“But there comes a time when someone very evil decides to steal Florence Nightingale’s magic globe, and that person’s name is Marsha Jean. Florence has to fight back! And one of the things she uses is her cloak, which in the nighttime turns into a gigantic pair of wings so that Florence can fly over the battlefields with her magic globe searching for the wounded.
“But if Marsha Jean succeeds in stealing the magic globe, then Florence will be flying through darkness and won’t see anything at all, and how will she help people then?”
Louisiana rustled the pages of the book.
“Do you want me to read you more?” she said.
“Yes,” said Raymie.
She fell asleep while Louisiana read aloud from a book that didn’t exist, and she dreamed that Mrs. Borkowski was sitting in her lawn chair in the middle of the road. And then suddenly, Mrs. Borkowski wasn’t sitting in the chair. She was standing up and walking away from Raymie. She was walking down a long road, carrying a suitcase.
Raymie followed her.
“Mrs. Borkowski!” she called out in her dream.
Mrs. Borkowski stopped. She put the suitcase down on its side and opened it slowly; then she reached into the suitcase and pulled out a black cat and put him down on the ground.
“For you,” said Mrs. Borkowski.
“Archie!” said Raymie. The cat twined himself through her legs. She could hear him purring.
“Yes, Archie,” said Mrs. Borkowski. She smiled. And then she bent over and rummaged through the suitcase. “I have another thing for you,” she said. She stood up. She was holding a globe of light.
“Wow,” said Raymie.
“You hold it,” said Mrs. Borkowski. She handed the globe to Raymie, and then closed the suitcase and picked it up and walked away.
“Wait,” said Raymie.
But Mrs. Borkowski was already very far away.
Raymie held the magic globe up as high as she could. She watched Mrs. Borkowski until she disappeared.
“Meow?” said Archie.
Raymie looked down at the cat. She thought, Louisiana will be so happy. She was right. Archie isn’t dead.
That was the dream.
Raymie remembered it as she stood and considered the sleeping Louisiana. She could hear her lungs wheezing; she looked very small.
Suddenly, without any warning at all, Louisiana opened her eyes and sat straight up. Florence Nightingale fell to the floor. Louisiana said, “I will do that right away, Granny, I promise.”
“Louisiana,” said Raymie.
Louisiana blinked. “Hello?” she said.
“Hi,” said Raymie. “Beverly didn’t show up.”
“We have to go anyway,” said Louisiana. She blinked again. She looked around the room. “We have to go and rescue him.”
“We can’t do it without Beverly,” said Raymie. “We don’t know how to pick locks.”
All of Louisiana’s bunny barrettes had migrated to one place on her head. They had formed a gigantic clump. Something about the clump of bunny barrettes seemed sad.
“We will just have to try,” said Louisiana.
There was a sudden flash of light from outside. Raymie had the ridiculous thought that Florence Nightingale had arrived carrying her great magical globe.
But it was not Florence.
It was Beverly Tapinski.
She was standing at the window. She was holding a flashlight up under her chin so that her face looked like a jack-o’-lantern.
She was smiling.
“Where were you?” said Raymie.
“Let’s just say I had some things to take care of,” said Beverly.
“What things?” asked Louisiana.
“I had a little sabotaging to do.”
“Oh, no,” said Raymie.
“It’s no big deal,” said Beverly. “I just threw a few trophies in the lake.”
“What trophies?” said Raymie.
“Baton-twirling trophies.”
“You threw Ida Nee’s trophies in the lake?” said Louisiana.
“Not all of them were hers,” said Beverly.
“But how could you do that?” squeaked Louisiana. “That is the end of everything. Ida Nee will call the cops again. And we will never be able to return. I will never learn how to twirl.”
“Listen to me,” said Beverly. “You don’t need to learn how to twirl. All you have to do is sing. That will win any contest.”
As soon as Beverly said the words, Raymie knew that they were true. Louisiana’s singing would win any contest. And Raymie wanted Louisiana to win. She wanted her to become Little Miss Central Florida Tire.
Raymie stopped. She held herself very still.
“Why are you stopping?” said Louisiana.
“Come on,” said Beverly. “Let’s go.”
Raymie started walking again.
The three of them were outside, together in the darkness, but it was surprisingly easy to see. There was Beverly’s flashlight, of course. And there were streetlights and porch lights. Half a moon was hanging up in the sky, and the sidewalk in front of them glowed silver.
A dog barked.
Suddenly, the Golden Glen loomed up out of the darkness like a ship that had run aground.
“That stupid nursing home,” said Beverly. “I hate that place.”
“Listen,” said Louisiana. She put her hand on Raymie’s arm. “Shhhh.”
Raymie stopped. Beverly kept walking.
“Do you hear?” said Louisiana.
Raymie heard a rustle of something in the bushes, the hum of electricity from the streetlight, the buzz of insect wings. A dog, the same one, or maybe a different one, barked and then barked again. And behind all of those noises, Raymie could hear the faint sound of music.
“Someone is playing the piano,” said Louisiana.
“Whoop-de-do and so what?” said Beverly from up ahead.
It was very beautiful, sad music, which was how Raymie knew that it was probably Chopin and that it was probably the janitor playing it. It seemed like a very long time ago that she had tried to do a good deed for Isabelle and ended up writing a letter of complaint instead. It was almost like she had been a different person then.
Raymie stared up at the Golden Glen. There was a light on in the common room.
“Come on,” said Beverly. “We’re wasting time.”
“Isn’t it the most beautiful music?” said Louisiana.
Raymie stood very still. The light from the common room lit up the top of the trees. She saw something bright yellow in the branches. Her heart thumped. She put a hand on Louisiana’s shoulder.
“Look,” she said.
“What?” said Louisiana. “Where?”
“Shine the flashlight up there,” Raymie said to Beverly. She pointed, and Beverly shone the light up in the trees, and there was the yellow bird. He looked like the answer to everything, sitting there on a branch, tiny and perfect and winged. He cocked his head, looking down at them.
“Oh,” said Louisiana. “That’s the bird I rescued. That’s him. Hello, Mr. Bird.”
Beverly kept the flashlight trained on the yellow bird. The piano music stopped, and the bird let out a long trill of notes.
And then there was the creaking sound of a window being opened. The janitor stood and looked out into the darkness. Raymie saw his face. It was a sad face. He was looking for something.
Beverly turned off the flashlight. “Hit the ground!” she said.
All three of them lay flat on their stomachs. The sidewalk was still warm from the day’s sun. Raymie leaned her cheek against it and waited. She heard Louisiana’s lungs wheezing. And then the janitor whistled.
The bird stopped singing.
The janitor whistled again.
The bird whistled back.
The janitor did a more complicated whistle, and the bird answered him with a song of his own.
“Oh,” said Louisiana.
And that was all any of them said. Even Beverly wa
s silent, listening, while the janitor and the yellow bird sang to each other.
Raymie stared up at the moon. It looked like it was getting bigger, but she knew that couldn’t be true. Still, the half globe of it was starting to look like something from a dream, like something that Mrs. Borkowski would have pulled out of the suitcase. And the singing yellow bird seemed like something that had been hidden in Mrs. Borkowski’s dream suitcase, too.
Suddenly, Raymie was happy. It was the strangest thing, how happiness came out of nowhere and inflated your soul.
She wondered if her father was sleeping, wherever he was.
She wondered if he was dreaming of her without even really intending to do it.
She hoped so.
The whistling stopped.
The janitor said, “I know you’re out there.”
There was a rustling in the trees. The bird
shot up into the darkness and flew away.
“Now,” whispered Beverly.
The three girls got up and ran as fast as they could.
They ran until the Golden Glen was far behind them.
When they stopped, Louisiana threw herself down on the ground. She sat on the grass with her hands on her knees and her head bent forward and worked at taking in great gulps of air.
Beverly said, “Breathe, breathe.”
Louisiana looked up at them. She said, “I just love. That little. Yellow bird.”
“I love him, too,” said Raymie.
Louisiana smiled at her.
Beverly put the flashlight under her chin and said in a deep voice, “We all love the little bird.” And then she grinned.
The world was dark. The moon was still high in the sky.
Happiness washed over Raymie again.
“Archie doesn’t always do what you want him to do,” said Louisiana. “Most of the time, actually, he doesn’t do what you want him to do.”
“What are you talking about?” said Beverly.
They were at the Tag and Bag. A shopping cart had rolled down the hill away from the store and was sitting by a tree. The silver cart was glinting merrily, reflecting the lights of the Tag and Bag parking lot.
“I’m saying that this shopping cart will be perfect to use for Archie’s rescue. We can put him in it and push him and make him go wherever we want him to go.”
“No,” said Beverly.
“Yes,” said Louisiana.
“We can’t go walking around in the middle of the night with a shopping cart. It will make too much noise. Also, it will look stupid.”
“I think we need it,” said Louisiana. She turned to Raymie. “What do you think?”
“I guess it’s okay,” said Raymie. “There’s no one around here anyway.”
“Goody,” said Louisiana. “That means we’ll bring it.” She pulled the cart away from the tree and started pushing it down the sidewalk.
The shopping cart had a wonky wheel that made a stuttering noise. It was as if the cart were desperate to say something, but it couldn’t quite get the words out.
“Come on, you two,” said Louisiana. She looked back at them. “Let’s go rescue Archie.” And then she turned back around and started to sing a song that was about trailers being for sale or rent.
“It’s like she thinks we’re in some kind of broken-down parade,” Beverly said to Raymie.
They walked behind the singing Louisiana and the stuttering cart through the strange darkness. Things were visible, but everything felt insubstantial. It was almost as if gravity had less of an effect in the darkness. Objects seemed to float. Raymie felt lighter. She tried flexing her toes. They felt lighter, too.
“See that over there?” said Beverly. She pointed at the Belknap Tower. There was a light at the very top of it that blinked red. “That’s where my mother works. She sits on a little stool at the register and sells miniature Belknap Towers and orange-blossom perfume and crap like that. There’s a machine in the gift shop where you can put a penny into it, and the machine stretches the penny and stamps it with a picture of the tower. It’s a really loud machine. My mother hates it. But then, she hates everything.”
“Oh,” said Raymie.
“Yeah,” said Beverly.
Up ahead of them, Louisiana was still pushing the Tag and Bag cart. She was singing about being king of the road.
“Have you ever been to the top of the tower?” said Raymie.
“Lots of times,” said Beverly.
“What’s it like?”
“It’s okay. You can see for a long way. When I was really small, I used to go up there and expect to see New York, you know? Because I was just a little kid and I didn’t know any better. I would go up there and look and hope to see my dad. Which was stupid.”
Raymie wondered what she could have seen from the top of the tower if she had been there at the right time. Would she have seen Mr. Staphopoulos and Edgar on their way to North Carolina? Would she have seen her father drive away with Lee Ann Dickerson?
“You can go up there with me sometime,” said Beverly. “If you want.”
“Okay,” said Raymie.
Louisiana stopped singing. She turned to them.
“Here we are,” she said.
And there it was: Building 10.
Raymie wasn’t glad to see it at all.
If it had looked terrible in the daylight, the Very Friendly Animal Center looked even worse in the dark. The building seemed morose, and also slightly guilty, as if it had done something terrible and had hunkered itself down in the ground hoping that no one would notice.
“I bet you they don’t even bother to lock the door here,” said Beverly. “Who would want to get in this place anyway?”
“Us,” said Louisiana. “The Three Rancheros. Hurry up. Archie is inside. He’s waiting for us.”
Beverly snorted. But she got out her pocketknife and went up to the door. She said, “This won’t take any time at all.”
And it didn’t.
She put the tip of the knife into the doorjamb and jiggled it, and a second later, the door to Building 10 swung wide. Darkness seemed to roll out of it like a cloud. It had been dark in Building 10 in the daylight. How dark would it be at night? There wasn’t even the light of the single swaying bulb.
“I can’t,” said Raymie.
“What do you mean?” said Louisiana.
“I’ll just wait here,” said Raymie.
Beverly shone her flashlight into the cavern.
“Shine it on that door,” said Louisiana. “I know he’s behind that door.”
“Yeah,” said Beverly. “You said so already.” She turned to Raymie. “You can wait here. It’s fine.”
“No,” said Louisiana. “All of us. All the Rancheros. Or we don’t go at all.”
“Okay,” said Raymie, because she had to go where they went. She had to protect them if she could. They had to protect her.
The three of them stepped into Building 10.
Beverly’s flashlight beam wavered in the darkness and then it held steady. It smelled terrible inside. Ammonia. Something rotten. Beverly shone the flashlight on the other door.
And then the horrible howl started.
Someone was dying! Someone had given up all hope! Someone was filled with a despair too terrible for words!
“Take my hand,” whispered Raymie.
Louisiana grabbed Raymie’s hand.
Raymie grabbed Beverly’s hand.
The flashlight beam danced wildly around the room. It shone on the ceiling, the metal desk, the filing cabinets. It illuminated, for a moment, the single unlit bulb, and Raymie, ridiculously, felt angry at the lightbulb.
Couldn’t it even try?
“Oh, my goodness, oh, no, no,” said Louisiana. Her lungs wheezed. She took a deep, raspy breath and then she shouted, “Archie, here I am!”
The howling continued.
“Can you?” said Louisiana. Her teeth were chattering. “Can you unlock the other door?”
“Sure,” sa
id Beverly. They moved together, holding on to each other, toward the door. “You’re going to have to let go of my hand,” said Beverly to Raymie. “I need it to pick the lock.”
“Okay,” said Raymie. She held tight to Beverly’s hand.
“Look,” said Beverly, “why don’t you hold the flashlight.” Raymie dropped Beverly’s hand and took the flashlight.
“Shine it right on the doorknob, okay?” said Beverly.
Raymie shone the flashlight on the door, just as Louisiana reached forward and turned the knob.
The door wasn’t locked. It opened slowly. The sound of howling got louder.
“Archie?” said Louisiana.
Beverly took a deep breath. “Give me the flashlight,” she said. She took the flashlight from Raymie and swung it around a room filled with cages. There were small cages and large cages. The small cages were piled on top of each other, and the large cages looked like human prisons, and all of the cages were empty. There wasn’t a cat anywhere in sight.
It was a terrible room.
Raymie wished that she had never seen it, because now she would never forget it.
“Archie!” shouted Louisiana.
Beverly stepped farther into the room.
“They’re empty,” said Raymie. “No one’s here.”
“Who’s howling, then?” said Beverly.
“Oh, Archie,” whispered Louisiana. “I’m sorry.”
Beverly walked around the room, swinging the flashlight in great, swirling arcs.
And then she said, “Here. Here.”
It wasn’t Archie.
It wasn’t even a cat.
It was a dog. Or it might have been a dog at some point. He had ears so long that they were touching the ground. His body was small and stretched out. One eye was crusted over and swollen shut.
“Oh,” said Louisiana. “He’s some kind of rabbit.”
“He’s a dog,” said Beverly.
The dog wagged his tail.
Beverly put her hand through the wire of the cage. She patted the dog on the head. “Okay,” said Beverly. “Okay, it’s okay.” The dog wagged his tail some more. But when Beverly took her hand away, he stopped wagging his tail and started to howl.
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