The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

Bryce slings Edward over his shoulder and tells him that he’s going to give him to Sarah Ruth, his little sister who is deathly ill. He says that she once had a china doll that she loved, but their drunk father smashed the doll under his feet and broke it into a million pieces. Bryce explains that Sarah Ruth hasn’t had anything to play with since. Their father refuses to buy her anything: “He says she don’t need nothing because she ain’t gonna live” (130). But Bryce is hopeful that his sister will live.

Bryce and Sarah Ruth’s house is crooked and so small that only two beds and a kerosene lamp can fit inside. Once inside, Bryce tells Sarah Ruth to wake up: “The little girl sat up in her bed and immediately started to cough […] She was young, maybe four years old, and she had white-blonde 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” (131). Sarah Ruth coughs for quite some time, and Edward thinks that it sounds even sadder than the whippoorwill’s song.

Bryce gives Edward to Sarah Ruth, and she is so delighted that she has another coughing fit. She cradles him in her arms:

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 (135).

Sarah Ruth names Edward “Jangles.”

Early the next morning, Bryce and Sarah Ruth’s father comes in. He picks up Edward, and Bryce says that the rabbit belongs to Sarah Ruth. The father says it doesn’t matter, and Bryce contends that it does matter. Then the father slaps Bryce across the face and leaves. Bryce goes to work, and Edward spends the day in bed with Sarah Ruth. She plays with a box of buttons and holds Edward close during her coughing fits. She chews on Edward’s ear for comfort: “Normally, Edward would have found this 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” (141).

Evening comes, and Bryce brings Sarah Ruth a biscuit to eat. Sarah Ruth loves to dance because their “[m]ama used to hold on to her and dance her around the room” (142), so Bryce ties twine around Edward’s arms and makes him dance for her. She laughs so hard she has a coughing fit, and Bryce takes her outside to get some fresh air. Edward is left inside looking up at smoke-stained ceiling, and he again thinks about what it would be like to have 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” (143). Bryce comes back in to get Edward, and they make wishes on falling stars.

Edward’s life with the sick Sarah Ruth continues: “The days passed. The sun rose and set and rose and set again and again. Sometimes the father came home and sometimes he did not. Edward’s ears became soggy and he did not care […] He was hugged half to death and it felt good” (147).

Sarah Ruth’s health progressively declines, and in the fifth month she stops eating. By month six, 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” (148). Bryce stops going to work and instead stays home with her all day. But one “bright morning in September, Sarah Ruth stopped breathing” (148).

Bryce weeps and begs her to breathe again. Their father comes home and shouts at Bryce and weeps, too. Bryce says that the father has no right to cry because he didn’t even love her. The father insists that he loved her, 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” (150). Bryce tries to stop him, but he wraps her in a blanket and leaves. Bryce grabs Edward and says that they’re going to Memphis.

Bryce takes Edward to Memphis in hopes of making money by busking; he’s going to play the harmonica and make Edward dance:

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 (156).

Edward not only feels hollow again, but he aches to be with Sarah Ruth. Bryce sets Sarah Ruth’s button box on the street to encourage people to throw money in it, and he plays the harmonica and makes Edward dance. A little child walks by and tells his mom he wants to touch the rabbit, but she says no because it’s “nasty” (156). People walk by with pity and Bryce cries:“An old woman leaning on a cane stepped close to them. She stared at Edward with deep, dark eyes. Pellegrina? Thought the dancing rabbit. She nodded at him” (157). 

In his mind, Edward implores the old woman to acknowledge him: “You got your wish. I have learned how to love. And it’s a terrible thing. I’m broken. My heart is broken. Help me” (158). But the old woman just walks away. 

Bryce and Edward go to a diner called Neal’s. Bryce orders a huge meal and eats every bite, but when the waitress, Marlene, gives him the bill, he says that he doesn’t have enough money to pay. Marlene gets the manager, Neal, who is “both the owner and the cook. He was a large, red-haired, red-faced man who came out of the kitchen holding a spatula in one hand” (163).

Bryce tries to tell Neal that he can play him a song on the harmonica and make Edward dance in order to pay for his meal, but Neal “swung Edward by the feet, swung him so that his head hit the edge of the counter hard. There was a loud crack. Bryce screamed. And the world, Edward’s world, went black” (165). 

For the first time in his life, Edward dreams. He dreams that it’s evening, and he’s “walking down a sidewalk. He was walking on his own, putting one foot in front of the other without any assistance from anybody. He was wearing a fine suit made of red silk” (169). He’s back on Egypt street. Lucy comes running from the front door of Abilene’s house. When Edward goes inside, everyone he’s ever loved is there: Abilene, Nellie, Lawrence, Bull, and Bryce. He’s looking for Sarah Ruth, but Bryce says that if he wants to see her, he must go outside.

Bryce points up at the night sky, and Lawrence explains where the girl it: “[T]hat is the Sarah Ruth constellation […] Edward felt a pang of sorrow, deep and sweet and familiar. Why did she have to be so far away?” (171). Edward realizes he has wings and can fly anywhere or do anything: “His heart soared inside of him. He spread his wings and flew off Lawrence’s shoulders, out of his hands and up into the nighttime sky, toward the stars, toward Sarah Ruth” (172). Everyone begs him to stay, and Bull pulls “him out of the sky and wrestle[s] him to the earth” (172). Edward tries to beat his wings, but he’s stuck and starts to cry. Everyone says that they can’t stand to lose him again.