Cautionary Tales Read Free Page A

bad was it?”
    â€œVery bad,” I said. “A dreadful tissue of hints, distortions, threats, and outright lies, yet fiendishly persuasive to a child. He led her on mercilessly, coercing her into cooperation. It could have destroyed Nettie. Children today may know more of life and sex than earlier generations ever did, but this—this is something else. Now we know why children have been committing suicide in such numbers.”
    â€œAnd with no record of anything untoward on the Interact,” he said. “And to think how readily our daughter could have been the next. It was just our fortune that she had the wit to mention that ad for the Bluebeard game.”
    â€œAnd that we had the wit to be suspicious, and to contact the Interact proprietors, who were looking for a way to verify their suspicions,” I agreed. The numbness was gradually abating, though I know that I would never be able to abolish every vestige of the horror of the virtual encounter. If I, a grown, experienced woman, had been halfway freaked out by those sexual acts, how much worse for a child! “So that we could set up this little sting operation.”
    â€œAnd that she was willing to let us use her game persona and identity, so they could verify her authenticity, and use it to blackmail her into submission,” he said. Then he frowned. “If it’s as bad as it evidently is, what about our deal with Nettie?”
    I shuddered. “To let her view the full video recording? We can’t do that! I hope she never sees some of those perversions.”
    â€œBut what kind of parents are we, if we renege? We made a deal, and she honored her part of it. She would never forgive us.”
    â€œOh, she’ll forgive us,” I reminded him wanly. “You are forgetting the escape clause.”
    He knocked his forehead with the heel of his hand. “That if we don’t show her that video, we must pay a consequence of her choosing, without limit. We thought that was academic.”
    â€œWell, it isn’t,” I said. “We will suffer the consequence.”
    â€œWhat could a ten year old girl demand? A ton of ice cream? An end to all curfews? An annual pass to Mouse House?”
    â€œLet’s hope it’s that innocent,” I said, dreading it. Because Nettie had a diabolical imagination. Almost like that of Lucifer, in her fashion. We were in for it.
    Note: In 1995 Charles Platt, who had been my editor at AVON, was guest editing an issue of the leading British Science Fiction and Fantasy magazine INTERZONE. He asked me for a story. I had a notion of his tastes, so wrote a provocative one relating to the then early Internet phenomenon, illustrating one of its dangers. My effort is dated now, but I think the intervening years have amply vindicated my prophecy, and not just with child porn. Do you know what your child is doing online? “Bluebeard” was published in the April 1995 issue.

Caution: biographical essay
    2. Root Pruning
    What makes a creative writer? It is obviously something other than intelligence, imagination, or ambition, though these surely help. I have pondered this question often, and tentatively conclude that it is root pruning.
    You know what regular pruning is. Trees or plants are cut back to smaller size, and they then may bush out more thickly and look prettier, as man imposes his aesthetics on nature. It’s a regular thing with gardeners, though I always wince at how it must feel to the plants. Which suggests another quality of effective writing: empathy. A person who feels the pain of others seems more likely to be able to write effectively about it.
    But there’s another kind of pruning, typically used with small trees. They prune back the roots so as to make a ball, so the tree can be transported and transplanted. The roots grow out again from that ball in the new location, and all is well. The pain of the tree is invisible. I had to do it with a