Flora Belle Buckman was in her room at her desk. She was very busy. She was doing two things at once. She was ignoring her mother, and she was also reading a comic book entitled The Illuminated Adventures of the Amazing Incandesto!
“Flora,” her mother shouted, “what are you doing up there?”
“I’m reading!” Flora shouted back.
“Remember the contract!” her mother shouted. “Do not forget the contract!”
At the beginning of summer, in a moment of weakness, Flora had made the mistake of signing a contract that said she would “work to turn her face away from the idiotic high jinks of comics and toward the bright light of true literature.”
Those were the exact words of the contract. They were her mother’s words.
Flora’s mother was a writer. She was divorced, and she wrote romance novels.
Talk about idiotic high jinks.
Flora hated romance novels.
In fact, she hated romance.
“I hate romance,” said Flora out loud to herself. She liked the way the words sounded. She imagined them floating above her in a comic-strip bubble; it was a comforting thing to have words hanging over her head. Especially negative words about romance.
Flora’s mother had often accused Flora of being a “natural-born cynic.”
Flora suspected that this was true.
SHE WAS A NATURAL-BORN CYNIC WHO LIVED IN DEFIANCE OF CONTRACTS!
Yep, thought Flora, that’s me. She bent her head and went back to reading about the amazing Incandesto.
She was interrupted a few minutes later by a very loud noise.
It sounded as if a jet plane had landed in the Tickhams’ backyard.
“What the heck?” said Flora. She got up from her desk and looked out the window and saw Mrs. Tickham running around the backyard with a shiny, oversize vacuum cleaner.
It looked like she was vacuuming the yard.
That can’t be, thought Flora. Who vacuums their yard?
Actually, it didn’t look like Mrs. Tickham knew what she was doing.
It was more like the vacuum cleaner was in charge. And the vacuum cleaner seemed to be out of its mind. Or its engine. Or something.
“A few bolts shy of a load,” said Flora out loud.
And then she saw that Mrs. Tickham and the vacuum cleaner were headed directly for a squirrel.
“Hey, now,” said Flora.
She banged on the window.
“Watch out!” she shouted. “You’re going to vacuum up that squirrel!”
She said the words, and then she had a strange moment of seeing them, hanging there over her head.
“YOU’RE GOING TO VACUUM UP THAT SQUIRREL!”
There is just no predicting what kind of sentences you might say, thought Flora. For instance, who would ever think you would shout, “You’re going to vacuum up that squirrel!”?
It didn’t make any difference, though, what words she said. Flora was too far away. The vacuum cleaner was too loud. And also, clearly, it was bent on destruction.
“This malfeasance must be stopped,” said Flora in a deep and superheroic voice.
“This malfeasance must be stopped” was what the unassuming janitor Alfred T. Slipper always said before he was transformed into the amazing Incandesto and became a towering, crime-fighting pillar of light.
Unfortunately, Alfred T. Slipper wasn’t present.
Where was Incandesto when you needed him?
Not that Flora really believed in superheroes. But still.
She stood at the window and watched as the squirrel was vacuumed up.
Poof. Fwump.
“Holy bagumba,” said Flora.
Not much goes on in the mind of a squirrel.
Huge portions of what is loosely termed “the squirrel brain” are given over to one thought: food.
The average squirrel cogitation goes something like this: I wonder what there is to eat.
This “thought” is then repeated with small variations (e.g., Where’s the food? Man, I sure am hungry. Is that a piece of food? and Are there more pieces of food?) some six or seven thousand times a day.
All of this is to say that when the squirrel in the Tickhams’ backyard got swallowed up by the Ulysses 2000X, there weren’t a lot of terribly profound thoughts going through his head.
As the vacuum cleaner roared toward him, he did not (for instance) think, Here, at last, is my fate come to meet me!
He did not think, Oh, please, give me one more chance and I will be good.
What he thought was Man, I sure am hungry.
And then there was a terrible roar, and he was sucked right off his feet.
At that point, there were no thoughts in his squirrel head, not even thoughts of food.
Seemingly, swallowing a squirrel was a bit much even for the powerful, indomitable, indoor/outdoor Ulysses 2000X. Mrs. Tickham’s birthday machine let out an uncertain roar and stuttered to a stop.
Mrs. Tickham bent over and looked down at the vacuum cleaner.
There was a tail sticking out of it.
“For heaven’s sake,” said Mrs. Tickham, “what next?”
She dropped to her knees and gave the tail a tentative tug.
She stood. She looked around the yard.
“Help,” she said. “I think I’ve killed a squirrel.”
Flora ran from her room. She ran down the stairs. As she ran, she thought, For a cynic, I am a surprisingly helpful person.
She went out the back door.
Her mother called to her. She said, “Where are you going, Flora Belle?”
Flora didn’t answer her. She never answered her mother when she called her Flora Belle.
Sometimes she didn’t answer her mother when she called her Flora, either.
Flora ran through the tall grass and cleared the fence between her yard and the Tickhams’ in a single bound.
“Move out of the way,” said Flora. She gave Mrs. Tickham a shove and grabbed hold of the vacuum cleaner. It was heavy. She picked it up and shook it. Nothing happened. She shook harder. The squirrel dropped out of the vacuum cleaner and landed with a plop on the grass.
He didn’t look that great.
He was missing a lot of fur. Vacuumed off, Flora assumed.
His eyelids fluttered. His chest rose and fell and rose again. And then it stopped moving altogether.
Flora knelt. She put a finger on the squirrel’s chest.
At the back of each issue of The Illuminated Adventures of the Amazing Incandesto! there was a series of bonus comics. One of Flora’s very favorite bonus comics was entitled TERRIBLE THINGS CAN HAPPEN TO YOU! As a cynic, Flora found it wise to be prepared. Who knew what horrible, unpredictable thing would happen next?
TERRIBLE THINGS CAN HAPPEN TO YOU! detailed what action to take if you inadvertently consumed plastic fruit (this happened more often than you would suppose — some plastic fruit was extremely realistic looking); how to perform the Heimlich maneuver on your elderly aunt Edith if she choked on a stringy piece of steak at an all-you-can-eat buffet; what to do if you were wearing a striped shirt and a swarm of locusts descended (run: locusts eat stripes); and, of course, how to administer everyone’s favorite lifesaving technique: CPR.
TERRIBLE THINGS CAN HAPPEN TO YOU! did not, however, detail exactly how someone was supposed to give CPR to a squirrel.
“I’ll figure it out,” said Flora.
“What will you figure out?” said Mrs. Tickham.
Flora didn’t answer her. Instead, she bent down and put her mouth on the squirrel’s mouth.
It tasted funny.
If she were forced to describe it, she would say tha
t it tasted exactly like squirrel: fuzzy, damp, slightly nutty.
“Have you lost your mind?” said Mrs. Tickham.
Flora ignored her.
She breathed into the squirrel’s mouth. She pushed down on his small chest.
She started to count.
Something strange had happened to the squirrel’s brain.
Things had gone blank, black. And then, into this black blankness, there came a light so beautiful, so bright, that the squirrel had to turn away.
A voice spoke to him.
“What’s that?” said the squirrel.
The light shone brighter.
The voice spoke again.
“Okay,” said the squirrel. “You bet!”
He wasn’t sure what, exactly, he was agreeing to, but it didn’t matter. He was just so happy. He was floating in a great lake of light, and the voice was singing to him. Oh, it was wonderful. It was the best thing ever.
And then there was a loud noise.
The squirrel heard another voice. This voice was counting. The light receded.
“Breathe!” the new voice shouted.
The squirrel obliged. He took a deep, shuddering breath. And then another. And another.
The squirrel returned.
Well, he’s breathing,” said Mrs. Tickham.
“Yes,” said Flora. “He is.” She felt a swell of pride.
The squirrel rolled over onto his stomach. He raised his head. His eyes were glazed.
“For heaven’s sake,” said Mrs. Tickham. “Look at him.”
She chuckled quietly. She shook her head. And then she laughed out loud. She kept laughing. She laughed and laughed and laughed. She laughed so hard that she started to shake.
Was she having some kind of fit?
Flora tried to remember what TERRIBLE THINGS CAN HAPPEN TO YOU! advised in the event of a seizure. It had something to do with moving the tongue out of the way or stabilizing it with a stick. Or something.
Flora had saved the squirrel’s life; she didn’t see any reason she couldn’t save Mrs. Tickham’s tongue.
The sun sank a little lower in the sky. Mrs. Tickham continued to laugh hysterically.
And Flora Belle Buckman started looking around the Tickhams’ backyard for a stick.
The squirrel was a little unsteady on his feet.
His brain felt larger, roomier. It was as if several doors in the dark room of his self (doors he hadn’t even known existed) had suddenly been flung wide.
Everything was shot through with meaning, purpose, light.
However, the squirrel was still a squirrel.
And he was hungry. Very.
Flora and Mrs. Tickham noticed at the same time.
“The squirrel,” said Flora.
“The vacuum cleaner,” said Mrs. Tickham.
Together, they stared at the Ulysses 2000X and at the squirrel, who was holding it over his head with one paw.
“That can’t be,” said Mrs. Tickham.
The squirrel shook the vacuum cleaner.
“That can’t be,” said Mrs. Tickham.
“You already said that,” said Flora.
“I’m repeating myself?”
“You’re repeating yourself.”
“Maybe I have a brain tumor,” said Mrs. Tickham.
It was certainly possible that Mrs. Tickham had a brain tumor. Flora knew from reading TERRIBLE THINGS CAN HAPPEN TO YOU! that a surprising number of people were walking around with tumors in their brains and didn’t even know it. That was the thing about tragedy. It was just sitting there, keeping you company, waiting. And you had absolutely no idea.
This was the kind of helpful information you could get from the comics if you paid attention.
The other kind of information that you absorbed from the regular reading of comics (most particularly from the regular reading of The Illuminated Adventures of the Amazing Incandesto!) was that impossible things happened all the time.
For instance, heroes — superheroes — were born of ridiculous and unlikely circumstances: spider bites, chemical spills, planetary dislocation, and, in the case of Alfred T. Slipper, from accidental submersion in an industrial-size vat of cleaning solution called Incandesto! (The Cleaning Professional’s Hardworking Friend).
“I don’t think you have a brain tumor,” said Flora. “There might be another explanation.”
“Uh-huh,” said Mrs. Tickham. “What’s the other explanation?”
“Have you ever heard of Incandesto?”
“What?” said Mrs. Tickham.
“Who,” said Flora. “Incandesto is a who. He’s a superhero.”
“Right,” said Mrs. Tickham. “And your point is?”
Flora raised her right hand. She pointed with a single finger at the squirrel.
“Surely you’re not implying . . .” said Mrs. Tickham.
The squirrel lowered the vacuum cleaner to the ground. He held himself very still. He considered both of them. His whiskers twitched and trembled. There were cracker crumbs on his head.
He was a squirrel.
Could he be a superhero, too? Alfred T. Slipper was a janitor. Most of the time, people looked right past him. Sometimes (often, in fact) they treated him with disdain. They had no idea of the astonishing acts of heroism, the blinding light, contained within his outward, humdrum disguise.
Only Alfred’s parakeet, Dolores, knew who he was and what he could do.
“The world will misunderstand him,” said Flora.
“You bet it will,” said Mrs. Tickham.
“Tootie?” shouted Mr. Tickham from the back door. “Tootie, I’m hungry!”
Tootie?
What a ridiculous name.
Flora couldn’t resist the urge to say it out loud. “Tootie,” she said. “Tootie Tickham. Listen, Tootie. Go inside. Feed your husband. Say nothing to him or to anyone else about any of this.”
“Right,” said Tootie. “Say nothing. Feed my husband. Okay, right.” She began walking slowly toward the house.
Mr. Tickham called out, “Are you done vacuuming? What about the Ulysses? Are you just going to leave it sitting there?”
“Ulysses,” whispered Flora. She felt a shiver run from the back of her head to the base of her spine. She might be a natural-born cynic, but she knew the right word when she heard it.
“Ulysses,” she said again.
She bent down and held out her hand to the squirrel.
“Come here, Ulysses,” she said.
She spoke to him.
And he understood her.
What the girl said was “Ulysses. Come here, Ulysses.”
And without thinking, he moved toward her.
“It’s okay,” she said.
And he believed her. It was astonishing. Everything was astonishing. The setting sun was illuminating each blade of grass. It was reflecting off the girl’s glasses, making a halo of light around the girl’s round head, setting the whole world on fire.
The squirrel thought, When did things become so beautiful? And if it has been this way all along, how is it that I never noticed before?
“Listen to me,” the girl said. “My name is Flora. Your name is Ulysses.”
Okay, thought the squirrel.
She put her hand on him. She picked him up. She cradled him in her left arm.
He felt nothing but happiness. Why had he always been so terrified of humans? He couldn’t imagine.
Actually, he could imagine.
There had been that time with the boy and the BB gun.
There had, truthfully, been a lot of incidents with humans (some involving BB guns, some not), and all of them had been violent, terrifying, and soul-destroying.
But this was a new life! And he was a changed squirrel.
He felt spectacular. Strong, smart, capable — and also: hungry.
He was very, very hungry.
Flora’s mother was in the kitchen. She was typing. She wrote on an old typewriter, and when she pounded the keys, the kitchen t
able shook and the plates on the shelves rattled and the silverware in the drawers cried out in a metallic kind of alarm.
Flora had decided that this was part of the reason her parents had divorced. Not the noise of the writing, but the writing itself. Specifically, the writing of romance.
Flora’s father had said, “I think that your mother is so in love with her books about love that she doesn’t love me anymore.”
And her mother had said, “Ha! Your father is so far off in left field that he wouldn’t recognize love if it stood up in his soup and sang.”
Flora had a hard time imagining what love would be doing standing in a bowl of soup and singing, but these were the kind of idiotic words her parents spoke. And they said the words to each other, even though they were pretending that they were talking to Flora.
It was all very annoying.
“What are you doing?” her mother said to Flora. She was sucking on a Pitzer Pop. It made her words sound rocky and sharp-edged. Her mother used to smoke and then she stopped, but she still had to have something in her mouth when she typed, so she consumed a lot of Pitzer Pops. This one was orange flavored. Flora could smell it.
“Oh, nothing,” said Flora. She glanced at the squirrel in her arms.
“Good,” said her mother. She whacked the carriage return on the typewriter without looking up. She kept typing. “Are you still standing there?” her mother said. She typed some more words. She hit the carriage return again. “I’m on a deadline here. It’s hard to concentrate with you standing over me breathing like that.”
“I could stop breathing,” said Flora.
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” said her mother. “Go upstairs and wash your hands. We’re going to eat soon.”
“Okay,” said Flora. She walked past her mother and into the living room, still carrying Ulysses in the crook of her arm. It didn’t seem possible, but it was true. She had smuggled a squirrel into the house. And she had done it right under her mother’s nose. Or behind her back. Or something.
In the living room, at the base of the stairs, the little shepherdess lamp was waiting, a pink-cheeked smirk plastered on her face.
Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures Page 1