Mrs. Sylvester was the secretary at Clarke Family Insurance.

Mrs. Sylvester’s voice was very high-pitched. She sounded like a little cartoon bird when she talked, and this made everything that she said seem ridiculous but also possible — both things at the same time.

When Raymie told Mrs. Sylvester that she was going to enter the Little Miss Central Florida Tire contest, Mrs. Sylvester had clapped her hands together and said, “What a wonderful idea. Have some candy corn.”

Mrs. Sylvester kept an extremely large jar of candy corn on her desk at all times and in all seasons because she believed in feeding people.

She also believed in feeding swans. Every day on her lunch break, Mrs. Sylvester took a bag of swan food and went down to the pond by the hospital.

Mrs. Sylvester was very short, and the swans were tall and long-necked. When Mrs. Sylvester stood in the middle of them with her scarf on her head and the big bag of swan food in her arms, she looked like something out of a fairy tale.

Raymie wasn’t sure which fairy tale.

Maybe it was a fairy tale that hadn’t been told yet.

When Raymie asked Mrs. Sylvester what she thought about Jim Clarke leaving town with a dental hygienist, Mrs. Sylvester had said, “Well, dear, I have found that most things work out right in the end.”

Did most things work out right in the end?

Raymie wasn’t sure.

The idea seemed ridiculous (but also possible) when Mrs. Sylvester said it in her tiny bird voice.

“If you intend to win the Little Miss Central Florida Tire contest,” said Mrs. Sylvester, “you must learn how to twirl a baton. And the best person to teach you how to twirl a baton is Ida Nee. She is a world champion.”