An: Hello there! If you've gotten this far into my story, I have to let you know something: I love you. The fact that you are reading my humble fanfic instead of other works on this site, really means a lot to me.
Judy stood up to stretch her numb legs a bit after the hours of sitting in one place. As she looked at their nonexisting progress she sighed and shook her head. "We won't be able to solve this."
"Not with that attitude," Nick said and crossed out another word from the lexicon. After they ran out of ideas of what the keyword might be Judy got the idea to look up the words in a lexicon starting from A. It would have been a good idea if it wasn't for the fact that there were tens of thousands of words in the English language.
"What if the keyword isn't even a word but some random letters?" Judy shared her concern, after dropping herself back onto the seat
"Well, in that case, we ARE screwed."
Their brainstorming was interrupted by Judy's phone ringing. Before picking it up she glanced at the unknown number to make sure it's not some spam.
"Hello?" She waited for a few seconds but nobody said anything. She sighed. "Whoever it is, it's not funny."
"I-I'm sorry. It's, Fredrich Lupps from shoreside highschool. Uhm… You gave me this number… I-"
"Oh...OH! Hey!" Judy sat up and her ears perked up, in excitement.
"I'd like to… Talk with you about… About… You know."
"The accident?" She asked, After all this time will they get something to go with?.
"Yes... Yes, the accident."
"Okay, okay!" She quickly took a pen and a piece of paper. "Tell me what you want to! I'm listening!"
"I… We… I don't know..." He stopped again.
"It's okay. You are not in trouble. Anything that happened that day will stay between us two. Just start wherever you want to."
Giving out another heavy sigh he finally started speaking. "We didn't want to go too far. I… I wanted to stop way earlier, but Bill just kept on pushing and pushing. It all started with innocent pranks! She even laughed at the beginning, I swear! But… Bill wanted to see when he would cross the line."
"So you bullied her," Nick spoke into the speaker, sharing his thoughts. Judy gave a narrow look and whispered a 'You are not helping'
"No!" The kid answered immediately "I… I didn't want to… I… That wasn't what I wanted… It's..."
Judy quickly diverted the conversation back to its whole point. They won't get any useful information if Nick just starts stressing the kid. "It's okay. Tell me what happened yesterday."
"Ookay…" His voice trembled "So. Lucy came to school with a paper bag every day. She didn't want to show it to anyone… so Bill decided we should go and check it out…"
"So here you hide every time you disappear." A gazelle said with a victorious smile, and his arms crossed. The cheetah, who was previously standing face towards the fence, flinched and turned around, to see three of the annoying classmates she wished to never meet during the break
"H-How did you…"
"Well, it's not exactly hard to follow you. What are you doing here anyway?" As he said that he saw a few crows standing on the fence, spectating the happenings. "Sho!" He waved with his hoof that only resulted in a bit flying up and settling down back at the fence, except for one of the birds. It flew straight next to the girl as a warning. "Oh wow. So you are friends with the crows huh? Weirdo."
"Come on Bill, just stop." Fred stepped forward. He seemed to be worried.
"Why? I'm not scared of birds, what will they do? Shit on my head?" Bill looked again at the little paper bag, and before the cheetah could react, he took it with a well-timed move. "What do you have in there? Some bird food? Oh my god, You came here every day, just to feed these useless creatures?" He tossed the bag to the ground, that Lucy picked up quickly
"They are smarter than you'd think." She whispered, "And definitely smarter than you."
"What was that?!" The gazelle didn't seem to like that comment so he stepped forward, but both of his sidekicks held him back now. "Let me go, you idiots!"
"Don't hit her! She is a girl! We already got into trouble because of that." The zebra whispered but it was audible enough for Lucy to hear.
"Fine!" Bill finally freed his arms with an angry pull "But you know what? Since you are one of these creeps why not just eat the seeds like they do, huh? Come on, peck it up."
"No!" Lucy said with half angry and half frightened tone
"OH, so you WOULD like to get beaten up?"
"No, please, I…"
"Go on then!" Bill gave the command "Eat that thing. A nice pawful of them!"
Lucy looked at the bag and after giving a 'how bad it could be?' look, she took it into her mouth. Her expression however gave away everything. one second later she spits it back into the bag.
"Ewww Come on who told you that you can spit it out?"
"Bill, stop it!" Fred stepped in. "She got enough."
"Enough? We just started!"
"Bill, stop. Seriously."
The gazelle blew some air out of his nose in his anger and turned back to the cheetah. "Alright. We will leave you until tomorrow. BUT only if you say 'I'm a weirdo because my only friends are the birds' I'm listening."
"I… I'm a..."
The wolf interrupted again "Bill, come on. It's not just some harmless prank anymore."
"Shut up." He just glanced at Fred and looked back at the cheetah "Let's hear it."
"I'm a weirdo and my only friends are the birds."
"That's right! no wonder nobody else is willing to even talk to you. Let's go" He finally left with the zebra on his side, but the wolf didn't leave yet.
"Look, I don't know what has gotten into him, I..."
"Leave me alone!" She whispered, now with tears rolling down her cheeks. She didn't even try to hold it back, like before. She just sat down and buried her head into her paws. The crow that was by her side for a while now, stepped in front of her and made two wing flaps, and a loud 'Claw' signaling the wolf should leave.
"I… I'm sorry." Fred said, looking away from the cheetah with guilt. As he looked over to his leaving friends, he left the fence in a hurry and stormed angrily after their tracks "What was that for? Are you happy now, you horned idiot? She is crying!"
"She does?" Bill asked with excitement in his eyes. "We gotta go back to see that!"
"NO! You already caused too much trouble. Go to class, and we will leave her alone from now on."
"Oh wow… Look at our moral leader. You had no problem with it one week ago."
"Yes, because it wasn't making anyone feel horrible. She is CRYING!"
"You know what? I'm going alone. Or Steve, you coming?"
The Zebra just swapped his looks at both of his friends."We will have math class in one minute we should..."
"Don't be such a scaredy-cat. Mrs. Rose is always late for her class anyway. "
"Steve." Fred shook his head. "This is not funny anymore. Just come and forget this whole thing."
"I'm… going to class." Steve finally made his decision
"Fine…" Bill huffed "I'll go by myself."
Nick and Judy looked at each other "So Bill went back, and the birds attacked him." Judy said, trying to figure out the full story.
Nick shook his head "It still doesn't add up. Why did Lucy just flee and not run to the teachers for help?"
"I have no idea." She sighed, and gave a lost look at Nick "Thank you for telling us."
The kid waited a few seconds then asked in his trembling voice "Am I in trouble?"
"Well. We are not going to take you to the station for that." Judy assured
"HOWEVER," Nick suddenly said, while leaning closer to the phone. "Now you will go and tell the whole story to your parents. Got it?"
"Y-Yes, sir."
"Alright." Nick nodded like the kid could see him. "Now go."
"Okay...Okay..."
As the kid hung up, Judy shook her head. "Having a grudge for bullies, huh?"
"Not exactly liking them… Kids can be really mean to each other," said Nick
"You tell me... " added Judy
"Alright, so what do we have on the case?"
"Well," Judy tried to gather her thoughts "Let's assume Lucy was more than frightened just by the sight of the birds attacking and left the school. Where would you go?"
"Somewhere quiet." Nick guessed. "Maybe to the forest, where you could just be with the birds? But even if so, what is her plan? Just go away from home and never return?"
Judy glanced at the small diary. "Well… We might have the answer there."
"Yeah… We already tried a lot of possible codewords, yet nothing seems to work. It just seems nearly impossible. 'Dear diary, dear diary dear diary' and suddenly 'Fvon vkrfu' How could you revert i…." he stopped while watching the letters. A quick thought, an idea stopped him from saying another word "Dear diary…" Nick muttered as his eyes suddenly widened. "DEAR DIARY! That's it!"
"Wha… What are you talking about?" Judy blinked
Nick instead of answering looked at their little vigenere table and started leading his finger on the columns and lines. "F and D converts into C… The second letter is, D plus V is….R..." As Nick kept on doing this decoding strategy, Judy tried to understand what was happening but failed to do so. As Nick Finished with the 5th letter he muttered. "C...R...O..W...S That's our codeword! Crows! All we had to do the whole time was thinking the other way around!"
"Other way around? What?" Judy was still a few steps behind. "What do you mean?"
"We have a word. Dear diary. And the translated one is Fvon vkrfu." Nick explained while pointing his finger at the D column, and the F point. "All you have to do now is trace back the row of the F point! Who needs a codeword if you know the first line of the coded message and the ciphered text!"
Judy gave an impressed "Huh." realizing how stupid they were this whole time. "Sly fox."
"One point for me!" Nick grinned as he kept on going on the rows and columns with his finger one by one. "Now all we have to do is to figure out the rest."
"You know…" Judy chuckled as she took out her phone. "Since we know the keyword, we can also use the wonders of the internet to help us out." Just as she said that she navigated to a page that said 'Vigenere decipher' "And Judy Hopps equalizes with a well-timed suggestion!"
"I wouldn't give you 1 whole point for that! Maybe half a point, and I was generous. I found out the keyword!"
"Yeah, and you would have wasted hours by following the decipher table."
Nick gave an overdramatized sigh and pulled out his phone too. "Fine you get your whole point, but only because I'm generous. You start with the first entry, I'll type the second, and so on."
"You are a sore loser."
"Smartypants!"
"Bullhead!" As Judy said it, they both let out a smaller chuckle. "Alright, let's get to the bottom of this."
They spent the next hour deciphering the small entries, as it slowly unfolded in front of them. There were a lot of helping clues scattered
"Dear diary. Well, I hope it works. My codeword might not be that great, but who cares? I don't think anyone will get that far to know how to read this. PS: Holy cow! This coding actually works! So cool to trace back the letters!"
"Dear diary! Today we had a chemistry test and I absolutely nailed it! Take that noble gases!"
"Dear diary. Today we visited windrise creek with my family. It is so beautiful! The other tourists annoyed me a bit, but what can you do? I hope we will visit this place when fewer mammals would block the sight. Actually, I wouldn't mind spending a full week here, maybe during summer. It would be so calming."
"Dear diary! I will go to a math competition tomorrow, and I am so nervous! My paws shake whenever I think about it. We spend a bit more time with my math teacher, Mrs. Rose to get prepared as much as possible. I hope I will get at least a third-place or something."
"Dear diary! I won! I am so happy right now! I was head to head with someone from Bunnyburrow. (I think it is some farmplace. I never visited it) And I won! I still can't believe it. Terrence was happy too, I saw it on his face, at least I think I did! He helped a lot in learning. Well, not like he knows a lot about maths but he was there as moral support."
"Dear diary! I'm so glad to have Terrence and his flock by my side. No matter what happens they are always there. Sometimes I wish I could fly away with them.
"Dear diary! I'm so tired of being their punching bag. That idiot Bill deserves a big punch in the face. I wish I had the guts to do that though. Fred tries to cheer me up sometimes but I do not know why. He is with Bill! I bet he has a hidden phone somewhere and he records everything I say just to have a laugh."
"Flock? That's a weird name for your friend group..." Nick said upon reading one of the entries.
"Well… We might have slipped over a teeny tiny detail there..." Judy giggled.
"What?" Nick chuckled while staring at Judy who was now laughing
"I think… I think Terrence is her favorite crow..."
"No…" The realization hit Nick "No way..."
"Thinking about it, it does make sense. She talked about that bird as her 'Protector who would never let anyone hurt her.' Seems like she was right. Our little Terrence is like a protective big brother..."
"Oh wow… So Terrence… Is her bird."
"Seems like it. And we have a possible place she has run off to."
"Windrise creek." They both said in unison. If Lucy didn't have a plan where to go, she might have just went somewhere her brain directed her to. A place with good memories seemed like a safe bet.
"Let's go." Nick nodded and went outside with Judy by his side. They sped through the streets with sirens on. If the girl was indeed there, she probably spent the previous night in the cold. Even in Savanna Central, the temperature can decrease to the point it's a bit unpleasant. Not freezing cold like in Tundratown, but spending your night outside multiple times can still cause some problems, especially in the early winter months.
An: I feel like I have to set a few things straight. Originally this work didn't start out to be a 'bully' story. The main idea was about something else and I feel like I don't spoil anything If I say, it has something to do with birds. But the bully line wasn't necessary at all. So why did I go that way? 'Cause F*ck 'em that's why! That might raise the question: What was the original idea? Well, to avoid spoilers, I'll answer that question at the end of the next chapter.
Sidenote: As I said at the beginning, I'm happy that you've gotten this far. You either like this story or hate it. If you hate it... Well... I'd say don't read it but if you absolutely LOVE reading things you don't like, who am I to stop you? Either way, I would be happy to get some comments, let it be positive or negative. I might sound like the guy who is eager to get comments and mentions it at the end of each chapter, but I don't want to be that. Instead, I'm just gently pointing at the comment bracket