BEST FRIENDS FOREVER
"Shhhhh, he'll hear you!" Minerva hissed as the soccer ball rolled dangerously close to their hiding place behind the tree. More threatening was the ugly who came crashing through the woods to retrieve it. She shrank against the trunk even more, but what would happen if he spotted her, anyway? In a few weeks she would be free of her parents and their rules.
Summer was drawing to a close. Minerva and Maxamilla were both twelve years old and would be starting ugly school come September. She was excited, but characteristically anxious about one thing. Sure, she hung out with other people sometimes, but Minerva was still as antisocial as she was on that first day of littlie school, unlike the more gregarious Max.
Max. She would always be her best friend. The thought of being separated when they started life in Uglyville was too much to bear. Instead, Minerva focused her attention on the game she had been watching with Max, the one that the ugly boy had now rejoined. She relaxed a bit. Both of their parents forbade them to play in the greenbelt, but as their littlie years passed, she and Max had ventured farther and farther, until now the soccer fields of Uglyville were visible beneath the hulking dorms. No silly rule was going to stop Minerva from doing what she wanted to, and that attitude and her love of soccer were two things she and Max had in common.
"Promise me you'll play soccer when we're uglies," Minerva said yet again. "At least that way we'll get to see each other sometimes, when we play against each other." She didn't mention the horrifying possibility of ending up in different dorms, but it was on both of their minds.
Instead of being annoyed by Minerva's repetitiveness, Max was her good-natured self. "Of course I will, Min," she said, smiling, and Minerva could not help smiling back, partly because hearing Max say that again relieved her, and also because it felt so good to hear Max say her nickname. They had both given each other one soon after they had met, to lessen the pain of hearing their horrible names.
The game had started up again, and Min fixed her eyes on it, yet watching the game being played in the shadow of the dorm sent a thrill through her, and her thoughts began to wander. She would soon be one of them, running and chasing the ball, scoring points for her team and hearing them cheer.
Soccer wasn't the only thing that excited her about Uglyville. Although she would never say this out loud, Minerva had loved littlie school because she knew she was the smartest one. She was always the first to raise her hand and knew all the answers. Naturally, she grew bored of it after a while. When she went to ugly school, though, she would finally do some real learning, like history, and, more exciting to Minerva, science. She had always had a burning desire to know both how her own body and the world around her worked, and soon her questions would be answered. Still, this was not what she wanted to learn the most.
Like most littlies, Min and Max made morphos all the time and played games in which they were the scientists on the Pretty Committee, but it was more than a game to Minerva. She often daydreamed that it actually was her sculpting the face, taking an ugly girl and adding subtle touches here and there to make her beautiful. In ugly school, she knew that she would finally learn exactly what they did.
Besides, it was time. Minerva felt ugly, and every time she walked by a mirror she was reminded of that fact. Her dark curls were tangled and wild most of the time these days, and what had once been only a sprinkling of freckles across her nose had multiplied and darkened, spreading all over her face, down her arms and hands, her whole body, it seemed. Also, Minerva had recently begun to shoot up in height. She looked so awkward playing with other littlies, too tall and skinny. She needed to get out of the suburbs.
Max's voice woke her out of this reverie. "I think we should go home now," she said. Indeed, the sun was sinking in the late summer sky, and the trees of the greenbelt were making long shadows. The uglies had all packed up and were going in anyway. "If anyone asks, we were playing in the park this whole time," Max said with a grin.
"Right," said Minerva, returning it. And the two friends walked home together until they needed to each go their separate way to her own house.