"Please miss! I`ll be a good girl, I promise! Cross my heart ! Just turn me back." Little Penny was yelling in despair to the Coachwoman, but to human ears she was only braying. Molly and the other donkeys also did the same from their crates, hoping that some of the passers-by would understand the situation.
"I just wanna go home!" Molly brayed . "Let me outta here!"
Penny had been a good little girl who always did her school work and chores orderly and neatly . She loved her momma and father dearly , along with her 3 sisters. But Penny wanted some fun, and she was tempted by Addison, Molly, and Amanda to go to Pleasure Island. At first Penny said she wasn`t going , but temptation of a swell time won. Those three girls, who were older than her and lived in the same neighborhood, convinced Penny to board the Coach to that happy land of care free girls.
Molly had been a rebel girl all her life. She deliberately disobeyed her parents, played truant, kissed boys without permission, didn't do homework, humiliated other girls, cheated in exams (copying from secret notes or another pupil), called teachers bad names, didn't pay attention in lessons and wore unsuitable clothes for school. One day, Molly met a very well dressed woman on the corner of a street, she was the Coachwoman. She told her about the wonders of Pleasure Island and Molly immediately told her friends Addison and Amanda to go together.
Now both girls had taken away their humanity for a bit of fun and laziness. That was the cost of going to the island: their humanity.
"Oh, geez! I need to go to the ladies room," Molly said. Penny turned her head to see her.
"Well, I guess you'll have to do it right here," said Penny.
"Here? In public? Are you serious?", responded Molly.
Although the people on the pier barely turned to see the donkeys, Molly felt ashamed to go relieve herself there. Besides, she knew that her companions were not real donkeys, but human girls and they would watch her. But she apparently didn't have a choice.
Molly sighed. "How to do this? Well, it should be simple enough for a jenny..."
So Molly spread her back legs, raised her tail and let go of the muscles holding her bladder, and a warm stream of urine sluiced out of her for half a minute. Penny watched her curiously the whole time.
"So... how does it feel to pee as a donkey?", Penny suddenly asked.
"How do you think it feels!", Molly shouted. "I feel ashamed!"
Penny giggled. "Laughter? Very funny", Molly thought. "You'll see when it's your turn, Penny."
At that, a woman who looked angry came to the pier. That woman was slim, pale and with a sharp nose, she was wearing a peasant dress, an apron and a headscarf. Recognizing her, the Coachwoman smiled at her.
"Oh Miss Nielsen! What a surprise. May I delight you with one of my animals again?" said the Coachwoman.
"What do you mean delight?" Miss Nielsen grimaced. "Last week, the donkeys you sold were useless. They couldn't endure anything and were constantly tired and slow. My father was furious with me for what I brought him."
"Miss Nielsen, I feel awful. I can't explain what happened. My goods are always first class. Only the best merchant!"
"Mmmm... especially in price," continued Miss Nielsen. "At least the butcher was able to find an use for them."
"Well, you must also understand that they are donkey colts. They may be strong but you can't force them to do adult donkey works," Coachwoman defended herself.
"Speaking of which, where do you get so many little donkeys ... and they are all female too?" Miss Nielsen asked as she analyzed the donkeys inside the wooden crates. "You sure have a huge breeding farm full of jacks and jennies. Couldn't you sell me males? Maybe they will last longer."
The Coachwoman stopped smiling and replied seriously. "They come from a family farm, I only sell them. And I sell young female donkeys because that is what my clients ask the most, who are mostly farmers like you.... you know, to procreate mules and have milk. And you, as a woman, should know that a female can work as hard or even harder than a male. "
Miss Nielsen was silent for a moment, after a while she nodded.
"Well... maybe I was unlucky last time. I'll buy you another pair, but I hope these donkeys are worth it." The woman said.
"They are, Miss Nielsen," the Coachwoman smiling again.
Miss Nielsen continued checking the animals. After a while, she looked at the crate of Molly and Penny and began to inspect them.
"Please miss, help us! She's really a bad woman that's turning girls into donkeys," Penny said. But Miss Nielsen didn't understand her, for her Penny was just a braying little donkey.
"They seem a bit upset," the farmer girl said.
"They're just nervous about going to a new home," the Coachwoman petted both former girls.
"Well, these two donkeys look really excellent although one is a little small but I guess it will grow up soon. And what do they cost?"
"The usual," said the Coachwoman.
"All right, you can have the crate, I'll take them on foot, it serves for them to exercise."
After Miss Nielsen paid for Molly and Penny, the Coachwoman opened the wooden crate. Penny considered running and assumed Molly was as well.
"Don't run, it won't do us any good," Molly said. "We need to accept that we're gonna be this way until we find help. They'll just send someone to catch us even if we escape."
Penny brayed vehemently, still pleading as the Coachwoman took them out of the crate grabbing the little jennies by their ears.
Then, Miss Nielsen placed a gentle hand on their manes and put ropes around their necks and harnesses on both of them. Penny continued braying and pulled the rope taut trying to escape. But the Coachwoman cracked the wooden pier floor with her whip and Penny hushed, ears and tail now erect in the air. Molly, meanwhile, stood there with a look of sadness because she was just sold like an object.
"All right. Lets go!" said Miss Nielsen pulling the ropes. Despite their pathetic cries, Molly and Penny started walking in fear of suffering a whip from the Coachwoman, following Miss Nielsen from behind. Fear can be a powerful motivator. It motivated Molly and Penny to go with Miss Nielsen with no further resistance.
Molly had never felt more humiliated in her life, as people walked by and looked at her with long ears. a tail and hooves as if that was the way she was meant to be. She looked just like an ordinary donkey colt.
It took them a few minutes to even leave the pier.
"Pick up your speed, jennies! We have a long journey to make." Molly and Penny picked up their pace, purely out of fear that the ropes that tightened their necks might choke them.
"Hee-hawww..." Penny muttered sadly as she tiredly stumbled through town, on the dirt roads. The former girls passed by some farmers, riding on the backs of their donkeys. Molly suspected that this would be her future, carrying people on her back when she grows up.
They eventually made it out of town, to the open fields of grass, Molly and Penny continued to tiredly gallop down the path, they noticed the large plots of land with signs in them, each with the name of a different crop. Some were labelled corn, with the stalks in the plots to match, but the most common was the wheat. Later, the jennies arrived at a farmhouse.
Miss Nielsen led them to a stable where three other jennies were eating from a large bale of hay.
"Hey gals, I got a couple of friends for you," the farmer girl said. Miss Nielsen retreated to a moderate distance.
The three donkeys looked at Molly and Penny approaching. All three were larger than Molly and Penny, but they looked young. They looked friendly but they were dirty and smelled bad. Molly and Penny thought that they could be real donkeys and the two donkey girls didn't know what to say (or bray).
Then, the jenny with grey fur started talking (braying). "Are you human girls or donkeys?" the donkey asked. That the donkey spoke surprised Molly and Penny.
"Girls." Answered Molly shyly.
"Oh no! Another poor ones. Will no one stop that horrible woman? " said another one of the jennies, a black donkey who was the oldest one of the group.
"You come from Pleasure Island?" Asked Penny.
"Yes," continued the third one, a thin brown jenny with white belly and a smooth voice (bray). "Like you, we're human too. Although every day I forget more about what it was to be human."
"We were also tricked by the Coachwoman some years ago.", interrupted the grey donkey. "Then she sold to this farm where we work. First came Samantha (the jenny raised her front hoof pointing at the black donkey), then Harper (now she pointed at the brown donkey) and later me, Kaitlin."
"Although others have come here too," said Samantha. "But they couldn't do the work and the farmer took them to the butcher."
There was a moment of silence. Molly and especially Penny were terrified of their fate: working on the farm or being killed by a butcher.
After a while, Harper spoke.
"I hate that stupid witch! How could I fall into her trap? It was too good to be true. She made money off me making an ass of myself!" Harper started crying. "I don't want to be a donkey anymore. Hee-HAW! Hee-HAW! Hee-HAAAAWWW!"
"Don't cry, Harper," said Samantha. "We are all paying dearly for our fun and laziness on that island. But we're together in this."
"Yeah, I remember that fateful day, I woke up with a tail and these ears." Kaitlin said wiggling her ears. "The only thing they are good for is to ward off flies for lack of hands."
"Ow! My hands! I miss my hands," Harper cried looking at her front hooves. "I used to take piano and violin classes. I hated those classes but my parents made me take them. Now I miss putting my fingers on the keys."
"Well, I miss going to the bathroom like a normal person. What I would give for a little privacy." Samantha commented.
There was another moment of silence, the melancholic Kaitlin, Harper and Samantha stared at the hay-covered floor.
"And have you tried to seek help?", asked Penny breaking the silence.
"People cannot understand us," answered Samantha. "At first we even tried to write messages on the ground but part of this curse is that we do not remember how to write a single letter. Everything we learned in school evaporated while we were having fun on Pleasure Island. Our human memories are attacked by our donkeyish instincts at every moment. I'm afraid that one day my personality will disappear and I will become a real donkey in mind and body. In fact, it's very important that we always try to remember our human memories, even details as simple as our original names."
"By the way, what are your names?", asked Kaitlin.
"I'm Molly."
"And I'm Penny. Sorry Miss Samantha, but did you say your original names?"
"Oh yeah. The farmer gave us new names. I'm Ebony, Kaitlin is Apple, and Harper is Biscuit. The farmer and his daughter mention them so much that sometimes we think they're our real names."
"Yes, once, we momentarily forgot our human names and we started talking to each other with those names. Fortunately Kaitlin managed to remember them." Harper said.
"Yeah, I was really scared that day. Apple is a nice name, though," Kaitlin said looking on the bright side. "You will soon receive your new names."
"Well, we suppose," Samantha continued. "Before you will have to prove to the farmer that you are fit to work. He will not give you names so that his daughter and his wife will not become so fond of you if he decides to ... uh ... take you elsewhere."