“The human heart is a deep, dark river with hidden currents,” Flora said to her father. “Criminals are everywhere.”
Her father tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “I wish I could disagree with you, but I can’t.”
Ulysses sneezed.
“Bless you,” said her father.
“I’m not leaving him,” said Flora.
Alfred T. Slipper took his parakeet, Dolores, with him everywhere, sometimes even to the offices of the Paxatawket Life Insurance Company. “Not without my parakeet.” That was what Alfred said.
“Not without my squirrel,” said Flora.
If her father recognized the sentence, if the words reminded him of their time together reading about Incandesto, he didn’t show it. He merely sighed. “Bring him in, then,” he said. “But keep the lid on the shoe box.”
Ulysses climbed into the shoe box, and Flora dutifully lowered the lid on his small face.
“Okay,” she said. “All right.”
She climbed out of the car, and then she stood and looked up at the Giant Do-Nut sign.
GIANT DO-NUTS INSIDE! the sign screamed in neon letters, while an extremely large donut disappeared over and over again into a cup of coffee.
But there was no hand on the donut. Who, Flora wondered, is doing the dunking? A small shiver ran down her spine.
What if we are all donuts just waiting to be dunked? she thought.
It was the kind of question that William Spiver would ask. She could hear him asking it. It was also the kind of question that William Spiver would have an answer for. That was the thing about William Spiver. He always had an answer, even if it was an annoying one.
“Listen to me,” she whispered to the shoe box. “You are not a donut waiting to be dunked. You are a superhero. Do not let yourself be tricked or fooled. Remember the shovel. Keep an eye on George Buckman.”
Her father got out of the car. He put his hands in his pockets and jingled his change. “Shall we?” he said.
Stall! Delay! Obfuscate!
“Let’s,” said Flora.
The Giant Do-Nut smelled like fried eggs and donuts and other people’s closets. The dining room was full of laughter and donut dunking.
A waitress sat Flora and her father at a booth in the corner and handed them glossy, enormous menus. Flora surreptitiously (The Criminal Element recommended surreptitious action at all possible junctures) removed the lid from the shoe box. Ulysses poked his head out and looked around the restaurant. And then he turned his attention to the menu. He stared at it with a dreamy look on his face.
“Get whatever you want,” said Flora’s father. “Order your heart’s desire.”
Ulysses emitted a happy sigh.
“Pay attention,” whispered Flora.
A waitress came and stood over them. She tapped her pencil on the order pad.
“What can I get you?” she said.
Her name tag spelled out her name in all-capital letters: RITA!
Flora narrowed her eyes. The exclamation point made Rita seem untrustworthy, or, at the very least, insincere.
“Well,” said Rita. “What’s it gonna be?” Her hair was piled up very, very high on her head. She looked like Marie Antoinette.
Not that Flora had ever seen Marie Antoinette, but she had read about her in a TERRIBLE THINGS CAN HAPPEN TO YOU! issue on the French Revolution. Marie Antoinette, from the little bit that Flora knew about her, would have made a very bad waitress.
Flora suddenly remembered that she had a squirrel in her lap. She tapped Ulysses on the head again. “Lie low,” she whispered to him, “but be prepared.” She arranged the washcloth so that he was almost completely hidden.
“Whatcha got there?” asked Rita.
“Where?” said Flora.
“In the box,” said Rita. “Got a baby doll in the box? Are you talking to your baby doll?”
“Talking to my baby doll?” said Flora. She felt a flush of outrage crawl up her cheeks. For the love of Pete! She was ten years old, almost eleven. She knew how to administer CPR. She knew how to outwit an arch-nemesis. She was acquainted with the profound importance of seal blubber. She was the sidekick to a superhero.
Plus she was a cynic.
What self-respecting cynic would carry around a doll in a shoe box?
“I do not,” said Flora. “Have. A. Baby. Doll.”
“Let me see her,” said Rita. “Don’t be shy.” She bent over. Her big Marie Antoinette hair scraped against Flora’s chin.
“No,” said Flora.
“George Buckman,” said Flora’s father in a worried voice. “How do you do?”
“Cootchie-coo,” said Rita.
Flora felt a very pointed, very specific sense of doom.
Rita poked her pencil into the shoe box slowly, slowly. She pushed the washcloth around. Slowly. And the washcloth (oh, so slowly) fell back and revealed Ulysses’s whiskered face.
“George Buckman,” said her father in a much louder voice. “How do you do?”
Rita screamed a long and impossibly loud scream.
Ulysses screamed in return.
And then he leaped from the shoe box.
At this point, things stopped proceeding at such a leisurely pace.
The squirrel was airborne, and time swung back into action with a vengeance.
At last! thought Flora. It’s Incandesto time!
He had never been so frightened in his life. Never. The woman’s face was monstrous. Her hair was monstrous. And the word on her name tag (RITA!) appeared monstrous to him, too.
Be calm, he told himself as she poked her pencil around. He held himself as still as he could.
But then Rita screamed.
And it was absolutely impossible not to answer her long, piercing shriek with a piercing shriek of his own.
She screamed; he screamed.
And then every one of his animal instincts kicked in. He acted without thinking. He tried to escape. He leaped from the box and ended up, somehow, exactly where he did not want to be: in the middle of the monstrous hair.
Rita jumped up and down. She put her hands to her head. She swatted and clawed, trying to dislodge him. The harder she hit him, the higher she jumped, the more fiercely the squirrel clung.
In this way, Rita and Ulysses danced together around the Giant Do-Nut.
“What’s happening?” someone shouted.
“Her hair is on fire,” someone answered.
“No, no, there’s something in her hair,” another person shouted. “And it’s alive!”
“Arrrrgggghhhhhh!” screamed Rita. “Helppp meeeeeee!”
How, Ulysses wondered, had things gone so wrong?
Only moments ago, he had been looking at the Giant Do-Nut menu, captivated by the glossy pictures of food and the dazzling descriptions that accompanied the pictures.
There were giant donuts with sprinkles, giant donuts powdered, iced! Giant donuts filled with things: jelly, cream, chocolate.
He had never had a giant donut.
Actually, he had never had any kind of donut.
They looked delicious. All of them. How was a squirrel to choose?
And to complicate matters, there were eggs: scrambled, poached, over easy, sunny-side up.
Sunny-side up! thought Ulysses as he clung to Rita’s hair. What a wonderful phrase!
A man emerged from the kitchen. He had on a gigantic white hat, and he was holding something metal that flashed in the overhead lights of the Giant Do-Nut. It was a knife.
“Help me!” screamed Rita.
And me, thought Ulysses. Help me, too.
But he was quite certain that the man with the knife had no intention of helping him.
And then he heard Flora’s voice. He couldn’t see her because Rita was now spinning around, and everything in the restaurant had become somewhat blurred — all the faces had become one face; all the screams had become one scream.
But Flora’s voice stood out. It was the voice of the person he loved. He concentrated on her words. He worked to understand her.
“Ulysses!” she shouted. “Ulysses! Remember who you are!”
Remember who he was?
Who was he?
As if Flora had heard his unspoken question, she answered him, “You’re Ulysses!”
That’s right, he thought. I am.
“Act!” shouted Flora.
This was good advice. Flora was absolutely right. He was Ulysses, and he must act.
The man with the knife stepped toward Rita.
Ulysses loosened his hold on her hair. He leaped again. This time he leaped with purpose and intent. He leaped with all his strength.
He flew.