"Scott Westerfeld - Uglies 03 - Specials" - читать интересную книгу автора (Westerfeld Scott)

GOING HOME
DAVID
EMERGENCY MEETING
CONFESSION
CRUMBLING
OPERATION
TEARS
RUINS
THE PLAN
MANIFESTO
ABOUT THE AUTHOR




Part I
BEING SPECIAL


By plucking her petals you do not gather the beauty of the flower.
тАФRabindranath Tagore, "Stray Birds"

CRASHING A BASH


The six hoverboards slipped among the trees with the lightning grace of playing cards thrown flat
and spinning. The riders ducked and weaved among ice-heavy branches, laughing, knees bent and arms
outstretched. In their wake glowed a crystal rain, tiny icicles shaken from the pine needles to fall behind,
aflame with moonlight.
Tally felt everything with an icy clarity: the brittle, freezing wind across her bare hands, the shifting
gravities that pressed her feet against the hoverboard. She breathed in the forest, tendrils of pine coating
her throat and tongue, thick as syrup.
The cold air seemed to make sounds crisper: The loose tail of her dorm jacket cracked like a
wind-whipped flag, her grippy shoes squeaked against the hoverboard surface with every turn. Fausto
was pumping dance music straight through her skintenna, but that was silent to the world outside. Over its
frantic beat Tally heard every twitch of her new monofilament-sheathed muscles.
She squinted against the cold, eyes watering, but the tears made her vision even sharper. Icicles
whipped past in glittering streaks, and moonlight silvered the world, like an old, colorless movie come
flickering to life.
That was the thing about being a Cutter: Everything was icy now, as if the world were opening
her skin. Shay swooped in beside Tally, their fingers brushing for a moment, and flashed a smile. Tally
tried to return it, but something shifted in her stomach as she looked at Shay's face. The five Cutters were
undercover tonight, black irises hidden under dull-eyed contacts, cruel-pretty jaws softened by
smart-plastic masks. They had turned themselves into uglies because they were crashing a bash in
Cleopatra Park. For Tally's brain, it was way too soon to be playing dress-up. She'd only been special a
couple of months, but when she looked at Shay she expected to see her best friend's new and marvelous
cruel beauty, not tonight's ugly disguise. Tally angled her board sideways to avoid an ice-laden branch,
breaking contact. She concentrated on the glittering world, on twisting her body to slip the board among
the trees. The rush of cold air helped her refocus on her surroundings rather than the missing feeling inside
herselfтАФ the one that came from the fact that Zane wasn't here with the rest of them.