Нил Шустерман: Duckling Ugly

"No thanks, I'll pass." .

Then Gerardo looked at me―and not just a sneaky sideways glance. I get those kinds of glances all the time―people stealing a look like they might check out a circus freak. This look from Gerardo wasn't one of those, though. His eyes scanned my face, taking in all my features.

"You know, there's stuff they can do for a person's face these days," he said.

"Really?" I said. "Like what?"

"I don't know. Surgery and stuff. I saw this one show―they took a guy who was like the Elephant Man and made him look halfway decent. Not that you're the Elephant Man or anything."

He was right; he wasn't insensitive on purpose, just by acci­dent. I could respect that. "Yeah, right, surgery," I said. "Maybe if my parents win the lottery."

"I guess that kind of thing costs an arm and a leg, huh?"

"Yeah," I said. "They charge an arm and a leg, and all they give you is a face. Pound for pound, not a very good trade, is it?"

"Guess not," he said. "But there's gotta be some guys around who'd go for a girl... like you."

Normally, I'd be insulted by this conversation. But Gerardo was saying it like he cared about the answer.

Suddenly Gerardo snapped his fingers. "Hey, what about that one kid, uh ..." He looked up, trying to remember his name. "Started with a T. Tad. Todd."

"Tud," I said, miserably. "And that wasn't his name, it was a nickname."

"Yeah, whatever happened to him?"

"Gone," I said, and offered nothing more.

"Too bad, you two coulda been a pair."

Any inroads Gerardo had made with me were now gone. I turned my attention to my plate and didn't look up. I just scarfed down my creamed gopher.

"What? Did I say something wrong?" Gerardo asked.

I could tell him, but the telling would require an explanation, and I just didn't feel like it. "You can go now," I said. "Time off for good behavior. I'm sure Nikki will be satisfied."

"Nope, the bell hasn't rung."

I shrugged. "Suit yourself."

I didn't say another word to him.

Finally, the bell rang, he got up and left, and I knew, like all the others who had come for their own selfish reasons, he would never grace the mercy seat again.

Tud. Tuddie. A kid I hadn't thought about for more than two years, and hoped never to think about again. You could say I had blocked out his memory, but that afternoon, thanks to Gerardo, Tuddie was all I could think about as I walked home.

Tuddie was as ugly as me―maybe uglier, if you can imagine such a thing. He had ears that stuck out like fleshy funnels, a crooked underbite like a badly bred bulldog, pasty skin, and sad, sagging eyes. Like me, there was no actual physical deformity to him, he just had an unnatural case of butt-ugliness. I couldn't even remember what his real name was. Everyone just called him Tud, which was short for "That Ugly Dude."

He used to try to hang out with me when we were still in grade school, thinking we had something in common. I tried to be nice to him―I really did―but the truth was, I hated him as much as I hated the beautiful people like Marshall or Marisol. Maybe I hated Tuddie more, because he saw us as kindred spir­its―as if ugliness loved company the way misery did. Well, I could live with my own face, but I didn't have to live with his. Eventually, I started ignoring him, giving him the cold shoulder, trying to be anywhere he wasn't. Still, he'd always find me―and then people started calling me Tug. "That Ugly Girl," which to me was far worse than any of the other nicknames folks gave me. "The Flock's Rest Monster"―at least that had identity to it. "That Ugly Girl" did not.

Finally, I snapped. I pushed that boy away―told him to crawl back under whatever rock he crawled out from, and never come out again.

And so he did.

One day he just disappeared. Some say his daddy put him out of his misery. Others say he ran away to join a freak show. Ralphy Sherman said he got sold into slavery in Madagascar. Whatever the truth was, Tuddie was gone, and I was glad for it. Once he was gone, they stopped calling me Tug and went back to calling me the Flock's Rest Monster, which was fine by me. Better a solitary monster by choice than a pathetic pair of repulsives.

But with each step I walked that afternoon, there came an­other memory of Tuddie's tragic, festering face, and my own sense of despair began to deepen. Looking at him was the closest I could come to looking in a mirror. His sorry fate, whatever it was, couldn't be much different from what mine would eventu­ally be.

By the time I got home, I was feeling lower than low. The last thing I expected was to find my destiny waiting on the kitchen table.

"Something came in the mail for you, honey," Momma said the second I got home. She left it for me on the kitchen table, all by itself, so I couldn't miss it when I came in. It was a little white square right in the center of the big brown circle of the table.

The letter was addressed in a sweeping handwriting I couldn't imitate even if I had the finest brush. The words were like wispy clouds blowing across a windswept sky.

Miss Cara DeFido.

My name had never looked so beautiful.

"Who on earth do you think it's from?"

I just shrugged. I think Momma was more curious than I was about it. Who with such handwriting would be writing to me?

I picked up the creamy white envelope. The paper must have been expensive, soft to the touch, like velvet. I flipped it over to see who it was from, but there was no name, just an address: 1 Via del Caldero, in a city named De León.

I tried to rip the envelope open, but it wouldn't tear. I tried to peel it back from where it had been sealed, but the glue held tight.

Momma handed me her fancy letter opener. Carefully, I in­serted it into the corner and slit it across. The paper resisted for a moment, then cut with no noise, as if I was cutting through a living membrane. I shivered.

"Go on, go on, see what's inside," Momma said.

I reached in and pulled out the letter. It was on the same creamy white paper. There were no marks or letterhead to reveal the sender―and only three words on the page, written in the same sweeping handwriting.

"Well, what is it?" asked Momma impatiently. "Is it a letter from someone we know? Is it an invitation?"

I held the page out of her sight.

"It's none of your business," I told her. When she realized I was serious, she huffed and left the room. Mom's curiosity would have her stewing all afternoon, but I didn't care. This, I knew, was a personal message, not meant for anyone's eyes but mine.

I sat down at the table and took a few deep breaths. I was get­ting light-headed, and my fingers were getting cold. An inexplic­able excitement was being pumped through my veins. I looked at the smooth white note once more.

Three words. That's all. No signature, no explanation.

Those three words were a challenge, and deep in my heart, I knew it was nothing so simple or easy as a spelling bee. This was the challenge of my life.

I moved my index finger across the page, feeling its velvety smoothness, and traced the letters with my fingertip.

FIND THE ANSWERS

The three simple words that changed my life forever.

Miss Leticia's greenhouse was different during the daytime than it was at night, but it was just as beautiful. When I got there, the sun was shining through the great glass dome of its center sec­tion, casting lines across everything like the bars of a cell. I could now see the tops of the trees in the dome. To me, it was a re­minder that this enclosed oasis was nothing but captured beauty. A false reality to be sure, yet easy to lose oneself in, as Miss Leti­cia had been lost all these years.