Waiting for David

" This is a joke, right? "

Shay didn't answer. They were back in the heart of the ruins, in the shadow of the tallest building around. She was staring up at it with a puzzled expression on her face. " I think I remember how to do this, " she said.

" Do what? "

" Get up there. Yeah, here it is."

Shay eased her board forward, ducking to pass through a gap in the crumbling wall.

" Shay? "

" Don't worry. I've done this before."

" I think I already had my initiation for tonight, Shay." Tally wasn't in the mood for another one of Shay's jokes. She was tired, and it was a long way back to town. And she had cleanup duty tomorrow at her dorm. Just because it was summer didn't mean she could sleep all day.

But Tally followed Shay through the gap. Arguing would probably take longer.

They rose straight into the air, the boards using the metal skeleton of the building to climb.

It was creepy being inside, looking out of the empty windows at the ragged shapes of other buildings. Like being a Rusty ghost watching as its city crumbled over the centuries.

The roof was missing, and they emerged to a spectacular view. The clouds had all disappeared, and moonlight brought the ruins into sharp relief, the buildings like rows of broken teeth. Tally saw that it really had been the ocean she'd glimpsed from the roller coaster. From up here, the water shone like a pale band of silver in the moonlight.

Shay pulled something from her shoulder pack and tore it in half.

The world burst into flame.

" Ow! Blind me, why don't you! " Tally cried, covering her eyes.

" Oh, yeah. Sorry." Shay held the safety sparkler at arm's length. It crackled to full strength in the silence of the ruins, casting flickering shadows through the interior of the ruin. Shay's face looked monstrous in the glare, and sparks floated downward to be lost in the depths of the wrecked building.

Finally, the sparkler ran out. Tally blinked, trying to clear the spots from before her eyes.

Her night vision ruined, she could hardly see anything except the moon in the sky.

She swallowed, realizing that the sparkler would have been seen from anywhere in the valley. Maybe even out to sea. " Shay, was that a signal? "

" Yeah, it was."

Tally looked down. The dark buildings below were filled with phantom flickers of light, echoes of the sparkler burned into her eyes. Suddenly very aware of how blind she was, Tally felt a drop of cold sweat creep down her spine. " Who are we meeting, anyway? "

" His name's David."

" David? That's a weird name." It sounded made up, to Tally. She decided again that this was all a joke.

" So he's just going to show up here? This guy doesn't really live in the ruins, does he? "

" No. He lives pretty far away. But he might be close by. He comes here sometimes."

" You mean, he's from another city? "

Shay looked at her, but Tally couldn't read her expression in the darkness. " Something like that."

Shay returned her gaze to the horizon, as if looking for a signal in answer to her own.

Tally wrapped herself in her jacket. Standing still, she began to realize how cold it had become. She wondered how late it was. Without her interface ring, she couldn't just ask.

The almost full moon was descending in the sky, so it had to be past midnight, Tally remembered from astronomy. That was one thing about being outside the city: It made all that nature stuff they taught in school seem a lot more useful.

She remembered now how rainwater fell on the mountains, and soaked into the ground before bubbling up full of minerals. Then it made its way back to the sea, cutting rivers and canyons into the earth over the centuries. If you lived out here, you could ride your hoverboard along the rivers, like in the really old days before the Rusties, when the not-as-crazy pre-Rusties traveled around in small boats made from trees.

Her night vision gradually returned, and she scanned the horizon. Would there really be another flare out there, answering Shay's? Tally hoped not. She'd never met anyone from another city.

She knew from school that in some cities they spoke other languages, or didn't turn pretty until they were eighteen, and other weird stuff like that. " Shay, maybe we should head home."

" Let's wait a while longer."

Tally bit her lip. " Look, maybe this David isn't around tonight."

" Yeah, maybe. Probably. But I was hoping he'd be here." She turned to face Tally. " It would be really cool if you met him. He's…different."

" Sounds like it."

" I'm not making this up, you know."

" Hey, I believe you, " Tally said, although with Shay, she was never totally sure.

Shay turned back to the horizon, chewing on a fingernail. " Okay, I guess he's not around.

We can go, if you want."

" It's just that it's really late, and a long way back. And I've got cleanup tomorrow."

Shay nodded. " Me too."

" Thanks for showing me all this, Shay. It was all really incredible. But I think one more cool thing would kill me."

Shay laughed. " The roller coaster didn't kill you."

" Just about."

" Forgive me for that yet? "

" I'll let you know, Skinny."

Shay laughed. " Okay. But remember not to tell anyone about David."

" Hey, I promised. You can trust me, Shay. Really."

" All right. I do trust you, Tally." She bent her knees, and her board started to descend.

Tally took one last look around, taking in the ruins splayed out below them, the dark woods, the pearly strip of river stretching toward the glowing sea. She wondered if there was anyone out there, really, or if David was just some story that uglies made up to scare one another.

But Shay didn't seem scared. She seemed genuinely disappointed that no one had answered her signal, as if meeting David would have been even better than showing off the rapids, the ruins, and the roller coaster.

Whether he was real or not, Tally thought, David was very real to Shay.

They left through the gap in the wall and flew to the outskirts of the ruins, then followed the vein of iron up out of the valley. At the ridge, the boards started to stutter, and they stepped off.

Tired as Tally was, carrying the board didn't seem so impossible this time. She had stopped thinking of it as a toy, like a littlie's balloon.

The hoverboard had become something more solid, something that obeyed its own rules, and that could be dangerous, too.

Tally figured that Shay was right about one thing: Being in the city all the time made everything fake, in a way. Like the buildings and bridges held up by hoverstruts, or jumping off a rooftop with a bungee jacket on, nothing was quite real there.

She was glad Shay had taken her out to the ruins. If nothing else, the mess left by the Rusties proved that things could go terribly wrong if you weren't careful.

Close to the river the boards lightened up, and the two of them jumped on gratefully.

Shay groaned as they got their footing. " I don't know about you, but I'm not taking another step tonight."

" That's for sure."

Shay leaned forward and eased her board out onto the river, wrapping her dorm jacket around her shoulders against the spray of the rapids. Tally turned to take one last look back. With the clouds gone, she could just see the ruins from here.

She blinked. There seemed to be the barest flicker coming from over where the roller coaster had been.

Maybe it was just a trick of the light, a reflection of moonlight from some exposed piece of unrusted metal. " Shay? " she said softly.

" You coming or what? " Shay shouted over the roar of the river.

Tally blinked again, but couldn't make out the flicker anymore. In any case, they were too far away.

Mentioning it to Shay would only make her anxious to go back. There was no way Tally was making the hike again.

And it probably was nothing.

Tally took a deep breath and shouted, " Come on, Skinny. Race you! " She urged her board onto the river, cutting into the cold spray and for a moment leaving a laughing Shay behind.

Fight

" Look at them all. What dorks."

" Did we ever look like that? "

" Probably. But just because we were dorks doesn't mean they're not."

Tally nodded, trying to remember what being twelve was like, what the dorm had looked like on her first day there. She remembered how intimidating the building had seemed.

Much bigger than Sol and Ellie's house, of course, and bigger than the huts that littlies went to school in, one teacher and ten students to each one.

Now the dorm seemed so small and claustrophobic. Painfully childish, with its bright colors and padded stairs. So boring during the day and easy to escape at night.

The new uglies all stuck together in a tight group, afraid to stray too far from their guide.

Their ugly little faces peered up at the dorm's four-story height, their eyes full of wonder and terror.

Shay pulled her head back in through the window. " This is going to be so fun."

" It'll be one orientation they won't forget."

Summer was over in two weeks. The population of Tally's dorm had been steadily dropping for the last year as seniors turned sixteen. It was almost time for a new batch to take their place. Tally watched the last few uglies make their way inside, gawky and nervous, unkempt and uncoordinated. Twelve was definitely the turning point, when you changed from a cute littlie into an oversize, under-educated ugly.

It was a stage of life she was glad to be leaving behind.

" You sure this thing is going to work? " Shay asked.

Tally smiled. It wasn't often that Shay was the cautious one. She pointed at the collar of the bungee jacket. " You see that little green light? That means it's working. It's for emergencies, so it's always ready to go."

Shay's hand slipped under the jacket to pull at her belly sensor, which meant she was nervous. " What if it knows there's no real emergency? "

" It's not that smart. You fall, it catches you. No tricks necessary."

Shay shrugged and put it on.

They'd borrowed the jacket from the art school, the tallest building in Uglyville. It was a spare from the basement, and they hadn't even had to trick the rack to get it free. Tally definitely didn't want to get caught messing around with fire alarms, in case the wardens connected her to a certain incident in New Pretty Town back at the beginning of summer.

Shay pulled an oversize basketball jersey over the bungee jacket. It was in her dorm's colors, and none of the teachers here knew her face very well. " How's that look? "

" Like you've gained weight. It suits you."

Shay scowled. She hated being called Stick Insect, or Pig-Eyes, or any of the other things uglies called one another. Shay sometimes claimed that she didn't care if she ever got the operation. It was crazy talk, of course.

Shay wasn't exactly a freak, but she was hardly a natural-born pretty. There'd only been about ten of those in all of history, after all. " Do you want to do the jump, Squint? "

" I have both been there and done that, Shay, before I even met you. And you're the one who had this brilliant idea."

Shay's scowl faded into a smile. " It is brilliant, isn't it? "

" They'll never know what hit them."

They waited until the new uglies were in the library, scattered around the worktables to watch some orientation video. Shay and Tally lay on their stomachs on the top floor of the stacks, where the dusty old paper books were stored, peering through the guardrails down at the group. They waited for the tour leader to quiet the chattering uglies.

" This is almost too easy, " Shay said, penciling a pair of fat, black eyebrows over her own.

" Easy for you. You'll be out the door before anyone knows what's happened. I've got to make it all the way down the stairs."

" So what, Tally? What are they going to do if we get caught? "

Tally shrugged. " True." But she pulled on her mousy brown wig anyway.

Over the summer, as the last few seniors turned sixteen and pretty, the tricks had grown worse and worse. But nobody ever seemed to get punished, and Tally's promise to Peris seemed ages ago.

Once she was pretty, nothing she'd done in this last month would matter. She was anxious to leave it all behind, but not without a big finish.

Thinking of Peris, Tally stuck on a big plastic nose. They'd raided the drama room at Shay's dorm the night before and were loaded with disguises. " Ready? " she asked. Then she giggled at the nasal twang the fake nose gave her voice.

" Hang on." Shay grabbed a big, fat book from the shelf. " Okay, showtime."

They stood up.

" Give me that book! " Tally shouted at Shay. " It's mine! "

She heard the uglies below fall silent, and had to resist looking down to see their upturned faces.

" No way, Pignose! I checked it out first."

" Are you kidding, Fattie? You can't even read! "

" Oh, yeah? Well, read this! "

Shay swung the book at Tally, who ducked. She snatched it away and swung back, catching Shay solidly on her upraised forearms. Shay rolled back at the impact, spinning over the railing.

Tally leaned forward, watching wide-eyed as Shay tumbled down toward the library's main floor, three stories below. The new uglies screamed in unison, scattering away from the flailing body plummeting toward them.

A second later the bungee jacket activated, and Shay bobbed back up in midair, laughing maniacally at the top of her lungs. Tally waited another moment, watching the uglies' horror dissolve into confusion as Shay bounced again, then righted herself on one of the tables and headed for the door.

Tally dropped the book and dashed for the stairs, leaping a flight at a time until she reached the back exit of the dorm.

" Oh, that was perfect! "

" Did you see their faces? "

" Not actually, " Shay said. " I was kind of busy watching the floor coming at me."

" Yeah, I remember that from jumping off the roof. It does catch your attention."

" Speaking of faces, love the nose."

Tally giggled, pulling it off. " Yeah, no point in being uglier than usual."

Shay's face clouded. She wiped off an eyebrow, then looked up sharply. " You're not ugly."

" Oh, come on, Shay."

" No, I mean it." She reached out and touched Tally's real nose. " Your profile is great."

" Don't be weird, Shay. I'm an ugly, you're an ugly. We will be for two more weeks. It's no big deal or anything." She laughed. " You, for example, have one giant eyebrow and one tiny one."

Shay looked away, stripping off the rest of her disguise in silence.

They were hidden in the changing rooms beside the sandy beach, where they'd left their interface rings and a spare set of clothes. If anyone asked, they'd say they were swimming the whole time. Swimming was a great trick. It hid your body-heat signature, involved changing clothes, and was a perfect excuse for not wearing your interface ring. The river washed away all crimes.

A minute later they splashed out into the water, sinking the disguises. The bungee jacket would go back to the art school basement that night.

" I'm serious, Tally, " Shay said once they were out in the water. " Your nose isn't ugly. I like your eyes, too."

" My eyes? Now you're totally crazy. They're way too close together."

" Who says? "

" Biology says."

Shay splashed a handful of water at her. " You don't believe all that crap, do you-that there's only one way to look, and everyone's programmed to agree on it? "

" It's not about believing, Shay. You just know it. You've seen pretties. They look…wonderful."

" They all look the same."

" I used to think that too. But when Peris and I would go into town, we'd see a lot of them, and we realized that pretties do look different. They look like themselves. It's just a lot more subtle, because they're not all freaks."

" We're not freaks, Tally. We're normal. We may not be gorgeous, but at least we're not hyped-up Barbie dolls."

" What kind of dolls? "

She looked away. " It's something David told me about."

" Oh, great. David again." Tally pushed away and floated on her back, looking up at the sky and wishing this conversation would end. They'd been out to the ruins a few more times, and Shay always insisted on setting off a sparkler, but David had never showed. The whole thing gave Tally the creeps, waiting around in the dead city for some guy who didn't seem to exist. It was great exploring out there, but Shay's obsession with David had started to sour it for Tally.

" He's real. I've met him more than once."

" Okay, Shay, David's real. But so is being ugly. You can't change it just by wishing, or by telling yourself that you're pretty. That's why they invented the operation."

" But it's a trick, Tally. You've only seen pretty faces your whole life. Your parents, your teachers, everyone over sixteen. But you weren't born expecting that kind of beauty in everyone, all the time. You just got programmed into thinking anything else is ugly."

" It's not programming, it's just a natural reaction. And more important than that, it's fair.

In the old days it was all random-some people kind of pretty, most people ugly all their lives. Now everyone's ugly…until they're pretty. No losers."

Shay was silent for a while, then said, " There are losers, Tally."

Tally shivered. Everyone knew about uglies-for-life, the few people for whom the operation wouldn't work. You didn't see them around much. They were allowed in public, but most of them preferred to hide. Who wouldn't? Uglies might look goofy, but at least they were young. Old uglies were really unbelievable.

" Is that it? Are you worried about the operation not working? That's silly, Shay. You're no freak. In two weeks you'll be as pretty as anyone else."

" I don't want to be pretty."

Tally sighed. This again.

" I'm sick of this city, " Shay continued. " I'm sick of the rules and boundaries. The last thing I want is to become some empty-headed new pretty, having one big party all day."

" Come on, Shay. They do all the same stuff we do: bungee jump, fly, play with fireworks.

Only they don't have to sneak around."

" They don't have the imagination to sneak around."

" Look, Skinny, I'm with you, " Tally said sharply. " Doing tricks is great! Okay? Breaking the rules is fun!

But eventually you've got to do something besides being a clever little ugly."

" Like being a vapid, 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.