Raymie Nightingale (4 page)

It also seemed strange to Raymie that Edgar was doomed to smile through the whole thing.

If she had made Edgar, she would have put a more quizzical look on his face.

But in any case, Edgar and Mr. Staphopoulos were both gone now. They had moved to North Carolina at the end of last summer.

Raymie had seen them in the parking lot of the Tag and Bag Grocery the day they left. All of Mr. Staphopoulos’s belongings were packed into his station wagon, and some things were even tied on top. Edgar was sitting in the backseat, staring straight ahead. He was smiling, of course. Mr. Staphopoulos was just getting into the car.

Raymie called out, “Good-bye, Mr. Staphopoulos.”

“Raymie,” he said, turning around. “Raymie Clarke.” He closed the door of the station wagon and walked toward her. He put his hand on her head.

It was hot in the Tag and Bag parking lot. There were seagulls whirling and screeching, and Mr. Staphopoulos’s hand on top of her head was heavy and light at the same time.

Mr. Staphopoulos was wearing khaki pants and flip-flops. Raymie could see the fur on his feet. The whistle was around his neck, and the sun reflected off of it and made the whistle into a little circle of light. It looked like something in the center of Mr. Staphopoulos was on fire.

The sun glinted off the abandoned grocery carts and made them magical, beautiful. Everything shimmered. The seagulls called out. Raymie thought that something wonderful was going to happen.

But nothing happened except that Mr. Staphopoulos kept his hand on her head for what seemed like a long time, and then he lifted his hand and squeezed her shoulder and said, “Good-bye, Raymie.”

Just that.

“Good-bye, Raymie.”

Why did those words matter so much?

Raymie didn’t know.

At home, after the very strange baton-twirling class, Raymie sat in her room with the door closed and worked on the Little Miss Central Florida Tire application. It was a two-page, mimeographed form, and it was obvious that Mr. Pitt, the owner of Central Florida Tire, had typed the form himself. He was not a very good typist. The application was full of errors, which for some reason made the whole enterprise (the contest and the hope that Raymie would win it and the further hope that winning it would bring her father home) seem dubious.

The first question was in all-capital letters. It said: DO YOU WANT TO BECOME LITTLE MISS CENTRAL FLORIDA TIRE 1975?

There was no space for an answer to this question; still, it was a question and Raymie felt like it would be best to answer it, since the application said, “Make sure yu answer ALL Questions.”

Raymie squeezed in the word YES right after the question mark. She used all-capital letters. She thought about adding an exclamation mark, but decided against it.

And then she filled in her name: Raymie Clarke.

And her address: 1213 Borton Street, Lister, Fla.

And then her age: 10.

She wondered if Louisiana and Beverly were sitting in their rooms filling out their applications. Did you have to fill out an application for a contest if you intended to sabotage the contest?

Raymie closed her eyes and saw Louisiana writing the words “The Flying Elefantes” in the air with her baton. How could Raymie compete against somebody from a show-business background?

Raymie opened her eyes and looked out the window. Old Mrs. Borkowski was sitting in a lawn chair in the middle of the road. Her shoes were untied. Her face was lifted up to the sun.

Raymie’s mother said that Mrs. Borkowski was as crazy as a loon.

Raymie didn’t know if this was true or not. But it seemed to her that Mrs. Borkowski knew things, important things. Some of the things she knew, she told. And some of the things she knew, she refused to tell, saying nothing but “Phhhhtttt” when Raymie asked for more information.

Old Mrs. Borkowski probably knew who the Flying Elefantes were.

Raymie looked back down at the application. It said, “Please list all of your GOOD DEEdS. Use a separate sheet of paper if necessary.”

Good deeds? What good deeds?

Raymie’s stomach clenched. She got up from the desk and left her room and went out the front door and walked into the middle of the street. She stood in front of Mrs. Borkowski’s lawn chair.

“What?” said Mrs. Borkowski without opening her eyes.

“I’m filling out an application,” said Raymie.

“Yes, and so?”

“I’m supposed to do good deeds,” said Raymie.

“One time,” said Mrs. Borkowski. She smacked her lips. Her eyes were still closed. “One time a something happened.”

Obviously, Mrs. Borkowski intended to tell a story. Raymie sat down in the middle of the road at Mrs. Borkowski’s feet. The pavement was warm. She looked at Mrs. Borkowski’s untied shoes.

Mrs. Borkowski never tied her shoes.

She was too old to reach her feet.

“One time a something happened,” said Mrs. Borkowski again. “I was on a boat at sea, and I saw a baby get snatched from his mother’s arms. By a bird. A gigantic seabird.”

“Is this a story about a good deed?” asked Raymie.

“It was terrible, how the mother screamed.”

“But the mother got the baby back, right?”

“From a gigantic seabird? Never,” said Mrs. Borkowski. “Those gigantic seabirds, they keep what they take. Also, they steal buttons. And hairpins.” Mrs. Borkowski lowered her head and opened her eyes and looked at Raymie. She blinked. Mrs. Borkowski had very sad, extremely watery eyes. “The wings of the seabird were huge. They looked like they belonged to an angel.”

“So was the seabird actually an angel? Was it doing a good deed and saving the baby?”

“Phhhhtttt,” said Mrs. Borkowski. She waved her hand through the air. “Who knows? I’m only telling you what happened. What I saw. Make of it what you will. Tomorrow, you come over and cut my toenails, and I will give you some of that divinity candy, okay?”

“Okay,” said Raymie.

Did cutting Mrs. Borkowski’s toenails count as a good deed? Probably not. Mrs. Borkowski always gave Raymie candy in exchange for the toenail cutting, and if you got paid for something, it couldn’t be a good deed.

Mrs. Borkowski closed her eyes. She tilted her head back again. After a while, she started to snore.

Raymie got up and went in the house and into the kitchen.

She picked up the phone and dialed her father’s office.

“Clarke Family Insurance,” said Mrs. Sylvester in her cartoon-bird voice. “How may we protect you?”

Raymie said nothing.

Mrs. Sylvester cleared her throat. “Clarke Family Insurance,” she said again. “How may we protect you?”

It was nice to hear Mrs. Sylvester ask, “How may we protect you?” a second time. Actually, Raymie thought that she would like to hear Mrs. Sylvester ask the question several hundred times a day. It was such a friendly question. It was a question that promised good things.

“Mrs. Sylvester?” she said.

“Yes, dear,” said Mrs. Sylvester.

Raymie closed her eyes and imagined the gigantic jar of candy corn sitting on Mrs. Sylvester’s desk. Sometimes, in the late afternoon, the sun shone directly on the jar and lit it up so that it looked like a lamp.

Raymie wondered if that was happening now.

Behind Mrs. Sylvester’s desk was the door to Raymie’s father’s office. That door would be closed, and the office would be empty. No one would be sitting at her father’s desk, because her father was gone.

Raymie tried to conjure up his face. She tried to imagine him sitting in his office at his desk.

She couldn’t do it.

She felt a wave of panic. Her father had only been gone for two days, and she couldn’t remember his face. She had to bring him back!

She remembered why she was calling.

“Mrs. Sylvester,” she said, “you have to perform good deeds for the contest.”

“Oh, honey,” said Mrs. Sylvester, “that is no problem at all. You just go down the street to the Golden Glen and offer to read to one of the residents. The elderly love to be read to.”

Did the elderly love to be read to? Raymie wasn’t sure. Old Mrs. Borkowski was elderly and what she always wanted Raymie to do was to clip her toenails.

“How was your first baton-twirling lesson?” asked Mrs. Sylvester.

“It was interesting,” said Raymie.

An image of Louisiana Elefante falling to her knees flashed through her head. This image was followed by one of Beverly Tapinski and her mother fighting over the baton in a cloud of gravel dust.

“Isn’t it exciting to be learning something new?” said Mrs. Sylvester.

“Yes,” said Raymie.

“How’s your mother doing, dear?” said Mrs. Sylvester.

“She’s sitting on the couch in the sunroom right now. She does that a lot. Mostly, that’s what she does. She doesn’t really do anything else. She just sits there.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Sylvester. There was a long pause. “It will be fine. You’ll see. We all do what we can do.”

“Okay,” said Raymie.

Louisiana’s words floated through her head.
I’m too terrified to go on.

Raymie didn’t say the words out loud, but she felt them pass through her. And Mrs. Sylvester — kind, bird-voiced Mrs. Sylvester — must have felt them, too, because she said, “You just select a suitable book for sharing, dear, and then go down to the Golden Glen. They will be very glad to see you there. You just do what you can do, okay? Everything will be fine. It will all work out right in the end.”

It wasn’t until Raymie hung up the phone that she wondered what Mrs. Sylvester meant by a “suitable” book.

She walked into the living room and stood on the yellow shag carpet and stared at the bookcase. All the books were brown and serious. They were her father’s books. What if he came back home and one was missing? She felt like maybe it would be best to leave them alone.

Raymie went into her room. The shelves over her bed held rocks and seashells and stuffed animals and books.
The Borrowers
? No, it was too unlikely. No normal adult would believe in tiny people who lived under the floorboards.
Paddington Bear
? Something about the book seemed too bright and silly for the seriousness of a nursing home.
Little House in the Big Woods
? A really old person had probably lived through all that history and wouldn’t want to hear about it again.

And then Raymie saw
A Bright and Shining Path: The Life of Florence Nightingale.
This was a book that Edward Option had given her on the last day of school. Mr. Option was the school librarian. He was very skinny and extremely tall. He had to duck his head to enter and exit the George Mason Willamette Elementary School library.

Mr. Option looked too young and uncertain to be a librarian.

Also, his ties were too wide, and they were all painted with strange and lonely pictures of deserted beaches, haunted-looking forests, or UFOs.

Sometimes, when he held up a book, Mr. Option’s hands shook with nervousness. Or maybe it was excitement.

In any case, on the last day of school, Edward Option had said to Raymie, “You are such a good reader, Raymie Clarke, that I wonder if you might be interested in diversifying. I have here a nonfiction book that you might enjoy.”

“Okay,” said Raymie, even though she had absolutely no interest in nonfiction. She liked stories.

Mr. Option held up
A Bright and Shining Path: The Life of Florence Nightingale.
On the cover, there were dozens of soldiers stretched out on their backs on what looked like a battlefield and a lady was walking in between the soldiers and carrying a lamp over her head, and the men were holding their hands out to her, begging her for something.

There was no bright and shining path anywhere in sight.

It looked like a horrible, depressing book.

“Maybe,” said Mr. Option, “you could read this over the summer, and then we could talk about it together when school begins.”

“Okay,” said Raymie again. But she only agreed because she liked Mr. Option so much, and because he was so tall and lonely and hopeful.

She had taken the Florence Nightingale book from him and brought it home and put it on her shelf. A few days later, her father had run away with Lee Ann Dickerson and Raymie forgot all about Edward Option and his strange ties and his nonfiction book.