Beverly crouched down, too. She said to Louisiana, “Get up. You can have some candy corn if you get up.”
Mrs. Sylvester was still on the phone. She said, “Mr. Clarke isn’t available, but I’m sure that I can take care of that for you, Mr. Lawrence. However, right now, there is something of a situation here in the offices of Clarke Family Insurance. Would tomorrow work for you? Wonderful, wonderful. I thank you so much. Yes. Mmmmm-hmmmm. Thank you for calling.”
Mrs. Sylvester hung up the phone.
Raymie closed her eyes and saw the single lightbulb from Building 10 swaying back and forth. She felt very tired. So much had happened. So much kept happening.
“I feel better,” said Louisiana. She sat up. “Can I have that candy corn now?”
“Of course,” said Mrs. Sylvester. She took the lid off the jar and held the jar out toward Louisiana. Louisiana stood up. She put her hand deep into the candy corn.
“Thank you,” she said to Mrs. Sylvester. And then she shoved the whole handful of candy corn in her mouth. She chewed for a long time. She smiled at Mrs. Sylvester. She swallowed. She said, “Do you think there’s candy corn at the county home?”
Mrs. Sylvester said, “I think that you should have some more, dear.” She extended the jar again.
Raymie looked around and saw that Beverly had opened the door to her father’s office and was standing and staring inside it.
Raymie got off the floor. She went and stood next to Beverly.
“This is my dad’s office,” she said.
“Uh-huh,” said Beverly. “I figured.” She was staring at the aerial photograph of Lake Clara that hung over Jim Clarke’s desk.
“You can see the ghost of Clara Wingtip in that picture,” said Raymie.
“Where?” said Beverly.
“Right there,” said Raymie. She stepped into the office and pointed to the far right-hand side of the lake, to the dark blur that was shaped like a lost and waiting person who had drowned by mistake, or maybe on purpose.
Raymie’s father had shown Clara Wingtip’s ghost to her when she was six years old. He had put her on his shoulders so that she was close to the photograph, and Raymie had traced the shadow of Clara with her fingertip. For a long time after that, she had been afraid to go into his office, afraid that Clara was waiting for her and that her ghost would pull Raymie into the lake, pull her under the water and drown her somehow.
“That’s just a shadow,” said Beverly. “It doesn’t mean anything. Shadows are all over the place. Shadows aren’t ghosts.”
The phone rang again. Mrs. Sylvester answered it. “Clarke Family Insurance. How may we protect you?”
“Has he called you?” said Beverly.
“Who?” asked Raymie.
“Your father,” said Beverly.
“No,” said Raymie.
Beverly nodded her head slowly. “Right,” she said. But she didn’t say it in a mean way. Raymie was standing close enough to Beverly that she could smell her, that strange combination of sweetness and grittiness. She studied the fading bruise on Beverly’s face.
“Who hit you?” she asked.
“My mother,” said Beverly.
“Why?”
“I shoplifted.”
“Why?” asked Raymie again.
“Because,” said Beverly. She put her hands in the pockets of her shorts. “I’m getting out of here. I’m going to live on my own. I’m going to take care of myself.”
Behind them, Louisiana was telling Mrs. Sylvester that her parents were gone.
“They drowned,” said Louisiana.
“No,” said Mrs. Sylvester.
“Yes,” said Louisiana.
“I’m not going to enter the Little Miss Central Florida Tire contest,” said Raymie.
“Good for you,” said Beverly. She nodded. “Contests are stupid.”
“I don’t care anymore,” said Raymie.
“Sure,” said Beverly. “I’m probably not going to bother doing the sabotaging, either. At least I’m not going to sabotage that contest.” And then in a soft voice, she said, “I feel pretty bad about the dead cat business.”
And at that point, Raymie felt everything — all of it — wash over her: Mrs. Borkowski, Archie, Alice Nebbley, the gigantic seabird, Florence Nightingale, Mr. Staphopoulos, Ida Nee’s sad-eyed moose, her missing father, Clara Wingtip’s ghost, the yellow bird and the empty cage, Edgar the drowning dummy, the single lightbulb in Building 10.
Tell me, why does the world exist?
Raymie took a deep breath. She stood as straight and tall as she could. She looked at the ghost of Clara Wingtip.
Which wasn’t really there. Which was only a shadow.
Probably.
Mrs. Sylvester held the door open for them as they left.
“Thank you for visiting,” she said.
“And thank you for the candy corn,” said Louisiana. “It was delicious.”
On the walk back to Ida Nee’s, Louisiana sang “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” twice in a row. When she started in on it a third time, Beverly told her to knock it off.
“Okay,” said Louisiana. “It’s just that singing helps me think. I have now made up my mind.”
“Made up your mind about what?” said Raymie.
“I’ve decided that they’re hiding Archie from me. He’s behind the closed door in that place. What we need to do is break into the Very Friendly Animal Center and unlock that door. And then we’ll find him. I know we will.”
“What?” said Beverly. “Are you nuts? Don’t you remember anything that just happened? The cat is gone. There’s nobody to break in and free.”
“We’ll wait until it’s dark,” said Louisiana. “And then we’ll break in and rescue him!”
“No,” said Beverly.
“Yes,” said Louisiana.
“The cat is dead,” said Beverly.
Louisiana dropped her baton. She put her fingers in her ears. She began to hum.
Raymie bent and picked up Louisiana’s baton.
“I’m not going back into that place,” said Beverly.
Louisiana took her fingers out of her ears. “Why do the Rancheros even exist if they can’t perform acts of bravery?”
“The Rancheros don’t exist,” said Beverly. “They’re only in your head.”
“They do exist,” said Louisiana, “because we exist. We’re here.”
“I’m here,” said Raymie.
“That’s right,” said Louisiana.
“And you’re here,” said Raymie, pointing at Louisiana. “And you’re here.” She pointed at Beverly. “And we’re here together.”
“Right,” said Louisiana again.
“Duh,” said Beverly. “Duh that we are all here. But none of that changes the fact that the cat is dead.”
The argument went on this way for a while — Beverly insisting that the cat was dead, Louisiana insisting that they would rescue the cat — but it stopped entirely when they got to the end of Ida Nee’s driveway and saw that Beverly’s mother was there and Raymie’s mother was there and Louisiana’s grandmother was not there.
And that there was also a police car in the circular driveway.
“The cops,” said Beverly.
“Oh, no,” said Louisiana.
Ida Nee was standing in front of her house talking to one of the policemen. She had outfitted herself with a fresh baton, and she was using it to point at things. She pointed at the garage door. She pointed at the kitchen door.
“No!” shouted Ida Nee. “I have not lost it. I have never lost a baton in my life. It has been stolen from me. The door to my office has been jimmied. My front door has been jimmied. I am the victim of a theft.”
Just when you thought that the day couldn’t get any worse than Building 10 and the single lightbulb and the terrible howling and the cat killing, Ida Nee went and called the police because Beverly Tapinski had taken her baton.
They were all going to get sent to jail!
&n
bsp; Raymie and Beverly and Louisiana were standing together at the edge of the property, right beside Ida Nee’s azalea bush.
Farther up the driveway, deep inside the half circle of it, Beverly’s mother was leaning against her bright-blue car smoking a cigarette. Raymie’s mother was sitting in the Clarke car, staring straight ahead.
“Oh, no,” said Louisiana again.
“Let’s not panic,” said Beverly.
“I’m not panicking,” said Louisiana.
“I think I left that stupid baton of hers at your dad’s office,” said Beverly.
“Oh, noooo,” said Louisiana.
“Shut up,” said Beverly. “They can’t prove anything. We came for baton-twirling lessons and she wasn’t here, so we left. That’s our story. All we need to do is stick to it.”
Raymie felt fuzzy, trembly. Her heart was beating very fast. Her soul, of course, had disappeared.
It was at this point that Louisiana’s grandmother stuck her hand out of the azalea bush and grabbed Raymie’s ankle.
Raymie screamed.
Louisiana screamed.
Beverly yelped.
Fortunately, no one heard them because Ida Nee was still pointing at things and yelling about how she had been wronged.
“Granny,” said Louisiana, “what are you doing down there?”
“There’s nothing to fear,” whispered Louisiana’s grandmother from where she was crouched in the azalea bush. She kept her hand wrapped around Raymie’s ankle. Her grip was surprisingly strong.
“Don’t be afraid,” said the grandmother.
“Okay,” said Raymie.
“I’ve come up with a plan.” She gave Raymie’s ankle a friendly little shake. “All will be well.”
Raymie stared down at Louisiana’s grandmother’s barrette-filled, glowing head. It looked like her hair was on fire.
“Okay,” said Raymie.
She was just glad that someone had a plan.
Louisiana and Raymie were in the backseat of the Clarke automobile.
They were getting the heck out of Dodge.
According to Louisiana’s grandmother, the authorities were on a rampage, and it would be a good idea for Louisiana to be “far, far away from the Elefante homestead.”
So Louisiana was going to spend the night at Raymie’s house.
That was Louisiana’s grandmother’s plan.
And at midnight, Beverly Tapinski was going to come to Raymie’s house, and the three of them, the Three Rancheros, were going to break into Building 10 and set free a dead cat.
That was the Rancheros’ plan.
It was a plan that had been hastily concocted after Louisiana’s grandmother left the scene.
It was exactly the kind of plan that Mrs. Borkowski would have approved of. Mrs. Borkowski would have laughed. She would have displayed all her teeth. And then she would have said, “Phhhhtttt, I wish you luck.”
“Wasn’t that exciting?” said Louisiana as they drove away from Ida Nee’s. “I wonder who stole Miss Nee’s baton.”
She elbowed Raymie in the ribs.
“It was a tempest in a teapot,” said Raymie’s mother. “That’s what it was. Who in the world calls the police about a missing baton?”
“I’m excited to be spending the night at your house,” said Louisiana. “Is there going to be dinner, Mrs. Nightingale?”
There was a pause. “Who are you talking to?” Raymie’s mother asked.
“I’m speaking to you, Mrs. Nightingale.”
“My name is Mrs. Clarke.”
“Oh,” said Louisiana. “I didn’t know. I thought that you had the same last name as Raymie.”
“My last name is Clarke, too,” said Raymie.
“Is it?” said Louisiana. “I thought you were Raymie Nightingale. Like the book.”
“No,” said Raymie. “I’m Raymie Clarke.”
Where did Louisiana get such strange ideas? And what would it be like to be Raymie Nightingale? What would it be like to walk the bright and shining path and carry a lamp over your head?
“Okay,” said Louisiana. “Anyway. Is there going to be dinner, Mrs. Clarke?”
“Of course there’s going to be dinner.”
“Oh, my goodness,” said Louisiana. “What will it be?”
“Spaghetti.”
“Or maybe meat loaf?” asked Louisiana. “I love meat loaf.”
“I suppose I could make meat loaf,” said Raymie’s mother. She sighed.
Raymie looked out the window. Somewhere, her father was getting ready to eat dinner, too. She thought about him sitting in the booth at the diner with Lee Ann Dickerson, holding a menu and smoking his cigarette. She watched Lee Ann Dickerson reach forward and put her hand on her father’s arm. She watched the smoke from her father’s cigarette curl up to the ceiling, and suddenly she knew.
Her father was not coming back.
He was never coming back.
“Oof,” said Raymie. Her soul shriveled. It felt like someone had punched her in the stomach.
“What did you say?” asked Louisiana.
“Nothing,” said Raymie.
“Maybe after dinner we can read aloud from the Nightingale book,” said Louisiana. “Granny always reads to me at night.”
“Sure,” said Raymie.
At dinner, Raymie’s mother watched in astonishment as Louisiana consumed four entire pieces of meat loaf and all her green beans. The three of them sat at the dining-room table, underneath the small chandelier.
Louisiana said, “We have a chandelier, too. But right now we can’t light it up because of the electricity issue. It’s nice to have some light. Also, I like this table. This is a very big table.”
“Yes,” said Raymie’s mother. “It is.”
“You could fit a lot of people around this table,” said Louisiana.
“I suppose so,” said Raymie’s mother.
And then they were all silent.
Raymie could hear the sunburst clock in the kitchen, ticking slowly, methodically.
“Your mother is a very good cook,” said Louisiana when dinner was over and they were in Raymie’s room with the door closed. “But she doesn’t talk very much, does she?”
“No,” said Raymie. “I guess not.” She stared up at the light on the ceiling. A moth was fluttering around it hopefully.
“Did your father kiss you good night when he lived here?” asked Louisiana.
“Sometimes,” said Raymie. She didn’t want to think about her father anymore. She didn’t want to remember him bending over and kissing her forehead or putting his hand on her shoulder. She didn’t want to remember him smiling at her.
“Granny always kisses me good night,” said Louisiana. “And then she gives me kisses from the absent ones. That’s my mother and my father and my grandfather. I get four kisses.”
Louisiana sighed. She looked out the window. “There’s no one to kiss you good night in the county home. At least that’s what I hear. Do you want to read aloud from the Florence Nightingale book now?”
“Okay,” said Raymie.
“I’ll go first,” said Louisiana. She picked up the book and opened it to the middle and read a single sentence.
“Florence was lonely.”
And then she shut the book and opened it again and read a line from page three.
“Florence wanted to help.”
And then she slammed the book shut.
“Shouldn’t you start from the beginning?” asked Raymie.
“Why?” said Louisiana. “This way is much more interesting.” She opened the book again. She read the line “Florence held up the lamp.”
Outside Raymie’s window, the world was dark.
“When you read a book this way,” said Louisiana, “you never know what’s going to happen next. It keeps you on your toes. That’s what Granny says. And it’s important to be on your toes because you just never know what might happen next in this world.”
Raymie woke up. The hands on the Baby
Ben glowed cheerily in the dark. They said that it was 1:14.
It was past midnight, and Beverly Tapinski had not shown up.
That meant that they were not going to sneak out of the house and break into Building 10 and steal Archie. Who wasn’t even there.
None of it was going to happen after all. Raymie was disappointed. And relieved. Both things at the same time.
She lay in bed and stared at the clock. It ticked in a satisfied and self-important way, as if it had managed to solve some difficult problem.
Raymie got out of bed. By the orangey light of the night-light, she could see Louisiana asleep on the floor.
A Bright and Shining Path: The Life of Florence Nightingale was open on top of Louisiana’s stomach. Her hands were crossed over the book, and her legs were straight out in front of her. It looked as if she had fallen on the battlefield of life.
“Fallen on the battlefield of life” was something that Louisiana had said when they were reading aloud from the book.
“Florence Nightingale helps those who have fallen on the battlefield of life. She comes to them with her magic globe —”
“I don’t think it’s a magic globe,” said Raymie. “It’s a lantern. It’s what people used before electricity.”
“I know that,” said Louisiana. She lowered the book and stared at Raymie. She raised the book again. She said, “She comes to them with her magic globe and makes them well. They don’t worry anymore. And they don’t wish for things that are gone.”
Raymie felt her heart thud inside of her.
“Where does it say that?” she said.
“It’s written in the book in my head,” said Louisiana. She tapped her head. “And that’s sometimes better than the actual book. And by that, I mean that sometimes I read the words I want to be there instead of the words that are actually there. Just like Granny does.” Louisiana looked up at Raymie in a very serious way. “Do you want me to keep going?”
“Yes,” said Raymie.
“Good,” said Louisiana. “Inside the magic globe that Florence Nightingale carries, there are wishes and hopes and love. And all of these things are very tiny and also very bright. And there are thousands of wishes and hopes and love things, and they move around in the magic globe, and that’s what Florence uses to see by. That is how she sees soldiers who have fallen on the battlefield of life.