Flora & Ulysses

She woke with a start. The house was incredibly dark, so dark that Flora wondered if she had gone temporarily blind.

“Ulysses?” she said.

She sat up and stared in the direction of the door. Slowly the rectangular outline of it appeared, and then she could see that it was ajar.

“Ulysses?” she said again.

She got out of bed and went down the darkened stairs and past the little shepherdess.

“You stupid lamp,” she said.

She made her way into the kitchen. It was empty. The typewriter was unmanned. Or unsquirreled.

“Ulysses?” said Flora.

She walked over to the typewriter and saw a piece of paper glowing white in the dim light.

“Uh-oh,” she said.

She leaned in close. She squinted.

Dear Flora, I am teribly fond of you. But I here the call of the wild. And I must return to my natrual habitat. Thank you for the macroni and cheese. Yours, Mr. Squirrel.

Mr. Squirrel?

Call of the wild?

Teribly fond?

It was the biggest lie that Flora had ever read in her life. It didn’t look like Ulysses had written it at all.

Only at the very end did the truth appear. Two letters: F and L. That was Ulysses, she knew, trying to type her name one last time, trying to tell her that he loved her.

“I love you, too,” she whispered to the paper.

And then she looked around the kitchen. What kind of cynic was she, whispering “I love you” to a squirrel who wasn’t even there?

But she did love him. She loved his whiskers. She loved his words. She loved his happiness, his little head, his determined heart, his nutty breath. She loved how beautiful he looked when he flew.

She felt her heart seize up. Why hadn’t she told him that? She should have said those words to him.

But that didn’t matter now. What mattered was finding him. Flora hadn’t been reading The Criminal Element for two solid years for nothing. She knew what was going on. The squirrel had been kidnapped. By her mother!

She took a deep breath. She considered what to do, what action to take.

“In the event of a true and genuine emergency, an absolute and undeniable crime, the authorities must be notified immediately,” said The Criminal Element.

Flora was certain that this was a true and genuine emergency, an absolute and undeniable crime.

Still, it didn’t seem like a good idea to notify the authorities.

If she called the police, what would she say?

My mother kidnapped my squirrel?

The Criminal Element: “If for some reason the authorities are not accessible to you, then you must seek help in other quarters. Whom do you trust? Whom do you know to be a safe port in a storm?”

Flora suddenly remembered her dream, how warm William Spiver’s hand had felt in her own.

She blushed.

Whom did she trust?

Good grief, she trusted William Spiver.