Bunnicula Meets Edgar Allan Crow

TEN

Farewell

I could hardly believe my ears! Miles Tanner was asking to take Bunnicula away with him—forever! He wanted our bunny to be his new muse and companion. I turned to Chester, who sat dumbfounded, his tongue half out of his mouth, his eyes as glazed as an Easter ham. The whole room had come to a standstill, all except for Howie, who began bouncing around on his back legs and yipping his head off.

“Take me! Take me!” he yipped. “I’m a better muse than Bunnicula! I’m cuter than Bunnicula! I stay awake more than Bunnicula! Sort of. Take me!”

Miles shrank bank into the sofa cushions as Mr. Monroe got Howie to stop his noise.

“I’m sorry,” Mr. Monroe said to Miles.

“No, it’s not Howie’s fault. I guess I still have some work to do on that,” Miles said. “My therapist—Dr. Verrückt Katz—said I should start with stuffed animals and work my way up to the real things.”

“You know Howie isn’t barking at you because he thinks you’re ugly or scary,” said Mrs. Monroe. “He’s excited. I think he likes you.”

“And you’re not ugly or scary at all,” said Marjorie. “On the contrary. As for stuffed animals . . .” She opened her purse and took out a tiny stuffed lion. “I call him C. L.,” she said. “It stands for ‘Cowardly Lion.’ I take him with me everywhere, for courage.”

“Wait right here!” Pete shouted. He stood up and thrust Bunnicula into Miles’s arms before racing up the stairs and back down again in a flash. He held a stuffed koala bear.

“This is Pudgykins,” he told Miles. “I’ve had him since I was real little. Now I keep him under the bed in case ... well, in case I need him, I guess.” He shot a look at Kyle and Toby that said, If you ever tell anybody about this, you are dead meat!

Miles smiled. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for being so kind. I know I’m asking too much of you. I had never intended on asking it. I just wanted to be around Bunnicula, to see if he inspired me. And I was inspired! I began writing a new book last night—even if I did end up turning the rabbit character into a bat. But I got frightened and thought I couldn’t do it without Edgar. And then I realized that Edgar had something else in mind entirely.”

“Edgar?” said Mr. Monroe.

“Yes. You see, I couldn’t understand how it happened that Bunnicula was placed in my room, and why you put a salad next to my bed. And then I discovered an e-mail addressed to you that I had never written. It had to have been written by someone else, and there was only one other ‘someone else’ that could have done it.”

“Edgar,” Mr. Monroe repeated.

Miles nodded. “Edgar is mute. He has never spoken, never uttered a sound. I suspect it’s because of his injury when he was young. But being a crow, and therefore a remarkably clever and adaptive creature, he taught himself how to write by watching me. It was he who wrote that e-mail to you, to ensure that I would spend a good deal of time with Bunnicula and get to see him in action. He wanted Bunnicula to be his replacement. You see, Edgar could have left me long ago, but he doesn’t want me to be alone. He is the most considerate of birds, the gentlest of souls.”

“Ah!” I said, turning to Chester. “So that’s what ‘nefarious’ means!”

“This is no time for jokes,” Chester snarled. “We’re about to lose Bunnicula, can’t you see? If they let Tanner take him away from us ...”

Were my eyes deceiving me? Was that a tear rolling down Chester’s nose?

“Yes,” Pete said. “You can have him.”

The rest of the Monroe family started to object, but they stopped when they saw the look of hope on Miles’s face.

“Really?” he asked.

Chester began to sniffle next to me.

And then I thought I heard Howie barking. I cringed at the sound. But when I saw everyone in the room staring at me, I realized it wasn’t Howie who was barking. It was me. Me, who hates the sound of it. I was barking and Chester was sniffling and the humans didn’t seem to have a clue what to do about any of it.

Were we really going to have to say farewell to our bunny?

“You know, Miles,” Ms. Pickles said then, patting him on the arm, “there may be other ways to solve this. I don’t think the Monroes really want to part with their dear pet. And I don’t think you’d really want to have them do so.”

“I have a rabbit for you, Mr. Tanner!” shouted Kyle. “See, one time Pete and I did this hare-raising project for Scouts. That probably sounded like a joke, but I didn’t mean it that way. I mean we bred rabbits. And Bunnicula was the dad, and I have his son, see—Sonnicula! And the other day my mom said she was afraid she was developing an allergy to him and maybe we should find him a new home. And so what if he goes to live with you?”

Miles looked down at the sleeping rabbit in his arms. “It wouldn’t be Bunnicula,” he said.

“No,” said Kyle.

“But it would be fine.”

Everyone cheered. And Chester began to purr.

The next day, after Miles returned from visiting Pete’s school, we all went out into the backyard to say farewell to Edgar. Ms. Pickles was there and so was Kyle. And so was Sonnicula, although—since it was still daylight outside—he was sound asleep on Miles’s bed up in the guest room. Miles took to Sonnicula right away, although he said—and who would argue—that no one could ever really replace Edgar.

Now we watched Edgar’s flock flapping its wings in anticipation of leaving. Suddenly one of the birds flew down and landed on Miles’s shoulder. He nipped him on the ear, and Miles stroked his feathers.

“You’ve been a good friend,” Miles said. “Thank you for everything. I will never forget you. Never.”

Edgar flew off to join the one who was waiting for him. And then he flew back one last time, grabbing Ms. Pickles’s scarf in his beak and drawing her toward Miles. He hopped onto Miles’s shoulder and tugged at his ear until Miles was forced to move toward Ms. Pickles. Once their arms were touching, he flew down to grab the cuff of Miles’s shirt, pulling it up until Miles’s hand was in Ms. Pickles’s.

Miles turned red and smiled at Ms. Pickles.

“Clever bird,” he said.

Miles and Ms. Pickles lifted their eyes skyward as Edgar flew off, and the birds rustled and flapped and began to grow smaller in the distance.

“Goodbye, Edgar!” Miles called. There was a catch in his voice as he cried out, “Will you forget me?”

The crows spread out across the sky and went into a formation, and the formation was a word, and the word was: