Vacation: Part 1

{Chapters 1 and 2}

by Doverstar

Chapter 1

"Sand buckets, plastic shovels, swim garb...yep, everything seems to be here. But I'm still forgetting something..." Jim Dear rubbed his chin and squinted at the clear, blue sky, thinking hard.

A bark at his side alerted him.

"Oh! There it is." Jim Dear reached down and took the overflowing bag full of sunscreen cans. "Thanks, boy." He scratched Tramp behind the ears, making the liscense on the mutt's collar jingle.

Tramp panted up at him.

"Darling," Jim Dear called, "I've got everything! It's all in the baggage area. The driver's ready to go, dear. Are you packed?"

"Coming," came a musically-sweet woman's voice. Darling entered the front yard, Junior in a little sailor's swimming suit as he toddled beside her. The blonde boy was just starting to walk on his own.  Darling was in a sundress, hair in a bun to keep off of her shoulders. "Did we get Junior's sunglasses?"

"W--no, I...I thought you  had them, actually." Jim Dear looked confused.

"Oh dear." Darling put a rose-petal-skinned hand to her cheek in worry.

A cold, wet nose nudged her ankle.

Darling turned and smiled a dazzlingly beautiful smile. "Why thank you, Lady!"

She took the small sunglasses from the gorgeous Cocker Spaniel's jaws. Lady recieved a tender pat on the head.

Danielle, Annette, and Collette glanced around in unison as they stood by the fence with their parents.

"Hey--" blabbered Danielle with her tongue out, "where'd Angel go?"

"She said something about doggie biscuits." Collette shrugged and primped at her flowing, silky brown ears.

"So where is she?" Daniella asked again.

Suddenly a sharp barrage of barking came from the open door. Angel came racing out, shaking grainy crumbs of doggie biscuits from her cream-gold pelt, yellow collar twisting all the way around on her neck before settling back to normal on her chest.

A gray ball of fur whizzed past her. "Whoohoo-hoo-hoo!" came the puppified howl with a half-pup-half-teen laugh.

"And there," said Tramp with a grunt, "is your answer."

"Oh my." Lady moaned.

Annette rolled her eyes.

Jim Dear put a hand through his brown hair. "What on earth?"

Angel skidded to a halt beside the triplets and their parents. "Scamp--I'll bite you for this!"

Another young cackle and a bark of triumph. "Got 'em!"

"It's always something, isn't it?" chuckled Darling.

"Here. Let me." Jim Dear scooped Scamp up and removed the doggie biscuit box from the gray pup's head. Then he set him down. "That's a bath for you when we get to the motel," he scolded while hiding a smile.

Scamp whimpered.

"Why does he get to go first?" scoffed Collette.

"Deserve it, tenderfoot," Angel winked as Scamp was set down.

"I was only having some fun before we go," Scamp protested mildly when he was on his paws again.

"Yes," Lady said worriedly, trying not to chuckle as Darling had, "but do remember not to try these shenanigans at the beach, dear," she reminded him.

"The stunts you're pulling, whirlwind, you'll get us kicked out before sundown," Tramp winked at his identical son.

"Yeah right, Pops," Scamp scoffed, eyelids lowered, grinning cockily.

"All right, everybody in!" Jim Dear clapped his hands. The dogs piled into the hired stagecoach.

The old-time motor sputtered, and they were off!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Finally!" Anette sprang daintily out of the stagecoach. "How am I supposed to keep my fur smooth when you're kicking me all the way here, Ang'?" she growled.

Angel grinned at Scamp as they, side-by-side, hopped out and onto the sandy ground. "Relax. It only took us twenty minutes to get out of the motel."

"He-heh, yeah," Scamp snickered joyously. "And now that we're at the beach--first one to knock Junior into the sand's gotta eat seaweed!"

"It won't be me," Danielle replied as she staggered out, looking carsick--or stagecoach-sick--"I'm not that clumsy."

"Ugh!" prissed Collette as she followed Lady and Tramp down the shore with their owners. "You're lucky you made it hear without busting out of the window!"

"She's lucky she made it here alive," Angel sympathized, noticing Danielle's rather green look.

Scamp was already off down the shore and racing around Junior's heels as the toddler staggered toward the shallows with Darling and Jim Dear watching close by.

"Yeaaah," Annette rolled her eyes at Angel as she followed the pomeranian's gaze. "He's gonna lose the dare. I give him five seconds before he topples the poor little child over," she muttered as she headed off toward the rest of the family, her sisters at her heels.

Angel shook her head hopelessly and started to follow them. She tripped ungracefully on a root and stumbled into a sand dune, head popping out with a tiny mound of sand on the top of her forehead. Her ears drooping angrily, Angel coughed.

"That ain't a good look for ya, just sayin'."

Angel's heart skipped a beat. She knew that voice. Oh, come on! Not here. But it couldn't be. No way.

She slowly raised her eyes and gasped, cornflower-blue pupils widening. "Fang?!"
 

"Present." The Golden Retriever pup stood in front of his gang of puppy friends, Rose, Afghanna, and Skip, flanked by them but slightly in front. "How's pickin's, doll?"

* * * * * * * *

Although Angel was shocked, she was pleased to see her former friends. Fang had once tried, about two months ago, to win her heart by any means possible. But after brawling some with Scamp, breaking his leg in attempt to save her heroically, spending two weeks with the Darling family, and finally refusing the pedigree life to roam the streets free with his gang, Fang had given up and stuck to being a close friend of Angel and Scamp's, but he hadn't visited at all since he'd left the family. Secretly, Fang hadn't returned because he was afraid his longing for a true family would get the better of him and he'd want to stay there as a house pet. But he wouldn't admit to that.

Behind him, Afghanna grunted and elbowed Fang. "And she had nothing to do with the ride here?"

Fang shrugged. "Hey, can't a dog visit old pals?"

"So you admit they're your friends," Skip muttered darkly.

"You didn't say anything about her being here!" Rose added, a bit frustratedly. Fang didn't notice.

Angel pulled herself out of the sand dune and shook herself clean. "Fang--wh-what a surprise! I...you didn't...how'd you guys get here?"

"Hitchhiked." Fang lowered his eyelids and raised his head. He wasn't meeting her eyes, afraid it'd spark the same old feeling he'd had two months ago. He was over her. Wasn't he?

Angel arched a brow, tail twitching as she lowered her own eyelids and frowned at them.

"Don't act like you haven't done it before," Afghanna teased as she nudged past Angel with a sly, crooked smile. Rose followed, nose in the air she she went by the pomeranian.

"How'd you hitchhike?" Angel asked, watching Skip go by her to catch up with Afghanna.

"So long of a story, so little time, eh, doll?" Fang smirked as he escorted her down the beach toward the Darlings.

"You know how to make an entrance, I'll give you that," she replied smoothly, grinning as they walked.

"I try." Fang shrugged.

A beach ball was being used as a volleyball by a few locals. As the inflated toy sailed over the group of puppies' heads, Fang didn't stop walking but sprang into the air, balancing the ball on his nose expertly as he landed in the sand on all four paws.

"Yo, Skipper--think fast!" Fang nudged the ball back into the sky with his caramel-colored nose.

Skip, eyebrows still lowered in a scowl but with a tiny, crooked grin, bumped his head against the ball as it landed toward him. "Catch!"

Afghanna had her back to the ball as it sailed her way, but she looked over her shoulder, eyelids lowered, and kicked the beach ball with a hind paw as if it took no effort. "Look alive, kid!" she called.

Rose gave a gorgeous smile of excitement and bunched her muscles, the fake rose behind her orange ear teetering when she let the beach ball roll down her back and fling itself toward the nearest human local who had been using the ball in the first place.

With a dumbstruck, open-mouthed look, the local opened his hands and the ball landed perfectly in his arms.

The humans stared, frozen, as the gang continued down toward the shore. Angel glanced around at them as she walked. "Impressive," was all she commented.

Rose straightened her fake flower and followed Afghanna and Skip down to the shallows of the water.

"So," Fang wiggled his eyebrows teasingly. "Didja miss me, Ang'?"

"Maybe." Angel slipped behind him and then appeared on his other side, eyelids lowered with an equally teasing smile. "So did