The Tabby, the Phoenix and the kitten

Chapter thirteen

Arianna huffed and puffed as she carried a heavy bag of chicken feed from the barn, to the chicken coop. Finally getting there, she put the bag down, and spread the feed out over the ground, carefully avoiding her sleeping area. 

Arianna was not much liked by the Winters. They reminded her daily of how much they loathed her, (the bruises proved that) and how she came to be at the farm, they told her that her parents hated her and so the dumped her here, "and that's how we got stuck with you!" Mrs. Winters would always say. The only time that they 'liked' her and treated her as their daughter was when they had company over, or when they were going out. 

The rest of the time, she wore a ratty old dress, wasn't allowed in the house, and took care of all the animals on the farm. She slept in the chicken coop, and bathed in the creek in the woods next to the property.  

After feeding the chickens, she continued with the rest of her chores. She always made good time, and was normally done her chores by one o'clock if she started at five o'clock. She had to feed the animals, exercise the horses, clean the pens, move the grazing animals to a different  field, and on top of that, she had school work to complete. 

She didn't attend school like the other kids in the village did, but one day when she was in town picking up the groceries, a teacher at the elementary school, Mrs. Hutchenson had talked to her, and questioned her on why she hadn't seen her at the school. Arianna had shyly replied that she wasn't allowed to go to school, because she had to take care of the animals. 

Mrs. Hutchenson was shocked, but she agreed to meet Arianna in town every week and eat lunch with her and teach her some things briefly over lunch. She had taught Arianna to read, to write, to do math, along with many other things. Each week Mrs. Hutchenson would bring Arianna a stack of worksheets to do during the week, and they would take them up together when they met in town. 

This had been going on since Arianna was 6, and now she was 10, soon to be 11. In a little over a month Arianna was going to be 11, and then she was going to ask the Winters if she could attend school like the other kids. But she wasn't thinking about that now. Now she stood in front of the dog cages, a bucket of meat, in her tiny hands. Her dark hair pulled back into a pony tail, she just stood, and watched as the dogs growled and barked at her. She gulped as she moved towards the gate. 

Opening the gate, she went in and quickly grabbed a piece of meat and threw it away from her, the dogs ran towards it, but soon came back to her. She went to grab another piece of meat, but she wasn’t fast enough, and one of the dogs bit her ankle. She gasped and tried to shake the guard dog off her, but it held on, so grabbed a piece of meat, hit it in the head, the dog let go and she threw the rest of the meat out quickly and limped out of the pen, her ankle bleeding some. 

She was going to clean it, when Mr. Winters came around, holding papers in his hands. He had found Arianna's school work. She looked up in fear at him as he came angirly towards her. He smacked her, the force sent her flying to the ground, her hand went up to her face, she was going to have a black eye later, she was sure. 

"What is this!?" Mr. Winters demanded.

"It's school work." Arianna replied weakly.

"You don't go to school! Where did you get it?" He yelled, Arianna coward, and told him about Mrs. Hutchenson, hoping he would just finish getting angry with her. He hit her again, and while she was on the ground he gave her a few good kicks. Suddenly the bucket flew out of her hands and hit Mr.Winters in the face, she gasped tears streaming down her face, he threw her school work at her to assess his face, and while he was distracted Arianna ran, the best she could.

Sniffling she quickly limped to the creek in the woods. Her safe haven. She sat on a rock, splashing water on her face. She gently touched her face where Mr. Winters had hit her, and quickly drew back her hand at the pain. Looking at her other injuries she decided that she would bruise and no more. She also decided that she had to stop seeing Mrs. Hutchenson. It killed her to do that but she knew she had to.