Incandesto was forever being attacked by his arch-nemesis, the Darkness of 10,000 Hands.
Every superhero had an arch-nemesis.
What if Ulysses’s arch-nemesis was William Spiver?
“The truth must be known!” said Flora. She stepped forward. She reached out her hand to remove William Spiver’s glasses.
And then she heard her name. “Floooooorrrrrrraaaaaaa Belllllllle, your father is here!”
“Flora Belle,” said William Spiver in a gentle voice.
Ulysses was still sitting on his hind legs. His ears were pricked. He looked back and forth between Flora and William Spiver.
“We have to go,” said Flora.
“Wait,” said William Spiver.
Flora picked Ulysses up by the scruff of his neck. She put him under her pajama top.
“Will I ever see you again?” said William Spiver.
“The universe is a random place, William Spiver,” said Flora. “Who can say whether we will meet again or not?”
Her father was standing on the top step in front of the open door. He was wearing a dark suit and a tie and a hat with a brim, even though it was Saturday and summertime.
Flora’s father was an accountant at the firm Flinton, Flosston, and Frick.
Flora wasn’t sure, but she thought it was possible that her father was the world’s loneliest man. He didn’t even have Incandesto and Dolores to keep him company anymore.
“Hi, Pop,” she said.
“Flora,” said her father. He smiled at her, and then he sighed.
“I’m not ready yet.”
“Oh, that’s okay,” said her father. He sighed again. “I’ll wait.”
He walked with Flora into the living room. He sat down on the couch. He took off his hat and balanced it on his knee.
“Are you in the house now, George?” Flora’s mother shouted from the kitchen. “Is Flora with you?”
“I am inside!” shouted Flora’s father. “Flora is with me!”
The clack-clack-clack of the typewriter echoed through the house. Silverware rattled. And then there was silence.
“What are you doing, George?” her mother shouted.
“I am sitting on the couch, Phyllis. I am waiting for my daughter!” Flora’s father moved his hat from his left knee to his right knee and then back to his left knee again.
Ulysses shifted underneath Flora’s pajamas.
“What are you two going to do today?” Flora’s mother shouted.
“I don’t know, Phyllis!”
“I can hear you perfectly well, George,” said Flora’s mother as she came into the living room. “You don’t need to shout. Flora, what have you got under your pajama top?”
“Nothing,” said Flora.
“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.<
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“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.
She did not want to talk to Tootie. And she definitely did not want to talk to William Spiver. She didn’t want to see herself reflected in his dark glasses. She had her own thoughts about the random and confusing nature of the universe. She didn’t need his, too.
Also, she was in a hurry. There was a murder to stop, a superhero to mentor, villains to vanquish, darkness to eradicate. She couldn’t waste time trading stupid thoughts with William Spiver.
“Flora Belle,” shouted William Spiver, almost as if he were reading her mind. “I’ve had some interesting thoughts.” He ran toward the car and fell into the bushes. “Great-Aunt Tootie,” he shouted, “I need your assistance.”
“What in the world is going on?” said her father. He slammed on the brakes.
“It’s just a temporarily blind boy,” said Flora. “And Mrs. Tickham from next door. She’s his aunt. His great-aunt. Never mind. It doesn’t make any difference. Keep going.”
But it was too late. Tootie had helped William Spiver out of the bushes, and the two of them were walking toward the car.
William Spiver was smiling.
“Hello,” her father called out to them. “I’m George Buckman. How do you do?”
Flora’s father introduced himself to everyone all the time, even if the person was someone he had already met. It was an annoying and extremely persistent habit.
“Hello, sir,” said William Spiver. “I am William Spiver. I would like to speak to your daughter, Flora Belle.”
“I don’t have time to talk to you right now, William Spiver,” said Flora.
“Great-Aunt Tootie, can you assist me? Will you take me to Flora’s side of the vehicle?”
“Please excuse me while I escort this extremely disturbed and neurotic child to the other side of the car,” said Tootie.
“Certainly, certainly,” said Flora’s father. And then he said to absolutely no one, “George Buckman. How do you do?”
Flora sighed. She looked down at Ulysses. Considering the human beings she was surrounded by, believing in a squirrel seemed like an increasingly reasonable plan of action.
“I wanted to apologize,” said William Spiver, who was now standing beside her window.
“For what?” said Flora.
“It wasn’t the worst poetry I’ve ever heard.”
“Oh,” said Flora.
“Also, I’m sorry that I wouldn’t take my glasses off when you asked me to.”
“Take them off now, then,” said Flora.
“I can’t,” said William Spiver. “They’ve been glued to my head by evil forces beyond my control.”
“You lie,” said Flora.
“Yes. No. I don’t. I do. I’m engaging in hyperbole. It seems as if the glasses have been glued to my head.” He lowered his voice. “Actually, I’m afraid that if I take my glasses off, the whole world will unravel.”
“That’s stupid,” said Flora. “There are bigger things to worry about.”
“For instance?”
Flora realized that she was going to say something to William Spiver that she hadn’t intended to say; the words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.
“Do you know what an arch-nemesis is?” she whispered.
“Of course I do,” William Spiver whispered back.
“Right,” said Flora. “Well, Ulysses has got one. It’s my mother.”
William Spiver’s eyebrows rose up above his dark glasses. Flora was pleased to note that he looked properly surprised and shocked.
“Speaking of Ulysses,” said Tootie, “I have some poetry that I would like to recite to him.”
“Are you sure that now is the time for a poetry recitation?” said William Spiver.
Ulysses sat up straighter in his Bootsie Boots shoe box. He looked at Tootie. He nodded.
“I was moved by your poetry,” said Tootie to the squirrel.
Ulysses puffed out his chest.
“And I have some poetry that I would like to recite to you in honor of the recent, um, transformations in your life.” Tootie put a hand on her chest. “This is Rilke,” she said. “‘You, sent out beyond your recall, / go to the limits of your longing. / Embody me. / Flare up like flame / and make big shadows I can move in.’”
Ulysses stared up at Tootie, his eyes bright.
“‘Flare up like flame’!” said Flora’s father from the front seat. “That is moving, yes. That is quite lovely, flaring up like flame. Thank you so much. We have to be on our way now.”
“But will you return?” said William Spiver.
Flora looked up and saw William Spiver’s words hanging in the air above him like a small, tattered flag.
BUT WILL YOU RETURN?
“I’m just spending the afternoon with my father, William Spiver,” she said. “It’s not like I’m heading off to the South Pole.”
TERRIBLE THINGS CAN HAPPEN TO YOU! had done an extensive piece on what to do if you were stranded at the South Pole. Their advice could be summed up in three simple words: “Eat seal blubber.”
It was astonishing, really, what people could live through. Flora felt cheered up all of a sudden, just thinking about eating seal blubber and doing impossible things, surviving when the odds were against her and her squirrel.
They would figure out a way to outwit the arch-nemesis! They would triumph over the shovel and the sack! And they would triumph together, like Dolores and Incandesto!
“I’m glad,” said William Spiver. “I’m glad that you’re not going to the South Pole, Flora Belle.”
Flora’s father cleared his throat. “George Buckman,” he said. “How do you do?”
“It was nice to meet you, sir,” said William Spiver.
“Remember those words,” said Tootie.
“‘Flare up like flame,’” said Flora’s father.
“I was speaking to the squirrel,” said Tootie.
“Of course,” said Flora’s father. “My apologies. The squirrel.”
“I will see you again,” said William Spiver.
“Beware the arch-nemesis,” said Flora.
“I will see you again,” said William Spiver.
“We’re of
f to fight evil,” said Flora as her father backed the car out of the driveway.
William Spiver waved at the car. “I will see you again!”
He seemed so stuck on the idea of seeing her again that Flora didn’t have the heart to tell him that he was waving in the wrong direction.
Flora’s father was a careful driver. He kept his left hand at ten o’clock on the steering wheel and his right hand at two. He never took his eyes off the road. He did not go fast.
“Speed,” her father often said. “That is what will kill you, that and taking your eyes off the road. Never, ever take your eyes off the road.”
“Pop,” said Flora, “I need to talk to you.”
“Okay,” said her father. He kept his eyes on the road. “About what?”
“That sack. And that shovel.”
“What sack?” said her father. “What shovel?”
It occurred to Flora that her father would make an excellent spy. He never really answered questions. Instead, when asked a question, he simply responded with a nifty sidestep or a question of his own.
For instance, when her parents were getting their divorce, Flora had a conversation with her father that went something like this:
FLORA: Are you and Mom getting divorced?
FLORA’S FATHER: Who says we’re getting divorced?
FLORA: Mom.
FLORA’S FATHER: Is that what she said?
FLORA: That’s what she said.
FLORA’S FATHER: I wonder why she said that.
And then he started to cry.
Spies probably didn’t cry. But still.
“There’s a sack and a shovel in the trunk of the car, Pop,” said Flora.
“Is there?” said her father.
“I saw you put them in there.”
“It’s true. I did put a sack and a shovel in the trunk of the car.”
The Criminal Element said that it was a good idea to engage in relentless, open-ended questioning. “If you question with enough ferocity, people are sometimes surprised into answering questions that they do not intend to answer. When in doubt, question. Question more. Question faster.”
“Why?” said Flora.
Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures Page 4
