“Uh-oh,” said Flora.
“Flora!” her mother shouted. “I’m not kidding. Get down here right now!”
Flora went down the stairs and past Mary Ann, whose cheeks were glowing a healthy and disgusting pink.
“You stupid lamp,” said Flora.
“Now!” shouted Flora’s mother.
Flora broke into a trot.
She found her mother standing in the kitchen in her bathrobe, staring at the typewriter.
“What’s this?” her mother said. She pointed at the typewriter.
“That’s your typewriter,” said Flora.
She knew that her mother was absentminded and preoccupied, but this was ridiculous. How could she not recognize her own typewriter?
“I know it’s my typewriter,” said her mother. “I’m talking about the piece of paper in it. I’m talking about the words on the paper.”
Flora leaned forward. She squinted. She tried to make sense of the word typed at the top of the page.
Squirtel!
“Squirtel!” said Flora out loud; she felt a surge of delight at the zippy idiocy of the word. It was almost as good a word as Tootie.
“Keep reading,” said her mother.
“‘Squirtel!’” said Flora again. “‘I am. Ulysses. Born anew.’”
“Do you think that’s funny?” said her mother.
“Not really,” said Flora. Her heart was beating very fast in her chest. She felt dizzy.
“I have told you and told you to leave this typewriter alone,” said her mother.
“I didn’t . . .” said Flora.
“What goes on here is a serious business,” said her mother. “I am a professional writer. I am under deadline for this novel. This is no time for high jinks. Plus, you ate a whole bag of cheese puffs.”
“I did not,” said Flora.
Her mother pointed at an empty Cheese-o-mania bag on the counter. And then she pointed at the typewriter.
Flora’s mother liked to point at things.
“You left cheese dust all over the typewriter. That’s disrespectful. And you simply cannot eat a whole bag of cheese puffs. It’s not healthy. You’ll become stout.”
“I didn’t . . .” said Flora.
But then another wave of dizziness came over her.
The squirrel could type!
Holy unanticipated occurrences!
“I’m sorry,” said Flora in a small voice.
“Well,” said her mother. She raised her finger. She was obviously getting ready to point at something again.
Fortunately, the doorbell rang.
To say that the Buckman doorbell “rang” would be inaccurate.
Something had happened to the bell; its inner workings had become twisted, warped, confused, so that instead of emitting a pleasant ding or bong, the doorbell now sent an angry, window-shattering, you-guessed-the-wrong-answer-on-a-game-show kind of buzz through the Buckman house.
To Flora, the doorbell sounded like the electric chair.
Not that she had ever heard an electric chair, but she had read about electric chairs in TERRIBLE THINGS CAN HAPPEN TO YOU! That particular installment of the comic had not contained any advice other than that it would be best to avoid getting to a place in your life where you might have to face the electric chair and any noises it was capable of making. Flora had found it to be a vaguely threatening and not at all useful issue of TERRIBLE THINGS!
“That’s your father,” said Flora’s mother. “He rings that doorbell to make me feel guilty.”
The doorbell buzzed and crackled again.
“See?” said her mother.
Flora didn’t see.
How could one person ringing a doorbell make another person feel guilty?
It was ridiculous.
But then, just about everything that Flora’s mother said or wrote sounded faintly ridiculous to Flora. For example: On Feathered Wings of Joy. Since when did joy have feathered wings?
“Don’t just stand there, Flora Belle. Go open the door. Let him in. He’s your father. He’s here to see you. Not me.”
The electric-chair knell of the doorbell sounded through the house again.
“For the love of Pete!” said her mother. “What’s he doing? Leaning on the thing? Go let him in, would you?”
Flora walked slowly through the dining room and into the living room. She shook her head in amazement.
Upstairs, in her room, there was a squirrel who could lift a vacuum cleaner over his head with one paw.
Upstairs, in her room, there was a squirrel who could type.
Holy bagumba, thought Flora. Things are going to change around here. We’re going to be vanquishing villains left and right. She smiled a very large smile.
The doorbell gave another outraged sizzle.
Flora was still smiling when she unlocked the door and opened it wide.
It was not her father at the door.
It was Tootie.
“Tootie Tickham!” said Flora.
Tootie stepped through the door and into the living room, and then she stopped. Her eyes widened. “What in the world?” she said.
Flora didn’t even bother turning around. She knew what Tootie was looking at.
“That’s the little shepherdess,” said Flora. “The guardian of lost sheep and light. Or something. She belongs to my mother.”
“Right,” said Tootie. She shook her head. “Well, never mind about the lamp.” She took another step closer to Flora. “Where’s the squirrel?” she whispered.
“Upstairs,” Flora whispered back.
“I’ve come to check and see if what I think happened yesterday actually happened, or if I’m the victim of an extended hallucination.”
Flora looked Tootie in the eye. She said, “Ulysses can type.”
“Who can type?” said Tootie.
“The squirrel. He’s a superhero.”
Tootie said, “For heaven’s sake, what kind of superhero types?”
It was a good (and also slightly disturbing) point. How, exactly, was a typing squirrel going to fight villains and change the world?
“George?” shouted Flora’s mother.
“It’s not Pop!” Flora shouted back. “It’s Mrs. Tickham.”
There was a silence from the kitchen, and then Flora’s mother came into the living room with a big, fake adult smile plastered on her face. “Mrs. Tickham,” she said. “What a lovely surprise. What can we do for you?”
Tootie smiled a big, fake adult smile back. “Oh,” she said. “I just came to pay Flora a visit.”
“Who?”
“Flora,” said Tootie. “Your daughter.”
“Really?” said Flora’s mother. “You came to see Flora?”
“I’ll be right back,” said Flora.
She ran out of the living room and through the dining room.
“What a truly extraordinary lamp,” she heard Tootie say.
“Oh, do you like it?” said Flora’s mother.
Ha! thought Flora.
And then she was out of the dining room and into the kitchen. She ripped the paper out of the typewriter and looked down at the words; they were absolutely not a hallucination.
“Holy bagumba,” said Flora.
A loud scream echoed through the house.
Flora took the paper and shoved it down the front of her pajamas and ran back into the living room.
Ulysses was sitting on top of Mary Ann.
Or rather, he was trying to sit on top of Mary Ann.
His feet were scrabbling to gain purchase on the little shepherdess’s pink-flowered lampshade. He paused in his efforts and looked at Flora in an apologetic and hopeful way, and then he returned to wobbling back and forth.
“Oh, my goodness,” said Tootie.