Duckling Ugly

Neal Shusterman Duckling Ugly Dark Fusion, book 3

I am not one of the beautiful people.

Some people are born with everything― looks, personality, brains. Any combination of two can usually get you by. You might not be much to look at, but if you're a fun person and are smart, you'll be fine. If you're beautiful and personable, you could have oatmeal between your ears and no one would care much. But these natural laws that govern the social uni­verse all fall apart when your looks are like a black hole. That's me: a freakish blip in time and space―a singularity of ugliness. An ugularity―and no matter how smart I am, no matter how friendly or funny, it doesn't matter. All that's good about me gets sucked in and crushed into nothing when the world looks at me.

This is what the world sees when it dares to look:

A pair of sewer-shade eyes two sizes too big for my face; a weak chin with a spidery mole. Hair like brown weed-whacked crabgrass, and a flat chest over shapeless hips. It's worse when I smile, because my brother got all the good teeth. Braces were always out of the question.

As I once overheard my dentist say to his assis­tant, "Braces on that girl would be like lipstick on a horse."

The word is ugly. Oh, there are other words for it. Words like plain, you know? Like vanilla. But if I were ice cream, I'm sure I'd be broccoli- or cabbage-flavored.

I could have accepted my fate, doomed to be an ugularity for my entire life, but then one day I was given the chance to trade in this face for all time. Who wouldn't choose that if they could? No matter how unspeakable the consequences...