It's not Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps, it's Nick Hopps and Judy Wilde. Nick's parents couldn't afford to keep him, but a bunny's less expensive. Bonnie Hopps didn't want to give up her kit, but as a single mother, she couldn't afford to keep her. But when she finds a fox kit in an alleyway, her heart breaks and she takes him home. Now, fifteen years later, both have just these questions: Who am I? Who are my parents?
Well, it's time to find out.
Monday, April 17, 2000 | Hopps Farm, Bunnyburrow
"Wakey, wakey, rise and shine, Nick!"
"Aww, Mom, do I have to? Foxes are nocturnal, just let me sleep!"
"Haven't you learned by now that rabbits are diurnal, Nicholas Peter? Get up, it's time for school. Now."
"No, no, no. You can't make me."
"Sweet Serendipity, teenagers these days. Looks like we'll have to do this the hard way."
"Oh, no you don't! I'm up, I'm up!" No ice water, Mom, please, that'll take forever to dry!
"That's better, you little rascal. Come on, get dressed. There's some chores to get done. I know how you just love your blueberries, and the crop's ready for picking. I'll let you eat some if you hurry."
"You know, I don't get it. What is it with bunnies and their ability to get everyone to bend to their beck and call?"
"An interesting question, dear. Maybe it's because we're so stubborn. Now get dressed, or I'll go get the ice water."
I don't want to move, but I don't suppose I have a choice, not with foxes' bad rap. But wait, I'm not a fox, I'm a rabbit. I don't know how many times I've explained it to mammals, I'm adopted, for Karma's sake!
My parents, or the mammals I call my parents, are foxes, and so what can you do? When you're the foxes' daughter, rabbit or not, you're a fox too, and with the prejudice in the city these days? I consider myself lucky that I haven't had it as bad as Mom and Dad, but every time I go for a walk with them, I can feel mammals stare at us. It's not pleasant, to say the least, but maybe I'll have better luck in a town full of bunnies. That's right- Bunnyburrow, here I come.
It's going to be my first time out of the city, and there's no way I'm looking forward to this. I've never met another bunny, I wonder what they'll be like. Interesting, to say the least.
This is going to sound ridiculous, but I don't really consider myself a bunny.
But you just said that you've explained it to mammals time and time again, you're a rabbit.
Rabbit on the outside, but a fox at heart. I just call myself a bunny to other mammals so for one, I don't sound crazy, come on, a rabbit saying she's a fox? Call the looney bin! and two, it helps avoid some of the stereotypes typically applied to foxes.
I never knew my biological parents, so to me, my parents are foxes. What can you do, huh? It's a cruel world.
But anyways…
They're making me move, and I! Don't! Want! To! I'm perfectly happy where I am now, I have friends, I've finally managed to find a clique of other mammals that don't judge me for who I am. So then why are we leaving? Especially to some little podunk over two hundred miles away from here? Good question- it all just leads back to those stereotypes.
My dad, John Wilde, is a tailor, or at least, he tries to be. No mammal here in the city will give him a loan. Stuck up pricks. And it's not because he won't be able to pay it back, though that's what they all tell him, it's because -I see it in their eyes- he's a fox, and what could they be but sneaky and untrustworthy? Seems to me like most people in this city seem to think that the answer to that is "Absolutely nothing," that we really are just the spawn of the devil.
So off we go to Bunnyburrow, what fun! Dad's hoping that in a 'town' of over thirty million, there'll be someone willing to give him a shot. I guess we'll just have to see.
"Is it hot out here, or is it just me, Mom?"
"I think it might just be you, Nick, I told you to get a furcut two months ago, so don't gripe to me, young man. This one's on you."
"I know, I know, you don't have to rub it in…."
Mothers. I don't know what it is, but they have a way of telling you things you already know. They don't mean anything by it, but it does get just a little annoying.
"Hey, Mom?"
"Yes, Nick?"
"You know the Greys' old bakery down on the corner of Vine and Berry?"
"You mean 'Real Good Baked Stuff?' That place has been closed for years."
"I know, but I've heard a few rumors floating around."
"Mm-hmm. Do tell, what were they?"
"I heard that another fox family is going to buy it and turn in into a tailor's. But that's not all- I heard from Lucy, and she heard from Max, and he heard from-"
"Cut to the chase, please."
"Okay, okay, hold your horses."
"Slavery's been illegal for two hundred years now, Nicholas, do you know just how offensive that is to horses?"
"Is every expression offensive to some species? Anyways, I heard that they have a bunny for a daughter. How odd is that?"
A family of foxes with a rabbit daughter? I only know of one family that's been like that, and they're the ones that adopted my little bun-bun.
"Very."
"Oh, and get this- she's in my grade."
Uh, oh. Seeing my daughter for the first time in fifteen years? This could be interesting. I just have to hope that it won't mean trouble.