Sang's POV

I scramble out of the bus behind Marie knowing how much she hates waiting for me to get off. Master makes us come in at the same time with a special knock so she knows who we are. It is kinda useless since she is normally asleep when we come home, but we don't want to risk her being awake.

Marie gives the knock: three quick, a pause, a quick and a loud, pause, two quick, a loud knock, and a quick one, a pause, and a short.

Excessive and annoying? Yes. Important to Master? Yes. So Marie and I make do knowing that there is no need to fight Master on this.

We step in and loud snores signal to us that Master is sound asleep. Marie turns to look at me with disgust in her brown eyes, "You stupid ****ing *****. You think you can just go against your masters?"

Marie thinks she is my master as well, but Master told me that she is the only master I will ever have. I don't say anything because Marie likes to talk and talk with no point to it and she knows I can't speak.

"I could get you in trouble," Marie says, "But I've decided that I will be kind and generous. You introduce me to those boys and clean my room and I won't say anything. Just let me know when you get tired of playing with your toys."

Marie looks kinda strange with a smile on her face that looks kinda outta place. (OMG! I keep rhyming! XD)

"Do I accept, ignore, or decline?" I ask Sarah. Sometimes I think she should just do my thinking for me. Wouldn't that be great? To never have to use your brain again?

"Accept. It's not her worst deal. She thinks it's going to take us hours to clean her room, but between the three of us, it should not take too long."

I smile at Marie and nod my head. She knows all too well that I can't speak right now. She glares at me.

"Good. If my mother asks, tell your master that I am in my room. I'm going to go hang out with my friends. Too bad you'll never have real friends, *****."

For some reason, she changes before heading out. She is only wearing a vest and short skirt with crazy high heels. She has thick eyeliner and red lipstick and her foundation looks like cream on her skin. Would it be mean to say that I hate her outfit?

I frown at her words. I'm pretty sure that Sarah and Star are real friends. Besides, I have never had real friends that I can touch. Why would I start now?

I quickly change my bandages and carefully apply a tiny bit of medicine. I am reluctant to use the medicine since I don't have much of it, but sores like these are what the medicine is for.

I go up to clean Marie's room. I wrinkle my nose. It would be easier to trash the rest of the house to match than clean this dump.

I squeal. A mouse! I now see why Marie made this deal.

Good thing animals and I love each other. Unless I'm eating them of course! Our relationship is... Complicated.

I start to sing bringing in animals to help me clean and Star uses her brainy powers to move stuff around.

I am joined by several creatures: squirrels, opossum, a couple of turkeys, a deer, and more as they invite their friends to our cleaning party. I give a special greeting to Sprinkles, he is my best animal friend and a skunk. When I move out, I am going to take him with me.

My song echoes throughout the house and beyond, but I am not worried. Master's medicine keeps her asleep through just about anything. The neighbors are so far away from my house that I don't think they will hear me sing.

My animals join in my singing with unintelligible sounds at certain times. We sound impressive if you ask me, but then again Master says that no one will ever ask my opinion because it is worthless just like me.

The animals listen to my song and hear my underlying commands and Marie's walls and floors are scrubbed, her laundry is put in the utility room, her bed is made, her closet organized, her shelves cleaned and organized, her clean clothes folded and put carefully in her drawers.

I am cleaning the window carefully when all the sudden, I stop.

I gasp and have a heart attack at the same time. I forgot to get my chocolate! How could Coach Raven not give it to me?! Is he trying to kill me?!

This calls for revenge.

But now is not the time to plot, the room is almost done. I will plot during the time I waste at school. Coach Raven will regret not feeding me my reward. I worked hard for that reward! I have few ideas, but they will require some scheming...

I shake my head as Sarah clears her throat and I return my attention to the window. I focus and make sure I do not leave any streaks or smears which is harder than it sounds.

I'm no time at all, Marie's room is completely clean and I work on the rest of the house. Despite all my helpers, I am still a little upset that I have to clean the house, including Marie's bedroom.

You know what would make the cleaning go faster? Maids. Unfortunately, I am as fresh out as I have always been.

I sing my heart out, pouring my silly and useless emotions into the song. When it ends, I just start over and over again, until the cleaning is done. The birds join me as I clean the windows. They really do have impressive window cleaning skills. The deer and raccoons work together to clean out the fridge and Spinkles oversees the bunnies, squirrels, and other small animals.

The singing is hurting my throat, but Master likes the house to be perfectly clean. She's kinda obsessive about it, actually. My voice grows more hoarse the longer I use it.

We finish up quickly and all head outside. I only want to spend a few minutes out before getting started on dinner.

I personally thank every animal that helped and give them a hug and kiss before waving goodbye to them. When they wave back, my heart

swoons. I love my animals. I give Sprinkles a special goodbye. (What? No, I didn't cry!)

I trudge inside and get out the ingredients for shepherd's pie. I scrub the potatoes and cut them while a lot gets water boiling. Master comes out as I am preparing the green beans.

"You better not be eating *****. You know you aren't allowed to. If I find you've eaten, you will pay for it dearly," Master snarls. She is too busy looking for her yogurt to beat me.

I'm not sure how I feel about that. I love it when we have playdates, but they do hurt and make it so I don't work right until I am all healed. I just wish she would pay attention to me other than to hurt me and my feelers.

I brown the hamburger meat with the seasoning and use the boiled potatoes to make mashed potatoes. Moving quickly, I later it into a pan and pop it in the oven. I love cooking! It's nothing like when I started, though. Not to brag or anything, but I was so good the fire detector cheered me on. Ah, good times.

I guess my cooking skills peaked at age six.

I set the table for two as Father is not coming home yet. He often leaves with no telling of when he will be back. When he is back, Father acts like I am not there and barely looks at me. It is so frustrating! Don't tell him I said that though, I don't want him to not come back.

I dish up food for Marie and Master. I go check Marie's room, hoping that she was able to sneak in already. I knock gently on her door.

"What the **** do you want, ****?!" Marie yells at me. Even though the door is closed, I hear her loud and clear.

She storms out and flings the door open loudly. Marie's makeup is smudged terribly, but I don't tell. I feel bad about not telling her, but I have already pushed my voice to it's limits.

Marie doesn't thank me for cleaning her room, but I didn't really expect her to.

I go to my room that is built into the stairs and Master yells at me that I better be cleaning my room or doing homework. I don't have any homework and my room is already clean. My room is so small with so little stuff that I don't really ever need to clean it. I just have to fix my sleeping bag and make sure that my clothes are put away neatly. I pull out a clock and start working on it.

I take my time and when I am finished, it runs backwards at segments of sevens. I pull out a book and read.

It is The Sorrows of Young Werther written by Goethe in the original language. While I could have Sarah or Star read it for me, I enjoy reading the tragic story and they silently read along with me. I wait until Master's snores are once more echoing through the house. I slip on a pair of flip flops and a sweater and head out to the woods.

I head to my mulberry tree deep in the woods. At a run, I get there quickly. There is a hidden bunch of mulberry trees in here. They were banned from the USA in the eighties because of the amount of pollen they produce, but I love them. I climb up my favorite tree, a black mulberry one that is full of berries that look like blackberries.

I clamber up the tree. It is perfect for climbing with large and sturdy branches.

Why is it that I always feel like a squirrel?

Maybe I should stop eating them...

I pick the berries from the branches and eat until Star tells me to stop. When I was younger, I made myself sick from eating them until I was full. Now, I just listen to Star and what she says.

I sit silently until a squirrel scampers up to me curiously. I slowly reach out a hand. The squirrel sniffs it in a twitching manner and snuggles into it. I stroke the squirrel's soft fur with my thumb as it falls asleep.

I retract my hand slowly, not wanting to wake it. I don't think squirrels like being woken up. Trust me. I am, after all, part squirrel.

I jump down from where I am sitting on the branch. I think I would have died if Star hadn't helped me fall right. Star and Sarah are always helping and looking out for me. I truly don't deserve them.

"Thank y'all so much. You two do so much for me. I don't know what I would do without you. I don't think I could survive without you."

Sarah gushes, "Sang, you are so amazing! Don't listen to Master, you are incredible and we are happy that we are your best friends!

"You're right. You wouldn't survive without us, but we can't survive without you either," Star says kindly.

I smile. They are true friends.

I run home because it is getting dark and I need to sleep. It is pitch black when we get out of the woods, but I have incredible vision in the dark and in the daytime.

I open the door to my bedroom and change into pyjamas and pull my hair back with a clip. It is hot out tonight so I sleep on top of my sleeping bag. I am so happy to have this sleeping bag. When I stole it a couple years ago, all I had was a thin baby blanket.

I lay down and fall into a deep sleep.

***

"Sang! You ****ing freak of hell! You are evil and I hate you!" Master shouted. "You don't deserve to live!"

She shoved me into the oven and tied it with a bungee cord. I would have died of she had remembered to turn the oven on. Thank goodness, the delivery person arrived at that time. I was saved by the knock.

I screamed and begged to be let out. Breathing was hard because there was little airflow. As small as I was, it was still a tight fit and the carvings on my back only made it worse. This time she carved what I later learned was a vine down my back. It was pretty, but it hurt so bad.

I was in there for hours. I passed the time by talking to Sarah and Star when I wasn't passed out from not enough air. The next evening, Master started screaming for me to make dinner.

"Lazy ***** of a slave! Where is my **** dinner?!"

I pounded and pounded on the oven and finally she remembered where I was and undid the knots. I tumbled out of the oven and she kicked me until I was able to stand on my feet. I had to hurry to my feet because the longer I laid there, the more kicks she would get in making it harder to get up.

I made dinner and was glad the worst was over. But it wasn't.

Master found blood on the side of her plate where I had held it in my bloodied hand. She was furious that I left a dirty mess and that I tried to feed her from a plate with my blood on it.

"Sang!!" She bellowed and charged at me. Rage contorted her face.

I woke up with a start and tears on my face.

"It's okay, Sang," Sarah soothed. She spoke gentle words and reminded me of all we have to look forward to until I was calm.

Except I wasn't calm. I was angry. Is it okay? Is Master's attention worth the pain? Do I really like the pain? How come I'm not strong enough? People live with this their whole lives and turn out fine. Why can't I just be normal!

I shook my head. Now is not the time to be thinking such things. I get dressed quickly to fit my mood. Sarah picks out black leather pants, cherry red boots that match my lipstick and a grey t-shirt.

I look in the mirror to make sure I look okay and gasp in shock.

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