Diamond Age or a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

They tried to sleep in a nice glade of trees in the middle of the city, which reminded Princess Nell of the glades on the Enchanted Isle. But before they could even make themselves comfortable, a hissing hyena with red eyes and dripping fangs came and chased them all away.

"Perhaps we can sneak back into the glade after it gets dark, when the hyena will not see us," Nell suggested.

"The hyena will always see us, even in the dark, because it can see the infrared light that comes out of our bodies," Purple said.

Eventually, Nell, Peter, Duck, and Purple found a place to camp in a field where other poor people lived. Duck set up a little camp and lit a fire, and they had some soup before going to bed. But try as she might, Princess Nell could not sleep.

She saw that Peter Rabbit could not sleep either; he only sat with his back to the fire looking off into the darkness.

"Why are you looking into the darkness and not into the fire as we do?" Nell asked.

"Because the darkness is where danger comes from," Peter said, "and from the fire comes only illusion. When I was a little bunny running away from home, that is one of the first lessons I learned."

Peter went on to tell his own story, just as Dinosaur had earlier in the Primer. It was a story about how he and his brothers had run away from home and fallen afoul of various cats, vultures, weasels, dogs, and humans who tended to see them, not as intrepid little adventurers but as lunch. Peter was the only one of them who had survived, because he was the cleverest of them all.

I made up my mind that one day I would avenge my brothers," Peter said.

"Did you?"

"Well, that's a long story in itself."

"Tell it to me!" Princess Nell said.

But before Peter could launch into the next part of his story, they became aware of a stranger who was approaching them. "We should wake up Duck and Purple," Peter said.

"Oh, let them sleep," Princess Nell said. "They can use the rest, and this stranger doesn't look so bad."

"What does a bad stranger look like exactly?" Peter said.

"You know, like a weasel or a vulture," Princess Nell said.

"Hello, young lady," said the stranger, who was dressed in expensive clothes and jewelry. "I couldn't help noticing that you are new to beautiful Magpie City and down on your luck. I can't sit in my comfortable, warm house eating my big, tasty meals without feeling guilty, knowing that you are out here suffering. Won't you come with me and let me take care of you?"

"I won't leave my friends behind," said Princess Nell.

"Of course not-I wasn't suggesting that," the stranger said. "Too bad they're asleep. Say, I have an idea! You come with me, your rabbit friend stays awake here to keep an eye on your sleeping friends, and I'll show you my place-y'know, prove to you that I'm not some kind of creepy stranger who's trying to take advantage of you, like you see in all those dumb kids' stories that only little babies read. You're not a little baby, are you?"

"No, I don't think so," Princess Nell said.

"Then come with me, give me a fair hearing, check me out, and if I turn out to be an okay guy, we'll come back and pick up the rest of your little group. Come on, time's a wasting!"

Princess Nell found it very hard to say no to the stranger.

"Don't go with him, Nell!" Peter said. But in the end, Nell went with him anyway. In her heart she knew it was wrong, but her head was foolish, and because she was still just a little girl, she did not feel she could say no to a grownup man.

At this point the story became very ractive. Nell stayed up for a while in the ractive, trying different things. Sometimes the man gave her a drink, and she fell asleep. But if she refused to take the drink, he would grab her and tie her up. Either way, the man always turned out to be a pirate, or else he would sell Princess Nell to some other pirates who would keep her and not let her go. Nell tried every trick she could think of, but it seemed as though the ractive were made in such a way that, once she'd made the decision to go away with the stranger, nothing she could do would prevent her from becoming a slave to the pirates.

After the tenth or twelfth iteration she dropped the book into the sand and hunched over it, crying. She cried silently so Harv wouldn't wake up. She cried for a long time, seeing no reason to stop, because she felt that she was trapped now, just like Princess Nell in the book.

"Hey," said a man's voice, very soft. At first Nell thought it was coming out of the Primer, and she ignored it because she was angry at the Primer.

"What's wrong, little girl?" said the voice. Nell tried to look up toward the source, but all she saw was fat colored light from the mediatrons filtered through tears. She rubbed her eyes, but her hands had sand on them. She got panicky for a moment, because she had realized there was definitely someone there, a grownup man, and she felt blind and helpless.