In CS Lewis's wonderful book, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, one of my favorite

characters is Eustace Clarence Scrub, who almost deserved that name, by the way. As you read through the book you discover

that Eustace who's let's be honest somewhat of a punk actually has a pretty good

excuse for being the way that he is and that excuse is named Harold Scrub, his father.

See, Harold and Alberta Scrub were very progressive people.

Non-smokers, teetotalers, vegetarians, pacifists, were even told that they wore a special kind of underwear.

But one of the worst things that they gave to their son, even worse than their vegetarianism

and pacifism actually comes down to the kinds of stories

that they told him. See, they told Eustace all of the wrong stories. So when Eustace went out into the world and faced danger and

adventure for the first time, he was ill-equipped to face the realities of the

world. In part of the story, Eustace comes upon a dragon's cave, and this is what we read.

Most of us know what we should expect to find in a dragon's lair, but as I said before, Eustis had read only the wrong books.

They had a lot to say about exports and

imports and governments and drains, but they were weak on dragons. That's why he was

so puzzled at the surface that he was lying on. Parts of it were too prickly to be stones and too hard to be thorns.

And there seemed to be a great many round flat things and it all clinked when he moved.

There was light enough at the cave's mouth to examine it by, and of course,

Eustis found it to be what any of us could have told him in advance. Treasure. There were crowns, those were the prickly things.

Coins, rings, bracelets, ingots, cups, plates, and gems.

Eustus, unlike most boys, had never thought much of treasure,

but he saw it once the Eustit would be in this new world

which he had so foolishly stumbled

...