Flora & Ulysses

The kitchen was dark, lit only by the light above the stove. The squirrel was alone. But he had the strange feeling of not being alone. It was almost as if a cat were watching him.

Had Mr. Klaus tracked him down? Was he hiding in the shadows, waiting to exact his revenge? Cat revenge was a terrible thing. Cats never forgot an insult. Never. And to be thrown down a hallway (backward) by a squirrel was a terrible insult.

Ulysses held himself very still. He put his nose up in the air and sniffed, but he didn’t smell cat.

He smelled smoke.

Flora’s mother stepped out of the shadows and into the muted light of the kitchen.

“So,” she said, “I see you helped yourself to my typewriter again, put your little squirrel paws all over it.” She took another step forward. She put the cigarette in her mouth and reached out with both hands and yanked the paper from the typewriter.

The rollers screamed in protest.

Flora’s mother crumpled the poem (without looking at it, without reading one word of it) and dropped the paper on the floor.

“So,” she said.

She exhaled a ring of smoke, and the circle floated in the dim light of the kitchen, a beautiful, mysterious O. As he considered the cigarette smoke suspended in the air above him, Ulysses felt a wave of joy and sorrow, both things at once.

He loved the world. He loved all of it: smoke rings and lonely squids and giant donuts and Flora Belle Buckman’s round head and all the wonderful thoughts inside of it. He loved William Spiver and his expanding universe. He loved Mr. George Buckman and his hat and the way he looked when he laughed. He loved Dr. Meescham and her watery eyes and her jelly sandwiches. He loved Tootie, who had called him a poet. He loved the stupid little shepherdess. He even loved Mr. Klaus.

He loved the world, this world; he didn’t want to leave.

Flora’s mother reached past him and picked up a blank piece of paper and rolled it into the typewriter.

“You want to type?” she said.

He nodded. He did want to type. He loved typing.

“Okay, let’s type. You are going to type what I say.”

But that went against the whole point of typing, typing what someone else said.

“Dear Flora,” said Flora’s mother.

Ulysses shook his head.

“Dear Flora,” said Flora’s mother again in a louder, more insistent voice.

Ulysses looked up at her. Smoke exited her nostrils in two thin streams.

“Do it,” she said.

Slowly, slowly, the squirrel typed the words.

Dear Flora,

And then, stunned into a dumb willingness, he typed every terrible, untrue word that came out of Phyllis Buckman’s mouth.

The squirrel took dictation.