The young fox kit sat silently at the cafeteria table, taking the last few bites of his sandwich. Normally he was mood when the bell rang and the daily break from classes for lunch came about, but something had been on his mind since he sat down. Students had been talking about the middle school's upcoming Valentine's Day Dance in the halls and throughout the noisy cafeteria since the first class of the school day had concluded, and this only made him sigh heavier at the dilemma at paw. If only he could just figure out the right solution.
His good friend, a shorter fennec fox, was at least in a good frame of mind; he had been trying to catch up with him about what he had been up to, and he hadn't stopped speaking since he sat next to him to eat his lunch with him. "So I was crossing my fingers, hoping I'd find it," he said as he continued with his story, pausing just for a moment to pop a tater tot from his lunch tray into his mouth. "I was just thinkin', 'Please let this last one in the pack be the one.' So I slowly start to flip it over, ready for it to be another one of those ones that aren't that great, but there it was! I found the rare golden card and it's, like, the strongest card there is."
"That's good, Finnick," the fox kit replied as he turned his head and acknowledged that he had been listening.
The fennec fox chuckled to himself. "Yeah, it's gonna be really cool when someone wants to play a round-" He stopped recounting about the trading cards he enjoyed collecting when he saw the look on his friend's face. "What's wrong, Nick? Ya look like ya got somethin' on your mind."
"Yeah..." sighed the vulpine named Nick as he finished his sandwich.
"You worried about that math test?" Finnick inquired next. "Don't worry, dude. That whole turning an improper fraction to a mixed number thing's not my favorite either."
"No, it's not that, Fin."
"Oh, okay." Finnick handed his friend one of the remaining tater tots he had left on the tray. "Here, have one of these. One of the only things they serve that don't taste like it's weeks old."
"I'm good," Nick responded before looking out at the hustle and bustle of the cafeteria, at the rest of the students going about their way.
"And how 'bout that Valentine's Day Dance comin' up?" the fennec fox asked.
"Actually, that's what I've been thinking about. I kinda got a dilemma and I was wondering if you could help me out."
"That's what friends are for, aren't they? C'mon, tell me what's goin' on."
"Well, you see..." Nick started. "There's someone I'd like to ask to go to it with."
Finnick was now grinning at him, knowing quite well who he was talking about when he mentioned someone to take to said dance. "And that would be Hopps, I presume? That rabbit?"
"Yeah, but I just don't know what to say and it's only in a few days."
"Not to mention that you do have a history of accidentally calling her cute once, and you know you should never call a bunny cute."
"I know, Finnick," interrupted Nick with embarrassment, not wanting to hear about that again though it actually happened. He thought that he it was a compliment when he said, but luckily the rabbit didn't mind it and kindly told him otherwise. Needless to say, he kept it noted that that term was never to be said about rabbits again.
"She seems very nice," Finnick continued, "and I'm thinking she would totally say yes if ya just went ahead and asked her to be your Valentine to the dance." Looking away from his friend and out at the cafeteria to a table further away, he called out, "Hopps! Come here a second!"
The gray rabbit seated at the table with her friends when she heard the fennec fox call her name, hopping up from her seat and walking over to where they were. "Yes?" she asked in her bubbly voice, sounding more than happy to assist her fellow students that sat elsewhere in classes. She turned her attention away from who called her and to the other fox sitting there. "Oh, hi there, Nick," she greeted with a friendly wave.
Nick looked over at the lagomorph and slowly waved back. His tail immediately started to wag upon seeing his first crush. "H-Hi..."
"So you wanted to see me about something?" Judy inquired.
"My good pal Nick was just saying that he wanted to ask you something," the fennec fox said as he patted his friend on the back. "Right, Nick?"
"Really?" the rabbit replied. "What was it, Nick?"
Nick started to become even more nervous now that his friend had just said that, although he just told him that he wasn't sure what to tell her. He tugged at his shirt and and started to chuckle nervously, tilting his head to the side and looking down. "Oh, uh..."
Thanks a lot for me putting me on the spot when I wasn't ready, Finnick, he thought.
Judy looked over at the clearly nervous fox, still smiling but confused at the sudden timorousness. "You okay?"
"Uh, yeah," answered Nick timidly, wondering why he just had to be so awkward right now when he was trying to talk to the rabbit. "I, uh, wanted to say, uh..." He abruptly got up from his seat. "I'm... just very excited for history class today. That's all. Learning all about Zootopia before there was anything here's pretty cool, right?" He chuckled before quickly making his way to the other side of the cafeteria to throw the paper bag he was holding away in the nearby can.
Finnick was shaking his head at how he blew the opportunity to simply ask her when she was standing right there. He guessed it was easier for some to ask their crush to a dance and it made others quite nervous, and he apparently showed that he belonged in the second category. History class? Seriously? he thought. What kind of lie was that? History is, like, his least favorite subject.
"Okay?" Judy said slowly before returning to the table she had been sitting at with her friends.
Meanwhile, not too far away from that spot of the cafeteria, Nick was standing there while trying to come up with a better way to ask her to the dance. He knew that Finnick's suggestion of simplistically just asking his crush to go with him was an easy route to take, but he really liked the rabbit and wanted to make something more special than just that. After all, Valentine's Day only came once a year, which meant there was only opportunity to ask someone to be your Valentine to the school's dance. And on top of that, there was only one first middle school Valentine's Day Dance.
The tod thought and thought about it before recalling something that had been told to him by one of the wisest mammals he personally knew, his mother. She had told him awhile back when he needed help with something that if you wanted to find the best solution to a problem, you had to ask multiple mammals for their thoughts and go with what felt like the best choice to you. Surely this piece of advice that had been given to him would come in handy even for a Valentine's Day dilemma such as this one.
Yeah, that's what I'll do! I'll ask a couple other friends and see what they think I could do to make asking her to be my Valentine a lot more special.
The Next Day...
"Come on over, everyone!" a young, slender weasel kit proclaimed, waving a package of chocolate candy he held in his paw in the air to try and get somebody's attention. "I got all the perfect candy to give your Valentine at a great price!"
Nick was walking down the street when he approached where another one of his friends was standing. The weasel was standing at the end of his family's driveway that led to a portion of the sidewalk, a plastic table set up behind him with a piggy bank and a basket of different candy packages resting on top of it. It seemed that he was once again trying another way for him to make a little bit of extra cash from anybody that happened to stop by.
"I see you're still in the candy-selling business, Duke," Nick said to his friend as he stepped on up to where he was standing.
The mustelid, happy to see his fox friend, waved over at him and nodded his head. "Arbitrage, as I learned they call it," he answered. "But yeah, after I got caught selling it to some kits in the cafeteria before, I had to find another way to do it."
"How's it going so far?" Nick wondered.
Duke shrugged his shoulders. "Eh, not too bad." He walked over to where he had the piggy bank resting on the table and picked it up, giving it a shake to hear the sound of the few coins he had gotten since he started. "Ah, the sweet sound of money. It's gonna take a whole lot more than this, but I'm gonna have saved enough to buy that new game system sometime."
"That's awesome," the vulpine remarked before he gave his friend a high-four. "Don't forget to bring me over to play when you get it." He reached into his pocket and retrieved a pair of shiny quaters, handing them over to him. "And I'll help ya get there. I'll take a pack of those sour candies."
"I won't forget," replied Duke as he took the quarters and dropped them in his bank, handing him what he wanted. "And you made an excellent choice. I like those the best too."
"Say, Duke," Nick said as he changed the subject, "would you be able to help me out with something?"
"Sure thing, mammal," the weasel responded happily. "What is it?"
"You know how that dance is coming up? I wanted to ask Hopps to be my Valentine to it, but I wanted to make it more than just me going up to her and saying, 'Hey, do you want to go to that dance with me?'"
"I gotcha." Duke nodded as he listened to his friend's frustration. "Well, ya know what they say, Wilde. Go big or go home. If you're planning on bringing Flopsy-"
"Judy," Nick correctly politely.
The weasel paused and caught himself using his nickname for the rabbit, a habit he was trying to break. "Judy," he repeated. "Anyway, suppose you want to bring her one of those hearts with a Valentine's Day message on it. I think if you can get your paws on the biggest one you can find, that'll seal the deal."
Later...
"You gotta have some advice for me, Ben," Nick said to the cheetah that was standing next to him. "You like all of those stories and shows where two mammals fall in love by the end of it."
The portlier feline smiled as he suddenly remembered something upon him mentioning that. "Especially this new one I just saw. It's about this farmboy who becomes a pirate and has to fight all of these enemies and stuff so he can reunite with his true love. Oh, it was amazing-"
"Yeah, that sounds good," the fox interrupted, "but I really need your help with what I asked you about."
"Oh, yeah, of course," the cheetah named Benjamin replied, no longer sidetracked. He pondered about it for a brief moment before a couple ideas he thought were pretty wise came to fruition in his mind. "I know! How about asking her with a little poem? That was how Diego asked his crush to be his Valentine and she said yes."
"That might be a good idea, but I'm not really good at poetry. Guess I'd have to really think about one."
Benjamin then proceeded to tell him the second idea that was also not as great or doable as the first one. "Do you know how to play the guitar?" he inquired. "From what I saw in one of those other shows, the guy serenaded the lady he loved with a love song on the guitar. I'm sure you could learn how to play it pretty quickly."
Nick shook his head. "Ben, I don't even have a guitar. Besides, I'm not good at singing. Might actually have her covering her ears and asking me to stop if she heard me sing instead. But...I'll take you up on that first idea, though. That's probably the best one."
"Glad I could try to help ya, Nick," replied Benjamin.
The sound of something rolling down the sidewalk towards them came from the left of the two friends, and they turned their heads to see a timber wolf pup wearing a black helmet riding up on a skateboard. It was another of their friends in the neighborhood practicing how to ride what he had gotten for the holidays tow months prior.
The wolf did an ollie that got his skateboard just off the ground for a quick second before continued gliding on it, waving as he saw the fox and cheetah standing there. "Dudes," he told them as he brought himself to a stop, "you totally missed me almost do the kickflip! I'm gettin' pretty good at this thing."
"Awesome, Wolford," replied Benjamin.
"Hey, Wolford, I gotta ask ya something I just got asking Ben," Nick chimed in before repeating the same question he had asked his other friends before him.
Wolford was silent for a moment before he shook his head back at the fox. "I dunno, mammal," he answered. "Maybe that rabbit would find it pretty cool if you could pull off some tricks on a skateboard like I'm learning to do. Oh, and you can't forget about flowers. Girls love fresh flowers. If you can do those things and what the others told you, she's gotta say yes."
Nick had finished up washing his paws before he finally sat down at the dinner table, happily digging into the spaghetti dinner that his mother had cooked for him.
"Don't forget, Nick," his mother asked him as she twirled some of the spaghetti onto her fork and took a bite. "We have to into town and pick out something for your father for Valentine's Day from the two of us."
The vulpine kit nodded as he ate some of his supper. He then paused a moment before looking over at her. "Mom," he started to ask, "you said you and Dad knew each other since you were around my age, right? How did he ask you if you would be his Valentine?"
"I take it you have someone you'd like to ask to be yours?" inquired the middle-aged vixen on the other side of the table. "That rabbit who lives down the hill from us?"
"Mm-hmm," replied Nick before looking back down at his plate and continuing to eat his dinner. He knew that his mother would know exactly who it was he had a crush on. Not only because mothers were all-knowing, but also because it was more than often that he talked about her whenever she wanted to hear about school.
"Your dad was around your age when he asked me," his mother continued. "He was probably the handsomest fox that was in my classes."
"That must be where I got it," Nick remarked.
His mom chuckled and smiled warmly back at him before she continued with the story. "I remember him walking up to me one day just as school was done for the day before we were all getting on the bus. He was a bit nervous at first. He told me that he had this card he wanted to give me but that it didn't look that great. So he showed this heart-shaped card that he had made himself." She let out a brief chuckle at the memory. "It looked like he had overdecorated it but he had the neatest writing, and written inside was him asking me if I'd be his Valentine. I said yes and the two of us went to the dance together. Kind of like the one your school's having soon, huh?"
"Yeah. So what do you think I should do, Mom?"
"Well, what is she like?" was the question he received in response.
Nick smiled before answering, "She's really cool and really smart too. She's super nice to everybody in school no matter what species they are, and she's been kind to me even though I'm a fox. That doesn't matter to her or her family. Oh, and she's into collecting stamps. She did tell me about that before. It's like going on a trip around the world when she goes to the mailbox, she said."
"It sounds to me like she's a wonderful mammal," his mother replied. "I say you just tell her that you like her and just ask her, like your father did with me when he was your age."
"Thanks, Mom." The fox smiled back at her before returning to digging back into the spaghetti on his plate.
It was after hearing all of those ideas from his friends and the wise words from his mom that he started to hatch his plan for how he would tell the bunny the next day.
Tomorrow morning couldn't come soon enough.
The Next Morning...
Nick was up bright and early and had gotten himself ready in record time. Normally on most schooldays, it wasn't until his alarm clock had started to beep that he would groggily pull himself out of bed and brush his teeth before heading out the door. Today, though, was the day he was going to put his plans from the previously day into action.
He happily made his way outside with a good bit of time left until the bus came, heading to the side of the house and retrieving an old small folding wagon that he had found in the backyard that would be perfect for his idea. Inside of it he placed a whole lot more than a few paper hearts in red, pink, and white that he had made out of some old construction paper he had found in a drawer in his room the night before. His friend Duke, after all, did tell him to go big or go home, and so he decided to bring a bunch of Valentine's Day hearts instead of just a singular one.
As he pulled the lightweight wagon forward behind him, its little plastic wheels rolling against the driveway, he retrieved a piece of notebook paper he had placed in the pocket of his coat earlier. Written on it was the poem that he came up with on a whim the day before, something Benjamin had suggested to him. He was certainly not going to be able to do the other ideas he had received alongside the ones he was using right now, but he had a pretty good feeling things would work out well.
Nick let go of the wagon for a moment before looking at the poem that he had written down, memorizing it like it was part of a school project he would have to recite in front of the class. Once he was absolutely sure he had gotten it down, he placed it back into his pocket just as some surprisingly strong wind started to blow in from the other direction. It was as he felt the cold air blow in that he thought about how he couldn't wait until springtime came around and the weather was much warmer than it was.
"Chillier than I thought it would be," he said to himself as he shivered for a brief moment.
His pointy ears heard something rolling along by, catching his full attention. He looked back over to his side to realize that the winds had enough force to cause his wagon to start moving away from him, heading down the hill below. Oh no!
Panic immediately kicked in when he saw that it was getting away from him, and his first instinct was to run after it. The wagon, of course, was going much faster than he could run down that hill where the other houses in the town were. He ran fast as his paws allowed him, but it still was at a point where he was unable to get close enough to reach its handle again. The bus stop, meanwhile, was coming up in his vision, and he could see none other than Judy Hopps dressed in her bright pink coat talking to one of her ovine friends.
"Judy!" Nick called out, waving a paw in the air to get her attention as he continued chasing after the runaway folding wagon.
The doe laughed at the remark her friend had made during her conversation with her, turning her head over to where he was coming from to see it coming her way. She immediately saw it coming her way and swiftly backed up, completely caught by surprise by the wagon running into the bus stop sign, followed by the sight of the fox tripping and falling onto the ground in his attempt to be even quicker and catch it.
This was definitely not how Nick thought this would go.
"Uh, hey there, Judy," he said to her as he chuckled, embarassed at how he his plan had become a bit of a failure in his mind.
"Nick, are you okay?" Judy asked him in reply. "That looked like a pretty bad fall you had there."
"Yeah, I'm all good," answered Nick. "Everything's good." Now that things had unexpectedly spiraled out of control for him, he wasn't sure what to say next now that the plan wasn't smooth sailing anymore. The first idea that popped into his brain was to simply improvise, change the subject from his embarassing fall to something different. "So, how's your stamp collection going? Get any cool new ones?"
"Mm-hmm." The bunny nodded her head at the question. "Got some Tri-Burrows stamps I didn't have before, ones with flowers and butterflies on them and stuff like that. I like ones with those on them the best."
"Cool, cool," agreed Nick, still feeling a bit disappointed at the turn of events.
"Mm-hmm." Judy reached her arm outward to help him out. "Here, let me help you up."
When she held onto his paw and he picked himself back up, he found his tail starting to wag once again as he looked at the bunny. "Thanks."
"No problem." Judy turned her head and looked at the wagon that still had the paper hearts inside of it after they had survived the ride down the hill before running directly into the sign. "So, what's with all the hearts? Are they for your Valentine?"
"Well, uh, actually... I, uh..." Nick fished out the piece of paper in his pocket with a shaky paw, ready to read what he had written down on it before. He quickly changed his mind, though, and decided to do something different. To do what his mother, the wisest mammal he had ever known, had told him to do and just tell her what he thought, how he liked her. 'Judy... You're, like, the coolest mammal in the whole school. I think it's really nice how you get along with everyone, and you were a real lifesaver when you offered to help me understand that stuff in science class better when I was having trouble remembering the names of things. I-I wouldn't have been able to crush that test if it weren't for you helping me. And I-I wanted to know... Would you be my Valentine and go to that dance with me tomorrow?"
There was a pause between the two of them before Judy broke out into a smile. "Are you kidding?" she said. "I'd love to!"
"Oooh!" called out a voice mockingly from behind where they were standing, belonging to a red panda that was pointing towards the bunny. "Judy's got a boyfriend!"
"Cut it out, Mei," retorted Judy as she casted a look back at her, getting her to turn her attention away and mind her own business.
"So, it's a plan?" the vulpine standing next to her asked her, now grinning from ear to ear.
"Yep," replied the gray doe. "I can't wait. It's gonna be so much fun."
"Yeah. So much fun..."
Although it didn't exactly go the way that he wanted it to, Nick was happy to say that he could call his little operation a success.
Author's Note: Happy Valentine's Day, everybody! :)
Because of the holiday, of course, I wanted to write something about Nick and Judy. However, instead of doing the usual fluff piece that I've done for the pat few years, I decided to do something different and come up with this. I've wanted to do a story around the AU of a young Nick and Judy that I've seen before, and so I ended up coming up with this idea of them being in a sort of middle-school scenario like in middle grades books I read growing up, put a couple other familiar faces in it, and centered it around this Valentine's Day Dance. Since I had some fun working on this concept, I feel like I'd want to do some other stories in which all of these characters are in a school setting.
Anyway, let me know what your thoughts were on this. I tried as best as I could when writing their personalities and how I wanted to portray them in this AU Valentine's Day-themed story of sorts.
As always, your feedback, whether it's good or bad, is gladly appreciated. And thanks so much to everybody who's been reading and keeping up with these stories of mine.
'Til next time! :)