Gracias a Winn-Dixie

My name is India Opal Buloni, and the summer I turned ten was the summer I went to the Winn-Dixie grocery store for macaroni-and-cheese and came back with a dog. He was a big, ugly, skinny thing, all ribs and bald patches, but he had a talent for smiling. He'd pull back his lips and show all his teeth, and then wag his tail so hard he'd sneeze. When the store manager threatened to call the pound, the first name that came into my head was the one on the front of the store. “Here, Winn-Dixie,” I hollered, and just like that, he was mine. I took him home to the Friendly Corners Trailer Park, where me and my father - who I call the preacher - had just moved. I was lonely, and that dog was a mess. It seemed to me we both needed a friend.

That dog had a way of making things happen. Because of him, I got the preacher to tell me ten things about my mama, who left when I was three. One thing for each year I'd been alive. He told me she had red hair and freckles, just like me. He told me she loved a good story and hated being a preacher's wife. And number ten was that she loved me very much. “But she left me,” I told him. He just looked sad, like a turtle pulling its head into its shell. I wrote down all ten things so I wouldn't forget. I read them to Winn-Dixie until I had them memorized, just in case my mama ever came back and I needed to recognize her.

Winn-Dixie couldn't stand to be alone, so he started going everywhere with me. He was the one who introduced me to my first friend in Naomi, Florida. He stood on his hind legs to peer into the Herman W. Block Memorial Library, and Miss Franny Block, the little old librarian, mistook him for a bear. She screamed and fell right on the floor. Once I convinced her he was just a dog, she let him come inside and told us the story of the real bear that had wandered into her library years ago, a story that made her feel sad and lonely for all her friends who were gone. “We could be friends,” I told her, and just like that, we were.

Soon, because of Winn-Dixie, my world started to fill up. To buy him a handsome red collar, I got a job sweeping floors at Gertrude's Pets, where a shy man named Otis played guitar music that soothed all the animals, making them sit still as statues. Then Winn-Dixie led me straight into the overgrown yard of Gloria Dump, a woman the neighborhood kids called a witch. But she wasn't a witch at all. She was a kind old woman with bad eyes who listened with her whole heart as I told her everything about me. She showed me her mistake tree, a big oak in her backyard hung with empty bottles to keep the ghosts of her past away. “You can't always judge people by the things they done,” she told me. “You got to judge them by what they are doing now.”

Miss Franny Block told me another story, about her great-grandfather, Littmus W. Block. He fought in the Civil War and came home to find his whole world gone - his family dead, his house burned to the ground. All he wanted was something sweet, so he invented a candy, the Littmus Lozenge. It tasted like root beer and strawberry, but it had a secret ingredient, too: sorrow. When I ate one, it tasted sweet and sad all at once, and it made me think of my mama. It made pinch-faced Amanda Wilkinson think of her little brother Carson, who had drowned. It seemed like everyone had a secret sadness inside them, all mixed up with the sweet.

To bring all my new, lonely friends together, I decided to throw a party in Gloria Dump's yard. We strung crepe paper in the trees and lit candles in paper bags that made the whole garden glow. Miss Franny came in a shimmery dress, the preacher wore a tie, and even Otis came, carrying his guitar and a giant jar of pickles. The preacher said a prayer, thanking God for friends, “the complicated and wonderful gifts you give us in each other.” For a moment, everything was perfect. Then, a clap of thunder split the sky, and the rain came pouring down.

In the chaos of running inside, I forgot about Winn-Dixie. He had a pathological fear of thunderstorms, a fear so big it made him run like the world was ending. When the rain stopped and I realized he was gone, my heart felt like it had been ripped right out. I was supposed to protect him, and I had forgotten. The preacher and I went out into the dripping dark, calling his name until our voices were raw. I cried and told the preacher he always gives up, that he probably just let my mama run off, too. That's when he broke down, telling me he tried to stop her, that he missed her every single day. “Thank God your mama left me you,” he said, and we held onto each other in the middle of the empty street.

We walked back to Gloria's house, sure that Winn-Dixie was lost forever. But as we got close, we heard music. Inside, everyone was gathered in the kitchen, safe from the storm. Otis was playing his guitar, and they were all singing. And there, from under Gloria's chair, a dusty, sleepy head appeared. It was Winn-Dixie. He had been there the whole time, hiding from the thunder but soothed by the music. He hadn't been lost at all.

I dropped to the floor and wrapped my arms around him. Everyone was there - my daddy, Gloria, Miss Franny, Otis, Amanda, Sweetie Pie, and even the Dewberry boys. We were a strange little group, but we were all friends. Otis started to play again, and my daddy began to hum a hymn. I looked around at all their faces, and my heart felt so full it might burst. I leaned against my daddy, and Winn-Dixie leaned against me. The flavor of a Littmus Lozenge bloomed in my mouth, all sweet and sad together, and I listened carefully to the song so I could learn the words.