while riding a railcar in Memphis, a railway worker comes into the railcar and calls Bull a “bum” (108). In an attempt to rile Bull, the man kicks Edward out of the railcar. Edward falls down a hill, and 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” (110). He begins to name the constellations but stops. He wonders how many times he will “have to leave without getting to the chance to say goodbye” (110). 

In the morning, “the sun rose and the cricket song gave way to a bird song and an old woman came walking down the dirt road and tripped right over Edward” (115). The woman picks Edward up, but he doesn’t care: “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” (116).

The woman hangs Edward on a pole in her vegetable garden to scare away the crows. She calls him “Clyde” and tells him to get to work, and he wonders if the world will ever tire of calling him by the wrong name. The crows continuously caw and peck around Edward, and in a daze, he begins to mistake a particularly large crow for Pellegrina. He thinks that she might as well turn him into a warthog. He doesn’t care because he’s done with caring.

That night, for the first time, Edward doesn’t find comfort by looking at the stars: “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” (119). The next morning, the woman brings a boy with her into the garden.