"Scott Westerfeld - Uglies 02 - Pretties" - читать интересную книгу автора (Westerfeld Scott)

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, peeking into rooms full of old-timey astronauts and
explorers. Tally counted five Cleopatras and two Lillian Russells. There were even a few Rudolph
Valentinos; it turned out the mansion was named after a natural pretty from back in the Rusty days.
Other cliques had organized theme costumes—teams of Jocks carrying hockey sticks and
wobbly on hoverskates, Twisters as sick puppies wearing big cone-shaped plastic collars. And of course
the Swarm was everywhere, all jabbering to one another on their interface rings. Swarmers had
skintennas surged into them so they could call one another from anywhere, even inside Valentino
Mansion's dumb walls. The other cliques always made fun of the Swarm, who were afraid to go
anywhere except in giant groups. They were all dressed as houseflies with big bug eyes, which at least
was sense-making.
No other Crims appeared among the tumult of costumes, and Tally began to wonder if they'd all