Flora & Ulysses

Tootie was driving.

If that’s what you wanted to call it.

She didn’t have her hands at ten o’clock and two. She didn’t have a hand at any o’clock. Basically, Tootie drove with one finger on the wheel. Flora’s father would have been appalled.

They were in the front seat, all four of them: Tootie, Mary Ann, Flora, and William Spiver. They were speeding down the road. It was alarming and exhilarating to be going so fast.

“So your plan is to effect an exchange?” said William Spiver. “The lamp for the squirrel?”

“Yes,” said Flora.

“But — and please correct me if I’m wrong — we have no idea where the squirrel and your mother are.”

Flora hated the phrase “correct me if I’m wrong.” In her experience, people only said it when they knew they were right.

“Ulysses!” Tootie shouted out her open window. “Ulysses!”

Flora could see the squirrel’s name — ULYSSES — flying out of the car and into the night, a single, beautiful word that was immediately swallowed up by the wind and the darkness. Her heart clenched. Why, why, why hadn’t she told the squirrel she loved him?

“I hate to be the voice of reason,” said William Spiver.

“Don’t be, then,” said Flora.

“But here we are, speeding down the road. And we are speeding, aren’t we, Great-Aunt Tootie? Surely we are exceeding the posted speed limit?”

“I don’t see a posted speed limit,” said Tootie. She hollered Ulysses’s name again.

“In any case,” said William Spiver, “it seems that we are going extremely fast. And we are speeding where, exactly? We don’t know. We are en route to an unknown destination, calling out the name of a missing squirrel all the while. It doesn’t seem one bit rational.”

“Well, what’s your idea?” said Flora. “What’s your plan?”

“We should try to think where your mother would have taken him. We should be logical, methodical, scientific.”

“Ulysses!” shouted Tootie.

“Ulysses!” screamed Flora.

“Saying his name won’t make him appear,” said William Spiver.

But saying William Spiver’s name over and over had made him appear. This, Flora knew from TERRIBLE THINGS CAN HAPPEN TO YOU!, was magical thinking, or mental causation. According to TERRIBLE THINGS!, it was a dangerous way to think. It was dangerous to allow yourself to believe that what you said directly influenced the universe.

But sometimes it did, didn’t it?

Do not hope, Flora thought.

But she couldn’t help it. She did hope. She was hoping. She had been hoping all along.

“Ulysses!” she shouted.

The car slowed down.

“What now?” said William Spiver. “Have we spotted something squirrel-related?”

Tootie used a single finger to steer the car to the side of the road.

“Let me guess,” said William Spiver as they coasted to a stop. “We’ve run out of gas.”

“We’ve run out of gas,” said Tootie.

“Oh, the symbolism,” said William Spiver.

Why, Flora wondered, had she ever thought that William Spiver would be able to help her? Why had she thought of him as her safe port in a storm? Was it because he had held her stupid hand in a stupid dream? Or was it because he never shut up, and she couldn’t give up on the idea that he might actually say something at some point that was meaningful, helpful?

Talk about magical thinking.

“Where are we?” Flora said to Tootie.

“I’m not entirely certain,” said Tootie.

“Great,” said William Spiver. “We’re lost. Not that we knew where we were going to begin with.”

“We’ll have to walk,” said Tootie.

“Obviously,” said William Spiver, “but walk where?”