Нил Шустерман - Duckling Ugly

"I... don't understand."

"Flesh is still flesh," she explained. "We do not wither, but we do wear. We bruise, we bleed, we break, and if it's bad enough, we die."

"That's why we have to be careful," Gertrude said, and then went into the long tale of poor Virgil Meeks, who was gored by a mountain goat and died at the untimely age of 137.

I thought about this. "It's actually a blessing that the fountain doesn't make us truly immortal," I pointed out. "I mean, what's the value of life if you can't die? How could you ever appreciate anything? This way life is still precious."

"Postmortality", like everything else in De León, was per­fect―but there was still something about it that bothered me. "Postmortality is such an ugly word for such a wonderful thing," I told them. "Shouldn't it be called something better . . . like . . . oh, I don't know . . . Eternessence."

They all chuckled and repeated the word, trying it on for size. They liked it. They liked me. Now I had not only their accep­tance, but their approval as well.

I had finally stepped into that great destiny Miss Leticia had spoken of―and my destiny was perfection. But what happens once you've arrived at that final destination? What then?

I should have stayed content to be one of the beautiful people of De León, but each night, it wasn't the sense of belonging that filled me as I drifted off to sleep. More and more, my mind was filled with the faces of the people back home in Flock's Rest.

"It's natural to think about them at first," Aaron said. "Don't worry, it'll pass."

I believed him, but I had my doubts.

Abuelo called for me two weeks after my "unveiling." We met in his great ballroom. His throne room, now filled with a hundred mirrors: a grand reflectorium. Those mirrors would stay uncovered until the next poor unnaturally ugly soul found his or her way un­der Abuelo's wings―and I would probably be the one to lead the new arrival down the gauntlet of flowers, as Aaron had led me.

Abuelo rose from his golden sofa and gave me a powerful hug. Then he walked around me, looking me over like I was a sculp­ture and he was Michelangelo.

"Harmony does good work, no? That gossamer gown is the finest she's made yet."

"It's beautiful," I said.

"Much love went into it. She has a special place in her heart for you, I think. Like a mother."

That made me think of Momma. Was Harmony taking her place? Was it okay to let that happen? One thought led to an­other, and in an instant my head was flooded with Flock's Rest.

"You are restless," Abuelo said. "I see this. And I also know why."

"You do?"

"It is because you have not found your place here. You have not yet found a task that fits you. Am I right in thinking this?"

I nodded, because he was half-right. I still hadn't found a pur­pose among the people here. It seemed to me all the good jobs were taken.

"I think I know something you can do for us. Something that will fill the coming years of your splendid eternessence."

I looked at him at the sound of my made-up word, a little em­barrassed. He laughed when he saw my reaction, then he opened his arms as if to hug me, but instead spun around, and in the mir­rors, his many reflections spun with him. "All this," he said. "All you see in the valley, it is a world unto itself. Do you not think so?"

I nodded.

"Well," he said, "a world needs a language, don't you agree? The people here come from all over the world. We speak English now because we are here in America, but we may not always be here. What we need is a language of our own. The most beautiful language in the world, like diamonds rolling off the tips of our tongues. I would like you to create this language for us."

My breath was taken away by the request. Create an entire language? Spelling was one thing, but this? "I can't do something like that!"

"You can," Abuelo said, with absolute certainty. "Because everything about you is beauty now. Your face, your voice, and the works of your hands. You will build us this language, and then you will teach us all to speak it... and to write it." Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a fresh bottle of ink, which he put into my hand. He had asked me to leave one wall of my cottage blank―now I understood why. But even so, creating a language was more than just inventing symbols and painting them on a wall. There was grammar and structure―languages grew over eons. No one person ever created an entire language.

"But... it'll take years."

"Indeed," he said. "Hundreds, perhaps. And now that you have been cleansed by the waters of the fountain, you have all the time you need."

And I realized he was right. Any task could be completed if there was enough time! "Thank you, Abuelo," I said, genuinely grateful, and excited about the task.

Then he kissed me on the forehead and turned me loose to begin.

I could have left Abuelo's right then. I should have―I was inspired―I was ennobled by this monumental task... but I hesitated. Abuelo had always treated me with kindness and wis­dom. If there was anyone I could ask about things, it was him.

I turned back to him. "Abuelo, I've been thinking more and more about the people back home."

His face lost a bit of its eternescent glow. Immediately I was sorry I had said anything. "You have only one home," he said. "Your true home. The place you came from―that is nothing more than the broken shell out of which you were born. A worthless thing to be ground into the earth and forgotten. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Abuelo." I left, vowing never to bring it up to him again.

I spent the rest of the day in my cottage, beginning to lay ink on the white wall. I wasn't bound by the seven strokes of Chinese writing, or even the twenty-six letters of English―I could do anything. I tapped into my inner self and began to experiment with shapes and swirls of a brand-new alphabet―and it was beautiful! It was true when Abuelo had said everything about me was beauty now, right down to my brushstrokes. I created sweeping patterns of motion, carving up the white wall.

Yet even in the joy and absolute freedom of this wonderful task, unwanted thoughts kept sparking up, like shocks from a faulty circuit. Thoughts like, Momma would be so proud of me, or Marisol would be so jealous , or Gerardo would be so impressed.

I hurled my brush across the room in frustration. It hit the wall and left an orphan comma. I didn't even know why I should care about Flock's Rest. I had a new family, I had new friends. I had Aaron, who was better than Gerardo in every possible way, and no room in my life for enemies like Marisol.

It's natural , Aaron had said. It'll pass.

And so I took a deep breath and didn't fight the thoughts. I let them come, waiting for the day they would go away. But they didn't. Instead they grew like weeds in a garden―and as any gar­dener can tell you, the only way to get out deep weeds is to go to the root.

"You can't."

"Who says?"

"You just can't," said Aaron, pacing the width of my cottage. "Those are the rules!"

"I want a reason," I told him. "If I had a reason, maybe I could accept it. Maybe."

Aaron threw up his hands. "Why can't you be happy with what you have here? It's more than you ever had in Flock's Rest, more than you ever could have there!"

"I don't want to leave," I told him. "I just want to visit. I want to go back and say good-bye. I owe my parents that much!"

"No one leaves!" he insisted. "And if Abuelo found out you were talking about doing it, he'd be furious!"

Aaron stormed away, then stormed right back. Frustration bordering on anger flared in his eyes. "I never should have told Abuelo to send you that note! I should have just forgotten about you, just like I forgot about everyone else!"