1269_UgliesFreeBook

372 Scott Westerfeld
dirt of the compound rushed up toward her, looking flat
and packed and hard, the jacket fighting her momentum
desperately now, crushing her like a fist in its grasp.
Finally, the invisible rubber band stretching toward its
breaking point, she slowed to a shuddering halt within
reach of the ground, pulling her hands back to keep from
touching it, her eyeballs straining forward as if they
wanted to pop out of her skull.
Then her fall reversed, and she pulled back upward,
hover-bouncing head over heels, sky and horizon spinning
around her like a playground ride. Tally had no idea where
David was—or where up and down were, for that matter.
This jump was ten times her plunge off Garbo Mansion.
How many bounces would it take to come to a stop?
Now she was falling again, the dirt of the compound
replaced by a building below her. One foot almost touched
down onto the roof, but Tally was pulled up again, still barreling
forward with the momentum of her leap off the hill.
She managed to orient herself, sorting out up and down
just in time to see the edge of the roof coming toward her.
She was overshooting the building. . . .
Flailing in the grasp of the jacket, flying helplessly
upward and then down again, she passed the roof’s edge.
But her outstretched hand caught a rain gutter, bringing
Tally to a sudden halt. “Phew,” she said, looking down.
The building wasn’t very tall, and Tally would bounce
in her jacket if she fell, but the moment her feet touched the