This story takes place while Susan and I were still in high school. One of our school outings. I love school outings. We went to all sorts of places, got to ride on the train, and generally had lots of fun with our friends.

 On this day, I don’t remember where we went. What I do remember is getting back to the train station at Ashfield. Now this station has a really, really long ramp. I remember Susan and I at the top and Daniel deciding he was going to take my brake off.

 Now not many people know that buggies can be immobilized so they can be pushed. Like Madeleine did when we were in Sydney.

 This is what Daniel did. He took off my brake. He just reached down, laughed and turned off my brake. Daniel thought it was a great joke. Kids are like that. They think something is funny and don’t realise how dangerous these jokes can be.

 There I was free wheeling down this incredibly long ramp.

 I knew that this was danger. I was sooo scared and so was Susan. I couldn’t stop. I knew that if I went to the right, I would stop in the middle of a busy road. So I turned a bit left. I didn’t turn enough left and Susan and I ran into a sign. Ouch!! Poor Susan. Being the strong buggy I am, of course there was no damage to me. But Susan’s leg came between me and the stop sign. And being such a strong buggy she was really really hurt.

 Poor Susan. Her friends were so angry with Daniel. They wanted to hurt him too. They took us back to the school and rang Madeleine. She came and took one look at Susan’s pale face and took her away from me. This time they had to use the wheelchair. I knew that I was too big to put in the car in a hurry and that Madeleine wanted to get a doctor to look at Susan as quickly as possible. But it really hurt to be left behind, useless again, when it was so important for me to be there to help.

 I stayed at school and watched the other children deal with their anger at Daniel. The teachers had to do some really fast talking, cause the other kids really liked Susan and didn’t like to see her hurt. They were also really worried about Susan and there was nothing they could do to help her right now. So they took their anger, and scare out on poor Daniel. He was in really big trouble that day.

 I got the rest of the story later. Madeleine took Susan to the doctor who said that she thought it wasn’t broken, so Madeleine took her home. A couple of days later, Madeleine wasn’t happy with the way it was looking so she took her to the children’s hospital to get an x-ray. Doctor said it wasn’t broken, but rang up a couple of days later to say that they had looked at the x-rays again and there was a small break.

 So Susan had to have a cast on her leg. She got a pink one. Susan and I love pink.

 Susan was angry with Daniel for years after that incident. Daniel was her boyfriend and he hurt her. Poor Susan.

 This is where buggies like me come into importance again. I could carry Susan almost everywhere, even with a broken leg and a cast, and even having to have a board to keep the leg up. I am such a clever little buggy, now aren’t I?

 Melissa (typed by Madeleine)

Saturday, 11 February 2006