Free Uglies by Scott Westerfeld Page A

holding each other’s hands. For a moment, Shay’s ugly face looked perfect.
    “It’s so great to see you.”
    “You too, Tally.”
    “I missed you. I wanted to—I’m so sorry about—”
    “No,” Shay interrupted. “You were right. You made me think. I was going to write you, but it was all…”
    She sighed.
    Tally nodded, squeezing Shay’s hands. “Yeah. It sucked.”

    They stood in silence for a moment, and Tally glanced past her friend out the window. Suddenly, the view of
New
Pretty
Town
didn’t seem so sad. It looked bright and tempting, as if all the hesitation had drained out of her. The open window was exciting again. “Shay?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Let’s go somewhere tonight. Do some major trick.”
    Shay laughed. “I was kind of hoping you’d say that.”
    Tally noticed the way Shay was dressed. She was wearing serious trick-wear: all black clothes, hair tied back tight, a knapsack over one shoulder. She grinned. “Already got a plan, I see. Great.”
    “Yeah,” Shay said softly. “I’ve got a plan.”
    She walked over to Tally’s bed, unslinging the knapsack from her shoulder. Her footsteps squeaked, and Tally smiled when she saw that Shay was wearing grippy shoes.
    Tally hadn’t been on a hoverboard in days. Flying alone was all the hard work and only half the fun.
    Shay dumped the contents of the knapsack out onto the bed, and pointed. “Position-finder. Firestarter. Water purifier.” She picked up two shiny wads the size of sandwiches. “These pull out into sleeping bags. And they’re really warm inside.”
    “Sleeping bags? Water purifier?” Tally exclaimed. “This must be some kind of awesome multiday trick.
    Are we going all the way to the sea or something?”
    Shay shook her head. “Farther.”
    “Uh, cool.” Tally kept her smile on her face. “But we’ve only got six days till the operation.”
    “I know what day it is.” Shay opened a waterproof bag and spilled its contents alongside the rest. “Food for two weeks—dehydrated. You just drop one of these into the purifier and add water. Any kind of water.” She giggled. “The purifier works so well, you can even pee in it.”
    Tally sat down on the bed, reading the labels on the food packs. “Two weeks?”
    “Two weeks for two people,” Shay said carefully. “Four weeks for one.”
    Tally didn’t say anything. Suddenly, she couldn’t look at the stuff on the bed, or at Shay. She stared out the window, at
New
Pretty
Town
, where the fireworks were starting.
    “But it won’t take two weeks, Tally. It’s much closer.”
    A plume of red soared up in the middle of town, tendrils of fireworks drifting down like the leaves of a giant willow tree. “What won’t take two weeks?”
    “Going to where David lives.”
    Tally nodded, and closed her eyes.
    “It’s not like here, Tally. They don’t separate everyone, uglies from pretties, new and middle and late. And you can leave whenever you want, go anywhere you want.”
    “Like where?”
    “Anywhere. Ruins, the forest, the sea. And…you never have to get the operation.”
    “You what ?”
    Shay sat next to her, touching Tally’s cheek with one finger. Tally opened her eyes. “We don’t have to look like everyone else, Tally, and act like everyone else. We’ve got a choice. We can grow up any way we want.”
    Tally swallowed. She felt like speech was impossible, but knew she had to say something. She forced words from her dry throat. “Not be pretty? That’s crazy, Shay. All the times you talked that way, I thought you were just being stupid. Peris always said the same stuff.”
    “I was just being stupid. But when you said I was afraid of growing up, you really made me think.”
    “I made you think?”
    “Made me realize how full of crap I was. Tally, I’ve got to tell you another secret.”
    Tally sighed. “Okay. I guess it can’t get any worse.”
    “My older friends, the ones I used to hang out with before I met you? Not all of them wound up