"Scott Westerfeld - Uglies 1 - Uglies" - читать интересную книгу автора (Westerfeld Scott)

“The what?”

“There’s a piggy on the loose!”

The giggling voices were from the floor below. Tally paused and listened. She was all alone here on the stairs. Apparently, pretties preferred the elevators.

“How dare she come to our party dressed like a piggy! This is white tie!”

“She’s got the wrong party.”

“She’s got no manners, looking that way!”

Tally swallowed. The mask wasn’t much better than her own face. The joke was wearing thin.

She bounded up the stairs, leaving the voices behind. Maybe they’d forget about her if she just kept moving. There were only two more floors of Garbo Mansion to go, and then the roof. Peris had to be here somewhere.

Unless he was out on the back lawn, or up in a balloon, or a party tower. Or in a pleasure garden somewhere, with someone. Tally shook away that last image and ran down the hall, ignoring the same jokes about her mask, risking glances into the rooms one by one.

Nothing but surprised looks and pointed fingers, and pretty faces. But none of them rang a bell. Peris wasn’t anywhere.

“Here, piggy, piggy! Hey, there she is!”

Tally bolted up to the top floor, taking two stairs at a time. Her hard breathing had heated up the inside of the mask, her forehead sweating, the adhesive crawling as it tried to stay attached. They were following her now, a group of them, laughing and stumbling over one another up the stairs.

There wasn’t any time to search this floor. Tally glanced up and down the hall. No one up here, anyway. The doors were all closed. Maybe a few pretties were actually getting their beauty sleep.

If she went up to the roof to check for Peris, she’d be trapped.

“Here, piggy, piggy!”

Time to run. Tally dashed toward the elevator, skidding to a halt inside. “Ground floor!” she ordered.

She waited, peering down the hall anxiously, panting into the hot plastic of her mask. “Ground floor!” she repeated. “Close door!”

Nothing happened.

She sighed, closing her eyes. Without an interface ring, she was nobody. The elevator wouldn’t listen.

Tally knew how to trick an elevator, but it took time and a penknife. She had neither. The first of her pursuers emerged from the stairway, stumbling into the hall.

She threw herself backward against the elevator’s side wall, standing on tiptoe and trying to flatten herself so they couldn’t see her. More came up, huffing and puffing like typical out-of-shape pretties. Tally could watch them in the mirror at the back of the elevator.

Which meant they could also seeher if they thought to look this way.

“Where’d the piggy go?”

“Here, piggy!”

“The roof, maybe?”