Raymie Nightingale, Kate DeCamillo. Raymie plans to enter the Little Miss Central Florida Tire competition, win, and get her picture in the newspaper so her father will leave the dental hygienist he ran away with and come home. She decides to learn baton twirling from Ida Nee, along with Louisiana Elefante, who also plans to win the contest and Beverly Tapinski, who plans to sabotage the contest. Along with baton twirling, Raymie needs to do some good deeds, so she decides to go to the Golden Glen nursing home and read to the patients. She chooses to read A Bright and Shining Path: The Life of Florence NIghtingale, a favorite book given to her by one of her teachers. When Alice, the screamer, frightens Raymie, she accidentally leaves the book under the bed. She convinces Beverly, not afraid of anything, to go back with her to retrieve it.e three girls arrive for baton twirling lessons, only to find Ida Nee not there. Beverly, the quick lock picker, steals them into her house, where they find her snoring away to country music, hugging her baton. Beverly sneakily swipes it from her hands and they continue on to The Very Friendly Animal Shelter to get Archie, Louisiana's lost cat, only to be told they don't have him. On their way back home, they see police outside Ida's house, who reported the theft of her beloved baton.

The girls become the Three Rancheroos and Raymie soon finds out how very much she is like Florence Nightingale, the heroic savior of sad souls, including her own.