Jessica and the 102 Dalmatians

chapter 3

After that, Jessica returned home and looked at her and Darla's room. It had been decorated and there was a large painting on the ceiling hung over the bed and it looked like a painting of Jessica, Darla, and Maisy together, holding hands, even if Maisy was a cat. There also appeared to be a rainbow with hearts and happy sunshine throughout. It said "WELCOME HOME, JESSICA" on the top with Darla's name signed with Maisy's paw print.

"Do you like the decorations?" Maisy asked.

Darla smiled as she stood with her cat.

Jessica sat up and smiled at them. "You guys are amazing! Darla, did Amber help you with this?"

"No, I did it myself," Darla answered with a smile. "There was an art fair at school during the summer and I got inspired to become an artist myself!"

"Yeah and she is really good at art." Maisy said.

"That's great, Darla, you're such a talented girl, I think everyone's gonna look up to you when you grow up." Jessica smiled at her adoptive sister.

"You think so?" Darla grinned at that.

"I'm sure of it..." Jessica hugged Darla, gently stroking her blonde hair.

Maisy smiled at this sister moment and just wanting to see her sister again.

Amber met with her friends at the train station to take to London to meet her great-aunt and great-uncle. They brought Dottie and Domino's puppies with them. They all had collars now and significantly, Oddball had a pink collar. She seemed very attached with Jessica already and the feeling was mutual. Amber reminded everyone to be on their best behavior, her relatives were nice, but they could be snobs at times, but not as much as their pompous, pampered pooches.

"I hope they won't be too snobby." Atticus said.

"I think Coco and Beamer kinda take advantage of their good life honestly," Amber shrugged. "Lucky tried to spend the summer with them when things got out of hand for him like when Patch was ignored by almost everyone. But he got too lonely since Coco and Beamer would rather be by themselves and they gave him chicken for dinner."

"How is Spot by the way?" Darla asked.

"Well, she's close with her mother now," Amber told them with a smile. "Spot still wants to be a dog, but she's willing to spend some time with her mother... As long as it isn't laying eggs all the time."

"Cool, I'm glad that she's spending time with her mother." Patch said.

"Yeah, it's great..." Amber smiled. "The others miss you, Patch, but they're glad you're happy with Atticus now."

Jessica held Oddball close, but she looked and saw there were women with their babies. She sighed as the dreaded curse of baby blues was plaguing her mind yet again. She wasn't even married, but she longed for having a child. When Atticus was about to be born, she never understood why her parents wanted another child when they had her, but she loved him then and still, also there was Darla, even if Darla wasn't her biological younger sister.

"You okay, Jess?" Darla asked her.

"Yeah... I'm fine..." Jessica blinked once she came to. "Just... Thinking..."

"About wanting to have a child?" Atticus guessed.

Jessica sighed. "Yeah... It happens when you're older like me... All your friends start having children... I mean, you know my friend Laurel, her son's going into high school soon!"

"You'll have a kid sometime." Darla promised with a sure smile.

Jessica sighed again with a smile. "I hope I have kids someday... I've always wanted a daughter... Being natural close friends, helping her out with personal problems... Plus at college, I take the bus on Tuesdays and Thursdays to the local daycare to look after little kids all the time, I just love seeing little kids at play... I think I wanna run a daycare center if I can't have any of my own kids... I just adore small children..."

"Even Aunt Anita and Uncle Roger got cursed," Amber said. "They had a baby, when I go down to the farm to visit this summer, we can meet her."

"Cool" Atticus said.

Amber showed them a picture. The baby seemed to have strawberry blonde hair like her mother, but brown eyes like her father.

"What's her name?" Darla asked with a smile.

"Nelly-Ann," Amber told them with a smile as she felt great to have a cousin. "Hopefully you'll all get to meet her."

"Sounds wonderful." Jessica smiled.

"We hope to meet her too." Atticus said.

Patch stayed with the pups to make sure they all stayed on their best behavior.

Soon enough, the train stopped and there was an older couple dressed formerly with two pure bred and sophisticated looking Dalmatians with them. The female appeared to be wearing a necklace and the male seemed to have his ears slicked down with an expensive collar. Amber came to them as she recognized them and saw them.

"Everyone, this is my Aunt Chloe and Uncle Kevin." Amber introduced.

"Umm... Hi," Patch came up to the Dalmatian couple as he was with his young nieces and nephews. "You must be..."

"She's Aunt Coco." the male said in a prim and proper British accent.

"And he's Uncle Beamer." the female added in a shrill English accent.

"We're the Vandercreams." the Dalmatian couple smiled proudly.

"It's great to finally meet you both, my name is Patch." Patch said, before extending his right paw to them.

Coco and Beamer got acquainted with one of their nephews, shaking his paw in return.

"These are Little Dipper, Dipstick, and Oddball, they're Dottie and Domino's puppies." Patch introduced.

"Ah, yes... Pongo told us he met that Perdy girl," Beamer shook his head. "Having 15 puppies and adopting 84 more..."

"We never had any puppies, nor have our humans had any children..." Coco sounded rather snooty about their childless and puppyless living condition. "Come, we best get back home in time for tea."

Jessica found Kevin and Chloe to be a lot nicer than their pets and they all went to the Vandercream mansion to relax and get to know each other better. Coco and Beamer seemed to find Oddball to in fact live up to her name without the spots and all while their humans were curious but kind of it.