Tally leaned forward, watching wide-eyed as Shay tumbled down toward the library's main floor, three stories below. The new uglies screamed in unison, scattering away from the flailing body plummeting toward them.
A second later the bungee jacket activated, and Shay bobbed back up in midair, laughing maniacally at the top of her lungs. Tally waited another moment, watching the uglies' horror dissolve into confusion as Shay bounced again, then righted herself on one of the tables and headed for the door.
Tally dropped the book and dashed for the stairs, leaping a flight at a time until she reached the back exit of the dorm.
'Oh, that was perfect!'
'Did you see their faces?'
'Not actually,' Shay said. 'I was kind of busy watching the floor coming at me.'
'Yeah, I remember that from jumping off the roof. It does catch your attention.'
'Speaking of faces, love the nose.'
Tally giggled, pulling it off. 'Yeah, no point in being uglier than usual.'
Shay's face clouded. She wiped off an eyebrow, then looked up sharply. 'You're not ugly.'
'Oh, come on, Shay.'
'No, I mean it.' She reached out and touched Tally's real nose. 'Your profile is great.'
'Don't be weird, Shay. I'm an ugly, you're an ugly. We will be for two more weeks. It's no big deal or anything.' She laughed. 'You, for example, have one giant eyebrow and one tiny one.'
Shay looked away, stripping off the rest of her disguise in silence.
They were hidden in the changing rooms beside the sandy beach, where they'd left their interface rings and a spare set of clothes. If anyone asked, they'd say they were swimming the whole time. Swimming was a great trick. It hid your body-heat signature, involved changing clothes, and was a perfect excuse for not wearing your interface ring. The river washed away all crimes.
A minute later they splashed out into the water, sinking the disguises. The bungee jacket would go back to the art school basement that night.
'I'm serious, Tally,' Shay said once they were out in the water. 'Your nose isn't ugly. I like your eyes, too.'
'My eyes? Now you're totally crazy. They're way too close together.'
'Who says?'
'Biology says.'
Shay splashed a handful of water at her. 'You don't believe all that crap, do you-that there's only one way to look, and everyone's programmed to agree on it?'
'It's not about believing, Shay. You just know it. You've seen pretties. They look…wonderful.'
'They all look the same.'
'I used to think that too. But when Peris and I would go into town, we'd see a lot of them, and we realized that pretties do look different. They look like themselves. It's just a lot more subtle, because they're not all freaks.'
'We're not freaks, Tally. We're normal. We may not be gorgeous, but at least we're not hyped-up Barbie dolls.'
'What kind of dolls?'
She looked away. 'It's something David told me about.'
'Oh, great. David again.' Tally pushed away and floated on her back, looking up at the sky and wishing this conversation would end. They'd been out to the ruins a few more times, and Shay always insisted on setting off a sparkler, but David had never showed. The whole thing gave Tally the creeps, waiting around in the dead city for some guy who didn't seem to exist. It was great exploring out there, but Shay's obsession with David had started to sour it for Tally.
'He's real. I've met him more than once.'
'Okay, Shay, David's real. But so is being ugly. You can't change it just by wishing, or by telling yourself that you're pretty. That's why they invented the operation.'
'But it's a trick, Tally. You've only seen pretty faces your whole life. Your parents, your teachers, everyone over sixteen. But you weren't born expecting that kind of beauty in everyone, all the time. You just got programmed into thinking anything else is ugly.'
'It's not programming, it's just a natural reaction. And more important than that, it's fair.
In the old days it was all random-some people kind of pretty, most people ugly all their lives. Now everyone's ugly…until they're pretty. No losers.'
Shay was silent for a while, then said, 'There are losers, Tally.'
Tally shivered. Everyone knew about uglies-for-life, the few people for whom the operation wouldn't work. You didn't see them around much. They were allowed in public, but most of them preferred to hide. Who wouldn't? Uglies might look goofy, but at least they were young. Old uglies were really unbelievable.
'Is that it? Are you worried about the operation not working? That's silly, Shay. You're no freak. In two weeks you'll be as pretty as anyone else.'
'I don't want to be pretty.'
Tally sighed. This again.
'I'm sick of this city,' Shay continued. 'I'm sick of the rules and boundaries. The last thing I want is to become some empty-headed new pretty, having one big party all day.'
'Come on, Shay. They do all the same stuff we do: bungee jump, fly, play with fireworks.
Only they don't have to sneak around.'
'They don't have the imagination to sneak around.'
'Look, Skinny, I'm with you,' Tally said sharply. 'Doing tricks is great! Okay? Breaking the rules is fun!
But eventually you've got to do something besides being a clever little ugly.'
'Like being a vapid, boring pretty?'
'No, like being an adult. Did you ever think that when you're pretty you might not need to play tricks and mess things up? Maybe just being ugly is why uglies always fight and pick on one another, because they aren't happy with who they are. Well, I want to be happy, and looking like a real person is the first step.'
'I'm not afraid of looking the way I do, Tally.'
'Maybe not, but you are afraid of growing up!'
Shay didn't say anything. Tally floated in silence, looking up at the sky, barely able to see the clouds through her anger. She wanted to be pretty, wanted to see Peris again. It seemed like forever since she'd talked to him, or to anyone else except Shay. She was sick of this whole ugly business, and just wanted it to end.
A minute later, she heard Shay swimming for shore.
It was strange, but Tally couldn't help feeling sad. She knew she'd miss the view from this window.
She'd spent the last four years looking out at New Pretty Town, wanting nothing more than to cross the river and not come back. That's probably what had tempted her through the window so many times, learning every trick she could to sneak closer to the new pretties, to spy on the life she would eventually have.
But now that the operation was only a week away, time seemed to be moving too fast.
Sometimes, Tally wished that they could do the operation gradually. Get her squinty eyes fixed first, then her lips, and cross the river in stages. Just so she wouldn't have to look out the window one last time and know she'd never see this view again.
Without Shay around, things felt incomplete, and she'd spent even more time here, sitting on her bed and staring at New Pretty Town.
Of course, there wasn't much else to do these days. Everyone in the dorm was younger than Tally now, and she'd already taught all of her best tricks to the next class. She'd watched every movie her wallscreen knew about ten times, all the way back to some old black-and-white ones in an English she could barely understand.
There was no one to go to concerts with, and dorm sports were boring to watch now that she didn't know anyone on the teams. All the other uglies looked at her enviously, but no one saw much point in making friends.
