1269_UgliesFreeBook

186 Scott Westerfeld
its waterproof bag. The only thing lost to the river was
Shay’s note, reduced to a soggy wad of paper in her pocket.
But she had almost made it. As she looked out from the
hilltop, Tally realized that, except for the burn blisters on
her hands and feet, some bruises on her knees, and a few
locks of hair that had gone up in smoke, she had pretty
much survived. As long as the Smokies knew where to find
her, and believed her story that she was an ugly coming to
join them, and didn’t figure out that she was actually a spy,
then everything was just great.
She waited on the hill, exhausted but unable to sleep,
wondering if she could really do what Dr. Cable wanted. The
pendant around her neck had also survived the ordeal. Tally
doubted a little water would have ruined the device, but she
wouldn’t know until she reached the Smoke and activated it.
She hoped for a moment that the pendant wouldn’t
work. Maybe one of the bumps along the way had broken
its little eye-reader and it would never send its message
back to Dr. Cable. But that was hardly worth hoping for.
Without the pendant, Tally was stuck out here in the wild
forever. Ugly for life.
Her only way home was to betray her friend.