Harvest Festival
A beautiful fall arrangement could be seen as far as the road sprawled on. Leaves laid in the road and grass as new ones fell from the shaking trees. The fall's cool breeze carried on throughout the burrows as two visitors arrived in the distance. Traveling away from the city they called home, the visitors gaped in awe at the sight set before them. As they kept traveling a familiar sight cam upon them, the Burrows.
An energetic female rabbit held the wheel fast as her vehicle tossed leaves aside behind her. Her and her partner, weary from the long trip, were relieved to see their destination. The rabbit turned to her partner, an older male fox, who was staring out the window amazed at the surroundings. Even though he grew up as a city fox it always amazed her how much of the world he has been missing out on. The fox noticed his partner's gaze on him and turned around to face her with a slight grin that could do more than tell what was to come next.
"Carrots answer me this," the fox said as his gaze lowered upon hers. "Why look at me when you have the scenery around us? Clearly you are not staring at me because I'm more interesting than a couple of leaves are you?" The fox asked as the rabbit's face turned a deep shade of red. The rabbit snapped her eye's back onto the road as another gust of wind sent a herd of leaves flying in the other direction.
"I wasn't looking at you dummy," the rabbit claimed in a shaken tone, "I was looking at the carrot field behind you. They sat in the car in silence before the fox spoke up again.
"The entire trip so far has been nothing but carrot fields Hopps," the fox said clearly humored by the rabbit. "If you want to lie past a fox like me you gotta do better than that."
Luck saved the rabbit s they pulled alongside the town she calls home. Many bunnies were scampering around, clearly in a hurry, to set up for tomorrow's festivities, The Harvest Festival. Shops and stands were being constructed as long as activities for the young bucks and does. Decorations were placed about like core and bales of hay as long as fresh produce from the neighboring farms.
The duo exited their vehicle in unison as they started to trudge on the sidewalk leading into town.
"If my mom told us right, my family should be behind the post office," the rabbit exclaimed as she bounded in front of the fox. "Come on slick. I want them to finally meet you!"
The fox let out a content sigh as he shoved his paws in his pant's and followed behind the rabbit. Watching the energy radiating from his friend brought happiness into his life. Solely the reason for him being here wasn't her was it? In a blink of an eye he saw her bound around the corner of the post office faster than he can going to the coffee machine. In a few seconds the fox rounded the same corner and came face to face with presumably her family.
His partner was being embraced and jumped on by many smaller bucks and does, who must be her siblings, as the adults watched and chuckled from a distance. The rabbit said a brief greeting to all of them with haste as she made her way to the matriarch of the Hopp's household. The young bunnies quickly turned to the fox as an army of them pulled him down to the ground in a swarm of tiny paws. Squeals of delight emitted from the group as the fox frantically tried to escape the onslaught of questions and paws barraging his meager frame.
"Are you aunt Judy's fox partner?"
"Why is your tail longer than mine, mine's the longest of my friends."
"Your fur is much more thicker than Julian's."
The Fox tried to answer them all and pull the prying children off of him as his partner came to rescue him. "Need a hand there slick?" Judy asked her partner with a grin as she took her partner's paw and pulled him up. "Leave Nick alone please, or else I'll tell Franklin to not let any of you try his apple cider." The bunnies around Judy all sighed in defeat and quickly ran over to their next victim, a raccoon sitting on the bench across the street.
The Hopp's family matriarch walked over to Judy and Nick and shooed the stray rabbits from bothering them. "You must be Nick," the matriarch said as she warmly shook his hand. "Judy told us all about you from how you guys met all the way to you joining the force. You know, its always been here dream to join the force since she was..."
"Mom!" Judy yelled at her mother who looked amused from the outburst. "Nick doesn't want to hear that right?" Judy said as she looked at Nick pleadingly.
Nick smiled at her statement. "Actually I would love to hear all about your story." Nick said as his smirk grew even bigger.
"First of all, please call me Bonnie Nick, and second," she turned and gave a quick glance at Judy before turning back to Nick, "I can tell you that story later," She said with a wink. The two laughed as Judy put her face in her paws and groaned at the scene before her.
"Enough of that, thanks for coming to the festival this year Nick." Bonnie said with a warm smile on her face. "Our family has been hosting this event for years and every year it keeps on growing. We got Ol' Travis to pull the tractors for the young lings this year Judy so you don't need to worry about that."
Nick turned to Judy in disbelief as Judy only offered a simple smile and a shrug of her shoulders.
"The festival is more or less centered around the young lings but we have some other stuff put aside for the older folks around here. I really do appreciate what you guys are doing for us and I hope nothing bad happens like last year." The smile on Bonnie's face faded away as she spoke. "Many families said they would never step a paw in here again and that hurt our reputation but hopefully everything goes smoothly this year.
The sound of a squealing raccoon came from across the street as the ears on Bonnie's head turned towards the noise. "I think that's my cue," she said as she ran off towards the horde of children on top of the raccoon.
Nick turned to Judy when Bonnie left for the children."What happened last year? I fell asleep during Bogo's speech." The smile on Judy's face turned into a serious scowl after hearing the question.
"Last year a group of does ran inside the corn maze we made for the festival. Usually all the children come out, but at midnight nobody could fine them. So a group of parents with maps and flashlights went looking inside the maze for hours but not a single one of them were found. The next day at the entrance of the maze a buck found pictures of all the missing does with a certain time next to their names and a single note explaining what to do." Judy pulled out a slip of paper from her back pocket and handed it to Nick. Nick took the paper from Judy and read it with disbelief.
Judy continued on."The kids had to be found at a certain time throughout the day or else they would be gone forever. The only thing that lead to their rescue was a clue left behind by the mammal who took them. Luckily we had a Buck in town who solved the riddle and helped find the kids but he passed away a few days later.
Judy grabbed the slip of paper from Nick and kept talking. "Bogo wanted us down here to watch the corn maze, in case this happens again, and if worse comes to worse find the missing children if the mammal comes back. Rumors have been circling through town about the mammal striking and we have to prevent it from happening again." Judy said with confidence.
"Well carrots," Nick said with pride. "We have some investigating to do."