Time passed, and the Coachwoman's henchmen worked quickly, bringing more crates forward which she would fill with two donkeys apiece. Most of the crates were unlabeled, but some of them were already labeled with delivery addresses – apparently, the Coachwoman did good business – enough to receive orders for donkeys, sight unseen.
Things proceeded apace, until a little snag slowed them down.
A donkey wearing a red sleeved blouse and a ruffled skirt had been set before the Coachwoman. "And your name would be?" the Coachwoman had smiled nastily.
"Jennifer, Miss," the donkey had spoken, in a sad girl's voice. "Please Miss, I don't want to be a donkey! I don't want to be sold! I wanna go home! I’M A GIRL!!! I’M A GIRL!!!"
"Blast it!" the angered Coachwoman roared, grabbing Jennifer's ears and tail, and raising her high off the ground. "Open the holding corral! This one's still talking!"
She then hurtled Jennifer in another direction, where she slammed face-first into a hard wall. Addison winced at the sight as Jennifer slowly raised herself up on her four legs, and cowered in the corner as another henchman kept a close eye on her.
A pile of ripped and discarded clothes gathered near the Coachwoman as more and more of the donkeys were being loaded into the crates, but eventually, five more jennies were thrown in the holding corral with Jennifer, each of them in various stages of undress, some more than others.
Finally, they stopped loading for a few minutes.
"We've got enough crates ready to start loading the boat," the Coachwoman told her henchmen. "Get to it! Use the crane and the dollies! We're behind schedule!" Then the Coachwoman picked up a quill and began making some notes in her ledger.
Addison felt as if she had been granted a short reprieve, sighing in relief. She’d been just at the front gate of the corral, next to a jenny who had somehow lost all of her clothes in the process. Behind her was a brown donkey in a sleeveless-sundress.
Addison didn't know how long she was left waiting, but she was able to see crates being lifted from the ground by the crane from the ferry to pick up crate after crate of donkeys, and lower them down into the boat's hold, while other crates were rolled onto the boat via dolly by the henchmen.
Many of the donkeys had stuck their heads through the sides of the crates, trying to cry out in protest, only to bray, while others simply watched what was going on. Several of them were also crying.
But the Coachwoman was impatient.
The donkey in front of Addison was pulled out of the corral and set before the Coachwoman, who asked her if she’d had fun on the island.
After receiving the expected bray, the Coachwoman kicked the undressed jenny into an open crate with a label that Addison could just barely read: Sold to the farm.
"Come on, you blokes!" She yelled. "Keep 'em moving! Lively there now! We haven't got all night!"
Addison tensed.
"Come on, come on!" the Coachwoman barked as a henchman lifted the gate right in front of Addison's face. "Let's have another!"
The naked donkey next to Addison cringed, watching in terror as Addison tried to cringe out of the henchman's reach, but the cold black fingers closed around her ears, and Addison closed her eyes, trying not to bray at the pain of being yanked out of the corral by her ears.
Addison tried to plant her hooves in the ground, but the henchman was too strong, and Addison was pulled out of the corral, skidding on her front hooves, and she felt herself spinning out of control.
When she finally stopped, she opened her eyes and realized she was at the booted feet of the Coachwoman, who had stooped down to look her in the eyes.
"And what's your name?" She smiled sinisterly, cocking an amused eyebrow as a tear escaped Addison's eye.
She knew that if she answered, the same thing would happen to her that had happened to all the other girls turned donkeys.
"Addison!" She tried to answer, but the only sound she heard was a loud “HAWWW-HEE!”
"Okay, you'll do," the Coachwoman said, stepping forward and grabbing Addison's ears.
She felt the gloved fingers of the Coachwoman's left hand slip under the back of her dress, and felt the exertion as the evil woman yanked back on her waistband of her skirt, so hard that her entire body was lifted off the ground, until finally the dress tore, and she fell back to the ground.
She gritted her teeth, embarrassed to realize that aside from her hat and shoes, she was now totally naked.
This feeling went through her mind in a fraction of a second, for the Coachwoman lifted her foot, and drove it hard into Addison's backside – so hard that it knocked her hat and shoes off. "In you go!" the Coachwoman grunted, releasing Addison's ears at the right moment.
Addison felt herself flying into the open crate, felt her butt impact against the jaw of the other donkey, while her own face went between the donkey's front legs, before she landed.
The crate's open door fell shut, and she was trapped.
She stuck her head out through a large slat in the crate, looking back at the Coachwoman, who only grinned coldly. "You girls will bring a nice price," She chuckled.
Addison hung her head sadly.
"All right, next!" the Coachwoman ordered.
The henchman back at the corral obeyed as another open crate was moved into an accessible position.
The brown jenny in a sleeveless-sundress was thrown before the Coachwoman, cringing in terror as the huge woman bent down toward her, a friendly smile on her face. "And what might your name be?" She inquired politely.
"Chloe, Miss" the little donkey answered, still cringing.
"Hmm," the Coachwoman nodded, as if this were very interesting. "So you can talk?"
"Y-yes, Miss," said Chloe, suddenly cracking. "I wanna go home to my mama!"
She turned away from the Coachwoman, looking up at her as if she might be given permission to go home. But Addison suspected the Coachwoman would not be so kind.
She was right.
Instead, the Coachwoman scowled, bent down and grabbed Chloe by her ears and tail, and hefted her off the ground. "Take her back!" She roared, throwing Chloe toward the holding corral. "She can still talk!"
Chloe hit the same wall that Jennifer had earlier, but she didn't take as long to recover. "Please, please!" She begged, getting up and facing the Coachwoman. "I don't wanna be a donkey!"
The other six donkeys in the corral, including Jennifer, all began to cry out in protest, though Addison couldn't make out what each of them was saying, while the Coachwoman took her whip and angrily stomped toward the holding corral.
"Let me out of here!" Chloe cried out over the others.
"QUIET!!" the Coachwoman roared, cracking her whip loudly enough to shock the protesting donkey girls into silence. "You girls have had your fun! Now pay for it!"
Addison sighed, realizing that she should've thought more carefully about the Coachwoman's offer.
Her mother had often told her that there was no such thing as a free meal. Yet the Coachwoman had offered her everything she could have wanted, at no charge . . . until she sprang her price upon you, and you had no choice whether or not to pay.
And losing your humanity was an extremely high price to pay.
"Next!" the Coachwoman snapped, stepping back into her original position.
Addison watched as Molly was thrust in front of the Coachwoman, her front legs visibly quaking with fear. "It's all right, dear lady," the Coachwoman smiled, reaching down and petting the frightened donkey affectionately. "There's nothing to be afraid of. Just tell me, what's your name?"
Molly tried to answer, but brays censored her answer.
The Coachwoman grinned. "That's a good name for you," She said, slipping her hand in the waistline of Molly's skirt and ripping them off, taking her shirt next, and booting her into a crate near Addison's. It was labeled "Sold to the Mills."
Addison sighed at the sight, as Molly quickly received a companion, and her crate was nailed shut.
The line of donkeys in the corral grew shorter and shorter, while the henchmen continued loading the crates. Addison and the donkey she was crated with both lost their balance as a henchman shoved the platform of a dolly under their crate and tipped it back, proceeding to roll it toward the ferry.
A small jenny, smaller than any that Addison had seen, was brought before the Coachwoman. She wore a pink dress and a cloche hat. "And what would your name be?" the Coachwoman smiled.
"I'm Penny, Miss," the littlest foal answer, causing the Coachwoman's smile to fade. "Please, please help me! I've learned my lesson! I promise, I'll be a good girl if you change me back!"
"Oh, I'm afraid it's too late for that," the Coachwoman told her pleasantly. "You've had your fun, and you have to pay for it."
Penny began to cry. "No, please!" She sobbed. "Don't let me be a donkey! I'm a girl! I can't be a donkey!"
Surprising the Coachwoman, Penny tried to run toward the edge of the dock, just as Addison's crate reached the boarding ramp. Another henchman suddenly appeared out of nowhere and grabbed Penny by the scruff of her neck, pinning her to the ground until the Coachwoman caught up with them.
She grabbed Penny's ears and ripped off her dress, cruelly throwing her cloche over the side of the dock. "Donkeys don't wear clothes," She told the now-naked Penny, "and donkeys don't speak."
But Penny didn't give up that quickly, much to Addison's secret delight. "Please. Let me be a girl again. Let me go home to my mother. I don't want to be a donkey!"
The Coachwoman's response was to grab Penny's tail, in addition to her ears, and throw her into the holding corral, where Chloe, Jennifer, and the other jennies waited.
Addison suspected that the Coachwoman had purposefully stripped Penny of her remaining clothes to drive home the point that she wasn't a girl anymore. The little jenny had seemed utterly humiliated at the treatment.
"You should've listened to your mother while you were still a girl and had a chance," the Coachwoman told her, heading back to her ledger, out of Addison's sight.
"But I just wanted to have fun," protested Penny. "I’m not a – HEE-HAW! HEE-HAW! HEE-HAW!"
"Won't be long now," the Coachwoman chuckled evilly from out of sight.
Addison wanted to see more, but her crate was lowered down into the hold, which was nearly crammed with crates filled with donkeys.
The smell was incredible, especially in such a confined space!
Addison sighed sadly as her crate was situated near the center of the hold, in one of the few remaining open areas.
She guessed that at least a half-hour passed until the final crates were lowered into the hold. One of them she recognized as the little donkey, Penny.
She guessed that Penny must have been one of the youngest of all the girls who had been tricked into coming to Pleasure Island.
The other jenny, a large one, was somebody Addison didn't immediately recognize.
Once the henchmen made sure everything was ready to go, they sealed the entrance to the hold, plunging the girls-turned-donkeys into perpetual darkness, except for what little light trickled in through the viewports from the moon and the stars.
A loud rumbling told the donkeys that the ferry was getting underway, taking them away from the island, toward whatever new lives as donkeys awaited them.
Addison felt a loud frightened bray escape her mouth, and she blinked away several more tears.