Uglies

No matter how many times they repeated it at school, she'd never really quite believed that one. "So what if people look more alike now? It's the only way to make people equal."

"How about making them smarter?"

Tally laughed. "Fat chance. Anyway, it's just to see what you and I will look like in only…two months and fifteen days."

"Can't we just wait until then?"

Tally closed her eyes, sighing. "Sometimes I don't think I can."

"Well, tough luck." She felt Shay's weight on the bed and a light punch on her arm. "Hey, might as well make the best of it. Can we go hoverboarding now? Please?"

Tally opened her eyes and saw that her friend was smiling. "Okay: hoverboard." She sat up and glanced at the screen. Even without much work, Shay's face was already welcoming, vulnerable, healthy…pretty.

"Don't you think you're beautiful?"

Shay didn't look, just shrugged. "That's not me. It's some committee's idea of me."

Tally smiled and hugged her.

"It will be you, though. Really you. Soon."

Pretty Boring

"I think you're ready."

Tally cruised to a stop-right foot down, left foot up, bend the knees.

"Ready for what?"

Shay drifted slowly past, letting the breeze tug her along. They were as high up and far out as hoverboards would go, just above treetop level, at the edge of town. It was amazing how quickly Tally had gotten used to being up high, with nothing but a board and bracelets between her and a long fall.

The view from up here was fantastic. Behind them the spires of New Pretty Town rose from the center of town, and around them was the greenbelt, a swath of forest that separated the middle and the late pretties from the youngsters. Older generations of pretties lived out in the suburbs, hidden by the hills, in rows of big houses separated by strips of private garden for their littlies to play in.

Shay smiled. "Ready for a night ride."

"Oh. Look, I don't know if I want to cross the river again," Tally said, remembering her promise to Peris. She and Shay had shown each other a lot of tricks over the last three weeks, but they hadn't been back into New Pretty Town since the night they'd met. "Until we get turned, of course. After last time, the wardens are probably all-" "I wasn't talking about New Pretty Town," Shay interrupted. "That place is boring, anyway. We'd have to sneak around all night."

"Okay. You mean just board around Uglyville."

Shay shook her head, still coasting gradually away on the breeze.

Tally shifted her weight on the board uncomfortably. "Where else is there?"

Shay put her hands in her pockets and spread her arms, turning her dorm's team jacket into a sail. The breeze pulled her farther away from Tally. By reflex, Tally tipped her toes forward so that her board would keep up.

"Well, there's out there." Shay nodded at the open land before them.

"The suburbs? That's dullsville."

"Not the burbs. Past them." Shay slid her feet in opposite directions, to the very edges of the board. Her skirt caught the cool evening wind, which tugged her away even faster. She was drifting toward the outer edge of the greenbelt. Off-limits.

Tally planted her feet and dipped the board, and pulled up next to her friend. "What do you mean?

Outside the city completely?"

"Yeah."

"That's crazy. There's nothing out there."

"There's plenty out there. Real trees, hundreds of years old. Mountains. And the ruins.

Ever been there?"

Tally blinked. "Of course."

"I don't mean on a school trip, Tally. You ever been there at night?"

Tally brought her board to a sharp halt. The Rusty Ruins were the remains of an old city, a hulking reminder of back when there'd been way too many people, and everyone was incredibly stupid. And ugly.

"No way. Don't tell me you have."

Shay nodded.

Tally's mouth dropped open. "That's impossible."

"You think you're the only one who knows good tricks?"

"Well, maybe I believe you," Tally said. Shay had that look on her face, the one Tally had learned to watch out for. "But what if we get busted?"

Shay laughed. "Tally, there's nothing out there, like you just said. Nothing and no one to bust us."

"Do hoverboards even work out there? Does anything?"

"Special ones do, if you know how to trick them, and where to ride. And getting past the burbs is easy. You take the river the whole way. Farther upstream it's white water, too rough for skimmers."

Tally's mouth dropped open again. "You really have done this before."

A gust of wind billowed in Shay's jacket, and she slid farther away, still smiling. Tally had to lean her board into motion again to stay within earshot. A treetop brushed her ankles as the ground below them started to rise.

"It'll be really fun," Shay called.

"Sounds too risky."

"Come on. I've been wanting to show you this since we met. Since you told me you crashed a pretty party-and pulled a fire alarm!"

Tally swallowed, wishing she'd told the whole truth about that night-about how it had all just sort of happened. Shay seemed to think she was the world's biggest daredevil now.

"Well, I mean, that alarm thing was partly an accident. Kind of."

"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 di