Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures

by Kate DiCamillo

  She kept her hand on the squirrel.

  Dr. Meescham came out of the kitchen holding a pink plate with small sandwiches on it. She sat down next to Flora.

  “You are enjoying the horsehair sofa,” she said to Flora.

  “I guess,” said Flora. She wasn’t sure exactly how someone enjoyed a horsehair sofa.

  “You will eat a jelly sandwich,” said Dr. Meescham. She extended the plate to Flora.

  Ulysses leaped off Flora’s shoulder and into her lap. He sniffed the plate.

  “Our patient is hungry,” said Dr. Meescham.

  “He never had breakfast,” said Flora. She took two sandwiches and handed one to Ulysses.

  “This sofa,” said Dr. Meescham, “is the sofa of my grandmother. She was born on this sofa. In Blundermeecen. She lived the whole of her life there. And she is buried there in a dark wood. But that is a different story.

  “What I meant to say is that when I was a girl in Blundermeecen, I sat on this sofa and spoke with my grandmother about inconsequential things well into the gloom of the evening. That is what a girl in Blundermeecen did in those days. She was expected to speak of inconsequential things as the gloom of the evening descended. Also, she must knit. Always, the gloom was descending in Blundermeecen. Always, always one was knitting outfits for the little trolls.”

  “What little trolls?” said Flora. “And where’s Blundermeecen?”

  “Never mind about the trolls for now. I meant only to say that life was very gloomy then, and one was always knitting.”

  “It sounds lousy,” said Flora.

  “It was exactly this: lousy,” said Dr. Meescham. She smiled. Her dentures were very bright; there was a smear of grape jelly on one of her fake incisors.

  Flora reached for another sandwich. Had TERRIBLE THINGS CAN HAPPEN TO YOU! ever warned against eating jelly sandwiches in the house of a woman from Blundermeecen?

  “Your father is a lonely man,” said Dr. Meescham. “Also, very sad. To leave you, this broke his heart.”

  “It did?” said Flora.

  “Yes, yes. Mr. George Buckman has sat on this horsehair sofa many times. He has talked of his sadness. He has wept. This sofa has seen the tears of many people. It is a sofa that is good for tears. They roll off it, you see.”

  Her father had sat on this couch and wept as the gloom of the evening descended?

  Flora suddenly felt like she might cry, too. What was wrong with her?

  Seal blubber, she thought. The words steadied her.

  She handed another sandwich to Ulysses.

  “Your father is very capacious of heart,” said Dr. Meescham. “Do you know what this means?”

  Flora shook her head.

  “It means the heart of George Buckman is large. It is capable of containing much joy and much sorrow.”

  “Oh,” said Flora.

  For some reason, she heard William Spiver’s voice saying that the universe was a random place.

  “Capacious heart,” said Dr. Meescham’s voice.

  “Random universe,” said William Spiver’s.

  Capacious. Random. Heart. Universe.

  Flora felt dizzy.

  “I’m a cynic!” she announced for no particular reason and in a too-loud voice.

  “Bah, cynics,” said Dr. Meescham. “Cynics are people who are afraid to believe.” She waved her hand in front of her face as if she were brushing away a fly.

  “Do you believe in, um, things?” said Flora.

  “Yes, yes, I believe,” said Dr. Meescham. She smiled her too-bright smile again. “You have heard of Pascal’s Wager?”

  “No,” said Flora.

  “Pascal,” said Dr. Meescham, “had it that since it could not be proven whether God existed, one might as well believe that he did, because there was everything to gain by believing and nothing to lose. This is how it is for me. What do I lose if I choose to believe? Nothing!

  “Take this squirrel, for instance. Ulysses. Do I believe he can type poetry? Sure, I do believe it. There is much more beauty in the world if I believe such a thing is possible.”

  Flora and Dr. Meescham looked at Ulysses. He was holding half a sandwich in his front paws. There were blobs of grape jelly in his whiskers.

  “Do you know what a superhero is?” said Flora.

  “Sure, I know what a superhero is.”

  “Ulysses is a superhero,” said Flora. “But he hasn’t really done anything heroic yet. Mostly he’s just flown around. He lifted a vacuum cleaner over his head. He wrote some poetry. He hasn’t saved anyone, though. And that’s what superheroes are supposed to do, save people.”

  “Who knows what he will do?” said Dr. Meescham. “Who knows whom he will save? So many miracles have not yet happened.”

  Flora watched as one of the jelly blobs on Ulysses’s whiskers trembled and fell in slow motion to the horsehair sofa.

  “All things are possible,” said Dr. Meescham. “When I was a girl in Blundermeecen, the miraculous happened every day. Or every other day. Or every third day. Actually, sometimes it did not happen at all, even on the third day. But still, we expected it. You see what I’m saying? Even when it didn’t happen, we were expecting it. We knew the miraculous would come.”

  There was a knock at the door.

  “See?” said Dr. Meescham. “This will be your father, Mr. George Buckman.”

  Flora stood and went to the door and opened it. It was her father. And he was smiling. Again. Still. Which did seem kind of miraculous.

  “Hi, Pop,” she said.

  “You see?” said Dr. Meescham. “He smiles.”

  Flora’s father’s smile got bigger. He took off his hat. He bowed. “George Buckman,” he said. “How do you do?”

  Flora couldn’t help it; she smiled, too.

  She was still smiling when a noise that sounded like the end of the world echoed through the hallway of the Blixen Arms. One minute her father was standing there with his hat in his hands, smiling, and the next minute, Mr. Klaus (the cat one) came out of nowhere and landed right on top of George Buckman’s unprotected head.

  They were in the car. Flora’s father’s hands were on the steering wheel at ten o’clock and two. Flora was sitting up front and Ulysses’s head was out the window. They were heading back to Flora’s mother’s house in spite of Flora’s protestations.

  “We have to go back,” said her father. “We have to return at the regular Saturday-afternoon time. We have to act normal, natural, unconcerned.”

  Flora wanted to object, but she could read the writing on the wall, or rather she could read the words that hovered above her and her father and the squirrel.

  DESTINY COULD NO LONGER BE FORESTALLED!

  THE ARCH-NEMESIS MUST BE FACED!

  “Holy bagumba,” said her father. His right ear was wrapped in a huge amount of gauze. His head looked lopsided. “Holy unanticipated occurrences! A squirrel vanquished a cat.” He shook his head. He smiled.

  “And now it’s time for another battle,” said Flora.

  “Everything will be fine,” said her father.

  “So you say,” said Flora.

  It started to rain.

  Ulysses pulled his head back inside the car. He looked up at Flora, and the sight of his little whiskered face calmed her somehow. She smiled at him, and the squirrel sighed happily and curled up in her lap.

  “When I was a girl in Blundermeecen,” Dr. Meescham had said to Flora when they were all leaving apartment 267, “we wondered always if we would see each other again. Each day was uncertain. So, to say good-bye to someone was uncertain, too. Would you see them again? Who could say? Blundermeecen was a place of dark secrets, unmarked graves, terrible curses. Trolls were everywhere! So we said good-bye to each other the best way we could. We said: I promise to always turn back toward you.

  “I say those words to you now, Flora Belle. I promise to always turn back toward you. And now you must say them to me.”

  “I promise to always turn back toward yo
u,” Flora had said.

  She whispered the words again, now, to the squirrel. “I promise to always turn back toward you.”

  She put a finger on Ulysses’s chest. His tiny heart was beating out a message that felt like I promise, I promise, I promise.

  Hearts were the strangest things.

  “Pop?” said Flora.

  “Yes,” said her father.

  “Can I feel your heart?”

  “My heart?” said her father. “Okay. Sure.”

  And then, for the first time ever, George Buckman took both his hands off the steering wheel while the car was in motion. He opened his arms wide. Flora gently moved Ulysses out of her lap and onto the seat beside her, and then she reached up and across and put her hand on the left side of her father’s chest.

  And she felt it. Her father’s heart, beating there inside of him. It felt very certain, very strong, and very large. Just like Dr. Meescham had said: capacious.

  “Thank you,” she told him.

  “Sure,” he said. “You bet.”

  He put his hands back on the steering wheel at ten o’clock and two, and the three of them — Flora, her father, and the squirrel — traveled the rest of the way home in a strange and peaceful silence.

  The only noise was from the windshield wipers; they hummed back and forth, and back and forth, singing a sweet, out-of-tune song.

  The squirrel slept.

  And Flora Belle Buckman was happy.

  Her father pulled the car into the driveway and cut the engine. The windshield wipers let out a surprised squeak and then froze in midwave. The rain slowed to a trickle. The sun came out from behind a cloud and then disappeared again, and the smell of ketchup melded with butterscotch rose with a gentle persistence from the seats of the car.

  “Here we are,” said her father.

  “Yep,” said Flora. “Here we are.”

  412 Bellegrade Avenue.

  It was the house that Flora had lived in for the whole of her life.

  But something was different about it; something had changed.

  What was it?

  Ulysses crawled up onto her shoulder. She put her hand on him.

  The house looked sneaky somehow, almost as if it were up to no good.

  Foreboding.

  That was the word that popped into Flora’s head.

  The house seemed full of foreboding.

  “Do inanimate objects (couches, chairs, spatulas, etc.) absorb the energy of the criminals, the wrongdoers among whom they live?” The Criminal Element had queried in a recent issue.

  “It is, of course, entirely unscientific to assume such a thing. But still, we are forced to admit that in this woeful world, there exist objects with an almost palpable energy of menace . . . spatulas that seem cursed, couches that contain literal and metaphorical stains of the past, houses that seem to perpetually groan and moan for the sins contained in their environs. Can we explain this? No. Do we understand this? We do not. Do we know that criminals exist? We do. We are also terribly (and unfortunately) certain that the criminal element will be Forever Among Us.”

  And the arch-nemesis, thought Flora, the arch-nemesis will be forever among us, too. Ulysses’s arch-nemesis is in that house right now.

  “Do you remember the Darkness of 10,000 Hands?” Flora said to her father.

  “Yep,” said her father. “He wields 10,000 hands of anger, greed, and revenge. He is the sworn enemy of Incandesto.”

  “He’s Incandesto’s arch-nemesis,” said Flora.

  “Right,” said her father. “I tell you what. The Darkness of 10,000 Hands better stay away from our squirrel.”

  He honked the horn.

  “Home the warrior!” he shouted. “Home the cat-conquering, superhero squirrel!”

  Ulysses puffed out his chest.

  “Let’s go,” Flora said. “We have to do it. We have to face the arch-nemesis.”

  “Right!” said her father. “Bravely forward!”

  And he honked the horn again.

  They walked into the house, and the little shepherdess was waiting for them. She was standing where she always stood: the lamb at her feet, the tiny globe above her head, and a look on her face that said, I know something you don’t know.

  Flora’s father took off his hat and bowed to the lamp. “George Buckman,” he said. “How do you do?”

  “Hello?” Flora shouted into the silence of the house.

  From the kitchen came the sound of laughter.

  “Mom?” said Flora.

  No one answered.

  Flora’s sense of foreboding deepened, expanded.

  And then her mother spoke.

  She said, “That’s absolutely right, William.”

  William?

  William?

  There was only one William that Flora knew. What would he be doing in the kitchen with a known arch-nemesis?

  And then came the familiar rattle of the typewriter keys being struck, the thwack of the carriage return being hit.

  Ulysses’s grip on her shoulder tightened. He let out a small chirrup of excitement.

  Her mother laughed again.

  The laughter was followed by the truly terrifying words “Thank you so much, William.”

  “Shhh,” said Flora to her father, who was standing, listening, his hat in his hands and a goofy smile on his face. There was a small, round drop of blood on his ear bandage. It looked oddly festive.

  “You stay here,” Flora said to him. “Ulysses and I will go and check this out.”

  “Right, right,” said her father. “You bet. I’ll stay here.” He put his hat on his head. He nodded.

  Flora, superhero on her shoulder, walked quietly, stealthily through the living room and into the dining room and stood before the closed kitchen door. She held herself very still. She made herself into a Giant Ear.

  She was getting extremely good at making herself into a Giant Ear.

  Flora listened, and she could feel Ulysses, his body tense and expectant, listening, too.

  Her mother spoke. She said, “Yes, it will go like this: ‘Frederico, I have dreamed of you for eons.’”

  “No,” said another voice, a high, thin, and extremely annoying voice. “‘I’ve dreamed of you for all eternity.’”

  “Ooooh,” said Flora’s mother. “‘For all eternity.’ That’s good. More poetic.”

  Ulysses shifted his position on Flora’s shoulder. He nodded.

  “Yes, exactly,” said William Spiver. “More poetic. ‘Eons’ sounds too geological. There’s nothing romantic about geology, I assure you.”

  “Okay, okay,” said Flora’s mother. “Right. What’s next, William?”

  “Actually,” said William Spiver, “if you don’t mind, I would prefer to be called William Spiver.”

  “Of course,” said Flora’s mother. “I’m sorry. What’s next, William Spiver?”

  “Let me see,” said William Spiver. “I suppose Frederico would say, ‘And I have dreamed of you, Angelique. My darling! I must tell you that they were dreams so vivid and beautiful that I am loath to wake to reality.’”

  “Ooooh, that’s good. Hold on a sec.”

  The typewriter keys came to clacking life. The carriage return dinged.

  “Do you think that’s good?” Flora whispered to Ulysses. “Do you think that’s good writing?”

  Ulysses shook his head. His whiskers brushed against her cheek.

  “I don’t think so, either,” she said.

  Actually, she thought it was terrible. It was sickly sweet nonsense. There was a word for that. What was it?

  Treacle. That was it.

  Having located the correct word, Flora felt a sudden need to say the word aloud. And so she did. She pushed open the kitchen door. She stepped forward.

  “Treacle!” she shouted.

  “Flora?” said her mother.

  “Treacle?” said William Spiver.

  “Yes!” said Flora.

  She was pleased that with one simple w
ord she had answered two very important questions.

  Yes, she was Flora.

  And yes, it was treacle.

  William Spiver was wearing his dark glasses. There was a Pitzer Pop in his mouth. He was smiling.

  He looked exactly like a villain.

  That’s what Flora’s brain thought.

  But her heart, her treacherous heart, rose up joyfully inside of her at the sight of him. Flora’s heart was actually glad to see William Spiver.

  There was so much she wanted to talk to him about: Pascal’s Wager, Dr. Meescham, the other Dr. Meescham, giant squids, giant donuts (and who was dunking them), if he had ever heard of a place called Blundermeecen, if he had ever sat on a horsehair sofa.

  But William Spiver was sitting beside Ulysses’s arch-nemesis. Smiling.

  Obviously he could not be trusted.

  “Flora Belle?” said William Spiver.

  “It’s me,” said Flora. “I’m surprised you don’t smell me, William Spiver. Since you can smell everything.”

  “I have never claimed to be able to smell everything; however, it is true that right now I am smelling squirrel. And there is another odor. It is something sweet, some scent redolent of school lunchrooms on rainy Thursdays. What is it? Jelly. Yes, grape jelly. I smell squirrel and grape jelly.”

  “Squirrel?” said Flora’s mother. She turned away from the typewriter. She looked at Flora. “Squirrel!” she said. “What in the world are you doing back here with that squirrel? I told your father —”

  “This malfeasance must be stopped!” shouted Flora.

  Her mother, hands still poised over the keys of the typewriter, stared at Flora with her mouth open.

  William Spiver, for once, was silent.

  On Flora’s shoulder, the squirrel trembled.

  Flora slowly raised her left arm. She pointed at her mother. She said, “What did you tell my father to do to the squirrel?”

  Her mother cleared her throat. “I told your father —”

  But the sentence remained unfinished, the truth unuttered, because the kitchen door suddenly swung open to reveal Flora’s father.

  “George Buckman,” he said to the room at large. “How do you do?”

  He walked into the kitchen. He stood beside Flora.