Скотт Вестерфельд - Uglies

"Oh. Did he talk to you, too?"

Shay shook her head. "He didn't have to say anything."

Tally frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I mean it's obvious. Ever since you got here. I should have seen it right away."

"I never-" Tally started, but her voice betrayed her. "What are you saying? You think Croy's right?"

Shay sighed. "I'm just saying that-" She stopped and turned to face Tally. "Croy? What about Croy?"

"He was talking to me before lunch, and he noticed my sweater and asked if I got a sleeping bag. And he figured that after nine days getting here I had too much SpagBol left."

"You had too much what?" Shay's expression was one of total confusion. "What on earth are you talking about?"

"Remember when I got here? I told everyone that…" Tally trailed off, for the first time noticing Shay's eyes. They were lined with red, as if she hadn't slept. "Wait a second, what did you think I was talking about?"

Shay held out a hand, fingers splayed. "This."

"What?"

"Hold out yours."

Tally opened one hand, making a mirror image of Shay's.

"Same size," Shay said. She turned both her palms up. "Same blisters, too."

Tally looked down and blinked. If anything, Shay's hands were in worse shape, red and dry and cracked with the ragged edges of burst blisters. Shay always worked so hard, diving in first, always taking the hardest jobs.

Tally's fingers went to the gloves tucked into her belt. "Shay, I'm sure David didn't mean to-" "I'm sure he did. People always think long and hard about gifts in the Smoke."

Tally bit her lip. It was true. She pulled the gloves from her belt.

"You should take them."

"I. Don't. Want. Them."

Tally sat back, stunned. First Croy, now this.

"No, I guess you don't." She dropped the gloves. "But Shay, shouldn't you talk to David before you go nuts about this?"

Shay chewed at a fingernail, shaking her head. "He doesn't talk to me that much anymore.

Not since you showed up. Not about anything important. He's got stuff on his mind, he says."

"Oh." Tally gritted her teeth. "I never…I mean, I like David, but…"

"It's not your fault, okay? I know that." Shay reached out and gave Tally's heart-shaped pendant a little flick. "And besides, maybe your mysterious someone will show up, and it won't matter anyway."

Tally nodded. True enough, once the Specials got here, Shay's romantic life would be the least of anyone's worries.

"Have you even mentioned that to David? It seems like it might be an issue."

"No. I haven't."

"Why not?"

"It just never came up."

Shay's mouth tightened. "That's convenient."

Tally let out a groan. "But Shay, you said it yourself: I wasn't supposed to be giving out directions to the Smoke. I feel really bad about the whole thing. I'm not going to go advertising it."

"Except by wearing that thing around your neck. Which didn't do much good, though, since apparently David didn't notice it."

Tally sighed.

"Or maybe he doesn't care, because this is all just in your…" She couldn't finish. It wasn't just in Shay's head; she could see it now, and feel it too. When David showed her the railway cave, and told her his secret about his parents, he had trusted her, even when he shouldn't have. And now this present. Could it really be just Shay overreacting?

In a quiet part of her mind, Tally realized that she hoped it wasn't.

She took a deep breath, expelling the thought.

"Shay, what do you want me to do?"

"Just tell him."

"Tell him what?"

"About why you wear that heart. About your mysterious someone."

Too late, Tally felt the expression on her face.

Shay nodded. "You don't want to, do you? That's pretty clear."

"No, I will. Really."

"Sure you will." Shay turned away, pulling a hunk of bread from her soup and taking a vicious bite.

"I will." Tally touched her friend's shoulder, and instead of pulling away, Shay turned back to her, her expression almost hopeful.

Tally swallowed. "I'll tell him everything, I promise."

That night at dinner, she ate alone.

Now that she'd spent a day cutting trees herself, the wooden table in the dining hall no longer horrified her. The grain of the wood felt reassuringly solid, and tracing its whorls with her eyes was easier than thinking.

For the first time, Tally noticed the sameness of the food. Bread again, stew again. A couple of days ago, Shay had explained that the plump meat in the stew was rabbit. Not soy-based, like the dehydrated meat in her SpagBol, but real animals from the overcrowded pen on the edge of the Smoke. The thought of rabbits being killed, skinned, and cooked suited her mood. Like the rest of her day, this meal tasted brutal and serious.

Shay hadn't talked to her after lunch, and Tally had no idea what to say to Croy, so she'd worked the rest of the day in silence. Dr. Cable's pendant seemed to grow heavier and heavier, wound around her neck as tightly as the vines, brush, and roots grasping the railroad tracks. It felt as if everyone in the Smoke could see what the necklace really was: a symbol of her treachery.

Tally wondered if she could ever stay there now. Croy suspected what she was, and it seemed like it would be only a matter of time before everyone else knew. All day long a terrible thought had kept crossing her mind: Maybe the Smoke was where she really belonged, but she'd lost her chance by going there as a spy.

And now Tally had come between David and Shay. Without even trying, she'd shafted her best friend.

Like walking poison, she killed everything.

She thought of the orchids spreading across the plains below, choking the life out of other plants, out of the soil itself, selfish and unstoppable. Tally Youngblood was a weed. And, unlike the orchids, she wasn't even a pretty one.

Just as she finished eating, David sat down across from her. "Hey."

"Hi." She managed to smile. Despite everything, it was a relief to see him. Eating alone had reminded her of the days after her birthday, trapped as an ugly when everyone knew she should be pretty. Today was the first time she'd felt like an ugly since coming to the Smoke.

David reached across and took her hand. "Tally, I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?"

He turned her palm up to reveal her freshly blistered fingers.

"I noticed you didn't wear the gloves. Not after you had lunch with Shay. It wasn't hard to guess why."

"Oh, yeah. It's not that I didn't like them. I just couldn't."

"Sure, I know. This is all my fault." He looked around the crowded hall. "Can we get out of here? I've got something to tell you."

Tally nodded, feeling the cold pendant against her neck and remembering her promise to Shay. "Yeah. I've got something to tell you, too."

They walked through the Smoke, past cook fires being extinguished with shovelfuls of dirt; windows coming alight with candles and electric bulbs; and a handful of young uglies pursuing an escaped chicken.

They climbed the ridge from which Tally had first looked down on the settlement, and David led her along it to a cool, flat outcrop of stone where a view opened up between the trees.

As always, Tally noticed how graceful David was, how he seemed to know every step of the path intimately. Not even pretties, whose bodies were perfectly balanced, designed for elegance in every kind of clothing, moved with such effortless control.

Tally deliberately turned her eyes away from him. In the valley below, the orchids glowed with pale malevolence in the moonlight, a frozen sea against the dark shore of the forest.

David started talking first. "Did you know you're the first runaway to come here all alone?"

"Really?"

He nodded, still staring down at the white expanse of flowers. "Most of the time, I bring them in."