Pretties Read Free

own food, and everyone stayed ugly after their sixteenth birthday Ugly until they died, even.
    Of course, the Smoke didn’t exist anymore, thanks to Tally and Special Circumstances.
    “Hey, I know, Tally!” Shay said. “Let’s go as Smokies tonight!”
    “That would be totally criminal!” Fausto said, his eyes full of admiration.
    The three looked at Tally, all of them thrilled with the idea, and even though another nasty ping went through her, she knew it would be bogus not to agree. And that with a totally bubbly costume like a real-life Smokey sweater to wear, there was no way anyone would vote against her, because Tally Youngblood was a natural Crim.

BASH
    The bash was in Valentino Mansion, the oldest building in New Pretty Town. It sprawled along the river only a few stories high, but was topped by a transmission tower visible halfway across the island. Inside, the walls were made of real stone, so the rooms couldn’t talk, but the mansion had a long history of giant and fabulous bashes. The wait to become a Valentino resident was at least forever.
    Peris, Fausto, Shay, and Tally walked down through the pleasure gardens, which were already bubbling with people headed to the bash. Tally saw an angel with beautiful feathered wings that must have been requisitioned months ago, which was so cheating, and a bunch of new pretties wearing fat-suits and masks that gave them triple chins. A mostly naked clique of Bashers were pretending to be pre-Rusties, building bonfires and drumming, establishing their own little satellite party, which was what Bashers always did.
    Peris and Fausto kept arguing about exactly when to light themselves on fire again. They wanted to make an entrance but also save their sparklers for the other Crims. As they got closer to the mansion’s noise and glimmer, Tally’s nerves started to jump. The Smokey costumes didn’t look like much. Tally wore her old sweater and Shay a copy, along with rough pants, knapsacks, and handmade-looking shoes that Tally had described to the hole in the wall, remembering someone wearing them in the Smoke. For unbathed authenticity they had rubbed dirt into their clothes and faces, which had seemed bubbly during the walk down, but now just felt dirty.
    At the door were two Valentinos dressed up as wardens, making sure no one got inside without a costume. They stopped Fausto and Peris at first, but laughed when the two set themselves on fire, waving them through. They just shrugged at Shay and Tally, but let them in.
    “Wait till the other Crims see us,” Shay said. “They’ll get it.”
    The four pushed through the crowds and into a total confusion of costumes. Tally saw snowmen, soldiers, thumb-game characters, and a whole Pretty Committee of scientists carrying facegraphs. Historical figures were everywhere in crazy clothes from all over the world, which reminded Tally how different from one another everyone used to look back when there were way too many people. A lot of the older new pretties were dressed in modern costumes: doctors, wardens, builders, or politicians—whatever they hoped to become after having the middle-pretty operation. A bunch of firefighters laughingly tried to extinguish Peris’s and Fausto’s flames, but only succeeded in annoying them.
    “Where are they?” Shay kept asking, but the stone walls didn’t answer. “This is so missing. How do people live here?”
    “I think they carry handphones all the time,” Fausto said. “We should have requed one.”
    The problem was that in Valentino Mansion you couldn’t just call people by asking—the rooms were old and dumb, so it was like being outside. Tally placed one palm against the wall as they walked, liking how cool the ancient stones felt. For a moment, they reminded her of things out in the wild, rough and silent and unchanging. She wasn’t really dying to find the other Crims; they’d all be looking at her and wondering how to vote.
    They wandered the crowded hallways,