When I was seven I would often walk home from school for lunch.  There were three streets to cross and two of those streets had patrol guards.  The third street (the block I lived on), my mother would wait at the corner to watch me cross.  Coming home for lunch one day after crossing the second street, I walked across the park.  The trees that lined the park were grand and full--talking trees--leaves swaying to the hard breezes of fall.  A little frightened walking alone to the sound of trees, I quickly moved across the park. 

I remember watching an older girl walking across the street, wearing a red scarf--I laughed aloud to myself how funny she looked--easing the tension of aloneness.  I was distracted when I crossed the street, or simply wasn't paying much attention until it was too late.  I remember turning to see the car and lifting my right leg up to stop it but the impact only threw me backward and I fell unconscious for some minutes?

When I came to, the driver was hovering over me.  Now truly frightened, I got up quickly and started to walk the rest of the street to get away from the stranger.  I was limping and it hurt as I pressed my foot down but I just kept walking.  An ambulance came quickly down the street, followed by a police car.  I started to cry--this was it--I thought how do I keep what happened a secret?  A policeman (not sure how he appeared next to me) started walking next to me asking me questions.  In between my sobs, I told him I lived "over there" and my mother was home.  He asked if he could pick me up and I immediately said yes--my foot hurt.  The time in his arms was a short one but I remember feeling a sense of safety (likely because I understood what a policeman was) but honestly, the way he talked to me so quietly, assuring me that I would be okay--that was something I wasn't use to.  I continued to sob uncontrollably.

When we arrived at my home, the policeman explained what happened to my mother and said that I was saying something over and over and he couldn't quite understand me.  I turned to my mother and started to cry and say "daddy's going to hit me, daddy's going to hit me."  My mother, obviously embarrassed just laughed and told me that I would be okay.

Tonight my paper doll wants to dance like a ballerina, under the stars and the bright white moon.  She poses for a photographer under the warm lights at the Adler Planetarium.