Tally stared at the picture and shivered. Why go back to this?
“Spooky, huh?” Shay turned away. “I’ll see if the Boss is ready yet.”
Before she disappeared around a corner, Tally noticed how skinny Shay was. Not diseased skinny, just ugly skinny—she’d never eaten much. Tally wondered if, here in the Smoke, Shay’s undereating would get worse and worse, until she wound up starving herself.
Tally fingered the pendant. This was her chance. Might as well get it over with now.
These people had forgotten what the old world was really like. Sure, they were having a great time camping out and playing hide-and-seek, and living out here was a great trick on the cities. But somehow they’d forgotten that the Rusties had been insane, almost destroying the world in a million different ways. This starving almost-pretty was only one of them. Why go back to that?
They were already cutting down trees here.
Tally popped open the heart pendant, looking down into the little glowing aperture where the laser waited to read her eye-print. She brought it closer, her hand shaking. It 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 into her shirt.
Shay smiled slyly. “I noticed that before. What gives?”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, come on. You never wore anything like that before. I leave you alone for two weeks and you get all romantic?”
Tally swallowed, looking down at the silver heart.
“I mean, it’s a really nice necklace. Beautiful. But who gave 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 always thought you were saving yourself for Peris.”
“It’s not like that. It’s…”
Why not tell her? Tally asked herself. She’d figure it out when the Specials came roaring in, anyway. If she knew, Shay could at least prepare herself before this fantasy world came tumbling down. “I have to tell you something.”
“Sure.”
“My coming here is kind of…the thing is, when I went to get my—”
“What are you doing?”
Tally jumped at the craggy voice. It was like an old, broken version of Dr. Cable’s, a rusty razor blade drawn across her nerves.
“Those magazines are over three centuries old, and you’re not wearing gloves!” The Boss shuffled over to where Tally was sitting, producing white cotton gloves and pulling them on. He reached around her to close the one she was reading.
“Your fingers are covered with very nasty acids, young lady. You’ll rot away these magazines if you’re not careful. Before you go nosing around in the collection, you come to me!”
“Sorry, Boss,” Shay said. “My fault.”
“I don’t doubt it,” he snapped, reshelving the magazines with elegant, careful movements at odds with his harsh words. “Now, young lady, I suppose you’re here for a work assignment.”
“Work?” Tally said.
They both looked down at her puzzled expression, and Shay burst into laughter.
Work
The Smokies all had lunch together, just like at an ugly dorm.
The long tables had clearly been cut from the hearts of trees. They showed knots and whorls, and wavy tracks of grain ran down their entire length. They were rough and beautiful, but Tally couldn’t get over the thought that the trees had been taken alive.
She was glad when Shay and David took her outside to the cooking fire, where a group of younger uglies hung out. It was a relief to get away from the felled trees, and from the disturbing older uglies. Out here, at least, any of the Smokies could pass as a senior. Tally didn’t have much experience in judging an ugly’s age, but she turned out to be more or less right. Two had just arrived from another city, and weren’t even sixteen yet. The other three—Croy, Ryde, and Astrix—were friends of Shay’s, from the group that had run away together back before Tally and Shay had first met.
Here in the Smoke only five months, Shay’s friends already had a hint of David’s self-assurance. Somehow, they carried the authority of middle pretties without the firm jaw, the subtly lined eyes, or the elegant clothing. They spent lunch talking about projects they were up to. A canal to bring a branch of the creek closer to the Smoke; new patterns for the sheep wool their sweaters were made from; a new latrine. (Tally wondered what a “latrine” was.) They seemed so serious, as if their lives were a really complicated trick that had to be planned and replanned every day.
The food was serious too, and was piled on their plates in serious quantities. It was heavier than Tally was used to, the tastes too rich, like whenever her food history class tried to cook their own meals. But the strawberries were sweet without sugar, and although it seemed weird to eat it plain, the Smokies’ bread had its own flavor without anything added. Of course, Tally would have happily devoured anything that wasn’t SpagBol.
She didn’t ask what was in the stew, though. The thought of dead trees was enough to deal with in one day.
As they emptied their plates, Shay’s friends started pumping Tally for news from the city. Dorm sports results, soap opera story lines, city politics. Had she heard of anyone else running away? Tally answered their questions as best she could. No one tried to hide their homesickness. Their faces looked years younger as they remembered old friends and old tricks.
Then Astrix asked about her journey here to the Smoke.
“It was pretty easy, really. Once I got the hang of Shay’s directions.”
“Not that easy. Took you what, ten days?” David asked.
“You left the night before our birthday, right?” Shay said.
“Stroke of midnight,” Tally said. “Nine days…and a half.”
Croy frowned. “It took a while for the rangers to find you, didn’t it?”
“I guess so. And they almost roasted me when they did. They were doing a huge burn that got out of control.”
“Really? Whoa.” Shay’s friends looked impressed.
“My board almost burned. I had to save it and jump in the river.”
“Is that what happened to your face?” Ryde asked.
Tally touched the peeling skin on her nose. “Well, that’s kind of…” Sunburn, she almost said. But the others’ faces were rapt. She’d been alone so long, Tally found herself enjoying being the center of attention.