I felt foolish admitting it.

He did not make me feel worse.

“You didn’t know what you were looking at yet,” he said.

I gave him the exact phrases I remembered and identified which child had spoken.

Where I was unsure, I said so.

I had looked at two frightened faces and heard several things quickly.

I was not going to become a perfect witness merely because I wanted to be a helpful one.

The children were not required to keep repeating their account to every adult interested in hearing it.