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The hoverboard still had so She reread the first few lines of Shay’s note:

Take the coaster straight past the gap, until you find one that’s long and flat Cold is the sea and watch for breaks At the second make the worst mistake

If "the second" e, Tally wanted to run into it in daylight If she’d spotted the gap a split second later, she would have ended up so Bol at the bottoetting across the chasap in the roller coaster, definitely too far to ju looked like the only way around She hiked inland through the scrubby grass, her legs grateful for a stretch after the long night on board Soon the chasm closed, and an hour later she had hiked back up the other side

Tally flew limpse at the view around her

Mountains rose up on her right, tall enough that snow capped their tops even in the early autuht of the city as huge, a whole world in itself, but the scale of everything out here was so rander And so beautiful She could see why people used to live out in nature, even if there weren’t any party towers or ht of home, however, reminded Tally how iant bathtub, like they had in New Pretty Tohirlpool jets and a big packet ofin it She wondered if the water purifier could boil enough water to fill a tub, in the unlikely event that she found one How did they bathe in the Smoke? Tally wondered what she’d smell like when she arrived, after days without a bath Was there soap in the survival kit? Shampoo?

There certainly weren’t any towels Tally had never realized how muchstuff she’d needed before

The second break in the track cae over a river that snaked down from the mountains

Tally cae The drop wasn’t as bad as the first chash to be deadly Too wide to jue stretched aith no easy way down in sight

"At the second make the worstshe did right noould be a mistake Her brain was too tired to handle this, and the board was short on power, anyway

Mid, it was time to sleep

But first she had to unfold the hoverboard The Special who’d instructed her had explained that it needed as ed She pulled the release tabs, and it ca two hoverboards, then each of those opened up, and then those, unfolding like a string of paper dolls Finally, Tally had eight hoverboards connected side-to-side, twice as wide as she was tall, no thicker than a stiff sheet of paper The whole thing fluttered in the stiff ocean breeze like a giant kite, though the board’saway

Tally laid it flat, stretched out in the sun, where its y In a few hours it would be charged up and ready to ride again She just hoped it would go back together as easily as it had pulled apart

Tally pulled out her sleeping bag, yanked it out of its pack, and wriggled inside, still in her clothes

"Pajas she missed about the city

She led out of her shirt, and covered her head with it She could already feel a hint of burn on her nose, and realized she had forgotten to stick on a sunblock patch after daybreak Perfect A little red and flaking skin should go quite nicely with the scratches on her ugly face

Sleep didn’t co there in the open The cries of seabirds rang in her head Tally sighed and sat up Maybe if she had a little more to eat

She pulled out food packets one by one The labels read:

SpagBol

SpagBol

SpagBol

SpagBol

SpagBol

Tally counted forty-one Bols a day for teeks She leaned back and closed her eyes, suddenly exhausted "Thank you, Dr Cable"

A few minutes later, Tally was asleep