Нил Шустерман: Duckling Ugly

The principal took away both tests so Marisol couldn't see. "All right, Marisol," he said. "Spell mitochondria."

"Well, I don't see a reason―"

"Just do it," said the principal.

Marisol gripped her chair. First she went pale, then she started to go beet red. "Mitochondria," she said. "Mitochondria. M...I...T...O...K...O...N...D...R...Y... A."

The first time Marisol had been caught cheating she got a three-day suspension. This time she was expelled, and she spent the rest of seventh grade homeschooled.

She was back at school in the fall, though, and it had become her life's mission to make me pay.

Well, now she had. I had a trash can full of dead animals to prove it―and I knew I'd be a fool to think it would stop there.

When I was done cleaning, I took a long, hot shower, but no matter how much I scrubbed, I just didn't feel clean. I could never wash away pretty filth like Marisol Yeager, just like I could never wash away my hideous face.

I threw out my clothes. I threw out my covers. Even my mat­tress was ruined, so I slept on the floor that night, clutching in my hand the shimmering satin note. My one ray of hope was that letter.

Find the answers.

It seemed like a lifeline that could somehow save me from this terrible, terrible town.

That night I dreamed about the boy with blue eyes so intense, I couldn't see the rest of his face. I didn't know where I was at first, but as my vision cleared, I saw that we were in my special place. The green valley where all my troubles didn't seem to exist.

The boy held my hand, and we strolled down the winding stone path. His hand was soft, and the air was warm and full of wonderful floral smells, just like in Miss Leticia's greenhouse. I wished that she would appear in the dream so I could show this place to her, but she didn't.

"Are we there yet?" I asked the boy, even though I didn't know where "there" was.

"Almost," he answered. "Keep your eye on your destination."

But just as before, I couldn't. I tried to turn my head, but it seemed my eyes were locked on his. He didn't look away, the way most people do anytime I stare.

"How can you look at me?" I asked him. "I'm horrible."

He didn't answer, but he didn't look away, either. So I took the bamboo brush that had suddenly appeared in my hand and gently brushed it back and forth across my face. Instead of leav­ing a line of black ink, the brush erased me. I could feel my fea­tures blur into nothingness.

"There," I said. "All better now."

We kept on walking. The feeling of fury I had taken to bed was leaving me with each step down the stone path, and although this growing contentment felt wonderful, I fought to hold on to my anger. I owned that anger. I had earned it, and I didn't want to lose it.

I woke up standing in the northwest corner of my room.

It turns out I was wrong about Gerardo Sanchez.

I had thought he'd be just a one-lunch-stand, but he came back. Oh, he didn't come back to the mercy seat right away, but about a week later. The letter was in my pocket. I had carried it in a pocket since the day I had received it, and no matter how much I fiddled with it, it never got wrinkled or worn. I was so pleased that Gerardo actually came back to sit with me, I was going to show it to him―tell him about it, and ask him what he thought it meant―but I stopped myself. Two visits to the mercy seat wasn't enough to earn that kind of trust. And besides, Marisol might be watching. The thought of her coming by and snatching the note from my hands was enough to keep it in my pocket.

"So who are you trying to impress today?" I asked when Ger­ardo sat down.

"No one," he told me.

"Nikki Smith still doesn't think you're sensitive enough?"

"Yeah, she does," he said. "We're going out now. Been to the movies and everything."

"Goody for you."

There was an awkward silence, but not as bad as the first time he had sat there. "So," he asked, "what do you think's in this burger?"

I lifted my bun to reveal a gray slab beneath a sickly pickle slice. "Kangaroo," I said.

"Yeah, you can tell by the way the burgers bounce."

I looked at his plate. He wasn't touching the burger, but he had already eaten his brownie, so I gave him mine. "There. Two for the price of one."

"Thanks."

"Are you gonna tell me why you're sitting here?"

"Okay," he said, "here's the deal. If I hang out at tables with other girls, Nikki gets jealous. And if I go sit at a table with my friends, Nikki gets suspicious, thinking I'm talking about her and stuff. But she doesn't care if I sit with you. She thinks I'm being noble or something."

"Why don't you just hang out with Nikki?"

"Hey," Gerardo said, "I really like her. But it's not like I want to be around her all the time."

I knew what he meant. Nikki Smith was an okay girl, but she was also a chatterbox, and the worst kind: the kind that insisted that you respond to her chatter. She would not accept the typical "yeah . . . yeah . . . uh-huh" kind of responses that a person could usually get away with. Nikki required an in-depth analysis of every pointless thing she said, to prove you were actually listening.

"So anyway," Gerardo said, "sitting with you is like my only safe zone. Nikki doesn't get jealous because she knows there's nothing going on, and my friends don't care because it's not like I'm sitting with their enemies."

"So I'm like Switzerland," I told him.

"Huh?"

"I'm like Switzerland; I'm neutral territory."

"Yeah. Yeah, that's it."

"Only thing is," I reminded him, "Switzerland is beautiful."

"Well, to be honest, if you were beautiful, I wouldn't be sit­ting here with you right now, so there's something to be said for being the dog-faced girl."

I picked up my spoon and flung some peas at him, but I couldn't help but smile, because for once, someone was laughing with me, not at me.

Gerardo didn't sit with me every day after that―only when he couldn't stomach being around Nikki, which was often enough. He told Nikki he felt bad for me. He told his friends I was doing his homework for him. Neither was true. The truth was, he sat with me because he wanted to.

"I like you," he said one day. "Not in the way guys like girls, because to me you're not a girl."

I'd be lying if I said that it didn't hurt, but the hurt didn't come anywhere close to how good it felt to have him say "I like you" and know that he meant it. I could live with all the uninten­tional insensitivity in the world because of the unintentional honesty that came with it.

Gerardo would tell me things about himself that he couldn't tell anyone else, because unlike other kids in school, I didn't have a network of friends to gossip with. In turn, I'd tell him things, too.

One day he asked me the big question―the one he'd proba­bly been dying to ask since that first day he took the mercy seat.

"I know it's just a stupid rumor," he began, "and I know it couldn't possibly be true ..."I saw how hard it was for him, so I made it easier by guessing the question myself.

"You want to know if my face breaks mirrors."

"You know what? Forget I asked," he said. "It's just a stupid thing people say―"

"It's true."

I don't think he was expecting that. He just stared at me, probably wondering if I was joking.

"Water's the only place I can see my reflection," I told him, "and even then, the water goes cloudy in a second."

"No way."

"Think about it," I told him. "The whole idea of ugly people breaking mirrors had to come from somewhere, didn't it? I'm sure it's pretty rare, but there must have been other people in history who did it."