Uglies

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.

"Ground floor!"

she repeated. "Close door!"

Nothing happened.

She sighed, closing her eyes. Without an interface ring, she was nobody. The elevator wouldn't listen.

Tally knew how to trick an elevator, but it took time and a penknife. She had neither. The first of her pursuers emerged from the stairway, stumbling into the hall.

She threw herself backward against the elevator's side wall, standing on tiptoe and trying to flatten herself so they couldn't see her. More came up, huffing and puffing like typical out-of-shape pretties.

Tally could watch them in the mirror at the back of the elevator. Which meant they could also see her if they thought to look this way.

"Where'd the piggy go?"

"Here, piggy!"

"The roof, maybe?"

Someone stepped quietly into the elevator, looking back at the search party in bemusement. When he saw her, he jumped. "Goodness, you scared me!" He blinked his long lashes, regarding her masked face, then looked down at his own tailcoat. "Oh, dear.

Wasn't this party white tie?"

Tally's breath caught, her mouth went dry. "Peris?" she whispered.

He looked at her closely.

"Do I…" She started to reach out, but remembered to press back flat against the wall. Her muscles were screaming from standing on tiptoe. "It's me, Peris."

"Here, piggy, piggy!"

He turned toward the voice down the hall, raised his eyebrows, then looked back at her.

"Close door. Hold," he said quickly.

The door slid shut, and Tally stumbled forward. She pulled off her mask to see him better.

It was Peris: his voice, his brown eyes, the way his forehead crinkled when he was confused. But he was so pretty now.

At school, they explained how it affected you. It didn't matter if you knew about evolution or not-it worked anyway. On everyone.

There was a certain kind of beauty, a prettiness that everyone could see. Big eyes and full lips like a kid's; smooth, clear skin; symmetrical features; and a thousand other little clues.

Somewhere in the backs of their minds, people were always looking for these markers. No one could help seeing them, no matter how they were brought up. A million years of evolution had made it part of the human brain.

The big eyes and lips said: I'm young and vulnerable, I can't hurt you, and you want to protect me. And the rest said: I'm healthy, I won't make you sick. And no matter how you felt about a pretty, there was a part of you that thought: If we had kids, they'd be healthy too. I want this pretty person….

It was biology, they said at school. Like your heart beating, you couldn't help believing all these things, not when you saw a face like this. A pretty face. A face like Peris's.

"It's me," Tally said.

Peris took a step back, his eyebrows rising. He looked down at her clothes.

Tally realized she was wearing her baggy black expedition outfit, muddy from crawling up ropes and through gardens, from falling among the vines. Peris's suit was deep black velvet, his shirt, vest, and tie all glowing white.

She pulled away. "Oh, sorry. I won't get you muddy."

"What are you doing here, Tally?"

"I just-," she sputtered. Now that she was facing him, she didn't know what to say. All the imagined conversations had melted away into his big, sweet eyes. "I had to know if we were still…"

Tally held out her right hand, the scarred palm facing up, sweaty dirt tracing the lines on it.

Peris sighed. He wasn't looking at her hand, or into her eyes. Not into her squinty, narrow-set, indifferently brown eyes. Nobody eyes. "Yeah," he said. "But, I mean-couldn't you have waited, Squint?"

Her ugly nickname sounded strange coming from a pretty. Of course, it would be even weirder to call him Nose, as she used to about a hundred times a day. She swallowed.

"Why didn't you write me?"

"I tried. But it just felt bogus. I'm so different now."

"But we're…" She pointed at her scar.

"Take a look, Tally." He held out his own hand.

The skin of his palm was smooth and unblemished. It was a hand that said: I don't have to work very hard, and I'm too clever to have accidents.

The scar that they had made together was gone.

"They took it away."

"Of course they did, Squint. All my skin's new."

Tally blinked. She hadn't thought of that.

He shook his head. "You're such a kid still."

"Elevator requested," said the elevator. "Up or down?"

Tally jumped at the machine voice.

"Hold, please," Peris said calmly.

Tally swallowed and closed her hand into a fist. "But they didn't change your blood. We shared that, no matter what."

Peris finally looked directly at her face, not flinching as she had feared he would. He smiled beautifully.

"No, they didn't. New skin, big deal. And in three months we can laugh about this.

Unless…"

"Unless what?" She looked up into his big brown eyes, so full of concern.

"Just promise me that you won't do any more stupid tricks," Peris said. "Like coming here. Something that'll get you into trouble. I want to see you pretty."

"Of course."

"So promise me."

Peris was only three months older than Tally, but, dropping her eyes to the floor, she felt like a littlie again. "All right, I promise. Nothing stupid. And they won't catch me tonight, either."

"Okay, get your mask and…" His voice trailed off.

She turned her gaze to where it had fallen. Discarded, the plastic mask had recycled itself, turning into pink dust, which the carpet in the elevator was already filtering away.

The two stared at each other in silence.

"Elevator requested," the machine insisted. "Up or down?"

"Peris, I promise they won't catch me. No pretty can run as fast as me. Just take me down to the-" Peris shook his head. "Up, please. Roof."

The elevator moved.

"Up? Peris, how am I going to-" "Straight out the door, in a big rack-bungee jackets. There's a whole bunch in case of a fire."

"You mean jump?" Tally swallowed. Her stomach did a backflip as the elevator came to a halt.

Peris shrugged. "I do it all the time, Squint." He winked. "You'll love it."

His expression made his pretty face glow even more, and Tally leaped forward to wrap her arms around him. He still felt the same, at least, maybe a bit taller and thi

"Tally!"

She stumbled back as the doors opened. She'd left mud all over his white vest. "Oh, no!

I'm-" "Just go!"

His distress just made Tally want to hug him again. She wanted to stay and clean Peris up, make sure he looked perfect for the party. She reached out a hand. "I-" "Go!"