Tally peered out from behind a curtain of hanging vines. This was farther than she and Peris had ever been together, and as far as her planning had taken her. There was no way to hide herself in the busy, well-lit streets. She put her fingers up to her face, felt the wide nose and thin lips, the too-high forehead and tangled mass of frizzy hair. One step out of the underbrush and she'd be spotted. Her face seemed to burn as the light touched it.
What was she doing here? She should be back in the darkness of Uglyville, awaiting her turn.
But she had to see Peris, had to talk to him. She wasn't quite sure why, exactly, except that she was sick of imagining a thousand conversations with him every night before she fell asleep. They'd spent every day together since they were littlies, and now…nothing.
Maybe if they could just talk for a few minutes, her brain would stop talking to imaginary Peris. Three minutes might be enough to hold her for three months.
Tally looked up and down the street, checking for side yards to slink through, dark doorways to hide in.
She felt like a rock climber facing a sheer cliff, searching for cracks and handholds.
The traffic began to clear a little, and she waited, rubbing the scar on her right palm.
Finally, Tally sighed and whispered, 'Best friends forever,' and took a step forward into the light.
An explosion of sound came from her right, and she leaped back into the darkness, stumbling among the vines, coming down hard on her knees in the soft earth, certain for a few seconds that she'd been caught.
But the cacophony organized itself into a throbbing rhythm. It was a drum machine making its lumbering way down the street. Wide as a house, it shimmered with the movement of its dozens of mechanical arms, bashing away at every size of drum. Behind it trailed a growing bunch of revelers, dancing along with the beat, drinking and throwing their empty bottles to shatter against the huge, impervious machine.
Tally smiled. The revelers were wearing masks.
The machine was lobbing the masks out the back, trying to coax more followers into the impromptu parade: devil faces and horrible clowns, green monsters and gray aliens with big oval eyes, cats and dogs and cows, faces with crooked smiles or huge noses.
The procession passed slowly, and Tally pulled herself back into the vegetation. A few of the revelers passed close enough that the sickly sweetness from their bottles filled her nose. A minute later, when the machine had trundled half a block farther, Tally jumped out and snatched up a discarded mask from the street. The plastic was soft in her hand, still warm from having been stamped into shape inside the machine a few seconds before.
Before she pressed it against her face, Tally realized that it was the same color as the cat-vomit pink of the sunset, with a long snout and two pink little ears. Smart adhesive flexed against her skin as the mask settled onto her face.
Tally pushed her way through the drunken dancers, out the other side of the procession, and ran down a side street toward Garbo Mansion, wearing the face of a pig.
Garbo Mansion was fat, bright, and loud.
It filled the space between a pair of party towers, a squat teapot between two slender glasses of champagne. Each of the towers rested on a single column no wider than an elevator. Higher up they swelled to five stories of circular balconies, crowded with new pretties. Tally climbed the hill toward the trio of buildings, trying to take in the view through the eyeholes of her mask.
Someone jumped, or was thrown, from one of the towers, screaming and flailing his arms.
Tally gulped, forcing herself to watch all the way down, until the guy was caught by his bungee jacket a few seconds before splatting. He hover-bounced in the harness a few times, laughing, before being deposited softly on the ground, close enough to Tally that she could hear nervous hiccups breaking up his giggles. He'd been as scared as Tally.
She shivered, though jumping was hardly any more dangerous than standing here beneath the looming towers. The bungee jacket used the same lifters as the hoverstruts that held the spindly structures up. If all the pretty toys somehow stopped working, just about everything in New Pretty Town would come tumbling down.
The mansion was full of brand-new pretties-the worst kind, Peris always used to say.
They lived like uglies, a hundred or so together in a big dorm. But this dorm didn't have any rules. Unless the rules were Act Stupid, Have Fun, and Make Noise.
A bunch of girls in ball gowns were on the roof, screaming at the top of their lungs, balancing on the edge and shooting safety fireworks at people on the ground. A ball of orange flame bounced next to Tally, cool as an autumn wind, driving away the darkness around her.
'Hey, there's a pig down there!' someone screamed from above. They all laughed, and Tally quickened her stride toward the wide-open door of the mansion. She pushed inside, ignoring the surprised looks of two pretties on their way out.
It was all one big party, just like they always promised it would be. People were dressed up tonight, in gowns and in black suits with long coattails. Everyone seemed to find her pig mask pretty funny. They pointed and laughed, and Tally kept moving, not giving them time to do anything else. Of course, everyone was always laughing here. Unlike an ugly party, there'd never be any fights, or even arguments.
She pushed from room to room, trying to distinguish faces without being distracted by those big pretty eyes, or overwhelmed by the feeling that she didn't belong. Tally felt uglier every second she spent there.
Being laughed at by everyone she met wasn't helping much. But it was better than what they'd do if they saw her real face.
Tally wondered if she would even recognize Peris. She'd only seen him once since the operation, and that was coming out of the hospital, before the swelling had subsided. But she knew his face so well.
Despite what Peris always used to say, pretties didn't really all look exactly the same. On their expeditions, she and Peris had sometimes spotted pretties who looked familiar, like uglies they'd known.
Sort of like a brother or sister-an older, more confident, much prettier brother or sister.
One you'd be jealous of your whole life, if you'd been born a hundred years ago.
Peris couldn't have changed that much.
'Have you seen the piggy?'
'The what?'
'There's a piggy on the loose!'
The giggling voices were from the floor below. Tally paused and listened. She was all alone here on the stairs. Apparently, pretties preferred the elevators.
'How dare she come to our party dressed like a piggy! This is white tie!'
'She's got the wrong party.'
'She's got no manners, looking that way!'
Tally swallowed. The mask wasn't much better than her own face. The joke was wearing thin.
She bounded up the stairs, leaving the voices behind. Maybe they'd forget about her if she just kept moving. There were only two more floors of Garbo Mansion to go, and then the roof. Peris had to be here somewhere.
Unless he was out on the back lawn, or up in a balloon, or a party tower. Or in a pleasure garden somewhere, with someone. Tally shook away that last image and ran down the hall, ignoring the same jokes about her mask, risking glances into the rooms one by one.
Nothing but surprised looks and pointed fingers, and pretty faces. But none of them rang a bell. Peris wasn't anywhere.
'Here, piggy, piggy! Hey, there she is!'
Tally bolted up to the top floor, taking two stairs at a time. Her hard breathing had heated up the inside of the mask, her forehead sweating, the adhesive crawling as it tried to stay attached. They were following her now, a group of them, laughing and stumbling over one another up the stairs.
There wasn't any time to search this floor. Tally glanced up and down the hall. No one up here, anyway.
The doors were all closed. Maybe a few pretties were actually getting their beauty sleep.
If she went up to the roof to check for Peris, she'd be trapped.
'Here, piggy, piggy!'
Time to run. Tally dashed toward the elevator, skidding to a halt inside. 'Ground floor!'
she ordered.
She waited, peering down the hall anxiously, panting into the hot plastic of her mask.
