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Operation

When the day came, Tally waited for the car alone

Tomorrohen the operation was all over, her parents would be waiting outside the hospital, along with Peris and her other older friends That was the tradition But it seee that there was no one to see her off on this end No one said good-bye except a few uglies passing by They looked so young to her now, especially the just-arrived new class, who gawked at her like she was an old pile of dinosaur bones

She’d always loved being independent, but now Tally felt like the last littlie to be picked up from school, abandoned and alone September was a crappy ht?"

She looked up It was a new ugly, aardly exploding into unfa at his dorht

"Yeah"

"Aren’t you the one who’s going to turn today?"

"That’s me, Shorty"

"So how coed What could this half-littlie, half-ugly understand, anyway? She thought about what Shay had said about the operation

Yesterday they’d taken Tally’s finaltube

Should she tell this new ugly that so to be opened up, the bones ground down to the right shape, soe and cheekbones stripped out and replaced with programmable plastic, skin sanded off and reseeded like a soccer field in spring? That her eyes would be laser-cut for a lifetime of perfect vision, reflective iold flecks to their indifferent brown? Her ht of electrocize and all her baby fat sucked out for good? Teeth replaced with cera, and as white as the dorood china?

They said it didn’t hurt, except the new skin, which felt like a killer sunburn for a couple of weeks

As the details of the operation buzzed around in her head, she could io through just to look a certain way If only people were sh to treat everyone the saly

If only Tally had couinary conversations were back, but much worse than they had been after Peris had left A thousand ti discussions about beauty, biology, growing up All those tilies and pretties, the city and the outside, as fake and as real But Tally had never once realized her friend laAny thing

Sitting here, she felt as if she’d hardly tried

Tally looked the new ugly in the eye "Because it all comes down to this: Teeks of killer sunburn is worth a lifetieous"

The kid scratched his head "Huh?"

"So I should have said, and didn’t That’s all"

The hospital hovercar finally cahtly that it hardly disturbed the fresh-rass