“We get that a lot,” his father said. “You city kids always find it a shock. But you know about genetics, don’t you?”
“Sure. I know all about genes. I knew two sisters, uglies, who looked almost the same. But parents and children? That’s just weird.”
David’s mother forced a serious expression onto her face, but the smile stayed in her eyes. “The features that we take from our parents are the things that make us different. A big nose, thin lips, high forehead—all the things that the operation takes away.”
“The preference toward the mean,” his dad said.
Tally nodded, remembering school lessons. The overall average of human facial characteristics was the primary template for the operation. “Sure. Average-looking features are one of the things people look for in a face.”
“But families pass on nonaverage looks. Like our big noses.” The man tweaked his son’s nose, and David rolled his eyes. Tally realized that David’s nose was much bigger than any pretty’s. Why hadn’t she noticed that before now?
“That’s one of the things you give up, when you become pretty. The family nose,” his mother said. “Az? Why don’t you turn up the heat.”
Tally realized that she was still shivering, but not from the cold outside. This was all so weird. She couldn’t get over the similarity between David and his father. “That’s okay. It’s lovely in here, uh…”
“Maddy,” the woman said. “Shall we all sit down?”
Az and Maddy apparently had been expecting them. In the front room of the house, four antique cups were set out on little saucers. Soon a kettle began to whistle softly on an electric heater, and Az poured the boiling water into an antique pot, releasing a floral scent into the room.
Tally looked around her. The house was unlike any other in the Smoke. It was like a standard crumbly home, filled with impractical objects. A marble statuette stood in one corner, and rich rugs had been hung on the walls, lending their colors to the light in the room, softening the edges of everything. Maddy and Az must have brought a lot of things from the city when they ran away. And, unlike uglies, who had only their dorm uniforms and other disposable possessions, the two had actually spent half a lifetime collecting things before escaping the city.
Tally remembered growing up surrounded by Sol’s woodwork, abstract shapes fashioned from fallen branches she would collect from parks as a littlie. Maybe David’s childhood hadn’t been completely different from her own. “This all looks so familiar,” she said.
“David hasn’t told you?” Maddy said. “Az and I come from the same city as you. If we’d stayed, we might have been the ones to turn you pretty.”
“Oh, I guess so,” Tally murmured. If they’d stayed in the city, there would have been no Smoke, and Shay never would have run away.
“David says that you made it all the way here on your own,” Maddy said.
She nodded. “I was following a friend of mine. She left me directions.”
“And you decided to come alone? Couldn’t you wait for David to come around again?”
“There wasn’t time to wait,” David explained. “She left the night before her sixteenth birthday.”
“That’s leaving things until the last minute,” Az said.
“But very dramatic,” Maddy said approvingly.
“Actually, I didn’t have much choice. I hadn’t even heard of the Smoke until Shay, my friend, told me she was leaving. That was about a week before my birthday.”
“Shay? I don’t believe we’ve met her,” Az said.
Tally looked at David, who shrugged. He had never brought Shay here? She wondered for a moment what had really gone on between David and Shay.
“You certainly made up your mind quickly, then,” Maddy said.
Tally brought her mind back to the present. “I had to. I only had one chance.”
“Spoken like a true Smokey,” Az said, pouring a dark liquid from the kettle into the cups. “Tea?”
“Uh, please.” Tally accepted a saucer and felt the scalding heat through the thin, white material of the cup. Realizing that this was one of those Smokey concoctions that burned your tongue, she sipped carefully. Her face twisted at the bitter taste. “Ah. I mean…sorry. I’ve never had tea before, actually.”
Az’s eyes widened. “Really? But it was very popular back when we lived there.”
“I’ve heard of it. But it’s more of a crumbly drink. Um, I mean, mostly only late pretties drink it.” Tally willed herself not to blush.
Maddy laughed. “Well, we’re pretty crumbly, so I guess it’s okay for us.”
“Speak for yourself, my dear.”
“Try this,” David said. He dropped a white cube into Tally’s tea. The next time she drank, a sweetness had spread through it, cutting the bitterness. It was possible to sip the stuff now without grimacing.
“David’s told you a little about us, I suppose,” Maddy said.
“Well, he said you ran away a long time ago. Before he was born.”
“Oh, did he?” Az said. The expression on his face was exactly like David’s when a member of the railroad crew did something thoughtless and dangerous with a vibrasaw.
“I didn’t tell her everything, Dad,” David said. “Just that I grew up in the wild.”
“You left the rest to us?” Az said a bit stiffly. “Very good of you.”
David held his father’s gaze. “Tally came here to make sure her friend was okay. All the way here alone. But she might not want to stay.”
“We don’t force anyone to live here,” Maddy said.
“That’s not what I mean,” David said. “I think she should know, before she decides about going back to the city.”
Tally looked from David to his parents, quietly amazed. The way they communicated was so strange, not like uglies and crumblies at all. It was more like uglies arguing. Like equals.
“I should know what?” she asked softly.
They all looked at her, Maddy and Az measuring her with their eyes.
“The big secret,” Az said, “the one that made us run away almost twenty years ago.”
“One we usually keep to ourselves,” Maddy said evenly, her eyes on David.