32.

At the age of 5 on one of her first days at school Melanie managed to get her self stuck in the nook of a wish bone branch in a birch tree. The bell sounded signalling the end of recess, another little girl whom she'd only just met told Melanie that she'd go and get a teacher to help out. Perhaps an hour later her own teacher came to the rescue, with the rest of her classmates on hand to witness the event. She didn't feel annoyed or even angry as she waited longingly for some one to save her from the clutches of that malevolent tree, but inspite of the minor emotional viscitudes that occured during her stay there this particular memory stood out as one of the most vivid of her childhood. She couldn't remember the name of the girl who failed to live up to her well meaning commitment or the teacher who after an hour finally noticed that she was missing, but she remembered the name of that damn tree. The birch tree. For Melanie details were often memorable, people were not.