Scott hustles to catch up. “What I want to know is,” he grabs me by the elbow and makes me stop walking, “if I kiss you when the music stops,” he stands on his toes and whispers in my ear, “will you be my Princess Charming?”

I snort. “Dream on. No magic’s going to help this.” I pull back, deeper into my beastly cave.

Scott smiles. “I wouldn’t mind an experiment.”

I don’t like it when he gets like this. “You don’t want to waste your virgin lips on me. You could dazzle a half-decent looking freshman into making out easy.” I head for my class. “Look in the mirror.”

He scurries along beside me, scowling. “I wish you’d get over the looks thing.”

I scowl right back at him. “Look at me, Scott.” I part my hair with both hands and pull it away from my face long enough to give him a frightening glimpse. “How could I ever get over the looks thing? I am the Beast.”

“If you believe that, they win.”

“Wake up. Look around.” I wrap my arms across my chest, trying to control the delayed reaction that shudders through me. “They won a long time ago.”

chapter 2

UGLY IN ALTO

Scott isn’t in choir. I look for him after school. No luck. I have Bliss practice down in Ann Arbor, so I can’t dawdle. I need to talk to him, though. I know he’s trying to be sweet, but him saying stuff about kissing and dancing hurts worse than “The Beast” spray-painted in bright green across the trunk of my faded-orange Ford.

I want to be kissed as much as the next seventeen-year-old girl. The ugly genie gave me plenty of hormones. But why even go there? When I’m forty, some blind bald guy can fall in love with me. My sight is bad to awful so we’d have that in common to build a relationship on. I’m too hideous for a guy who can see to even touch. I read somewhere that women peak sexually at thirty-eight—so that should work well for me. We can get married and have ugly blind kids. I don’t even care if he’s fat.