Diamond Age or a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

Her interview with Miss Stricken at the end of the day was short and businesslike, no violence or even histrionics. Nell was informed that her performance in the Joy phase of the curriculum was so deficient that it placed her in danger of failing and being expelled from the school altogether, and that her only hope was to come in each Saturday for eight hours of supplementary study.

Nell wished more than anything that she could refuse. Saturday was the only day of the week when she did not have to attend school at all. She always spent the day reading the Primer, exploring the fields and forests around Dovetail, or visiting Harv down in the Leased Territories.

She felt that, through her own mistakes, she had ruined her life at Miss Matheson's Academy. Until recently, Miss Stricken's classes had been nothing more than a routine annoyance-an ordeal that she had to sit through in order to experience the fun parts of the curriculum. She could look back on a time only a couple of months ago when she would come home with her mind aglow from all the things she had learned in Brilliance, and when the Joy part was just an indistinct smudge around the edge. But in recent weeks, Miss Stricken had, for some reason, loomed larger and larger in her view of the place. And somehow, Miss Stricken had read Nell's mind and had chosen just the right moment to step up her campaign of harassment. She had timed today's events perfectly. She had brought Nell's most deeply hidden feelings out into the open, like a master butcher exposing the innards with one or two deft strokes of the knife. And now everything was ruined. Now Miss Matheson's Academy had vanished and become Miss Stricken's House of Pain, and there was no way for Nell to escape from that house without giving up, which her friends in the Primer had taught her she must never do.

Nell's name went up on a board at the front of the classroom labeled, in heavy brass letters, SUPPLEMENTARY CURRICULUMSTUDENTS. Within a few days, her name had been joined by two others: Fiona Hackworth and Elizabeth Finkle-McGraw. Nell's disarming of the fearsome Miss Stricken had already become the stuff of oral legend, and her two friends had been so inspired by the act of defiance that they had gone to elaborate lengths to get themselves in trouble too. Now, the three best students of Miss Matheson's Academy were all doomed to Supplementary Curriculum.

Each Saturday, Nell, Fiona, and Elizabeth would arrive at the school at seven o'clock, enter the room, and sit down in the front row in adjacent desks. This was part of Miss Stricken's fiendish plan. A less subtle tormentor would have placed the girls as far apart as possible to prevent them from talking to each other, but Miss Stricken wanted them right next to each other so that they would be more tempted to visit and pass notes.

There was no teacher in the room at any time. They assumed that they were being monitored, but they never really knew. When they entered, each one of them had a pile of books on her desk-old books bound in chafed leather. Their job was to copy the books out by hand and leave the pages neatly stacked on Miss Stricken's desk before they went home. Usually, the books were transcripts of debates from the House of Lords, from the nineteenth century.

During their seventh Saturday in Supplementary Curriculum, Elizabeth Finkle-McGraw suddenly dropped her pen, slammed her book shut, and threw it against the wall.

Nell and Fiona could not keep themselves from laughing. But Elizabeth did not convey the impression of being in a very lighthearted mood. The old book had scarcely come to rest on the floor before Elizabeth had run over to it and begun kicking at it.

With each blow a furious grunt escaped from her gorge. The book absorbed this violence impassively, driving Elizabeth into a higher rage; she dropped to her knees, flung the cover open, and began to rip out pages by the fistful.

Nell and Fiona looked at each other, suddenly serious. The kicking had been funny, but something about the tearing of pages disturbed them both. "Elizabeth! Stop it!" Nell said, but Elizabeth gave no signs of having heard her. Nell ran up to Elizabeth and hugged her from behind. Fiona scurried in a moment later and picked up the book.

"God damn it!" Elizabeth bellowed, "I don't care about any of the goddamn books, and I don't care about the Primer either!"

The door banged open. Miss Stricken stomped in, dislodged Nell with a simple body check, got both arms around Elizabeth's shoulders, and manhandled her out the door.