Jeanette: The flames

There is one day in my life that I know I will never forget. I was three years old and I was getting hungry so I decided to cook some hot dogs. Crazy right, a three year old that knows how to cook hot dogs for herself. Looking back I can not believe my mother let me do that so young. I was wearing this ballerina dress that had a big pink tutu around the waist. We had a black dog named Juju and he was watching me cook the hot dogs. He looked hungry so I decided to grab my fork and take one out for him. I bent down to give him the hotdog and when I came back up, I felt really hot. It was on my right side, when I turned to see what was causing it, it was my dress, it was on fire. I was terrified and frozen out of fear. I did not know what to do, I was so scared and so young. I just watched the flames crawl up my dress, it came extremely close to my face before I became unstuck and cried out for help. It was horrible, the feeling, the smell, the fear, once it hit my face I screamed out again. Finally, my mom ran in to help me, she came back with an army blanket to put out the flame. She grabbed me and my brother and ran us outside to get help. Our next door neighbor gave us a ride to the hospital immediately. She even dropped everything she had and took us, without a second thought. Once I got to the hospital I realized what happened to me was very serious and creating quite a fuss so I kept as quiet as I could. I remember saying something to the nurse that made her respond to me in a strange way. She had told me that I was going to be okay and I responded by saying "I know, but if I'm not, that's okay, too." I was very mature for my age, I was
able to hold a conversation with the nurses. The doctors told me I was lucky to be alive, even if things were worse I would've been okay with that.