Chapter 7- Runaway Puppies!

Lady and Tramp decided to leave through the same barrel at the junkyard where they entered. But just as they exited, another pair of lovers was crossing the bend a few hundred yards and a few corners in front of them. Hurriedly dashing down the sidewalk, Scamp and Angel were actually hiding in the junkyard, but when Lady and Tramp were investigating the car, Scamp and Angel got the opportunity to run from their hiding place on the side of the barrel and leave the junkyard.
    “I told you it was a bad place!” Angel told Scamp, frustrated. “Your father’s bound to know about this place after your previous incident!”
    “But it worked!” Scamp told Angel, huffing and walking down the street at a brisk pace. “Dad would get distracted in this mess.”
    “You’re right,” Angel replied. “Come on tenderfoot… let's go somewhere else. But first…”
    Angel looked at Scamp, and then at a hole in the fence and stated, “We've got to do something.”
    “Well, what?” Scamp asked.
    “Rip off my collar,” Angel told Scamp. “I feel horrible with this on… I’ll do yours… here.”
    Scamp and Angel got the collars off each other’s neck, and Angel, after looking through the hole to check if the coast was clear, squeezed through it and placed them in the junkyard at their old hiding place, then hurriedly proceeded to leave the junkyard an squeezed through the same hole. “They would’ve found us easier if we continued to wear these awful things,” Angel told Scamp disdainfully as they continued down the street.
“So, why do you want to run, anyway?” Scamp asked. “I thought you want a family, and even like baths! I never thought you would want to do this.”
    “They’re not much of a family,” Angel countered while they passed a lamp post. “The way your father played with my mother’s heart was sickening. We’re going to find a real family.”
    “Yeah, Pop lies a lot. He lies to me all the time. Remember when he said that we could go down to the river together? He never took me out once…he lied to me again! We never have any freedom in that place. And Mom’s almost worse… she likes to be cooped up, at least Dad wants to be free.”
Scamp cleared his throat abruptly and asked, “Why don’t we just live together on our own?” Scamp asked Angel. “We can have adventure and take care of ourselves and have fun! We can be free! You suggested that before when….”
    Angel stared at Scamp. “But that was before we found a family... I can’t believe you’re saying that, Scamp. But you must have had to live with them all of your life,” Angel stated contemptuously. “No wonder why you feel like that, and why you ran away in the first place. Of all of my families, they're the worst.”
Scamp nodded, before saying, “Angel…” Scamp told her, “It's not like I want to be a junkyard dog… we can be free and adventurous in other ways. There has to be an exciting family with not too many rules,” Scamp stated. “Let’s find one of them. We can run off together and have fun, but we can still be part of a family.” Angel nodded her agreement.    
“Great,” Scamp added. “In the mean time, let’s have some fun!”
    “Okay, tenderfoot!” Angel playfully growled. The two of them saw a squirrel on the street and decided to race toward it. Scamp nearly caught up to it. “Gotcha!” Scamp declared, but he tripped over a can, fell, and smiled embarrassedly. “Oops… I tripped on the… uh, round thingy!”
    Angel playfully laughed and Scamp grinned, but as he got up, he gasped. He heard a voice saying, “Well Pidge, they’re not here… perhaps we should turn this corner.”
    “ Oh no! It’s Pop! Run!” Scamp whispered to Angel, and the two of them hurried even faster.
“Whew!” Angel stated.
“That was close,” Scamp added as they crossed another street.
They hurried so fast that by the time Lady and Tramp actually turned the corner, the two of them were well out of sight. Panting, Scamp stated happily, “Wahoo! I’ve never had this much chance to stretch my legs since my days on the street!”
    “Yes!” Angel told Scamp. “We have to watch out for your, uh, parents though. They do seem persistent.”
    “Sure,” Scamp told Angel excitedly. “Of course,” Scamp told Angel. “We can fool them any day.”
“We’ll lose them once they find our collars,” Angel told Scamp, and the two of them giggled happily as they crossed streets and alleys, and they chased fireflies excitedly in the night. Scamp excitedly swallowed some of them, causing Angel to giggle. “You know any part of town that Pop doesn’t know about?” Scamp asked as they entered a new street.
    “I don’t know,” Angel told Scamp. “The Tramp's a legendary street dog, but maybe your mother has been keeping him tied in long enough so that he has lost his touch.”
    They were now in a far off area of town, as Scamp eagerly proclaimed. “Wow! I’ve never seen this place!”
    “Nor have I!” Angel exclaimed. “Maybe there will be a lot of people who can take us in!”
    But then, Scamp and Angel heard a familiar set of wheels and then, some sort of loud, crazy hollering. Turning around, they gasped.
    “Oh no!” Angel cried. “The dogcatcher!”
“Let’s hide in the trash cans!” Scamp declared, and they hurriedly jumped in the nearest trash basket.
    Angel stood on top of Scamp, poking her head out of the trash can a little bit with the lid on her head while she monitored the scene. The dogcatcher in his car rolled by, hollering insanely, but as soon as they were gone, Angel told Scamp, “It’s all clear.”
    “Whew!” Scamp stated, knocking over the trash so that it splattered all over the place.
“How bout we find an area to live of some sort?”
    “What about looking for our new family?” Angel asked. “There has to be someone near here who can take us in… and we need to find them before your parents find us.”
    “Relax,” Scamp told Angel tiredly. “We can always look tomorrow, and we can outsmart them. In the mean time, we can have fun on the streets! There’s no Buster to deal with this time.”
    “All right,” Angel stated. “I suppose that’s all we can do for now. Let’s make the best of it! Watch this!” Angel chased her tail, and grabbed it again.
    Yawning, Scamp stated, “I’m tired… let’s sleep.” Angel agreed, and Scamp and Angel knocked down two trash cans and slept behind them contentedly.