Flora & Ulysses

They were making their getaway, but they were making their getaway slowly. Because even when Flora’s father was thinking that things were hilarious, even when he was talking like a parakeet, he still, apparently, did not believe in speeding.

Flora kept looking behind them to see if they were being followed by the cops. Or Rita and Ernie.

When she finally looked down at Ulysses, his eyes were still closed, and a terrible thought occurred to her.

“What if he has a concussion?” she said to her father.

Her father, of course, laughed.

Flora tried to remember what TERRIBLE THINGS CAN HAPPEN TO YOU! said about concussions. There was something about making the person with the head injury speak a favorite nursery rhyme so that speech patterns — slurring, et cetera — could be evaluated.

Flora stared at the squirrel.

He couldn’t speak. Also, she doubted he knew any nursery rhymes.

There was a very small cut on his head, but the bleeding had stopped and he was breathing softly, regularly.

“Ulysses?” she said.

And then she remembered, in its entirety, an ominous sentence from TERRIBLE THINGS! “It is absolutely imperative that you keep the potentially concussed patient awake at all times.”

She shook the squirrel gently. His eyes stayed closed. She shook him harder and he opened his eyes and then closed them again.

Flora’s heart thudded once and then dropped all the way down to her toes. She was suddenly terrified.

“Do superheroes die?” she said out loud.

Her father stopped laughing. “Listen,” he said. “We won’t let him die.”

Flora’s heart thudded again, a different kind of thud. It wasn’t fear this time. It was hope.

“Does that mean that you won’t try to hit him over the head with a shovel?” she said.

“I won’t,” said her father.

“Ever?”

“Ever.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

Her father looked at her in the rearview mirror. Flora looked back.

“Let’s go to your place, then,” she said. “He’ll be safe there.”

At these words, George Buckman started laughing hysterically. Again.