Big Mouth & Ugly Girl

It is a Thursday in January. High school junior Matt Donaghy is in his homeroom class at Rocky River High School in Westchester County, New York, working feverishly on his one-act play. Two detectives from the police department arrive and escort him out of class. Embarrassed to have this happen in front of Stacey Flynn, a popular girl and “the nearest Matt Donaghy had to a girlfriend” (6), Matt assumes there has been an accident at home. Once in the hall, one of the detectives says, “Son, you know why we’re here” (7).

On the same afternoon Matt Donaghy is questioned by the police, Ursula Riggs is in the moment of “str[iking] out” (8), or missing a penalty free throw in a Rocky River High basketball game.

Through first-person narration in the moment of striking out, Ursula, who calls herself Ugly Girl, describes herself as large bodied, tall, and highly athletic. Shy about her body in middle school, especially when she had to give up competitive swimming and diving due to her physique, Ursula now proudly calls herself Ugly Girl. In this persona she defies the feminine norms she feels are forced on her by society. Instead, she is “Ugly Girl, warrior-woman” (12).