Chapter 9: How Can You Call This Surfing?

Zootopia's favorite small surfer is back! This time he is going to pit his bodacious surfing skills against...wait, who surfs on the sand?

I like to pair my stories with some music and may I suggest Faouzia's amazing version of the song Desert Rose written by Sting and Cheb Mami?

In my stories, Stone Kole does not use the expected "surf lingo" in private conversations as much as he does in his public interviews. The fox only goes 'Totally Surfer Dude' for the camera because that is what his fans want and expect. This idea was inspired by an interview with a surfer named Micah Peasley that had gone viral online because he spoke the way that you would expect a California beach bumming surfer to sound. Mister Peasley admitted years later that he was only acting as the "dumb surfer" and did so for the camera because he thought it would be more entertaining, which it was.

"Surfing is only done on the water," the fennec fox in a pair of light blue swim shorts declared as he scratched at an itch on his white furry chest. He paused for a moment to hike up the back of his dark blue and white striped boardshorts, or 'boardies,' as they are nicknamed by the surfers, before picking up his surfboard from the sand and continuing to walk down the beach.

"Come on, Stoney," the meerkat dressed in a pair of lime-green boardies protested as he picked up his own board and followed the fox.

"Reggie, did you forget that I broke my arm snowboarding?"

"Naw, but this time there will be no snow."

"It's sand, brah! Who surfs on sand?"

"It's an old tradition from our homeland"

"My homeland is Zootopia, I grew up six blocks from here." the small fox scoffed while giving his friend a very foxy smirk.

"Dude, you know what I mean!" the meerkat replied. "Overseas, where our ancestors came from. Besides, Reggie Belafonte said he'd pay us!"

The fennec fox's big ears shot up and he leaned forward. "Pay us, why would he do that?"

"He is opening a sand surfing ride."

"That two-bit hustler is always scheming up some get-rich-quick stunt to get folks to visit his rundown water park."

"You're just mad at him because of the wave pool incident."

"That thing could have killed me!"

"It didn't and you're just pissed because you lost your swimsuit."

"He made me and Cooper wear those cheap boardies."

"You were standing buck-naked in front of all those fans. Cooper said you didn't even realize you had lost your shorts until he pointed it out to you. Thank goodness you have such a large tail and could use it to cover yourself while you slunk off into the building."

"Shut up!" Stone huffed as he pouted for a few moments, with his ears lying flat against his head. Eventually, one of his ears lifted up, and the fox asked, "How much is Reggie B. offering to pay us?"

"How much do you currently have?"

"Not much after last night's date with Karen."

"Then he's paying you more than you currently have," Reggie laughed.

"That doesn't answer my question," Stone grumbled.

A couple of days later, Stone Kole stood atop a massive artificial sand dune, which was at least as tall as the biggest dune in the Great Sand Dunes Park, as he surveyed the small crowd standing in the water park below while he wondered where Reggie Belafonte got all of this sand. He glanced over at his friend Reggie and the meerkat was engaged in conversation with Reggie B. The chunky sea otter was wearing a white shirt and black slacks; he also sported a peculiarly odd-looking furry toupee on his head and a heavy gold chain around his neck. A slender skunk standing nearby held a camera.

The fox's ears twitched when he heard a soft tread in the sand behind him and he turned to see another fennec fox striding toward him. The vixen was dressed in a tight black crop top and a pair of equally tight spandex caprice pants which accented her natural feminine curves. He didn't realize that his muzzle was hanging open, his ears were plastered back, and he was obviously sniffing her scent while he stared at her. The vixen stopped and put her paws on her hips while she gave him a smirk before she called over to him in a language that he didn't understand. Seeing his confusion, she spoke again with a heavy accent and he realized that she was from one of the desert nations overseas, "So you are the fennec fox who likes the water?"

"What?" he stuttered out in surprise.

"You are the tod who likes going into the water," she repeated herself with a shake of her head. "I thought you wouldn't be so...so skinny."

"I'm not skinny, I'm lean!"

She stepped closer to him and reached out to put her paw on his chest; he flinched slightly, causing her to grin. He caught her scent again, and she smelled faintly of desert roses and definitely a vixen. "Then we will go with 'lean' instead," she teased. Her tail flicked past his, and he understood that she was toying with him. "Mister Belafonte says that I am supposed to teach you how to sandboard."

"I'm Stone Kole."

"Tawenza," she replied before she bent over and picked up one of the yellow boards. There was a flick of her tail and her hind end wiggled a little, she was definitely flirting with him. She held the board up while she inspected it and what she said made Stone wonder if she was cursing in her native tongue. "What are these cheap things? A good board is made from veneered wood and has a laminated base," she then yelled over to the sea otter in a very exasperated tone.

"Those are the sandboards you are going to use today. It's just like the ones I'm renting to the customers," said Reggie B. "Put on the tee shirt too."

The vixen muttered something else and held up the canary yellow tee shirt, which had Reggie B.'s picture on the front and an advertisement for his waterpark on the back. With a sigh, she pulled it over her head and yanked it on. "Come on, fox," she growled when she threw him another shirt. He removed the gray sleeveless cotton hoodie he was wearing and put on the yellow tee shirt.

Stone selected one of the boards. It was similar to a snowboard, but longer and thinner in size. Tawenza tossed him a small plastic jar of something; the jar also had Reggie B.'s face on the cover. "Is this wax?" he asked.

"It is supposed to be," she answered as she unscrewed the jar she held and sniffed it. "No, it's just cheap petroleum jelly!" she grumbled. "Where's the good stuff?" she shouted to the sea otter. "We need paraffin wax and not this junk!"

"That is my special championship mix," Reggie B. called back. "I've got cases of it to sell."

Cursing yet again, the vixen knelt and began to rub the mixture onto the bottom of the board.

"Surfers wax the top of our boards to give us traction," Stone observed as he began to wipe his own sandboard.

"This is supposed to make your board slick so it can slide better over the sand," she replied.

Stone pulled the straps over his footpaws and he wobbled a bit when he stood up, finally gaining his balance as he stood there and watched while Tawenza bounced and slid the last few inches until she reached the dune's edge.

"Take small hops until you reach the edge of the dune," she explained. "Then point the board downslope and gravity will take over. Lean backward and bend your back knee, keep your weight back as you go down the slope. You can spread your arms to help balance yourself." The vixen suddenly slid off and began to glide down the sandy hillside, cutting back and forth as she went. She made it look so easy.

"See, it's not so hard! You just have to use your legs and body to turn," she called out from halfway down the dune. "Come on and give it a try!"

Giving her a shrug, he too slid over the edge and began to slip down the dune's side. Faster and faster he went, but then suddenly one of the cheap straps broke, and the fox's footpaw slipped off the board. Head over tail, he tumbled and the sand stung his eyes as he rolled down the dune. "Look out!" he heard someone yell, but it was too late, and he grunted when he smacked into something soft before finally coming to a halt.

Shaking his head Stone discovered he was sprawled on top of someone, his eyes widened in surprise when he realized that he was almost nose-to-nose with Tawenza. "You might want to move those paws, tod!" the vixen softly growled.

Frantically, he awkwardly started pushing himself up until he realized he hadn't moved his paws from her chest and that their legs were entangled. Letting go, he collapsed onto the vixen once more but this time the two foxes were cheek-to-cheek. "Get off of me!" she grunted into his ear.

In a panic, he quickly rolled away from her and slid further down the sand dune. "Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!" he cried out.

"I'm fine, you didn't hurt me," the vixen said as she staggered to her hindfeet while she shook the sand from her shirt and glanced down at him. "Now come on and let's try that again." The look of embarrassed confusion he gave her made her laugh. "I mean, for you to try sand surfing again and this time don't run me over."

"Did you get that?" Reggie B. whispered to the skunk holding the camera, and the cameramammal nodded. The sea otter rubbed his paws together and grinned. "Good!"

"Brah, I spent most of the day with my face in the sand," Stone grumbled. He sat on one of the benches which lined the Boardwalk and lounging next to him was his best friend Cooper.

"From the photos in this online article, when it wasn't in the sand, that face of yours was ogling a certain vixen," the wallaby replied in a rather terse manner. Cooper shoved his cell phone toward the wincing fox.

"She was trying to teach me how to sand surf."

"Are you sure that's what you wanted her to teach you?"

"Ah come on, Coop, I've only got eyes for Karen."

"That's not what is being insinuated in this article."

"Yeah, I'm going to have to give Reggie B. a piece of my mind, he is saying that nonsense to drum up publicity for his harebrained sand surfing ride."

"Crikey, mate, good luck explaining this shot!" Cooper exclaimed before he handed his cell phone back to the fox.

"I fell and went tumbling head over tail down the dune...she just got in the way!" Stone stammered, his ears laid flat upon his head. The photo on the phone's screen showed the two fennec foxes tangled up together in the sand.

The wallaby just shook his head.

"I'll think of something before Karen sees this. At least she is working tonight." Just then the fox's old phone rang and he flipped it open to see who was calling. His ears drooped and he gave the wallaby a look of panic. "What should I tell her?"

"I think the bloody truth would be best," the wallaby replied.

Stone sat on a bench watching the receding late morning tide. Overhead seabirds were calling out as they swooped around before landing on the beach. Sandpipers were scurrying and frantically pecking into the wet sand after a wave receded in hopes of snatching a sand flea or some other morsel for breakfast. Then the gray and white feathered birds would comically race away from an incoming wave only to turn and seemingly chase after it when the waters withdrew. "Stoney," someone called out. The fox turned and saw a meerkat approaching holding two Styrofoam cups of steaming coffee. Reggie sat down next to him on the bench and passed him one of the cups. "What's wrong?" he asked

"Brah, Karen saw the article and THAT photo."

"Was she mad?"

"Not once we talked, but after she got off from work late last night I took her out for drinks. I wanted to make up for what happened."

"Dude, you didn't do anything wrong. It was an accident."

"While we were at the bar, we ran into Tawenza."

"That must have been awkward."

"Not really, the two really hit it off."

"So what's wrong?" Reggie asked.

"I'm once again almost flat broke," Stone answered.