Raymie Nightingale (2 page)

Mrs. Sylvester’s voice was very high-pitched. She sounded like a little cartoon bird when she talked, and this made everything that she said seem ridiculous but also possible — both things at the same time.

When Raymie told Mrs. Sylvester that she was going to enter the Little Miss Central Florida Tire contest, Mrs. Sylvester had clapped her hands together and said, “What a wonderful idea. Have some candy corn.”

Mrs. Sylvester kept an extremely large jar of candy corn on her desk at all times and in all seasons because she believed in feeding people.

She also believed in feeding swans. Every day on her lunch break, Mrs. Sylvester took a bag of swan food and went down to the pond by the hospital.

Mrs. Sylvester was very short, and the swans were tall and long-necked. When Mrs. Sylvester stood in the middle of them with her scarf on her head and the big bag of swan food in her arms, she looked like something out of a fairy tale.

Raymie wasn’t sure which fairy tale.

Maybe it was a fairy tale that hadn’t been told yet.

When Raymie asked Mrs. Sylvester what she thought about Jim Clarke leaving town with a dental hygienist, Mrs. Sylvester had said, “Well, dear, I have found that most things work out right in the end.”

Did most things work out right in the end?

Raymie wasn’t sure.

The idea seemed ridiculous (but also possible) when Mrs. Sylvester said it in her tiny bird voice.

“If you intend to win the Little Miss Central Florida Tire contest,” said Mrs. Sylvester, “you must learn how to twirl a baton. And the best person to teach you how to twirl a baton is Ida Nee. She is a world champion.”

This explained what Raymie was doing in Ida Nee’s backyard, under Ida Nee’s pine trees.

She was learning how to twirl a baton.

Or that was what she was supposed to be doing.

But then the girl in the pink dress fainted, and the twirling lesson came to a screeching halt.

Ida Nee said, “This is ridiculous. No one faints in my classes. I don’t believe in fainting.”

Fainting didn’t seem like the kind of thing that you needed to believe in (or not) in order for it to happen, but Ida Nee was a world-champion twirler and she probably knew what she was talking about.

“It is just nonsense,” said Ida Nee. “I don’t have time for nonsense.”

This pronouncement was greeted with a small silence, and then Beverly Tapinski slapped the girl in the pink dress.

She slapped one cheek and then the other one.

“What in the world?” said Ida Nee.

“This is what you do for people who faint,” said Beverly. “You slap them.” She slapped the girl again. “Wake up!” she shouted.

The girl opened her eyes. “Uh-oh,” she said. “Has the county home come? Is Marsha Jean here?”

“I don’t know any Marsha Jean,” said Beverly. “You fainted.”

“Did I?” She blinked. “I have very swampy lungs.”

“This lesson is over,” said Ida Nee. “I’m not wasting my time with lollygaggers and malingerers. Or fainters.”

“Good,” said Beverly. “No one wants to learn how to twirl a stupid baton anyway.”

Which was not true.

Raymie wanted to learn.

In fact, she needed to learn.

But it didn’t seem like a good idea to disagree with Beverly.

Ida Nee marched away from them, down to the lake. She lifted her white-booted legs very high. You could tell that she was a world champion just by watching her march.

“Sit up,” said Beverly to the fainting girl.

The girl sat up. She looked around her in wonder, as if she had been deposited on Ida Nee’s property by mistake. She blinked. She put her hand on her head. “My brain feels light as a feather,” she said.

“Duh,” said Beverly. “That’s because you fainted.”

“I’m afraid that I wouldn’t have made a very good Flying Elefante,” said the girl.

There was a long silence.

“What’s an elefante?” asked Raymie finally.

The girl blinked. Her blond hair shone white in the sun. “
I’m
an Elefante. My name is Louisiana Elefante. My parents were the Flying Elefantes. Haven’t you heard of them?”

“No,” said Beverly. “We haven’t heard of them. You should try to stand up now.”

Louisiana put her hand on her chest. She took a deep breath. She wheezed.

Beverly rolled her eyes. “Here,” she said. She held out her hand. It was a grubby hand. The fingers were smudged, and the nails were dirty and chewed down. But in spite of its grubbiness, or maybe because of it, it was a very certain-looking hand.

Louisiana took hold of it, and Beverly pulled her to her feet.

“Oh, my goodness,” said Louisiana. “I’m just all filled up with feathers and regrets. And fears. I have a lot of fears.”

She stood there staring at both of them. Her eyes were dark. They were brown. No, they were black, and they were set very deep in her face. She blinked. “I’ve got a question for you,” she said. “Have you ever in your life come to realize that everything, absolutely everything, depends on you?”

Raymie didn’t even have to think about the answer to this question. “Yes,” she said.

“Duh,” said Beverly.

“It’s terrifying, isn’t it?” said Louisiana.

The three of them stood there looking at one another.

Raymie felt something expanding inside of her. It felt like a gigantic tent billowing out.

This, Raymie knew, was her soul.

Mrs. Borkowski, who lived across the street from Raymie and who was very, very old, said that most people wasted their souls.

“How do they waste them?” Raymie had asked.

“They let them shrivel,” said Mrs. Borkowski. “Phhhhtttt.”

Which was maybe — Raymie wasn’t sure — the sound a soul made when it shriveled.

But as Raymie stood in Ida Nee’s backyard, next to Louisiana and Beverly, it did not feel like her soul was shriveling at all.

It felt like it was filling up — becoming larger, brighter, more certain.

Down at the lake, on the edge of the dock, Ida Nee was twirling her baton. It flashed and glimmered. She threw it very high in the air.

The baton looked like a needle.

It looked like a secret, narrow and bright and alone, glittering in the blue sky.

Raymie remembered the words from earlier:
I’m sorry I betrayed you.

She turned to Louisiana and asked, “Who is Archie?”

“Well, I’ll just begin at the beginning since that’s always the best place to begin,” said Louisiana.

Beverly snorted.

“Once upon a time,” said Louisiana, “in a land very far away and also surprisingly close by, there lived a cat named Archie Elefante, who was much admired and loved and who was also known as King of the Cats. But then darkness fell —”

“Why don’t you just say what happened,” said Beverly.

“All right, if you want me to, I will just say it. We betrayed him.”

“How?” asked Raymie.

“We had to take Archie to the Very Friendly Animal Center because we couldn’t afford to feed him anymore,” said Louisiana.

“What Very Friendly Animal Center?” asked Beverly. “I’ve never heard of any Very Friendly Animal Center.”

“I can’t believe you’ve never heard of the Very Friendly Animal Center. It’s a place where they will feed Archie three times a day and scratch him behind the ears exactly the way he likes. Still, I never should have left him there. It was a betrayal. I betrayed him.”

Raymie’s heart thudded.
Betrayed.

“But don’t worry,” said Louisiana. She put her hand on her chest and took a deep breath. She smiled a dazzling smile. “I’ve entered the Little Miss Central Florida Tire 1975 contest, and I’m going to win that one thousand nine hundred and seventy-five dollars and save myself from the county home and get Archie back from the Very Friendly Animal Center and never be terrified again.”

Raymie’s soul stopped being a tent.

“You’re going to compete in the Little Miss Central Florida Tire contest?” she asked.

“Yes, I am,” said Louisiana. “And I feel like my chances at winning are very good because I come from a show-business background.”

Raymie’s soul became smaller, tighter. It turned into something hard, like a pebble.

“As I said before, my parents were the Flying Elefantes.” Louisiana bent and picked up her baton. “They were famous.”

Beverly rolled her eyes at Raymie.

“It’s true. My parents traveled all over the world,” said Louisiana. “They had suitcases with their names printed on them.
The Flying Elefantes.
That’s what their suitcases said.” Louisiana stretched out her baton and moved it around as if she were writing golden words in the air above their heads. “Their name was written on every suitcase in script, and the
F
and the
Y
had very long tails. I like long tails.”

“I’m in that contest, too,” said Raymie.

“What contest?” asked Louisiana. She blinked.

“The Little Miss Central Florida Tire contest,” said Raymie.

“My goodness,” said Louisiana. She blinked again.

“I’m going to sabotage that contest,” said Beverly. She looked at Raymie and then she looked at Louisiana, and then she reached into her shorts and took out a pocketknife. She unfolded the blade. It looked like a very sharp knife.

Suddenly, even though the sun was shining high in the sky, the world seemed less bright.

Old Mrs. Borkowski said all the time that the sun could not be relied on.

“What is the sun?” said Mrs. Borkowski. “I will tell you. The sun is nothing but a dying star. Someday, it will go out. Phhhhtttt.”

Phhhhtttt
was actually something that Mrs. Borkowski said often and about a lot of things.

“What are you going to do with that knife?” asked Louisiana.

“I told you,” said Beverly. “I am going to sabotage the contest. I am going to sabotage everything.” She slashed the knife through the air.

“Oh, my goodness,” said Louisiana.

“That’s right,” said Beverly. She smiled a very small smile, and then she folded up the knife and put it back in the pocket of her shorts.

They walked together up to Ida Nee’s circular driveway.

Ida Nee was still down on the dock, marching back and forth and twirling her baton and talking to herself. Raymie could hear her voice — a low, angry murmur — but she could not understand what she was saying.

“I hate Little Miss contests,” said Beverly. “I hate bows and ribbons and batons and all of it. I hate spangly things. My mother has entered me into every Little Miss contest there ever was, and I’m tired of it. And that is why I’m going to sabotage this one.”

“But there’s one thousand nine hundred and seventy-five dollars to win,” said Louisiana. “That is a king’s ransom. That’s an untold fortune! Do you know how much tuna fish you can buy for one thousand nine hundred and seventy-five dollars?”

“No,” said Beverly. “And I don’t care.”

“Tuna fish is very high in protein,” said Louisiana. “In the county home, they only serve you bologna sandwiches. Bologna is not good for people with swampy lungs.”

This conversation was interrupted by a loud noise. A station wagon with wood paneling on its side was coming toward Ida Nee’s circular driveway very fast. The driver’s-side back door of the station wagon was partially unhinged; it was swinging open and then slamming shut again.