Page 18 (1/2)

Spagbol

Shebeneath her, tracing slow arcs around hills, crossing rivers on crues, always headed toward the sea Twice it took her through other Rusty ruins, sration Only a feisted shapes of rasping at the air Burned-out groundcars were everywhere, choking the streets out of toisted together in the collisions of the Rusties’ last panic

Near the center of one ruined town, she discovered what the long, flat roller coaster was all about In a nest of tracks tangled up like a huge circuit board, she found a few rotting roller-coaster cars, huge rolling containers full of Rusty stuff, unidentifiable piles of rust and plastic Tally remembered now that Rusty cities weren’t self-sufficient, and were always trading with one another, when they weren’t fighting over who had more stuff They must have used the flat roller coaster to an to grow light, Tally heard the sound of the sea in the distance, a faint roar co from across the horizon She could s to the ocean with Ellie and Sol as a littlie

"Cold is the sea and watch for breaks," Shay’s note read Soon, Tally would be able to see the waves breaking on the shore Maybe she was close to the next clue

Tally wondered how much time she’d made up with her new hoverboard She increased its speed, wrapping her dorm jacket around herself in the predawn chill The track was slowly clih for over the ocean, swarh caves

Those ca trips with Sol and Ellie felt as if they’d happened a hundred years ago She wondered if there was soain, forever

Suddenly, a gap opened up in front of Tally, spanned by a crue didn’t make it all the way across, and there was no river full of metal deposits beneath it to catch her Just a precipitous drop to the sea

Tally spun her board sideways into a skid Her knees bent under the force of braking, her grippy shoes squealing as they slipped across the riding surface, her body turning alone

A deep chasm opened up under her, a fissure cut into the cliffs by the sea Boiling waves crashed into the narrow channel, their whitecaps glowing in the darkness, their hungry roars reaching her ears The board’s hts flickered out one by one as Tally left the splintered end of the iron bridge behind

She felt the board lose purchase, slipping doard

A thought flashed through her rab for the end of the broken bridge But then the hoverboard would tu her stranded

The board finally halted in its slide out into ers of the crue wereabove her now, out of reach The board inched doard, nets lost their grip She was too heavy Tally slipped off the knapsack, ready to hurl it down But how could she survive without it? Her only choice would be to return to the city for more supplies, which would lose two oose-pi her arms like the chill of death

But the breeze buoyed the hoverboard, and for a moment she neither rose nor fell Then the board started to slip doard again

Tally thrust her hands into the pockets of her jacket and spread her arust struck, lifting her slightly, taking sohts flickered stronger

Like a bird with outstretched wings, she began to rise

The lifters gradually regained purchase on the track, until the hoverboard had brought her level with the broken end of the bridge She coaxed it carefully back over the cliff’s edge, a huge shiver passing through her body as the board passed over solid ground Tally stepped off, legs shaking

"Cold is the sea and watch forbreaks, " she said hoarsely How could she have been so stupid, speeding up just when Shay’s note said to be careful?

Tally collapsed onto the ground, suddenly dizzy and tired Herindifferently against the jagged rocksShe could have been down there, battered again and again until there was nothing left

This was the wild, she reminded herself Mistakes had serious consequences

Even before Tally’s heart had stopped pounding, her storowled

She reached into her knapsack for the water purifier, which she’d filled at the last river, and ee that it had filtered fro the top to peer in It looked clear, and smelled like water

She took a much needed drink, but saved most to make dinner, or breakfast, whatever it was Tally planned to do e in sunlight, wasting no ti, she pulled out a food packet at randoed Unwrapped, it looked and felt like a finger-size knot of dried yarn She dropped it into the purifier, whichnoises as it calowing horizon, her eyes opened wide She’d never seen dawn frolies, she was rarely up early enough, and in any case the horizon was always hidden behind the skyline of New Pretty Town The sight of a real sunrise anited the sky, glorious and unexpected, as spectacular as fireworks, but changing at a stately, barely perceptible pace That’s how things were out here in the wild, she was learning Dangerous or beautiful Or both

The purifierpingedTally opened the top and looked inside It was noodles with a red sauce, with small kernels of soyain "SpagBolspaghetti Bolognese!"

She found a fork in the knapsack and ate hungrily With the sunrise war below, it was the best es