petrified.

            “How much did you hear?”

            “Nothing.  I just heard the Missis screaming at you, and then I saw her run off.  Beautiful!  Classic!”  Buster teased.  The lack of urgency in his voice told Star Buster truly didn’t hear anything.  If he knew Angela had been pregnant, Buster would have furious, not that it was any of his business.

            The Tramp had just had a littler of his own with Lady.  Star hadn’t seen the pups, but they were safe, with their mother and their father to protect them.  Star found himself feeling jealous of Tramp, not being able to have the life he did. 

            “So, what happened?”  Buster asked.

            “Nothing,” Star said, keeping his voice calm.  “Buster, I’m going on a trip.”

            “Trip?  What kinda trip?”

            Star jumped from the car.  He looked at it, then at Buster and at some of the junkyard dogs playing around in the distant on old sofa cushions.

            “Take care of them, will ya’?”  Star said, nodding to the other dogs.

            “Sure, man, sure.  But where are you going?”  Buster’s voice became serious.  “You aren’t gonna be one of those house pets, are ya’?”

            “No,” he answered truthfully.  “I just…I want to be somewhere else for awhile.  Goodbye, Buster.”

            Star left the junkyard, left the town.  He ran far away, and this time he would stay far away, at least until it was safe. 

            As Star left one side of town, Angela searched the other.  She had searched every alley, every street, every corner and nothing turned up.  She eventually walked until she could walk no more, and her human family found her nearly half-dead in the middle of the road.

            She would never know that the man who took her pups had taken them to the kennel the day after she was adopted.  They were cleaned by and nourish in his home for a few days and given to the kennel to be adopted.

            All of the pups were adopted, but one somehow ended up right back on the streets where she was born…   

1: Return to the Streets

            The little dog looked out the front window, sitting on a small bench.  She had been thinking a lot lately.  She looked out into the street, where occasionally a human would walk by, with a dog or a family or both.  She looked at the pink collar around her neck.  When she first came to the house, she was given a pink bow, as a sort of gift.  She noticed the collar’s golden charm sometimes gleamed in the early afternoon sunlight.

            She smiled at the words inscribed on the collar—her name: Angel.

            She turned her head around, back to the house, as three spaniel puppies barks and chased each other through the living room and made their way up the stairs.  Following close behind them were a very peeved looking pair of older dogs, their parents—Lady and The Tramp.

            Angel smiled at the happy family.  When she was a junkyard dog, living on the streets, she had dreamed so much of having a family like this.  She was a house pet before, five times to be exact, and every one of her old families got rid of her for one reason or another.  But that wouldn’t happen this time.

            When the cocker spaniel sisters and their parents were out of sight, Angel turned back to the window. 

            She had everything she ever wanted—a home, a family…so why wasn’t she happy?

            Could it really be she was missing the streets?

            “Angel?  You okay?”  A boy’s voice called from behind her.

            Angel turned around, slightly startled; she was far too deep in thought to notice whether or not he had called her before.

            “Scamp, hi, yeah, everything’s…,” she paused.

            The scruffy grey pup looked at her confused, and joined her by the window.

            “Scamp,” she said, with a sigh, “do you ever miss it?”  She said, nodding her head outside.

            “What?  The streets?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Sometimes…I mean, it was a fun experience, but I’m glad to be home.”

            “Home…,” she repeated the word, replayed it in her head.  “I never had that before.  I know Jim Dear and Darling will never kick me out, but I can’t help feeling doubtful.  I feel like I’m missing something, Scamp.”

            “Angel, don’t worry about it.  They would never kick you out.  I mean, come on, look at me!  I used to be a real wrecking ball and they never got rid of me; you should have seen what I did to the living room the day I ran away!”  Scamp said with a proud yip.

            “Used to?”

            He shrugged innocently.

            She smiled and jumped from the window sill.  Scamp followed her.  She still looked upset; whatever was bothering her was still on her mind.

            As they walked through the kitchen, Scamp’s sister, Annette, Colette and Danielle, ran by them again.  This time Tramp was able to grab one of the sisters, while Lady continued to chase the other two.

            “Now, that’s enough, young lady; I thought you were better behaved than that,” Tramp said, his voice muffled with Colette in his jaws.

            “Aww, c’mon, Dad!  We’re just having fun,” she giggled.

            “Stop running around the house and you can have all the fun you want, come on, you need a bath anyway,” Tramp said, taking his daughter upstairs to get Jim Dear.

            “Gah!”  Scamp exclaimed.  If Colette and the others were getting a bath, that meant he was going to get one, too.  “I hate baths!”

            “I thought you got over that.”

            “Not even a little bit.”

            Angel laughed at her friend, though Scamp didn’t seem to find it so funny.

            “Scamp, I think what’s bothering me is…I’m just finding it so hard to believe I have a family.”

            “Never, never?  I mean, I know your humans kicked you out, but what about your parents?  What happened to them?”

            Angel froze, her mind having gone somewhere distant.  She rarely thought about her parents, more-so she barely remembered anything about them.  All she could remember was a faint bark, a mother’s cry, and the tune of a song, but they were like blurring dreams, unclear in her memory.

            “I don’t remember them,” she finally said.  “All I remember is that one day they were hear, and the next, they