Title: Circus Freak
Author: kenyeki
Rating: K+
. . .
Pairing: Scamp and Angel, Lady and Tramp.
. . .
*Brief Summary: Now that all of the town is familiar with the seven-dogs' household, Jim Dear and Darling are offered an opportunity for their marvellous dogs - to which they decline to. But this short display for defiance could only lead to trouble - why else would Angel and Scamp be kidnapped and taken to a circus, soon to be moved far from home?
. . .
Disclaimer: I don't own the Lady and the Tramp I & II.
...
A cool breeze swept across the streets of New England, tickling all the free animals with a pleasant sensation while completely scouring the streets of any leftover autumn leaves and officially marking the first day of winter. Most of the children in this area wanted to just scamper out of the house and dive into the snow; initiating an exciting session of creating snowmen and snowball fights, snow angels and just collecting snowflakes. And Scamp wanted to play out in the snow also just as much.
The pup, still young, juvenile and somewhat spoiled, peered out of the window sadly - observing all of those lucky children enjoying themselves in the snow. Those kids, they were lucky. But Scamp wasn't.
Jim Dear and Darling had made a rational decision that Scamp, Angel and the other pups were to remain inside until their parents had returned from their walk. Scamp knew the walk would last for ages - thirty minutes or so - but despite knowing to keep them inside supervised was for their own good, he still felt somewhat indignant about it. Besides, it would be Scamp's first time out in the snow; after observing it fall gracefully for so many years on the sill of the large window.
For Danielle, Annette and Colette too. They all knew that snow came with many surprises to explore - and was a great way to relieve their boredom and stress. Playing in the snow beat anything - baths, tearing up the curtains, chewing on hats, chasing Junior or even just howling like a wild dog in the garden.
"Damn, this is really boring," Danielle dolefully mentioned as she stole a seat beside her brother. "I just want mom and dad to return already so we can go out an' play!" They were soon accompanied by some other pups: their sisters, Annette and Colette, and Angel - a scruffy-headed playmate of them all who was the newest addition to the family.
"If this is how we're gonna spend winter, then I hate winter!" Scamp spat coldly, slapping his paw on the cold surface of the window sill. "Mom and dad better be back soon!"
As if on cue, the pups then apprehended the jolly exclaim of Darling, greeting her husband and commenting on how cold the weather was. Then came the sound of Jim Dear complaining of how he was all frozen, along with Lady and Tramp's tired exhausts. The walk had been nice, but with the warm sensation of the house, the adult dogs couldn't help but sigh in relief. All they wanted to do, like Jim Dear, was relax before the fireplace and warm up before doing anything else.
Reckless as they always were, Scamp, Angel, and the three sisters bounded excitedly up towards Lady and Tramp, blatantly oblivious of their desire for a little nap beside the fire.
"Mom! Dad! Can we go out now? Can we? Please!" Scamp wailed in his parents' faces, not noticing that his excitement had accidentally caused him to spit as he begged for his parents to allow him out.
"Didn't Darling let you all out yet?" Lady inquired tiredly, shaking herself free from all the melting snow littered on her body.
"Nope," Annette spoke up. "We've been stuck here all morning, and she said she wouldn't let us out till you and dad returned."
Lady and Tramp stared at each other with concern; any chance of sleep was certainly far away. Slowly, Tramp pirouetted towards the kitchen arch, watching the shadows of their pets move about wildly. It seemed Darling was babying Jim Dear again, forced a towel around him and insisting on making him some tea or warm drink of some sort.
He walked into the kitchen.
Lady remained with the puppies, smiling at them weakly - exposing her exhaustion. "Are you pups ready for your first snow?"
All that was now apprehended were the sound of elated pups. Well, all except for Angel. She had already been in snow before.
"Angel, aren't you excited?" Scamp jumped, wearing a bright simper that was the exact same as his father's. "We're finally gonna play in the snow!"
Angel chuckled slightly, nudging him. "Hey, Tenderfoot," she called, "have you forgotten that I used to live on the streets, and was once a junkyard dog? I've been in snow many times." She then imitated a freezing dog. "Snow is really cold, and you can't even feel your paws afterwards."
Finally, Jim Dear (in a robe) unlocked the garden door, and all of the puppies scampered out like a herd of crazy wildebeest. As they galloped outside, Angel elaborated on her description of the snow.
"It feels great while you play in it, but when you've been playing in it for far too long, the only thing you wanna do is lay in front of the fire."
While Angel said this, Scamp couldn't help but stare at his paws in shock. And he couldn't help but ponder: what was it like to be unable to move his paws for a while, or to be wanting to just relax beside a fire? - he had never ever wanted to relax beside a fire! He was an energetic pup, even if he was tired. Scamp couldn't sit still even for a minute like everyone else. He was a wild pup.
Suddenly the sound of Angel's cool voice had driven him back to reality. "C'mon, Scamp! Let's go dive in that big pile of snow right there!" It seemed the miniature husky-dog had gestured to a large quantity of snow, sitting there soundly.
Angel bounded towards the snow, Scamp following her. Scamp's mouth began to widen, making room for his tongue to stick out. Somehow, this cold weather had managed to perceive his happiness, and even when he was in the big pile of the frigid snow, he had managed to keep a large grin. He and Angel both laughed uncontrollably as they eyed each other; snow seemed to have an unusually funny way of getting onto their coats.
"Hey guys! Come see this!"
Everyone had recognised Danielle's tone of happiness, which acted as a bell because everyone had immediately decided to crowd around her and see what she was doing. There lay the pup, spreading her legs and arms occasionally and causing the show's height to decrease around her only.
"What's that?" Colette inquired, her tone displaying some confusion. She took a step closer towards her sister, touching the snow that seemed to have created a sort of shape.
"That's called a Snow Angel," Angel explained simply, laying on her back as Danielle had. "It's real fun to make one. Just move your legs and arms around like this, push them into the snow! And you can make a kind of shape!"
Scamp had no hesitation in copying his sister and his girlfriend, but Annette and Colette stared at them with perplexed expressions. Their noses wrinkled slightly, and on feeling how raw and glacial the snow had felt, they had both decided to pass this little session of creating snow angels.
Something else had caught Annette's eye, and she decided to approach it. "Look, there are paw prints! Just like the ones I saw last year when it had snowed."
Colette followed her sister, thoroughly inspecting the imprints on the snow. "Annette," she addressed, laughing a little. "Those are the same prints as we have when it's not snowing! You know? When Scamp is dotting his paws all over Darling's beautiful flower beds."
Annette laughed. "Guess so. I'm starting to feel kinda... cold now. Should we go inside and-" She moved closer towards her sister, lowering her eyelids, "-and jump into a warm, cozy and lovely bath?"
"I couldn't have thought of anything better!" the red-collared, long-eared sister yelled ecstatically. She sauntered over towards the other three dogs. "Danielle, Annette and I are gonna have a nice, warm bath - wanna come?"
"I think I'll pass, thanks!" Danielle declined happily, wanting to continue her long session of exploring the snow.
Annette and Colette looked at each other shockingly, their ears drooping. Danielle had never declined having a bath.
So, leisurely the two sisters ambled inside of the house - off to go and have a bath.
...
"Hey, Pidge?"
"Tramp?"
"How you doing over there?" the grey mutt inquired with a smirk as he rested his head peacefully on the extra large, warm pillow. His legs were sprawled out on the carpet, and his forearms also took haven on the purple pillow he reposed on; his most favourite way of relaxation.
A few inches away from him, his mate, Lady also lay on a pillow right atop of the couch. She was seated in her favourite way also, not too far away from Tramp - and on the seat right beside the fire. "Never been better," she sighed, smiling at him. And it was true.
They both did love their pups, but sometimes it was nice to have a little getaway from them. Just them two, in front of the fire; no Scamp destroying things, running around the house or getting lectured at by one of the humans, no Annette, Colette and Danielle quarreling over having a bath or-
"Mom! Mom!"
Scratch that.
As if the parents hadn't already recognised the desperate shrieks of their own daughters.
Lady groaned, stretching herself as she prepared for a list of complaints from her daughters and ready for an all-out war between them. Strangely though, for the first time, she hadn't heard Danielle's voice boom along with those of her sister's. Frantically, Annette and Colette galloped into the room, their mouths yapping as fast as they could, and their paws pointing in all sorts of directions.
Lady couldn't even hear herself think, and Tramp had shut his eyes and used his pillow her a cover from his daughters' attacks. He was so lucky the girls had gone to Lady most of the time.
The two sisters were yapping so much, they had provoked the most stressed side of Lady, and she was forced to stuff her paw in each of their mass to stop them from blabbering. "Will you two stop it!" the jaded mother silenced. "Explain to me... in a... calm way."
She almost released them, until she had decided to add one more rule: "So one by one."
"We were out playing in the snow! For a while it seemed exciting, but then-" Annette was interrupted by her sister.
"-but then it got really really cold, and we were wondering if we could have a bath," Colette interjected calmly. "And the worst part was..."
Annette gained control over the conversation again. "...Danielle didn't even want to have a bath!" Her forelegs arced all over the air in a crazy manner, and the dog's display of shock seemed to cause Lady to smirk and giggle slightly.
"Well that explains why she's not here," the older cocker spaniel simpered. She leaned down and nudged both the rears of her puppies as they trotted towards Darling.
...
Jim Dear and Darling were in the kitchen with Junior, with Jim Dear reading the newspaper as he always did in the morning with Darling washing the dishes and finally, Junior playing with an old ball that had belonged to Lady when she was a young pup. Darling, whilst washing up the dishes, couldn't help but think of how many dogs they had in the household, how their family had grown into such a large one. Starting from two people and finally exceeding in approximately ten of them in one small house.
"I can't believe how much this household has grown," she mentioned to Jim Dear, who was still hankering after the news in the papers. "Why I remember the first time we met. And now we're ten in this little house."
Her husband put his paper down for a few seconds, beaming lightly at his wife. "Yes, it has. Remember when we first got Lady?" he asked excitedly. "And now she's got a family of her own."
"And Junior's birthday will be coming up soon too, in April - two months from now." Darling added as she had finally finished washing the dishes, sauntering over towards the calendar and gaping at it whilst she dried her wet hands with a cloth. "He'll be two years old!"
"Oh and don't forget that in July, it'll be three months since we've adopted Angel."
"Speaking of Angel," the woman began, grabbing Junior and holding him so he was sat atop of her waist as she walked around, "I wonder how she's adjusting here. I hope she likes her new home."
"Ah, with that Scamp around, how could she not?" Jim Dear joked, causing Darling to giggle slightly.
"Sooner or later we might have some more-" She froze, noticing that Lady, Annette and Colette were waiting patiently at the door way with smiles on their faces. "Oh, looks who's here!"
Annette batted her tail happily as Darling ran her outstretched fingers over her head slowly with a bright beam. They were finally going to get their baths. Jim Dear poked his head up from underneath his large newspapers, placing his newspaper on the counter before hurrying into the toilet already knowing what the canines had come to see them for. "I'll get the bathing equipment!"
Darling also hurried past the dogs with a sleepy Junior in her hands. "Oh, Lady be a good girl and wait here while I put this sleepy head to bed, will you?"
Lady nodded, gladly taking the responsibility of supervising her puppies whilst she watched the mother struggle up the staircase. She then turned to face her daughters, who were now impatiently batting their tails on the ground.
"Oh, come on, you'll last a minute or two," she toyed. A loud crash was heard from the toilet Jim Dear had stormed into. "So how did you like winter?" Changing the topic, she thought, was the best option right now.
"I really don't like winter at all," Colette shook her head leisurely as a sort of reinforcement of disgust. "Far too cold." Her sister nodded in agreement.
"Speaking of cold... are Scamp, Angel and Danielle still out there?" Lady inquired, a little anxious.
"Probably," Annette grunted, careless to what her housemates were doing. "Who cares anyway."
Lady shot her daughter a lecturing glare. "Watch your mouth, Annette."
Finally, Jim Dear ambled in with a large tub flowing with bubbly water. He needed both of his arms to support the weight of the dog-tub, but he managed to slip the brushes and the soaps into his pocket. The dogs also noticed some nail clippers about to fall from his pocket. As soon as the tub was placed on a small bunk, unable to wait any longer, Annette and Colette dipped themselves into the tub, laughing and beaming as they threw water on each other.
Already noticing how much mess was created, the man rolled his eyes and scratched the back of his head whilst he stared at Lady - who seemed to facepaw herself. But his frustration, by now, had wore off like it always had and immediately he was going to get a towel. "Wait here, girls." he instructed, ambling once more into the bathroom to snatch a cloth and a towel.
Only seconds after he had gone, Darling swiftly ran down the staircase (now empty handed) and sat on a chair beside Lady. She was exhausted. And all she wanted, like Lady and Tramp, was to relax. Slowly, she picked up Jim Dear's newspaper and began scanning through the millions of words. But a small image in the small box on the front page had absorbed her complete attention.
Strangely enough, there seemed to be an image of the household's seven dogs: Tramp, Lady, Scamp, Angel, Annette, Colette and Danielle. And in the background was a proud image of her and Jim Dear holding Junior. Hey, isn't that the image we took a week after independence day? the suspicious woman pondered. Darling scanned down even lower on the paper. A small subtitle read: Seven Housedogs on the streets of New England.
Darling didn't know whether to be happy or disappointed. Maybe Jim Dear could figure this out. "Jim Dear!" Darling called, not too loud enough to wake up the sleeping Junior who was upstairs in his cradle.
Lady looked around shockingly, before bolting out of the doorway to fetch Tramp, who was probably still napping.
"Wait a minute, Darling! Kinda... busy here!"
"No!" Darling insisted. "It's important, come see!"
A little irritated, the man quickly stumbled out of the toilet to peer at what his wife was motioning to. His expression was unreadable, but his shock was shown as he squinted his eyes and his jaw had dropped. "Why are we in the papers?" he asked.
"I thought you'd know," Darling told him a little worriedly. "I didn't do anything involving the papers - and I'd never publicize any of our personal photos in the papers..."
Colette and Annette, still in the bath, had overheard the entire conversation and stared with concern at each other, then towards the discussing humans.
And then, there was a knock at the door.
Immediately, Darling stood up and walked towards it, pulling the handle after peering through the little hole. Jim Dear followed her, to make sure everything was okay. Before them stood a fairly old man, with tight overalls pulled right up over his lose, stripped shirt. He held a walking stick and chewed on an old cigarette hungrily whilst he stared at the couple with rimmed red and bagged eyes.
"Ya live here?" he questioned Darling and Jim dryly.
The couple nodded. "Can we help you?"
"Oh! Um," the man suddenly began choking, "Excuse me..." He spat out some old gum that he had in his mouth for, probably, quite a while. Plus, he seemed more enthusiastic. Twirling his walking stick, and holding onto his old cigarette, he spoke again, holding out a leaflet towards the couple. "I've heard of yer' dogs - 'nfact, whole town has. An' I was willin' to offer ye a great opportunity."
Jim Dear eyed the man suspiciously. "Whole town? How did-"
"Which opportunity?" Darling interjected, her curiosity getting the best of her.
"Well, as ye can see here, I gotta a circus. An' I just need a couple a dogs to perform for me, in a circus, for three nights only. There was somethin'... special 'bout yer dogs, so I just thought I'd speak to ya." He pulled out a purse from the pockets of his dusty, leathery old waistcoat. "'Course, if ya accept, money will certainly become involved..."
"A circus?" Darling gasped, turning towards Jim then back to the man. "Even if it was for money, I'm not sure this is a good idea..."
"Oh no, no, no, it is! It's a very good idea, a high amount o' money for a small offer!" the man moved in closer to Jim and Darling, his breath beginning to exhaust the stench of foul cigarette. "The dogs won't do nothin', just jump over some fiery hoops an'-"
"No, no way." Jim Dear concluded sternly. "There is no way our dogs will jump over fiery hoops even if there is a good amount of money involved. If it's such a good idea, why didn't anyone else accept? Is it just because we have a large amount of dogs that you think you can storm in and take them all? No thank you."
Jim Dear was about to slam the door in the old man's face, but the man used his foot to suppress this action. "Well yes I think I can try to convince ya. 'Course people have become more..." he sighed sadly. "...stubborn these days. Well anyway, here's the invitation if ya change yer mind." He shot Jim Dear and Darling a creepy grin. "Name's Jeff, by the way. See ya."
And then he left.
"Something's fishy about that man and I don't like it." Jim Dear commented once they were headed back to the kitchen.
Darling lobbed her arms around her husband. "He's just an old man, he won't do anything - not with the police around."
Jim Dear held the card up once again, which depicted the image of the man they had just seen, and a phone number along with a location. "He can't - he's just someone looking for dogs to earn money at a circus." He sighed.
Darling winced, her eyes widening slightly. "Oh and I think Junior's awake. I'll be right back." She scrambled up the stairs to check on the crying child.
Author's Note:
Congrats to you if you got this far! :D I know I made things blatantly obvious in the end, but the summary made it clear anyway. c:
I hope you enjoyed, and I'm not sure when the second chapter will be up. *InspirationsPowersGone* I really wanna start chapter 2 but my brain is like : Lol nope.
Anyway, thank you for reading and please do review! ^-^