Family of 101

Chapter 6: Two Artists Are Better Than One

Da Vinci's POV

My body was quivering in both anxiety and excitement as I watched one of the contestants of the art show I was participating in the National Gallery of London. The work of art the contestant on stage was representing was rather impressive, at best it must've been a year long progress. That does sound long for a painting, but you'd be surprised on how long the Mona Lisa took to complete. The contestant's work in question was a detailed scene of a run down castle on top of some hills with a sunset, giving the scenery a nice orange glow. The contestant artist took a bow to the applauding crowd before leaving the stage with his art work.

"Thank you, Mr. Caprio. And now, ladies and gentleman, we have have one more artist joining us for this event and she's a young artist at twelve years old. Please make a round of applause for Da Vinci Dalmatian from Camden!" I grinned eagerly as the announcer mentioned my name, followed by claps from the audience while I carried my entry covered in a tarp, standing it up before starting my speech.

"T-Thank you, everyone. It's always been a passion of mine to make a name for myself in the world of art and it's a real honour to have come here to this exhibition. And I really hope you all like what I'd like to call "Moonlight Barks"." I announced before pulling away the tarp, revealing my work of art. A heavily detailed portrait of me and a few of my siblings including DJ, Dawkins and Dylan sat at a grass hill and looking up at the night sky. I had used an oil on canvas for the sky, stars and moon similar to what Vincent Van Gogh would've used when he was painting Starry Night with the stars and clouds being composed to streaks of oil paint. Mum and a few siblings of mine said that this would be the perfect one to show the gallery.

...But when I revealed the painting to everyone, the whole gallery was silent. Wondering if I had left the crowd speechless, I turned to face them but all of their faces bore a look of indifference but that expression didn't last long until some of their faces slowly turned to that of disgust when one of them finally spoke out. "Ugh, what is that hideous splat of mess on a canvas?!" I couldn't believe what I was seeing or hearing, I had worked on this one painting for several months and none of the crowd had any looks or words of interest for it. The rest of the crowd started to join in with pelting me with nasty feedback, some of them even booing me harshly as their disgusted faces were now warped into cold malice. I was on the verge of tearing up and hiding myself until I felt something hit me on my arm and found that it was a splattered tomato. This was followed by the rest lobbing their trash at me, the booing getting louder and louder as I clasped my hands over my ears to try and block it out, tears finally running down my cheeks as I silently begged. "P-Please stop...!" The trash and tomato throwing just increased until I ended up slipping on some of the splattered fruit on the floor under me and fell onto my side, before finally letting out a wail of despair.

"NOOOOOOOO!"

I snapped awake and was panting harder than I ever had in a lifetime, beads of sweat running down the fur of my head as I immediately looked at my surroundings. Even in darkness, I slowly recognised it as one of the many bedrooms I slept in with some of my brothers and sisters, one of them being Cody. I tried to relax my breathing as I realised that my bout of humiliation in the Gallery was only a nightmare, but it just felt so real and scary. I brought my knees up to my face and hugged them, still feeling my heart pounding in my chest, sniffling as I was still unnerved by what I just experienced.

"Da Vinci...?" A tired voice caught my attention as I looked to see Cody beside my bed, looking like he had just woken up. "You okay? I saw you tossing and turning in your bed." I wiped a single tear from my eye before quietly answering. "S-Sorry Cody, I... I just had a bad dream..." Cody sat on the end of my bed after I told him this and put a hand on my shoulder. "Oh... You want to talk about it?" I hesitated whether or not I should answer his question until I remembered earlier today when I had ended up uncomfortably make him talk about his dead mum, I guess I kinda owed him one. So I told him the whole story as he listened intently to every word I said, his face slowly falling into a look of sympathy the more I explained until I had finished. "Da Vinci, that... that sounds horrible." He commented, that worried look still not leaving his face. "It felt so real..." I sniffled, this was why I was often shy with anyone besides my family, especially humans, I was worried that they would only see a horrible mess on a piece of paper, but I remembered Cody's kind words about them when he and I first met. The human brother of mine in question suddenly pulled me into a gentle hug which I didn't hesitate to return. Cody was perhaps the only human I felt safe with since he was a part of our family.