Editor Note: I don't quite understand why FF is garbling my documents into HTML gibberish. I'm pasting them directly into Doc Manager from my Libreoffice document, and it saves fine. But once I post it in the story gets turned into unfiltered HTML. Bizarre.
Bonnie Comes to Visit.
As a reward for her continued progress in his class, and the end of her escape attempts from confinement, Hugo arranges for Bonnie to come visit Judy for lunch. Once they are done, Judy spends the rest of the period sketching her mother. Afterwards, Bonnie pleads with Hugo for help.
Flashback: 13 years ago at Cliffside
"MOM!" Judy careened up to her mother, and enveloped her in a small bear hug. "I'm so happy to see you!"
"Hello, Judy." Caught just a little off guard and as she was bit of a loss as to what to do with her grocery sack and her purse, Bonnie was reduced to patting Judy awkwardly on the back.
The two rabbits were certainly enthusiastic in their belated greetings to each other, Hugo noted, and while that was sweet, it was also raising the twitter-pation level in the class. Since the session was almost over anyway, he beckoned Nurse Manchas over. "Ranato, could you please gather up the rest of the class, and take them down to lunch?"
"Certainly, Doctor." Nurse Manchas walked over the wall, and run a small bell hanging against the wall. He called out in a steady voice pitched low, "Come on mammals, it's time for lunch." The rest of the students put their art supplies down, and started to clean up their work areas.
Hugo walked over to Bonnie, and offered to take her grocery bag. "Welcome to the our Art classroom, Mrs. Hopps. May I take your bag?" He held out his paw.
"Oh, yes, please – here." She handed the bag to Hugo, and wrapped that free arm back around Judy to squeeze her back.
"We'll be emptying the room here of the other students in just a few moments, so we may want to clear the door." Hugo started walking back to the table where Judy had been working, hefting the bag full of what looked like farm fresh fruits and vegetables.
Bonnie responded, "Alright." She looked down at her daughter, still holding her fiercely and added, "Judy, dear, I'm happy to see you too, but I can't walk with you holding me like that." She smiled down at her daughter, stroking her paw over Judy's head fur.
Judy popped her head up and squeaked, "Sorry! I'll move!" She switched her grip to her mother's arm, and looked back at Dr Weidii. ARGGHH! He's touching them! I'm not done yet!, Judy fumed as she watched Hugo start to gather up her drawings. She pulled her mother over to the table, frown plastered to her face. She scowled at Hugo, and when he noticed her standing there, she dropped her eyes to her artwork.
Hugo took the subtle hint, and let her latest master pieces lay back down upon the table.
Judy let go of her mother, and started to spread her drawings out again so that she could show it off.
"Oh my, is that Gideon?" Bonnie asked her. "It's quite good."
Judy smiled, "Yuppers! I was trying show what he would look like, all grown up."
"Yes, he's all grown now. I don't think we told you, but I believe that he told one of your brothers that he is going to culinary school next fall."
"Oooo! He can make pies! Blueberry pies!" Judy sniffed the air, and pulled down the grocery bag so she could search inside. "I smell blueberries! Are they ours?" she asked as she rummaged around the bag.
"Yes, yes, I brought a couple of Hopps' Certified Organic Blueberry Baskets with me. Hang on, Judy, you're spilling everything out. Let me unpack it, please." Bonnie laughed as she rescued her bag from her excited offspring.
Hugo pulled out chairs for both rabbits as Bonnie unpacked a lunch for two from the bag. Judy, alert to the possibility of special privileges, sat up straighter and her eyes snapped over to Hugo's. He nodded in affirmation, and gestured to the spread.
"Judy, I thought that you might enjoy having lunch with your mother today, and your mother certainly agreed." He nodded to Bonnie, "I'll be at my desk if you need me." He wandered off to collect today's artwork pieces from the other students' work stations so that he could grade them.
Thanking Bonnie profusely, Judy dug into the lunch her mother had brought her. In between mouthfuls of home grown vegetables, she fired off questions like machine gun fire about her family and friends back home. Bonnie struggled just to keep up.
Finished with the lunch, they moved on to the blueberries. Judy's energetic face dissolved into a blissful smile upon chewing her first mouth full. She helped herself to another pawful, and stuffed that in. As she chewed on those, she looked up at Hugo sitting at his desk. She had to thank him for this visit. Does he like blueberries? she wondered. She hopped down from her chair, and grabbed the other unopened package. She skipped over to his desk and asked, "Dr Weidii, would you like some blueberries?"
"Oh, why thank you, Judy. I certainly would." Hugo reached down, and took a small handful, and put them on his tea saucer. He smiled back at her.
Seeing that he only took a little bit, she was concerned that he didn't know how good they were. She frowned at his little collection on the saucer. After the carrots, they were the product her family farm was most famous for. So she gave him another couple of pawfuls, and after seeing how small the result of that pile was, she poured half of the remaining container onto the plate with the excess blueberries that didn't fit on top spilling off the pile and running around his desk like drunken beetles. She beamed back up at him, and after giving his arm a quick hug, she dashed back to her mother.
He stared at the pile in dismay. He couldn't possible eat that many, not without really upsetting his stomach. He looked up to catch Bonnie's glance, her eyes twinkling, as she took in the result of her daughter's gratitude. He swept up the escaped blueberries, and piled them next to his saucer.
Judy sat back down and placed the basket back on the table. Seeing that her mother was still eating blueberries, she grabbed her sketchbook, and started to furiously sketch her mother eating them, trying to finish her sketch before her mother stopped eating.
The remains of the lunch hour passed in silence, with only the scratch of Judy's pencils upon the paper heard. Two sets of eyes watched Judy work in furious concentration, one bemused and another hopeful.
There was a knock at the door. Looking up, Hugo saw that it was Ranato returning to the room to pick up Judy for 'recess'. He buzzed in Ranato, and turned to their table. "Judy," he spoke up, "Nurse Manchas is here to take you to your outside time period."
Ranato stuck his head in the door. Judy turned quickly to spot him, and swiveled back to Hugo. "Can I stay here instead? I'm drawing Mom, and I don't want to stop now!"
Hugo, while he was sympathetic to her desires, was also cognizant of the rules that Swineton had laid down for him in granting him these privileges. His students still had to conform to the schedule that the administration had laid out. He shook his head. "I'm sorry, but you have to go with the rest of your group."
Her face down-turned, she set her pad and pencils back on the table.
Seeing her dejection, he promised her, "There will be other opportunities to draw her. Right now, you need to go with your group, and I need to meet with your mother." He smiled at her, trying to take away the sting of his rebuke. "There will be other visits, I promise."
"Really?!" Judy's face lit and she perked back up. She slid back out of her chair, and after giving her mother a brief squeeze she bounded over to Ranato and slipped out the door. He closed it behind them as they left for the river-side courtyard.
Hugo walked back over to sit with Bonnie, picking up Judy's sketchbook to review her latest work. She smiled her thanks at him, and patted his paw.
"Thank you. This means so much to me." She sat back in her chair, "Two letters a month don't really leave much space to say the really important things in life, certainly not like a little lunch date does." She gestured at his twin blue piles sitting on his desk. "I can see that she is certainly grateful to you as well. She was always generous as a child, almost to a fault, so that little display wasn't a surprise to me."
"Yes, well I appreciate the thought, I don't quite have the heart to tell her what that much fruit will do to my poor stomach. Maybe I can save some of it?" He stared at the blueberries wistfully.
Bonnie looked at the containers, and gestured to the pile. "If you like, I'll write her a little note and explain the situation. Do you have a place to keep them for later?"
He nodded over at a small refrigerator, used to keep art supplies cool. "In there. Maybe she won't mind if she shares them with the rest of her table tomorrow? Maybe spread some of the Hopps love and generosity around a bit? It might help her make some more friends."
"She's still having trouble making friends?" Bonnie was saddened by this news. Her daughter has always been an outsider, friendly on the surface, but loath to share her deeper self with others. Bonnie didn't understand her daughter, but she did love her and wanted her to have some joy in life.
"No, and that is a concern for me. I'd like her to work on her social skills, and while she does okay here in the class room with her table group, outside of it she still doesn't fit in." Hugo grimaced at the floor.
Bonnie shook her head, "Stu and I have tried to get her moved to a better place, but even hiring lawyers from Zootopia didn't help. Isn't there anything left that we can do?" she pleaded with Hugo.
He took a deep breath before answering, "Well, with her adult conviction and the two other facilities that she's escaped from, including the one in Bunny Burrow, it's going to be a problem to get her moved out of Cliffside. It's kind of the last place a troubled patient goes before they get shipped off to the general prison population."
He paused before continuing, "Honestly, in my opinion her conviction as an adult was a travesty of justice. While I understand that the judge was trying to send a message, I think they went too far. But without further evidence, or some way of getting her guilty statements struck from the record, I don't see a path to get her conviction overturned, or even getting her out of here at the least. Certainly not before she turns 18 at the earliest. The bi-weekly escape attempts from her room certainly didn't help her record either. Luckily those have tapered off since she started coming here to this class."
Bonnie tilted her head, "Isn't there anything you can do to help her?"
"I don't know. I'm just working my post-doc work for the department. I don't have a lot of pull with the department yet, being the youngest member on staff." Hugo tried to temporize.
Bonnie just continued to gaze at him with a familiar air of slight disapproval at his efforts. Diosa, she's just like Abuela when she does that.
Guilty, he raised his paws in supplication, "I will try, for her sake, I will try."
"Thank you," Bonnie replied, "that's all this desperate mother can ask for."