The Fire Triangle, A Zootopia Fanfiction -- Part One: Fuel - 54

Disclaimer: Zootopia stories, characters, settings, and properties belong to the Walt Disney Co. This story is written under Fair Use Copyright laws.

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The Fire Triangle-A Zootopia Fanfiction

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Part One:

Fuel

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Chapter 6-Nick's Story

(Continued...Pt. 4)

Judy Hopps was sitting with her ears laid back and her arms crossed, hunched into herself and looking like an angry little gnome.

Yes, it had happened years before they'd met, and yes...Nick had changed a lot since then. Certainly he was a different fox than the one she'd spotted slinking into Jerry Jumbeaux's two years previously. And, let's face it; she wasn't exactly a babe in the woods herself when it came to the subject of interspecies prejudice.

But still...BOP-a-Bunny!

The thing that had really set Judy off had been that one of bopper-targets had been dressed up as a bunny-cop, as if to mock her ambition of one day becoming a police officer herself. What was it she had said to Gideon Grey, after making the announcement at the Carrots Days talent show, (...probably right around that same time?) 'It may seem impossible to small minds.' Well if Gideon's mind had been small back then, Nick Wilde's had been practically microscopic!

BOP-a-Bunny!

She looked up sharply as he returned to the lounge car, bearing a peace offering of a double carrot-cake latte, (a replacement for one she'd pitched at him.) Yep, and there it was, that hurt-little-fox-cub look again.

"For what it's worth Carrots..."

"Judy," she corrected him, just to let him know he wasn't getting off the hook with her quite that easily.

"All right, Judy," he said, setting the cup in front of her...very gingerly. When she'd first seen the image of the Bop-a-Bunny game, her cup had been nearly drained, (and she never missed twice.)

"As I was saying," Nick went on, choosing his words carefully, "Robyn wasn't very happy either when she saw the Bop-a-Bunny game ..."

Judy swiftly interrupted him. "Good for her!"

"And she also pointed something out to me," the fox went on, hurrying a little, "while our other attractions were just about predators having fun with their hunting skills, this one had us playing at trying to hurt another animal. 'You better hope the Prey Species Preservation Society never sees this thing,' she said to me, 'They won't know whether to string you up or thank you for the ammunition.' She was right of course, and the Bop-a-Bunny game was gone by the day of our Grand Opening. "

Judy grumbled, sighed, and reached for her latte. All right, she supposed...she'd forgive him, this time.

Nick must have read her body language, because he settled down quickly into his chair and continued on with his story.

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"On the day we finally opened, Wild Times drew a grand total of five patrons...and the next day only ten..."

"No, Carrots...that was the general idea. This wasn't our Grand Opening, that wouldn't happen for another two weeks. Our first day in business, we just opened the gates and let the patrons come on in; we hadn't done any advertising or made any announcements, not yet. It was strictly word of mouth."

"Why? Well, for a number of reasons. First off, it would give us the chance to work out any bugs and/or glitches before the Grand Opening. This was nothing unusual Judy; lots of businesses operate that way. When the Cinetopia Megaplex opened downtown last year, they were showing movies for almost a month before they had their Grand Opening. Anyway it was during our 'trial run period', as I like to call it, that...uh, would you mind putting down that coffee cup for a second? That also was when we decided to pull the Bop-a-Bunny game."

"The other reason for holding off on our Grand Opening was, we wanted to get at least a few animals through the gates before the Prey Species Preservation Society found out about Wild Times; everyone knew we were in for a fight when that happened, and we needed to be ready. Especially we needed to get some customers inside the park, before PS-PS could crank up their noise machine. We knew what was coming; they'd try to paint Wild Times as an R-rated gore-fest...or that's what they'd do if we didn't have any witnesses to refute them."

"But in the meantime, on day three we had twenty customers come in through the gates

"...and then fifty..."

"...and then a hundred and fifty..."

"...and then the weekend came and things took off, four hundred patrons on Saturday, seven hundred and fifty on Sunday. The next morning, I was sleeping in when I got a call from Finnick. 'Better turn on ZNN Nick, they're onto us."'

"I knew exactly who he meant by 'they'. When I rolled over and hit the remote, the first thing I saw was the smiling face of Nina Banhados, NOT the loveliest sight in the world, especially after you just woke up. She was nutria..."

"A Nutria? They're members of the rodent family, Carrots...but you'll never see one in Little Rodentia; they're semi aquatic for one thing, and for another, they're about the same size as a beaver. In fact, they look like a lot like beavers, except with a round tail...and they have incisors THIS long. Thar's why seeing a nutria smile isn't a particularly..."

"Yes, that's right...a coypu, same animal, different name. Nina Banhados was the executive Vice President of the Prey Species Preservation Society-and also the City Council representative for the Canal District. It figured that PS-PS would pick her to be their spokesmammal...or in this case, their attack-rodent."

"When I turned up the sound, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry; a lot of what she was saying was pretty much what we'd expected. 'This park is going to encourage violence against prey species.' 'The very existence of Wild Times is demeaning to all non-predator species...' yakitty-yak...blah, blah, blah... Some of what she said though was just out there. For instance she claimed that the Catch Me if You Can ride ended with the animals pouncing on and 'killing' a stuffed deer. Hah, as if we could do that, even if we'd wanted to. Not only was the idea completely tasteless, even to a predator, do you have any idea how much extra COST that would have added on to the ride? And she had similar things to say about some of the other attractions; no, the Bite Me burger didn't squirt blood when you chomped down on it."

"Wha...? Oh you're just never going to let me forget about that, are you Carrots? What was it you did with that red ribbon and that bottle of ketchup at the Carrot Days Talent Show again?"

"That's better. And to answer your question...no, she didn't bring up the Bop-a-Bunny game; it was gone by then anyway. I'll give you this much though; heaven only knows what would have happened if we hadn't pulled it before PS-PS found out about Wild Times. But getting back to the story, right then I got another call-this time from Mr. Big. Instead of saying hello to me, his first words were, 'Are you seeing this, Nick?'"

"'I am,' I told him."

"And what that nutria is saying...how much of it's accurate?' It was one of those questions that's not a question; the tone of his voice was saying pretty darn clearly that my answer had better be 'none'."

"'Not one word, Mr. Big,' I assured him...and then I just couldn't resist; I said, 'Well except for 'and' and 'the'; those words are perfectly true.'"

"Heh, for once, one of my jokes didn't boomerang, Carrots. Mr. Big laughed and told me, 'That's what I thought. So you're just going to give her enough rope, Nicky...is that the plan?'"

"'That's it Mr. Big sir,' I told him. Actually I didn't have a plan, but why tell him that? 'As a wise old fox once said, "When the enemy is committed to a mistake we must not interrupt him too soon.'"

"'That was said by a shrew,' He snapped, pretending to be indignant (or maybe he wasn't pretending) and then he rang off."

"Wha...? Ahhhh, okay Fluff, have it your own way, it was a BUNNY that said it first; I'm not going to argue with you. But when Finnick called back a few minutes later, he was almost laughing his tail off. "Awrite Nick, 'fess up. How much are you payin' that Nutria to say all that stupid stuff?'"

"'Are you kidding, little guy?' I told him, 'I couldn't afford that kind of publicity if I hit the Prowlerball Jackpot.'"

"Yes, I'm serious Judy. What do you think was on every predator's mind when they heard those allegations? 'Could any of this be true?' That's what I'D have been thinking, and sure enough, not five minutes after that broadcast ended I got a call from ZNN, asking for comment."

"What do you think I told them, Carrots? I denied everything...and then I said, "Anyone who doubts me is welcome to come to our Grand Opening Celebration this coming Saturday at 12:00 Noon, we're offering free admission to all City Council members; come and see for yourselves what kind of rides and attractions we're offering."

"A clever fox...me? Wel-l-lll, maybe a little. Still, I was on pins and needles for all the rest of that week. Between fending off reporters and trying to get ready for the Grand Opening, I don't think I got more than six hours of sleep the whole time. Finally, the big day came. When Finnick and I arrived at the park, I could see the picket signs from a hundred yards away. 'Good,' I thought, 'let them come.'"

"When our driver pulled up in front of the pier entrance, (Mr. Big had let me borrow one of his limos for the occasion,) that was when I saw the trouble. From a distance it had looked like the picketers were keeping off to the side. A lot of them were, but not all of them. Now I could see a triple line of protesters, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, stretching from one side of the pier to the other-and completely blocking the entrance. I hadn't spotted their picket signs earlier because these protesters were smaller than the ones, flanking the pier-side...much, much smaller; they were rodents, every single one of them, and not big ones like Nina Banhados. There wasn't an animal in that picket line who couldn't have fit through the entrance to Little Rodentia with half an inch to spare. Worse yet, the line of predators waiting to get into the park was starting to get restless. Ohhh boy, if they up and hurt any of those rodents blocking the entrance-especially with the TV cameras watching-that'd be all the excuse PS-PS would need to shut us down. The cherry on top was that the 'prodentesters' had arranged themselves so that there was no way to get to the turnstiles without stepping on them."

"Yeah, I know, I couldn't believe it either. And there, right in the middle of everything and looking all smug with herself was Nina Banhados. When she spotted me, she shot me a thumbs-up and a wink. 'Got you this time fox...nyah, nyah, nyah,' she seemed to be saying."

"What did I do? Well as it turned out, I didn't have to do anything. Carrots. Just as I was opening the door to my limo, a little pint-sized roadster went shooting out from underneath, and made a beeline right at Nina Banhados. I saw it screech to a halt in front of her, and then the door flew open and Charles D. Lutwidge got out."

"Oh, that's right, before your time in Zootopia, Judy. Charlie Lutwidge was the dormouse who represented Little Rodentia on the Zootopia City Council. Nobody thought too much of him, he had a habit of falling asleep during council sessions, as least the ones held during the day; (dormice are mostly nocturnal.) I couldn't figure out what the heck he was doing there, or what had gotten him all stoked up like that."

"It didn't take long for me to find out. He went stomping over to Nina Banhados-if a mouse can be said to stomp-and then just lit right into her."

"'Hey, you long toothed idiot!   Just what the heck do you think you're doing here?'  Whoo, he was really ticked. That kind of language from Charlie Lutwidge was like anyone else saying something that could get their mouth washed out with toilet-bowl cleaner. Nina Banhados wasn't put off, though...not for one second."

"I'm doing what needs to be done, Charlie," she answered, folding her arms and looking all righteous. And then I saw her pointing at the park entrance. "This Wild Times is an insult to each and every member of a prey species in Zootopia.' I could tell she was speaking to the press as much as to Lutwidge-and also to her supporters. A few of them lifted their signs up when she said that."

"Unfortunately for her, Charlie Lutwidge knew how to play to the cameras too."

"'So, you think that it's okay to get someone hurt, maybe even killed because of an insult?' He squeaked, and then pointed to the lines of rodents blocking the entrance, 'Fine, then recruit your martyrs from your OWN district; you do not come here and put anyone from Little Rodentia in harm's way! Do you understand me?'"

"Someone nudged me in the elbow, and when I looked, I saw Robyn, holding out a bag in my direction and grinning from ear to ear. 'Popcorn?' she asked me."

"'Don't mind if I do.' I answered, grabbing pawful of fluffy kernels and setting back to watch the spectacle."

"It was a losing battle on Nina's part. As Charlie Lutwidge had correctly pointed out, the rodents blocking the park entrance were HIS constituents, not hers. And besides that, there was something he had thought of that she hadn't."

"You waterlogged moron; I know what you're thinking, that if anyone in that picket line gets stepped on, they'll sue the park and put them out of business, am I right?"

"Nina didn't answer, not verbally, but the look on her face was practically a neon sign flashing 'YES'."

"Uh-huh, right," the dormouse told her, and then he turned on the sarcasm, "And of course, they WON'T sue the city, even though it was a Zootopia City Council member who put them up to it, right?"

"That ended THAT discussion in a hurry, Carrots. I forget who gave the order, Nina or Charlie, but the crowd dispersed-the ones blocking the entrance I mean, and now we could get on with the ribbon-cutting."

"But not before Charlie Lutwidge gave me parting shot, on the way back to his car."

"Don't think this means I'm on your side, fox." He squeaked, aiming a finger at me, 'Nina's right, this park is an affront to every almost every animal in my district.'"

"Noooo, I almost said something smart, but for once I checked myself. It was a good thing Finnick hadn't heard him, thought; I don't think he could've stifled it."

"I have to admit...after all of that drama, the opening ceremony came off as almost tame by comparison. Part of that was because, thanks to the delay, we had to rush things in order to get the gate open by noon, as we had promised. I tossed my original my speech for a generic canned address and then I cut the ribbon and we were open for business."

"If this had been a movie, the day would have ended in one of two ways. Way number one, a dastardly act of sabotage would have caused a stampede, the cops would have come, and we'd have been sued and out of business. Way number two, the park would be a smash hit, so successful that never again would the Prey Species Preservation Society dare to impugn our character."

"What actually happened was, we had a successful Grand Opening, not great but very good, and while there were no acts major of sabotage, there were still all the little glitches that come with the opening of any major attraction. The concessions stands ran out of soda in the middle of the afternoon, the lights on the Furries Wheel wouldn't work, we didn't have enough seats on the Roar-a-Coaster to accommodate all of the smaller predators, and Security had to break up at least one fight. Oh, and there was that problem I mentioned with the camera at the end of the Roar-a-Coaster ride."

"But none of those problems were anything we couldn't handle, Carrots. The fight never became a brawl, Finnick managed to lay his paws on some more soda before evening came, and if the lights on the Furries Wheel wouldn't turn on, the wheel itself never stopped turning around. When we opened for business the following day, most of those glitches had been corrected."

"No, The Chimeras didn't play that night-Oh sorry, that was the name of Robyn's new band. I'd loved to have had them, but the stage wasn't finished yet, and anyway she thought they needed more rehearsals. Hmmm, you know...that stage was the only attraction that wasn't completed in time for the Grand Opening weekend. When I look back on it, even I'm surprised by how much we'd managed to get done in the time we had."

"None of the predators on the Zootopia City Council accepted my invitation, not for Grand Opening Day at least-which didn't surprise me one bit. Typical politicians, they wanted to see which way the wind was blowing before they came by. It was only after things didn't end in a disaster on the first day that they started to show up. The first to pay us a visit was Viktor Tighrunov, the Siberian Tiger who represented Tundratown-no surprise there, Mr. Big's turf and all-and the others followed in dribs and drabs. One of them, Matt Le Brunne, the swamp bear who represented the Marshlands District even brought his family along."

"He went back to City Hall with a glowing review of the park, the best we ever got from a City Council Member. No, Mayor Gorton never came for a visit; he was a prey species, (though I've never understood what the heck might prey on an elephant.) He was never openly hostile to the park but he was never a fan, either. It didn't hurt much though, that he didn't get along with Nina Banhados or the Prey Species Preservation Society; he thought they were a bunch of cranks. The Assistant Mayor paid us a visit though...and guess who he was? Yep, good old Leodore Lionheart...and whoa, was I glad when THAT stuffed shirt finally said good night. He expected to be moved to the front of every line, and treated all of the park employees like they were his fursonal servants. Seriously, I barely stopped Finnick from biting him; had to do it, right then we needed every friend at City Hall we could get."

"Oh, yes...Finnick's official title was Park Superintendent. But his actual job was whatever he was needed for. For example the next time it looked like we might have a fight on our paws-two grizzlies got into a shoving match over who was next on the Upstream game-I had the little guy get on the PA system and tell the troublemakers, 'knock it off chumps, or I'm comin' down there!' And it worked; the quickest break up of a fight I ever saw; neither one of those bears had the slightest idea that the voice threatening to get biblical on them was coming from a fennec-fox."

"For the first few weeks we were open, the Prey Species Preservation Society kept up a steady campaign of complaints against Wild Times. They took out full page ads in the paper, they started a blog against us, Nina Banhados began appearing as a regular guest on the Win Hornbuckle radio show. (Win was a red deer and another member of the PSPS.)"

"Heh, glad you asked, Carrots. It backfired...BIG time. The line Nina and her group tried to take was that Wild Times was corrupting the minds of innocent young predators. And that, of course, only brought more of them into the park."

"How so? Wel-l-lll, suppose your sister Erin heard about a place that the predator parents wanted closed down because it was going to 'rot the minds of young bunnies'; what would she do?"

"Right and that's what the predator kids did too, the more the Prey Species Preservation Society tried to get them to stay away, the more they came. 'Heyyy, the prey-species parents don't want us checking out Wild Times; we've got to go hit THAT place!'"

"By the time summer arrived, we had the kinks worked out and everything was running smoothly. We got the stage finished in time for Founding Day Weekend and Robyn finally brought the Chimeras to play the park. It was the first live gig they ever played and they just wowed 'em, Carrots. When they played again the next night, we had whole bunch of prey species show up too; they never even went on any rides, just came to see Robyn and her guys playing. Two days later, that wild boar I mentioned earlier sat down next to me in Snarlbuck's and told me Tommy had skipped town. With him gone, the blackball on Robyn was gone too, and the very next day, her Meffy Newsome was able book the Chimeras for a gig at Barrmundi, a rock club down on Outback Island. Not the classiest spot in Zootopia, but not any kind of dive either."

"One thing I never expected though was that Robyn's success might cut both ways. The day after she got the Barrundi gig, I got a call from the manager of a band called Hollow Ring, wanting to know if I'd be interested in booking them for the coming weekend. It caught me completely by surprise, Carrots. Finnick and I had tossed a few ideas back and forth about producing some live stage shows, but we hadn't come up with anything definite. Hollow Ring...the name sounded vaguely familiar to me, so I told the animal on the other end I'd get back to him and called Robyn."

"'Hollow Ring wants to play Wild Times?' she said to me. 'What are you waiting for, you dumb fox, BOOK them!'"

"That was when I knew it was going to be a great summer."

"Wel-l-lll, not quite; right about then, Nina Banhados changed tactics on us. No more media blitz...instead, every time I turned around the city was sending another inspection team to check out the park. We were visited by the Health Department, MASHA, the Building Code Enforcement Bureau, the Fire Department and even Interspecies Migration Services; they wanted to make sure our employees were all legal residents of the city. It just went on and on, and any time they found even the smallest problem, we'd get slapped with an order, fix this NOW or we close the park. Honestly, I don't know how we kept ahead of it all."

"But we did, and by the third week in June, Wilde Times was raking it in; seriously Carrots, if I'd told Mr. Big I expected to do THIS well when I approached him with the idea, he'd have had me thrown out of The Thaw on my tail-bone."

"No, Nina Banhados never did find out that Mr. Big had lent me most of the money to start Wild Times; I think she may have suspected, but even if she'd known for certain, there wasn't much she could have done with it. The Big Shrew wasn't my partner, he was only my lender; he had no stake in the Wild Times. And whatever else he might have been into there was nothing illegal about his arrangement with me. Just the same, I kept quiet about it...and in fact, my connection with Mr. Big caused me a lot of trouble later on."

"Hrm? Oh yes, we had prey species coming to the park all the time. Didn't I just tell you about what happened when The Chimeras played the park? Okay, yes there were other prey species animals who came to Wilde Times besides them, they'd come on a bet, they'd come on dare; one time we had an Elks fraternity bring some of their new pledges as part of their initiation. Almost none of the prey species who visited the park came out of simple curiosity though; who wanted to spend 20 smackers admission just to see what the inside of Wild Times looked like? It was money well saved too, Carrots because the prey species animals that did come through the gates went home feeling either bewildered, or even a little disappointed."

"Why? Because, according to the rumors making the rounds in the prey-species community, Wild Times was a chamber of horrors that made Ratula's castle look like Cinderelephant's castle. "

"What's that? Oh, I'm sure you can guess, Judy; prey animals entering the park, never to be seen again, prey kids so traumatized by what they'd seen in Wild Times, they needed to be hospitalized, that sort of silliness. And then when the reality turned out to be nothing even close to their expectations...there was this one kid in particular that I remember, a bunny as matter of fact; I overheard him complaining to his friends on their way out through the gate. And what he had to say pretty much summed up the feeling of every member of a prey species who came to Wild Times, expecting to be terrorized "What the heck do predators see in this stupid place; it's BOR-ing!"

"Relieved? Relieved! Are you serious, Carrots? I was horrified! Boring! That's the last label an amusement park operator wants slapped on his establishment. Lucky for me, the predator community thought otherwise."

"Okay, now there was one prey-species animal that used to come on a regular basis; a crested porcupine. I later learned her name was Penny Squillante. She was there at least twice a week, and she always came with a notebook and a tablet computer. Sometimes she brought a camera with her, and not a cheap one, either. She would spend most of the day at the same attraction, and it always followed the same pattern. She would go for a ride, get off, make notes, and then go on it again. I thought at first she might be from the press, but she never talked to any of the park employees. She spent a lot of time talking to the patrons though. That made me think she might have been sent by Nina Banhados to try and dig up some dirt on the park."

"Well, there was only one thing I could do Carrots, I had to leave her alone. She hadn't broken any of the park rules; if we banned her-that was what Finnick thought we should do-it would be perfect grounds for an anti-discrimination suit, the nicest present we could have given the Prey Species Preservation Society."

"Then one day, after about a month, Penny Squillante stopped coming to the park, just not there anymore. We all held our breath, waiting for the other foot to drop. What would it be, a front page expose, a subpoena? Were we about to be cited for the violation of a city-code we'd never even heard of?"

"It turned out to be none of those things; just before the Labor-Day weekend Finnick came to my office to tell me she was back."

"'Where is she?' I asked, and he tilted his head sideways."

"'Outside in the hallway; she wants to talk to you.'"

"'Send her in,' I said. I was wary, but I was even more curious."

"Well it turned out that Penny Squillante wasn't with the press and she wasn't associated with Nina Banhados either. She was a graduate student at the University in Zootopia, working towards her doctorate in Behavioral Science. I offered her a chair and she sat down to tell me what she'd been up to over the past couple of months. "

"'The whole thing started when my girlfriends and I were having coffee and bagels," she told me, ' and discussing some of the claims being made about Wild Times by the Prey Species Society, back when you first opened, I mean; how the park was going promote aggressive behavior in predators, etc. I wondered how true that was and one of the other girls suggested that someone should run a study on the subject. Then my friend Becky said I should bring up the idea with my Professor, George Tarrigan, (He's an aardwolf, by the way.) "Who knows, you might even get a dissertation out of it," she said. Well, Professor Tarrigan loved the idea, and so here I am.'"

"What she had done was pick fifteen of our regular patrons at random, making sure they were as diverse a group of predator species as possible, from a Bengal tiger all the way down to a grasshopper mouse. Then she selected a control group of preds, same species as the first bunch, except they'd never been to Wild Times and had no plans to attend."

'"That was actually the hardest part of the study,' she told me, with a laugh."

"Without getting too deep into the details, Carrots, Penny Squillante was one very thorough porcupine. She kept in touch with not only her subjects, but also with their families and coworkers, keeping close tabs on any changes in behavior; she even had them take an EEG test on a weekly basis."

"Right after she told me that news, she dropped a bombshell."

"We're still in the preliminary stages, Mr. Wilde. But so far, our results show no increase in aggressive behavior on the part of the predators who regularly come to Wilde Times. What it does show-and again it's still early in the study-it seems to show an increase in mindfulness."

"What she meant by that Carrots is that the Predators in the Wild Times group tended to be more thoughtful and innovative than the animals in the control group. They had a much greater awareness of their environment and a much greater tendency to think on their feet than the other predators. If they ran into problem at work for instance, they were far more likely than the control preds to improvise a solution on their own, instead of kicking it up a superior."

"I was floored, Judy. I had always believed that Wild Times wasn't going to promote any kind of BAD behavior in predators...but I'd never expected that it might have a positive effect."

"That was the good news; the bad news was that because Ms. Squillante was an academic and not a reporter, she couldn't even think about publishing what she had so far. Just the same it was cause for celebration and the next night, I threw a big dinner party at The Thaw."

"And that pretty much signaled the end of our problems with the Prey Species Preservation Society. I don't know how they got wind of the Squillante Study; heck I don't even know IF they ever heard about it, but right about then they seemed to lose interest in Wild Times. We still had to deal with those snap inspections by the city, but even they seemed to taper off after a while. I knew we were finally out of the woods when Nina Banhados managed to get through an entire week without mentioning Wild Times, even once, in any of her speeches. That was it; there was no show-down, no courtroom confrontation. Our problems with the Prey Species Society didn't end with a bang or ever a whimper; only with a quiet fade-out."

"By that time, we were doing well enough that I could start seeing Robyn on a semi-regular basis again. We always reserved Mondays for our date night; it was the slowest night of the week for both the park and for bands looking for gigs. The rest of the time though...I remember once when she had to fly home to Pawvidence for a family emergency; I didn't even know she'd been away until she got back. No, she wasn't mad at me, but she was none too happy with Meffy Newsome, who was supposed to have let me know that Robyn was going to be gone for a few days."

"I had started Wild Times with the idea of winning her paw in marriage, but there were times Judy, when that place was reward enough in itself. When I would walk through the park sometimes, and see how much fun everyone was having, when someone would stop me and ask to shake my paw, when some kid would want to give me high five, or when a family would invite me to join them at their table, over by the concession stands; at times like that, I thought that this was just a good place to be. For the first time in my life, I had a future to look forward to, a future with Robyn. But one more thing had to happen first, actually two more things."

"Ah, I'm glad you asked. Well usually Carrots, Independence Day comes before Labor Day, but in my case it was the other way around. Exactly ten days after Penny Squillante's visit, I was able to pay off on my debts to both Mr. Big and Mr. Diamond-ahead of schedule! I sent each of their final payments gift wrapped. (It was strictly cash with those two.) The Big Shrew sent me back a bottle of sparkling cider; I never heard a thing from that...from Mr. Diamond, not then anyway, but I didn't care. Wild Times was mine, free and clear, and I was making more money than I'd ever made as a street hustler. I had done it, I had gone into business as an honest fox, and I'd made it work; even Finnick had to give me that much."

"And that was when I knew that it was time to pop the question to Robyn again."

"I had it all worked out; next Monday after dinner at Baranquilla, we'd take the skytram to the top of Rainbow Falls-and that was where I'd ask her to marry me again; it would be the perfect setting, Carrots. The weather reports called for clear skies and a full moon, and it was the middle of firefly season."

"Instead, as soon as Robyn opened the door to her flat, I had the ring out and was down on one knee again. And this time she said..."

"'Yes?"

"'Yes.'"

"'YES?'"

"'Yes.'"

"'Ohhhh, Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!"

"I grabbed Robyn and started dancing around the hallway with her. After about half a minute of this, the badger who was her third closest neighbor opened his door and stuck his head out. "What the heck is going on out he...?"

"I ran over and hugged him. "She said YES!" Whoa, you never saw anyone in such a hurry to get back inside his apartment and throw the deadbolt."

"When I turned around, Robyn was almost rolling on the floor, laughing her tail off."

"'Oh my God, I don't know who's crazier Red, you...or me for telling you 'yes' just now.'"

"'I love you,' I said, it was the only comeback I could think of...but it worked. In the blink of an eye, Robyn had her arms around my neck and was smothering me with kisses. Then she nuzzled my face and tousled my ears with her fingers."

"Oooo, I'm gonna marry you, Nick Wilde....I'm gonna MARRY you!'"

"I was the happiest fox in Zootopia right then Judy, but it wasn't going to last. Within six weeks, everything had come crashing down."

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Easter Egg, Chapter 52:

At one point Nick remembers Tommy Baldorsson trying to slip Robyn a 'mouse'...as in MICKEY Mouse.