Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures

by Kate DiCamillo

“I intend to dig a hole,” said her father.

  “For what?” said Flora.

  “A thing that I am going to bury.”

  “What thing are you going to bury?”

  “A sack!”

  “Why are you burying a sack?”

  “Because your mother asked me to.”

  “Why did she ask you to bury a sack?”

  Her father tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. He stared straight ahead. “Why did she ask me to bury a sack? Why did she ask me to bury a sack? That’s a good one. Hey, I know! Do you want to get something to eat?”

  “What?” said Flora.

  “How about some lunch?” said her father.

  “For the love of Pete!” said Flora.

  “Or some breakfast? How about we stop and eat a meal, any meal?”

  Flora sighed.

  The Criminal Element advised “stalling, delaying, and obfuscation of every possible sort” when it came to dealing with a criminal.

  Her father wasn’t a criminal. Not exactly. But he had been enlisted in the service of villainy — basically, he was in cahoots with an arch-nemesis. So maybe it would be good to stall, to delay the inevitable showdown, by going into a restaurant.

  Besides, the squirrel was hungry, and he would need to be strong for the battle ahead.

  “Okay,” said Flora. “Okay. Sure. Let’s eat.”

  Okay. Sure. Let’s eat.

  What wonderful words those are, thought Ulysses.

  Let’s eat.

  Talk about poetry.

  The squirrel was happy.

  He was happy because he was with Flora.

  He was happy because he had the words from Tootie’s poem flowing through his head and heart.

  He was happy because he was going to be fed soon.

  And he was happy because he was, well, happy.

  He climbed out of the shoe box and put his front paws on the door and his nose out the open window.

  He was a squirrel riding in a car on a summer day with someone he loved. His whiskers and nose were in the breeze.

  And there were so many smells!

  Overflowing trash cans, just-cut grass, sun-warmed patches of pavement, the loamy richness of dirt, earthworms (loamy-smelling, too; often difficult to distinguish from the smell of dirt), dog, more dog, dog again (Oh, dogs! Small dogs, large dogs, foolish dogs; the torturing of dogs was the one reliable pleasure of a squirrel’s existence), the tang of fertilizer, a faint whiff of birdseed, something baking, the hidden hint of nuttiness (pecan, acorn), the small, apologetic, don’t-mind-me odor of mouse, and the ruthless stench of cat. (Cats were terrible; cats were never to be trusted. Never.)

  The world in all its smelly glory, in all its treachery and joy and nuttiness, washed over Ulysses, ran through him, filled him. He could smell everything. He could even smell the blue of the sky.

  He wanted to capture it. He wanted to write it down. He wanted to tell Flora. He turned and looked at her.

  “Keep your eyes open for malfeasance,” she said to him.

  Ulysses nodded.

  The words from Tootie’s poem sounded in his head. “‘Flare up like flame’!”

  Yes, he thought. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll flare up like flame, and I’ll write it all down.

  You’ll have to leave the squirrel in the car,” said Flora’s father as he pulled into the parking lot of the Giant Do-Nut.

  “No,” said Flora. “It’s too hot.”

  “I’ll leave the windows down,” said her father.

  “Someone will steal him.”

  “You think someone would steal him?” Her father sounded doubtful, but hopeful. “Who would steal a squirrel?”

  “A criminal,” said Flora.

  The Criminal Element spoke often, and passionately, about the nefarious activities that every human being is capable of. Not only did it insist that the human heart was dark beyond all reckoning; it also likened the heart to a river. And further, it said, “If we are not careful, that river can carry us along in its hidden currents of want and anger and need, and transform each of us into the very criminal we fear.”

  “The human heart is a deep, dark river with hidden currents,” Flora said to her father. “Criminals are everywhere.”

  Her father tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “I wish I could disagree with you, but I can’t.”

  Ulysses sneezed.

  “Bless you,” said her father.

  “I’m not leaving him,” said Flora.

  Alfred T. Slipper took his parakeet, Dolores, with him everywhere, sometimes even to the offices of the Paxatawket Life Insurance Company. “Not without my parakeet.” That was what Alfred said.

  “Not without my squirrel,” said Flora.

  If her father recognized the sentence, if the words reminded him of their time together reading about Incandesto, he didn’t show it. He merely sighed. “Bring him in, then,” he said. “But keep the lid on the shoe box.”

  Ulysses climbed into the shoe box, and Flora dutifully lowered the lid on his small face.

  “Okay,” she said. “All right.”

  She climbed out of the car, and then she stood and looked up at the Giant Do-Nut sign.

  GIANT DO-NUTS INSIDE! the sign screamed in neon letters, while an extremely large donut disappeared over and over again into a cup of coffee.

  But there was no hand on the donut. Who, Flora wondered, is doing the dunking? A small shiver ran down her spine.

  What if we are all donuts just waiting to be dunked? she thought.

  It was the kind of question that William Spiver would ask. She could hear him asking it. It was also the kind of question that William Spiver would have an answer for. That was the thing about William Spiver. He always had an answer, even if it was an annoying one.

  “Listen to me,” she whispered to the shoe box. “You are not a donut waiting to be dunked. You are a superhero. Do not let yourself be tricked or fooled. Remember the shovel. Keep an eye on George Buckman.”

  Her father got out of the car. He put his hands in his pockets and jingled his change. “Shall we?” he said.

  Stall! Delay! Obfuscate!

  “Let’s,” said Flora.

  The Giant Do-Nut smelled like fried eggs and donuts and other people’s closets. The dining room was full of laughter and donut dunking.

  A waitress sat Flora and her father at a booth in the corner and handed them glossy, enormous menus. Flora surreptitiously (The Criminal Element recommended surreptitious action at all possible junctures) removed the lid from the shoe box. Ulysses poked his head out and looked around the restaurant. And then he turned his attention to the menu. He stared at it with a dreamy look on his face.

  “Get whatever you want,” said Flora’s father. “Order your heart’s desire.”

  Ulysses emitted a happy sigh.

  “Pay attention,” whispered Flora.

  A waitress came and stood over them. She tapped her pencil on the order pad.

  “What can I get you?” she said.

  Her name tag spelled out her name in all-capital letters: RITA!

  Flora narrowed her eyes. The exclamation point made Rita seem untrustworthy, or, at the very least, insincere.

  “Well,” said Rita. “What’s it gonna be?” Her hair was piled up very, very high on her head. She looked like Marie Antoinette.

  Not that Flora had ever seen Marie Antoinette, but she had read about her in a TERRIBLE THINGS CAN HAPPEN TO YOU! issue on the French Revolution. Marie Antoinette, from the little bit that Flora knew about her, would have made a very bad waitress.

  Flora suddenly remembered that she had a squirrel in her lap. She tapped Ulysses on the head again. “Lie low,” she whispered to him, “but be prepared.” She arranged the washcloth so that he was almost completely hidden.

  “Whatcha got there?” asked Rita.

  “Where?” said Flora.

  “In the box,” said Rita. “Got a baby doll in the box? Are you talking to you
r baby doll?”

  “Talking to my baby doll?” said Flora. She felt a flush of outrage crawl up her cheeks. For the love of Pete! She was ten years old, almost eleven. She knew how to administer CPR. She knew how to outwit an arch-nemesis. She was acquainted with the profound importance of seal blubber. She was the sidekick to a superhero.

  Plus she was a cynic.

  What self-respecting cynic would carry around a doll in a shoe box?

  “I do not,” said Flora. “Have. A. Baby. Doll.”

  “Let me see her,” said Rita. “Don’t be shy.” She bent over. Her big Marie Antoinette hair scraped against Flora’s chin.

  “No,” said Flora.

  “George Buckman,” said Flora’s father in a worried voice. “How do you do?”

  “Cootchie-coo,” said Rita.

  Flora felt a very pointed, very specific sense of doom.

  Rita poked her pencil into the shoe box slowly, slowly. She pushed the washcloth around. Slowly. And the washcloth (oh, so slowly) fell back and revealed Ulysses’s whiskered face.

  “George Buckman,” said her father in a much louder voice. “How do you do?”

  Rita screamed a long and impossibly loud scream.

  Ulysses screamed in return.

  And then he leaped from the shoe box.

  At this point, things stopped proceeding at such a leisurely pace.

  The squirrel was airborne, and time swung back into action with a vengeance.

  At last! thought Flora. It’s Incandesto time!

  He had never been so frightened in his life. Never. The woman’s face was monstrous. Her hair was monstrous. And the word on her name tag (RITA!) appeared monstrous to him, too.

  Be calm, he told himself as she poked her pencil around. He held himself as still as he could.

  But then Rita screamed.

  And it was absolutely impossible not to answer her long, piercing shriek with a piercing shriek of his own.

  She screamed; he screamed.

  And then every one of his animal instincts kicked in. He acted without thinking. He tried to escape. He leaped from the box and ended up, somehow, exactly where he did not want to be: in the middle of the monstrous hair.

  Rita jumped up and down. She put her hands to her head. She swatted and clawed, trying to dislodge him. The harder she hit him, the higher she jumped, the more fiercely the squirrel clung.

  In this way, Rita and Ulysses danced together around the Giant Do-Nut.

  “What’s happening?” someone shouted.

  “Her hair is on fire,” someone answered.

  “No, no, there’s something in her hair,” another person shouted. “And it’s alive!”

  “Arrrrgggghhhhhh!” screamed Rita. “Helppp meeeeeee!”

  How, Ulysses wondered, had things gone so wrong?

  Only moments ago, he had been looking at the Giant Do-Nut menu, captivated by the glossy pictures of food and the dazzling descriptions that accompanied the pictures.

  There were giant donuts with sprinkles, giant donuts powdered, iced! Giant donuts filled with things: jelly, cream, chocolate.

  He had never had a giant donut.

  Actually, he had never had any kind of donut.

  They looked delicious. All of them. How was a squirrel to choose?

  And to complicate matters, there were eggs: scrambled, poached, over easy, sunny-side up.

  Sunny-side up! thought Ulysses as he clung to Rita’s hair. What a wonderful phrase!

  A man emerged from the kitchen. He had on a gigantic white hat, and he was holding something metal that flashed in the overhead lights of the Giant Do-Nut. It was a knife.

  “Help me!” screamed Rita.

  And me, thought Ulysses. Help me, too.

  But he was quite certain that the man with the knife had no intention of helping him.

  And then he heard Flora’s voice. He couldn’t see her because Rita was now spinning around, and everything in the restaurant had become somewhat blurred — all the faces had become one face; all the screams had become one scream.

  But Flora’s voice stood out. It was the voice of the person he loved. He concentrated on her words. He worked to understand her.

  “Ulysses!” she shouted. “Ulysses! Remember who you are!”

  Remember who he was?

  Who was he?

  As if Flora had heard his unspoken question, she answered him, “You’re Ulysses!”

  That’s right, he thought. I am.

  “Act!” shouted Flora.

  This was good advice. Flora was absolutely right. He was Ulysses, and he must act.

  The man with the knife stepped toward Rita.

  Ulysses loosened his hold on her hair. He leaped again. This time he leaped with purpose and intent. He leaped with all his strength.

  He flew.

  Flora watched Ulysses fly over her, his tail extended at full length and his front paws delicately pointed. It was just like her dream. He looked incredibly, undeniably heroic.

  “Holy bagumba,” said Flora.

  She climbed on top of the booth so that she had a better view.

  When Incandesto flew, when he became a brilliant streak of light in the darkness of the world, he was usually headed somewhere, to save someone, and Dolores was always flying at his side, offering advice, encouragement, and wisdom.

  Flora wasn’t sure exactly what Ulysses was doing, and it didn’t look like he really knew, either. But he was flying.

  “George Buckman,” whispered her father. “How do you do?”

  Flora had forgotten about her father. He was looking up at Ulysses. And he was smiling. It wasn’t a sad smile. It was a happy smile.

  “Pop?” said Flora.

  There was a long, loud scream from Rita. “It was in my hair!” she shouted.

  Someone threw a donut at Ulysses.

  A baby started to cry.

  Flora climbed out of the booth so that she could stand next to her father. She slipped her hand into his.

  “Holy unanticipated occurrences,” said Flora’s father in the voice of Dolores.

  It had been a long time since Flora had heard her father say those words.

  “His name is Ulysses,” she told him.

  Her father looked at her. He raised his eyebrows. “Ulysses,” he said. He shook his head. And then he laughed. It was a single syllable. “Ha.”

  And then he laughed longer. “Ha-ha-ha.”

  Flora’s heart opened up inside of her. “Do not hope,” she whispered to it.

  And then she noticed that the cook was leaping and twirling, waving his knife and trying to reach the flying squirrel.

  She looked up at her father. She said, “This malfeasance must be stopped. Right?”

  “Right,” said her father.

  And since her father agreed with her, Flora stuck out her foot and tripped the man with the knife.

  His eyes were closed. His head was bleeding. Flora knew from TERRIBLE THINGS CAN HAPPEN TO YOU! that head wounds bleed excessively, whether they are bad or not.

  “All head wounds bleed excessively,” she said to her father. “Don’t panic.”

  “Okay,” said her father. “Use this.” He handed her his tie.

  Flora knelt down. She had a very powerful sense of déjà vu. Was it just yesterday that she had bent over the body of an unknown squirrel in Tootie’s backyard?

  “Ulysses?” she said. She dabbed at the blood with the tie.

  The squirrel didn’t open his eyes.

  An eerie quiet descended. The whole of the Giant Do-Nut became preternaturally calm. Everything — the donuts, the squirrel, her father — seemed to hold its breath.

  Flora knew what was happening. She had read about it in TERRIBLE THINGS CAN HAPPEN TO YOU! It was the calm before the storm: The air becomes still. The birds stop singing. The world waits.

  And then the storm comes.

  Inside the Giant Do-Nut, there was a moment of deep quiet, of collectively held breath. And then someone said, �
��I think it was a rat.”

  “But it was flying,” said another voice.

  “It was in my hair,” said Rita.

  The cook shouted, “I’m gonna call the cops! That’s what I’m gonna do!”

  Rita was right behind him. “Forget about the cops, Ernie. Call the ambulance. I have rabies. It was in my hair.”

  “You,” said Ernie. He pointed at Flora with his knife. “You tripped me.”

  “That’s her,” said Rita. “She’s the one. Plus she brought that thing in here in the first place. Dressed it up like a baby doll.”

  “I did not,” said Flora, “dress him up like a baby doll. And this is all your fault.”

  The Criminal Element said that sometimes it was wise to put criminals on the defensive by making “slanderous or blatantly untrue comments. The surprising unfairness of this tactic will often stop criminals in their tracks.”

  It seemed to work.

  Rita blinked. She opened her mouth and closed it again. “My fault?” she said.

  Flora bent over Ulysses and put a finger on his chest. She felt his heart beating in a slow, thoughtful way. Gratitude and relief washed through her. And her own heart, which had been beating much too quickly, slowed inside her chest. It answered the squirrel’s heart with its own measured thud, thud, thud.

  Ulysses, her heart seemed to say. Ulysses.

  “I’m calling the cops,” said Ernie.

  “George Buckman. How do you do!” shouted Flora’s father. “Is there any reason to call the police?”

  “Well, for one,” said Rita, “it was in my hair.”

  “Do you think that the police should be notified of a squirrel in your hair?” said Flora’s father.

  The idiocy of this question, its unsettling logic, made Flora suddenly grateful for her father. She picked up Ulysses and cradled him in her left arm.

  “I think I can feel the rabies coming on,” said Rita. “My stomach itches.”

  “Does rabies itch?” said Flora’s father.

  “I’m gonna call somebody,” said Ernie. “She tripped me.”

  “Whom do you think it would be wise to call in this matter of the tripping?” said Flora’s father. He opened the door. He gestured for Flora to walk through it. She did.