Нил Шустерман - Duckling Ugly

Marshall smiled. "Really?"

"You should come by and talk to my uncle. I'm sure he'll be very forgiving."

"Yeah," he said, still smiling. "Maybe I'll do that."

"You will not," said Marisol. "You don't need to talk to trailer trash."

"Not all trash lives in trailers," I told her. She started going colors I didn't know the human face could go. "What's the mat­ter, Marisol?" I asked. "You didn't choke on your gum, did you?"

"How'd you know my name?"

"Oh," I said, "you've got a reputation. Even as far as Billington."

"What?" Her mouth opened, and she just looked at me, her head shaking slightly, like her pea brain had just popped its one blood vessel.

Marshall looked at her like she was suddenly something un­clean, and I went on my merry way. This was the start of a won­derful day!

I was the center of attention in every class, and when I walked into the lunchroom, all heads turned, boys and girls alike. They were whispering about me. By force of habit, I looked for my usual empty table―but without the old Cara here, creating her aura of untouchability, there were no empty tables.

I thought I'd find Marshall and Marisol again, and play with their meager minds some more―but then I spotted Gerardo.

I'd known I would see him today, and I thought I'd be okay with it―that I was beyond all those mixed-up feelings I had for him―but I was wrong. It only took a moment for all the feelings to come back.

It didn't make sense to me―I had Aaron now, didn't I? Ger­ardo was a flyspeck compared to Aaron, and yet he made me numb and light-headed in a way that Aaron never quite did. It made me mad, but not mad enough to turn and walk the other way.

I went to the table where he sat with his friends―and let me tell you, they made a space for me like I was Moses and they were the Red Sea.

"You need a place to sit?"

"Sit here!"

"No, sit here, he smells!"

"I've got lots of room for you on the end!"

"Don't listen to those idiots, you can sit wherever you want. As long as it's next to me!"

I smiled, and didn't accept any of their invitations. I knew just how to play this. "Someone told me one of you boys knows something about computers?"

And all of a sudden all five boys at the table were computer experts. I knew for a fact at least three of them weren't, but that didn't stop them from practically climbing all over one another to impress me with their know-how.

I didn't know all that much about computers, but I knew enough to be able to weed out the poseurs.

"Good," I said, "because I need to find a way to install a thirty-two-bit sound card in a sixteen-bit slot."

Sudden silence from four of the five. But Gerardo perked up.

"It sounds like you need to upgrade your motherboard. I could do that for you."

I put out my hand and smiled at him.

"Hi, I'm Linda."

"Gerardo," he said, shaking my hand. "I was a friend of your cousin's."

For a second it caught me by surprise. Then I realized, in a high school, news traveled at the speed of pheromones. Probably every boy in school heard that I was a DeFido. Of course, they didn't know which DeFido I was.

"Gerardo ..." I said, pretending to think about his name. "I think Cara talked about you."

"She did?"

"She was in love with him," said one of the other boys.

Gerardo shrugged. "We were just friends."

"Yeah, that's what she said. She said you were dating Nikki somebody."

"Ah," said Gerardo, "that was months ago."

I looked down at my plate, then picked up my brownie and put it on Gerardo's plate, like I used to do back in the ugly days.

He looked a little creeped out for a second. "Just how much did Cara talk about me?"

I didn't answer him; I just gave him a wink. "Have a nice lunch." Then I stood up and left with the grace of a swan.

There's this expression. I think it's French. Femme fatale. It means "deadly woman," but really means more than that. It means a woman so beautiful, she can twist the world around her finger.

That was me now, and until today, I had no idea how much fun twisting could be. The problem was, I only had today to do it, and it frustrated me. I wanted to take on this school like a tornado, and leave people quivering in my wake―but with only one day, I'd be little more than a passing breeze. I was already trying to fig­ure ways to stretch out my visit―if only for a few more hours.

I knew Marisol had started spreading nasty rumors about me. Marshall was already preening to get my attention, and when I waved to Gerardo in the hall a little bit later in the day, he walked right into a locker. Femme fatale. In a way, it was so much more satisfying than just being one of the beautiful people in De León.

By the end of the day, Marshall had already asked me on a date, and I'd accepted―mainly because I knew once Marisol found out, she'd gnaw her own limbs off. Unfortunately, the date was for Saturday, so I wouldn't be able to follow through. It burned me that Marisol would have the satisfaction of my per­manent disappearance.

Gerardo wasted no time, either. He showed up at my house right after school.

"Hi, is Linda home?"

"Who?" said my idiot brother, who had answered the door. "Oh. Linda, right. Yeah, she's here."

I ducked into my room and tried to get the sudden flush to leave my face. I didn't even think he knew where I lived. When I stepped out, I had the poise and presence of a movie star.

"Gerardo," I said. "How nice to see you!"

"Hi. I came over to fix that computer problem you were having."

"Excuse me?"

He held up a bag of cables and components. "Your mother­board?"

"Oh. Oh, right." The thing is, I didn't even have a computer. "Well, that's all right. We sent it to the shop already. But thank you."

He looked disappointed. "Oh. Okay. Well. Bye."

He turned to leave, but I put my hand on his shoulder and stopped him.

"Would you like a drink?" I said.

He smiled. "Sure."

I figure he would have said "sure" to whatever I offered him. He wanted to stay as much as I wanted him to.

I got him some pop from the fridge. We sat there for a long time, just sipping, and trying to burp up the bubbles quietly enough so the other wouldn't hear.

"So," he finally said.

"So," I said back to him.

He looked at me and looked away, then looked back at me again. "Why don't you give me your number? Maybe I'll call you or something."

"My cell phone, you mean? I don't have one."

"Okay, then give me your home number."

I thought it was an odd request because he already knew the number here. But then, maybe by asking for my number he was testing the waters, to see where he stood. If I gave him the num­ber, it meant it was all right for him to call me―and that was one step short of asking me out. I wished he would have done it right then and there, but when it came to girls, I guess Gerardo wasn't quite as pushy as Marshall. I smiled at him, grabbed a pen and paper from the counter, happily wrote down the number, and handed it to him.

He looked at it closely. "Hmm. Right." Then folded it and put it in his pocket. "Well, see you in school, Linda."

He left, and the second he was gone, I went into my room and did a little victory dance. And then I remembered, if he did work up enough nerve to call me for a date, I wouldn't be here. I'd be back in De León. I flopped on my bed, cursing the unfair­ness of it all. If I could have just one date with Gerardo, just one, I could leave this place forever and be happy, couldn't I? But that wasn't going to happen.

That night, as I tossed and turned in bed, a war began in my mind. On one side were Aaron and Harmony and Abuelo―all the people of De León. I was truly one of them. I felt accepted, I be­longed―I truly did miss Aaron―and besides, I had made him a promise that I'd be back in five days.