Fight
- At the end of summer, Shay and Tally decide to do one more prank: with the help of a bungee jacket, they frighten a bunch of the new uglies by pretend fighting and throwing Shay off a high level inside the library.
- The breakdown in ages becomes clearer here: up to 12, you're a littlie and live with your parents in the suburbs; from 12 to 16, you're ugly and live in the dorms; at 16, you turn pretty and go live in New Pretty Town.
- (Gee, that's weird. Ages 12 to 16 almost exactly correspond with adolescence—a time when, hate to say it, a lot of kids do go through an awkward stage.)
- Then they go swimming, where they get into a real fight about the whole pretty thing.
- Tally thinks being turned pretty is a good thing and that the whole idea of prettiness is biologically determined.
- Nuh-uh, says Shay. The pretty surgery makes everyone look alike and that they're just culturally programmed to enjoy the pretties.
- Shay says she doesn't want to be pretty but Tally says that she has to grow up sometime. If they had Facebook in this future, this might be a moment when they un-Friend each other. But don't say that Westerfeld didn't warn you what was going to happen in this chapters, since it's titled "Fight."