Chikolte:

My History:

I was taken from my home in the Amazon when I was six; my uncle sold me to help his sick wife. My parents had been killed in a fishing accident when I was two. According to my uncle, my father caught a river shark and hauled it aboard. When he went to unhook the line and my mother grabbed the gun to kill it, the shark came alive and grabbed my father by the side. My mother screamed and shot the gun at the same time. The bullet hit my father in the head.

The shark let go of my father and somehow made it over the side of the boat and back into the water. In getting back into the water, the boat had rocked so much that my mother had fallen over board and the shark had gone in for the kill. I had been on the boat with my mother and father. My uncle's boat had been a few miles upstream when he'd heard the shot over the radio. I had grabbed the radio in order to get help, only if I was two; I knew that something was wrong and that my parents needed help.

My uncle got to our boat too late. The shark was gone and both my mother and father were gone. He took me in after that day, though he never let me get back on a fishing boat. He figured that since I'd witnessed a river shark kill both of my parents that I wouldn't want to go back into the river. He was sort of right. I would go into the shallow end of the river near where the swimmin hole was in my village. Normally nothing ever happened, but my scream brought nearly everyone from the village to the swimmin hole to see what was wrong. I wasn't screaming in fear, I was screaming with laughter.

A baby anaconda had swim over and around me. I had turned three just two days before and the village elder had said that I was a gifted child. My aunt and uncle didn't know what he was talking about until that day. The anaconda was approximately four feet long already and could have killed me if it were not for the fact that it was also having fun. I being its new playmate, now had a lifelong friend who followed me everywhere I went, including when my uncle sold me. He told me he needed the money to make sure my aunt didn't die of her disease. He also said that I could take the anaconda with me.

In taking the anaconda, who I'd named Slinky, with me, the men that now owned me couldn't touch me while Slinky was around. It was like I had my own personal bodyguard, a twenty foot snake that only obeyed me. Unfortunately, that meant that nobody really trusted me either. Slinky has stayed with me throughout my ordeal as a sex slave. He has protected the other girls while I was with the men and has made sure that the youngest were always in the circle he's created with his body so that he could protect them when the men came to grab one of them.

The men soon learned that Slinky was a very protective anaconda and would do anything, including kill, if anyone hurt his charges. They realized just how gifted I really was, because not only was Slinky the only pet, but we now also had a giant tortoise and a baby elephant living in the basement with us. Slinky, Two Ton the elephant, and George the tortoise were all protective of us and they stayed near us whenever and wherever we were moved to.

What a surprise it was when we were all rescued just outside of New York in a shipping container. We had been moved somewhere safe and we now all lived in the same house in Tree Hill.

The House:

Life was hard, but I got through it. I was promised that I would never see the men again, that I was safe. But who knows if that is the truth. I am in a house with eleven other girls, all of whom were rescued the day I was rescued. We now live in Tree Hill and go to school with the local teens. But who can say if we will be liked and if we will be welcomed.

Slinky, Two Ton, and George were all welcome guests in the house and we were all glad that they could stay with us even though we were no longer slaves ourselves. The people of Tree Hill, who had set up the house for us, knew of the three strange animals that lived with us and were very curious as to how we had acquired such strange animals.

We knew that most of these animals were not allowed within the US but we didn't care because they had always kept us safe. Slinky was about as old as me and seemed to understand when it was a good time to come out from under the bed he now occupied. He had sensed that we were no longer in peril and seemed to feel that he could take some time off. Slinky loved not being in charge of any more charges anymore. He loved to lounge around and just sleep during the day. For being sixteen years old, Slinky knew that someday he wouldn't be around but I hoped that he would be around forever. I loved him like he was my brother and I felt that he knew that as well.

Slinky, Two Ton and George somehow knew that they wouldn't be able to go to school with us and just to be on the safe side, we kept Slinky in my room under my bed and Two Ton and George in the fenced in backyard so that they could roam as much as they wanted without Slinky trying to kill them. George was a giant tortoise and even though Two Ton was an Asian Elephant, he had stayed in his baby stage. He hadn't grown like a normal Elephant-it was like he was a dwarf elephant even though most people knew that was even possible.

Us girls chalked Two Ton up to being such a dwarf elephant because he had lived in a basement almost his whole life. And that's about the time school was to start.

Will Chikolte be able to make friends? And which of our favorite characters will Chikolte meet first?