When I was 8, I used to skateboard. For, like, a month, that is. It was popular then. Well, it's more popular now, but it was kinda new then and it was popular for everyone, more or less. I mean, I was doing it. If the 8-year-old version of me was alive now, I wouldn't be skateboarding, I don't think. I'd probably be that weirdo 8-year-old who loves her American Girl Doll way too much. That's how big skateboarding was...even I got on board (get it?) for a while. That "while" ended on a fall afternoon around supper-time when I was going down this little hill by our place - Hillcrest Road, it was (is) called - and my front two wheels hit a rock or something and I went flying, face first, through the air, landing on the asphalt...not gently. Lying on my stomach, I stayed on the ground for a second, watching my board roll off to the side of the road. Eventually, I stood up, convincing myself I wasn't that hurt.

My efforts to "convince" myself lasted all of 3 seconds. That's when I noticed the first drop of blood hit the asphalt in between my feet.

I put my hand to my chin and was unnerved when it felt like I was touching a sponge that had been soaking up warm water for a day and a half. I looked at my hand, which was absolutely covered in blood, I wiped mit on my t-shirt and put it back on my chin. Instantly, my hand was covered again. Then I did the only thing I could think of: I screamed like hell.

Betsy York ended up taking me to the hospital. She was the woman who lived in the house right by where I fell. As far as I knew, she was a nice woman, but Mom never trusted her and thought Betsy looked down her nose at her. So Betsy ran out of her house - actually, she tripped and fell on the walkway en route, but got right up and came right over to me. She picked me up (and she was a tiny woman - I wasn't that much smaller than her at 8, I don't think), took me into her house and plopped me down on her kitchen counter. She pried my hands away from my face, wiped me down with a dishtowel and said, "Sweetie. You gotta pretty bad cut scrape there. I'm not gonna lie to you, you understand?" I shook my head, no. "You're gonna be fine, but we're taking you to the hospital so they can take a look. Can you talk?"

I was out of breath and still scared and all I could do then was shake my head, no. She put the rag in my hand and motioned for me to cover my chin with it. I did. Then she shoved a pencil into my other hand and told me to write down Mom's work number, which I did. 929-8905. I still remember it. I also remember seeing a small drop of blood drip off the corner of the rag onto the notepad I was writing on. It was a Garfield-themed notepad for writing phone messages. The drop splattered right on Nermal's face. I'm sure Garfield was thrilled.

We got to the hospital and Mrs. York called Mom as soon as I went into the room with one of the nurses. They started to clean off my chin, but I was having an out-and-out hissy fit and wouldn't let them do their thing. "Honey, there's asphalt in your chin that we need to brush out so the doctor can sew you back up." I have no doubt that was an accurate analysis of what was happening and needed to happen, but it did NOT help me calm down. My chin was stinging like crazy and since I couldn't see for myself, I just assumed the bottom half of my face was missing (it wasn't.) I was going berserk - not letting them do anything...twisting my head all around, crying...being a real pain in the butt, I'm sure. They brought in Mrs. York to calm me down, but I was too much for her too and then they suggested giving me something to knock me out. Mrs. York told them that she had talked with Mom and that she was on her way. "Just wait a few minutes, please. Please. She needs her mom. She's scared."

Please. She needs her mom. She's scared.

They relented and more or less left me in the room with gauze taped everywhere until she got there, at which point Mrs. York disappears from the story. I don't think I ever thanked her, either.

Mom came in the room, gasped at me, and rushed over. She started pulling at the tape on my face and looked at the cut. I don't think I ever stared so deeply into her eyes...waiting for her response to the bloody mess at the bottom of my face. She tugged on the tape and pulled away layers of gauze until my naked chin stared back at her. After a moment, she smiled, and then began to chuckle.

"What is it?" I asked - the first sentence I remember saying since I fell.

"It's nothing," she said with almost a cackle. "It's just a little scrape. Let's let them do whatever they're gonna do and then we'll go to Rose's and get a treat. We'll be there in a half an hour. Then home."

She rubbed my forehead.

"They said 'stitches.'"

"That's their business, Margini. 'Course they said 'stitches.' You're gonna be fine, though. Outta here lickity-split. Promise."

"I'm scared of stitches."

"Don't be silly. Won't be more than three. I promise you that."

"Promise?"

"Just said it, didn't I? How's this? Every stitch gets you ten bucks. And you can use that money to get whatever you can afford at Rose's. That seem fair?"

Wide-eyed, I nodded, almost completely forgetting about my chin.

Turns out, Mom underestimated the stitch count. She rubbed my head as they put in the third, fourth, fifth, sixth...

"Kinda overdoing it, don't you think?" she asked the doctor, who, not knowing our arrangement probably wondered what kind of parent Mom was.

She stopped rubbing my head during the seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth.

I looked up at her from the table - I was on my back - and she just shook her head, smacking her gum.

"Margene," the doctor said. "It'll be easier to finish this up if you're not smiling."

"Sorry," I said and wiped the smile off my face, which made Mom laugh.

"Well you've made out like a bandit," she said playfully. "Told you you'd be fine."

Fourteen times ten. One-hundred and forty dollars, thank you very much.

It was nighttime when we finally left the hospital. We went straight to an ATM - which were pretty rare back then. When she came back to the car, Mom dropped the cash in my lap. "You've earned it, I guess." Then she put her hand on my cheek before pulling out of the bank, crossing Estes Drive, and heading into the Rose's parking lot.

I bought the board game "Sorry," a "Snow White" videotape, about nine pounds of pixie stix, three Care-Bears and GI Joe for a boy I liked at school. Mom wasn't happy about the GI Joe, but she gave in when I reminded her of our deal.

"Fine," she said. "It's your chin. You can do what you want to with it, I guess."

That night, we watched "Snow White" and played "Sorry" 'til way past my normal bedtime.

"Even though Betsy York can be a royal bitch sometimes," Mom said, sipping Strawberry Hill Boone's Farm. "I should probably thank her for putting a lid on you when you were boiling over in the middle of the street."

I have no idea if she ever did.

A few weeks later I got my stitches out and on that exact day my friend Lauretta Perlmutt fell off her bike and got stitches in her chin when she flew over the handle bars of her bike while she and her brother were riding through a construction site. It was an amazing neighborhood coincidence. She only got eleven stitches, though, and when she tried to get her parents to give her the same deal I got, the Perlmutt's were having none of it.

"That's the sort of thing only Ginger does," they said to her afterwards, and they meant it as a bad thing. It was true, but I always sorta considered that a compliment...