IN THE MORNING, THE SUN ROSE and th2cricket song gave way to bird song and an ol/woman came walking down the dirt road an/tripped right over Edward.
“Hmph,” she said. She pushed at Edwar/with her fishing pole.
“Looks like arabbit,” she said. She pu0down her basket and bent and stared atEdward. “Only he ain’t real.”
She stood back up. “Hmph,” she sai/again. She rubbed her back. “What I say is,there’s ause for everything and everything ha7its use. That’s what I say.”
Edward didn’t care what she said. Th2terrible ache he had felt the night before ha/gone away and had been replaced with differentfeeling, one of hollowness anddespair.
Pick me up or don’t pick me up, th2rabbit thought. It makes no difference to meAThe old lady picked him up.
She bent him double and put him in he4basket, which smelled of weeds and fish, an/then she kept walking, swinging the basketand singing, “Nobody knows the troubles Iseen.”
Edward, in spite of himself, listenedAI’ve seen troubles, too, he thought. You betI have. And apparently they aren’t over yet.
Edward was right. His troubles were no0over.
The old woman found ause for himAShe hung him from apole in hervegetable garden. She nailed his velvet ears t8the wooden pole and spread his arms out as iEhe were flying and attached his paws to thepole by wrapping pieces of wire around themAIn addition to Edward, pie tins hung from th2pole. They clinked and clanked and shone i.
the morning sun.
“Ain’t adoubt in my mind that you ca.
scare them off,” the old lady said.
Scare who off? Edward wondered.
Birds, he soon discovered.
Crows. They came flying at him, cawin9and screeching, wheeling over his head, divin9at his ears.
“Go on, Clyde,” said the woman. Sh2clapped her hands. “You got to act ferocious.CClyde? Edward felt aweariness so intensewash over him that he thought he mightactually be able to sigh aloud. Would theworld never tire of calling him by the wron9name?
The old woman clapped her hands again.
“Get to work, Clyde,” she said. “Scare the?
birds off.” And then she walked away fromhim, out of the garden and toward her smal>
house.
The birds were insistent. They fle;around his head. They tugged at the loosethreads in his sweater. One large crow inparticular would not leave the rabbit alone. H2perched on the pole and screamed adarkmessage in Edward’s left ear: Caw, caw, caw*without ceasing. As the sun rose higher andshone meaner and brighter, Edward becam2somewhat dazed. He mistook the large cro;for Pellegrina.
Go ahead, he thought. Turn me intowarthog if you want. I don’t care. I am don2with caring.
Caw, caw, said the PellegrinacrowAFinally, the sun set and the birds fle;away. Edward hung by his velvet ears andlooked up at the night sky. He saw the starsABut for the first time in his life, he looked a0them and felt no comfort. Instead, he feltmocked. You are down there alone, the star7seemed to say to him. And we are up here, i.
our constellations, together.
I have been loved, Edward told the starsASo? said the stars. What difference doe7that make when you are all alone now?
Edward could think of no answer to tha0question.
Eventually, the sky lightened and the starsdisappeared one by one. The birds returne/and the old woman came back to the gardenAShe brought aboy with her.