Pretties by Scott Westerfeld Read Free Book Online Page B

without puffy eyes or a red nose. New surge was always a delicate topic, like a new hairstyle, almost.
    “You hate them,” Shay softly accused.
    “Of course I don’t. Like I said: totally pretty-making.”
    “Really?”
    “Very. And it’s good they go backward.”
    Shay’s smile returned, and Tally breathed a sigh of relief, still not believing herself. It was the kind of mistake only brand-new pretties made, and she’d had the operation over a month ago. Why was she still saying bogus things? If she made a comment like that tonight, one of the Crims might vote against her. It only took one veto to shut you out.
    And then she’d be alone, almost like running away again.
    Shay said, “Maybe we should go as clock towers tonight, in honor of my new eyeballs.”
    Tally laughed, knowing the lame joke meant she was forgiven. She and Shay had been through a lot together, after all. “Have you talked to Peris and Fausto?”
    Shay nodded. “They said we’re all supposed to dress criminal. They’ve got an idea already but it’s secret.”
    “That’s so bogus. Like they were such bad boys. All they ever did in the ugly days was sneak out and maybe cross the river a few times. They never even made it to the Smoke.”
    The song ended just then, and Tally’s last word fell into sudden silence. She tried to think of what to say, but the conversation just faded out, like fireworks in a dark sky. The next song seemed to take a long time to start.
    When it did, she was relieved and said, “Crim costumes should be easy, Shay-la. We’re the two biggest criminals in town.”
    Shay and Tally tried for two hours, making the hole in the wall spit out costumes and trying them on. They thought of bandits, but didn’t really know what one looked like—in all the old bandit movies in the wallscreen, the bad guys didn’t look Crim, just retarded. Pirates were much better dressing, but Shay didn’t want to wear a patch over one of her new eyeballs. Going as hunters was another idea, but the hole in the wall had this thing about guns, even fake ones. Tally thought of famous dictators from history, but most of them turned out to be men and fashion-missing.
    “Maybe we should be Rusties!” Shay said. “In school, they were always the bad guys.”
    “But they mostly looked like us, I thought. Except ugly.”
    “I don’t know, we could cut down trees or burn oil or something.”
    Tally laughed. “This is a costume, Shay-la, not a lifestyle.”
    Shay spread her arms and said more things, trying to be bubbly. “We could smoke tobacco? Or drive cars?”
    But the hole in the wall wouldn’t give them cigarettes or cars.
    It was fun, though, hanging out with Shay and trying things on, then snorting and giggling and tossing the costumes back into the recycler. Tally loved seeing how she looked in new clothes, even silly ones. Part of her could still remember back before, when looking in the mirror had been painful, her eyes too close together and nose too small, hair frizzy all the time. Now it was like someone gorgeous stood across from Tally, following her every move—someone whose face was in perfect balance, whose skin glowed even with a total hangover, whose body was beautifully proportioned and muscled. Someone whose silvery eyes matched anything she wore.
    But someone with bogus taste in costumes.
    After two hours they were lying on the bed, which was spinning again.
    “Everything sucks, Shay-la. Why does everything suck? They’ll never vote me in if I can’t even come up with a non-bogus costume.”
    Shay took her hand. “Don’t worry Tally-wa. You’re already famous. There’s no reason to be nervous.”
    “That’s easy for you to say.” Even though they’d been born on the same day Shay had become pretty weeks and weeks before Tally. She’d been a full-fledged Crim for almost a month now.
    “It’s not going to be a problem,” Shay said. “Anyone who used to hang out with Special Circumstances is a natural