Raymie Nightingale by Kate DiCamillo Read Free Book Online

other through thick and thin.”
    “The three who?” asked Raymie.
    “Rancheros,” said Louisiana.
    “It’s Musketeers,” said Beverly. “It’s the Three Musketeers.”
    “No,” said Louisiana. “That’s them. We’re us. And we’re the Rancheros. We’ll rescue each other.”
    “I don’t need to be rescued,” said Beverly.
    “I want to come with you to the Sparkling Dell,” said Louisiana.
    “It’s the Golden Glen,” said Raymie.
    “I want to help rescue the Florence Darksong book.”
    “Nightingale,” said Raymie and Beverly at the same time.
    “And when we’re done doing that, we can go to the Very Friendly Animal Center and rescue Archie.”
    “Listen,” said Beverly. “Let me tell you something. There is no Very Friendly Animal Center. That cat is long gone.”
    “He’s not long gone,” said Louisiana. “I’ll rescue him and that will be my good deed for the Little Miss Central Florida Tire 1975 contest, and my other good deed will be that I will help you get the book back. Also, I’ll stop stealing canned goods with Granny.”
    “You steal canned goods?” said Raymie.
    “Tuna fish, mostly,” said Louisiana. “It’s very high in protein.”
    “I told you,” said Beverly to Raymie. “I looked at them and I could tell that they were criminals.”
    “We’re not criminals,” said Louisiana. “We’re survivors. We’re fighters.”
    At this point, there was a long silence. The three of them stared out at Lake Clara. The water glittered and sighed.
    “There’s a lady who drowned in this lake,” said Raymie. “Her name was Clara Wingtip.”
    “So?” said Beverly.
    “She haunts it,” said Raymie. “In my father’s office, there’s a photo of the lake from the air, and you can see Clara Wingtip’s shadow under the water.”
    Beverly snorted. “I don’t believe in fairy tales.”
    “You can hear her weeping sometimes,” said Raymie. “That’s what they say.”
    “Really?” said Louisiana. She rearranged her barrettes and put her hair behind one ear and leaned in toward the lake. “Oh,” she said. “I hear it. I hear the weeping.”
    Beverly snorted.
    Raymie listened.
    She heard weeping, too.

“So, okay,” said Beverly. “You get the book, and you get the cat. But what do I get?”
    They were all on their backs on Ida Nee’s dock, staring up at the sky.
    “Well, what do you want?” asked Louisiana.
    “I don’t want anything,” said Beverly.
    “I don’t believe you,” said Louisiana. “Everybody wants something; everybody wishes.”
    “I don’t wish. I sabotage.”
    “Oh, dear,” said Louisiana.
    Raymie said nothing.
    She looked up at the impossibly bright sky and remembered how Mrs. Borkowski had told her once that if you were in a hole that was deep enough and if it was daylight and you looked up at the sky from the very deep hole, you could see stars even though it was the middle of the day.
    Could that be true?
    Raymie didn’t know. Mrs. Borkowski dispensed a lot of questionable information.
    “Phhhhtttt,” said Raymie very quietly to herself.
    And then she thought about how in fairy tales people got three wishes and none of the wishes ever turned out right. If the wishes came true, they came true in terrible ways. Wishes were dangerous things. That was the idea you got from fairy tales.
    Maybe it was smart of Beverly not to wish.
    From somewhere behind them, up at Ida Nee’s house, there came a loud screeching noise, which was followed by a bang and then a thump.
    “Granny is here,” said Louisiana. She sat up.
    “Louisiana!” someone called. “Louisiana Elefante!”
    Raymie sat up, too. “Who were the Flying Elefantes?” she asked.
    “I told you,” said Louisiana. “They were my parents.”
    “But what does it mean? The flying part? What did they do?”
    “Well, my goodness,” said Louisiana. “They were trapeze artists, of course.”
    “Of course,” said Beverly.
    “They flew through the air with the greatest of