Raymie Nightingale

by Kate DiCamillo

  “Mrs. Borkowski?” she whispered.

  “What’s that, honey?” said Mrs. Sylvester.

  “Mrs. Borkowski,” said Raymie, louder.

  “I don’t know who Mrs. Borkowski is, dear,” said Mrs. Sylvester. “This is Mrs. Sylvester. And everything is going to be fine, just fine.”

  “Okay,” said Raymie.

  Suddenly, it was hard to breathe.

  Mrs. Borkowski was dead.

  Mrs. Borkowski was dead!

  Phhhhtttt.

  Raymie’s mother did not talk on the way to the memorial service. She sat behind the wheel of the car exactly the same way she sat on the couch, staring straight ahead, grim-faced.

  The sun was shining very brightly, but the whole world looked gray, as if everything had faded overnight.

  They drove past Central Florida Tire. There was a gigantic banner in the window of the store that said, “YOU could become Little Miss Central Florida Tire 1975!”

  Raymie read the words and was alarmed to discover that they didn’t make any sense to her.

  Become Little Miss Central Florida Tire? What did that mean? The words promised her nothing.

  Raymie looked down at Florence Nightingale. She had brought the book with her because it hadn’t seemed like a good idea to leave it behind.

  “What’s with the book?” said her mother, still staring straight ahead.

  “It’s a library book,” said Raymie.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It’s about Florence Nightingale. She was a nurse. She walked a bright and shining path.”

  “Good for her.”

  Raymie looked down at the book. She stared at Florence Nightingale’s lamp. She was holding it up high over her head. It almost looked like she was carrying a star.

  “Do you think that if you were in a deep hole in the ground and it was daylight and you looked up out of the deep hole, at the sky, you could see stars, even though it was daylight and the sun was out?”

  “What?” said her mother. “No. What are you talking about?”

  Raymie didn’t know if she believed it either, but she wanted to believe it. She wanted it to be true.

  “Never mind,” she said to her mother. And they drove the rest of the way to the Finch Auditorium in silence.

  The Finch Auditorium floor was composed of green and white tiles. For as long as she could remember, Raymie had walked only on the green tiles. Someone had told her that stepping on the white ones was bad luck. Who? She couldn’t remember.

  There was a stage at the front of the auditorium. The stage had a piano on it and red velvet curtains that were always open. Raymie had never seen the curtains closed.

  In the center of the auditorium, there was a long table. The table was covered in food, and there were people standing around it talking.

  Raymie kept her right foot on a green square and her left foot on a green square and held herself very still. An adult passed by and patted her on the head.

  Someone said, “I think it’s mayonnaise, but I’m not sure. It’s hard to tell at these things.”

  Someone else said, “She was a very interesting woman.”

  Somebody laughed. And Raymie realized that she would never hear Mrs. Borkowski laugh again.

  Raymie’s father had always said that Mrs. Borkowski’s laugh sounded like a horse in distress. But Raymie liked it. She liked how Mrs. Borkowski threw back her head and opened her mouth wide and whinnied when something was funny. She liked how you could see all of her teeth when she laughed. She liked how Mrs. Borkowski smelled like mothballs. She liked how Mrs. Borkowski said “Phhhhtttt.” She liked how she talked about people’s souls. Nobody else Raymie had ever met talked about souls.

  Raymie’s mother was standing next to someone who was holding a shiny black purse close to her chest. Her mother was talking, and the woman with the shiny black purse was nodding at everything her mother said.

  Raymie wanted to hear Mrs. Borkowski laugh.

  She wanted to hear her say “Phhhhtttt.”

  Raymie didn’t think that she had ever felt so lonely in her life. And then she heard someone say, “Oh, my goodness.”

  Raymie turned and there was Louisiana Elefante. And next to Louisiana was Louisiana’s grandmother, who was wearing a fur coat even though it was summertime.

  Louisiana’s grandmother had a tissue in her hand, and she waved it back and forth in front of her face and said to no one in particular, “I am positively prostrate with grief.”

  “I’m prostrate with grief, too,” said Louisiana. She was staring at the table full of food.

  Both Louisiana and her grandmother had lots of bunny barrettes in their hair.

  Louisiana.

  Louisiana Elefante.

  Raymie had never been so glad to see anyone in her life. “Louisiana,” she whispered.

  “Raymie!” shouted Louisiana. She smiled a very big smile and opened her arms wide, and Raymie walked toward her, stepping on both white tiles and green tiles. She didn’t care anymore. She stepped on all the tiles because bad things happened all the time, no matter what color tile you stepped on.

  Louisiana put her arms around Raymie.

  Raymie let go of Florence Nightingale. The book hit the floor and made a sound like someone clapping their hands together.

  Raymie started to cry. “Mrs. Borkowski is dead,” she said. “Mrs. Borkowski is dead.”

  “Shhhh,” said Louisiana. She patted Raymie on the back. “I’m so sorry for your loss. That’s what you’re supposed to say at funeral gatherings. And it’s true, too. I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Raymie heard the squeaky sound of air entering and exiting Louisiana’s swampy lungs.

  “I like the words ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’” said Louisiana, still holding on to Raymie. “I think that they are good words. You could say them to anyone at any time. Why, you could say them to me, and it would apply to Archie or to my parents.”

  Raymie hiccuped. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she repeated.

  “There, there,” said Louisiana. “You just keep crying.” Her lungs squeaked and her bunny barrettes made clicking sounds each time she patted Raymie’s back.

  Up on the stage, someone started to play “Chopsticks” on the piano.

  Raymie would have thought that there would be no comfort to be had from someone as insubstantial as Louisiana holding her, but it was actually very comforting, even with all the barrette clicking and lung wheezing.

  Raymie held tight to Louisiana. She hiccuped a second time. She closed her eyes and opened them again. She saw Louisiana’s grandmother standing at the food table with a gigantic bunch of green grapes in her hand. She watched as the grandmother slid the grapes into her purse. And then Louisiana’s grandmother put a handful of crackers in the pocket of her fur coat.

  Louisiana’s grandmother was stealing food from Mrs. Borkowski’s memorial food table!

  The piano playing got louder. Raymie held on to Louisiana and looked around the room. Her mother was standing in a corner with her arms folded. She was listening to someone talk. She was nodding her head.

  Louisiana’s grandmother put an entire block of orange cheese into her purse.

  Raymie felt dizzy.

  “I feel dizzy,” she said.

  Louisiana let go of Raymie. She bent down and picked Florence Nightingale up off the floor. “Come here,” she said. And she led Raymie by the hand to the stage and pushed aside one of the red curtains. A galaxy of dust rose up into the air and floated around their heads. The dust looked as if it were celebrating something.

  “Now, sit down,” said Louisiana. She pointed at the stage steps. Raymie sat. “You just tell me everything you know about Mrs. Boralucky.”

  “Borkowski,” said Raymie.

  “That too,” said Louisiana. “Tell me.”

  Raymie looked down at her hands.

  She tried to flex her toes, but they still wouldn’t work.

  “Um,” she said. “Her name was Mrs
. Borkowski. She lived across the street from us, and when she laughed, you could see all the teeth in her mouth.”

  “That’s nice,” said Louisiana. She patted Raymie’s hand. “How many teeth did she have?”

  “A lot,” said Raymie. “All of them, I guess. I cut her toenails for her because she couldn’t reach her feet. She paid me in divinity.”

  “What’s divinity?” asked Louisiana.

  “It’s candy. It kind of looks like a cloud, and it doesn’t taste like anything. It’s just really, really sweet. Sometimes Mrs. Borkowski put walnuts on top of it.”

  “It sounds wonderful,” said Louisiana. She sighed. “I’m very fond of sugar. And I think it’s a good idea to put nuts on top of things, don’t you?”

  “Mrs. Borkowski knew the answer to everything,” said Raymie.

  “Well, that is just like Granny. She knows the answer to everything, too.” Louisiana pulled on the velvet curtain, and another galaxy of dust rose up and swirled around them.

  Raymie stared at the dancing particles.

  “Phhhhtttt,” she heard Mrs. Borkowski say, even though Mrs. Borkowski was dead.

  And then Raymie thought: What if every piece of dust was a planet, and what if every planet was full of people, and what if all the people on all the planets had souls and were just like Raymie — trying to flex their toes and make sense out of things and not really succeeding very much?

  It was a terrifying thought.

  “I’m so hungry,” said Louisiana. “I’m hungry all the time. Granny says that I’m a bottomless pit. She says that I’m going to eat us out of house and home. And that’s why I have to win the Little Miss Central Florida Tire 1975 contest, so that we won’t starve.”

  “My father left,” said Raymie.

  “What did you say?” said Louisiana.

  “My father is gone.”

  “But where did he go?” said Louisiana. She looked around the Finch Auditorium as if Raymie’s father were there somewhere — hiding under a table or behind a curtain.

  “He ran away with a dental hygienist,” said Raymie.

  “That’s the person who cleans your teeth,” said Louisiana.

  “Yes,” said Raymie.

  Louisiana patted Raymie on the back. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  “I was going to try and get him back,” said Raymie. “I was going to try and win the contest and get my picture in the paper, and I thought that would bring him back.”

  “It would be nice to get your picture in the paper,” said Louisiana. “He would be proud of you.”

  “I don’t think that it will work,” said Raymie. “I don’t think any of it will work.”

  Just as she said these terrible words, a scuffle erupted around the food table.

  Raymie heard Louisiana’s grandmother shout, “Unhand me, sir!”

  “Hey, now,” said someone else. “Let’s just stay calm.”

  “Uh-oh,” said Louisiana.

  And then Louisiana’s grandmother said, “I am uncertain exactly what you are implying, but I can assure you that I do not care for the implication, whatever it is.” And then she said in an even louder voice, “Louisiana! The time has come for us to depart.”

  “I think I have to go,” said Louisiana.

  She stood up and patted Raymie on the back, and then she looked her in the eye and said, “I want to tell you something.”

  “Okay,” said Raymie.

  “I am very glad to know you,” said Louisiana.

  “I’m glad to know you, too,” said Raymie.

  “And I wanted to tell you that no matter what, I’m here and you’re here and we’re here together.” Louisiana waved her left arm through the air as if she were doing a magic trick and had just conjured up the whole of the Finch — the velvet curtains and the old piano and the green-and-white-tiled floor.

  “Okay,” said Raymie. She flexed her toes. Her feet felt slightly less numb.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow at baton-twirling lessons,” said Louisiana. “But in the meantime, I think that I’ll just leave out this back door. If you see Marsha Jean or the cops, don’t tell them my whereabouts.”

  And then before Raymie could tell her not to, Louisiana went out the door marked EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY. ALARM WILL SOUND.

  The alarm went off immediately.

  It was very loud.

  Raymie watched everyone running around the Finch trying to figure out what the emergency was. She reached up and tugged on the curtain and studied the dust as it rose up in the air and swirled and swooped.

  She flexed her toes again.

  She could feel her soul. It was a tiny little spark somewhere deep inside of her.

  It was glowing.

  The world went on.

  People left and people died and people went to memorial services and put orange blocks of cheese into their purses. People confessed to you that they were hungry all the time. And then you got up in the morning and pretended that none of it had happened.

  You took your baton to baton-twirling lessons and stood under Ida Nee’s whispering pine trees in front of Lake Clara, where Clara Wingtip had drowned. You waited with Louisiana Elefante and Beverly Tapinski for Ida Nee to show up and teach you how to twirl a baton.

  The world — unbelievably, inexplicably — went on.

  “She’s late,” said Beverly.

  “Oh, my goodness,” said Louisiana. “I’m starting to worry that I’ll never learn how to twirl a baton.”

  “Baton twirling is stupid,” said Beverly. “No one needs to learn how to twirl a baton.”

  “I do,” said Louisiana. “That’s exactly what I need to know.”

  Raymie said nothing. It was so hot. She stared at the lake. She didn’t know what she needed anymore.

  “I have an idea,” said Louisiana. “Let’s go find Ida Nee.”

  “Let’s not and say we did,” said Beverly. She threw her baton up in the air and caught it with an elegant twist of her wrist. The bruise on her face had faded to a yellow stain. She was chewing sour-apple gum. Raymie could smell it.

  “Well, I’m going to go find her,” said Louisiana, “because I desperately need to win the contest and earn the money and stay out of the county home.”

  “Yeah,” said Beverly. “Right. We know all of that already.”

  “Are you coming with me?” asked Louisiana.

  When no one answered her, she turned away from them and headed toward the house.

  Beverly looked at Raymie and shrugged.

  Raymie shrugged back. And then she turned and followed Louisiana.

  “Okay, okay,” said Beverly. “If you say so. Besides, it’s not like there’s anything else to do.”

  The three of them walked up to Ida Nee’s gravel driveway.

  “We’re the Three Rancheros,” said Louisiana, “and we’re going on a search-and-rescue mission.”

  “You tell yourself whatever story you want to tell yourself,” said Beverly.

  When they got to the driveway, they stopped and stood together and surveyed the house and garage. Everything was quiet. Ida Nee was nowhere in sight.

  “Maybe she’s in her office,” said Louisiana, “planning out what to teach us next.”

  “Yeah, right,” said Beverly.

  Louisiana knocked on the garage door. Nothing happened. Beverly came up behind Louisiana and reached around her and jiggled the doorknob.

  “This lock is no problem,” said Beverly. She took her pocketknife out of her shorts and passed her baton to Raymie. “Hold this,” she said.

  She went to work on the lock. She got a thoughtful look on her face.

  “Um,” said Raymie, “should we be breaking into Ida Nee’s office?”

  “What else is there to do?” said Beverly.

  She fiddled with the lock for a few more seconds and then smiled a big smile. “There,” she said.

  The door swung wide.

  “Oh, my goodness,” said Louisiana.
“That’s a very good skill to have.”

  “It beats baton twirling,” said Beverly.

  Louisiana peered into the office. “Miss Nee?” she said. “We’re here for our baton-twirling lesson?”

  Beverly gave Louisiana a little shove. “If you want to find her so much, go inside.”

  “Miss Nee?” said Louisiana again. She stepped farther into the office. Beverly and Raymie followed her. The floor and the walls of the garage were covered in green shag carpet. The ceiling was green-shag-carpeted, too. Baton-twirling trophies were everywhere, hundreds and hundreds of them gleaming in the green dimness so that the garage looked like the cave of Ali Baba. Against the far wall, there was a desk with a nameplate on it. The nameplate read IDA NEE, STATE CHAMPION.

  Above the desk, there was a moose head.

  “Boy, if there was ever a place that needed to be sabotaged,” said Beverly, “this is it. Ida Nee acts like she’s champion of everything. But some of these trophies aren’t even hers. See this one?” She pointed. “This one belongs to my mother.”

  Louisiana squinted at the trophy. “It says Rhonda Joy,” she said. “Who’s Rhonda Joy?”

  “That was my mother’s name. Before she married my father.”

  “You could have been Beverly Joy!” said Louisiana.

  “No,” said Beverly. “I couldn’t have.”

  “Your mother was a baton twirler?” said Raymie.

  “My mother was a baton twirler and a beauty queen,” said Beverly. “But who cares? Now she’s not either one of those things. Now she’s just someone who works in the Belknap Tower gift shop selling canned sunshine and rubber alligators.”

  “There’s a king’s ransom in here,” said Louisiana. “We could sell all these trophies and never have to worry about money again.”

  “These things are nothing but junk,” said Beverly.

  Raymie was listening to Beverly and Louisiana and also not listening to them. She was staring up at the moose head, and he was staring back at her.

  The moose had the saddest eyes of anyone she had ever seen.

  They looked like Mrs. Borkowski’s eyes.

  One time, when Raymie was cutting Mrs. Borkowski’s toenails, Mrs. Borkowski had asked Raymie a question. She had said, “Tell me, why does the world exist?”