Tally sighed, tipping her feet again to follow. "Maybe that's because they have better stuff to do than kid tricks. Maybe partying in town is better than hanging out in a bunch of old ruins." Shay's eyes flashed. "Or maybe when they do the operation-when they grind and stretch your bones to the right shape, peel off your face and rub all your skin away, and stick in plastic cheekbones so you look like everyone else-maybe after going through all that you just aren't very interesting anymore.

The world needed more fireworks- especially now that there was going to be a shortage of beautiful, useless things.

Perhaps it's worth saying again: One reader's discomfort should never stand in the way of another reader's survival.

Sometimes it felt like her life was a series of falls from ever-greater heights.

Fuzzy Tally is no more.

She couldn't disappoint the whole village. There were no wallscreens here, no newsfeeds or satellites bands, and touring soccer teams were no doubt few and far between. (...), that made stories a valuable commodity, and it probably wasn't very often that a stranger dropped in from the sky.

What if destiny doesn't care?