Free Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

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.

Last Trick
     
     
    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. Probably it was better to get the operation over with all at once.
    Half the time, she wished the doctors would just kidnap her in the middle of the night and do it. She could imagine a lot worse things than waking up pretty one morning. They said at school that they could make the operation work on fifteen-year-olds now. Waiting until sixteen was just a stupid old tradition.
    But it was a tradition nobody questioned, except the occasional ugly. So Tally had a week to go, alone, waiting.
    Shay hadn’t talked to her since their big fight. Tally had tried to write a ping, but working it all out on-screen just made her angry again. And it didn’t make much sense to sort it out now. Once they were both pretty, there wouldn’t be anything to fight about anymore. And even if Shay still hated her, there was always Peris and all their old friends, waiting across the river for her with their big eyes and wonderful smiles.
    Still, Tally spent a lot of time wondering what Shay was going to look like pretty, her skin-and-bones body all filled out, her already full lips perfected, and the ragged fingernails gone forever.
    They’d probably make her eyes a more intense shade of green. Or maybe one of the newer colors—violet, silver, or gold.
    “Hey, Squint!”
    Tally jumped at the whisper. She peered into the darkness and saw a form scuttling toward her across the roof tiles. A smile broke onto her face. “Shay!”
    The silhouette paused for a moment.
    Tally didn’t even bother to whisper. “Don’t just stand there. Come in, stupid!”
    Shay crawled into the window, laughing, as Tally gathered her into a hug, warm and joyful and solid.
    They stepped back, still