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.
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.
Flora stood and stared at the sign on apartment 267. It was made of fake wood and engraved with white letters that spelled out the words RESIDING WITHIN: THE DR.’S MEESCHAM!
What was the apostrophe doing there? Did the doctor own the Meescham? And what was it with exclamation marks? Did people not know what they were for?
Surprise, anger, joy — that’s what exclamation marks were for. They had nothing to do with who resided where.
But at this particular moment, the exclamation mark seemed entirely appropriate. It was terribly exciting that a doctor (who didn’t know how to use apostrophes) lived in apartment 267.
“What are you staring at?” said her father. He was putting his key into the door of apartment 271, and he was laughing softly.
“A doctor lives here,” said Flora.
“Dr. Meescham,” said her father.
“I’m going to see if he can help with Ulysses,” said Flora.
“Excellent idea,” said her father. He opened the door of his apartment. He looked to the left and then to the right. “Keep your eyes open for Mr. Klaus!” he said. “I’ll join you in a bit!”
He slammed the door just as Flora raised her hand to knock on Dr. Meescham’s door.
But she didn’t get the chance to knock.
The door swung open of its own accord. An old lady stood there smiling, her dentures glowing white in the perpetual green twilight of the hallway. Someone inside the apartment was screaming. No, someone was singing. It was opera. Opera music.
“At last,” said the old lady. “I’m so glad to see your face.”
Flora turned and looked behind her.
“I am speaking to you, little flower.”
“Me?” said Flora.
“Yes, you. Little flower. Flora Belle. Beloved of your father, Mr. George Buckman. Come in, little flower. Come in.”
“Actually,” said Flora, “I’m looking for a doctor. I have a medical emergency.”
“Of course, of course,” said the old woman. “We are, all of us, medical emergencies! You must come in now. I have been waiting for so long.”
She reached out and yanked Flora over the threshold of 267 and into the apartment.
The Criminal Element had a lot to say about entering the home of a stranger. They suggested that you do so at your own risk, and that if you did make the (questionable) decision to enter the home of someone you didn’t know, a door to the outside world should be left open at all times to facilitate a quick escape.
The old lady slammed the door shut.
The opera music was very loud now.
Flora looked down at the hand that was on her arm. It was spotted and wrinkled.
Beloved? thought Flora. Me?
He woke with a single, giant watery eye staring at him.
He blinked. His head hurt. The gigantic eye was mesmerizing and beautiful. It was like staring at a small planet, a whole sad and lonely world.
Ulysses found it hard to look away.
He stared at the eye, and the eye stared back.
Was he dead? Had he been hit over the head with a shovel?
He could hear someone singing. He knew he should be afraid, but he didn’t feel afraid. So much had happened to him in the last twenty-four hours that somewhere along the way, he had stopped worrying. Everything had become interesting, as opposed to worrisome.
If he was dead, well, that was interesting, too.
“My eyesight is not what it was,” said a voice. “When I was a girl in Blundermeecen, I could read the sign before anyone else even saw the sign. Not that it helped me, seeing things clearly. Sometimes, it is safer not to see. In Blundermeecen, the words on the sign were often not the truth. And I ask you: What good does it do you to read the words of a lie? But that is a different story. I will tell that story later. I find this magnifying glass to be of great assistance. Yes. Yes. I see him. He is very much alive.”
“I know he’s alive,” said another voice. “I can tell that.”
Flora! Flora was here with him. How comforting.
“Hmmm, yes. I see. He is a squirrel.”
“For the love of Pete!” said Flora. “I know he’s a squirrel.”