Duckling Ugly

and took some clothes that were hang­ing out to dry in the backyard. Then I started walking.

About five miles down the road, my feet were hurting some­thing awful, and although a number of folks stopped to offer me a ride, I didn't take them up on it?mainly because they were all guys of varying ages, with their tongues practically hanging out like wolves when they looked at me. That wasn't the kind of at­tention I wanted from strangers, and I wasn't foolish enough to get into a car with any of them. It was a different world for me now. I had to get used to that.

Finally, a family in a minivan pulled up next to me.

'Honey, are you all right?' the woman asked, leaning out of the passenger-side window. 'You know, it's dangerous to be on the road like this after dark. You might get hit by a car. Would you like a ride somewhere?'

This was a ride I felt safe taking, so I smiled, thanked them, and hopped in.

I sat in the back with the kids. A little boy no older than six, sucking on some sticky candy that made his lips blue, smiled at me. 'You're pretty,' he said.

And I laughed, because it was true!

Flock's Rest wasn't exactly on their way, but they didn't have the heart to leave me by the side of the road somewhere. That's an­other thing about being beautiful: People go out of their way to help you. It was almost midnight when they reached Flock's Rest. I had them drop me at the entrance to my trailer park.

Dad would be sitting with a beer, watching RetroToob and dreaming of his lost youth. Momma would probably still be up reading. Vance would be asleep, if he hadn't had too much pop at dinner.

As excited as I was, I was scared, too. My father always said, 'You can't make a Ford a Ferrari,' and yet here I was, all shiny and new. Cara: the sports model. I could give them no explanation for the change I had gone through. I couldn't tell them where I'd been, or about the water of the fountain, no matter how much they asked.

I knocked on the door. No answer at first, so I knocked again. Finally, Momma answered it and looked at me, squinting her eyes.

'Hi,' I said.

She wasn't shocked. She didn't even seem surprised. She just seemed a little put out over answering the door in her robe at midnight. 'Can I help you?' she said.

I stood there for a moment, dumbfounded. She had no idea who I was.

'Momma, it's me.'

She looked at me blankly, her mind trying to mesh what she saw with what she knew.

Then she backed up and went kind of white.

'Franklin,' she said, her voice all wavery. 'Franklin, come quick.'

Few things would lift my dad off the couch once he had settled in. But that tone of voice did the trick. As he came to her, I stepped inside. Now Vance was standing at his bedroom door, half-awake, wondering what was going on.

'It's me,' I said. 'It's Cara.' And then, just for effect, I flicked my hair the way models do. 'Don't you recognize me?'

Just silence for the longest time.

Vance was the first to react. 'No. Way.'

'Honey?' Dad said in the same wavery voice that Mom had.

And then it was like whatever was holding them back just fell away. Momma rushed at me and took me in her arms.

'My baby, my baby,' she cried.

Even Dad cried. 'We thought you ran away,' he said. 'Or worse.'

'I did,' I told them. 'But it's okay now.'

While Momma and Dad were still hugging me, Vance came over and looked me up and down. 'What happened to you?'

And then, to my surprise, Momma turned to him, grabbed him by the shoulders, and looked at him sternly. 'Don't you ask that! I'm sure Cara will tell us in her own time, won't you, honey?'

I nodded, knowing that I wouldn't. Maybe Momma sensed that, because she said, 'Besides, true miracles don't always have explanations. Otherwise they wouldn't be miracles.'

Vance looked down. 'Yes, ma'am.'

I told them I was only back for a little while?that people were waiting for me.

'I understand,' Momma said, even though we both knew she didn't.

We all hugged and hugged. Momma whispered things you whisper to babies, and when all the hugging was done, I went to my room.

I thought they would have changed it in the months that I had been gone. I figured they'd turn it into a reading room, or a sewing room, or something. Make the memory of me go away. But they hadn't. It was just as I had left it. I even found the little 'find the answers' note?a reminder that the answers had been found, and were waiting for me back in De Leon. Back home.

Before going to bed, though, I went up to my dresser and, for one final time, played my old familiar game. Would Cara do it to­day? Was today the day she would win? Without the slightest hesitation, I grabbed the sheet that covered the mirror and pulled it down. No more mourning in this house! At last I looked at myself in my own mirror. As far as I was concerned, I could have looked forever.

The next morning, we ate our family breakfast like usual, but there was a certain air of terror all around the table, because miracles are frightening things. No matter how much Momma wanted to follow a don't-ask-don't-tell policy with regard to my metamorphosis, it demanded some explanation. Dad began to delicately ask about it. It was like playing a game of twenty ques­tions around a time bomb.

'Was it something. . . surgical?' Dad asked, without looking up at me.

'Not really,' I said.

'Herbal, then? They're making amazing strides in vitamin therapy these days.'

That was actually closer to the truth. I wondered if the foun­tain could be considered an herbal treatment.

'Vitamin therapy doesn't straighten teeth,' Momma said. 'That takes some sort of... intervention.'

'So we're back to miracles again,' said Dad, a bit frustrated.

No one said anything for a bit, and then Vance mumbled, 'I think maybe Cara made a pact with the devil.'

Momma brought down her fork so hard it cracked her plate in half.

'Sorry,' Vance said. Momma didn't scold him. Maybe be­cause she secretly felt it was in the realm of possibility.

'Actually,' I said, with a completely straight face, 'I was ab­ducted by aliens.'

Stunned silence from everyone . . . until I couldn't hold it anymore and cracked a smile. Vance was the first to laugh, then Dad, then Mom, and before long, we were all engulfed in a giggle fit that lasted at least three or four minutes. After that, they stopped asking.

I finished my breakfast quickly and asked if Momma could take me to school early. If I was going to accomplish anything during my single day in Flock's Rest, I'd have to use the time wisely?and the more I thought about it, the more things I real­ized I wanted to do . . . because this wasn't just about saying good-bye. This was also about saying 'good riddance.'

19 The new girl

Momma brought me to school and told the office staff I was her niece, Linda. I might be moving into town, she said, and could they be darlings and let me sit in on class while I was visiting? She sold them on me like my dad