We went fast along the street, and suddenly the road was going downhill. I stayed as close to the edge as I could without getting too close to the grass and rocks. I wanted to sit down, but Hanan took the whole seat, so I continued standing up, not even pedaling now. I saw a car coming from down the hill and I thought I heard a car behind us too. I panicked and pulled my feet back quickly to brake. In a blink, I flew over the handlebars into the grass and rocks and weeds just as the car passed—there was only one—and when I looked up Hanan was lying in a pile with the bike on top of her. There was blood on her face, and just as I looked at her she started to cry. I got up and went over to pull the bike off Hanan and my bottom ached from where I landed, but I didn’t hurt besides there. Hanan looked scary with cuts on her face and her legs and then I saw blood on her pants in between her legs and I got a scary feeling in my belly.

“Are you all right?” I asked her, praying she would say yes and get up, but she cried so hard she couldn’t say anything and she didn’t move, even when I tried to get her to get up.

The man and woman came from the car that had stopped and were running toward us. “Is anyone hurt?” the man asked as he reached us.

“I think she is,” I told him. His wife bent over Hanan, whose face was bright red now. I looked past their car and my heart dropped when I saw my mother running toward us, holding her dress up high enough for her legs to move faster and realized she must have followed us down the road to the street.

“Thank God you are alive!” she gasped. “Hanan! What happened to her?”

“We were going downhill. ...”

“What were you doing in the street? I told you not to go in the street!” She began yelling about how stupid and foolish and selfish I was for taking someone else into the street, as if it wasn’t enough to risk my own life but to take someone else. And more yelling and me just wanting to kick and break my bike and myself for making everything go wrong after it had been so nice.

The couple was from the next village and said that they would take Hanan to her house; she was still crying as the man carried her off.