Chapter 18: Scary things
Sarah and Emma decided to go
visit Rose one day. They got on their bikes and headed out to ride the back
roads. It really was a nice ride because very few cars were on these country roads
and they would go by intermittent fields, forest and homes.
You could still see the
drifts of yellow pollen, and sometimes if they were on a gravel road, the pollen
would get kicked up into a yellow cloud behind them. The leaves on the trees
were coming out and so everything was a new and a young shade of green and the
air was still cool. The dogwoods and daffodils were blooming.
There was one house they
were a little bit afraid of, however. Two dogs sat along the fence of this
house and barked menacingly whenever they rode by. The girls had never said
anything to their mom about this because they didn’t want her to tell them to
stop going to Rose’s house. They loved to go over there and “help” Rose with
her gardening because Rose almost always had something good to offer them to
eat, and quite honestly, it was nice to get away from the little ones for a
while. Their mom felt they were old enough to go off on their own at this
point, as long as they stuck together. Karen trusted Rose implicitly.
This house with the dogs was
a little intimidating. I was small and the bushes were grown up around it so
you could hardly see the house. What little you could see was covered in
peeling white paint. The chain link fence that surrounded the house, however,
came right up to the road. The dogs, which looked like pit bulls, were always
in the front yard and they would follow the girls along the fence, barking
furiously the whole way. The gate on the fence near the front walk had been
closed each time they came by, but it would have been a simple matter for the
latch to not be properly hooked and the dogs would be out. The ferocity of the
dogs was such that if the girls had known of any other way around to Rose’s
house, they would have taken it.
This day was somewhat
overcast and green-tinged in that way it can be in the new growth of Spring. The
girls heard the dogs barking as they rode up. The two of them looked at each other
for courage, and then picked up speed to round the corner and pass the house as
quickly as possible. They rounded the corner and saw the house and just as
immediately realized that the gate was open. Their wheels were spinning too quickly
at this point, however, and there was no turning back. They passed the front
gate just as both dogs, barking furiously, with teeth bared, charged out and
after them.
Suddenly the dogs were at
their heels, aiming to grab a foot or leg, and the girls were terrified. Ellie
was just a bit faster than Sarah and edged ahead as both put on as much speed
as adrenaline could give them. Sarah felt pain in her ankle as one of the dogs
reached her, but she knew that it could be all over for her if she fell off her
bike, so she kept going. When they got several block-lengths away, the dogs finally
gave up and went home. The girls fell off their bikes in a ditch, breathless
and shaking on the side of the road. That had been the most terrifying thing
they had ever been through.
Sarah started to cry. Her
ankle had teeth marks all along it and was bleeding heavily. Ellie said, “Oh my
gosh, Sarah, did they get you!?”
“Yes, one of them got me. I
just wasn’t fast enough.”
Ellie said, “What should we
do?!” She had a wide-eyed look of fear on her face. Mom usually was there to take
care of things, but she wasn’t there now and her sister was hurt, and she had
no idea what she should do now.
Sarah tried to stifle her
tears. She couldn’t help it. She had been so scared and now she couldn’t stop
shaking and crying. Ellie needed her to be the big sister though. “Ellie, I was
just scared. It’s not really that bad. We aren’t far from Rose and David’s. Give
me a minute and I’ll see if I can walk the rest of the way.”
After a few minutes she had
gathered herself together enough to try to stand up. It did hurt a bit, and it
was starting to swell, but she thought she could walk. She managed to grab the
bike and limp with it the quarter of a mile more to Rose’s house. Ellie trailed along beside and slightly
behind her, anxious and unsure what to do.
When they finally got to
Rose’s, Ellie ran in to ask for help and Rose ran out. “Oh dear! Sarah, lets get you inside
and have a look at you. Was it those dogs down on Sandhill Road?” She gave Sarah
her support, putting her arm over her shoulder, and they limped inside.
David was just coming in
from his blueberries, “What happened here?” Sarah and Ellie took turns telling
them what had happened. As they spoke, the expressions on the couple’s faces
went from concerned to angry. Rose called Karen up and told her what had
happened and Karen said she would be right over. Meanwhile, Rose cleaned up the
wound a bit. She said that Sarah should go to the doctor and have them take a
look at it.
When Karen showed up, she
had the remaining three kids in the car. They all went into town to see the
doctor. In the doctor’s office, Sarah had a tetanus booster, was given a prescription
for antibiotics and then had given a report to the nice policeman that had shown
up to investigate.
It seemed Rose had called
the police and asked them to go over and talk to the Katz’s so they could file
a report. She said those dogs had attacked someone else a few months ago. She
had forgotten about it and was kicking herself for not realizing that the Katz
kids were going right by that house. The policeman took the report and said he
would investigate. The owner should at least pay for the medical costs, and if
they wanted, they could press charges. Karen wasn’t sure that was necessary,
but she was very angry. Any threat to her children awoke a raging dragon in
her. She’d be willing to rip the eyes out of anyone hurting her children.
She was furious at the
owner. She didn’t blame the dogs. Dogs do what they are allowed and trained to
do. It was the owner’s job to keep them from being a menace to others, and
clearly these dogs were a menace. If two unthreatening girls riding by could be
attacked, what about someone just walking by? She didn’t want anyone else to
get hurt.
Both girls had clung to her
and cried when she had come to get them. They were both very shaken by the
whole ordeal. When they finally did get home, Sarah curled up on the couch with
her bandaged ankle and just sat quietly for a while. She was still very upset and
suddenly very tired. Ellie went out back and climbed the Magnolia tree. She
felt safe and alone in the tree and she sat there for some time and thought. She
only came in when she got too cold to stay up there any longer.
Karen called Johnathan. He was
out in a forest track somewhere nearby. Karen had lost track of where he was
each day. She told him what had happened and he became even more angry than
Karen had been. In fact, he was jumping up and down furious and he said he
would come right home. He said he wanted to go out and shoot those dogs right
now. How dare they attack his kids?! Karen said to calm down, and it wasn’t
necessary to come home, they had already seen the doctor and everyone was just resting
now. She just barely managed to convince him that he should finish his work for
the day. When he did come home, though, he spent some time with both girls on
the sofa cuddled up against him. It was good to have a daddy to cuddle against.
They always felt so safe with him.
The next day a policeman
came by and said that they could file a complaint and animal services would go
by and check the dogs out. He said he had been by the place himself and seen
the dogs and how riled up they were but had been unable to get anyone to come
out of the house or answer any phone calls. It was too dangerous to go up to
the door with those dogs there. He said, given their state, it was very likely
the dogs would be impounded, but they had to go through the proper channels. He
also said privately and unofficially that there were certain people in the area
who liked to train dogs for dog fights and they mistreated the animals to make
them mean. This owner was suspected to be one of these people and they would
love to catch him in the act, but hadn’t been able to find any proof thus far. The
Katz’s filed a complaint to get the official process rolling and left it at
that. Sarah’s ankle bite wasn’t too deep. The dog had mostly just scratched
her, so she was able to walk on it a couple of days later.
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