He led her across the child-littered floor to a space beside a small boy. The boy — red haired, with startling blue eyes — was staring at a Virtual puppet which endlessly formed and reformed: the figure two, collapsing into two snowflakes, two swans, two dancing children; the figure three, followed by three bears, three fish swimming in the air, three cakes. The boy mouthed the numbers, following the tinny voice of the Virtual. “Two. One. Two and one is three.”

Paul introduced her to the boy — Tommy — and she sat down with him. Tommy, she was relieved to find, was so fascinated by his Virtual that he scarcely seemed aware that Lieserl was present — let alone different.

Tommy was resting on his stomach, his chin cupped in his palms. Lieserl, awkwardly, copied his posture.

The number Virtual ran through its cycle. “Bye bye, Tommy! Goodbye, Lieserl!” It winked out of existence.

Now Tommy turned to her — without appraisal, merely looking, with unconscious acceptance.

Lieserl said, “Can we see that again?”

He yawned and stuck a finger into one nostril. “No. Let’s see another. There’s a great one about the pre-Cambrian explosion — ”

“The what?”

He waved a hand dismissively. “You know, the Burgess Shale and all that. Wait till you see Hallucigenia crawling over your neck…”

The children played, and learned, and napped. Later, the girl who’d scowled at Lieserl — Ginnie — started some trouble. She poked fun at the way Lieserl’s bony wrists stuck out of her sleeves (Lieserl’s growth rate was slowing, but she was still expanding out of her clothes each day). Then — unexpectedly, astonishingly — Ginnie started to bawl, claiming that Lieserl had walked through her Virtual. When Paul came over Lieserl started to explain, calmly and rationally, that Ginnie must be mistaken; but Paul told her not to cause such distress, and for punishment she was forced to sit away from the other children for ten minutes, without stimulation.