Flashback

It was a Saturday just like any other. Matthew Wilde, Jr stayed home in the one bedroom flat that he shared with his small family while Vera, his wife went food shopping . He smiled as his young son Nick stumbled out of their bedroom, his chubby little toddler legs encumbered by the long shirt that pooled past his feet and dragged the against to the old and faded carpet. Knowing that they couldn't afford to buy Nicholas anything as frivolous as pajamas, his mother had instead chosen to dress him in his father's old work clothes. They were badly tattered but clean and warm and with his very first day of school coming up in only a few weeks, they couldn't afford to waste money on garments to sleep in when they so desperately needed to save up for his uniforms.

"Hey Nick-Nack," Mr. Wilde called over his shoulder as Nick yawned and climb onto his lap. Matthew folded the newspaper that he had been scribbling on and placing it on the worn arm of the recliner he was sitting in, he embraced his young cub warmly. Nick wrapped his arms around his father's neck and buried his little face in Matthew's blonde fur.

"Good morning Daddy, is Mama still out shopping?" Nick asked groggily. He had developed a bit of a lisp ever since his left front fang had fallen out the week before and Matthew thought it was adorable but he didn't want to tell him that. The lisp was a weakness and although he would allow his young son the opportunity to work through it, he'd also not do anything to encourage it. Matthew hugged his son tighter as his thought about his own father. That cold hard fox would say that the only way to get a weakness out of a cub was to beat it out of him. If it had been left up to him, little Nick would be missing a lot more teeth and not because of they fell out naturally. No, Matthew Wilde, Jr, was not his father, he would not beat and brutalize his child in the name of making him a stronger creature. His father would have called him a pansy and a vixen for his style of parenting but he was a firm believer that encouraging positive behaviors was much more powerful than punishing for negative ones. The only thing that he had ever learned from his father's form of cub rearing was to lie well and to cover his tracks so as to not to get caught. That's not the lesson that he want Nicholas to learn. Every generation was supposed to be to better than the one before it and he had always told Nick that he would be the best.

"Yes Buddy, Mama is out shopping but she'll back soon and you know what she'd be really happy to see?"

"What?" Nick said, his huge emerald green eyes looking intently into his father's sapphire blue ones.

"Well, I bet she'd love to hear you read that book you like about the hippo and the giraffe that became friends. And if you read it nice and clear, I'm sure she'll be soooo happy, she'll just fly"

Nick smiled a gap-tooth grin and then quickly jumped off of his father lap. "I'll go start practicing it now," he said, his eyes a light with excitement. Matthew could already tell that his little cub was taking more care with his words and he smiled

"Ah now, first you gotta get some food into you. If you're going to be a scholar, you have to keep your energy up. Mama made you breakfast this morning, its in the bowl on the table."

"Is it eggs and cheese?" Nick asked hopefully.

Matthew shook his head. Eggs and cheese for breakfast were a rare extravagance that the Wilde family could seldom afford.

"How about cereal," Nick said as he got closer to the kitchen table, "the kind with sugar on it and itty bitty marshmallow pieces in it?"

"Sorry Nick-Nack," he said as he picked his newspaper back up, "no sugary marshmallow cereal today."

"Yuck," Nick said as he sat down in front of the bowl on the table, "oatmeal, again?"

Matthew knew that the reason his son ate so much oatmeal was because it was cheap and filling and paying the rent in their rundown building made it difficult to keep any foods of true substance in the home. Smiling, he did what he did best, he thought quick on his feet. "Yes oatmeal. You didn't know? Oatmeal makes you smarter."

"It does?" Nick said as he looked at his father in awe.

"Oh, yeah, it does and with school starting soon, your Mama and I want you to be the smartest creature in your class."

"Even smarter than a gorilla?"

"Even smarter than ten gorillas."

Nick looked down at the pile of mush in front of him with a new found appreciation and picking up his spoon like a little shovel, he dove in but then stopped. "Daddy," he said curiously, "there's only one bowl on the table, what are you going to eat?"

Matthew made a show of rubbing his stomach and laughed confidently. "What am I going to eat he says. Boy, what a comedian. You're mother and I had a feast this morning before you woke up. I'm so full, the button my britches could pop off at any moment. Now hurry up and eat your breakfast, the colder it gets the more it loses it's special powers to make you smart and Mama is really gonna wanna hear that book. " Nick laughed hard at his father's silliness and then went back to eating. Matthew on the other hand cleared his throat loudly so as to hide the grumbling in his stomach. For the first time in a long time, Matthew wondered, is it really a lie if it protects someone or keeps them safe? He knew full well that this morning, the only thing that his wife had was a crust of bread at his urging and he himself hadn't had a thing to eat since last night. But, he also knew if he told that to Nick, his cub would insist upon sharing with him and the little creature really needed his nutrition. He picked up his newspaper and started to scribble again.

"Daddy,"

"Yes Nick-Nack?"

"Whatcha doing with the newspaper?"

"I'm looking for a job,"

"But you got a job, with Uncle Corty,"

"Yes, but," he said choosing his words wisely, "I'm looking for one that pays taxes. Now that you're going to school, I want to contribute as much as I can and that's how adults do it, through taxes."

"I don't wanna go to school, I wanna be a Cub Scout."

That last comment had caught Matthew off guard and he placed the newspaper down again. It was no secrete that his little cub wasn't fond of the idea of spending so much time away from Vera in school but this Cub Scout thing was new a development. "Nick-Nack," he said slowly, trying once again to choose his words wisely, "the Cub Scouts are usually all prey mammals. We're foxes, we don't do that." Claiming that it was something that his kind as a whole didn't do was much better than stating the well known but unwritten fact that it was something that they were not allowed to do.

"Well, then," Nick said between mouthfuls, "I guess I'll be the first one."

Matthew thought for a moment. The chances of his son becoming the first prey Cub Scout were slim to none but this wasn't the time nor the place to dash his hopes and dreams. There were a lot of cold hard truths out there to learn but he wasn't going to force them on the little cub at such a young age. "I guess when you join they'll have to rename you're troop to the Fox Cub Scouts." They both laughed but were interrupted by a loud banging on their apartment door. Nick looked at the door startled but his father knew exactly who it was and before the young cub could make a sound, he grabbed him up quickly and opening up a kitchen cabinet, he stuffed him inside. Nick looked at Matthew confused but his father's blue eyes regarded him with nothing less than cool confidence and control. Matthew looked towards the front door as the banging continued and then back his now scared son. He forced a smile onto his face as he spoke.

"Hey Nick-Nack," he said, doing his best to sound happy and playful, "we're gonna play a game ok?"

"Ok," Nick said, his little voice trembling as tears brimmed in his eyes.

Matthew wiped them away gently but quickly and spoke with urgency. "Come on Nick-Nack, you have to play the game right or you wont get a prize and the prize is cookies."

"Cookies?" Nick said piping up as his father wiped his little snout with the cuff of his sleeve.

"Yes," he lied, "chocolate chip, your favorite. But here's the deal, no matter what you see, no matter what you hear, you have to stay quiet and not move. Now its not going to be easy but cookies are a big prize and its never easy to win a big prize. You're gonna hear or see a lot of things that might trip you up but don't let them, ok? Just keep remembering that nothing you see or hear is real. And when you win those cookies, you'll share them with me, right? Promise?"

"Yes Daddy," Nick said with a smile and Matthew smiled back. Then he wrapped his arms around his son tightly and did something that his father had never done, something that would never had happened in his wildest dreams. Matthew kissed young Nick on the cheek. " I love you Nicholas, I love you and your Mama, you know that right?"

"Yes," Nick said puzzled.

"And remember what I said, not a sound, not a word,"

Nick nodded his head and just as his father closed the cabinet, the front door came splintering in. A red furred fox came walking in, stepping over the debris.

"Matty, I love what you and my sister have done to the place," he said as he kicked the now useless door handle away and pulled a gun from his inside jacket pocket, "it has a nice open air kinda feel."

"I know what you came here for Cortland and I don't have it."

"Oh I know that you don't have it, and I know what you did with, the question is, why did you do it?"

"Because the shelter needed the drugs more. Creatures were dying and I couldn't just stand by and let that happen."

Cortland laughed and Nick smiled through the small crack in the cabinet that he could see through. He had been scared at first when he'd heard the front door being kicked in but now that he saw it was just Uncle Corty, he relaxed and got comfortable. He was going to win the game and then they'd all have cookies. "So let me get this straight," his uncle said as he waved his paw about, the large black birthmark on it catching Nick's eye, "you tell me that this'll be the last job you do for me, you pull it, and then you take the goods, my goods and just give them away? What do you call that? A Robin Hood complex?"

Nick's father smiled and although Matthew's eyes never made contact with his,it was as if the young fox could feel his father's presence with him in the small space. The blonde furred fox's blue eyes stared steely into the green eyes of the red one as he spoke clearly and without fear. "It's called a hustle sweetheart." Time seemed to stand still with a young Nicholas P. Wilde frozen in place as he watched his uncle raise a pistol into the air and his father's face disappear.