ABSTRACT
I had been to nine schools by the time I was twelve. In each school, I had to rearrange my thoughts, my friends, my activities and my place in the new area. Each new place was beset by its own traumas for me, quietly assimilated and quietly overcome. At six I found myself high in the Alps for the summer with my sisters. We spoke only a little French, enough to communicate. We would play a game of sardines. One night, we were playing and for the first time I was the child to go and hide first. I ran down the mountainside, and hid under a bush, excited and pleased to find such a good, so far unused, hiding place. I sat there for a long time. I watched the sun playing on the top of Mont Blanc and the goats moving around on the mountainside below. The sun slowly disappeared and the slightly cooler evening set in. I didn't move, just in case. They had all forgotten me. I waited and waited until torch lights appeared and people called me. They found me, a little stiff but none the worse for wear. The adults were kind but they couldn't make up the disappointment that welled up inside me and that I remembered for ever. Play is important to children and gives them memories that can stay with them forever.
