Нил Шустерман - Duckling Ugly

"I'm good," I squeaked out. Abuelo never did anything with­out purpose. I was convinced that this was the day he would cast me out. After all, I had yet to make myself useful here. Was my free ride over? My heart began to beat like I was running a marathon, but I tried not to let it show.

He took a look at the walls, taking them in, saying nothing, then stepped back from the fullest wall to see it as a whole. "It looks like . . . writing," he said.

"It is . . . kind of," I explained. "I use the basic strokes of Chinese writing for all my drawing." I picked up my brush and on a blank spot of wall showed him the seven simple marks I had taught myself years ago.

"The Chinese call these strokes the Seven Mysteries," I told him.

Abuelo studied the seven marks, then stepped closer to exam­ine the individual drawings, each one no larger than a sheet of paper, since that was the size I was used to. I waited for him to turn to me, offer his apologies, and tell me I had to leave De León. But he didn't. Instead he pointed to three of the drawings. "This one is the view from your porch," he said. "This, I think, is Harmony's garden. And this ... this is me!" He smiled broadly. "Que bueno!"

I can't tell you how relieved I was by his approval. A man who smiled like that wasn't about to hurl you back over the mountains. "You got all three right!" I said. Even though the drawings were stylized, and simplified with the barest gestures of lines, he had figured them out.

Then he turned to the one wall I hadn't gotten to yet―still stark white, without a single brushstroke. He pointed to it. "Leave this wall blank," he said. Then he nodded to me, said adios, and left without another word.

As relieved as I was that he hadn't expelled me from De León, I was also confused.

Leave this wall blank.

It was a mystery. The seventh mystery, I thought, and glanced at the individual drying brush marks on the wall. Even more than keeping track of the days, I was keeping track of the many strange things that didn't sit right with me about De León. I was supposed to "find the answers" here, but for a place that was supposed to hold all my answers, the people of De León didn't care much for my questions. Oh, sure, they were polite when I asked, but through the pleasant talk, there was a silent air of secrecy―like they all had a malformed child locked away in the attic―which was impossible, because of mystery number one: There were no children in De León.

Aaron had become uncomfortable when I asked him about it during my first days there.

"The women here don't seem to be able to have babies," he told me. "I think it's something in the water."

"That's awful."

Aaron shrugged. "They don't mind. Or at least they don't anymore."

It bothered me, but not as much as it might have, since I didn't plan on inflicting my genes on a defenseless, unsuspecting future―but how could such a thing not bother all the other women here? I asked Aaron more questions about it, but he just changed the subject.

It wasn't just him. Everyone I spoke to had the same kind of response to my questions. It was like all of their information was sifted through a strainer, to remove anything juicy before it got to me.

Mystery number two: "To Serve Abuelo."

I learned about this particular mystery while weaving with Harmony and a few of the other women, when I questioned them about the isolation of the town.

"If nothing comes in or out," I asked Harmony, "how did Abuelo send me his letter?"

The women in the room, who had seemed so happy with their weaving and their humming, now looked at one another apprehensively.

"The monastery," said one of the other women. She was im­mediately shushed, and the silence that fell made the birds out­side seem loud.

I looked to each of them, but none would return my gaze. "Monastery?" Hadn't Abuelo once mentioned something about monks?

Harmony sighed. "We're not entirely self-sufficient," she said. "Our valley is small. We don't have land to raise our crops, or to raise livestock. So Abuelo struck a bargain a very long time ago with the Vladimirian monks."

I thought of the various kinds of monks I knew about. Bud­dhist. Franciscan. Benedictine.

"I never heard of the Vladimirian monks," I told them.

"And you never will hear of them again," a woman named Gertrude said. "They exist to keep us secret. To bring us the food we cannot grow, and to take messages to the outside world when we need it."

"And what do they get out of it?"

"The joy of serving Abuelo," Gertrude said.

"And," said Harmony, "that's all there is to know about that." Then she launched into a song, and the other women joined in. Although I had a ton more questions, it was clear there were no more answers in this sewing circle.

Mystery number three: "Go with the Flow."

I stumbled upon this one while visiting with Claude and Willem, the two men who made furniture. I enjoyed watching them work, and I loved the smell of the fresh wood―but I had a bet­ter reason for hanging around them. Unlike many of the others, they got careless with their talk―especially once they grew more comfortable with me.

"How long have you lived here?" I once asked them as they worked together on a table.

"Not all that long," the tall one named Willem said. "Our little group is nomadic by nature."

"Nomadic?" I said. "It seems to me you've been here for a long time."

"Long is a relative word," said Claude, with a distinctly French accent. "We were in Lourdes before this. And before that Tibet― a valley in the Himalayas, not much different than this, although even less accessible."

"We Mow the flow," said Willem.

"The flow of what?"

The question hit a nerve, and they both became a bit uncom­fortable.

"Just the flow."

I knew I had stumbled upon something important, but what it meant, I had no idea. "So how much longer will you be staying here?" I asked.

Willem rubbed his hand thoughtfully on the smooth wood of the tabletop. "Abuelo seems to think it won't be much longer. But I think he might be wrong." Then he looked out the window. "Just look at that grass. Look how rich it is, look how green."

Claude shook his head without looking up from his work. "He was right the last time."

"Yes. Well, we'll see." And then Willem changed the subject. "Have you considered what your place might be here? What you can add to our little community?" "That's easy," I told him. "Nothing."

"Pshaw," he said. "I'm sure you'll think of something." I never actually heard a person say "pshaw" before. I almost laughed. "You must have some skills."

I shrugged. "I can spell."

"Ooh," said Claude, "witchcraft! We have no witches here. That would be new."

"No." I sighed, thinking about poor Miss Leticia, who had made the same mistake. "Not that kind of spell. I spell words."

Willem rubbed his chin thoughtfully, getting sawdust all over it. "Hmm. Words, words, words . . . we already have a poet."

"And a scribe."

"Ah, well," said Willem, this time with less conviction. "I'm sure you'll find something."

Mystery number four was the weather, and mystery number five was everything that grew beneath the unseasonably warm sun. See, it was almost winter now. Back in Flock's Rest, sycamores would have lost all their leaves; the days would be cold and the nights colder. But in De León, it was always spring on the edge of summer.

I asked Petra, our resident piano virtuoso, about it, and she answered without missing a single note in her sonata. "It's the pattern of winds, and thermal vents in the mountainside," she said. "I think it's called a microclimate. I'm sure there are books about it in Abuelo's library."

I looked, but I couldn't find a single one.