BAM!
BAM!
BAM!
BAM! Raymond slammed the fresh dead tuna into the sealed door again and again, the sound echoing in the hold. BAM!
"Da-" BAM!
"You son of a-" BAM!
"You piece of-" BAM!
"You dirty ba-" BAM!
Keeping a safe distance, Kevin tried and failed to get a signal on his phone. BAM!
"You slimy-" BAM!
"You moist barrel of-" BAM!
"Flrrnargle-" BAM!
"Rasputinrrlll-" BAM!
"Fushicubitwabolcra-" BAM!
After another failed attempt to call Gideon Grey, Stu was in dire need of a pee break. Nick stopped the police car on Bark Street, a wide street full of restaurants, in the heart of Tall Oaks at the woodchuck's recommendation.
Stu squirmed in his seat. "Mr. Woody, please tell me the toilet isn't too far from here."
Woody's smile widened. "There's a public one right down there." He pointed to a small brick building on the corner of the street, four restaurants down. "'Scuse me, I wanna get a snack. Be right back!" He climbed out the car and ran off in the other direction, disappearing into a pizza takeaway called Domimouse.
"Thank heavens for that!" Stu practically leapt out the car, followed closely by the bemused Nick. The restaurant they'd stopped outside, Trunky's and Beary's, appeared to be undergoing renovations. The old glass panel of the large front window had been removed and its replacement was leaning against the wall, waiting to be set in place.
Nick locked up the car and pulled out a snack of his own, a blueberry pawpsicle, to suck on. As they set off down the street, Nick kept glancing at the elder Hopps. For a rabbit on the verge of peeing his pants, Stu was moving rather slowly. His ears were droopy and he was refusing to look at the fox walking next to him. "Okay, what's up?" He asked, two restaurants from the public restroom.
Stu's ears twitched and he walked a little faster. "Nothing, everything's fine and dandy! I mean, aside from the fact that I'm going to jail and my father's probably never going to forgive me for taking his pants off."
"True, but on the other hand Carrots probably would never have forgiven you for not standing up to him." Nick said calmly. "Do you like pawpsicles?"
"Never tried one."
"I've got a strawberry one, a lime one and a vanilla one in a mini cooler in the trunk if you're interested."
"Should you really be keeping something like that in a police car?"
"It doesn't take up much space and your daughter uses it for her carrot juice cans. It's okay, Mr. Hopps."
They reached the public restroom and took a stall each. Nick finished first, washed his hands and waited outside for Judy's father. He looked up the street at the police car but saw no sign of Woody. There must be a line in Domimouse, and Nick hoped it was a short one. They didn't have much time to get to Bunnyburrow first, but they still couldn't leave a stranded citizen behind. Stu emerged from the restroom but didn't look at Nick. "Come on." He said simply. Something was up and it wasn't fear of jail or Pop-Pop's cane, but Nick chose not to press the issue as they strode back up the street towards the car. This was shaping up to be similar to the first time he met Judy, when she stood up for him inside an ice cream shop wearing a clown vest and a tiny can of fox repellent. Never let them see that they get to you. He told himself. But more importantly, don't jump to conclusions. Last time he did that, at the press conference after Mayor Lionfart's arrest and Assistant Mayor Smellwether's rise to power, he and Judy had been torn apart for three months.
A van had pulled up behind the police car, bearing Hundred Acre Renovator in large black letters. The people working on Trunky's and Beary's, a tiger, a yellow bear, a small pig and a donkey, were all inside and the large pane of glass was still leaning against the wall. Still there was no sign of Woody, but there was nothing they could do but sit in the car and wait. Stu stopped on the pavement next to the car to wait for Nick. Nick stopped beside the emotionally distant rabbit and raised his key to unlock the doors.
His ear twitched. He'd just heard the faint thud of something hitting glass. He turned round to see the large pane of glass leaning towards them.
"Hopps!" He grabbed Stu by the strap of his overalls and yanked the rabbit to the left. They reached the front of the car right as they heard a deafening crash. Nick thrust the stunned bunny in front of him and felt pieces of glass bounce off his body, two particularly razor sharp pieces sending hot pain through the skin of his right arm and thigh. He skidded to a stop five feet from the car, Stu dangling from his paw, and turned towards the carnage. The pavement next to the car was covered in hundreds of tiny shards of glass, right where Nick and Stu had been standing. The workers were rushing outside to investigate and groaning at the costly damage.
Nick smirked in relief, at the same time feeling a cold chill rise up his spine. If he hadn't heard that thud and got himself and Stu out of there...
"Holy guacamole." Stu muttered. Nick put him down and looked him up and down. Luckily none of the glass shards had harmed the bunny. Nick checked his own wounds and found two shallow cuts, one on his forearm and a slightly longer one on the side of his thigh. "Good heavens, you're hurt!" Stu cried upon noticing. "You're bleeding!"
"It's not as bad as it looks." Nick assured. "We've got a first aid kit in the back."
Stu was trembling. "Oh my... If you hadn't pulled me out the way... you saved my life..."
"What the heck happened?!" Yelled Woody, running around the mess of broken glass to reach them.
"Left my lucky clover at home." Nick replied. "Are you okay, Mr. Hopps?"
"I'm fine. You..."
"Come on, let's get out of here before something else happens." Nick said. He wasn't looking forward to explaining this in the report.
"I could do with a pee break myself." Woody said, looking very upset at the incident. "Be right back." He quickly strode off towards the public restroom.
After a short discussion with the workers over the dangers of leaving a large pane of glass unattended, Nick unlocked the car and retrieved the first aid kit from the trunk. He climbed into the driver's seat, wincing from his cuts, before the box was snatched from him.
"Here, let me take care of this." Stu said, propping himself on the side of the seat. His eyes did not share the same vivid purple as his daughter's but his gaze had the exact same intensity.
"Mr. Hopps..."
"I've done this before. When you have nearly three hundred children you become a part time doctor." He wordlessly chose to treat the forearm first and started applying antiseptic. "Thank you, Nicholas. If you hadn't pulled me out the way, I would have lost a limb or worse."
"That's what we do here at the ZPD." Nick cringed as the antiseptic stung. "You're a part time doctor. Do you think they'll scar?"
"I doubt it." Stu replied, sounding relieved by his own words. "They're not as deep as they could have been." He started disinfecting the thigh cut.
Nick cringed some more. "Drat. If they scarred, I'd have a cool story to tell my fellow boys in blue. 'Oh, these old scars? I just got these saving my partner's old man from being carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey.'" Stu snorted with laughter, and it reminded Nick of Judy. "Of course I'd tell them the truth after a few minutes of silent awe."
Stu put away the antiseptic, pulled the door closed and pulled out a roll of bandages. "You'll want to take off your pants for this."
"Both of them?"
Stu chuckled again and shook his head. "The blue ones."
"They're both blue."
"You know how my daughter rants about you a lot?"
"I do."
"I get it."
By then, Nick's outer pants, not his underpants, were down, and Stu started applying the bandage. "After this palaver is done, you should go to a hospital just to be safe."
"I will, Mr. Hopps. Thanks for this, by the way."
"You're welcome." Stu replied. "It's still not enough, though. Is there any other way I can repay you?"
Nick rubbed his chin dramatically. "Hmmmm... You can tell me what's really bothering you."
Stu sighed deeply. "Waltzed right into that, didn't I?"
"Well?"
Stu finished with the thigh and started wrapping up the cut on Nick's arm. "Ever since I met you, I haven't been able to stop thinking about that press conference. You know, the one where..."
"I know. What about it?"
The buck chewed his lip with his buckteeth. "You know when Judy took to the stage... and she said all that stuff about..."
"I know."
"Please let me finish."
"Sorry."
"I keep thinking about all that stuff she said. 'Clearly there's a biological component'. 'Predators may be reverting back to their primitive savage ways'." Stu looked down at his knees. "Foxes are the worst'."
Nick frowned at that last statement. "She never said that at the conference."
"She might as well have. The point is, all that nonsense she said on live television was stuff we'd been putting into her head since she was a kit." With that, Nick understood. "You know what happened after that. First Zootopia started turning against thousands of innocent predators, then Judy quit her job at the ZPD. She hadn't looked so depressed since her first boyfriend dumped her for not being a normal doe."
"A 'normal doe', huh?" Nick repeated, thinking what he'd do if he ever met this first boyfriend.
"It was after that when I had a realization." Stu went on as he finished treating Nick's arm. "If our beliefs towards predators hurt people who never hurt us, then our beliefs are wrong. It was after that that I took a leap of faith and became partners with Gideon Grey. The point is, I can't help but feel responsible for nearly ruining my daughter's life, and so many others'."
Nick patted Stu's shoulder. "Sometimes you have to learn the hard way."
"Well, never again." Stu said. "I admit I'm still not fully comfortable around you, but I'm working on it. If you'll give old fools like me and my wife a second chance..." He looked at Nick hopefully.
Nick smiled, not smirked, and pulled out an orange pawpsicle. "I forgot I had a carrot flavored one, too."
Stu smiled back and gave a suck. "It's good."
Nick tested the bandage. The rabbit was a pro. "You know, once upon a time I actually fit the stereotype. When I met Judy I was a pawpsicle hustler."
Stu stopped in the middle of packing up the first aid kit. "Really?"
"Yes, and that wasn't the only thing I did. I sold a skunk butt rug to a crime lord."
"Sweet cheese and crackers!"
"Tell me about it. You should know that I wasn't doing this from birth."
"I wasn't thinking that. So what made you become a hustler?"
"The fact that a lot of people didn't want to employ a shifty fox." Nick replied. Stu's eyelids lowered in his shame. "That and one other thing."
With no judgment in his eyes, Stu waited for him to continue. "What?"
Nick couldn't believe he was doing this again, but he did it regardless. "Well, I was eight or maybe nine, and all I wanted to do was join the Junior Ranger Scouts..."
When the papering was complete, the next stage in Operation Bakery Renovation was varnishing the wooden floor. Gideon Grey was almost done, kneeling within the front door as he gently applied the dark vanish with a wide paintbrush. The varnish would take three hours to dry according to the side of the tin. Cotton was sitting at one of the small circular tables outside, helping herself to a pie.
Right as he applied the last stroke, he heard the phone ring, all the way on the counter at the other side of the room.
"Oh cheese, not again!" Gideon muttered. He decided to ignore it for now. If it was important they would phone back later, hopefully when he was back at home with his other phone. Eventually the phone stopped. Ten seconds later it started again. Gideon scowled and put the lid back on the tin, trying to block out the ringing. The phone stopped. Five seconds later it started again. "Confound it, I'm coming!"
Gideon rose to his feet so fast he tripped over the tin and stumbled forward... right onto the wet, sticky varnish.
He'd worn old paint boots to avoid getting stains on the fur of his feet, and they stuck to the varnish like magnets. One foot slipped right out his left boot as he struggled to avoid falling, losing the other with another step. The ringing went on. "For the love of raspberries and cream!" The socks he wore to avoid blisters from the old stiff boots came next, flopping lifelessly onto the floor. Then Gideon lost the battle to avoid falling and fell onto his paws and knees. The phone kept ringing. "Quiet down, you! I'm moving as fast as I can!" When he lifted his legs, the pants legs remained fixed to the floor. Sweet cheese and crackers. The phone kept ringing. Gideon had no choice but to slip right out of his overalls and force his way across the rest of the floor in nothing but his shirt, apron and pie-patterned underpants. "Cripes! Crackers! Cheese on a cake! There're my overalls away, next!"
Half naked, his feet sticky with varnish, his clothing leaving a long trail across the inside of the bakery, Gideon reached the phone a millisecond too late. It didn't ring again. To add insult to injury, Cotton started squealing with laughter behind him.
Befuddled, Bonnie Hopps stepped out the phone booth and returned to her Pop-Pop and daughter's place in the queue to get tickets for the golf course tour. "He must still be out somewhere. We'll try again on the other side."
"Take it easy, mom. If we don't get a hold of him, dad and Nick will." Judy said. They reached the ticket stand; Judy bought three one-way tickets and was given directions to the carts they would ride to the other side of Windaland's famous golf course.
"Yes, they will." Pop-Pop spoke, trailing behind them as they made their way over to the building that housed the special golf carts used exclusively for tours. "And then they will tell that fat fox the location of millions in stolen cash and then we'll never see him or the money from that day to this."
Judy almost crushed the tickets in her fist. "I have never spoken to you like this before, Pop-Pop, and god forgive me for saying this... but if you don't shut your mouth I will happily shut it for you!"
Bonnie gasped but did nothing to defend her father in law.
They picked an Easter egg blue cart for their journey. With Judy at the wheel and Bonnie and Pop-Pop in the back, they were on their way. They drove through a white picket gate decorated with white and red roses and entered the golf course.
It was every bit as massive and majestic as the leaflet claimed. The green stretched as far as the eye could see. All around the course stood hills, faux flowers as tall as giraffes, and a myriad of sculptures. The path the tour carts were confined to was a road of yellow brick. Everywhere they looked there was a work of art. Right as they went through the gate they passed a red statue of a cowering lion. Farther ahead along the road was a set of large wooden sculptures depicting a mouse, a hare and a cat in a top hat in the midst of a very messy tea party. All the way on the other side of the green where three golfers were playing at the first hole was a giant silver watch swinging like a pendulum from the branch of a redwood tree. Right away Bonnie had her camera out and was taking pictures.
"This place is amazing! It almost makes me glad that we've gone on this crazy trip." The older doe breathed as she photographed a giant sunflower with big eyes and red lips. "Isn't this place amazing, Pop-Pop?"
Pop-Pop was leaning on his cane in surly silence. "I've seen crazier."
Bonnie swallowed, her face falling, and looked to her daughter in the front. "Judy, aren't you glad I suggested this?"
"Uh-huh." Judy said quietly.
Bonnie nervously stroked the camera with her finger. "I heard there's a prize if you spot the Chesire Cat, the Wicked Witch of the Nest and the Wizard of Ox and take pictures of them."
Neither of them answered. The cart continued on from hole one to hole two to hole three. Bonnie looked out her side of the cart and- "Look! It's the Wizard of Ox!" Above the line of trees dangling from a wire was a metal hot air balloon, an ox in a nice green suit leaning out of the basket. Bonnie took a picture, beaming. "One down! I'm enjoying this already, aren't you?"
Judy and Pop-Pop were too busy refusing to speak to or look at each other to reply. Bonnie fell silent, not liking the tension at all.
The cart carried them past hole four, hole five, a sculpture of a bear queen playing croquet with a flamingo club and hedgehog balls, hole six, hole seven, hole eight, a pair of giant ruby slippers, none of them speaking until they reached hole sixteen with its neighboring field of authentic poppies and Bonnie let out a shout of delight.
"Oh my gosh, the Wicked Witch!" She took a picture of the green gazelle in a witch's costume glaring down at them from her broomstick, barely visible over the line of large poppies. "Two down, one more to go!"
"Way to go, mom." Judy finally spoke, managing a small smile. "Just the Cheshire Cat left, right?"
"Right! Keep an eye out, you two!"
Pop-Pop tapped his cane on the floor of the cart. "Shouldn't we be keeping an eye out for the Fiddlin' Fox instead?"
Judy stiffened in the front seat. "Pop-Pop, shut up."
Bonnie lightly smacked both their shoulders. "Judy, don't talk to your grandfather that way! Pop-Pop, enough with that already! Both of you, stop this quarreling at once!"
The cart carried them up the long slope towards hole seventeen. At the top stood a giant teacup, a teapot and a plate of tarts.
"Mom, I'm sorry but I've just about had it with him." Judy said coldly. "He's caused nothing but trouble since this all started and I'm sick of him insulting my friend. Nick's already had enough of that in his life."
"Why are you siding with him against me?!" Pop-Pop demanded. "Can't you see we're on the same team, Trudy? Us little guys need to stick together! Preds are biologically predisposed to be savages!"
The cart screeched to a halt at the top of the slope beside the tarts.
With an expression that could have been carved from stone, Judy got out the car and stormed up next to her grandfather. "Get out."
Bonnie gasped. "Judy Laverne Hopps, what do you think you're doing?"
"Getting rid of an obstruction to our investigation. Pop-Pop, get out of this cart before I throw you out of this cart."
"Judy, you can't abandon your own grandfather!"
"I can, I am!" Judy snapped, raising her voice. "You're only two holes from the exit, now get out!"
"Turn out your own flesh and blood, would you?!" Pop-Pop snorted and clambered out to face Judy. "Trudy, what in tarnations happened to you? Your obsession with the law enforcement aside, you always put family first!"
"I still do, Pop-Pop!" Judy fired back.
"Judy!" Bonnie cried.
"Then why are you siding with that Wilde?!" Pop-Pop questioned.
"Judy Hopps!" Bonnie cried, her voice growing more distant and frantic.
"Nick is just as much family as you, mom and dad are!" Judy spoke furiously.
"JUDY, YOU FORGOT THE BRAKE!"
Judy and Pop-Pop suddenly realized that the cart was no longer next to them. With Bonnie still inside it was rolling back down the long slope and rapidly picking up speed.