Flora & Ulysses

Flora’s father never walked through the hallways of the Blixen Arms.

He ran.

And Flora Buckman, holding her possibly concussed squirrel, ran with him.

Flora and George Buckman ran because the Blixen Arms was owned and managed by a man named Mr. Klaus, who was in possession of an enormous, angry orange cat also named Mr. Klaus. The cat Mr. Klaus prowled the hallways of the Blixen Arms, peeing on the residents’ doors and vomiting in the stairwells.

Mr. Klaus was also notorious for hiding in the green gloom of the hallways and waiting until some unlucky person stepped out of the door of his or her apartment (or into the main entrance of the Blixen Arms or down into the basement laundry room) and then pouncing on the person’s ankles, biting and scratching and growling — and sometimes (weirdly enough) purring.

Flora’s father’s ankles were deeply scarred.

“The cat can smell your fear!” Flora shouted as she ran. “It’s a scientific fact.”

She had read about fear in TERRIBLE THINGS CAN HAPPEN TO YOU! “Fear smells,” said TERRIBLE THINGS! “And the smell of fear further incites the predator.”

Ahead of her, her father laughed his hearty and seemingly endless laugh.

If Flora had more time, she would have said, “For the love of Pete, what’s so funny?”

But she didn’t have time.

There was a squirrel to save.