Duckling Ugly by Neal Shusterman

Author:Neal Shusterman [Shusterman, Neal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101660508
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2007-04-05T04:00:00+00:00

I can’t quite say what I felt for Aaron during those first days in De León. Was it gratitude? Respect? Awe? It certainly wasn’t the same kind of hopeless longing I had felt for Gerardo, and it couldn’t quite be love, because I barely knew him. I liked his attention, though, and the way he treated me. Most of the good-looking people I knew were terminally self-centered, but Aaron didn’t seem to be that way. He was genuine, he was thoughtful, he was too good to be true—and that kept me suspicious.

He was also very good at what he did. I got a taste of Aaron’s “recreology” that first Sunday. He organized all sorts of clever races and contests—and everyone joined in, including me.

It was a Tom Sawyer kind of life in De León, and Abuelo was like our own Hispanic Mark Twain. I told Abuelo that, and he just laughed. “I am partial to Cervantes,” he said, and he explained that Cervantes was the Spanish author who had written Don Quixote, a famous story about an old knight who did crazy things, like attack a windmill. “He thought the windmills might be giants,” Abuelo said. “I applaud a madman who sees the fantastic in the ordinary.”

The point is, life was frozen in De León, in a time that may never really have existed. You might be tempted to call them backward, or ignorant, but you’d be wrong. They knew and understood technology, all the conveniences of modern life, but they simply didn’t need any of it. Cars? Why have a car when the valley was only a mile long, and the walk was so refreshing? Electric lights? What was the point, when candles and hearths were so much more friendly and inviting? Telephones? Why not talk face-to-face when so much of communication is body language?

There was simply nothing wrong in De León—and, like I said, that kind of perfection is highly suspect. And then, of course, there were the Seven Mysteries, which made me wonder about the place even more—but I’ll get to those later.

Even with my suspicious nature, I quickly fell into the easy pace of life there, and each day I found myself thinking about my old life less and less. It’s not like I forgot about my family, or Gerardo, or even Marisol and Marshall…but when your days are packed with people who are genuinely kind and unburdened by their own lives, how can you choose to think of bad times? The thoughts did come, though. Usually at night. I would worry about Momma worrying about me. I thought about how Dad would blame himself because of that stupid deal he’d made with Marshall about the car. I thought of Miss Leticia, and mourned the fact that I hadn’t been there for her funeral. But then morning would come, Aaron would be at my door with a smile that appeared to have no ulterior motive, and those lonely night thoughts dissolved like the early-morning mist.

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