"Who would just moor their boat over here?" Judy wondered. "I don't know why they wouldn't just go over by the dock."

The rabbit walked down the incline to get to the small beach area she created behind the houses of the villagers. She now managed to get a better look at the ship that mysteriously appeared, seeing that it was grimy and dilapidated on the outside. A rickety wooden gangplank led to the door that seemed to serve as an entrance.

"Maybe it's just me, but I'm getting a suspicious vibe from this boat," the doe said to herself. Just then, she remembered something that she heard from the Town Hall's morning announcements. "Wait! This isn't the vessel Isabelle warned everybody to be vigilant of, is it?"

She wasn't quite sure, but Judy felt a desire to investigate and see what was aboard the dingy vessel. She walked up the gangplank and up to the door, giving it a knock.

"Come in!" somebody from behind the door said, their voice sounding surprisingly welcoming.

Judy opened the door and walked into the entrance of the small interior space, where a few small lamps were the only provision of light. To the right of her were several canvases with artwork on them, resting on easels and placed closely to each other. The pieces of art, she observed, were all oil paintings that had a great amount of detail put into them. It was quite clear that whoever was the artist behind them put a lot of time and patience into creating the masterpieces.

"What are such beautiful paintings like these doing here?" she whispered.

"Welcome to Jolly Redd's Treasure Trawler," a voice said from behind the light, the source of it walking towards them. "You like the kind of rabbit that knows fine art, and I'd be more than happy to help you find what you're lookin' for."

From the dark emerged a fox in blue attire, an almost shady gleam visible in his eyes. The way he spoke to her was like that of a salesmammal, bent on luring customers in to increase his profit. Which was pretty much the case right now.

"Oh, no thanks," said Judy. "I was just curious about your boat when I saw it docked here."

"I take this ship from island to island and sell this exquisite artwork I have here to folks who are interested in it. Some of the pieces I have here would look perfect on somebody's walls, if I do say so myself."

"Do you paint these yourself?" inquired the lagomorph.

Redd chuckled and responded, "As much as I would love to say I was the genius behind some of those, I must give credit where it's due. These one-of-a-kind paintings are all made aspiring artists from around here, all of them being folks I'm acquainted with and are hoping to recognized for their talents someday."

"That's nice," Judy replied. "Now that you mention, I think I will get a closer look at some of this art while I'm here."

"Great! Which one ya like?" Redd responded with eagerness.

Judy looked around for a moment and then walked over to a painting in the left corner. Depicted on the canvas was vase of lovely pink roses on an aged wooden table. Out of all the ones that were on this boat, this was the one that she was the most interested in. The painting was simplistic yet pretty, and she knew just where she was going to place it once she had purchased it. There was a wall in the house that had nothing on it for the longest time, and she finally found something that could be placed on it that complimented her decor.

"Is that one catching your eye?" Redd asked. "I wouldn't blame you. I've actually gotten a couple of inquiries about that one recently. Perhaps you could give it a new home."

"I think I'm going to buy this one," the bunny replied.

The fox in blue smiled delightedly. "Since I can tell you know good art when you see it, I'll go ahead and give ya a special discount on that piece. The price of any of those would normally be around four-hundred thousand Bells, but instead I'll drop it down to just ten thousand. What do ya say?"

Judy pondered on the price for a moment before nodding her head in agreement. "That's a really good deal," she said. "I'll take it."

"You're not gonna regret this," Redd said.

The Next Day...

Nick came walking through the front door, setting his fishing rod to the side and plopping down on the couch as soon as he did.

"Didn't catch anything, Slick?" Judy asked as she came into the room.

"Afraid not, Carrots," Nick admitted with a sigh. "Not even a nibble. I don't have any idea how Kyle caught that humongous fish the other day. Wonder what kind of bait he was using."

The gray doe started to grin with excitement. "Y'know," she said, "I actually got something interesting in the mail today."

"Really?" The tod was now curious about what she had just mentioned. "What would that be, Fluff?"

"When I was out and checking up with the villagers," Judy explained, "I did a little bit of shopping and ended up buying us a really pretty painting for the wall."

Upon hearing this, Nick was actually quite surprised. "That's actually really funny you said that. Just the other week when I was doing a stroll around the island, I actually bought a painting."

"Are you serious?" Judy asked.

"Positive," the tod replied. "Matter of fact, I had it hidden for awhile and have been waiting for the day to give it to you as a gift."

"I'll tell you what, Nick," the leporine started to suggest. "I'll go grab the art I bought for you and you get the one you got for me. Then we can show them to each other at the same time."

"That sounds like a good idea." Nick got up from his seat and went upstairs to retrieve what he got for her.

While he was doing this, Judy made her way back to the room she was originally in and got the flower painting. She went back to the front room and held it in front of her, ready to show it to the fox when he came back down.

Nick started to slowly descend the small set of steps, making his way over to where she was standing. Judy looked at the painting that he was holding in his paws, a look of shock appearing on her face upon seeing that it was somehow the same as the one she had bought. Meanwhile, the vulpine's reaction was similar when he saw the painting she had was exactly the same as well.

"Uhhh..." Nick started to say.

"Where did you get that painting?" Judy wondered.

"Well, I bought it about a week ago when you were helping Fauna with her garden. It came from this fox I met on a boat, and he told me that he was helping artists-"

"That he knew personally that were hoping to get recognized?" the lagomorph asked.

"Yeah," Nick answered after a moment of hesitation. "Those were the words he said to me. How do you know that?"

"Because I got this painting from a fox on some boat that was here the other day," Judy explained. "But if he was selling original, one-of-a-kind pieces of art, how come he had this same painting two separate times?"

"I have no idea," the vulpine responded as he shook his head. "I'm thinking we both fell for a scheme. On the bright side, though, we've got two of the same painting. If something ever were to happen to the first one, you've got a duplicate to hang in its place."

Author's Note: Hey there, readers! I'm back with another little story about Nick and Judy's island adventures to start off the month of May. With my own Animal Crossing island recently being visited by the character Jolly Redd, who is a fox that tries to trick into buying his art, I decided to come up with something that he could be incorporated into.

Even though that's not how I wrote it here, I almost like to think there is a possibility that Nick would know Redd because, well, he knows everybody! XD

'Til next time! :)