Though Amanda longed for Monday not to arrive, it came like a blink of an eye. Sunday she spent talking with Chloe and Clara, while pondering life in the salt mines.
"Well, you get used to it," Clara told them. "Except for the tick bites, the harsh cold of winter ... and the males that are bothering you when they fell in love with you, but they only do that with adult jennies."
"Does that woman transform boys too?" Amanda asked.
"No ... well from what I've heard the Coachwoman previously did. But they told me that she stopped because she realized that we jennies are more compromising, hard-working and loyal than the stubborn jacks, and we're just as strong as they are."
Amanda was terrified that Clara already considered herself a donkey, and even she seemed to be proudly asserting it. Would the same thing happen to her? How long would it take for Amanda to start accepting herself as a jenny?
Amanda didn't want to give up, she thought there must be a way to get back to normal.
"If there are jacks in this mine it is because they are our sons. I have three sons and two daughters working in salt distribution. But since they are donkeys from birth, they act like normal donkeys," Clara continued.
"So…" Chloe said after a while of silence. "You were human once. How long have you been in the salt mines?"
"About twenty years. Or so I think, I lost count a long time ago," Clara replied.
"Twenty years!" Amanda and Chloe exclaimed in unison.
"But…" Chloe said after a moment of exasperation. "That's not possible. You look so ...."
"Old? Yes, I am," Clara continued. "This curse makes you age into donkey years. I came here as a donkey filly like you. Unfortunately not all of them reach my age. Many of them die before the end of their first year."
Amanda heard that many donkeys died of hunger or overwork. She longed for that not to happen to her, because she maybe she ... just maybe she could go back to being human. She would go home to her mother, father, brothers and sisters to apologize for everything.
On Sunday night, the donkeys were fed hay and water. The hay was dry and dusty, although the taste was not entirely unpleasant for Amanda, she had to quench her burning hunger. Despite the fact that she ate it all, her stomach was not full and she craved to eat more when she went to sleep that night.
On Monday morning - long before dawn - Amanda, Chloe, Clara and fifteen other donkeys were led to the mine shafts and hitched to the miners' carts.
The miners lined up the 18 donkeys. In front were two old female donkeys, behind them was Clara, then Chloe, and behind her Amanda and 13 young jennies. Each one tied to a cart.
Clara gave Amanda and Chloe advice on going down for the first time.
"Constantly bend and stretch all four of your legs; this makes the walk back to the surface easier. We will be on our feet for 15 hours until the shift is over."
Amanda nodded when a miner placed a bridle on her snout and a metalic bit inside her mouth. That miner also put a breastcollar, a saddle, a breeching and a crupper on her body. The bit was quite uncomfortable because it didn't let her tongue move well. Her nightmares were coming true.
The miners put some tools and gadgets inside the carts, and some of them got on the carts to begin their descent towards the depth of the mine. A man got into Amanda's mine cart, that worried her a lot. How was she going to pull a mining cart with tools and a man inside?
"Ok donkeys," a man said cracking his whip. "Move over, we don't have all day!"
The sound of the whip startled all the donkeys and they started walking. To Amanda's surprise, she discovered that she had little trouble pulling the cart. That's when Amanda understood that she now had the strength of a young donkey, her four donkey legs were 10 times stronger than her weak arms and legs of human girl.
As soon as the donkeys descended towards the pit A of the mine, the path faded into darkness and it became increasingly hot, the oil lanterns guided the way.
Chloe began to slow down fifteen minutes after they left the surface. When she stopped to take a quick break, a man yelled at her.
"Move it ass," he yelled lashing his whip against Chloe`s skin.
It hurt Chloe a lot, as if a thousand knives had been driven into her back. Tears welled up in her eyes and she began to bray.
"Haw! Haw! Haw! Haw! Heeee ...."
But Clara yelled at her to interrupt. "No, Chloe! Be quiet! Otherwise he will whip again. Try to bear it."
Chloe tried to keep pulling the cart without complaining, but the sharp pain lasted a long time.
From the beginning to the end of the trail, the jennies were whipped several times. Fortunately for Amanda that didn't happen to her, but Clara did get whipped three times for walking slowly.
When the donkeys reached the bottom of the mine, around them there were miners taking the salt from the rock walls, shaping it into blocks and putting it inside the carts.
Meanwhile, Chloe and Amanda did as Clara told them, bending their legs and lying on their stomachs. The other donkeys followed suit.
"And what do we do while?" Amanda asked Clara.
"Nothing," Clara replied. "Just lie down to regain energy and watch the miners at work. But of course, if one of them grabs you by the bridle, you have to follow him wherever he leads."
Just as Clara was saying that to Amanda, the bald man with the gray beard who had bought them appeared and walked towards them. At random, the man took the bridles of a jenny who was familiar to Amanda. It was Jennifer.
"Jennifer!" Chloe exclaimed as she recognized her friend.
Jennifer listened to her friend and turned to see her. But in that, the man pulled the bridle so that she would not be distracted and continue walking.
"HEE-HAW! HEE-HAW! HEEEEE-HAAAAAAW!" Jennifer brayed at the bearded man and she resisted so that at least the man would let her see Chloe.
"Don't be stubborn, ass," the man said angrily. "You decided to make an ass of yourself. Now behave like one."
Those words were heard by all the jennies and they were surprised. The man who had bought them knew that they were humans. At that discovery, the little donkeys began to bray in chorus, some annoyed and others begging for help.
"Shut up, beasts of burden! That's all naughty girls like you deserve to be ... DONKEYS!" The annoyed man yelled with his hoarse voice.
The man pulled so hard on Jennifer's bridle that it caused her to stop balking and walk to another point in the mine to collect salt.
"That evil man is a Coachwoman's ally," Amanda said angrily getting up from the ground.
"Yes, I know. He likes to show off his friendship with her and remind us that we are no longer human," Clara said. "He is the foreman, he buys all the material to exploit the mine and he has an agreement with that mean witch to receive many donkeys."
"So everyone here knows we're girls?" Chloe asked.
"Apparently he is the only one who knows the truth. We have tried to communicate with the other miners but that is useless."
"But could we write a message on the floor in the sand or in the salt?" Chloe thought.
"You think we haven't tried it? When you have fun on Pleasure Island you forget everything you could learn in school like reading and writing," Clara lamented. "That is why the Coachwoman captures the girls who do not like to study, they have their heads very empty and that witch ends up emptying them with games, junk food and fun. When your head is completely empty of human knowledge is when the transformation begins. "
Amanda understood everything perfectly, however Chloe did not.
"Let me try," Chloe said still not believing Clara.
But Chloe immediately ran into the problem Clara had told her when she tried to write a message in the sand on the floor with her hooves. She could no longer remember what a letter looked like, much less how to spell or form a word. She had even forgotten the most basic math.
"Oh no!" Chloe said sadly.
"Well that doesn't really matter, surely they would treat us the same if they knew"
Amanda glanced at the old jennies and saw that they were just as hurt as Clara, with several whip marks on their bodies. Then Amanda turned to Chloe and the young jennies and saw them sad and down, it was amazing that a few days ago those little donkeys were happy human girls who had fun and did whatever they wanted on Pleasure Island.
Did they all deserve this punishment? Chloe was just an innocent eight year old girl and she had to go through this painful suffering. How long would it take them to get used to this if they can't find a way to become human again? Would they live a life of slavery in the salt mines forever?
At dusk, the donkeys returned to the surface to deliver the salt. The day was long and tiring, all Amanda wanted to do was lie down and sleep. The thought of sleeping in her bed, under soft sheets and a warm quilt, made her long for her normal human life. But for now Amanda slept, completely naked, on a bed of dirt. Sleeping naked wasn't what bothered her the most, she was a bit used to the nudity of being a donkey. The problem was that she still hadn't gotten used to sleeping like a quadruped animal.
The miners took Amanda, Chloe and Clara to the salt dump where the carts were unloaded while the bearded man who had bought them grinned with his hideously sinister face.
In the morning, the salt would be put in sacks and other donkeys would carry them towards the village.
The donkeys were taken to their shelters after being unhooked from the mine carts. As Chloe entered the barn, she groaned.
"I'm starving!" Chloe complained heading to her stall where she saw that they had put a stack of hay on the floor. Inside Amanda and Clara's stall they had also put a stack of hay for each of them.
Without much thought, Chloe began to eat the hay and, from the expression on her face and the way she was wagging her tail, she seemed to like it.
Amanda and Clara were also hungry, but first they went to the trough where they drank a lot of water.
"Hee-HAW! Hee-HAW! I've never tasted hay so good," Chloe mentioned, raising her head at each bray. "It's not the same as yesterday. This one is delicious. Hee-HAW! Hee-HAW! Hee-HAW!"
The cheery way Chloe said that surprised Amanda and even Clara.