BOOK EXCERPT

   One afternoon my Aunts and Uncles came over to the house to await the arrival of Ralph, a family friend.  Caught up in the adults' excitement, I impatiently stood by the back door and instead of warmly greeting the tall man with a round face and greased back dirty-blonde hair as he entered the kitchen, I ran under the table screaming.   All of the adults shocked by what they claimed was my uncharacteristic behaviour, Aunt Flo suggested my strong reaction was probably nothing more than making strange.  After all she reasoned, I hadn't seen Ralph in a while and it was only natural I might be a bit shy.  If they could have felt my terror as I continued to sit under the table wedged up against the wall shaking - a terror that still haunts me to this day - they may not have been so quick to make light of it.  But they, like most of the adults I came in contact with during my youth, didn't view children as individuals in their own right.  I was merely an extension of the people who took care of me, thus making my thoughts and insights a nuisance unless it directly enhanced their misguided intentions.

   So Kim Casey writes about herself when she was around three years old.  It would take many more years of periodic encounters with the family friend before she would come to fully understand what she was running from.