Duckling Ugly Read Online Free PDF Page B

would take my time eating, hogging that table for as long as I possibly could. I figured if they’re not gonna sit with me, let the other tables be as cramped and uncomfortable as possible. Serves them all right.
    The spot directly across from me was what I liked to call “the mercy seat.” That’s from the Bible. It’s what they called the lid on the Arc of the Covenant, which held the Ten Commandments. The Israelite high priest would make offerings to God there. My mercy seat was a little bit different, though. See, every once in a while, someone would come and sit across the table from me. They did it out of guilt, and to feel better about themselves. They’d sit down, exchange a few awkward words with me, then go off feeling like they’d done a kind deed. They hadtreated the Flock’s Rest Monster with a godly kind of mercy. I used to like it when people sat there, until I realized no one ever came more than once.
    It had been a while since anyone had sat in the mercy seat—a month, maybe more—so I was surprised when someone came over. Today’s guest was Gerardo Sanchez.
    “Hey,” he said as he sat down with his tray.
    I just kept on eating.
    “So what do you think this is?” he asked, pointing to the lumpy white stuff slithering all over an English muffin on his plate.
    “Creamed gopher,” I suggested. “The Tuesday special.”
    He chuckled. “Yeah, probably.” Then he sat there in an uncomfortable silence that irked me.
    “So, like, why do you sit here all by yourself?” he finally asked.
    I liked his direct approach, so I answered him. “I don’t sit all by myself. I just sit. Being all by myself, that’s other people’s idea.” More silence, and so I said, “Are you gonna ask me to the homecoming dance?”
    The look on his face was worth the price of admission and then some. It made me laugh out loud suddenly, and some creamed gopher came out of my nose. Seeing that made him laugh. I wiped the stuff off.
    “So you weren’t serious?”
    “Hey,” I said, “I’m serious if you are.”
    “Nah,” he said with a certainty that left no room for doubt.
    When it came to looks, Gerardo was no Marshall Astor, but he wasn’t bad-looking, either. He had dark, decent hair; a body that was a little bit scrawny, but not at all mealy. His teeth had once been crooked, but braces were taking care of that. All in all,Gerardo was an average-looking guy, and from what I could see, he always had the attention of a few average-looking girls. It didn’t take long for me to figure out what he was doing in the mercy seat.
    “So which girl are you trying to impress?” I asked.
    He gave me that openmouthed, shrug-shouldered I-don’t-know-what-you-mean expression, and so I gave him that tilt-headed, cross-armed, I-ain’t-buying-it look.
    A moment more, and he caved. “Nikki Smith,” he said with a sigh. “She thinks I’m not sensitive. I figured coming over here and talking to you might make her think different.” He looked at me for another second, then began to get up. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It was dumb.”
    On another day I might have let him go, but today I was feeling vulnerable. Although I had gotten used to being alone, some days were better than others when it came to accepting it.
    “Don’t leave yet,” I whispered to him. “If you really want to make it stick, you have to sit here with me until the bell rings. She’ll really be impressed by that.”
    He took on a cornered-animal look.
    “Yeah, I know, sitting with me for all of lunch is a fate worse than death.”
    “Well, not worse,” he answered, and he made himself comfortable in the mercy seat again.
    “So, are you?” I asked.
    “Am I what?”
    “You said you wanted to show Nikki that you’re sensitive. Are you?”
    “I don’t know. I guess.” He thought about it. “I’m not
in
sensitive…or at least I’m not insensitive on
purpose.
”
    “Well, that’s better than nothing, I guess.”
    “Why do girls always