Her uncle told her stories when she could not read. The princess rode a motorbike in a pink leather gown. But she didn't quite buy it, even at three, because in the picture the princess was in a carriage. She told him, no, you're telling it wrong, tell it right. And he would tell it again. The princess rode a donkey through fields of spaghetti plants to a palace made of dragon scales and golden pigeon feathers. "No," she insisted, "I want what it really says, what goes with the picture." Then the princess rode flying dolphins through forests of moon beams to a kingdom in the sky made of rainbows and the colour purple was poisonous, so nothing was purple, and they could never eat plums again.
These spectacular stories frustrated her, and she recognized that she was being had, but she was dazzled anyway, and so she put her most precious clips into his hair and made him pretty in the kitchen for her mother to see.
Her uncle took a risk though, because what if- when she knew how to read and what words meant- stories could never dazzle her the same.
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