I land on the other side of the fence with a thud. I'm a goner, but I immediately scramble up anyway.
I'll die fighting.
But then I realize the dogs aren't biting me. They're staring at me strangely and calmly. What's going on?
Helga is staring open mouthed at the scene. She's proof that I'm not hallucinating about what's happening or that I'm not already dead. Just then I see Miguelito running towards the dog corral.
"Stop!" I order. I know from his eyes what he plans to do. He wants to rescue me from the dogs, but he'll end up getting killed if he gets anywhere near me. "Miguelito, I'm fine."
"B-b-but--"
"Stay calm."
"O-o-okay."
"Eat," I tell the dogs as I pour the dog food from the bag that had fallen with me into their trough. They hungrily gobble it up as I move towards the fence door. I carefully open it and go through it. I breathe again when I'm on the other side.
"What happened here?" demands Jory, the boy assigned to the dogs and the only one other than the Elders and some Masters who the dogs allow near, as he runs to us. "What were you doing in the corral?"
Helga takes a huge gulp.
"It's a mistake," I say calmly.
"A m-m-mistake?" asks Miguelito.
"Yes, just forget it."
"The Elders have to hear about this," Jory states, eyeing Helga . Everyone knows how much she hates me.
"There's no use bothering the Elders with this," I state. "It was a mistake."
Jory scrunches his face as if wondering what to do. If he tells the Elders then he'll basically have to admit not being at his post. "Okay, let's forget this, but I never want to see either one of you near here. Is that clear?"
I nod and so does Helga.
"I just can't understand why the dogs didn't bite you," he mumbles.
I shrug my shoulders. "Maybe they weren't in the killing mood today."
"Monica, you got so lucky today," Jory asserts faintly. "Miguelito, bring me some more food for these hungry dogs."
I start walking away with Helga behind me. I wish I could say that I saved her skin out of the kindness of my heart, but I have my reasons for doing what I did.
After we're a distance away, I turn to her. "What were you thinking?" I question. "If the dogs had killed me, you would've been blamed for it and the Elders would've done something serious to you."
"I didn't think that far," she grumbles.
"Really, Helga, sometimes you're not too bright."
She glares at me. "Monica--"
"Is revenge so up on your list that you'd risk your own skin for it?"
"Why didn't you turn me in?" she snaps.
"Mister Barstowe would've had you for breakfast."
"I know," she says quietly. "He doesn't like anyone messing with his property."
"Yes, his property," I say sarcastically.
"I suppose that you think I owe you now that you've gotten me out of trouble," she growls. "But think again!"
"Don't worry. I don't think you owe me anything."
"Good, I'm glad we understand each other.
As I turn to go to the Mister's house, I hear her mutter to herself, "Why in the world didn't those dogs bite her? Is she witch or something?"
The good thing is that she can't tell anyone about it or it can be her own hide. That's why I hadn't said anything. Who knows what the Elders will do if they find out that the dogs won't bite me? They won't like it one bit. They'll go nuts if they ever find out that one of their best forms of intimidation doesn't work on me.
"They should've bitten her like they bit me," Helga states as she moves in the opposite direction from me.
I have a good inkling of why the dogs hadn't munched on me. When they were puppies, they saw me save their mother. She had tried to escape the barbed fence and had gotten stuck instead. I had been walking by, and Jory was no where to be seen. Where does that boy hide?
Yes, it was very stupid for me to get anywhere near a killer dog, but I felt sorry for the puppies being left without their mother like I had been. Besides, I was hoping that I'd get bitten, not mortally, but enough to get me out of the Mister's sights.
When I had stepped in the corral, the puppies let me through. It was as if they knew I was about to save their mother. She didn't even bark as I set her free from the barbed wire. Bleeding and hurt, she just looked at me as I left the dog corral. Could the now grown dogs that had ended up losing their mother anyway when she was shot for biting a Master, have remembered something that had happened so long ago when I had saved their mama? Apparently they had.
Why couldn't they have at least bitten my hand? If they had marred any part of me, then I would be deemed unmarriageable like some of the girls who hadn't grown up to be attractive enough in the men's eyes and had been made servants. Anything had to be better than marrying a man you didn't love.
A creep of the utmost kind.
A smelly bag of pure viciousness.
I would find a way of marring myself except that it was considered a mortal felony, and the consequences too horrendous to consider. One girl who had scratched her face with her sharp fingernails had been thrown in isolation for weeks with only a few grains of food a day. Plastic surgery had restored her face. Another girl had burned her face with a hot knife. No plastic surgery could help her, so she was thrown in the dog corral. Those vicious animals ate her piece by piece.
They had made us watch.
That's where I learned to blind my seeing eyes.
The Elders had told us we had no right to damage ourselves in any way. We didn't belong to ourselves. We belonged to our Masters who were only doing the job placed on them by the head of the universe.
As I am nearing the Mister's property, the spiritual bells ring. I freeze.
We aren't supposed to have church for a few more hours.