Kate DiCamillo: Flora & Ulysses

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 through 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.