Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

made solid, complete with tight, banked turns, sharp climbs followed by long drops, even loops that took Tally upside down, her crash bracelets activating to keep her on board. It was amazing what good shape it was in. The Rusties must have built it out of something special, just as Shay had said.
    The track went much higher than a hoverboard could go on its own. On the roller coaster, hoverboarding really was like being a bird.
    It wound around in a wide, slow arc, circling back toward where they’d started. The final approach began with a huge climb.
    “Take this part fast!” Shay shouted over her shoulder as she zoomed ahead.
    Tally followed at top speed, rocketing up the spindly track. She could see the ruins in the distance: broken, black spires against the trees. And behind them, a moonlit glimmer that might have been the sea.
    This was really high!
    She heard a scream of pleasure as she reached the top. Shay had disappeared. Tally leaned forward to speed up.
    Suddenly, the board dropped out from under her. It simply fell away from her feet, leaving her flying through midair. The track below her had disappeared.
    Tally clenched her fists, waiting for the crash bracelets to kick in and haul her up by her wrists. But they had become as useless as the board, just heavy strips of steel dragging her toward the ground. “Shay!”
    she screamed as she fell into blackness.
    Then Tally saw the framework of the roller coaster ahead. Only a short segment was missing.
    Suddenly, the crash bracelets pulled her upward, and she felt the solid surface of the hoverboard coming up from under her feet. Her momentum had carried her to the other side of the gap! The board must have sailed along with her, just below her feet for those terrifying seconds of free fall.
    She found herself cruising down the track, to where Shay was waiting at the bottom. “You’re insane!” she shouted.
    “Pretty cool, huh?”
    “No!” Tally yelled. “Why didn’t you tell me it was broken ?”
    Shay shrugged. “More fun that way?”
    “More fun ?” Her heart was beating fast, her vision strangely clear. She was full of anger and relief and…joy. “Well, kind of. But you suck !”
    Tally stepped from the board and walked across the grass on rubbery legs. She found a broken stone big enough to sit on, and lowered herself shakily onto it.
    Shay jumped off her board. “Hey, sorry.”
    “That was horrible, Shay. I was falling .”
    “Not for long. Like, five seconds. I thought you said you’d bungee jumped off a building.”
    Tally glared at Shay. “Yeah, I did, but Knew I wasn’t going to splat.”
    “True. But, you see, the first time someone showed me the roller coaster, they didn’t tell me about the gap. And I thought it was pretty cool, finding out that way. Best time’s the first time. I wanted you to feel it too.”
    “You thought falling was cool ?”
    “Well, maybe at first I was pretty angry. Yeah, I definitely was.” Shay smiled broadly. “But I got over it.”
    “Give me a second on that one, Skinny.”
    “Take your time.”
    Tally’s breathing slowed, and her heart gradually stopped trying to beat its way out of her chest. But her brain stayed as clear as it had for those seconds of free fall, and she found herself wondering who had found the roller coaster first, and how many other uglies had come here since. “Shay, who showed you all this?”
    “Friends, older than me. Uglies like us, who try to figure out how stuff works. And how to trick it.”

    Tally looked up at the ancient, serpentine shape of the roller coaster, the vines crawling up its framework. “I wonder how long uglies have been coming here.”
    “Probably a long time. You pass along stuff. You know, one person figures out how to trick their board, the next finds the rapids, the next makes it to the ruins.”
    “Then somebody gets brave enough to jump the gap in the roller coaster.” Tally swallowed. “Or jumps it accidentally.”
    Shay nodded.