the smoke really was smoky.

open fires dotted the valley, surrounded by smallgroups of people. the scents of wood smoke and cookingdrifted up to tally, smells that made her think of campingand outdoor parties. in addition to the smoke there was amorning mist in the air, a white finger creeping down intothe valley from a bank of clouds nestled against the mountainhigher up. a few solar panels glimmered feebly, gatheringwhat sun was reflected from the mist. garden plotswere planted in random spots between the buildings,twenty or so one-story structures made from long planks ofwood. there was wood everywhere: in fences; as cookingspits; laid down in walkways over muddy patches; and inbig stacks by the fires. tally wondered where they hadfound so much wood.

then she saw the stumps at the edges of the settlement,and gasped. “trees . . . ,” she whispered in horror. “you cutdown trees.”

shay squeezed her hand. “only in this valley. it seemsweird at first, but it’s the way the pre-rusties lived too, youknow? and we’re planting more on the other side of themountain, pushing into the orchids.”

“okay,” tally said doubtfully. she saw a team of ugliesmoving a felled tree, pushing it along on a pair of hoverboards.

“there’s a grid?”

shay nodded happily. “just in places. we pulled up abunch of metal from a railroad, like the track you came upthe coast on. we’ve laid out a few hoverpaths through thesmoke, and eventually we’ll do the whole valley. i’ve beenworking on that project. we bury a piece of junk every fewpaces. like everything here, it’s tougher than you’d think.

you wouldn’t believe how much a knapsack full of steelweighs.”

david and the others were already headed down, glidingsingle file between two rows of rocks painted a glowingorange. “that’s the hoverpath?” tally asked.

“yeah. come on, i’ll take you down to the library.

you’ve got to meet the boss.”

the boss wasn’t really in charge here, shay explained. hejust acted like it, especially to newbies. but he was in commandof the library, the largest of the buildings in the settlement’scentral square.

the familiar smell of dusty books overwhelmed tally atthe library door, and as she looked around, she realized thatbooks were pretty much all the library had. no big air-196 scott westerfeldscreen, not even private workscreens. just mismatcheddesks and chairs and rows and rows of bookshelves.

shay led her to the center of it all, where a round kioskwas inhabited by a small figure talking on an old-fashionedhandphone. as they drew closer, tally felt her heart startingto pound. she’d been dreading what she was about to see.

the boss was an old ugly. tally had spotted a few froma distance on the way in, but had managed to turn her eyesaway. but here was the wrinkled, veined, discolored, shuffling,horrific truth, right before her eyes. his milky eyesglared at them as he berated whoever was on the phone, ina rattling voice and waving one claw at them to go away.

shay giggled and pulled her toward the shelves. “he’llget to us eventually. there’s something i want to showyou first.”

“that poor man . . .”

“the boss? pretty wild, huh? he’s, like, forty! wait untilyou talk to him.”

tally swallowed, trying to erase the image of his saggingfeatures from her mind. these people were insane to toleratethat, to want it. “but his face . . . ,” tally said.

“that’s nothing. check these out.” shay sat her down ata table, turned to a shelf, and pulled out a handful ofvolumes in protective covers. she plonked them in frontof tally.

“books on paper? what about them?”

“not books. they’re called ‘magazines,’” shay said. sheuglies 197opened one and pointed. its strangely glossy pages werecovered with pictures. of people.

uglies.

tally’s eyes widened as shay turned the pages, pointingand giggling. she’d never seen so many wildly differentfaces before. mouths and eyes and noses of every imaginableshape, all combined insanely on people of every age.

and the bodies. some were grotesquely fat, or weirdly overmuscled,or uncomfortably thin, and almost all of them hadwrong, ugly proportions. but instead of being ashamed oftheir deformities, the people were laughing and kissing andposing, as if all the pictures had been taken at some hugeparty. “who are these freaks?”

“they aren’t freaks,” shay said. “the weird thing is,these are famous people.”

“famous for what? being hideous?”

“no. they’re sports stars, actors, artists. the men withstringy hair are musicians, i think. the really ugly ones arepoliticians, and someone told me the fatties are mostlycomedians.”

“that’s funny, as in strange,” tally said. “so this is whatpeople looked like before the first pretty? how could anyonestand to open their eyes?”

“yeah. it’s scary at first. but the weird thing is, if youkeep looking at them, you kind of get used to it.”

shay turned to a full-page picture of a woman wearingonly some kind of formfitting underwear, like a lacy swimsuit.

198 scott westerfeld“what the . . . ,” tally said.

“yeah.”

the woman looked like she was starving, her ribsthrusting out from her sides, her legs so thin that tally wonderedhow they didn’t snap under her weight. her elbowsand pelvic bones looked sharp as needles. but there shewas, smiling and proudly baring her body, as if she’d justhad the operation and didn’t realize they’d sucked out waytoo much fat. the funny thing was, her face was closer tobeing pretty than any of the rest. she had the big eyes,smooth skin, and small nose, but her cheekbones were tootight, the skull practically visible beneath her flesh. “whaton earth is she?”

“a model.”

“which is what?”

“kind of like a professional pretty. i guess when everyoneelse is ugly, being pretty is sort of, like, your job.”

“and she’s in her underwear because . . . ?” tally began,and then a memory flashed into her mind. “she’s got thatdisease! the one the teachers always told us about.”

“probably. i always thought they made that up toscare us.”

back in the days before the operation, tally remembered,a lot of people, especially young girls, became soashamed at being fat that they stopped eating. they’d loseweight too quickly, and some would get stuck and wouldkeep losing weight until they wound up like this “model.”

uglies 199some even died, they said at school. that was one of thereasons they’d come up with the operation. no one got thedisease anymore, since everyone knew at sixteen they’dturn beautiful. in fact, most people pigged out just beforethey turned, knowing it would all be sucked away.

tally stared at the picture and shivered. why go backto this?

“spooky, huh?” shay turned away. “i’ll see if the boss isready yet.”

before she disappeared around a corner, tally noticedhow skinny shay was. not diseased skinny, just uglyskinny—she’d never eaten much. tally wondered if, here inthe smoke, shay’s undereating would get worse and worse,until she wound up starving herself.

tally fingered the pendant. this was her chance. mightas well get it over with now.

these people had forgotten what the old world wasreally like. sure, they were having a great time camping outand playing hide-and-seek, and living out here was a greattrick on the cities. but somehow they’d forgotten that therusties had been insane, almost destroying the world in amillion different ways. this starving almost-pretty was onlyone of them. why go back to that?

they were already cutting down trees here.

tally popped open the heart pendant, looking downinto the little glowing aperture where the laser waited toread her eye-print. she brought it closer, her hand shaking.

200 scott westerfeldit was foolish to wait. this would only get harder.

and what choice did she have?

“tally? he’s almost—”

tally snapped closed the pendant and shoved it intoher shirt.

shay smiled slyly. “i noticed that before. what gives?”

“what do you mean?”

“oh, come on. you never wore anything like thatbefore. i leave you alone for two weeks and you get allromantic?”

tally swallowed, looking down at the silver heart.

“i mean, it’s a really nice necklace. beautiful. but whogave it to you, tally?”

tally found she couldn’t bring herself to lie. “someone.

just someone.”

shay rolled her eyes. “last-minute fling, huh? i alwaysthought you were saving yourself for peris.”

“it’s not like that. it’s . . .”

why not tell her? tally asked herself. she’d figure it outwhen the specials came roaring in, anyway. if she knew,shay could at least prepare herself before this fantasy worldcame tumbling down. “i have to tell you something.”

“sure.”

“my coming here is kind of . . . the thing is, when iwent to get my—”

“what are you doing?”

tally jumped at the craggy voice. it was like an old,uglies 201broken version of dr. cable’s, a rusty razor blade drawnacross her nerves.

“those magazines are over three centuries old, andyou’re not wearing gloves!” the boss shuffled over to wheretally was sitting, producing white cotton gloves and pullingthem on. he reached around her to close the one she wasreading.

“your fingers are covered with very nasty acids, younglady. you’ll rot away these magazines if you’re not careful.

before you go nosing around in the collection, you cometo me!”

“sorry, boss,” shay said. “my fault.”

“i don’t doubt it,” he snapped, reshelving the magazineswith elegant, careful movements at odds with his harshwords. “now, young lady, i suppose you’re here for a workassignment.”

“work?” tally said.

they both looked down at her puzzled expression, andshay burst into laughter.