Because of Winn-Dixie

  I walked up onto the porch and she handed me the flashlight. “Tell these boys, ‘hey,’” she said. “Tell them you are glad they came and that you will be right back just as soon as you find your dog.”

  “Hey,” I said. “Thank you for coming. I just got to find Winn-Dixie and then I’ll be right back.”

  Stevie stared at me with his mouth wide open.

  “You want me to help?” Dunlap asked.

  I shook my head. I tried not to cry.

  “Come here, child,” Gloria Dump said. She reached for me and pulled me close to her and whispered in my ear, “There ain’t no way you can hold on to something that wants to go, you understand? You can only love what you got while you got it.”

  She squeezed me hard.

  “Good luck now,” she called, as me and the preacher stepped off the porch and out into the rain.

  “Good luck,” Miss Franny called from the kitchen.

  “That dog ain’t lost,” I heard Sweetie Pie holler to somebody inside. “That dog’s too smart to get lost.”

  I turned around and looked back, and the last thing I saw was the porch light shining on Dunlap Dewberry’s bald head. It made me sad, him standing on Gloria’s porch, his bald head glowing. Dunlap saw me looking, and he raised up his hand and waved to me. I didn’t wave back.

  Me and the preacher started walking and calling Winn-Dixie’s name. I was glad it was raining so hard, because it made it easy to cry. I cried and cried and cried, and the whole time I was calling for Winn-Dixie.

  “Winn-Dixie,” I screamed.

  “Winn-Dixie,” the preacher shouted. And then he whistled loud and long. But Winn-Dixie didn’t show up.

  We walked all through downtown. We walked past the Dewberrys’ house and the Herman W. Block Memorial Library and Sweetie Pie’s yellow house and Gertrude’s Pets. We walked out to the Friendly Corners Trailer Park and looked underneath our trailer. We walked all the way out to the Open Arms Baptist Church of Naomi. We walked past the railroad tracks and right on down Highway 50. Cars were rushing past us and their taillights glowed red, like mean eyes staring at us.

  “Daddy,” I said. “Daddy, what if he got run over?”

  “Opal,” the preacher said. “We can’t worry about what might have happened. All we can do is keep looking.”

  We walked and walked. And in my head, I started on a list of ten things that I knew about Winn-Dixie, things I could write on big old posters and put up around the neighborhood, things that would help people look for him.

  Number one was that he had a pathological fear of thunderstorms.

  Number two was he liked to smile, using all his teeth.

  Number three was he could run fast.

  Number four was that he snored.

  Number five was that he could catch mice without squishing them to death.

  Number six was he liked to meet people.

  Number seven was he liked to eat peanut butter.

  Number eight was he couldn’t stand to be left alone.

  Number nine was he liked to sit on couches and sleep in beds.

  Number ten was he didn’t mind going to church.

  I kept on going over and over the list in my head. I memorized it the same way I had memorized the list of ten things about my mama. I memorized it so if I didn’t find him, I would have some part of him to hold on to. But at the same time, I thought of something I had never thought of before; and that was that a list of things couldn’t even begin to show somebody the real Winn-Dixie, just like a list of ten things couldn’t ever get me to know my mama. And thinking about that made me cry even more.

  Me and the preacher looked for a long time; and finally, he said we had to quit.

  “But Daddy,” I said, “Winn-Dixie’s out there somewhere. We can’t leave him.”

  “Opal,” the preacher said, “we have looked and looked, and there’s only so much looking we can do.”

  “I can’t believe you’re going to give up,” I told him.

  “India Opal,” the preacher said, rubbing his nose, “don’t argue with me.”

  I stood and stared at him. The rain had let up some. It was mostly a drizzle now.

  “It’s time to head back,” the preacher said.

  “No,” I told him. “You go ahead and go, but I’m going to keep on looking.”

  “Opal,” the preacher said in a real soft voice, “it’s time to give up.”

  “You always give up!” I shouted. “You’re always pulling your head inside your stupid old turtle shell. I bet you didn’t even go out looking for my mama when she left. I bet you just let her run off, too.”

  “Baby,” the preacher said. “I couldn’t stop her. I tried. Don’t you think I wanted her to stay, too? Don’t you think I miss her every day?” He spread his arms out wide and then dropped them to his sides. “I tried,” he said. “I tried.” Then he did something I couldn’t believe.

  He started to cry. The preacher was crying. His shoulders were moving up and down. And he was making snuffly noises. “And don’t believe that losing Winn-Dixie doesn’t upset me as much as it does you,” he said. “I love that dog. I love him, too.”

  “Daddy,” I said. I went and wrapped my arms around his waist. He was crying so hard he was shaking. “It’s all right,” I told him. “It’s okay. Shhhhh,” I said to him like he was a scared little kid. “Everything will be okay.”

  We stood there hugging and rocking back and forth, and after a while the preacher stopped shaking and I still held on to him; and I finally got the nerve to ask the question I wanted to ask.

  “Do you think she’s ever going to come back?” I whispered.

  “No,” the preacher said. “No, I do not. I’ve hoped and prayed and dreamed about it for years. But I don’t think she’ll ever come back.”

  “Gloria says that you can’t hold on to anything. That you can only love what you’ve got while you’ve got it.”

  “She’s right,” the preacher said. “Gloria Dump is right.”

  “I’m not ready to let Winn-Dixie go,” I said. I had forgotten about him for a minute, what with thinking about my mama.

  “We’ll keep looking,” said the preacher. “The two of us will keep looking for him. But do you know what? I just realized something, India Opal. When I told you your mama took everything with her, I forgot one thing, one very important thing that she left behind.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “You,” he said. “Thank God your mama left me you.” And he hugged me tighter.

  “I’m glad I’ve got you, too,” I told him. And I meant it. I took hold of his hand, and we started walking back into town, calling and whistling for Winn-Dixie the whole way.

  We heard the music before we even got to Gloria Dump’s house. We heard it almost a block away. It was guitar-playing and singing and clapping.

  “I wonder what’s going on?” my father said.

  We walked up Gloria’s sidewalk and around back, through her yard and into her kitchen. What we saw was Otis playing his guitar, and Miss Franny and Gloria sitting there smiling and singing, and Gloria holding Sweetie Pie in her lap. Amanda and Dunlap and Stevie were sitting on the kitchen floor, clapping along and having the best possible time. Even Amanda was smiling. I couldn’t believe they were so happy when Winn-Dixie was missing.

  “We didn’t find him,” I shouted at them.

  The music stopped and Gloria Dump looked at me and said, “Child, we know you didn’t find him. You didn’t find him because he was right here all along.”

  She took her cane and poked at something under her chair. “Come on out of there,” she said.

  There was a snuffle and a sigh.

  “He’s asleep,” she said. “He’s plumb wore out.”

  She poked around with her cane again. And Winn-Dixie stood up from underneath her chair and yawned.

  “Winn-Dixie!” I hollered.

  “Dog,” Gertrude squawked.

  Winn-Dixie wagged his tail and showed
me all his teeth and sneezed. I went pushing past everybody. I dropped to the floor and wrapped my arms around him.

  “Where have you been?” I asked him.

  He yawned again.

  “How did you find him?” I asked.

  “Now there’s a story,” said Miss Franny. “Gloria, why don’t you tell it?”

  “Well,” said Gloria Dump, “we was all just sitting around waiting on you two. And after I convinced these Dewberry boys that I ain’t no scary witch all full of spells and potions —”

  “She ain’t no witch,” Stevie said. He shook his bald head. He looked kind of disappointed.

  “Naw,” said Dunlap. “She ain’t. If she was, she would’ve turned us into toads by now.” He grinned.

  “I could have told you that she wasn’t a witch. Witches don’t exist,” said Amanda. “They are just myths.”

  “All right now,” said Gloria. “What happened was we got through all them witchy things and then Franny said, why don’t we have a little music while we wait for you two to get back. And so Otis played his guitar. And whooooeee, there ain’t a song he don’t know. And if he don’t know it, he can pick it up right quick if you hum it to him. He has a gift.”

  Gloria stopped and smiled over at Otis, and he smiled back. He looked all lit up from the inside.

  “Tell what happened,” Sweetie Pie said. “Tell about that dog.”

  “So,” said Gloria. “Franny and me, we started thinking about all these songs we knew from when we was girls. We got Otis to play them and we started singing them, teaching the words to these children.”

  “And then somebody sneezed,” Sweetie Pie shouted.

  “That’s right,” said Gloria. “Somebody sneezed and it wasn’t none of us. So we looked around, wondering who did, thinking that maybe we got us a burglar in the house. We looked around and we didn’t see nothing, so we started into singing again. And sure enough, there was another big achoo. Sounded like it was coming from my bedroom. So I sent Otis in there. I said, ‘Otis, go on in there and see who is sneezing.’ So Otis went. And do you know what he found?”

  I shook my head.

  “Winn-Dixie!” shouted Sweetie Pie.

  “That dog of yours was all hid underneath my bed, squeezed under there like the world was about to end. But he was smiling like a fool every time he heard Otis play the guitar, smiling so hard he sneezed.”

  My daddy laughed.

  “It is true,” Miss Franny said.

  “It’s the truth,” said Stevie.

  Dunlap nodded and smiled right at me.

  “So,” Gloria Dump said, “Otis played his guitar right to that dog, and a little bit at a time, Winn-Dixie came creeping out from underneath the bed.”

  “He was covered in dust,” said Amanda.

  “He looked like a ghost,” said Dunlap.

  “Yeah,” said Sweetie Pie, “just like a ghost.”

  “Mmmmm-hmm,” said Gloria. “Looked just like a ghost. Anyway, the storm stopped after a while. And your dog settled in under my chair. And fell asleep. And that’s where he’s been ever since, just waiting on you to come back and find him.”

  “Winn-Dixie,” I said. I hugged him so tight he wheezed. “We were out there whistling and calling for you and you were right here all along. Thank you,” I said to everybody.

  “Well,” said Gloria Dump. “We didn’t do nothin’. We just sat here and waited and sang some songs. We all got to be good friends. Now. The punch ain’t nothin’ but water and the egg-salad sandwiches got tore up by the rain. You got to eat them with a spoon if you want egg salad. But we got pickles to eat. And Littmus Lozenges. And we still got a party going on.”

  My daddy pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down.

  “Otis,” he said, “do you know any hymns?”

  “I know some,” said Otis.

  “You hum it,” said Miss Franny, nodding her head, “and he can play it.”

  So my daddy started humming something and Otis started picking it out on his guitar, and Winn-Dixie wagged his tail and lay back down underneath Gloria’s chair. I looked around the room at all the different faces, and I felt my heart swell up inside me with pure happiness.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” I said.

  But they were all singing now and laughing, and Winn-Dixie was snoring, so no one heard me.

  Outside, the rain had stopped and the clouds had gone away and the sky was so clear it seemed like I could see every star ever made. I walked all the way to the back of Gloria Dump’s yard. I walked back there and looked at her mistake tree. The bottles were quiet; there wasn’t a breeze, so they were just hanging there. I looked at the tree and then I looked up at the sky.

  “Mama,” I said, just like she was standing right beside me, “I know ten things about you, and that’s not enough, that’s not near enough. But Daddy is going to tell me more; I know he will, now that he knows you’re not coming back. He misses you and I miss you, but my heart doesn’t feel empty anymore. It’s full all the way up. I’ll still think about you, I promise. But probably not as much as I did this summer.”

  That’s what I said that night underneath Gloria Dump’s mistake tree. And after I was done saying it, I stood just staring up at the sky, looking at the constellations and planets. And then I remembered my own tree, the one Gloria had helped me plant. I hadn’t looked at it for a long time. I went crawling around on my hands and knees, searching for it. And when I found it, I was surprised at how much it had grown. It was still small. It still looked more like a plant than a tree. But the leaves and the branches felt real strong and good and right. And I was down there on my knees when I heard a voice say, “Are you praying?”

  I looked up. It was Dunlap.

  “No,” I said. “I’m not praying. I’m thinking.”

  He crossed his arms and looked down at me. “What about?” he asked.

  “All kinds of different things,” I said. “I’m sorry that I called you and Stevie bald-headed babies.”

  “That’s all right,” he said. “Gloria told me to come out here and get you.”

  “I told you she wasn’t a witch.”

  “I know it,” he said. “I knew it all along. I was just teasing you.”

  “Oh,” I said. I looked at him close. It was hard to see him good in the dark yard.

  “Ain’t you ever gonna stand up?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  And then he surprised me. He did something I never in a million years thought a Dewberry boy would do. He held out his hand to help me up. And I took it. I let him pull me to my feet.

  “I’ll race you back to the house,” Dunlap said. And he started to run.

  “Okay,” I shouted. “But I’m warning you, I’m fast.”

  We ran, and I beat him. I touched the corner of Gloria Dump’s house right before he did.

  “You shouldn’t be running around in the dark,” said Amanda. She was standing on the porch, looking at us. “You could trip over something.”

  “Aw, Amanda,” said Dunlap, and he shook his head.

  “Aw, Amanda,” I said, too. And then I remembered Carson and I felt bad for her. I went up on the porch and took hold of her hand and pulled on her. “Come on,” I said, “let’s go inside.”

  “India Opal,” Daddy said when me and Amanda and Dunlap walked in. “Are you here to sing some songs with us?”

  “Yes sir,” I said. “Only I don’t know that many songs.”

  “We’ll teach you,” he said. He smiled at me real big. It was a good thing to see.

  “That’s right,” said Gloria Dump. “We will.” Sweetie Pie was still sitting in her lap, but her eyes were closed.

  “Care for a Littmus Lozenge?” Miss Franny asked, passing me the bowl.

  “Thank you,” I told her. I took a Littmus Lozenge and unwrapped it and put it in my mouth.

  “Do you want a pickle?” Otis asked, holding up his big jar of pickles.

  “No, thank you,” I said. “Not righ
t now.”

  Winn-Dixie came out from underneath Gloria Dump’s chair. He sat down next to me and leaned into me the same as I was leaning into my daddy. And Amanda stood right there beside me, and when I looked over at her, she didn’t look pinch-faced at all to me.

  Dunlap cracked his knuckles and said, “Well, are we gonna sing or what?”

  “Yeah,” Stevie echoed, “are we gonna sing or what?”

  “Let’s sing,” said Sweetie Pie, opening her eyes and sitting up straight. “Let’s sing for the dog.”

  Otis laughed and strummed his guitar, and the flavor of the Littmus Lozenge opened in my mouth like a flower blooming, all sweet and sad. And then Otis and Gloria and Stevie and Miss Franny and Dunlap and Amanda and Sweetie Pie and my daddy all started to sing a song. And I listened careful, so I could learn it right.

  Peter stood in the small patch of light making its sullen way through the open flap of the tent. He let the fortuneteller take his hand. She examined it closely, moving her eyes back and forth and back and forth, as if there were a whole host of very small words inscribed there, an entire book about Peter Augustus Duchene composed atop his palm.

  “Huh,” she said at last. She dropped his hand and squinted up at his face. “But, of course, you are just a boy.”

  “I am ten years old,” said Peter. He took the hat from his head and stood as straight and tall as he was able. “And I am training to become a soldier, brave and true. But it does not matter how old I am. You took the florit, so now you must give me my answer.”

  “A soldier brave and true?” said the fortuneteller. She laughed and spat on the ground. “Very well, soldier brave and true, if you say it is so, then it is so. Ask me your question.”

  Peter felt a small stab of fear. What if, after all this time, he could not bear the truth? What if he did not really want to know?

  “Speak,” said the fortuneteller. “Ask.”

  “My parents,” said Peter.

  “That is your question?” said the fortuneteller. “They are dead.”

  Peter’s hands trembled. “That is not my question,” he said. “I know that already. You must tell me something that I do not know. You must tell me of another — you must tell me . . .”