We had at least eight orange trees in the yard of our house on Perkins Drive. The oranges were inedible, but there was one tangerine tree in the yard which grew very sweet tangerines. We climbed on all the trees, but the tangerine tree was a particular favorite. You could sit on the branches and eat one immediately, or put the tangerines in your pockets for later. One day when my sister and I were climbing in the tree, my hand slipped and I lost my balance. Picture the tree trunk with a branch sticking out at thirty degree angle, like a "Y". I slid down the trunk until I came to the broom-thickness branch. The branch caught my fall, and it also caught my body weight. The branch snapped, and the broken end went into the back of my thigh. I was suspended on the tree for a moment, held up the branch in my leg. Then the branch stump could no longer hold the weight, and I slid off onto the ground. There was a large, oval shaped gash in my thigh where the branch had been.

As we were going on vacation to the beach the next week, my father presented the practical options:
"Well, we could go the hospital and have stitches. But they'll tell you that you can't go swimming for weeks. Or, we could disinfect here and keep it clean and covered with bandages."
"Yes, let's just clean it here," I replied. The cut was deep and healed slowly. When we took the branch out, the cut was as deep as my index finger. My dad made sure we cleaned it every night and wrapped it in new bandages. As it healed, I saw it turn from an open red wound to white in the center, surrounded by a darker perimeter, to healthy, pink scar tissue. At nine, the cut extended over half my thigh. As I got older, to my disappointment, the scar became smaller and smaller. Still, it is my best physical mark. I have no birthmarks or other major scars.

A couple of days after I fell from the tree, my dad asked "What are you going to tell your friends at school when they ask how you cut your leg?"
"I'll tell them I fell out of a tangerine tree," I said.
"It's not a very good story."
"That's true," I admitted. There was a pause. I tried again. "I could say I got attacked by pirates."
"Better. What sort of pirates?"
"Mean ones. With swords. No, what do you call those things?"
"Cutlasses." He nodded.
"Yes, I ran into some mean pirates. With cutlasses. Off the coast of Panama."
"You were innocently sailing the seas when they boarded your boat--"
"And I fought them off, but not before one of them slashed me in the leg with his cutlass."
"It's a good story."
"Yes, it happened to me last week," I replied. "Do you think they're called cutlasses because you 'cut' people with them, and sometimes you can call a lady a 'lass'?"
"No, Elinor, I don't think that's why."
"Just asking."