1269_UgliesFreeBook

230 Scott Westerfeld
pulled from the fire hot enough to burn her tongue, which
city food never did. Of course, she missed shampoo that
didn’t sting her eyes, and flush toilets (she’d learned to her
horror what “latrines” were), and mostly medspray. But
however blistered her hands became, Tally felt stronger
than ever before. She could work all day at the railroad site,
then race David and Shay home on hoverboards, her backpack
full of more scrap metal than she could have lifted a
month before. She learned from David how to repair her
clothes with a needle and thread, how to tell raptors from
their prey, and even how to clean fish, which turned out to
be not nearly as bad as cutting them up in bio class.
The physical beauty of the Smoke also cleared her mind
of worries. Every day seemed to change the mountain, the
sky, and the surrounding valleys, making them spectacular
in a completely new way. Nature, at least, didn’t need an
operation to be beautiful. It just was.
One morning on the way to the railroad track, David pulled
his board up alongside Tally’s. He rode silently for a while,
taking the familiar turns with his usual grace. Over the last
two weeks, she’d learned that his jacket was actually made
of leather, real dead animals, but she’d gradually gotten
used to the idea. The Smokies hunted, but they were like
the rangers, killing only species that didn’t belong in this
part of the world or that had gotten out of control thanks
to the Rusties’ meddling. With its random patches, the