Nick seemed to know what he was doing. Wasn't the first time he dealt with sloths that one was obvious. Before Judy knew they already got what they wanted

"Thank you," Nick said as the entry and leaving list was shown on the screen. "Let's see… Lucy Spotts… Arrived at school at 7:34. Leaving time… 10:09? That's the start of the third lesson, isn't it?"

"Why would she leave so early?" Judy gave the question, she was sure she wouldn't get an answer for.

Nick shrugged. "Test she didn't learn for?"

"An A+ student? Something happened." Judy shook her head and looked at the camera that was directed at the entrance "Maybe the cameras recorded something! Anything could help. Facial expressions or even someone next to her!"

Nick didn't say anything, rather gave a smile and pointed at the receptionist.

"Come on, you are better in this kind of thing." Judy begged so she could stay out of the sloth questioning part but Nick just pretended to zip his mouth and dropped the 'key'. Judy gave a painful sigh. She considered strangling the fox, but that wouldn't do any good other than giving a bit of relief. "Okay fine. Umm Ma'am can you show us the camera footage from yesterday around 10:09 Am?" Judy tried to slow down and give a kind smile, but the receptionist just gave an almost hateful look and turned to the computer screen. Fortunately, still started searching for the records.

"Too slow!" Nick whispered.

"If you zipped your mouth keep it zipped!" Judy whispered and gave a killing look. Now that strangling idea didn't seem too bad.

"Here.. It.. Is." The sloth turned to them and showed the recording on the screen. For a few seconds, there wasn't anything, but suddenly the girl was seen almost running towards the exit.

"She was… afraid of something?" Judy said, watching the cheetah's frightened expression "She left in a big hurry. Even looked behind herself, checking if someone was following her."

"What could frighten a 16-year-old girl to flee the school and don't go home?"

"Or she wanted to go home… Can we see if someone followed?" Judy asked but this assumption turned out to be false. Nobody left the school until 10:50, and they returned 10 minutes later. It was highly unlikely that anything happened during that time.

"What if…" Nick started but stopped with his sentence. Even he wasn't sure if whatever he was about to say had any probability whatsoever

"What if what?"

Nick hesitated a bit "What if the two cases connect?" He took a thinking look at Judy

"Which two cases?"

"You know… The bird attack and this. Lucy was really obsessed with birds." Nick continued his thought train, not knowing where it was going.

"So… You think the birds attacked her too?" Judy made her guess based on what Nick had told her "Why wouldn't she just go inside?"

"Panic brings the worst out of most of the mammals. Usually, they don't think straight. However, that is not what I've had in mind." Nick waved

"Well, fill me in," Judy said

"What if the kid that got injured was one of the 'Three idiots'?"

"You think Lucy attacked?"

"Not Lucy obviously, but these birds… I don't know… It was just an idea. To be honest I don't think a 16-year-old girl would train a bunch of birds just to take revenge on her bullies. Or if she did, I would be really impressed."

"Well, it's more than nothing. We should talk to the three trouble makers."

"More like 2, if the third one was part of their group."

Judy nodded and thanked the sloth for her cooperation. They both headed straight back to the teachers' room, hoping the bison would be still there. As the bell went off, students flowed into the corridor, talking about their latest lesson and discussing what they are going to do after school. This chat usually stopped when they saw the two police officers Everyone avoided eye contact after spotting them like they did something wrong.

"I'm never going to get bored of this." Nick quietly chuckled. "Suddenly everyone thinks they did something wrong just by spotting a policemammal. Not just kids, but even grownup adults. Upside of this job, everyone suddenly respects you just because of the uniform."

Judy gave a knowing smile. "Enjoying the power huh?"

"Feels better to be looked at as a powerful officer, rather than a shifty fox, that's for sure." He raised his chest proudly. "So do I enjoy being in 'charge'? Yes. Yes, I do."

Fortunately, the bison was still there in the room, so upon asking for the friends of the injured student, he directed the officers to the proper lockers. There two kids were talking with each other. A wolf and a zebra.

"Philip, Markus." The teacher said to grab the kids' attention. "These two officers would like to talk to you."

"Ahh… We will have a chemistry class and…" The zebra started with a stressed-out voice.

Realizing this, the wolf helped him out "We will probably have a test so…"

The zebra started speaking again "I don't think Mrs. Cabbage would be happy if we missed the class."

Giving a smile Judy waved. "Don't worry, it will take only a few minutes. You know Lucy Spotts right?"

"Yes, we do… Uhmmm…" Hearing the question both kids looked at each other. The wolf cub looked at the rabbit, then down to the floor "We… ahh..."

"We go to the same class after all!" Now the zebra helped out his struggling classmate.

"Mhmm…" Nick grimaced as he seemed to be unsatisfied with the answers. "And do you know why your friend was outside after the class started?"

"He… Well…" The wolf cub searched for the words

"I'm listening..."

Philip was constantly opening and closing his mouth, to figure out what to say. In the end, he just closed his eyes and looked back at the floor "I don't know why exactly he went outside…"

"Okay… You know what? One more question." Nick was out of patience because he knew they won't get any useful information from the kids, mainly because they don't want to say it. "Why are you two lying?"

Both kids looked at each other in panic and started rambling. "S-sir we are not lying! He… He just left. That's it."

Before Nick could say another word, Judy took over the interrogation, with a bit less demanding voice. "It's okay… we believe you. Do you have paper and a pen?"

The wolf nodded and searched a bit in his locker and gave the mentioned things to the rabbit with trembling paws.

"Now as I said…" Judy started writing something on the paper. As Nick leaned to take a closer look, he saw numbers. A telephone number. "...We believe you. However, in case you remember something important, let us know. Lucy might be in danger so anything you know could help. " With that, she handed the paper back to its owner. "Feel free to call this number any time."

The cub just swapped his look between the paper and Judy. In the end, all he could say was a quiet "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Come on partner." She turned to Nick. "We have a few things yet to discover."

"Alright… Partner…" Nick gave another I'm onto you look to the kids, and followed Judy. "Don't tell me you believe them. Kids are the worst at lying and they… They didn't say the truth."

"Well… they might be horrible liars but also easily scared. I mean come on. The big bad fox suddenly storms them with questions. Of course, they freak out, especially if they actually have something to hide. So… since you already took the bad cop role, I took on the opportunity to be the good cop, that they can trust…"

"Or, we could have just taken them in, for holding up the investigation."

"And achieve what exactly?" Judy asked "Frighten two high school students? Plus it might be a complete waste of time if they don't know anything about where Lucy had gone, and only the reason she left, which is more likely."

"Well either question them, or the girl we are looking for might get into serious trouble. What else do we get on this case aside from a diary that we can't even read? Nothing! I won't be the one informing the parents that we failed in finding their daughter, just because we didn't take every opportunity we got..."

"It won't happen! Trust me, he will call."

"I hope you know what you are doing…" Nick shook his head. "Well, while waiting for that miraculous phone call, I guess we should gather some more information."

"Check outside?" Judy said more than asked.

"Yep. You've read my mind." Nick nodded as they both headed to the crime scene. The school seemed to have a fairly huge outdoor area, with a big running track, and a football, basketball field merged into one. A class was already outside preparing for a PE lesson, and a lot of students were staring at the police officers curiously as they passed.

They finally arrived next to the fence, where the bird accident played out. There was a huge bush, and a few trees hiding the sight of the school building, making a comfortable hiding spot. Nothing showed that there was a bloody accident yesterday, other than a few red spots in the grass, and the remains of the do not cross police line.

"Wel…" Nick started. "Perfect spot to hide, and to be unseen. I'm surprised the scream got to the school. It's a bit far from the building itself. What are you thinking?"

"Hmmm. Lucy is either a criminal mastermind, or this is just a mere coincidence. To be honest… I'm more assured about the coincidence one. This spot is calm. I don't think anyone would disturb you here. If you need some time alone, this is the perfect place. I would have gladly hidden here on more stressful high school days."

"Okay. So let's assume, Lucy was just chilling here, enjoying time alone. Why did that kid come here? Or how did he know where to find her?"

"Mmmm. No clue..." Just as she said that a black shadow passed them at record speed, making Judy jump and shout from instinct "AAH!"

The bird just settled down onto the fallen leaves, and without looking at them, it started searching for food.

"Oooh! Did you get scared?" Nick teased his partner, who was trying to recover from the sudden shock. "Need a change of pants?"

Judy gave a 'Shut up' look at the fox then her attention drifted to the small thing that made her jump "A crow"

"Yep, probably one of our suspects." Nick said "Or a key witness. Who knows?"

The bird searched for a bit, then seemed to stop to feast from something he found. Judy and Nick both took a closer look and it became obvious that there was a brown pouch in the middle of the fallen leaves. It still had some seeds inside for the bird to eat., but it couldn't reach the bottom of the bag easily.

"Huh… Some bird food." Judy said

"I... think we've seen the same at Lucy's room."

"So… she came here to feed the birds?"

Nick gave two sarcastic claps and nodded "Well done, detective Hopps! And I thought the cheetah wanted a little snack from the bird seeds."

Judy rolled her eyes and picked up the pack from the ground. The crow didn't like that but after an annoyed 'Claw!' it flew a few meters away and started searching again.

As Judy picked up the little pouch and shook it, she saw that some seeds were still on the bottom, in some weird ball-like shape. "Is that… did she chew on that?"

"Wha… Why would she do that?" Nick got closer to take a better look and it was there just like Judy described it. The originally separate seeds were dried in one. "Birds might like it, but it still has a horrible taste."

"Knowing from experience?" Judy asked

"Let's… skip this question..." Nick chuckled nervously while scratching the back of his head

"And you say kids are horrible liars!" Judy called out on her partner. "You tasted it!"

"No, I… Fine... Yes, I did... When I was 8. We had a pet bird named Waldo, and he was really happy with his food, so I decided to taste it. It was a lifetime experience to not chew on that stuff. But hey! Who am I to judge other mammals' weird habits? If she likes it, why not?"

"Ahhh! That's so sweet! You had a pet bird?" Judy squealed, in a so high-pitched voice that would have beaten even Clawhauser after he learned Nick and Judy will be partners.

"I knew you wouldn't be able to get off this topic…" Nick growled, but knowing Judy won't leave him until he says something, he just nodded "Yes I had a pet bird. It followed me home and stayed in front of our house. After a few days of feeding him, I asked my mum if we could keep it, and suddenly I had a bird. Can we talk about the disappeared kid now, or would you like to waste more time talking about my childhood?"

"Let's find that girl, for now… And discuss your childhood later... So... We know she probably visited this place a few times to… feed the birds? And she left in a rush minutes after the bird attack. But why did she run away? If it was an accident she could have just… told a teacher."

"Or in case she planned it…"

"She didn't tame the birds to kill!"

"Alright… Let's say she didn't. She just wanted to teach a lesson, and things got out of paws?"

"That's more likely. However, that still leaves us with a few questions… How the heck did she train the birds? Is that even possible? Or who is that Terrence? Why aren't the boys telling us anything?"

"Well… the Terrence question might be in this diary…" Nick pulled up the little notebook "We could get valuable information from this."

"It's still useless." Judy sighed "We have no clue what her keyword is."

"One way to find out."

"You can't possibly think we will easily find that!"

"I didn't say it would be easy. But what else do we have right now? Aside from the phone call that we won't have."

Judy wanted to say something regarding that call, but she just let it go since they had more important matters. "Let's start it, I guess... I doubt the ZIA would lend us their code-cracking software just to read a diary."

"Let's go. I hope the police station will have some comfortable seats for the overnight deciphering party." Nick Joked but they both knew those chairs are anything but comfortable.