The squirrel didn’t know, but he held the crumpled ball of paper to his chest and tried to comfort himself. He thought, Worse things have happened to me.
He tried to think of what they were.
There was the time the pickup truck had run over his tail. That had hurt very much. There was also the incident with the BB gun. And the teddy bear. And the garden hose. The slingshot. The bow and (rubber) arrow.
But everything that had happened before paled in comparison to this because there was so much more to lose now: Flora and her round and lovable head. Cheese puffs. Poetry. Giant donuts.
Shoot! He was going to leave the world without ever having tried a giant donut.
And Tootie! Tootie had said that she was going to read poetry out loud to him. That would never happen now, either.
It was very dark in the sack.
It was very dark everywhere.
I’m going to die, thought the squirrel. He hugged his poem closer, and the paper crackled and sighed.
“This is nothing personal, Mr. Squirrel,” said Flora’s mother.
Ulysses held himself very still. He found this sentiment difficult to believe.
“It really has nothing to do with you,” said Flora’s mother. “It’s about Flora. Flora Belle. She is a strange child. And the world is not kind to the strange. She was strange before, and she’s stranger now. Now she is walking around with a squirrel on her shoulder. Talking to a squirrel. Talking to a typing, flying squirrel. Not good. Not good at all.”
Was Flora strange?
He supposed so.
But what was wrong with that?
She was strange in a good way. She was strange in a lovable way. Her heart was so big. It was capacious. Just like George Buckman’s heart.
“Do you know what I want?” said Flora’s mother.
Ulysses couldn’t imagine.
“I want things to be normal. I want a daughter who is happy. I want her to have friends who aren’t squirrels. I don’t want her to end up unloved and all alone in the world. But it doesn’t matter, does it?”
It does matter, thought Ulysses.
“It’s time to do what needs to be done,” said Flora’s mother.
She stopped walking.
Uh-oh, thought 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?”
They were in the woods.
He could tell by the smell of pine resin in the trees and the sound of pine needles crunching underfoot. Also, there was the powerful, extremely pervasive scent of raccoon. Raccoons owned the night, and raccoons were truly terrifying creatures — more brutal even than cats.
“This will do,” said Flora’s mother. She stopped. She put the sack down on the ground. And then she opened it and shone a bright light on Ulysses. He clutched his poem to his chest. He stared into the light as bravely as he could.
“Give me that,” said Flora’s mother.
She pulled the paper out of his paws. She threw it to the ground. Would she never tire of flinging his words away?
“This is the end of the road, Mr. Squirrel,” she said. She put the flashlight on the ground. She picked up a shovel, the shovel.
He heard Flora’s voice saying, Remember who you are.
The squirrel turned and sniffed his tail.
He thought about when Flora had shown him the picture of Alfred T. Slipper in his janitor uniform, and how Alfred had been transformed into the bright light that was Incandesto. The words from the poem that Tootie had recited rose up inside of him.
You can navigate by the North Star. Supposedly.
Moss grows on the north side of trees. Or so they say.
If you are lost in the woods, you should stay where you are and someone will come and find you. Maybe.