Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures Read online

  Flora hated the little shepherdess.

  Her mother had bought the lamp with her first royalty check from her first book, On Feathered Wings of Joy, which was the stupidest title for a book that Flora had ever heard in her life.

  Her mother had sent away to London for the lamp. When it arrived, she unpacked it and plugged it in, and then she clapped her hands and said, “Oh, she’s so beautiful. Isn’t she beautiful? I love her with all my heart.”

  Flora’s mother never called Flora beautiful. She never said that she loved her with all her heart. Luckily, Flora was a cynic and didn’t care whether her mother loved her or not.

  “I think that I will call her Mary Ann,” her mother had said.

  “Mary Ann?” said Flora. “You’re going to name a lamp?”

  “Mary Ann, shepherdess to the lost,” said her mother.

  “Who’s lost, exactly?” said Flora.

  But her mother hadn’t bothered to answer that question.

  “This,” Flora said to the squirrel, “is the little shepherdess. Her name is Mary Ann. Unfortunately, she lives here, too.”

  The squirrel considered Mary Ann.

  Flora narrowed her eyes and stared at the lamp.

  She knew that it was ridiculous, but sometimes she felt as if Mary Ann knew something that she didn’t know, that the little shepherdess was keeping some dark and terrible secret.

  “You stupid lamp,” said Flora. “Mind your own business. Mind your sheep.”

  Actually, there was just one sheep, a tiny lamb curled up at Mary Ann’s pink-slippered feet. Flora always wanted to say to the little shepherdess, “If you’re such a great shepherdess, where are the rest of your sheep, huh?”

  “We can just ignore her,” said Flora to Ulysses.

  She turned away from the smug and glowing Mary Ann and climbed the stairs to her room, holding Ulysses gently, carefully in her arms.

  He didn’t glow, but he was surprisingly warm for someone so small.

  She put Ulysses down on her bed, and he looked even smaller sitting there in the bright overhead light.

  He also looked pretty bald.

  “Good grief,” said Flora.

  The squirrel certainly didn’t look very heroic. But then, neither did the nearsighted, unassuming janitor Alfred T. Slipper.

  Ulysses looked up at Flora, and then he looked down at his tail. He seemed relieved to see it. He lowered his nose and sniffed along the length of it.

  “I’m hoping that you can understand me,” said Flora.

  The squirrel raised his head. He stared at her.

  “Wow,” said Flora. “Great, okay. I can’t understand you. And that’s a small problem. But we’ll figure out a way to communicate, okay? Nod at me if you understand what I’m saying. Like this.”

  Flora nodded.

  And Ulysses nodded back.

  Flora’s heart leaped up high in her chest.

  “I’m going to try and explain what happened to you, okay?”

  Ulysses nodded his head very fast.

  And again, Flora’s heart leaped up high inside of her in a hopeful and extremely uncynical kind of way. She closed her eyes. Don’t hope, she told her heart. Do not hope; instead, observe.

  “Do not hope; instead, observe” was a piece of advice that appeared often in TERRIBLE THINGS CAN HAPPEN TO YOU! According to TERRIBLE THINGS!, hope sometimes got in the way of action. For instance, if you looked at your elderly aunt Edith choking on a piece of steak from the all-you-can-eat buffet and you told yourself, Man, I sure hope she’s not choking, you would waste several valuable lifesaving, Heimlich maneuver–performing seconds.

  “Do not hope; instead, observe” were words that Flora, as a cynic, had found useful in the extreme. She repeated them to herself a lot.

  “Okay,” said Flora. She opened her eyes. She looked at the squirrel. “What happened is that you got vacuumed. And because you got vacuumed, you might have, um, powers.”

  Ulysses gave her a questioning look.

  “Do you know what a superhero is?”

  The squirrel continued to stare at her.

  “Right,” said Flora. “Of course you don’t. A superhero is someone with special powers, and he uses those powers to fight the forces of darkness and evil. Like Alfred T. Slipper, who is also Incandesto.”

  Ulysses blinked several times in a nervous kind of way.

  “Look,” said Flora. She grabbed The Illuminated Adventures of the Amazing Incandesto! off her desk. She pointed at Alfred in his janitor uniform.

  “See?” she said. “This is Alfred, and he is an unassuming, nearsighted, stuttering janitor who works cleaning the multifloor offices of the Paxatawket Life Insurance Company. He lives a quiet life in his studio apartment with only his parakeet, Dolores, for company.”

  Ulysses looked down at the picture of Alfred and then up at Flora.

  “Okay,” said Flora. “So, one day Alfred takes a tour of the Incandesto! cleaning solution factory, and he slips (Alfred T. Slipper — get it?) into a gigantic vat of Incandesto! and it changes him. And so now, when there is a great crisis, when malfeasance is apparent, Alfred turns himself into . . .” Flora flipped through the pages of the comic and stopped at the panel that showed the glowing, powerful Incandesto.

  “Incandesto!” she said. “See? Alfred T. Slipper becomes a righteous pillar of light so painfully bright that the most heinous villain trembles before him and confesses!”

  Flora realized that she was shouting the tiniest bit.

  She looked down at Ulysses. His eyes were enormous in his small face.

  Flora tried to sound calm, reasonable. She lowered her voice. “As Incandesto,” she said, “Alfred sheds light into the darkest corners of the universe. He can fly. Also, he visits the elderly. And that’s what a superhero is. And I think you might be one, too. At least, I think you have powers. So far, all we know about you is that you’re really strong.”

  Ulysses nodded. He puffed out his chest.

  “Flora!” her mother shouted. “Get down here. Dinner is ready.”

  “But what else can you do?” said Flora to the squirrel. “And if you truly are a superhero, how will you fight evil?”

  Ulysses furrowed his brow.

  Flora bent down. She put her face close to his. “Think about it,” she said. “Imagine what we might be able to do.”

  “Flora Belle!” her mother shouted. “I can hear you up there talking to yourself. You shouldn’t talk to yourself. People will hear you and think that you’re strange.”

  “I’m not talking to myself!” Flora shouted.

  “Well, then, with whom are you speaking?”

  “A squirrel!”

  There was a long silence from down below.

  And then her mother shouted, “That’s not funny, Flora Belle. Get down here right now!”

  When Flora came back upstairs after dinner, she found Ulysses curled up in a tight little ball, sleeping on her pillow. She put out her hand and touched his forehead with one finger.

  His eyes twitched, but they didn’t open.

  She picked up the pillow and moved it carefully to the foot of the bed. She changed into her pajamas, lay down, and imagined the words

  A SUPERHERO SQUIRREL RESTED AT HER FEET, AND SO SHE WAS NOT LONELY AT ALL

  emblazoned on the ceiling above her.

  “That’s exactly right,” she said.

  Before the divorce, before her father had moved out of the house and into an apartment, he had often sat beside her at night and read aloud to her from The Illuminated Adventures of the Amazing Incandesto! It was his favorite comic. It always cheered him up to read about Alfred T. Slipper and Dolores. Her father did an excellent parakeet imitation. “Holy bagumba!” he would say in the voice of Dolores. “Holy unanticipated occurrences!”

  “Holy unanticipated occurrences!” was what Dolores would say when something truly unexpected and unbelievable was happening, which was basically all the time. Life was pretty exciting when you
were Incandesto’s parakeet.

  Flora sat up and looked down at the sleeping squirrel.

  “Holy unanticipated occurrences!” she said.

  It sounded better when her father said it.

  Not that he said it these days. He didn’t say much of anything anymore. Her father had always been a sad, quiet man, but since the divorce, he had become even sadder and quieter. Which was fine with Flora. Really. Cynics don’t like a lot of chatter.

  Besides, Alfred T. Slipper was a quiet man, too. For instance, when he was on his tour of the Incandesto! manufacturing facility and had fallen into the vat of Incandesto!, he hadn’t said a single word. Not even “oops.”

  Words had appeared above his head, however, and Flora’s father had read those words to her so many times that she could recite them by heart:

  HE IS AN UNASSUMING JANITOR. BUT HE WILL DARE TO BATTLE THE DARKNESS OF THE UNIVERSE. DO YOU DOUBT HIM? DO NOT. ALFRED T. SLIPPER WILL LIVE TO FIGHT THE FORCES OF EVIL. HE WILL BECOME KNOWN TO THE WORLD AS INCANDESTO!

  Flora lay back down. If the squirrel were in a comic, she thought, what words would have appeared in the space over his head when he was sucked into the vacuum cleaner?

  HE IS AN UNASSUMING SQUIRREL.

  Yep.

  BUT HE WILL SOON CONQUER VILLAINS OF ALL STRIPES. HE WILL DEFEND THE DEFENSELESS AND PROTECT THE WEAK.

  That sounded good, too.

  HE WILL BECOME KNOWN TO THE WORLD AS ULYSSES!

  Holy bagumba! Anything could happen. Together, she and Ulysses could change the world. Or something.

  “Do not hope; instead, observe,” Flora whispered to calm herself down. “Just observe the squirrel.”

  And then she fell asleep.

  He woke in darkness. His heart was beating very fast. Something had happened. What was it?

  He couldn’t think.

  He was too hungry to think.

  He sat up and looked around the room. He was in bed, and Flora’s feet were in his face. She was snoring. He could see the outline of her round head. He loved that head.

  But, man, he was hungry.

  The door to the bedroom was open. Ulysses got off the pillow and went out of the room. He crept along the dark hallway. He went down the stairs and past the little shepherdess.

  The house was dark, but there was a light on in the kitchen.

  The kitchen!

  That was exactly where he needed to be.

  He put his nose up. He sniffed. He smelled something cheesy, wonderful. He ran through the living room and the dining room and into the kitchen. He climbed up on the counter. And there it was! A lone cheese puff, perched on the edge of the red Formica countertop. He ate it. It was delicious.

  Maybe there were more cheese puffs.

  He opened a cabinet. And, yes, there was a big bag with the beautiful word Cheese-o-mania written in golden script on the front of it.

  He ate until the bag was empty. And then he burped softly, gratefully. He looked around the kitchen.

  Flora Belle Buckman! Get down here right now!”

  “Don’t call me Flora Belle,” Flora muttered. She opened her eyes.

  The room was bright with sunlight. She had been dreaming something wonderful. What was it?

  She had been dreaming about a squirrel. In her dream, he was flying with his legs straight out in front of him and his tail straight out behind him. He was a squirrel on his way to save someone! He looked supremely, magnificently heroic.

  Flora sat up and looked down at her feet. There was Ulysses, sleeping on the pillow. And he did look heroic. In fact, he was glowing. Just like Incandesto! Except oranger. He was extremely orange.

  “What the heck?” said Flora.

  She leaned over Ulysses and reached out a finger to touch his ear. She held the finger up to the light. Cheese. He was covered in cheese dust.

  “Uh-oh,” said Flora.

  “Flora!” her mother shouted. “I’m not kidding. Get down here right now!”

  Flora went down the stairs and past Mary Ann, whose cheeks were glowing a healthy and disgusting pink.

  “You stupid lamp,” said Flora.

  “Now!” shouted Flora’s mother.

  Flora broke into a trot.

  She found her mother standing in the kitchen in her bathrobe, staring at the typewriter.

  “What’s this?” her mother said. She pointed at the typewriter.

  “That’s your typewriter,” said Flora.

  She knew that her mother was absentminded and preoccupied, but this was ridiculous. How could she not recognize her own typewriter?

  “I know it’s my typewriter,” said her mother. “I’m talking about the piece of paper in it. I’m talking about the words on the paper.”

  Flora leaned forward. She squinted. She tried to make sense of the word typed at the top of the page.

  Squirtel!

  “Squirtel!” said Flora out loud; she felt a surge of delight at the zippy idiocy of the word. It was almost as good a word as Tootie.

  “Keep reading,” said her mother.

  “‘Squirtel!’” said Flora again. “‘I am. Ulysses. Born anew.’”

  “Do you think that’s funny?” said her mother.

  “Not really,” said Flora. Her heart was beating very fast in her chest. She felt dizzy.

  “I have told you and told you to leave this typewriter alone,” said her mother.

  “I didn’t . . .” said Flora.

  “What goes on here is a serious business,” said her mother. “I am a professional writer. I am under deadline for this novel. This is no time for high jinks. Plus, you ate a whole bag of cheese puffs.”

  “I did not,” said Flora.

  Her mother pointed at an empty Cheese-o-mania bag on the counter. And then she pointed at the typewriter.

  Flora’s mother liked to point at things.

  “You left cheese dust all over the typewriter. That’s disrespectful. And you simply cannot eat a whole bag of cheese puffs. It’s not healthy. You’ll become stout.”

  “I didn’t . . .” said Flora.

  But then another wave of dizziness came over her.

  The squirrel could type!

  Holy unanticipated occurrences!

  “I’m sorry,” said Flora in a small voice.

  “Well,” said her mother. She raised her finger. She was obviously getting ready to point at something again.

  Fortunately, the doorbell rang.

  To say that the Buckman doorbell “rang” would be inaccurate.

  Something had happened to the bell; its inner workings had become twisted, warped, confused, so that instead of emitting a pleasant ding or bong, the doorbell now sent an angry, window-shattering, you-guessed-the-wrong-answer-on-a-game-show kind of buzz through the Buckman house.

  To Flora, the doorbell sounded like the electric chair.

  Not that she had ever heard an electric chair, but she had read about electric chairs in TERRIBLE THINGS CAN HAPPEN TO YOU! That particular installment of the comic had not contained any advice other than that it would be best to avoid getting to a place in your life where you might have to face the electric chair and any noises it was capable of making. Flora had found it to be a vaguely threatening and not at all useful issue of TERRIBLE THINGS!

  “That’s your father,” said Flora’s mother. “He rings that doorbell to make me feel guilty.”

  The doorbell buzzed and crackled again.

  “See?” said her mother.

  Flora didn’t see.

  How could one person ringing a doorbell make another person feel guilty?

  It was ridiculous.

  But then, just about everything that Flora’s mother said or wrote sounded faintly ridiculous to Flora. For example: On Feathered Wings of Joy. Since when did joy have feathered wings?

  “Don’t just stand there, Flora Belle. Go open the door. Let him in. He’s your father. He’s here to see you. Not me.”

  The electric-chair knell of the doorbell sounded t
hrough the house again.

  “For the love of Pete!” said her mother. “What’s he doing? Leaning on the thing? Go let him in, would you?”

  Flora walked slowly through the dining room and into the living room. She shook her head in amazement.

  Upstairs, in her room, there was a squirrel who could lift a vacuum cleaner over his head with one paw.

  Upstairs, in her room, there was a squirrel who could type.

  Holy bagumba, thought Flora. Things are going to change around here. We’re going to be vanquishing villains left and right. She smiled a very large smile.

  The doorbell gave another outraged sizzle.

  Flora was still smiling when she unlocked the door and opened it wide.

  It was not her father at the door.

  It was Tootie.

  “Tootie Tickham!” said Flora.

  Tootie stepped through the door and into the living room, and then she stopped. Her eyes widened. “What in the world?” she said.

  Flora didn’t even bother turning around. She knew what Tootie was looking at.

  “That’s the little shepherdess,” said Flora. “The guardian of lost sheep and light. Or something. She belongs to my mother.”

  “Right,” said Tootie. She shook her head. “Well, never mind about the lamp.” She took another step closer to Flora. “Where’s the squirrel?” she whispered.

  “Upstairs,” Flora whispered back.

  “I’ve come to check and see if what I think happened yesterday actually happened, or if I’m the victim of an extended hallucination.”

  Flora looked Tootie in the eye. She said, “Ulysses can type.”

  “Who can type?” said Tootie.

  “The squirrel. He’s a superhero.”

  Tootie said, “For heaven’s sake, what kind of superhero types?”

  It was a good (and also slightly disturbing) point. How, exactly, was a typing squirrel going to fight villains and change the world?

  “George?” shouted Flora’s mother.

  “It’s not Pop!” Flora shouted back. “It’s Mrs. Tickham.”

  There was a silence from the kitchen, and then Flora’s mother came into the living room with a big, fake adult smile plastered on her face. “Mrs. Tickham,” she said. “What a lovely surprise. What can we do for you?”