Kate DiCamillo - Flora & Ulysses

“Is it that squirrel?”

“No,” said Flora.

“What squirrel?” said Flora’s father.

“Don’t lie to me,” said her mother.

“Okay,” said Flora. “It’s the squirrel. I’m keeping him.”

“I knew it. I knew you were hiding something. Listen to me: that squirrel is diseased. You are engaging in dangerous behavior.”

Flora turned away.

She had a superhero under her pajamas. She didn’t have to listen to her mother, or anybody else for that matter. A new day was dawning, a girl-with-a-superhero kind of day. “I’m going to go change now,” she said.

“This will not work, Flora Belle,” said her mother. “That squirrel is not staying.”

“What squirrel?” said Flora’s father again.

Flora went halfway up the stairs, and then she stopped. She stood on the landing. The Criminal Element suggested that anyone truly invested in fighting crime, in besting criminals, should learn to listen carefully. “All words at all times, true or false, whispered or shouted, are clues to the workings of the human heart. Listen. You must, if you care to understand anything at all, become a Giant Ear.”

This was what The Criminal Element suggested.

And this was what Flora intended to do.

She pulled Ulysses out from underneath her pajama top.

“Sit on my shoulder,” she whispered to him.

Ulysses climbed up on her shoulder.

“Listen,” she said.

He nodded.

Flora felt brave and capable, standing there on the landing with her squirrel on her shoulder.

“Do not hope,” she whispered. “Instead, observe.”

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She held herself absolutely still. She became a Giant Ear.

And what Flora the Giant Ear heard was astonishing.

George,” said Flora’s mother, “we have a problem. Your daughter has become emotionally attached to a diseased squirrel.”

“How’s that?” said Flora’s father.

“There’s a squirrel,” said her mother, speaking more slowly now, as if she were pointing at each word as she said it.

“There’s a squirrel,” repeated her father.

“The squirrel is not well.”

“There’s an unwell squirrel.”

“There’s a sack in the garage. And a shovel.”

“Okay,” said Flora’s father. “There’s a sack and a shovel. In the garage.”

At this point, there was a very long silence.

“I need you to put the squirrel out of its misery,” said Flora’s mother.

“How’s that?” said her father.

“For the love of Pete, George!” shouted her mother. “Put the squirrel in the sack, and then hit him over the head with the shovel.”

Flora’s father gasped.

Flora gasped, too. She was surprised at herself. The ladies in her mother’s romance novels put their hands on their bosoms and gasped. But Flora was not a gasper. She was a cynic.

Flora’s father said, “I don’t understand.”

Flora’s mother cleared her throat. She uttered the blood-soaked words again. She said them louder. She said them more slowly. “You put the squirrel in the sack, George. You hit the squirrel over the head with the shovel.” She paused. “And then,” she said, “you use the shovel to bury the squirrel.”

“Put the squirrel in a sack? Hit the squirrel over the head with a shovel?” said Flora’s father in a squeaky, despairing voice. “Oh, Phyllis. Oh, Phyllis, no.”

“Yes,” said Flora’s mother. “It’s the humane thing to do.”

Flora understood that she had made a mistake in thinking that William Spiver was anybody important.

Everything was coming into sharp and terrifying focus; the story was starting to make sense: Ulysses was a superhero (probably), and Phyllis Buckman was his arch-nemesis (definitely).

Holy unanticipated occurrences!

He should have been shocked, but he wasn’t, not really.

It was a sad fact of his existence as a squirrel that there was always someone, somewhere, who wanted him dead. In his short life, Ulysses had been stalked by cats, attacked by raccoons, and shot at with BB guns, slingshots, and a bow and arrow (granted, the arrow was made of rubber — but still, it had hurt). He had been shouted at, threatened, and poisoned. He had been flung ears over tail by the stream of water issuing from a garden hose turned to full force. Once, at the public picnic grounds, a small girl had tried to beat him to death with her enormous teddy bear. And last fall, a pickup truck had run over his tail.

Truthfully, the possibility of getting hit over the head with a shovel didn’t seem that alarming.

Life was dangerous, particularly if you were a squirrel.

In any case, he wasn’t thinking about dying. He was thinking about poetry. That is what Tootie said he had written. Poetry. He liked the word — its smallness, its density, the way it rose up at the end as if it had wings.

Poetry.

“Don’t worry,” said Flora. “You’re a superhero. This malfeasance will be stopped!”

Ulysses dug his claws into Flora’s pajamas to keep his balance on her shoulder.

“Malfeasance,” said Flora again.

Poetry, thought Ulysses.

Flora’s father’s car seats smelled like butterscotch and ketchup, and Flora was in the backseat, where the smell of butterscotch and ketchup was the most powerful. She had a Bootsie Boots shoe box with Ulysses in it on her lap, and she was feeling carsick even though the car wasn’t moving yet. She was also feeling the tiniest bit overwhelmed.

Things, in general, were pretty confusing.

For instance, here was Ulysses, sitting in a shoe box, knowing that there was a shovel in the trunk of the car and that the man driving the car had been instructed to whack him over the head with the shovel, and the squirrel didn’t look worried or afraid. He looked happy.

And then there was Flora’s mother, the person who had given Flora the shoe box. (“To protect your little friend on his journey. We’ll just put this washcloth in here as a comfy blanket.”) She was standing at the door, smiling and waving good-bye to them as if she weren’t truly a murder-planning arch-nemesis. Talk about the Darkness of 10,000 Hands.

Nothing was as it seemed.

Flora looked down at the squirrel. Of course, he was not what he seemed, either. And that was a good thing. An Incandesto thing.

Flora felt a shiver of belief, of possibility, pass through her. Her parents had no idea what kind of squirrel they were dealing with.

Her father put the car in reverse.

As he backed out of the driveway, Flora saw William Spiver standing in Tootie’s front yard. He was looking up at the sky; he turned his head slowly in the direction of the car. His glasses flashed in the sun.

Tootie appeared. She was waving one of the pink gloves as if it were a flag of surrender.

“Stop the car!” she shouted.

“Step on the gas,” Flora said to her father.