Chapter 11: Carnival Chaos

The Spring Equinox is celebrated along the Sahara Coast of Zootopia with a Spring Carnival and Stone Kole wants to dance in the big beach parade. This story was inspired by the people of Jamaica, who hold a yearly Carnival, also called "Bacchanal", around Easter. The festivities start on April 3rd this year and will continue until the 9th. There are colorful street parades with participants dressed in elaborate costumes dancing to the music of Mas Bands. Revelers enjoy food, drink, and music as they celebrate. In Chapter 129 of Zootopia: A Raccoon Returns, you can read about a different version of a Zootopian spring celebration. Jake, Nick, and Judy participate in the annual Daffodil Parade with hilarious results.

For a Carnival party song, I would recommend "Endless Summer" by Kes the Band.

The fennec fox in a black and red bowling shirt growled several very vulgar curse words as he pulled his van into the apartment complex's parking lot. He was staring up at an open door on the second floor. "Dammit, it looks like we've been robbed!" the tod snarled out.

"Do you think someone is still inside?" the vixen in the passenger seat asked anxiously before digging into her purse and pulling out her cell phone.

"I don't know, but stay here and let me check things out!" the fox grabbed a baseball bat from behind his seat and opened the door.

"Finn, let me call the police first!"

"Susan, I want to teach whoever is in there a thing or two about messing with the wrong fox before the cops show up."

Finnick ran up the stairs and burst into a messy room where cardboard boxes were scattered with their lids thrown open. It looked like someone had rummaged through them before tossing them aside. The fox's ears shot up when he heard a noise coming from the bedroom, and he tightened his grip on the bat as he silently stalked down the hallway toward the open door. Inside the room, he noticed a tan tail and hindlegs sticking out from under the bed. Someone was pulling on something under there. "What the hell are you doing?" Finnick barked in surprise as he confronted the individual.

"Dude, I'm stuck!" a muffled, but very familiar voice, answered. "Can you lift the bed a little?"

Finnick grunted as he dropped his bat and lifted the end of the bed. He watched while the other fennec fox wiggled free and pulled out a box from under the bed frame. The younger tod greeted his father with a stupid grin and said, "Hi, Dad!" as he looked up at the older tod.

"Stone Kole, what are you doing?" an irate female voice cried out from the doorway. The younger fox's grin quickly turned into a grimace when he saw the expression on his mother's face.

"I already asked him that question," Finnick dryly remarked.

"Hi, Mom!" Stone softly answered with a meek wave of his right paw.

"Can you please tell me what you are doing?" asked the vixen.

"Well, next week is the Spring Equinox and they are having a big Carnival parade on the beach..." Stone began to answer.

"Just tell me what you are looking for?" Susan interrupted with an agitated sigh as she slumped against the door and stared at the mess around her.

"I'm looking for my carnival outfit so I can dance in the parade."

"So you trashed the place looking for it?" Finn asked while he shook his head.

"I forgot where I put it!" Stone whined.

"It's stored in the backroom closet," Susan answered. "But, don't..!" the remainder of what she was saying was ignored when the young fox leaped up and raced toward the closet door.

"Stone, don't…" she called out her warning again.

The young fox yanked open the closet door, but before he could jump back, a heap of boxes and bags cascaded onto him. Stone let out a surprised yippy yowl, a sound unique to fennec foxes, as he was buried under the contents of the overstuffed closet.

"Stone!" Finn frantically yelled as he began to dig through the assortment of boxes and bags only to sigh in relief when his son gave him a thumbs up from amongst the chaotic mess.

A few moments later, the younger fox clutched a box in his arms. "I found it!" he joyfully proclaimed.

"So you did!" the older tod grumbled while he looked at the disaster around them.

"I'm going to go show this to Karen," the fox happily exclaimed while he raced past his father.

Stone didn't get far, for Finnick had grabbed his son's arm. "You're not going anywhere until you pick up everything and put it back."

"Ahhhh! Come on, dude!"

"Don't you 'come on, dude', me! You're not going to just waltz out the door, leaving me and your mother to clean up this mess."

Now Stone's mother, Susan, was a bit of a hoarder. She was very organized but she still kept too much of what Finnick at first called "old junk" stashed in various boxes and bags. Almost as fast as Stone would repack a box and try to put it away, the vixen had to reopen it and rummage through its contents. Initially, Finn complained to her that Stone needed to hurry up and put everything away, but soon he too was drawn into the many memories each box contained. "You remember these?" Susan asked the older tod as she held out two matching tee shirts.

"Yeah, Lake Woebegon in the Green Mountains!" Finn answered with a grin. "That was the long holiday weekend we camped in that old, ratty tent we borrowed from your Uncle Larry."

"It was so hot that we had to sleep on top of our sleeping bags."

"You had brought your flannel pajamas, thinking it was going to be cold at night, but it turned out to be way too hot for you to wear them."

"The weather wasn't the only thing hot in the tent that night," the vixen giggled.

"MOM!" Stone exclaimed.

"Oh come on, we were your age and we were two foxes in love!" Finn laughed.

"We were a few years younger than Stone is now," Susan interjected. "Look, here is that swimsuit I bought for the trip!" she exclaimed as she held up a cherry-red string bikini.

"I remember going shopping at the mall and helping you pick that out."

"I remember a certain tod who kept finding more swimsuits for me to try on, each one being more risqué then the last."

"You didn't wear it since we went skinnydipping instead."

"DAD!" the younger tod whined after he pulled his ears over his eyes as if he were once again a child.

"I wonder if it still fits?" Finnick mused as he held it in his paws. "Maybe you could try it on?"

"DAD!" Stone grumbled.

"Goodnight, son," his mother huskily called out before she grabbed Finnick's paw and pulled him toward the bedroom.

"But didn't you say that I had to pick everything up?" the younger fox asked in confusion.

"We've changed our minds," Finnick replied while giving his son a wink. "Goodnight, Stone. Lock the door on your way out."

Suddenly realizing what his parents were up to, the embarrassed younger fennec fox quickly fled the apartment with his box.

Several hours later, Stone Kole stood in his girlfriend's parent's condominium and excitedly opened the box to show her what was inside. "So, it was in the backroom closet at my mom's apartment after all," he said after he pulled out a colorful red, green, and yellow feather-bedecked top hat, along with a beaded chest piece that draped over his shoulders and had even more feathers attached to mimic a pair of wings. Setting this aside, the fox removed a couple of colorful beaded armbands, and what looked like a pair of shiny royal blue nylon shorts.

"It is very…ah, very...ah, feathery," Karen commented. "When was the last time you wore that outfit?"

"I think it was a few years ago, why?" he replied. the pretty sandcat held the shiny shorts in her paws and gave the fox a shake of her head. "What's wrong?" Stone asked in a concerned tone.

"Go try this on," she answered even as she shoved the shorts into his arms.

There was grunting coming from the bathroom and slowly the door opened. Stone had managed to squeeze into the shorts. "See, they fit," he claimed with a grin.

"Don't you think that they are too tight?"

"I did have to take off my underwear to pull them on, but they will do just fine," the fox answered. He leaned over to pick up one of the armbands he had dropped and there was the telltale sound of the shorts ripping at the back seams.

Stone quickly pulled his tail to cover the tear, causing Karen to giggle. "When was the last time you wore this outfit?" she asked.

"Let me see, I think it was before Storm went to jail for the first time."

"Stoney, weren't you fifteen at the time?"

"Yeah, I must have grown some since then."

"That was over five years ago."

"What am I going to do?" the fox pouted.

"I guess we need to go shopping," the cat answered with a grin.

"Shopping. I hate shopping for clothes."

"You have never complained when you go clothes shopping with me. I thought you liked it when I asked you for your opinion about if an outfit looks good on me?"

"I'm your boyfriend and sitting around being bored while you try on outfits is a...a job requirement," Stone scoffed.

"A job requirement?" Karen giggled at the mischievous look he was giving her.

"Yeah, I'm sure that it is written somewhere in the Unofficial Book of Being a Boyfriend," the fox teased.

"The Unofficial Book of Being a Boyfriend? There is no such thing."

"We hide it from you girls."

"Sure you do!" Karen snickered, and then she paused while she looked down at his waist. "By the way, your tail is wagging and not covering up the tear."

The fox's large ears blushed even as Stone gripped his fluffy tail to once again cover the torn seams before he hurriedly rushed back into the bathroom.

A few hours later, Stone had finally found some shorts that he could use with his costume. They were a pair of simple blue shorts, not anything close to the shiny ones that were being replaced. The fox now patiently watched while his girlfriend searched through a display of bathing suits. "Do you think I would look good in this one?" the cat asked as she held a cherry-red string bikini in her paws.

"Not in that color!" Stone quickly protested.

Karen stood there in surprise when she noticed her boyfriend had pulled his blushing ears over his eyes as if he were a child again.

Lake Wobegon is a fictional town created by humorist Garrison Keillor for his A Prairie Home Companion radio show.

Storm is Stone's littermate and whereas Stone took to the surf to become a surfer, his brother took to the streets to become a criminal. He is locked up in jail, serving time for a crime he committed.