DISCLAIMER: Lady and the Tramp, 101 Dalmatians, and their worlds belong to Disney.

Chapter 26—Patch's Decision

There was a pause as the runaway puppies continued to glare and growl at Pongo. Pongo stood still and looked down at the four puppies. He tried not to get discouraged by the bad welcome he got from them, and he tried his hardest to smile. "How are you all doing out here?" Pongo asked brightly.

The puppies didn't answer Pongo. Instead, they hurried over to a couch in the middle of the yard with a small hole underneath, and they crawled under the couch into the hole. "We're not going home," Scamp told Pongo fervently. "You can't make us! We'll never leave!"

"Dad, why are you even here?" Patch asked. "I'm not coming home with you. Maybe you got Lucky to come back. But at your place, it's always Lucky this, Lucky that anyway."

"Patch, what do you mean?" Pongo asked.

"You guys always favor Lucky," Patch complained. "You let him get the front spot when watching TV, you carry him when the rest of us have to walk and you didn't even believe it was him who pushed me into the fireplace first!" Patch complained. "He gets away with everything! And I know why you took us to the show. You guys wanted Lucky to be the star once again and just have us be there because we're his brothers and sisters. That's why you paid all that attention bathing him and everything, isn't it? And that's why you blamed me and locked me up in the dark and not him! Well I've had enough. Dad, I just don't belong with you guys. The four of us belong together," Patch indicated to Scamp, Angel, and Danielle. "We all want to stay here, have adventure and fun, and live on our own."

"We don't favor Lucky, we love all of you very much. We try our best, but sometimes we don't see things the same way. I understand that you might get upset at us sometimes," Pongo said gently. "But Patch, if you stay here, well... remember that you'll never be able to see us again. We're going back to London in a couple of days. You'll never be able to see your ninety-eight brothers and sisters…"

"That's the problem," Patch explained to Pongo. "Dad, I just can't be my own puppy at your place. I'm just a number, one of the ninety-nine puppies. I want to be somewhere where I belong, and I found it right here with Scamp, Angel, and Danielle. We're staying here. And we're not leaving."

Pongo then told Patch, "Penny would miss you very much."

"Yeah, well then she shouldn't have betrayed me," Patch told Pongo bitterly. "If she cared about me, she wouldn't have gone with Scamp's mom."

Pongo sighed and shook his head. He then cleared his throat and said, "Look children, your parents…"

"I've had it with my parents!" Scamp shouted. "Every day at my place, it's rules, rules, rules, don't do this, don't do that… and I'm lied to every day!"

"They're not even my family!" Angel told Pongo angrily. "They don't care for me at all! My mama told me all about that Tramp. He broke her heart! And mine too!"

"Your adopted parents care for you like you were their own daughter," Pongo explained to Angel, who just sighed skeptically. "And your mother…"

"Look!" Danielle interrupted. "Why can't you just all leave us alone! We can just have fun here, you know!"

"Well, at home, you can…" Pongo began, but he was interrupted by the gate doors opening again. Entering through the gate was Tramp. He was being closely followed by Lady and Perdita. They all hurried into the yard and joined Pongo, who looked relieved to see them arrive.

"Oh Pongo! I'm afraid we're too late!" Perdita gasped.

"Don't worry Perdy," Pongo told Perdita consolingly. "They're right here under the couch."

"Oh, thank heavens!" Perdita sighed in relief. "Pongo, may I talk to them now?"

"Sure Perdy," Pongo answered, and he moved away from the couch, allowing Perdita to take his place. Perdita nodded gratefully to Pongo, and then she walked over to the couch and bent down to talk to the puppies.

"Morning children," Perdita told the puppies brightly. But then she gasped. "Oh Pongo! There's a fourth puppy!"

"A fourth?" Lady asked worriedly. She crawled next to Perdita and peered below the couch too. She gasped as she got up. "Oh no… Danielle! Don't tell me you ran away too?"

"I sure did," Danielle laughed.

"I'm afraid I don't understand… why did you run away?" Lady asked.

"I've had it!" Danielle shouted toward Lady. "I'm sick of being one of the three sisters. It's all being prissy and having baths and being spoiled. I've had enough of these dog shows! I want fun and adventure, wahoo!"

"Danielle…" Lady sighed. "I don't understand why you'd just run off like that."

"Your boyfriend wouldn't want you to be hurt out here," Tramp told Danielle. Then, Danielle gasped. "How d'ya know about my boyfriend?"

"Well, uh," Tramp began nervously. Then Scamp gasped, "It was him! He spilled on us!"

Tramp realized he had no choice but to tell them. "Your friend Puffball cares for you a lot," Tramp explained. Then he heard a creak in the gate behind him, and smiled. "Speaking of him, I think that's him right now!"

Sure enough, the gate swung open, and Puffball entered the junkyard. He was happily chatting with Penny and Lucky, who followed him inside.

Tramp rushed up to them, and he told Puffball, "Look, you've got to talk to them. I've slipped up, and they uh, figured out you did it."

Puffball groaned, but then he shut his eyes, cleared his throat, and bent down next to the couch. "Hi guys," Puffball smiled at them brightly.

"You really are a puffball!" Angel shouted at him.

"Why'd you tell on us?" Danielle asked sadly.

"I didn't want to do it, Dani, but...I felt that all puppies that have homes should be at them," Puffball explained. Then he looked at the puppies and told them firmly, "None of you housedogs would understand! It's a dangerous world out on the streets! I've been out here for months ever since my parents abandoned me when I was just a baby. I have to steal food and avoid dogcatchers every day, and deal with these mean gangs of street dogs. You novices would never understand what a life on the streets is like. You've all had cushy, happy lives with a family. When I found out you guys have families, I just had to let them know! You just can't live out here. You're all housedogs, and you need to go back home where you belong. The streets are too dangerous. I've had a hard life! And sorry to be blunt, but you'd just never understand because you have such easy lives!"

"Oh? You think I've had an easy life," Angel told Puffball scathingly. "Well, for your information, puffy, I had to grow up in the pound with a dead father and a heartsick mother. Then I finally got a home. And they threw me out. And I got another. I got thrown out there too. It happened five times! I ended up meeting this terrible-street dog named Buster…"

Puffball jumped back in alarm. "You knew Buster?" he asked Angel, terrified.

Angel nodded. "I had no choice but to live with him, and on top of all that I had to fend for myself and avoid dogcatchers for months. Call that an easy life?"

"It sounds rough," Puffball conceded. "But…"

"I had it bad too!" Scamp told him. "I didn't spend as much time on the streets as Angel did, but I got sent to the pound. And I had this vicious street-dog named Reggie try to kill me!"

"But that's impossible," Puffball told Scamp skeptically. "You couldn't have met Reggie."

"Well, I did!" Scamp told him.

"And my life was hard too!" Patch yelled. "This mad old hag has wanted to skin me for my whole life! She chased us from London to get our coats, and she's following us this very moment!"

"We know how dangerous a street life is," Scamp told Puffball.

"But we're not going back!" Angel shouted.

"Okay, you had hard lives, but still, you have to go back home," Puffball replied stubbornly. Then his expression softened and he told them, "But I'm sorry for misunderstanding your lives. I just… thought you lived like Danielle. She's never been out before. Want to come home, Danielle?"

"Uh…" Danielle told the others, looking confused. "I don't know."

"Come on Danielle, you've changed from that," Angel told her. "Just stay here with us."

"You want to live your own life now, don't you?" Scamp asked. "And have a great time with us?"

"Danielle," Lady told her gently. "We have a loving home for you. Jim Dear and Darling care about you very much. So do Tramp and I. And so do your sisters."

Danielle sighed. She looked at her parents. Then she looked at her fellow runaways. She sighed. "I don't know what to do!"

"Danielle," Lady told her. "If you come with us… well, we'll not treat you like Annette and Collette anymore. It's just you never told us you didn't like to live like them. We misunderstood you… I'm sorry, Danielle. We'll let you out some times, won't we Tramp?"

"Yeah, sure thing, Danielle," Tramp told her.

Scamp spat on the ground. "You're picking favorites!"

"Of course she'd be your favorite!" Angel told Lady. "She looks just like you. She walks like you. And she's your child!"

"But Scamp, Angel, we'll let you out too," Lady told them.

"Then why haven't you?" Scamp asked.

"Why haven't you, either, dad?" Patch asked.

None of the parents said anything for a while. Scamp, Angel, and Patch stared expectantly at their parents. Penny, Lucky, and Puffball also watched the parents with great interest.

The four parents stood up, huddled together, and whispered to each other. They looked anxiously toward the gate, and then Pongo shook his head. Only Danielle could be heard in the expectant silence, for she was feverishly debating to herself on whether she should stay or go.

Scamp and Angel looked at Danielle. "Remember," Scamp told Danielle. "Don't trust them. They lie to us all the time."

Danielle didn't reply right away. But the puppies were distracted by the parents, who just finished whispering. Pongo then walked over to the couch and crouched down next to the puppies.

"Okay," Pongo told Patch. "I'll tell you why Perdy and I didn't let you out. It was because of Cruella."

"But I thought she went to jail?" Patch asked confusedly.

"She did," Pongo explained. "But you know what she's like and how clever is. We knew that she would do anything to get out, and that sooner or later, she'd escape. We all knew it. Roger, Anita, Perdy, and I. Perdy and I didn't want to scare you, so we didn't tell you anything about our fears and tried to let you enjoy your life. But we became even more concerned when we saw Horace and Jasper's truck pass by our plantation several times. That's why Perdy sometimes told you all to evacuate to the barn, because their truck was passing by."

"Right," Perdita told Patch, bending down to speak to him. "Roger, Pongo, Anita, and I went out for a walk one day, and saw their truck parked next to a house on a nearby street. We all thought they were robbing it, but we had no way to prove it. Unfortunately, they saw us walking by and drove away, so now they knew where we lived. We wanted to keep you and your brothers and sisters safe and so we pretended that you didn't live at the plantation anymore. That's why we always hid you and made sure you didn't leave home."

"So… you really do care for us, don't you?" Patch asked.

"We care for you so much," Pongo told Patch. "That's why we rescued you from Cruella and moved to the plantation, and that's why we're out here right now."

"We care for you more than anything in the world," Perdita told Patch.

Patch sighed. He looked at Perdita and Pongo. "Thanks for all you've done," Patch muttered. "And I guess I love you…but…"

"He's coming with us!" Penny whispered to Lucky, her eyes brightening excitedly.

"Yeah, I know!" Lucky told Penny happily.

"But what?" Perdita asked slowly.

"But I can't walk out on Scamp and Angel. They need me, and I need them," Patch explained. "The three of us have been through so much together… and I can't just abandon them. We've promised to always be there for each other."

Penny and Lucky gasped. Scamp and Angel smiled at Patch. Pongo and Perdita looked at each other concernedly.

Then, Pongo muttered, "Well Patch, if that's really how you feel about things… just remember that we'll never forget you."