Raymie woke up. The hands on the Baby Ben glowed cheerily in the dark. They said that it was 1:14.

It was past midnight, and Beverly Tapinski had not shown up.

That meant that they were not going to sneak out of the house and break into Building 10 and steal Archie. Who wasn’t even there.

None of it was going to happen after all. Raymie was disappointed. And relieved. Both things at the same time.

She lay in bed and stared at the clock. It ticked in a satisfied and self-important way, as if it had managed to solve some difficult problem.

Raymie got out of bed. By the orangey light of the night-light, she could see Louisiana asleep on the floor.

A Bright and Shining Path: The Life of Florence Nightingale was open on top of Louisiana’s stomach. Her hands were crossed over the book, and her legs were straight out in front of her. It looked as if she had fallen on the battlefield of life.

“Fallen on the battlefield of life” was something that Louisiana had said when they were reading aloud from the book.

“Florence Nightingale helps those who have fallen on the battlefield of life. She comes to them with her magic globe —”

“I don’t think it’s a magic globe,” said Raymie. “It’s a lantern. It’s what people used before electricity.”

“I know that,” said Louisiana. She lowered the book and stared at Raymie. She raised the book again. She said, “She comes to them with her magic globe and makes them well. They don’t worry anymore. And they don’t wish for things that are gone.”

Raymie felt her heart thud inside of her.

“Where does it say that?” she said.

“It’s written in the book in my head,” said Louisiana. She tapped her head. “And that’s sometimes better than the actual book. And by that, I mean that sometimes I read the words I want to be there instead of the words that are actually there. Just like Granny does.” Louisiana looked up at Raymie in a very serious way. “Do you want me to keep going?”

“Yes,” said Raymie.

“Good,” said Louisiana. “Inside the magic globe that Florence Nightingale carries, there are wishes and hopes and love. And all of these things are very tiny and also very bright. And there are thousands of wishes and hopes and love things, and they move around in the magic globe, and that’s what Florence uses to see by. That is how she sees soldiers who have fallen on the battlefield of life.

“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.