Page 2 (1/2)

Best Friends Forever

Garbo Mansion was fat, bright, and loud

It filled the space between a pair of party towers, a squat teapot between two slender glasses of chale coluher up they swelled to five stories of circular balconies, croith new pretties Tally cli to take in the view through the eyeholes of her mask

So and flailing his ar herself to watch all the way down, until the guy was caught by his bungee jacket a few seconds before splatting He hover-bounced in the harness a few tiround, close enough to Tally that she could hear nervous hiccups breaking up his giggles He’d been as scared as Tally

She shivered, though ju here beneath the looee jacket used the same lifters as the hoverstruts that held the spindly structures up If all the pretty toys so in New Pretty Toould co down

The mansion was full of brand-new pretties - the worst kind, Peris always used to say They lived like uglies, a hundred or so together in a big dorm But this dorm didn’t have any rules Unless the rules were Act Stupid, Have Fun, and Make Noise

A bunch of girls in ball goere on the roof, screae and shooting safety fireworks at people on the ground A ball of orange fla away the darkness around her

"Hey, there’s a pig down there!" sohed, and Tally quickened her stride toward the wide-open door of thethe surprised looks of two pretties on their way out

It was all one big party, just like they always proowns and in black suits with long coattails Everyone seehed, and Tally keptelse Of course, everyone was always laughing here Unlike an ugly party, there’d never be any fights, or even argu to distinguish faces without being distracted by those big pretty eyes, or overwhellier every second she spent there

Being laughed at by everyone shemuch But it was better than what they’d do if they saw her real face

Tally wondered if she would even recognize Peris She’d only seen hi out of the hospital, before the swelling had subsided But she knew his face so well

Despite what Peris always used to say, pretties didn’t really all lookexactly the same On their expeditions, she and Peris had solies they’d known

Sort of like a brother or sister - an older, more confident,much prettier brother or sister One you’d be jealous of your whole life, if you’d been born a hundred years ago

Peris couldn’t have changed that y?"

"The what?"

"There’s a piggy on the loose!"

The giggling voices were from the floor below Tally paused and listened She was all alone here on the stairs Apparently, pretties preferred the elevators

"How dare she coy! This is white tie!"

"She’s got the wrong party"

"She’s got nothat way!"

Tally sed The mask wasn’tthin

She bounded up the stairs, leaving the voices behind Maybe they’d forget about her if she just kept o, and then the roof Peris had to be here somewhere

Unless he was out on the back lawn, or up in a balloon, or a party tower Or in a pleasure garden soe and ran down the hall, ignoring the salances into the roo but surprised looks and pointed fingers, and pretty faces But none of the a bell Peris wasn’t anywhere

"Here, piggy, piggy! Hey, there she is!"

Tally bolted up to the top floor, taking two stairs at a ti had heated up the inside of theas it tried to stay attached They were following her now, a group of the over one another up the stairs

There wasn’t any tilanced up and down the hall No one up here, anyway

The doors were all closed Maybe a few pretties were actually getting their beauty sleep

If she went up to the roof to check for Peris, she’d be trapped

"Here, piggy, piggy!"

Ti to a halt inside "Ground floor!" she ordered

She waited, peering down the hall anxiously, panting into the hot plastic of her mask "Ground floor!"

she repeated "Close door!"

Nothing happened

She sighed, closing her eyes Without an interface ring, she was nobody The elevator wouldn’t listen

Tally kne to trick an elevator, but it took time and a penknife She had neither The first of her pursuers e into the hall

She threw herself backward against the elevator’s side wall, standing on tiptoe and trying to flatten herself so they couldn’t see her More ca like typical out-of-shape pretties

Tally could watch them in the mirror at the back of the elevator

Which ht to look this way

"Where’d the piggy go?"

"Here, piggy!"

"The roof, maybe?"

So back at the search party in bemusement When he saw her, he ju lashes, regarding her masked face, then looked down at his own tailcoat "Oh, dear Wasn’t this party white tie?"

Tally’s breath caught, her mouth went dry "Peris?" she whispered

He looked at her closely "Do I"

She started to reach out, but reainst the wall Heron tiptoe "It’s y!"

He turned toward the voice down the hall, raised his eyebrows, then looked back at her "Close door

Hold," he said quickly

The door slid shut, and Tally stumbled forward She pulled off her mask to see him better It was Peris: his voice, his brown eyes, the way his forehead crinkled when he was confused

But he was sopretty now

At school, they explained how it affected you It didn’t matter if you knew about evolution or not - it worked anyway On everyone

There was a certain kind of beauty, a prettiness that everyone could see Big eyes and full lips like a kid’s; smooth, clear skin; symmetrical features; and a thousand other little clues Somewhere in the backs of theirfor thesetheht up A million years of evolution hadeyes and lips said: I’ and vulnerable, I can’t hurt you, and you want to protect me And the rest said: I’m healthy, I won’t make you sick And no matter how you felt about a pretty, there was a part of you that thought:If we had kids, they’d be healthy too I wantthis pretty person

It was biology, they said at school Like your heart beating, you couldn’t help believing all these things, not when you saw a face like this A pretty face

A face like Peris’s

"It’s me," Tally said

Peris took a step back, his eyebrows rising He looked down at her clothes

Tally realized she earing her baggy black expedition outfit,a the vines Peris’s suit was deep black velvet, his shirt, vest, and tie all glohite

She pulled away "Oh, sorry I won’t get youhere, Tally?"

"I just - ," she sputtered Now that she was facing hiined conversations had , sweet eyes "I had to knoere still"

Tally held out her right hand, the scarred pal the lines on it

Peris sighed He wasn’t looking at her hand, or into her eyes Not into her squinty, narrow-set, indifferently brown eyes Nobody eyes "Yeah," he said "But, I mean - couldn’t you have waited, Squint?"

Her ugly nickna from a pretty Of course, it would be even weirder to call him Nose, as she used to about a hundred times a day She sed "Why didn’t you write us I’m so different now"