Нил Шустерман: Duckling Ugly

Then I got to thinking about what Miss Leticia had said about words, letters having a magic to them when they were in the right order. Spells and spelling are one in the same. Spelling. Let­ters. The idea struck me at dinner one night so suddenly, I dropped my spoon right into my soup, and it splashed across the table, right into Vance's eye.

"Hey!"

"Excuse me." I got up, dinner suddenly forgotten, and went to my room, locking my door. My parents didn't question it, since I did it so often. Maybe they were glad to have me gone from the table. It was breakfast that Mom was determined to make a family meal. By the time dinner rolled around, she was too tired to care.

The second my door was locked, I went to my desk, pulled the note out of my pocket, and set it on my desk. Then I took out a piece of paper, my brush and ink. I let the tip of the brush soak in the silky blackness, then I closed my eyes, trying to feel a connection to the words. From my mind to my hand, to my fin­gers, to the tip of the brush. Then I opened my eyes and wrote in smooth simple strokes:

FIND THE ANSWERS

Even before I took the next step, I could sense I was onto something. It wasn't just the words, it was the letters. The letters and the spaces between. It was the spelling. It was the spell. I took the letters and began writing them down in different com­binations.

FIND THE ANSWERS

DITHERS IN WRENF

STAINED WN FRESH

TRAIN WEDNES SHF

RAINS WHEN FEETS

THERE WINS FANDS

WHERE FINS STAND

That gave me a moment's pause. "Where Fins Stand." It didn't make any sense, yet somehow it sounded familiar. I searched my mind for the meaning, but I couldn't grab anything from those words. Still, there was some connection.

FIND THE ANSWERS

WHERE FINS STAND . . .

I shook my head to shake the thought loose and kept on play­ing with the letters, but no other combinations stood out in my mind. Eventually, I had to face the fact that I was on a wild-goose chase. As sure as I was that there was something hidden in those letters, logic told me to forget it. I closed the ink and crumpled the paper.

As for what happened next, well, I should have been smart enough to see it coming―or at least to step out of the way before I was hit. But I was so obsessed with figuring out the note, I never saw all the forces around me coming together. It wasn't so much a conspiracy of things as it was separate events weaving themselves together into a net that snared me sure as an animal trap.

The next day was a bad one. For one, all that time I'd been spending obsessing over the note kept me from studying, so I failed a math test. Then at lunch Gerardo spent the whole time talking about Nikki, and how good things were between the two of them. Well, they say bad news comes in threes―and when I got home on that day, I found my dad sitting on the sofa, across from none other than bad news number three: Marshall Astor, Marisol's boyfriend and accomplice in crime. My heart took a long, slow fall into my gut.

"What's he doing here?"

"Cara, honey," Dad said, standing up, "that's no way to talk to a guest."

"That's no guest, that's vermin. I'll get the rat poison."

Dad laughed nervously. "She's got a biting sense of humor, doesn't she? You two talk. I got some, um, business I have to take care of." Dad was out of that house at light speed.

I looked around, hoping Momma and Vance were there. Any­thing to keep me from being alone with Marshall, but they were nowhere to be found.

"So what do you want?" I asked. His foot was no longer ban­daged, though he did still walk with a little bit of a limp. "If you want me to testify against Leticia Radcliffe, forget it."

"What? Oh. No, I never told nobody about that." I saw his toes wiggle in the tip of his shoes. He grimaced, and that just made me smile. I didn't usually enjoy other people's pain, but for Marshall Astor, I'd make an exception.

"Ruined your football season, I'll bet."

He shrugged. "I couldn't play anyway. I was already on aca­demic probation."

I crossed my arms, making it clear I was done with the small talk. "So what do you want?"

"There's no point in beating around the bush," he said. "I'll just say it straight out. I'm asking you to the homecoming dance."

It caught me so off guard I just laughed out loud.

"I'm not making a joke," he said. "I'm serious."

"You think I'm gonna fall for that? What are you gonna do, wait till I get all dressed up and pour a bucket of blood on me? Sorry, I saw that movie."

"Nah, that's gross," he said. "I wouldn't do that."

"Oh, but it's not too gross to fill someone's room with roadkill?"

"I had nothing to do with that!" he said. Then he hesitated. "Well, okay, I did help Marisol scoop up the roadkill, but I didn't know what she was going to use it for."

I just looked at him in disbelief.

"I didn't!" he said. "I thought she had got it into her head that they needed a decent burial, or something. I didn't know she was gonna do what she did! I didn't find out until after."

I wasn't sure who was more of a fool―him for saying some­thing like that, or me for actually believing him.

"So you're telling me Marisol has nothing to do with you ask­ing me to the dance?"

"No," he said, "it's not Marisol's idea at all. In fact, she's pretty mad about it."

"Is that so?" Anything that made Marisol mad was fine by me―but I wasn't foolish enough to think Marshall was doing this out of the kindness of his microscopic heart. "If it's not a Marisol scheme, then you must be doing it on a dare."

He shook his head. "You're so sure you're completely un­datable―well, maybe you're not. Maybe there are some decent things about the way you look."

"Name one."

He panicked for a moment, looking me up and down, trying to find something. Finally, he said, "You . . . uh . . . you've got nice hands."

Hah! Even if it were true, it wouldn't have made me believe his intentions. "I see right through you!" I told him. "You've got some secret reason for wanting to take me, and I want to know what it is!"

Suddenly he got all mad. He picked up a pillow and he threw it down hard. "Why do you gotta ask? Can't you just accept the invitation and leave it at that?"

Then I thought of Gerardo. I never even went so far as to imagine him inviting me to the dance, because I knew he was go­ing with Nikki Smith. I tried to imagine myself with Marshall As­tor, and I simply couldn't. "Who says I even want to go with you?"

He laughed―as if any girl in the world would be a fool to turn down an invitation from him. "You know what they say, Cara. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth." I thought he might make some crack about me looking like the gift horse, but he didn't.

"I only promise you two things," Marshall said. "One: This is not a trick. No one's gonna do anything bad to you, or they will answer to me. And two: You will have a good time."

"And how can you be so sure of that?"

Marshall smiled his winning smile. "Because if there's one thing I know, it's how to show a girl a good time."

And then he strutted out like so much peacock.

After he left, I stormed into my room, slamming the door, even though no one was there to hear it. I just liked the sound of hearing it slam. Nice hands , he had said. That was the best thing he could say about me, and even that was a lie. I was a nail-biter. More than that, I bit the skin around my nails, so both my hands always looked like a war zone.

But then I looked at my hands, and I realized that maybe Marshall was a bit more observant than me ... because my fin­gertips weren't gnawed on at all. My nails were smooth, my cuti­cles were smooth. It looked as if I had just had a hundred-dollar manicure. It was impossible, because I'd been biting my nails more than ever. And yet they were perfect.