Flora & Ulysses

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Flora Belle Buckman was in her room at her desk. She was very busy. She was doing two things at once. She was ignoring her mother, and she was also reading a comic book entitled The Illuminated Adventures of the Amazing Incandesto!

“Flora,” her mother shouted, “what are you doing up there?”

“I’m reading!” Flora shouted back.

“Remember the contract!” her mother shouted. “Do not forget the contract!”

At the beginning of summer, in a moment of weakness, Flora had made the mistake of signing a contract that said she would “work to turn her face away from the idiotic high jinks of comics and toward the bright light of true literature.”

Those were the exact words of the contract. They were her mother’s words.

Flora’s mother was a writer. She was divorced, and she wrote romance novels.

Talk about idiotic high jinks.

Flora hated romance novels.

In fact, she hated romance.

“I hate romance,” said Flora out loud to herself. She liked the way the words sounded. She imagined them floating above her in a comic-strip bubble; it was a comforting thing to have words hanging over her head. Especially negative words about romance.

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