Нил Шустерман - Duckling Ugly

The fishing pond was mystery number six. Soren was De León's designated fisherman―a big Scandinavian with a blond beard that hid most of his face. He would have looked natural in a Viking hat.

I stopped to watch him fish one day and asked how such a small pond―no bigger than thirty yards across―could support so many fish, and so many different varieties.

The utter panic in the big man's eyes at the question was al­most comical. "I just catch them," he mumbled.

"Still, I'll bet you have a theory about it."

Again, panic. Then he was saved by a tug on his line. "Excuse me." He reeled in his catch. I don't know much about fish, but I do know that I'd never seen anything like this one before. It was least two feet long, with a blood-red head, fading to a neon- blue body, blending into a tail as green as the oak leaves shading the pond from the unseasonably warm sun. It made me think of the Galapagos Islands―a place off the coast of South America so isolated, it gave rise to creatures seen nowhere else in the world.

"So," I said, gaping at the unearthly fish, "is that what they mean by a 'rainbow trout'?"

He quickly strung up his fish with the other equally odd spec­imens he had caught, said "good day," and left like a man racing from a tornado.

And now I had mystery number seven: an order from Abuelo to leave a perfectly good drawing wall untouched, with no expla­nation. Perhaps it was less grand then the other mysteries, but it was just as frustrating. They all knew things I didn't―I was cer­tain of it. It was all a reminder that I was the chimp at the table.

The day after Abuelo's surprise visit, Aaron came to take me out for a picnic. I knew right away that this was different from the other times we had done things together. I could tell because he was ap­prehensive, maybe a little bit excited. This is a date , I thought. The only other date I'd been on was that infamous and miserable night with Marshall Astor―but this was something else entirely. I didn't know whether I was more excited or terrified.

Aaron led me from my end of the valley to the other, where Abuelo's mansion stood, then he took me up the steep slope be­hind it, as if we were climbing out of the valley.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"You'll see."

The soft grass gave way to harsh nettles as we got higher, and soon the rough brush gave way to jagged rocks. The valley was not easy to get out of, or to get into, for that matter.

The shoes they had given me were not meant for climbing this kind of terrain. I wanted to ask Aaron where we were going, but he had this look on his face―a slight grin of anticipation, and I could tell that whatever he wanted to show me, it was a surprise.

Finally, Aaron stopped at a plateau, the mountainside still looming ahead of us.

"Have a look," he said, then gently grabbed my shoulders and turned me around.

I hadn't realized how high we had climbed until I looked out to see the valley spread before us.

On either side of the valley were dense clouds. I could hear distant thunder and see lightning flashes within the grayness. It was storming in the outside world, but the clouds never flowed over those hillsides into the valley of De León.

We sat down and ate sandwiches made from home-cured ham and fresh-baked bread. My clothes had gotten dirty from the climb, but I noticed that Aaron's didn't have a trace of dust. I reached over and touched his sleeve. I did it to feel the fabric, but then I realized I was gently rubbing his arm. I pulled my hand back, a bit embarrassed.

"No, it's okay," he said. "You like the way it feels, don't you? It's made of swan gossamer."

I looked at him like I hadn't heard him correctly. "Swan what?"

"Swan gossamer," he said. "Once a year the swans come in the spring to mate. Hundreds of them. We brush through their feathers to collect the soft down, and then spin it into thread."

"It's so beautiful."

"It never gets dirty. It never wears out."

"I wish I could wear it," I said.

He smiled at that, then reached up and touched my face, looking, as he always did, right into my eyes. It would have been a wonderfully romantic moment, but my face, which had always been my enemy, chose this moment to launch an offensive―and when I say offensive, I truly do mean offensive.

They say acne is caused by pores swelling up, becoming in­fected. When a pore is clogged with dirt, it becomes a blackhead. As the infection grows, it becomes a whitehead. And every once in a while, one of them turns into Mount St. Helens. If you have acne, you know exactly what I mean. And if you don't, just be thankful.

Aaron quickly pulled his hand away when he realized he had inadvertently popped a zit. For a brief, brief instant, he looked at me with the same nauseated disgust that I got from the rest of the world. Then he looked away from me for a moment, forcing that feeling away. He wiped his fingers on a rock. "Don't worry about it," he said. "It happens."

I couldn't look at him now. I was too humiliated. I pressed the back of my hand to my face, just in case I wasn't done erupt­ing. I felt tears of embarrassment coming, so I let my hair dangle in front of my face so he couldn't see it.

"No," he said, sounding a little bit angry. "Don't you do that. Look at me."

I shook my head. What a fool I was to think that I could have anything resembling a normal relationship with someone who looked like Aaron. All my weeks here, pretending I could ever belong―but I was just deluding myself―and the people here weren't helping, they were just feeding that delusion―even Aaron. As he sat across from me, I realized he was just taking the mercy seat. The school cafeteria was gone, but the mercy seat would always be there no matter where I was.

Then Aaron said, "You don't remember me, do you?"

That made me look up. "Remember you?"

"I thought you eventually would, but you didn't. Maybe this will help." He brought his hands to his face. "I don't know if I can do it anymore. It's been a while, but I'll try."

He put his thumbs behind his ears and pushed them forward so they stuck out like funnels. With his index fingers, he lifted up on his eyebrows. With his pinkies, he pulled down on his cheeks, so his eyes took on a mournful droop. He sucked his cheeks in, pushed his lower jaw out so that his bottom teeth stuck out in an underbite. Then he pushed his lips forward and pursed them so they looked like a pink hair scrunchie.

Suddenly it hit me.

"Tuddie?"

He let go of his ears and his eyes and put his jaw back in its natural position.

"That nickname stuck so well," he said, "no one even knew my real name was Aaron."

I looked at that face, that beautiful face, and although I could see a hint of the resemblance to That Ugly Dude, as everyone called him, it was hard to believe this was the same boy. I'd be ly­ing if I said I could recognize him from his eyes, because back home I never looked into Tuddie's eyes. No one did.

"But... your face ..." I said. "How... ?"

Aaron just shrugged. "You could say I grew out of my awk­ward stage."

Then he told me how he had run away, much the same way I had, at that defining moment when he could no longer stand how he was treated. He was on the run for months, until he found this place.

"I dreamed about it, though," he told me. "I knew the direc­tion I had to go, but I had no hints to help me along. It took a while, but I finally found my way here. At first Abuelo wasn't go­ing to let me stay. He said I was too young. This society didn't have room for people our age―but you see, they were getting bored. One party, one picnic, had gotten just like every other. So I started making up new things for them to do. Abuelo chose to let me stay... then I thought of you."