Chapter Three "Family"
"So, what were you two talking about?" Judy asked as she drove us down the road.
I was cramped in the small bunny-mobile, which was filled with tools for farming and designed to seat someone rabbit-sized. I had been in the vehicle before, back in the Nighthowler case. This time, however, it didn't offer the comforts of blueberries to calm my nerves as I came up with a white lie.
"Trucks."
"Trucks?"
"Yep. I remember this hunk of junk. Your parents have a taste for old fashioned things, huh?"
Not my best segway, but it was enough to get the subject off my major slip up between Jenny. So much for never letting them see they get to you, Nick.
Thankfully, Judy took the bait and she let out a soft huff.
"You could say that. It blew my mind when I saw they had partnered with Gideon. That must have been a huge step outside their comfort zone."
"You sure know how to make a fox feel welcomed, Carrots."
I was still mulling over the tips Jenny had given me.
It was my determination to make a good first impression with the Hopps. I felt like I could only confess to Judy after I was in her parent's good graces, as antiquated as that sounded. I had never met the parents of someone I was interested in before. It was nerve wracking, to say the least.
In a town of eighty million theoretical bunnies, one slip up could bring a literal horde of angry rabbits on me. I could see Judy's parents leading the charge there, with pitchforks and torches, while I was the Barkenstein monster hiding in the windmill.
Judy sensed my concerns.
"I know my family can be a little...Intense. But if they accepted Gideon, why not you?"
Probably because Gideon isn't trying to get into your pants, Judy.
I still couldn't believe her sister, Jenny, smelt me out. Foxes, like most mammals, have our own unique scents so we can communicate with each other in subtle ways. It's all subconscious and unintentional, like how a yawn is contagious. Normally, the smells are discreet enough so that only our own kind can detect them. It takes a powerful nose, or one perverted bunny, to detect the specifics of our natural musk. I could only imagine the trouble Jenny got into right under her parent's noses, and I had to wonder if even Judy realized her sister's preferences.
Jenny sure made me self-conscious of my odor. I took a quick sniff of my pits when Judy wasn't looking. Good thing I brought that Musk-Away with me.
"And just what have you told your parents about me?"
Judy's wince said she hadn't been very truthful with them. Not good.
"I mean, I told them the basics. I said you were my partner. I told them all about how you had joined the force after the Nighthowlers. I made special mention of how you had saved my butt a bunch of times."
"That's not the butt I'm concerned about, Carrots."
"But...I've skirted the stuff about your...Colorful past."
Not good, indeed. "Yeah, that's not sketchy at all."
"I told them some stuff! I mentioned you were a rug dealer at one point and you had been an ice cream man when I met you."
I glanced out to the trees along the farmlands. Each of them had an explosive and charming color to them, bright red and orange. But it was autumn and I knew those trees were dying inside. Just like me at that exact moment.
"Carrots, you're killing me here."
"It'll be fine! Just...Stretch the truth around them a little. Don't listen to dad's dumb stories, they're pointless. And don't look mom in the eyes. I swear, she can stare into your soul."
So, the opposite of what Jenny said to do then?
Judy wasn't exactly inspiring my confidence. Not to mention I wasn't sure if she had the same experience as her older sister. I remembered from our talks over lunch that Judy had never been in a relationship before. So, she probably didn't know what she was doing introducing me to her parents. Even if I was just a friend in her eyes.
"Look," Judy interrupted my brooding out the car window. "They're probably not even going to be home yet when we get there. So, let's work on our battle plan."
There was the commanding Judy I knew best.
"Alright. This is your show, Carrots."
"The older Hopps are all going to be working the fields until five, then they'll all come back for dinner. So, that leaves about thirty kits around the compound. They're going to want to climb you."
"Climb me?"
"Of course. You're a strange new mammal to them. And they outnumber you. So, prepared to be swarmed on our arrival. Pop-Pop babysits them while mom and dad are out in the field. Let's try to avoid him if we can."
"This is the rabbit who thinks foxes are red like the devil, right?"
I remembered chuckling heartily when Judy told me about that particular story. Her grandfather was something of a nut, spouting specist comments like they were commas and forgetting what year he was in. Judy, more or less, had the same expression of shame on her face now as she did back then.
"Right...We'll say hello to the little ones, evade Pop-Pop, and settle into our rooms. I could really use a shower before dinner. When it's time to eat, you'll get to meet my parents."
"Great plan. Can't wait to see how it goes wrong."
"It'll be fine! I hope…"
Our ride continued through Bunnyburrow, which looked the same for miles with few noticeable landmarks to catch my eye.
Eventually, Judy turned down another dirt road and the sights became less like open fields and more like actual farms. I spotted silos and a few wind turbines in the distance, an example of the country doing its best to catch up with the modern age. The most unusual sights were the large hills with windows and doors built into them. It took me a moment to realize those were the literal burrows that rabbits lived in. They varied in sizes, from encompassing entire acres to being just a small bump in the landscape.
Judy slowed when we approached one of the larger hills.
The Hopps compound was something like a baseball field, with clean cut grass and fresh white fences dividing up their land from the neighbor's. The burrow had a front porch built into it, and I spied an older rabbit sitting at a rocking chair. But he wasn't the only rabbit on the farm.
There were dozens of little bunnies hopping around, playing in the acres of land. The oldest were probably twelve, on the cusp of the awkward teenage years. The youngest were six and were incredibly cute, though Judy would give me a dirty look if I told her that. All thirty of them were playing a form of soccer, though with their numbers it amounted to little more than a mosh pit of fluff.
As our truck pulled into the gravel driveway, the kits' ears perked up and I watched them charge towards us.
It was like something out of a horror movie, a herd of mindless zombie bunnies trying to eat our brains. Or, in my case, pull my tail.
The thirty kits called Judy's name, though it sounded more like the hum of a thousand bees to my ears.
"Hey guys, long time no see!" said Judy.
The horde sounded excited to see their big sister by the harmony of their voices combined into one bundle of chitters. I was having a hard time piecing together who was saying what and could only go by the tone of their unified voices and happy faces. They were legion.
"Good to see you all too," somehow Judy could comprehend them all at once. Or maybe she was just guessing what they were saying. "Yes, this is my partner, Nick. Say hello, Nick."
"Carrots," I mumbled under the weight of several kits, who had begun to fight each for domination at the top of my head. "Help…"
I could hear Judy laughing as my life flashed before my eyes.
My ears were filled with the droning of a thousand high-pitched questions from the parasites that had leached themselves to every single inch of my body. I was reminded of the species of bees that would surround a larger wasp to overheat and kill it. It wasn't until I collapsed on the ground that Judy decided to do something to save me.
"Hey guys," I heard Judy kick a ball. "Go and get it!"
I was met with a sudden relief as every single Hopp scrambled to give chase to the soccer ball Judy had kicked further into the yard. I took a deep breath like it was my last and began to pant, not even caring that Judy was giggling over me.
"Good work," she said, collecting herself. "That went well."
"It did?"
"Nick, if they didn't like you, they would have stood there staring at you in fear. I'm actually amazed that they were so quick to touch you. You might have to thank Gideon for that. I have a feeling he warmed them up to foxes."
"Well," I cracked my back, a grim reminder of my age. "Good. I think. One group of family members down, two to go."
Truthfully, making good with Judy's siblings was the lowest on my list of concerns with meeting her family. Especially after things had gone well with Jenny.
Sitting under the burrow's front porch, Judy's grandfather was fast asleep.
Normally, I would have made a smarmy comment regarding sleeping on the job. But after being tackled by a literal kerfuffle, I fully understood the desire to nap when dealing with the Hopps clan.
Next to me, Judy held her breath.
"I'd rather not deal with Pop-Pop right now," she whispered. "Come on, let's sneak past him."
I gathered our bags and followed Judy as we crept towards the entrance into the burrow.
As we got closer, I got a better look at the infamous Pop-Pop. He was exactly how I imagined a hundred year old rabbit to look. His skin was so loose that it was starting to fold, complete with the thinning grey and white fur. He had on a pair of oversized glasses that took up much of his face. I could see that he was missing all his teeth, even his front ones, because his mouth was left ajar. Bugs were starting to fly in and out of his gaping, gummy maw. It worried me that I couldn't see him breathing.
"Carrots," I whispered as we ascended the steps. "Are you sure he's not dead?"
"Nick!"
"I'm just saying, he's not moving. I've seen guys iced by Mr. Big more lively than him."
I was joking, but Judy took my comment with real concern. I guess her grandfather was as old as he looked. She abandoned her initial plan to sneak by and gently shook the elderly rabbit on the shoulder.
"Pop-Pop," she whispered into his droopy ears. "It's me, Judy. Wake up."
No response.
While Judy got to work feeling for a pulse in his neck, I waved a paw in front of the rabbit's face.
"I can't tell if I'm feeling anything," said Judy.
How to wake up a comatose bigot rabbit? There was only one thing that came to mind for me, and I wore a big smirk as I leaned into her grandfather's withered ear.
"Pop-Pop. Fox."
That did it.
Like he was rising from the dead, the elder rabbit's eyes rolled open. A hacking cough escaped his lips as he leaned forward and adjusted his gigantic spectacles. His faded purple eyes were magnified by the glasses and met Judy first.
"Well, lookie here. If it ain't little Trudy come back home. What's a'matter? A fox try to eat you in the city and you come running back?"
Any concern on Judy's face evaporated in an instant.
"No, Pop-Pop...I'm just visiting for the fall festival. And my name is Judy."
The elder rabbit lost interest in her in the way only a senior citizen could. He instead turned his attention to me. I could feel my tail twitch behind my back.
"And who in blazes is this?"
When faced with a stressful situation, my default emotion as a former con artist is smarm. When I enter this state of being, my mouth tends to have a mind of its own and I end up saying something I would regret later.
Thankfully, this was not one of those times.
"Nick Wilde, sir," I extended a paw, which the rabbit ignored. "A pleasure to meet you."
"You got short ears for a rabbit, son."
"Thank you for noticing, sir! You see, I used to have long ears. But they got shot off in the war."
I could hear Judy facepalm without even looking up at her.
"The war, eh?" Pop-Pop adjusted his glasses. I didn't think he was actually going to buy my joke. "A fellow vet, eh? Good to see young bucks fighting the good fight against those dang, dirty foxes."
"Pop-Pop, you've never fought in a war…"
"Hush up, Trudy. How do you explain my amputated leg then?"
"You don't have an amputated leg! I can see both of them right there, look!"
"Aw, that's just cause they sewed it back on. Still hurts like the dickens every morning and when it rains."
"Yeah, Carrots," I said with a sly grin. "Be nice to your vets. They fought so you could live."
She gave me a look that suggested I was in serious danger of losing my life by the time the charade was over. But she remained silent, arms crossed and ears behind her head.
"So, Nickie boy," Pop-Pop stirred from his chair. "Why you so red?"
"Well, it's camouflage, sir. Red lets me blend in with the enemy at a glance. Those foxes could pop out from anywhere, you see. Even in your own burrow! It never hurts to be prepared."
"Smart buck, smart," the rabbit turned his magnified violet eyes to Judy. "Are you marrying this one, Trudy? He's a smart buck. I like him."
Judy's expression of outrage made the trip completely worth it. It looked like her heart had skipped about fifty beats. She stammered for a moment before recovering.
"Why does everyone...No! He's just my partner in the force! And he's a fox, Pop-Pop!"
"Now, that's just rude, Trudy," Pop-Pop leaned to whisper in my ear. "It's the mean ones that always like you most, Nickie boy."
Good thing my fur was already red to hide my own blush. "I'll keep that in mind, sir."
"That's it," Judy growled.
She grabbed me by the wrist and yanked me towards the burrow.
"We're going inside. Stay awake and watch the kits, Pop-Pop. You don't want mom to give you an earful again, do you?"
The old rabbit grumbled something about her mother as we entered the hill. As soon as Judy shut the door behind us, I swore I could hear him snoring.
Collecting myself after the encounter, I realized I had somehow befriended the bigot bunny.
But the thought was quickly muted by the sight of the expansive burrow before me.
When I saw the hills, I had thought that the homes inside them would be cluttered and dirty, especially given how many kits the Hopps family had to manage. But there was a surprising amount of elegance to the setting. We had entered some sort of mud room, with hard rugs on the floor for wiping your feet before you could enter the rest of the house. The walls were a comely blue that soothed and felt welcoming. Best of all was the lingering scent of carrot cake in the distance.
Judy wordlessly guided me from the mud room into the rest of the compound. She still seemed a little sour about Pop-Pop berating her.
I was much too distracted with how the home opened up to me to detect her mood. Past the mud room, the hall grew into a large domed chamber, which I guessed took up much of the hill. It reminded a bit of a business lobby, with more the comforts of home. It was like someone had taken a standard living room and expanded it to five times its normal size. There were several long couches facing a 100 inch TV. At every wall was a series of doors, each labelled with a letter. I also noted that the living room included a large kitchen and dining room, judging by the dozen chairs scattered about a counter.
"You weren't kidding," I said, as I realized the space was meant to hold a single family. "You really have enough room to hold three hundred rabbits in here."
Judy snapped out of her funk with a small chuckle. "Technically, this has a capacity of two hundred. It's pretty empty compared to when I was a kit."
"Are your parents rich?"
"I wouldn't say rich...I mean, we're very well off and business is booming. But we're far from the richest. Pop-Pop is probably the wealthiest bunny in the burrow, actually."
"You're joking, right?"
The elder rabbit hadn't given any impression of upperclass. Even his clothes were old and tattered.
"Not at all. He wasn't in any wars, but he owned a mine in the mountains. He was one of those rabbits who was so involved with his work that he only had one litter, the one with my mom. She thinks that too much time in the mines is why he's a little…"
"Crazy?"
"Eccentric. Dad came from a much poorer family though. He likes to brag about how he essentially built all this from nothing."
"Hence why you ignore his stories?"
"They just get a little tiresome after awhile. Farming is all most rabbits do in Bunnyburrow, but it's never interested me."
"You know, we have stories of mammals who built their way up from nothing in Zootopia. But I've never believed them either. If your dad literally started with dirt pile and built all this, that's something to be proud of, Carrots."
"Well, then you can listen to his tales then. Once you break the ice."
If I broke the ice.
Judy guided me to one of the lettered doors to the side labeled 'J'. My nose told me this was a section of the house that hadn't seen much use. The assumption was added to by the mildew and cobwebs along the ceiling. We entered something akin to a public dorm area, with a few chairs and tables. More doors lined the walls, this time labelled with names. Bathroom, John, Jacklyn, Jennifer, and Judy.
"Home sweet home," Judy groaned as she glanced at the dust in the corners. "I guess Jen isn't very interested in keeping the place clean."
She opened the door to her old bedroom.
I had been to Judy's apartment in the city several times before and it was nothing to write home about. Yet, somehow, it was a manson in comparison to the size of her old bedroom. I couldn't even call it a room with a straight face. It was more a closet with space for a single bed, a nightstand, and a drawer. I could probably reach from one wall of the room to the other with my arms. Despite the plain blue walls, the signs of Judy living there were evident. There were still awards for track and field nailed to the wall, gathering dust. There was even a stuffed rabbit cop at the pillow of her bed.
"Jeez, Carrots. No wonder you don't mind living in that hole in the wall. It's an upgrade."
"You're one to talk. At least I don't have pipes going through my apartment."
We shared a smirk with each other. One of the small talk quips we often engaged in was a continual contest to prove whose apartment was the worst. Truthfully, we both could use an upgrade.
Judy sighed and continued like she was a tour guide.
"There are two hundred and twenty two individual bedrooms in the burrow. All we use them for is sleeping, so there's no sense in wasting valuable space under the hill. As you can see, the bedrooms are divided into dorms by our names. Everytime my parents had a new litter, dad would construct a new wing of the house as needed. Each wing shares a bathroom and two to twenty bedrooms. Laundry is in the basement below the kitchen."
"How can you afford all this? It's like you're running a hotel."
"Not far from the truth, actually. Except we produce our own food and pay rent through physical labor around the farm. It's a well oiled machine that they've had thirty years to perfect."
As Judy stepped into her room, she seemed to just consider my own predicament. There was absolutely no space for both me and her. Unless we were sharing the bed, at least.
"Oh, um, I didn't think about where you would be staying, Nick. I guess…John's room?"
I hid my disappointment as I made my way to the bedroom next to hers.
It was more of the same, if less decorative. Judy's brother had been gone far longer than she had, leaving behind none of his personal effects. The bed was certainly going to have my legs hanging off it, but it was better than sleeping on the floor.
As we got to work unpacking, it came to my attention that I could hear Judy through the thin walls.
Privacy sounded impossible in such tight quarters, and I listened to her every move. She put down her own suitcase and hopped around the room a bit, no doubt taking in the sights of her childhood home. After a few seconds, I heard the shuffling of clothes followed a door opening and closing.
That's right, she said she wanted to go take a shower before we met her parents.
I'm no letcher, but the sudden realization that Judy was wandering around the room next to me naked sparked a curious arousal in me. As I listened to her start the water in the washroom, I could picture her standing there. I could see the shower spraying down her hips as she bathed, humming one of Gazelle's tunes. The steam of the hot bath leaving just enough to the imagination. A deep part of me wanted to be in there with her. Badly.
It would be such a simple thing to do, creeping in behind her. She'd be too absorbed in what she was doing to notice me. I'd be the predator in the mist, hunting for rabbit...
I stopped the daydream before I pounced at her.
"Get a grip, Wilde," I muttered aloud, smacking myself at the back of my head. The predatory thoughts vanished, though the temptation was still there.
Feeling dirty, I dug around in my bag for the Musk-Away bar buried at the bottom. As I coated my pits, I stared at the ensemble of clothes I had brought with me. There was my usual green shirt, slacks, and ties. But I wanted to dress my best for the impending meeting with Judy's folks. Especially after introductions to her siblings and grandfather had gone so well.
Two down, one to go.