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1-Page Summary of Raymie Nightingale
Overall Summary
Raymie Clark is a ten-year-old girl who has just found out that her father left home to be with another woman. She’s devastated, and she thinks she’ll win the Little Miss Central Florida Tire pageant if she can get there.
To win the pageant, Raymie needed to give a performance that would impress the judges. She decided on baton twirling and enrolled in lessons with Ida Nee, who is an expert at baton twirling. Louisiana Elefante and Beverly Tapinski also took lessons from Ida Nee in order to compete at the pageant.
Beverly is a baton twirler who has been forced to take lessons by her mother. She doesn’t want to compete in the pageant, but she figures out how to sabotage it so that she won’t have to do it anymore. Beverly’s father recently left town for New York City, and this has had an effect on her as well.
Louisiana is an orphan and lives with her grandmother. She tells others that her parents were famous trapeze artists, but the truth is they died in a car crash when she was young. Her goal in winning the pageant is to win enough money for herself and her grandmother so they can have a better life than what they’re living now.
Raymie’s life was going well until her dad left. Her mom struggled to cope with his absence and a coach that Raymie really admired moved away. Raymie thought about the meaning of these events in her life and realized she didn’t know what it meant to exist, so she talked to her friends about this question. The girls were learning from Ida, but they weren’t getting much out of their lessons because Ida would get frustrated easily and leave early. In the absence of their teacher, the girls bonded over similar questions like “what is existence?”
The pageant also requires contestants to perform a good deed. Raymie decides that she will read Florence Nightingale to the elderly at Golden Gale Happy Retirement Home. Once there, however, one of the residents scares her and she runs away in a panic.
One of the girls is afraid to go back alone. She asks one of her friends for help, and they work together to get Raymie’s book back.
Louisiana’s grandmother has to give up her cat, Archie. The other girls believe that the cat was put down, but Louisiana insists that her grandmother brought him to a shelter called Very Friendly Animal Center. She asks Beverly and Raymie for help breaking in so they can save Archie.
The girls decide to break into the Very Friendly Animal Center at midnight. They find a stray dog inside, but it’s not Archie. Louisiana is sad and disappointed that they can’t rescue her pet. The girls decide to take the dog home anyway, even though he’s mangy and dirty.
Beverly and Raymie are pushing the cart with Louisiana in it when suddenly they lose control. The cart rolls down a hill, picking up speed as it goes. It crashes into a pond, splashing water everywhere and soaking everyone nearby. Raymie realizes that she can rescue her friend by using her lifesaving skills, so she jumps into the water without hesitating for even one second to save her friend’s life. When she saves Louisiana from drowning, she feels very satisfied because of all the effort that went into learning those lifesaving skills. She is glad that it was worth it after all and happy that she could put them to good use by saving someone’s life who needed help desperately at the time.
While Raymie’s father is in the hospital, he calls her. She has been wanting to hear from him for a long time but now that she finally does, she realizes that she doesn’t know what to say. This makes her feel disappointed and so instead of entering the Little Miss Central Florida Tire pageant like planned, she decides not to enter after all.
