Zootopia - The Story of Nick Wilde

Chapter 2 - childhood stories (pov Judy Hopps)

He went back to the house again, went around it and came back a few minute later carrying some pieces of wood and a bucket full of water.

He placed the dry wood in the middle of the stone circle and spread some of the water around it, to prevent the grass from catching fire. Then he collected some of the other grass and hay, which was laying around everywhere, and placed it on top of the firewood. Using this as a fire starter, he lit the whole construction and blew some air onto it.

I watched in awe as the handsome fox carried heavy things around and light the fire with a combination of strength and passion that was really beautiful to watch. The slowly fading sunlight shone through the tunnel of the bridge, flooding everything in a wonderful shade of orange. It had been a very long time since I've seen such a wonderful evening on a place that was this pleasant and with calm and sunny weather such as this.

Nick, finally happy with what he had created, turned his attention to me again asking if I'd like some marshmallows and if I could bring the deck chairs closer to the flames.

I agreed with both of questions and he went back to the house again for a minute.

"Didn't you ever do this in your Childhood?" he asked, as he showed me how to put the marshmallows onto the wooden sticks and roast them over the fire.

"No, my parents have been afraid of open fire for as long as I know them and since I have more than a hundred brothers and sisters, this was always far too dangerous in my family.

"Yeah ok, that's a good argument. I was doing this with my parents nearly every weekend back when I was a child."

"So that's why you're so good at this. You're lucky that your parents spent so much time with you, not everybody can enjoy that!"

"They were the only ones who gave me some love back then. Since I was a predator in a school where nearly everyone is was a pray, I wasn't really finding friends. Sure, I was not the only one, but I was the only fox at the entire school so everyone declared me as the nonsensible and untrustworthy nerd. My parents where the only ones preventing me from losing every hope and really turning into a monster..."

"Well..." I started, after a long and uncomfortable silence. "...they did a pretty good job, that's for sure!"

He shook himself a little, trying to get that old memories out of his head, but then he caught himself and smiled at me again.

"Yeah, I'm glad that's over! But enough about me, your early days must have been much more fun than mine, according to the amount of euphoria you're carrying around with you all day!"

I wasn't able to hide a flattered grin, as I heard that, but I caught myself pretty quickly and began to tell.

...

"...and you wanted to join the police, back when you were a kid?" he asked, after I had told him the story of my stage performance, where I was telling everyone that every animal could be anything they wanted to be.

"Yeah, I wanted to be a cop for as long as I can remember. But on that day, my wish was firing back at me..."

"What happened?"

"Later that day that fox bully, which..." I stopped in my tracks, wanting to smack my own head.

"I am sorry Nicholas. I should have thought before I start talking..." I said, after sighing slightly.

He played it off, as it was not a big deal, but I noticed that his ears had dropped a little as the word fox appeared again. Only then did I notice that that was exactly the problem of his childhood, even when he had nothing to do with it.