Note: In the time after all us humans had died, a new form of control took over the people who carried on. In this world you live with your parents until age eleven and then move to Uglyville until your sixteen. When you are sixteen years old you get an operation where people re-design your face and body to make you pretty. When you are a new pretty you then move to New Prettytown. In this place, everyday is a party and no-one works. When you get to a certain age, you can get married and everyone has no more than one or two kids and they can have operations to show wrinkles so they look wiser. These are middle pretties. When they grow older they are referred to as Crumblies. Kids usually refer to their parents as crumblies even if they are still Middle pretties.
I woke up at sunrise and jumped out of bed.
"Ally, Ally, Ally!" I shouted as I ran over to her bed by the window.
"Mira, Mira, Mira" the girl replied sleepily.
"Guess what day it is!" I said excitedly.
"I don't need to guess, you've only been telling me every day for the last month." She replied as she slowly got out of the bed.
I shrieked happily. Today was my sixteenth birthday! I was getting an operation to make me pretty! I pulled on my dorm uniform and went to the door to see a middle pretty standing there just about to knock.
"Mira, you seem excited… I wonder why" she laughed and handed me a present. The middle prettys name was Rachelle and she had been my dorm supervisor since I turned eleven and first came to Uglyville. I took the present, thanked her and invited her into the room. I went to my beige bed and started opening the present. Ally came over and sat on the bed with me. I opened the present and saw a beautiful blue silk dress.
"Oh my god! Rachelle! It's gorgeous!" I exclaimed and ran over to her to give her a hug.
"I just thought you might want to wear it when you get to New Pretty Town".
I knew we weren't supposed to wear anything except the dorm uniform while we were ugly so I put it in my bag for after the operation.
"Ready to go?" Rachelle asked. I nodded but then hesitated.
"Ally…." I said and walked over to her. She had tears in her eyes. I gave her a big hug.
"I'll miss you so much Mira, have you ever thought about… maybe not going through with the operation?" she whispered into my ear as we were hugging. I drew away.
"What? Not becoming a pretty?! That's ridiculous!" I said. How strange that Ally was considering not going through with the operation. Ally eyed Rachelle wearily and said quietly, "Do you think it's strange that pretties never visit, what about your brother? You were so close but you haven't seen him since he turned pretty two years ago. Look, I've been wanting to talk to you about this, but I have only just got the evidence to prove it…."
"Now, now," Rachelle said sternly, "Mira is all excited about this, don't put stupid suspicions into her head. The pretties have a lot of fun and don't have enough time to visit uglies." She put her arm around me.
"It's time to go, Mira. Say good-bye to Ally. You'll see her in a few months anyway. In prettytown." She added.
I hugged Ally again and turned around before she could see my silent tears. Rachelle and I got to the door but I paused to wave at Ally. I could see tears glistening on her face. It made me even sadder and I started crying uncontrollably before Rachelle led me through the hall to the front door where the car was waiting for me to take me to the hospital for the operation. Rachelle and I sat in silence as the chauffeur drove us towards the hospital. Rachelle would be the last person to see me ugly. I was a bit nervous but also very excited. I'd heard that every day was a party in New Prettytown and you can do whatever you like. Imagine! I cheered up a bit and got the dress out of my bag. It was such a pretty colour and I couldn't wait to wear it.
I took out my little compact mirror and looked at my face. I studied my terribly shaped nose. It was an if someone had used plasticine to shape my nose so it was small at the bridge and wide around the nostrils. I looked at my hair. I liked the colour of my hair. I would probably ask for it during the operation. I would ask for it to be long and soft instead of shoulder length and kinky at the bottom with random strands that like to cover my face. My eyes were a murky brown and my complexion wasn't great. It was kind of greasy and had a few pimples on it. "Good bye face" I whispered and I put my compact mirror away. After what seemed like hours, the car suddenly stopped outside a tall white building. I gasped at how tall it was. Rachelle opened the door to me and I got out of the car feeling like a princess. My heart was pounding at the thought of being a pretty. We got inside to the waiting room and I sat next to Rachelle, who put her arm around me. Her interface ring made a beeping noise and started flashing.
"Oh Darling, I'm so sorry, they need me back at the dorm…I have to go" she said as she read the message. My eyes filled up with tears again. Rachelle was the closest I had to a mother at the dorm and I'd never see her again.
"I'll visit you, I promise..." I whispered.
"No, Mira, you go have fun, don't think about me." She smiled sadly and said a final goodbye as she left the room and went back to the car. I sat down as my tears blurred my vision. I had to stop acting like a baby, and act more like a pretty. I put my head up, sat up straight and stuck my chest out. Sigh, I just want to get to my new room so I can be alone. I relaxed again, put my head down and started playing with the zipper on my bag in my lap. I felt myself becoming too relaxed….
Bang! A noise sounded and I woke up suddenly. The noise was my bag, with the book in it hitting the floor.
"Crap!" I exclaimed. I had fallen asleep! The colour of the sky outside had changed, instead of the sleepy morning colour, it was now a bright blue, midday colour. I got my bag and went to the desk.
"Excuse me, ma'am, uhh I think I missed my appointment. I turned sixteen today."
The lady smiled and faced her computer screen.
"What was your name, dear?"
"Mira," I replied, "Mira Hearting"
The lady typed my name into the computer.
"Dear, your real name please." She said after awhile.
"Uhh that's my name. Mira Hearting, M-i-r-a H-e-a-r-t-i-n-g."
The lady clicked around a bit more and then turned to me and leaned over the desk.
"Look, I know, a lot of uglies are ashamed of their names, your parents did try to name you something nice, but then they don't always know the latest fashions, do they?" She chuckled, "But I want you to know that we can't go ahead with the operation until we know your name. Once you're a pretty, you can change it, as long as you register it. Now, dear, your name."
"I'm really serious" I said. The lady's smile disappeared.
"Girl, go sit down and come back when you're ready to tell me your name. We have every single ugly in the whole of Uglyville listed on this computer, so your name mustn't be 'Mira Hearting' or it would be here."
I was shocked and a little scared to. I went and sat down on the same red plastic chair I was in before.
I didn't know what to do. I guess I could take the Uglybus back to the dorm. The Uglybus was a free bus that travels from the hospital to Uglyville. It was only used by uglies that have injured themselves doing stupid and had to take the Uglybus to the hospital to get stitches or something like that. I awkwardly approached the desk.
"Umm, sorry to bother you again, but what time does the next…Uglybus leave here." I asked hesitantly.
The lady did not look happy.
"Next one is in half an hour." She snapped and she turned back to the computer. I went outside in the cold and stood next to the door. I hugged myself to keep warm. What happened? Maybe Rachelle would know what to do.
Half an hour later an old maroon bus appeared around the corner. The doors opened in front of me and I stepped on to the bus. It was full of gloomy young teenage uglies, a lot of them had casts on. I sat down in the front corner seat. Almost immediately a young girl, maybe around fourteen, came up behind me.
"You don't look too broken, what did you have done?"
"Uhh, There was just a bit of a misunderstanding." I said quickly, not wanting to talk to anyone about it. The girl did not pick up on this and slid into the seat next to me.
"So how old are you? Must be nearly pretty age."
"Yeah." I said.
"Not very talkative are you. Ha-ha I broke my arm as you can see," She held up her arm which had a bright pink cast on it. "I just came from visiting my crumblies, I had to do a full trip from the hospital, through uglyville and then to the crumblies. Then later, I had to get back on and go past the hospital again, and that's where I am now. I don't know if you've ever broken a bone, but's its kinda a tradition to visit your parents to get them to sign the cast before going back to Uglyville. By the way, my name is Soya, I know weird name, hey." She stuck her good arm at me in a handshake gesture.
"I'm Mira." I said and shook her hand.
"That's such a pretty name! I wish I had a name that's that pretty. So whereabouts do you live in Uglyville, I don't think I've seen you around before?"
"Dorm 305" I replied. Soya continued to chat about everything and I nodded sometimes like I was listening.
"Well this is my stop, Dorms 0 to 200. Dorm 127 is my dorm. I'm in room 23 if you ever want to visit." Soya said at the first stop of Uglyville. I nodded and smiled. Soya got off and waved to me from outside before going into the building. I sat in silence, staring out the window until the next stop.
"Ally!" I shouted, the minute I got into Dorm 305. I unlocked our room with the key I had forgotten to give to Rachelle. I was glad I had forgotten, I didn't know what would happen if I had given the key to her. I went into our room and found it empty. How stupid am I, she must be at school. I checked our generic, round alarm clock. It said it was 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Ally will be back soon. I lay on my bed, leaning against the wall and read my book.
I was taken out of the fantasy world I was reading about when I heard someone opening the door with their key. I bounded off the bed and wrapped my arms around Allys small frame. I looked at the girl I had spent all my years at the dorm with. Her sandy blonde hair matched her freckles around her nose and her blue eyes, although not very bright, were considered quite nice-looking in Uglyville. She never needed to change, I was so happy to see her. I cried into her shoulder explaining everything. Ally took my shoulders and moved them so she could directly look at my face.
"Look, Mira, I need to tell you something about the operation. You know, Sam? My brother from another mother who was a few years older than us? Well when he changed to a pretty, me and some of his other friends went and visited him in Prettytown. He met us outside an abandoned disco building. He told us what he felt and that he felt like he was fighting against a very strong force all the time. He seemed weird too. He seemed to smile at random times and go all ditsy in the middle of talking. He was always strong-willed and after he randomly went ditsy, his eyes would go dark and he'd shake his head and talk a bit more normally And then -."
"Ally," I cut her off, "I don't have a clue what you're talking about. Please just get to the point and explain."
"Sorry, I was rambling. Ok so Sam found out that when you turn pretty the operation specialists add an extra cell into your brain. Well not cell, more like, well a type of permanent drug thing. It makes you change the way you act. It makes you lose your intelligence and makes you think the way the special operations unit want you to. They are pretty much this bad-ass secret controlling government and they keep every one in line. The drug they put into your brain it makes you party all day and night… It's cruel. I had to stop them from doing it to you! Earlier on, I missed school and went to the abandoned disco building just outside new pretty town where Sam and some friends who are uglies have hacked into the accounts of all the important computers in the city. I, I was doing this for your own good, told them to erase your data so you wouldn't have to operation."
"ALLY! I wanted to be pretty! Do I stay ugly all my life now?! What have you done!?" I burst into tears again. Looking at the face of the person I'd always loved, I realised that she had betrayed me and I ran out of the room.