Sneaking Out

A/N: Another assignment from my creative writing class a couple years ago. The prompt was to write story that included the following sentence: "She saw the way that the others looked at her; they knew what she had done."

Nobody would expect Rose to stir up trouble. Sure, she had a hot head, but she wouldn’t do anything extremely rash. To most people, she was just the average teenage girl. They were in for a big surprise when they heard about what she did.

Her friend Cindy invited her to hang out at her mansion on Sunday. Together they sat at the edge of her pool, sipping ice-cold lemonade and chatting unconcernedly. Their toes skimmed the surface of the crystal clear water. Rose had her curly red hair tied up; it was a hot day. She watched lazily as a hummingbird hovered over one of the many bright red flowers in Cindy’s garden. Suddenly, the frenzied barking of dogs reached her ears. The hummingbird flew away, as if it feared for its life. A man’s voice shouted over the dogs, and the sound stopped as abruptly as it had started.

Rose got up and walked in the direction which all the noise came from. She tried peering through the gaps of the great wooden fence, but her view was obscured by tree branches on the other side. Turning around, she asked her friend, “What was that?”

“That barking?” She nodded. “Oh, that was Mr. Wilkes’s dogs. I have a feeling he doesn’t like them that much.”

Rose frowned. “Why not?”

“Well,” she began hesitantly, “he keeps them chained up in front of his house.”

Anger started to flare up within her. “Why didn’t you do anything about it?” She loved animals! How could she just sit there knowing that there were dogs on the other side of the fence that were being neglected?

“We tried!” she said frantically, noticing that Rose’s temper had risen. “My mom and I went over to his house, and we tried to persuade him to see the cruel treatment he’s giving his dogs, but he just told us to go away and mind our own business! We honestly tried. We did everything we could.” Her voice faltered.

“Everything?” Rose spoke so softly that Cindy could barely hear her. “Sorry,” she said, a little louder, “I can’t stay any longer. My mom expects me to be back at five.” She forced a smile onto her face. “I’ll come back on Saturday,” she added apologetically, hoping that it would make up for her sudden burst of anger. It wasn’t Cindy’s fault that she thought she did all that she could. She hurried out the door, quickly saying goodbye before she walked home. She would prove that there were still more ways to do something about the dogs.

“You’re quieter than usual,” her mom commented during dinner. She moodily picked at her food, pretending she didn’t hear her. Ever since Rose got home, her mind kept dwelling on Mr. Wilkes and the abusive treatment of his dogs. Why couldn’t he understand that he should treat them with kindness?

Later that evening, Rose snuck out of bed fully dressed, making sure her parents were sound asleep. Quietly, she tiptoed out of the back door and walked at a brisk pace toward Mr. Wilkes’s house, bringing a pocket knife with her that her dad had given her for her birthday. Compared to Cindy’s mansion, his house looked like a dingy old shack. The gate creaked when she opened it. She saw two dogs, chained to a wooden post. The dogs raised their heads sleepily, the chains clinking softly. Rose let them sniff her, and she slowly ran her knife across the rusty chains, which were easier to cut than she expected. Within a few minutes, the chains broke, and she tempted the dogs with a few scraps of meat. She drew them away from their dreadful prison. When she tried to close the gate behind her, it clanged shut. The noise must have woken up Mr. Wilkes, because lights turned on inside his house. Tossing the scraps of meat across the street, Rose broke into a run, hoping the dogs would eat the meat and run far away. She sprinted back to her house, her long legs carrying her out of sight within seconds. Locking the door behind her, she went back into her bedroom and crawled into bed, exhausted.

Whispers spread throughout school the next day. She saw the way that the others looked at her; they knew what she had done. They knew that it was her who helped the dogs escape, at the risk of getting caught. Some of them looked at her disapprovingly, while others saw her as a sort of hero. How they found out, she didn’t know, but she was sure that Mr. Wilkes didn’t catch a glimpse of her that night.

Cindy caught up to her in the hallway. “I have to admit, what you did was pretty amazing,” she remarked. “It doesn’t matter what other people say. You should be proud of what you did.”

And she was.