When the day came, Tally waited for the car alone.
Tomorrow, when the operation was all over, her parentswould be waiting outside the hospital, along with Peris andher other older friends. That was the tradition. But itseemed strange that there was no one to see her off on thisend. No one said good-bye except a few uglies passing by.
They looked so young to her now, especially the justarrivednew class, who gawked at her like she was an oldpile of dinosaur bones.
She’d always loved being independent, but now Tally feltlike the last littlie to be picked up from school, abandonedand alone. September was a crappy month to be born.
“You’re Tally, right?”
She looked up. It was a new ugly, awkwardly explodinginto unfamiliar height, tugging at his dorm uniform like itwas already too tight.
“Yeah.”
“Aren’t you the one who’s going to turn today?”
“That’s me, Shorty.”
“So how come you look so sad?”
Tally shrugged. What could this half-littlie, half-uglyunderstand, anyway? She thought about what Shay hadsaid about the operation.
Yesterday they’d taken Tally’s final measurements,rolling her all the way through an imaging tube. Should shetell this new ugly that sometime this afternoon, her bodywas going to be opened up, the bones ground down to theright shape, some of them stretched or padded, her nosecartilage and cheekbones stripped out and replaced withprogrammable plastic, skin sanded off and reseeded like asoccer field in spring? That her eyes would be laser-cut fora lifetime of perfect vision, reflective implants insertedunder the iris to add sparkling gold flecks to their indifferentbrown? Her muscles all trimmed up with a night ofelectrocize and all her baby fat sucked out for good? Teethreplaced with ceramics as strong as a suborbital aircraftwing, and as white as the dorm’s good china?
They said it didn’t hurt, except the new skin, which feltlike a killer sunburn for a couple of weeks.
As the details of the operation buzzed around in herhead, she could imagine why Shay had run away. It didseem like a lot to go through just to look a certain way. Ifonly people were smarter, evolved enough to treat everyonethe same even if they looked different. Looked ugly.
If only Tally had come up with the right argument tomake her stay.
UGLIES 97The imaginary conversations were back, but much worsethan they had been after Peris had left. A thousand timesshe’d fought with Shay in her head—long, rambling discussionsabout beauty, biology, growing up. All those times outin the ruins, Shay had made her points about uglies and pretties,the city and the outside, what was fake and what wasreal. But Tally had never once realized her friend might actuallyrun away, giving up a life of beauty, glamour, elegance. Ifonly she’d said the right thing. Anything.
Sitting here, she felt as if she’d hardly tried.
Tally looked the new ugly in the eye. “Because it allcomes down to this: Two weeks of killer sunburn is wortha lifetime of being gorgeous.”
The kid scratched his head. “Huh?”
“Something I should have said, and didn’t. That’s all.”
The hospital hovercar finally came, settling onto the schoolgrounds so lightly that it hardly disturbed the fresh-mowngrass.
The driver was a middle pretty, radiating confidenceand authority. He looked so much like Sol that Tally almostcalled her father’s name.
“Tally Youngblood?” he said.
Tally had already seen the flash of light that had readher eye-print, but she said, “Yes, that’s me,&rdqu............