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written on the card in black ink. The letters of the name were shaky and uncertain, like maybe Alice Nebbley had written them herself.
    Raymie flexed her toes. She knocked.
    And when no one answered, Raymie took a deep breath, grabbed the doorknob and turned it, then stepped inside. The room was dark, but Raymie could see that someone was in the bed.
    “Mrs. Nebbley?” whispered Raymie.
    There was no answer.
    Raymie stepped farther into the room.
    “Mrs. Nebbley?” she said again, a little bit louder this time. She could hear whoever was in bed breathing in a raspy, strangled kind of way.
    “Um,” said Raymie. “I’m here to do a good deed? Would you like to hear about a bright and shining path and, um, Florence Nightingale . . . Mrs. Nebbley?”
    “Arrrrrggggghhhhhhh!” screamed Alice Nebbley.
    It was the most terrifying noise Raymie had ever heard in her life. It was a sound of pure pain, pure need. Alice Nebbley’s scream pierced something inside of Raymie. She felt her soul whoosh away into nothingness.
    “I cannnnooooottttt!” shouted Alice Nebbley. “Give meeeee.” A hand rose out of the covers. It was reaching for something. It was reaching for her — Raymie Clarke!
    Raymie jumped, and
A Bright and Shining Path: The Life of Florence Nightingale
leaped out of her hands and flew into the air and skittered under Alice Nebbley’s bed.
    Raymie screamed.
    Alice Nebbley screamed back. “Arrrrgggghh! I cannot, cannot, cannot bear the pain! Take my hand.” Her hand was still extended, reaching out of the covers, searching. “Please, please, take my hand.”
    Raymie Clarke turned and ran.
    Raymie stood for a long time on the sidewalk in front of the Golden Glen, flexing her toes and isolating her objectives.
    She had to get the book back. That was her one true objective right now. It was a library book. Edward Option would be very disappointed in her if she didn’t return it. She hadn’t even read it, and that would disappoint him, too. And there would be fines, overdue fines!
    What if she had to pay for the book?
    But she couldn’t go back into Alice Nebbley’s room. She truly didn’t know if she was brave enough to ever enter the Golden Glen again.
    She thought about Isabelle’s X-ray eyes.
    She thought about Alice Nebbley’s hand.
    She thought about gigantic seabirds that snatched babies from their mothers’ arms.
    And then she heard Beverly Tapinski’s voice:
Fear is a big waste of time. I’m not afraid of anything.
    Beverly. Beverly Tapinski and her pocketknife.
    Beverly, who was afraid of nothing.
    Raymie knew, suddenly, what her objective was.
    She would find Beverly and ask her to help get Florence Nightingale back.

Finding Beverly Tapinski turned out to be surprisingly easy.
    When Raymie got to baton-twirling lessons the next afternoon, Beverly was standing under the pine trees, chewing gum and staring straight ahead.
    “I thought you weren’t coming back,” said Raymie.
    Beverly said nothing.
    “I’m glad you came back.”
    Beverly turned and looked at her. There was a bruise on her face, under her left eye.
    “What happened to your face?” asked Raymie.
    “Nothing happened to my face,” said Beverly. She chewed her gum and looked right at Raymie. Beverly’s eyes were blue. They weren’t the same blue as Isabelle’s; they were darker, deeper. But they had the same effect as Isabelle’s eyes. Raymie felt as if they could see right through her, inside of her.
    She stared back at Beverly and started trying to rearrange her soul, working to make it invisible.
    And then Louisiana Elefante showed up.
    She had on the same pink dress from the day before. But today she was wearing barrettes, six of them. The barrettes were scattered randomly throughout Louisiana’s limp blond hair. All the barrettes were identical — made of pink, shiny plastic with little white bunnies painted on them. The bunnies looked like ghost bunnies.
    “I’m not going to faint today,” said