Duckling Ugly

by Neal Shusterman

  I had set out toward home, but somewhere along the way, I had changed directions. Now I was near the edge of the town, close to the interstate. I was just standing in an empty lot, facing the mountains.

  What’s more is that I felt an urge to keep on going, like a kind of gravity pulling me in a direction other than down. I stood there for the longest time, trying to understand that feeling. But the afternoon was wearing on. The sun was about to set, and I was feeling cold in a place deep inside. Finally, I gave up and turned around to head home—but not before I realized the direction I was facing. Northwest.

  If I was gonna find the answers, I knew I wouldn’t find them at the homecoming dance. Still, I went out with Momma to get a gown, and then I prepared for the first date of my life.

  I sat in my room, in front of the sheet-covered mirror, wondering what I looked like, playing the game again, reaching up to tear down the sheet, only to pull my hand back like a coward.

  “You look positively”—Momma grappled for the word—“fetching,” she said.

  Vance peeked in and laughed. “Yeah, as in ‘Here, Rover, go fetch!’”

  I threw a curler at him.

  “You don’t listen to him,” Momma said. She kissed me and did what last-minute triage she could on my hopeless hair.

  The doorbell rang, and Dad answered it. It was Marshall, all dressed up in a suit he had already grown out of. He didn’t look all too happy, but he didn’t look all that miserable, either.

  He shook my dad’s hand.

  “You make sure my daughter has a good time tonight,” he said, with a sternness in his voice I rarely heard.

  “Yes, sir,” said Marshall.

  He looked at me. I was afraid he was going to burst out laughing. But instead he said, “That’s a pretty dress you got on, Cara.”

  Momma nudged my shoulder. “Thank the boy, dear.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  As much as I hated to admit it, I was a little bit excited—and fearful, too—but I was walking into this with my eyes open. If Marisol, Marshall, or whoever had something awful planned for me, they would not get the satisfaction, because whatever it was, I would throw it back in their faces.

  Out front, Marshall had himself a car. Nothing fancy, mind you. Just an old Chevy that had passed hands maybe two or three times before landing with him.

  “Nice make-out car,” I said to Marshall with a smirk. “Don’t get any ideas. I’m not that kind of girl.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry. You’re safe.”

  “Am I?” I said. “How about when we get there? How safe will I be then?”

  He started the car and laughed. “You still think we’re pulling some prank on you, huh? I told you, it’s nothing like that.”

  “So then what’s tonight about?” I asked.

  “It’s about going to a dance, having a good time, and taking you home. And then driving away.”

  “And then what?”

  A frightened expression came over his face. “What do you mean, ‘then what?’”

  “What happens then? You gonna take me to other parties? Or is this like the lottery, one date with Marshall Astor.”

  He thought for a moment and then said, “Just enjoy tonight. We’ll let tomorrow take care of itself.”

  When we got there, the party was in full swing. Couples dancing. The shy ones standing on the sidelines.

  It wasn’t until I saw Marisol that I knew Marshall had been telling the truth. That bitter-sour look on her face when she saw us made it clear to me she’d had no part in this, and wanted no part of it, either. For the rest of the night, she tried to avoid us and busied herself with her friends and dancing with dateless boys. I, of course, did everything I could to be in her line of sight as often as possible. I even made a point of running into her in the bathroom.

  “Isn’t this one of the signs that the world is about to end?” I said to her.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You know—hell freezes over, rivers turn to blood, and Marisol doesn’t have a date?”

  She bristled like a porcupine, then tossed it off with a flick of her perfect hair. “Poor Marshall,” she said. “After tonight, I’ll need to disinfect him.” Then she strutted out—but stumbled clumsily on her high heels, clinching this as the high point of my evening.

  Marshall, to my amazement, was a perfect gentleman. He danced with nobody but me all night! Even the slow dances, with his hands around my waist.

  First it felt so strange, so awkward. I had never been that close to a boy. Every time we took a break from dancing, he got me some punch. He treated me with the respect I didn’t think he could give anyone, and I dared to start thinking that maybe I had misjudged him. Maybe, as bad as he was, there was a good side trying to come through.

  Don’t you believe it, Cara, a voice in my head told me, but I was starting to enjoy myself too much to pay it any mind.

  It could have been the perfect evening—in fact, it would have been, if it hadn’t been for one thing.

  Gerardo Sanchez.

  An hour into the party, Gerardo arrived with Nikki Smith clinging to him like kudzu, and he was clinging right back. They were a couple, I knew that in theory—but actually seeing it with my own eyes was too much to take. It set my blood on a long, slow boil, and not even the sight of Marisol on the sidelines without a dance partner could make me feel better.

  Each time Marshall and I danced, they were both there dancing, too.

  I caught Gerardo’s eye, but he didn’t acknowledge me. Maybe he was too ashamed or embarrassed by his confession. Maybe he was just freaked that I was there with Marshall.

  The thing is, even though I had the best-looking boy in front of me, teaching me dance moves, getting me punch, treating me like I wasn’t the Flock’s Rest Monster, I knew he wasn’t the one I wanted. No matter what Gerardo had done that day at the spelling bee, it was him that I wanted to be holding me in those slow dances, with those clumsy hands and those skinny arms.

  But those skinny arms were wrapped around Nikki, and I began to hate her like I hated Marisol.

  The boiling in my blood started making its way to my brain, and I started doing some crazy things.

  I watched Gerardo and Nikki dance, so I danced harder with Marshall. I watched how close they danced in the slow numbers, and I pulled Marshall that close to me whether he liked it or not.

  “Uh, Cara, I think we should sit this one out,” Marshall said.

  “No,” I told him. “You said we’re gonna have a good time, and I say I want to dance.”

  I half expected him to storm away, but he didn’t.

  Then, as the night got later, and all the dances started to become slow, the jealous vein throbbing through my body just hemorrhaged, until it was all I could feel.

  And that’s when I saw it.

  I saw Gerardo look into Nikki’s eyes, and pull her into that perfect embrace in the middle of a slow song. They kissed, and kissed, and didn’t stop.

  I looked to Marshall. He looked at me with some kind of terror in his eyes, but I didn’t care. I grabbed him by the tie, pulled him toward me, and planted a kiss on him, the likes of which he will never forget.

  With all of his jock strength, he could not pull away. I had him locked in that kiss like a boot on a car tire—and the couples around us pulled back until we were there, standing by ourselves. His arms, which had at first been struggling, were now limp, weak, like a rag doll.

  That’ll show him, I said to myself. That’ll show Gerardo. He can have Nikki, but look at me. I’ve got Marshall Astor!

  Finally, I let Marshall go, and he stepped away, catching his breath. His mouth opened and closed a few times, like a fish that had flipped out of its bowl.

  “Uuugggghhhh!”

  He brought the back of his hand up to his mouth, wiped his lips, and didn’t stop there. He practically put his whole hand in his mouth, rubbing at his gums and teeth, as if he could just pull the kiss out. And when he realized th
at the kiss just wasn’t going away, he started to go a little bit pale.

  “Forget this,” he said. His eyes were locked on me, and the expression of horror and helplessness on his face made me, for the first time, truly feel like the monster they said I was.

  He reached into his pocket, pulled out his car keys, and hurled them at me. They hit my dress and jangled to the ground.

  “Nothing is worth this,” he said. “Tell your father he can keep his car! I don’t want it!” His face started to pass through several shades of green. His cheeks swelled.

  Then he turned, looking for the nearest trash can, but the closest thing he found was, unfortunately, the punch bowl.

  I didn’t think he would do it, but that kiss must have been so disgusting to him, nothing could stop nature now. And before the whole school, Marshall Astor threw up into the homecoming punch bowl.

  10

  Tempest and a Teapot

  I tore out of the party faster than Cinderella at midnight, and I left no shoe behind. I didn’t leave those car keys behind, either; I picked them up before I headed out. The jealousy I felt just moments before had played itself out, and all that remained was humiliation. This time those kids in there hadn’t played a trick on me—I had played the trick on myself

  I didn’t know who to be more horrified by: myself for what I had done; Marshall, for finding me so utterly repulsive; or my father, who, in his misguided desire to see me happy, had offered Marshall Astor a used car from his lot in return for taking me to the homecoming dance.

  Is that the going rate for spending time with me? I thought. A Chevy for your troubles?

  Well, I had the keys to that car now. The lot was speckled with rain, and a chill in the wind made it clear that these were the first drops of a storm. Let it rain, I thought. Let their tailored suits and chiffon dresses get drenched and ruined. Let lightning strike and take down the power, so there’ll be no more slow dancing for anyone.

  I got behind the wheel and peeled out of that parking lot before anyone could come out and stop me. When Momma had taught me to drive, she angled the mirrors away from me. But these weren’t. I caught my eyes in the rearview mirror. It shattered. Little bits of glass were next to me on the front seat, and I thought of the sliver of glass Gerardo had kept. Did it mean anything at all to him? Did he think of it once while he was in there with his lips firmly pressed against Nikki Smith’s freshly cleaned teeth like a sucker fish? The fact that I even cared just made me feel worse.

  I knew I couldn’t go home. I couldn’t face my parents now, especially my father, knowing the part he had played in this. There was only one person to talk to now. The woman whose clouded eyes couldn’t see me.

  It started to rain heavier, and the windshield wipers pounded out a drumbeat, primal and ominous. Now the tears I’d been holding back—not just today, but all my life—burst from my eyes, so that I could barely see. The tears were full of all the things I could never be. All the dreams denied me because of a face too hideous to see its own reflection.

  The sobs came with such strength, I couldn’t catch my breath. The tears blurred my vision even more than the rain. I never even saw the gate of Vista View Cemetery until I plowed through it, crashing it open. I flew around the curves of the road winding up the hill and skidded to a halt at the top, right in front of Miss Leticia’s house. A white van and an expensive car were in the driveway. I didn’t stop to think what they might be doing there. Instead I ran to the front door and pounded and pounded and pounded until she finally answered.

  “Cara? What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here, honey, this ain’t a good time at all.” She looked careworn in a way I’d never seen before.

  “Please, Miss Leticia—let me come in! I have to talk to you, I just have to!”

  She looked past me, into the rain. “You here alone?”

  “Yes.”

  She sighed. “All right, then. Come on in—but only for a bit.”

  She led me quickly past the darkened living room and into the kitchen. “Whose cars are out front?” I asked. “Do you have guests?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Guests.” She pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and practically forced me down into it. “You sit right here, and I’ll be back in a minute. Don’t you move from that spot!”

  “I won’t.”

  I was so relieved to be there, out of the rain, away from my life, it didn’t hit me how odd she was acting. I was cold and her house was warm, that’s all I cared about right then. Then I saw something else that could warm me up. Miss Leticia’s tea tray was right there on the kitchen table. I poured myself a cup. The tea was light-colored—not like the tea she usually made. When I picked up the cup, there was no steam coming from it. It was cold. Well, I thought, her tea was something special, hot or cold. I brought it up and smelled it, trying to identify what kind it was. It had a grassy, bitter smell.

  Suddenly I heard a scream, and I looked up to see Miss Leticia racing toward me. She swung her hand and sent that teacup flying across the room, and it smashed against the wall. I stared at her in shock.

  “That tea is not for you!” she said. “Did you drink any?”

  “No,” I said weakly. I was confused and more than a little bit frightened now.

  “That’s good, then. That’s good.” She relaxed. That’s when I noticed she had a little wicker suitcase. It had been packed so hastily, the sleeve of a flowery blouse was sticking out of the side. “Maybe you just better go. I know you got troubles, but so do I. Now’s just not a talkin’ time.”

  My brain, which had been in power-saver mode since I got there, finally kicked in. It wasn’t so much the suitcase or even the quivering tone of her voice that clued me in. It was the look on her empty-eyed face. That look spelled a hundred things, none of them good.

  “Miss Leticia,” I asked slowly, “what happened here?”

  She clamped her hand over her mouth as if to hold back a wail, then took a deep breath. “That van is from the hospital. The car belongs to a doctor. I can’t recall his name.”

  “Hospital?” I said. “Are you sick?”

  “Not that kind of hospital.”

  It took a moment, but then I understood. Even before she said it, I knew why they were here.

  “My son and that awful wife of his—they signed papers, and had me committed. Didn’t even have the decency to come themselves—they sent the doctor to come here and take me away.” She gripped her arms, obviously cold like me, even in the heat of the room. “Old age does terrible things to you…but the things we do to each other are worse.”

  I stood up and looked out the kitchen door toward the dark living room. The truth was dawning on me much faster than I wanted it to. It wasn’t just my life that had fallen apart tonight. Wise and wonderful Miss Leticia Radcliffe suddenly wasn’t so wise, and wasn’t so wonderful. I took a step forward.

  “Don’t you go in there!” she shouted.

  For a brief instant a lightning flash lit up the living room. I saw a hand hanging over the arm of a high-backed chair. The hand wasn’t moving.

  “Miss Leticia…what did you do?”

  And helplessly she said, “I made them some tea.”

  Thunder rolled like the breath of a beast and echoed back from the mountains.

  “It was only supposed to put them to sleep, so I would have time to get away,” she said. “But I used too much lily of the valley! I made it too strong.”

  I stood there, unable to say anything, because my insides had started a war.

  See, there’s a part of you that’s an enemy of the mind. It’s the heart of inspiration and imagination…but it’s also the heart of terror and paranoia. That part of me welled up at that awful moment and said to me, This is your fault. You cursed this poor old woman, just like you cursed your family. Your ugliness touched her and grew into this ugliness. No amount of sensible, rational thought was going to make that voice go away.

  “Where will you go?”

&nbs
p; “I got old friends in old places,” she said. “I can still catch the late bus if I leave now.”

  “I’ll drive you!”

  “No!” she said, her voice like the thunder itself. “That would be aiding and abetting, and I will not bring you into this.” Then her voice became quiet again. “I know where the Greyhounds stop, and I can see well enough to get there. You best leave here,” she told me. “Go home.”

  “I can’t go home.”

  “Then go someplace else. I’m sorry, Cara, I can’t help you anymore.” Then she picked up her little suitcase and left.

  I stood there in the middle of her kitchen, unable to do anything but listen to the rain pounding on the windows like it was the start of the great flood. And then something occurred to me. Something awful.

  “Miss Leticia! Wait!”

  I raced to the door, not daring to look toward the living room. I burst out into the rain and looked around. It was dark, but I could make her out. She was waddling her way across the hill, taking a shortcut to the main road.

  Got a grandson calls me Nana Cyborg, she had said, on accounta all this metal.

  She was a single figure in the open grass, while up above the sparking clouds roiled like it was Armageddon.

  “Miss Leticia! Stop!”

  I raced out to the waterlogged hill. She didn’t stop, she didn’t turn.

  “Come back!”

  And then the heavens exploded. All I saw was a blinding white flash. I felt the thunder more than heard it, and the electric charge knocked me off my feet. It sizzled through me like scarabs beneath my skin, and then it was gone. I knew I had felt only a hint of the lightning. The inky darkness returned, and the stench of ozone filled the air. I ran to Miss Leticia. The grass around her was singed and smoking, even in the rain. She was sprawled on the ground, trembling. Her dress was smoldering like the grass.