Duckling Ugly

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."

Now I couldn't look him in the face again, but this time for a different reason. A different kind of shame.

"Why would you think of me? I was so nasty to you."

"So was everyone," said Aaron.

"But coming from me, it must have been worse."

"It was. But after a while I stopped blaming you for it. See, Cara, I understand. I know what it's like to hate your face so much, you wish you could be out of your own skin. And so when you looked at me, how could you help but hate me, when I only reminded you of yourself?"

His unconditional forgiveness made me feel less deserving of it. "Well, as you can see," I said bitterly, "I have not grown out of my awkward phase, and all your charity isn't going to change it."

"You know what your problem is? You spent too much time listening to all those idiots in Flock's Rest who made you feel worthless. That girl―what was her name? Marissa?"

"Marisol," I said, growling it out like it was a foul word.

"You still think about her, and all the others, don't you?"

"Sometimes."

"Well, don't! I never think about any of them―not at all. Because I am not Tuddie anymore, and you don't have to be the Flock's Rest Monster!"

"Tell it to the mirrors!"

I realized I was shouting, and I looked down, even if he didn't want me to. "I'm sorry," I said. "It's not you I'm mad at."

"So who are you mad at?"

"I don't know. Everyone? No one? God?" I reached up the sleeve of my dress to blot my tears. And the fabric got stained, not just with tears, but with a spot of yuck still oozing from my popped zit. "Let's just go back," I said, disgusted. "Picnic's over."

But he didn't move. Instead he said: "I know something that'll help your acne."

"No, you don't," I told him. "Nothing can help it. Believe me, I've tried everything."

And then he whispered, "You haven't tried this."

Aaron got up and began to climb higher up the steep, rocky slope behind us. "C'mon," he said. "It's not far." Then, when I didn't move, he said, "Or are you just gonna sit there and feel sorry for yourself?"

That got me moving. Like I said, I didn't like to wallow in self-pity, and here I was doing just that. "Okay," I said, "wait up."

After only about two minutes of climbing, we came to a deep crack in the mountain face. I could feel warm air rising from its depths and smell earth, like in the first moments of a rainstorm. This wasn't just a crack in the stone, this was the mouth of a cave.

Aaron stepped into the darkness, but I hesitated. Standing in the stark daylight, I couldn't see him in the cave ahead of me, but I heard his voice coming from inside. Now, without seeing his face, just hearing his voice, I truly recognized him as the boy I once knew as Tuddie.

"I can't force you to follow me," he said. "You have to come because you want to."

Want. There were a lot of things I wanted right then. Too many to put into words. I was a big empty bucket of want.

"You've trusted me this far," he said from the darkness. "Will you trust me a little bit farther?"

There was something important about all of this. Then it occurred to me that being at the mouth of this cave was no coincidence. Whatever was down there in that cave was the reason we came all the way up this mountainside for the picnic. M-O-M-E-N-T-O-U-S.

I felt like I did when I stood in my room, before my mirror, daring myself to tear away the sheet. Spelling the words in my head always helped move me forward. D-E-C-I-S-I-V-E.

One step more, and I entered the mouth of the cave. D-E-S-T-I-N-Y.

I reached into the darkness, felt Aaron grab my hand, and he pulled me out of the light and into the bowels of the earth.

15 The cauldron of life

We lingered in darkness for a moment, then I heard the whoosh of a flame, and I could see his face again, lit in orange flickering light. In one hand he held a torch.

When my eyes adjusted to the dim light of the cave, I could see a narrow slope leading deeper into the mountain. He didn't speak as he led the way down.

"What's down here?" I asked.

"Best to see for yourself."

We went through one cavern after another, and when I thought we had reached the bottom, there was yet another deep, winding pathway taking us farther down.

"Stay close to the light," he said when I started to lag too far behind. "There are things living down here."

"What kinds of things?"

"They don't have names―but they won't come near the light."

I tried to imagine what could possibly live here beside bats and rats, but my imagination hadn't prepared me for the "things" Aaron was talking about.

We rounded a bend, and only for a moment I saw it scuttle up a wall and out of sight. It looked something like a koala, with soft, furry eyes, a small snout. . . and eight spidery legs that clung to the wall as it scurried away I groaned slightly. Seeing that was more information than I needed, and from that moment on I stayed as close to the light as I could possibly get. Even Aaron seemed frightened by it, but only slightly―or maybe he was only being brave for me.

"No one's ever been hurt by the things down here."

"Always a first time," I told him.

The caverns, which began as empty stone chambers, slowly began to change their nature the deeper we got. Massive stone formations, almost bonelike in shape, stretched from floor to ceiling around us. Stalagmites grew from the ground like jagged teeth, and stalactites dangled from above us like limestone icicles. They all shimmered like they were covered with diamond dust, reflecting Aaron's torch in every color of the rainbow. The fear I had when I began our descent was slowly replaced by wonder.