The physical abuse inflicted on Beverly by her mother, and Beverly’s quiet resignation towards it, are clear. Beverly says, “nothing happened to my face” when asked about her black eye (81), and she later exclaims, “I don’t believe in fairy tales” (89), implying that childhood innocence and belief in happy endings have been taken from her. Beverly with her black eye glumly chewing gum contrasts sharply with Louisiana, dressed in pink and wearing cute barrettes. DiCamillo’s description of the barrettes—“pink, shiny plastic, with little white bunnies” (81—reinforces the image of Louisiana as a delicate child who owns her childish fairy-tale appearance. Although Beverly seems cold and sarcastic, she never mocks Louisiana’s style.

Ida Nee’s self-absorbed and thoroughly unpleasant personality is highlighted in Chapter 17. Ida makes no mention of Beverly’s black eye and cannot contain her anger when Beverly dares to refuse an order to spit out the gum. Despite the unmistakable evidence of physical abuse already on Beverly’s face, Ida proceeds to hit Beverly for disobeying her petty order, oblivious to the obvious harm this could cause. Hidden beneath Louisiana’s ditzy appearance is a brave and loyal friend, revealed when Louisiana physically stops a surprised Ida Nee from hitting Beverly. Beverly exposes the hard shell she has built around herself when she reassures Louisiana: “No one’s going to hurt me. It’s impossible to hurt me” (85).

It does not occur to Raymie to include Louisiana in the plan to retrieve the book from under Alice’s bed, but to be excluded is unacceptable to Louisiana. By giving the group of three friends a name, the Three Rancheros, Louisiana unites the girls and assumes a bond of friendship and loyalty that implies that all adventures should be done together. She says, “We’re us. And we’re the Rancheros. We’ll rescue each other” (87). Despite Beverly’s sullen retort, “I don’t need to be rescued” (87), this is a foreshadowing of how the story unfolds.

The motif of fairy tales and wishes recurs throughout the book. In Chapter 19 Louisiana asks Beverly what she wishes for. Beverly predictably replies that she doesn’t wish, and as they lie on the dock in the sun, Raymie muses on the concept of fairy tales. It is in this sunny, blue-sky setting that Louisiana mater-of-factly tells her friends about her parents the Flying Elefantes and that they are dead. DiCamillo’s description of Louisiana’s beautiful angelic smile and glowing bunny barrettes clashes with Louisiana’s revelation. It seems as if the only way for Louisiana to bear the tragedy is to cover it with smiles, merge it with a fairy-tale, and, if possible, try not to think about it. To keep depressing ideas at bay, Louisiana puts a positive spin on everything. After sharing her sad story with the girls, Louisiana cheerily says she will see them tomorrow at the “Golden Glen Happy Retirement Home” (94).

The three girls deal with their respective tragedies very differently: Louisiana buries her feelings under pink dresses, shiny barrettes, and fantastical imaginings; Beverly has concluded that bad things always happen, to expect the worst, and that as long as you don’t care, nothing can hurt you. Beverly says to Raymie about Raymie’s father: “Don’t get all upset. That’s just how things go. People leave and they don’t come back” (95). This perspective is still unacceptable to Raymie, who is stuck in the mindset that she needs to fix the problem, to wind back time, rather than accept that sometimes terrible things happen.