Grace's father never paid all that much attention to her; in retrospect, she realized that for the most part he didn't know how. Apparently having children wasn't part of his plan, and while they got along fine, the relationship was a rather cold and distant one. The one really raising her was her mother, but when she died, her father threw himself into his work as a way to deal with his grief and barely even spoke to her.

It was really hard to explain to him that she was growing up and wanted a tiny bit of independence. Since they spoke so little he seemed to think she was still 8 years old, and trying to get something out of him never got any easier.

Fortunately, he did pay for an Internet connection. Chat rooms were an interesting experience: if she was careful enough, nobody knew what her age was, and she actually could get taken seriously. Those times were an opportunity to learn new and interesting things.

One day she logged in the middle of what seemed to be a drunken conversation between two friends in a mostly deserted channel. Somebody called "TheReaper" was in the process of explaining of a friend of his that if he could travel back in time, he'd have made loads of cub porn of himself and make lots of money. People paid good money for that, he said, and he figured that at a young enough age he wouldn't get in much trouble if caught.

"Well, worth a try", figured Grace.