'Yeah, sure.'
'I mean, maybe we should wait. It's only a couple of months now.'
'Oh, that's right,' Shay said. 'A couple of months and we'll be stuck inside the river.
Pretty and boring.'
Tally snorted. 'I don't think it's exactly boring, Shay.'
'Doing what you're supposed to do is always boring. I can't imagine anything worse than being required to have fun.'
'I can,' Tally said quietly. 'Never having any.'
'Listen, Tally, these two months are our last chance to do anything really cool. To be ourselves. Once we turn, it's new pretty, middle pretty, late pretty.' Shay dropped her arms, and her board stopped drifting. 'Then dead pretty.'
'Better than dead ugly,' Tally said.
Shay shrugged and opened her jacket into a sail again. They weren't far from the edge of the greenbelt now. Soon Shay would get a warning. Then her board would tattle.
'Besides,' Tally argued, 'just because we get the operation doesn't mean we can't do stuff like this.'
'But pretties never do, Tally. Never.'
Tally sighed, tipping her feet again to follow. 'Maybe that's because they have better stuff to do than kid tricks. Maybe partying in town is better than hanging out in a bunch of old ruins.'
Shay's eyes flashed. 'Or maybe when they do the operation-when they grind and stretch your bones to the right shape, peel off your face and rub all your skin away, and stick in plastic cheekbones so you look like everybody else-maybe after going through all that you just aren't very interesting anymore.'
Tally flinched. She'd never heard the operation described that way. Even in bio class, where they went into the details, it didn't sound that bad. 'Come on, we won't even know it's happening. You just have pretty dreams the whole time.'
'Yeah, sure.'
A voice came into Tally's head: ' Warning, restricted area.' The wind was turning cold as the sun dropped.
'Come on, Shay, let's go back down. It's almost dinner.'
Shay smiled and shook her head, and pulled off her interface ring. Now she wouldn't hear the warnings.
'Let's go tonight. You can ride almost as well as me now.'
'Shay.'
'Do this with me. I'll show you a roller coaster.'
'What's a-' 'Second warning. Restricted area.'
Tally stopped her board. 'If you keep going, Shay, you'll get busted and we won't be doing anything tonight.'
Shay shrugged as the wind tugged her farther away.
'I just want to show you something that's my idea of fun, Tally. Before we go all pretty and only get to have everybody else's idea of fun.'
Tally shook her head, wanting to say that Shay had already taught her how to hoverboard, the coolest thing she'd ever learned. In less than a month she'd come to feel like they were best friends.
Almost like when she'd met Peris as a littlie, and they'd known instantly they'd be together forever. 'Shay…'
'Please?'
Tally sighed. 'Okay.'
Shay dropped her arms and dipped her toes to bring the board to a halt.
'Really? Tonight?'
'Sure. Rusty Ruins it is.'
Tally told herself to relax. It wasn't that big a deal, really. She broke rules all the time, and everyone went to the ruins once a year on school trips. It couldn't be dangerous or anything.
Shay zoomed back from the edge of the belt, swooping up beside Tally to put her arm around her.
'Wait until you see the river.'
'You said it's got white water?'
'Yeah.'
'Which is what?'
Shay smiled. 'It's water. But much, much better.'
'Good night.'
'Sleep tight,' replied the room.
Tally pulled on a jacket, clipped her sensor to her belly ring, and opened the window. The air was still, the river so flat that she could make out every detail of the city skyline mirrored in it. It looked like the pretties were having some sort of event. She could hear the roar of a huge crowd across the water, a thousand cheers rising and falling together.
The party towers were dark under the almost full moon, and the fireworks all shimmering hues of blue, climbing so high that they exploded in silence.
The city had never looked so far away.
'I'll see you soon, Peris,' she said quietly.
The roof tiles were slick with a late evening rain. Tally climbed carefully to the corner of the dorm where it was brushed by an old sycamore tree. The handholds in its branches felt solid and familiar, and she descended quickly into the darkness behind a recycler.
When she'd cleared the dormitory grounds, Tally looked back. The pattern of shadows that led away from the dorm seemed so convenient, almost intentional. As if uglies were supposed to sneak out every once in a while.
Tally shook her head. She was starting to think like Shay.
They met at the dam, where the river split in two to encircle New Pretty Town. Tonight, there weren't any river skimmers out to disturb the darkness, and Shay was practicing moves on her board when Tally walked up.
'Should you be doing that here in town?' Tally called over the roar of water rushing through the dam's gates.
Shay danced, shifting her weight back and forth on the floating board, dodging imaginary obstacles. 'I was just making sure it worked. In case you were worried.'
Tally looked at her own board. Shay had tricked the safety governor so it wouldn't tattle when they flew at night, or crossed the boundary out of town. Tally wasn't so much worried about it squealing on them as whether it would fly at all. Or let her fly into a tree.
But Shay's board seemed to be hovering just fine.
'I boarded all the way here, and nobody's come to get me,' Shay said.
Tally dropped her board to the ground. 'Thanks for making sure. I didn't mean to be so wimpy about this.'
'You weren't.'
'Yeah, I was. I should tell you something. That night, when you met me, I kind of promised my friend Peris I wouldn't take any big risks. You know, in case I really got in trouble, and they got really mad.'
'Who cares if they get mad? You're almost sixteen.'
'But what if they get mad enough that they won't make me pretty?'
Shay stopped bouncing. 'I've never heard of that happening.'
'I guess I haven't either. But maybe they wouldn't tell us if it had. Anyway, Peris made me promise to take it easy.'
'Tally, do you think maybe he just said that so you wouldn't come around again?'
'Huh?'
'Maybe he made you promise to take it easy so you wouldn't bother him anymore. To make you afraid to go to New Pretty Town again.'
