Donna is my sister, and I always thought of her as beautiful. Our father called her his princess. When Donna entered high school, with her long bond hair and incredible blue eyes, she caught the attention of the boys. There were the usual crushes and school dances, phone calls and giggles, and hours of combining and brushing her hair to make it glow. She had eye shadow to match the perfect blue of her eyes. Our parents were protective of us, and my father in particular kept close what over the boys she dated.
  One Saturday in April, three weeks before Donnas  sixteenth birthday, a boy called and asked her to go  to an amusement park. It was in the next state, about  twenty miles away. They would be going with four other   friends. Our parent’s first answer was a firm no, but  Donna even told her to be home by eleven, no later.
  It was a great night! The roller coasters were  fast, the games were fun and the food was good. Time  flew by. Finally one of them realized it was already  10:45. Being you’d and slightly afraid of our father,  the boy who was driving decided he could make it home  in fifteen minutes. It never occurred to any of them  to call and ask if they could be late.
  Speeding down the highway, the driver noticed the  exit too late. The car ripped out nine metal  guardrails and flipped over three times before it came  to a stop on its roof. Someone pulled Donna form the  car, and she crawled over to check o her friends.  There was blood everywhere. As she pulled her hair  back from her eye’s so she could see better, her hand  slipped underneath her scalp.
  The blood was coming from her. Practically the  entire top of Donnas head had been cut off, held on by  just a few inches of scalp.
  When the police cruiser arrive to rush Donna to a  nearby hospital, an officer sat with her, holding her  scalp on pace. Donna asked him if she was going to  die. He told her he didn’t know.
  At home, I was watching television when a creepy  feeling went through me, and I thought about Donna. A  few minutes went by, and the telephone rang. Mom  answered it. She made a groaning noise and fell to the  floor, calling for my father. They rushed out the  door, telling my sister Teri and me that Donna had  been in a car accident, and that they had to go to the  hospital to get her. Teri and I stayed up for hours  waiting for them. We changed the sheets on Donna’s bed  and waited. Somewhere around four o’clock in the  morning, we pulled the sofa be out and fell asleep  together.
  Mom and Dad were not prepared for what they saw  at the hospital. The doctors had to wait until out   parents arrived to stitch up Donna’s head. They didn’t  expect her to survive the night.
   At 7:00 A.M., my parents retuned home. Teri was  still sleeping. Mom went straight to her bed room and  Dad went into the kitchen and sat at the table. He had  a white plastic garbage bag between his legs and was  opening it up when I sat down at the table with him. I  asked him how Donna was and he told me that the  doctors didn’t think she was going to make it. As I  struggled to think about that, he started pulling her clothes out of the bag. They were soaked with blood  and blond hair.
  Some of the hair had Donnas scalp attached to it.  Every piece of clothing she had worn that night was  soaked with blood. I can’t remember thinking anything.  All I did was staring at the clothes. When Teri woke  up, I showed them to her. I’m sure it was an awful   thing to do, but I was in such shock that it was all I  could think of.
  At the hospital later that morning, Teri and I  had to wait outside for a long time before we could  see Donna. It was an old hospital and it smelled old,  and Teri and I were afraid of it. Finally we were   allowed in to see our sister. Her head wrapped in  white gaze that was stained with blood. Her face was  swollen, which I couldn’t understand because she had  lost so much blood. I though she would look smaller.  She reached up and touched my long brown hair and  started to cry.
  The next day, I called a neighbor who was a  hairdresser and asked her to cut my hair. It’s a funny  thing— I loved my long brown hair and it curled just  right, but I never, ever missed it or wanted it back.  All I wanted was for Donna to come home and sleep in  the clean sheets that Teri and I had put on her bed.
  Donna was in the hospital for two weeks. Many of  her friends went to see her, especially Claudia, who  was there a lot. Mom and Dad never liked Claudia— maybe because she seemed "fast," maybe because she  spoke her mind; I don’t really know. They just didn’t  like her being around.
  Donna came home with the entire top half of her  head shaved. She had hundreds of stitches, some of  which came across her forehead and between her left  eye and eyebrow. For a while she wore a gauze cap.  Eventually she had our hairdresser neighbor cut the  rest of her hair. It had been so soaked and matted  with blood that she couldn’t get it out. The  hairdresser was such a kind person. She found Donna a  human hair wig that perfectly matched her hair.
  Donna celebrated her sixteenth birthday and went  back to school. I don’t know where rotten people come  form, and I don’t know why they exist, but they do.  There was a very loud-mouthed, self-centered girl in  some of Donna’s classes who took great pleasure  in  tormenting my sister. She would sit behind her and  pull slightly on Donnas wig. Shed say very quietly,  "Hey, Wiggly, lets see your scars." Then shed laugh.
  Donna never said anything to anybody about her  tormentor until the day she finally told Claudia.  Claudia was in most of Donnas classes, and from then  on kept a close eye on my sister. Whenever that girl  got close to Donna, Claudia would try and be there.  There was something about Claudia that was  intimidating, even to the worst kids in school. No one  messed with her. Unfortunately, though, Claudia  wasn’t always around, and the teasing and name-calling  continued.
  One Friday night, Claudia called and asked Donna  to come spend the night at her house. My parents  didn’t want Donna to go—not just because they didn’t  like Claudia, but because they had become so  protective of Donna. In the end, they knew they had to  let her go, even though they probably spent the whole  night worrying.
  Claudia had something special waiting for my  sister. She knew how awful Donna felt about her hair,  so Claudia had shaved off her own beautiful long brown  hair. The next day, she took Donna wig shopping for  identical blond and brown wigs. When they went to  school that Monday, Claudia was ready for the  teasers. In vocabulary not allowed inside school  walls, she set them straight so that anyone ready to  tease my sister knew they would have to mess with  Claudia. It didn’t take long for the message to get  through.
  Donna and Claudia wore their wigs for over a  year, until they felt their hair had grown out enough  to take them off. Only when Donna was ready did they  go to school without them. By then, she had developed  a stronger self-confidence and acceptance.
  My sister graduated from Hight School. She is  married and has two great kids. Twenty-eight years  later, she is still friends with Claudia.

Note: this didnt happen to me this story was told by Carol Gallivan.