PART 1

Spring had arrived earlier and thousand of different kinds of flowers were blossoming thanks to the bright sunny days, with the bluest of the skies, and the soft breeze that transported their seeds to every nearby garden, spreading more beauty along the entire city. The constant humming of the birds and the joy on people’s faces didn’t leave any doubt: one of the most beautiful and pleasant seasons had started and deserved to be enjoyed at the maximum.

In the city park, full of green and bushy trees, a dark skinned woman was sitting on a bench, holding an umbrella and impatiently glancing at her watch at every ten seconds:

“... I promise I’ll set these two straight on these days off!”, Tess mumbled. Only then, she noticed there was a paper left on the bench. It was lilac and had some small flowers on the board. The supervisor unfolded it and, after reading its content, chuckled and rolled her eyes to the sky:

“It’s ok, I recognise it’s for a good cause, but I will set her straight just the same!”, she stated. Seconds later, Tess felt a pair of hands gently squeezing her shoulders:

“Hey Tess!”

A tall, handsome man, with short blond hair and green eyes appeared right beside her and greeted her with a beautiful smile on his face:

“Well, Mr, does this pocket watch of yours need new batteries?”

“You look gorgeous in the spring, did you know that?”

“Don’t you try that to me you too! Where have you been?”

“Well, Monica asked me to buy Joy’s favourite cookies...”, he explained, showing her the bag he carried with him.

“Is that what you have in there?”, the supervisor had an inquisitive and rather curious expression on her face. Slightly embarrassed, the blond angel moved the bag away form her, in an attempt to hide its content:

“Yes...”, was his feeble reply, “Where... where’s Monica?...”, he asked, trying to change the subject. Once again, Tess rolled her eyes and handed him the note she had found on the bench a minute ago. Andrew took it in his hands and read it aloud:

“Dears Tess and Andrew,

I am bringing wee  Joy with me and we will meet you two in the park in some minutes.

Kisses and hugs to you both, we love you very much,

Monica”

He soon recognised his dearest friend’s handwriting, with hearts above the letter ‘I’. Besides, the note had been written with lilac perfumed ink:

“It’s grape!”, he joked, smelling the paper and finding Monica’s attitude adorable.

“She’s late!”, Tess spoke, still with some impatience.

“But don’t you love her just the same?”, Andrew replied, as he knew the supervisor’s slight bad humour wasn’t really true.

“Of course I do! But I’ll set her straight during these days off anyway! And you too, Mr! Don’t you think you can do whatever you want to, just like our last vacation! I’ll put order in the house this time!”, she firmly sated, with  a solemn tone in her voice. Then, glancing at her watch for the 100^th time, she exclaimed:

“Does it take that long to go and get Joy?!”

At that exact moment, the two angels heard a loud cry and an unmistakable voice, with an Irish accent, echoing throughout the park:

“Joy!!! Stop!!!”

Tess and Andrew turned around and saw, not far away from them, a rather funny scene: a chubby black cocker spaniel puppy, firmly carrying a package of dog cookies in her mouth, being chased by an extremely angry woman and by a long haired lady, holding a hat in one hand and a pair of sandals in the other.

“Hey! Stop it, you little monster! Help! I’ve been stolen!”, the woman shouted, with an very angry tone of voice. Joy was running a few steps ahead of her as fast as she could, in order to escape from the furious woman. Monica was coming right behind them, also trying, without much success, to reach the little dog.

“But what the heck is that?!”, Tess exclaimed, even more distressed, while Andrew was trying his best not to laugh at the riot the group was causing in the park, including running over some picnic baskets and almost knocking some passerbies down:

“Somebody catch that creature! She stole that package of cookies!”

Some people, hearing the woman’s appeals, tried to grab Joy, but the little chubby fur ball managed to escape from all of them, passing between their legs or changing the course of her direction. All that confusion ended up calling a policeman’s attention and he immediately ran to see what was going on, as well as everybody else who was visiting the park. And, after escaping from so many people, Joy was suddenly surprised by a huge fence, which set the limits of the park.

The small puppy looked around her and saw that there was nowhere to go: she was trapped. A second later, lots of people, including a worried Irish angel, an angry woman and a tired policeman, surrounded her, and the chubby fur ball backed away from them:

“I finally got you!”, the angry woman said, now with some pleasure.

“But what’s happening here, ma’am?”, the policeman wanted to know. The bad humoured lady, who could hardly breathe, pointed at Joy with anger:

“I’ve been stolen by that little monster! I had just left the supermarket and put my packages on the ground to tie my shoelaces when I was suddenly attacked by that animal, who grabbed that package of cookies and ran away!”

“That’s not true! My wee Joy didn’t have any intention of stealing!”, Monica spoke, with an anguished tone in her voice.

“Oh no? And how do you call that, huh?!”

“She didn’t know the package had an owner; when she saw it in the street she thought it had been abandoned! Joy didn’t know what she was doing, she’s still a baby...”

At that moment, another voice, stronger than the others, was heard:

“Wait a minute, what’s going on here?!”

Tess and Andrew made their way over to Monica and the Irish angel looked at them rather embarrassed:

“Tess... Andrew... we... we arrived...”, was the only thing she could say.

“I can see that, Miss Wings! In fact, the whole park can!”

“Monica, what happened here?”, Andrew asked, noticing the worried look in her eyes.

“Our wee Joy made a mistake, she thought that this lady’s package had been abandoned in the street and then she took the package of cookies that was inside it...”, Monica explained. But the woman interrupted her:

“That animal attacked me deliberately!”

“Oh, that’s not true!”, the Irish angel was really offended in hearing such thing.

“Yes, that’s true!”, the woman insisted, and turned to the crowd: “That little creature is a threaten to human beings!”

“Hey, hold it there, miss! Nobody talks like that about my baby!”, Tess protested, already with an upset expression on her face.

“Wait a minute! Please, try to cool yourselves down! If you don’t speak one at a time it’s gonna be impossible to understand what the matter is!”, the police officer shouted.

“Officer, what she’s saying obviously isn’t true! We all can see that the little dog is inoffensive!”, Andrew spoke, standing beside Monica. Only then, the woman noticed something:

“Wait a minute! I know you two!”

They exchanged a quick glance and stared back at her: their memory came back some months before, until their last vacations together, when the 3 angels stayed at a beach house for some wonderful days. They remembered the little incident with Tess’ sweater, when Joy undid it completely and they spent the rest of the day walking around the city in search of another one, to replace the destroyed outfit.

Monica had taken the sweater she had knitted for Andrew as a model and they ended up in a shop, whose owner was an extremely rude and unkind lady, with an awful humour and who didn’t think twice before saying what she really thought about Monica’s knitting abilities, deeply hurting the Irish angel’s feelings.

That was the same woman who stood in front of them now, in that park, accusing their little ‘baby’ of the most horrible actions.

“I remember you...”, Andrew said.

“You are the woman from the shop!”, Monica exclaimed, with shock.

“And you and this boyfriend of yours are the ones who dared to go to my shop carrying a piece of rag and ask me if I had anything similar to that!”, with disgust, she looked at the little dog, who, so far, had limited herself to watch all the argument without letting go of the package of cookies: “I’m not surprised that this horrible creature belongs to you!”

“Hey, wait a minute! Watch your mouth there! If there’s a horrible creature right here in this park it surely isn’t my little baby!”, Tess fumed, glaring at the woman, who backed away a few steps:

“Officer, that dog is a criminal! An outlaw who has the evidence of her crime right in her mouth and who shouldn’t be here, outside, exposing every innocent people who crosses her way to all sorts of danger!!! Like me, many others can be violently attacked by that monster!”

“Oh, she’s lying, officer!”

“That’s absurd!”

“I’m gonna teach that lady a lesson right now!”, Monica, Andrew and Tess respectively said, at the same time, and that discussion was quickly spread over the crowd that surrounded them.

“Everybody shut up!!!”, the police officer shouted, and everybody became quiet, “Obviously we have a controversy here, which needs to be solved immediately!”

“I do completely agree, officer. This woman needs a lesson on how to behave like a real human being!”, the supervisor stated, causing the officer to stare at her with a stern look:

“Excuse me madam, but I’m the police officer here, and I know what my job is!”, he spoke. Tess crossed her arms in front of her chest even more upset and the other woman stared back at her with some satisfaction on her bad humoured face. Then, the man turned to Monica:

“Lady, is this dog yours?”

“Yes, she is our baby!”, the Irish angel responded, anguish never abandoned her face:

“And where is her license?”

“What?...”

“Her license. When a person has an animal he or she needs to have a license, a certificate stating who she belongs to. For what I can see, your ‘baby’ doesn’t even have a collar or a leach!”

Monica’s heart started to beat louder than before. She didn’t have any document to prove that the little dog belonged to the angels, as the only permission to have Joy had been a divine one, and explaining it to the police officer would be at least difficult at that moment:

“We... We don’t have a license...”, was her feeble reply. The bad humoured woman put her hands on her hips and something similar to a smile appeared on her face:

“You three know what destiny dogs without a license have, don’t you?”, she said.

Hearing that, panic crept all over Monica, and she covered her mouth with horror in her tearful eyes:

“Oh Father!...”

“Hey, nobody’s gonna do anything with Joy!”, Andrew protested, feeling bad both for Monica and for the small animal.

“Andrew is right, nobody’s gonna touch my baby!”, Tess stated, standing in front of Joy, in a protective way.

“I’m sorry, madam, but it’s the law: all animals need a license. And if this one doesn’t have one, she can’t stay outside anymore. I’ll have to do my job and take her with me!”

With some tears rolling down her cheeks, Monica grabbed Andrew’s hand and squeezed it, fear evident in her eyes, as well as in Andrew’s, as they were faced with the possibility of losing the little dog they loved so much forever.