One month earlier:
"Nick! Help!"
Judy was down and Nick shouted, "I'm in trouble too!" He pushed at the restraining paws, then gave up and lay still. "All right, you got me."
At least a dozen children of varying species, both prey and predators, jumped up cheering triumphantly as the fox and the bunny admitted defeat. An elderly badger beamed from the sidelines, calling, "That was the winning point!"
Nick trotted over. "I didn't think we were keeping score, Sister Margaret."
"We're not." She lowered her voice. "I just thought you and Judith could use a break."
The fox chuckled. "I could." He looked over at Judy as the youngsters surrounded her, all talking a mile a minute. "I think Judy could do that forever."
Sister Margaret saw how Nick looked at the bunny with the children and smiled gently. "It's a shame she doesn't have any little ones of her own." Nick didn't respond and after a moment she went on. "And how are you, Nicholas? It took you a long time to find your way back to us."
The fox raised his eyebrows. "I've been giving the orphanage almost every penny I make for years."
"I'm not talking about money." The badger patted his arm. "I'm talking about why you ran away. Did we treat you so badly?"
Nick looked surprised. "If you had treated me badly, I wouldn't have given you a second thought." He fell silent. "I didn't want to leave. After my mother died, Thorneycroft was the only place willing to take in a fox."
"Then why, Nicholas?" The badger looked at him appealingly. "You don't have to tell me, but over the years, every time I prayed for you, I wondered why you left."
The fox sighed. "Something happened to me a couple of weeks before my mother died, and it changed me, changed how I saw myself." His voice trailed away and it was a long moment before he resumed. "It broke my mother's heart. And then she died, and...and I didn't want to get close to anyone again. So as soon as I could live on my own…"
"At twelve years old?" Sister Margaret shook her head.
"That's old enough. I made enough to take care of myself and help out the orphanage. I wasn't doing so bad."
"Are you doing better now?"
Judy waved at Nick and he smiled. "Yeah. A lot better." His cell phone rang. "Yes, Chief?" He listened for a moment, then hung up and called, "Carrots! Bogo wants us!"