Chapter 1

"Leilani Musterson?"

Among the scattered crowd of animals, shelving and packing boxes, a blonde-furred weasel pricked up her ears. "Yes?"

The heavyset brown-furred bunny, her name tag reading, "Becca: Manager," gestured the weasel over with her arm. "Please come with me."

Leilani's purple eyes widened, her grin revealing a perfectly straight row of sharp white teeth. "Is this about my application? Please tell me it's about—"

Becca rolled her eyes. "Yes, it's about the application. Are you coming?"

Leilani squealed. "Absolutely!" She scampered down the enormous, building-like shelving. She ran up next to Becca. "Do they look happy?"

Becca shrugged. "I don't know, Leilani. They're the ones in the suits; they're probably trying to act neutral about whatever news they have for you."

"Oh, well, that makes sense, but they want to meet me face-to-face instead of emailing me, so that's a good sign, right?" Leilani clapped her paws.

"In my experience, yes."

"Yay—oh. I hope you don't think I want to get the marketing position to get away from all of you, do you?"

"No."

Leilani sighed. "Good! I've always really liked you, Becca, and I hope you always remember me even after I'm gone!"

"How could I forget you?" Becca droned as they approached a door. "Your voice has a similar pitch to my tinnitus."

"Wow! Really? That's pretty cool! I've been told I have a high voice. My voice must sound really high to you, because you have a pretty low voice, and it must be a hard adjustment to hear your own voice and then mine."

"Miss Musterson?" asked a voice behind the door.

"Oh! I'm right here!" Leilani took a deep breath and opened the door. "Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen!"

"I did it!" Leilani screamed as she burst back into the storage room. She dropped to her knees and held her fists in the air. "I'm off to Zootopia to promote our nutritious—and colorfully delicious fruit products! That's a jingle I'd like to suggest to the board."

Cheers scattered through the crowd as all they all clapped.

"Congratulations, Lei! I knew you had it in you!" A fox shouted.

A ferret waved his hands. "You're the queen of Bunnyburrow! Even though you ain't a bunny and nobody's got any royal titles here!"

Leilani turned her wrist in a "queen" wave, and climbed back up the shelves to finish stamping labels on the boxes.

On the train to Savannah Central, Rainforest District entranced Leilani with all the greenery and rain. She clearly remembered the district from when she was four. She had needed surgery, and a hospital with more information for her needs. The height of the track, how big and open the scenery was, provided a fascinating comfort for her and temporarily allayed her fears.

Other districts the train zipped through, such as Tundratown, was almost completely new to her, since she didn't remember them as well. The winter wonderland that was Tundratown, was, to Leilani, like something out of her childhood books. She was thrilled to see snow, since it almost never snowed in Bunnyburrow.

Upon the train's arrival at the polished, metropolitan Savannah Central, Leilani, suddenly struck with a bit of fear, took a deep breath and stepped off the train and onto the flawless pavement. She looked to her left and saw an escalator.

Leilani gasped. "You guys get to ride on that thing every day! I hope you're grateful!"

Her announcement was met with startled jumps and confused looks.

"Take your meds, weasel!" An elephant said with a chuckle, followed by a smattering of laughter from other animals.

"Oh, don't worry, sir, I only take vitamins. Nothing's wrong with me; they checked…twice!"

Upon the elephant ignoring her, Leilani shrugged. She ran to the escalator and giggled on her way up.

There the buildings were. Leilani suddenly felt so small yet so in awe. So many things—and animals, were so much bigger than her.

Now, she had to find her apartment complex. The girl on the phone told her it shouldn't be hard to find, but now she started to wonder. It suddenly occurred to her that this place probably has taxis.

Leilani ran across the large paved area. She stopped as her attention was caught by an electric billboard on a building, advertising some sort of perfume. Gazelle, a singer she somewhat followed, sprayed the contents of the pink bottle onto herself. Leilani continued to run and stopped at the sidewalk.

"Taxi!" Leilani shouted as she waved her paws. "Taxi!"

When the two taxis she saw go by didn't stop for her, she resorted to jumping in the air as well. "Taxiiiiiiii!"

A taxi pulled up in front of her. The driver, a porcupine, rolled down the window.

"Where you headed, ma'am?" The porcupine asked.

"Hi, I'm headed here," Leilani pulled out a small scrap of paper from her purse and handed it to him. "I'm moving there, and it's way better than my last apartment complex. I'm a marketing agent now!"

"Uh, okay. Five bucks. Hop on in."

Leilani handed money to the driver and climbed into the back seat.

"Huh, exact amount. Thanks, weasel."

"You're welcome! I love doing that!" Leilani buckled her seat belt. "How long of a drive?"

"Uh, I'd say about five minutes."

"Awesome!"

Leilani sprawled herself out on the white rug in her living room. She was so happy she was able to get pretty much all of her stuff moved so far ahead of time. She was happy to relax after unpacking the few things that needed to be put in boxes. The walls were a nice burgundy, and they were accented by the dark brown furniture that came with the room.

"I'm really doing it." Leilani sighed and smiled. "I have it all. I'm gonna be a great career-weasel. I should turn on the T.V. for inspiration!" She ran over to the couch, reclined against the arm rest, and turned on the T.V.

The first thing that appeared was a commercial. A cheetah dressed as a juice box held a thumb up. "Berry-Burst Juice Mix! Come buy our all-new Berry-Burst Juice Mix! All natural flavors, and with 20 percent less high fructose corn syrup!"

Just as a bunch of kids' voices exclaimed, "Wow," Leilani changed the channel.

A buffalo spoke at a press conference. Upon closer inspection, Leilani realized he was a police officer.

"We don't exactly know where this plant originated, but we do know it is to be avoided at all costs, as it is very hard to detect in someone's system, and it's spray can be triggered with the slightest touch."

Leilani decided to wait on switching the channel. A dangerous spraying plant?

A pig in a mauve pantsuit held up a microphone. "Chief Bogo, will we ever know where it originated?"

"We at the ZPD are doing everything we can to research this plant. Until then, we are simply identifying it as 'Daring Do,' despite the fact it often causes animals to act more foolish than daring. Thank you." The buffalo chief gave a simple wave and walked off the podium.

A cheetah cop with a donut in his paw raised his free paw. "I suggested 'Foolish Do,' but nobody else voted for it! Oh well, it'll always be 'Foolish Do' to me!"

"Daring Do?" Leilani raised an eyebrow. "Huh. Guess I'll have to watch out for that."

Leilani continued to change channels until she eventually grew tired.

Leilani's phone alarm went off at 7 a.m. She wanted to get up two hours before work so she would have time to get some new office-friendly clothes, and to do her makeup. She often wore little to no makeup, but she liked working harder on her appearance on special days such as this.

Leilani emerged from the elevator in a matching light pink skirt and blazer, her eyelids shaded a milky brown with a dark brown at the outer corners. She approached the receptionist's desk.

She cleared her throat and spoke in a lower tone. "Hello, my name is Leilani Musterson. I'm here for the 9 o' clock on True Organic Candy."

The receptionist, a lemming, silently stared at Leilani. "Oh, wow. You're the new agent?"

"Uh, yes? Do they not usually wear pink?"

"Oh, no. It's just…I've never seen a weasel here before. I guess the company really is going for more diversity."

Leilani chuckled. "Okay? Well, I'm happy to be here!"

"That's good to hear. Anyway, the meeting is in room 112." The lemming pointed to the left.

"Okay, thanks!" Leilani grinned and waved.

During the meeting, Leilani was a bit disappointed by how little she was able to speak. She however told herself that it was probably because she was new.

"Don't worry," someone whispered.

Leilani turned to her right. Sitting next to her was a skunk in a dark green pantsuit. "I can see you're not as excited as you were when you introduced yourself. Don't worry, that was me on my first day too."

"Oh, thanks!"

"I'm Jade." The skunk reached out a paw.

"Leilani—wait, you already knew!" Leilani shook her paw.

"Overall, organic oatmeal bars have not been doing so well on the market this year, and we have been going crazy looking for fresh advertising ideas!" A leopard in a white blouse and black skirt stood at the front of the room and pointed to a declining sales graph on her projected presentation.

Leilani's eyes darted from side to side. She grinned and raised a paw. "Miss Leapman?"

"Yes, Miss Musterson?" The leopard gave her a nod.

"Maybe…brighter, more vivid colors would work?"

"On where, exactly?"

"Well, the commercial you showed us earlier featured a lot of grays and browns, but not much else. I think putting in brighter colors would not only attract more customers, but a wider demographic of customers as well, such as children. Some of the colors could be the same as the fruit ingredients in the bars."

Miss Leapman raised her eyebrows and switched to a slide with bullet points. She wrote down Leilani's idea with her digital pen.

Leilani stifled a laugh of joy as she looked at Jade with wide eyes. Jade nodded and gave her a nudge.