Raymie Nightingale Read online

  The hair on Raymie’s legs stood up. Her toes flexed without her even intending to move them.

  “Right,” said Beverly. “Okay.” She raised the latch on the cage and opened the door. The dog stopped howling. He stepped out toward them, wagging his tail. He looked up at the three of them out of his one good eye and wagged his tail some more.

  Louisiana dropped to her knees. She wrapped him up in her arms. “I’m going to call him Bunny,” she said.

  “That’s the stupidest name I’ve ever heard,” said Beverly.

  “Let’s just go,” said Raymie.

  Louisiana picked up the dog. Beverly shone the flashlight ahead of them, and they walked out of the terrible darkness of Building 10 and into the normal darkness of nighttime.

  The moon was still up in the sky, or half of it was. It didn’t seem possible to Raymie that the moon was still shining after everything that had happened. But there it was — brilliant and very far away.

  Raymie sat down on the curb. Louisiana sat down next to her. The dog smelled terrible. Raymie put out her hand and touched the top of his head. There were bumps on it.

  “Archie isn’t dead,” said Louisiana.

  “Would you please shut up?” said Beverly.

  “He’s not dead. But he’s missing and I don’t know how to find him.”

  “Fine,” said Beverly. “He’s missing. Right now, what we need to do is get out of here.”

  “I don’t think I can walk anymore,” said Louisiana. “I feel too sad to walk.”

  “Get in the cart, then,” said Beverly. “We’ll push you.”

  “What about Bunny?” said Louisiana.

  “We’ll push him, too. Duh.”

  Louisiana stood up.

  “Here,” said Raymie. “Give me the dog.”

  Louisiana handed Bunny to Raymie, and Beverly picked Louisiana up and put her in the cart.

  “It’s not very comfortable in here,” said Louisiana.

  “Who said it would be comfortable?” said Beverly.

  “No one,” said Louisiana. And then she said, “I feel really sad. I feel all hollow.”

  “I know,” said Raymie. She handed Bunny to Louisiana. Louisiana wrapped her arms around the dog.

  “I wonder where Archie is,” said Louisiana. “And I wonder what will become of us. Don’t you wonder what will become of us?”

  No one answered her.

  Beverly was pushing the cart, and Raymie was walking beside her.

  Raymie said, “I wish we could go to the top of the Belknap right now.”

  “Why?” said Beverly.

  “Just to see if we could, I don’t know, see things.”

  “It’s dark,” said Beverly. “You wouldn’t see much. Besides, the place is all locked up. And you need a key to use the elevator.”

  “You could figure it out,” said Raymie. “You could break in and find the key.”

  “I could break in anywhere,” said Beverly. “So what? There’s no point in going up there.”

  “Going up where?” said Louisiana.

  “To the top of the Belknap Tower,” said Raymie.

  “Ooooh,” said Louisiana. “I’m afraid of heights.” She stood up in the cart and turned to face them. “I would have been a disappointment to my parents. I wouldn’t have been a very good Flying Elefante.”

  “Yeah,” said Beverly. “You said so already. Sit down before you fall over.”

  Louisiana sat down and gathered Bunny back into her arms.

  The wonky wheel on the grocery cart stuttered and stuck as they started going uphill. Raymie and Beverly pushed together. Inside the cart, Louisiana was silent.

  They were almost at the top of the hill. Raymie knew what was below them. It was Mabel Swip Memorial Hospital, and next to that was Swip Pond, where Mrs. Sylvester went to feed the swans.

  Swip Pond wasn’t really a pond. Or it hadn’t started out as a pond. It had started out as a sinkhole. But now it was called Swip Pond because Mabel Swip, who owned the land, had donated the sinkhole to the city and then paid for some swans and some lamps to surround it and make it look elegant.

  From the top of the hill, the pond looked like a single dark eye staring at Raymie. The lamps, five of them, formed a solemn constellation of moons around the pond. There weren’t any swans in sight.

  Suddenly, Raymie was terribly, horribly lonely. She wished that she could find a pay phone and call Mrs. Sylvester and hear her say, “Clarke Family Insurance. How may we protect you?”

  But even if she found a phone, Mrs. Sylvester wouldn’t be there. It was the middle of the night. Clarke Family Insurance was closed.

  Raymie tried to flex her toes.

  Louisiana stood up again. She was holding Bunny close to her chest. She faced forward. “Go faster,” she said.

  “Are you kidding?” said Beverly. “Who do you think you are? Some kind of queen? We’re pushing as hard as we can. This grocery cart is worthless. It’s like the wheels aren’t even wheels. It’s like they’re squares or something.”

  Raymie and Beverly pushed together.

  One great push.

  And somehow — how did this happen? Raymie didn’t know — the cart got away from them.

  They didn’t let go. It wasn’t that at all. It was more like the hill grabbed the cart from them. One minute, they were pushing, and the next minute, the Tag and Bag grocery cart was out of their hands, rolling down the hill.

  Louisiana, Bunny in her arms, turned and looked back at Beverly and Raymie. “Oh, my goodness,” she said. “Good-bye.”

  And then the cart and Louisiana and Bunny were gone, clattering down the hill at an impossible speed, headed right for the pond that used to be a sinkhole.

  “No,” said Beverly. “No.”

  They started to run. But the cart was done with stuttering and balking. The cart was ready to move. Even with its wonky wheel, it was faster than they were. It was determined.

  From a long way away came the sound of Louisiana’s voice, only it didn’t sound like Louisiana. It was eerie, resigned, the voice of a ghost. And what the ghost voice said was, “But I can’t swim.”

  Bunny started to howl his terrible end-of-the-world howl.

  Raymie ran faster. She could feel her heart and soul. Her heart was beating, and her soul was right up beside her heart. No, that wasn’t right. It was more like her soul was her whole body. She was nothing but soul.

  And then, from somewhere in the darkness, Raymie heard Mrs. Borkowski’s voice. And what Mrs. Borkowski said was, “Run, run, run.”

  Raymie ran.

  Beverly ran ahead of her.

  Raymie could see the grocery cart. She could see Louisiana’s bunny barrettes. They were glinting, winking at her. She could see Bunny’s strange, long ears blowing out behind him. They looked like wings.

  And she could see a swan. He was standing at the edge of the pond. He was looking up at what was coming toward him, and he didn’t look happy. Mrs. Sylvester had always said that swans were terribly moody creatures.

  “Noooooo!” screamed Louisiana.

  Raymie watched the Tag and Bag cart rise up in the air as if it were attempting to leave the earth altogether, and then it entered Swip Pond with a surprisingly small splash.

  The swan stretched his wings out as far as they would go. He let out a noise that sounded like a complaint, or maybe it was a warning.

  Beverly was at the edge of the pond now. Raymie, still running, was behind her. And this was when Raymie heard Mrs. Borkowski’s voice for the last time in her life.

  She did not say, “Tell me, why does the world exist?”

  She did not say, “Phhhhtttt.”

  Mrs. Borkowski said, “You. Now. This you can do.”

  Raymie kept running. She ran past Beverly, who was standing and staring; she took a deep breath and dove into the pond, and the water closed over her head, and she went down as far as she could in the darkness.

  She flexed her toes like Mr. Staphopoulos had
taught her to do.

  She opened her eyes.

  She reached out her hands and parted the dark water.

  It turned out that Bunny knew how to swim. The dog went paddling past Raymie just as she came up for air. Bunny’s ears were floating on either side of his one-eyed head. He looked like a sea monster — some mythical beast, part fish and part dog.

  Raymie took a deep breath and went back down under the water. She saw the Tag and Bag grocery cart. It was on its side, floating slowly toward the bottom. She reached for it. The cart was cold and heavy. And empty.

  Raymie let it go. She went back up to the surface and took in another great gasp of air. She saw Beverly pulling Bunny out of the water. The swan was standing beside Beverly. He was stretching his neck and then lowering it, stretching it and lowering it, as if he were working up the courage to make an announcement.

  Beverly said, “Where is she?”

  Raymie didn’t answer. She dove back underwater. She opened her eyes in the darkness and saw the glint of the shopping cart again. And then she saw the glimmer of a bunny barrette, a bunny barrette that was attached to the head of Louisiana Elefante.

  Raymie swam toward Louisiana and pulled her into her arms.

  Raymie had saved Edgar the drowning dummy from drowning many, many times. She was good at it. Mr. Staphopoulos had told her that she was good at it.

  But Louisiana felt different from Edgar — she was somehow both heavier and lighter.

  Raymie wrapped her arms tight around Louisiana. She kicked her feet and swam for the surface, and what Raymie thought as they rose together was that it was the easiest thing in the world to save somebody. For the first time, she understood Florence Nightingale and her lantern and the bright and shining path. She understood why Edward Option had given her the book.

  For just a minute, she understood everything in the whole world.

  She wished that she had been there when Clara Wingtip had drowned. She would have saved her, too.

  She was Raymie Nightingale, coming to the rescue.

  Louisiana wasn’t breathing.

  And Beverly was crying, which was almost as terrifying as Louisiana not breathing.

  And the swan was still trying to stretch his head right off his neck. He was leaning forward and looking at them and hissing.

  Bunny was sniffing around Louisiana’s head, snuffling her barrettes and letting out low moans.

  Louisiana was stretched out on the grass by the pond, which was really a sinkhole. The yellow lights stood around them, looking down at them, waiting.

  Raymie turned Louisiana over. She turned her head to the side. She beat on her back with her fists. Mr. Staphopoulos had taught her how to save a drowning person, how to get the water out of someone’s lungs, and she did everything he had taught her to do. She remembered it all. She remembered it in the right order.

  “What are you doing? What are you doing?” shouted Beverly.

  Bunny moaned. The swan hissed. The yellow lights shone down.

  “What are you doing?” asked Beverly, still crying.

  Raymie pounded on Louisiana’s back. A flood of water, and also a few pondweeds, exited Louisiana’s mouth in a great rush. Then there was more water and more water and more water, and another weed. And then came Louisiana’s squeaky, hopeful voice saying, “Oh, my goodness.”

  Raymie’s soul was huge inside of her. She felt a tremendous love for Louisiana Elefante and for Beverly Tapinski and for the hissing swan and the moaning dog and the dark pond and the yellow lights. Most of all, she felt love for the furry-toed and furry-backed Mr. Staphopoulos, who was gone, who had moved to North Carolina with Edgar the drowning dummy. Mr. Staphopoulos, who had put his hand on her head and told her good-bye. Mr. Staphopoulos, who had taught Raymie how to do exactly this — how to save Louisiana Elefante — before he went away.

  “The hospital,” said Beverly.

  They picked Louisiana up together and started walking. They had gotten good at carrying her.

  They went up the hill, and Bunny followed them. The swan stayed behind.

  Louisiana said, “I can’t swim.”

  “Yeah,” said Beverly. “We know.”

  Beverly. Who was still crying.

  There was a nurse standing outside the hospital doors. She was smoking a cigarette. Her left elbow was cupped in her right hand, and she was holding the cigarette and staring at the four of them as they came up the hill.

  “Oh, my Lord,” said the nurse. She slowly lowered the cigarette. She had on a name tag that read MARCELLINE.

  “She drowned,” said Beverly.

  “She didn’t drown,” said Raymie. “She almost drowned. She swallowed water.”

  “I have swampy lungs,” said Louisiana. “I can’t swim.”

  “Come here, baby,” said Marcelline. She dropped the cigarette and took Louisiana from them and carried her through the automatic doors.

  Beverly sat down on the curb. She wrapped her arms around Bunny and buried her face in his neck. “You go,” she said. “I’m going to sit out here for a while.”

  “Okay,” said Raymie. And she walked through the doors, went up to the nurse at the front desk, and asked if she could use the phone to call her mother. This nurse had a name tag that said RUTHIE. Raymie thought how nice name tags were. She wished that everyone in the world wore them.

  “Look at you!” said Ruthie. “You are soaking wet.”

  “I was in the pond,” said Raymie.

  “It is five o’clock in the morning,” said Ruthie. “What was you doing in a pond at five a.m.?”

  “It’s complicated,” said Raymie. “It has to do with a cat named Archie, who got taken to the Very Friendly Animal Center and . . .”

  “And what?” said Ruthie.

  Raymie tried to figure out how to explain it. She realized that she didn’t even know where to begin. She was cold all of a sudden. She started to shiver.

  “Have you ever heard of the Little Miss Central Florida Tire contest?” she asked.

  “The what?” said Ruthie.

  Raymie’s teeth were chattering. Her knees were knocking together. It was so cold. “I . . .” she began again. And then, suddenly, she knew exactly what she needed to tell Ruthie. “My father ran away. He ran away with a dental hygienist named Lee Ann Dickerson, and he isn’t coming back.”

  “That skunk,” said Ruthie. She stood up and came out from behind the desk. She took off her sweater, which was a blue sweater like the one Martha at the Golden Glen wore. She draped the sweater over Raymie’s shoulders.

  The blue sweater smelled like roses and something deeper and sweeter even than roses. It was so warm.

  Raymie started to cry.

  “Shhh-shhh,” said Ruthie. “Tell me your mama’s phone number, and I will call her.”

  “Okay, yes, good morning,” said Ruthie when Raymie’s mother answered the phone. “Everything is just fine. I have your baby girl here at the hospital. There is nothing to worry about except that she is soaking wet because she has been swimming in a pond. Also, she told me about how her daddy run off with some woman named Lee Ann.” Ruthie listened. “Mmmmm-hhhhmmm,” she said after a minute. She listened some more.

  “Uh-huh,” said Ruthie. “Some people just skunks. There ain’t no other way to say it.”

  Outside the glass doors, Raymie could see Beverly sitting on the curb. Her arm was around Bunny. There was lightness in the sky above their heads.

  The sun was going to come up.

  “You don’t have to explain it to me,” said Ruthie, still on the phone with Raymie’s mother. “I understand all that. Yes, I do. But your baby girl is here and she is just fine and she is waiting for you.”

  Things happened fast then. Adults showed up. Raymie’s mother arrived and pulled Raymie into her arms and held her close and rocked her back and forth and back and forth. Beverly’s mother showed up and sat next to Beverly on the curb, the dog in between them. And after a long while, Louisiana’s grandmothe
r arrived, too. She was wearing her fur coat, and she sat beside Louisiana’s bed and held her hand and cried without making any noise at all.

  Raymie told the story of what had happened again and again, how the shopping cart had gone into the water, and how Louisiana couldn’t swim, and how Raymie had pulled her out of the water and pounded her on the back, and how that was something that she had learned from a man named Mr. Staphopoulos, who taught a class called Lifesaving 101.

  A reporter from the Lister Press showed up. Raymie spelled Elefante for him. She spelled Staphopoulos. She told him that Clarke had an e on the end of it. The reporter took Raymie’s picture.

  And the whole time, Louisiana was asleep in a white hospital bed. She wasn’t talking. She had a high fever.

  But she would be fine. Everyone kept saying that she would be fine.

  It was Ruthie who said, “This child needs to sleep. Everybody needs to stop asking her questions and let her go home and sleep.”

  But Raymie didn’t want to go home. She wanted to be where Louisiana was. So Ruthie brought a cot into Louisiana’s room, and Raymie lay down on it. She fell asleep right away.

  And when she woke up, Louisiana was still sleeping and Louisiana’s grandmother was still wearing her fur coat. She was still holding Louisiana’s hand, and she was asleep, too. The hallway outside of the room was lit up, shining with afternoon light, just like the common room at the Golden Glen.

  Raymie got up and stood in the doorway of the room and looked at the bright and shining path.

  A cat was walking toward her.

  Raymie stood and stared. The cat came closer and closer. Raymie recognized him from her dream. She recognized him from Mrs. Borkowski’s suitcase.

  It was Archie.

  The cat brushed past her. He came into the room and leaped up on Louisiana’s bed and curled himself into a tight ball.

  Raymie went and lay back down on her cot. She fell asleep again. When she woke up, it was dusk and Archie was still curled up at Louisiana’s feet. He was purring so loudly that the hospital bed was shaking.