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A little while later, Judy and Nick found themselves sitting in a dull-looking room within the ZPD. There were other officers in attendance, sitting next to their partners. Standing at the front of the room was perhaps the cutest, fluffiest , downright most adorable animal anyone had ever seen before.
The cute, fluffy, adorable quokka smiled at the assembled officers. “Welcome to partners in crisis,” she said, gesturing toward a slide that was projected on the wall behind her. “A workshop for duos heading for disaster. I am your therapy animal, Dr. Fuzzby. And you are here because mismatched pairings often need a little more work to make them... work.”
Dr. Fuzzby looked at the officers and saw that one was grooming their partner's fur, picking out bugs. The partner didn't seem very happy. “Greg, we talked about that,” Dr. Fuzzby said. “What are we making Marlon? Uncomfortable. Yes.”
A couple of seats over, an anxious elephant looked at Marlon and Greg, then turned to see a mouse. The elephant yelped .
“And, Francine, Clark may be a mouse, but he is your partner first,” Dr. Fuzzby said. “And we have two new apart-ners. Can you tell us about your journey to dysfunction junction ? How long have you been struggling?”
It took Judy a moment to summon the courage to speak. “Well, we've been official partners for one week,” Judy said, poking Nick. “Happy anniversary. And we are not dysfunctional at all actually. Functioning fine—better than fine. And we did sorta save the city, so us being here kinda seems like a huge misunderstanding.”
Dr. Fuzzby nodded, then turned to the rest of the group. “Notice how she answered first, did not allow her partner to speak, seemed to be in a state of denial, and tapped her foot when she was suppressing discomfort.” Judy's eyes went wide. Only then did she notice that, indeed, her foot was tapping. She stopped immediately, and Nick smiled.
“And observe the source of her discomfort,” Dr. Fuzzby continued, “represented by the disconnected affectation of her emotionally insecure partner.”
Nick's smile fell. He couldn't help but notice that the other partner pairs were looking at him and Judy, staring like they were in desperate need of help.
“But with hard work, they'll be on the same page... by year two,” Dr. Fuzzby said. “For now, as always, we begin by greeting our teammate. Who would like to go first? Thank you, Joel.”
Joel, a deer, turned to his partner, a honey badger named Karen. He smiled at her. Karen freaked out .
“Okay, unfortunately Karen has chosen to see Joel's smile as a sign of aggression ,” Dr. Fuzzby said. She picked up a spray bottle and spritzed Karen with water. “Hackles down, Karen. Karen, hackles down. The safe word is pineapple.”
“Pineapple!” Joel shouted. “Pineapple!”
“Someone get the hose!” Dr. Fuzzby ordered.
Dr. Fuzzby kept spraying Karen, and Judy and Nick looked at each other. What had they gotten themselves into?
The workshop that seemed to last forever finally came to an end. Both Judy and Nick were glad to be out of the stuffy room where, for all they knew, Karen was still losing it.
“We'll set another meeting with the chief, get back on the case, you talk back less, maybe not at all,” Judy said, approaching her locker.
Nick grabbed a drink from a nearby vending machine.
“Yeah,” Nick said to Judy. “Or we go with my playbook, and we just lie low.”
“We cannot prove ourselves if we are stuck in that room,” Judy said.
“And if we complain to Chief Beef, he'll just make us stay longer,” Nick pointed out. “Play it smart, stay off the radar , and don't let it get to you, okay? 'Cause we are the dream team!”
Nick reached into the vending machine, removing a can of soda. He tossed it to Judy, but she wasn't prepared. The can crashed through the drywall .
Judy and Nick peered through the hole. The soda had smashed into someone's workstation. It was Paul Moledebrandt, who worked in IT, or information technology.
“Sorry, Paul!” Nick said. The soda can exploded all over the mole as Judy and Nick hurried away.
Walking toward the exit, the partners passed by some officers who were watching a news report on Judy and Nick's earlier car chase. The officers laughed. Judy fumed. “You don't think this is unfair?” Judy said.
“Let me ask you something,” Nick said. “Do you think we're good partners?”
“Of course,” Judy replied as they walked through the revolving doors. “I just... I just wish it felt like someone was rooting for me and you to... make it.”
Now outside, Nick stopped walking and looked at Judy. “We will make it... to Jumbo-pop Friday!” he said. “ 'Cause we're off the clock !”
“No nights off until we are out of the doghouse ,” Judy said.
“That's a canine slur... And maybe Bogo is right about one thing: One of us may like to overdo it.”
“And the other may be the emotionally insecure source of our discomfort,” Judy said. Then she handed Nick a book about partnerships that she had been carrying. “The sooner we ace partner class, the sooner we're back on the case,” Judy said brightly. “Enjoy it, I got two!”
“I'd rather chew off my own arm,” Nick said.
Walking away, Judy smiled as she said, “Happy anniversary!”
Judy had just made it to her apartment with a huge stack of mail. She began a Muzzle -Time call with her parents, Bonnie and Stu.
“So, saw the news, saw you on TV,” Bonnie said. “You okay?”
“Everything's fine, Mom,” Judy lied.
“Uh-oh,” Stu said. “Everyone knows fine is a cry for help.”
“What does your fox partner say?” Bonnie asked, switching the subject.
“He has his own way of handling things,” Judy replied.
“Well, you two are very different,” Bonnie said. “Small-town hero raised on a farm—”
“Big-city crook raised on the streets,” Stu said. “Just remember the first rule of partnerships: You can be right, or you can be happy.”
“That's true,” Bonnie added.
Stu and Bonnie then started to argue over who was pushing who out of the picture, and that's when Judy decided it was time to end the call.
“Bye, Bun-Bun,” Bonnie said.
“Love you! Goodbye! Bye!”
At last, Judy hung up the phone. It had been a very long day, and all she wanted to do was... read the case file she had brought home. Then she looked at the partnership book.
Unfortunately, there was no choice. If she wanted to have any hope of looking into that case, or any other case for that matter, Judy was going to have to work on her and Nick's partnership. She turned on the TV for some background noise and set to work highlighting passages in the partnership book.
While she worked, she listened to a news show about the Zootennial. “But tonight, we put our differences aside and celebrate one hundred years of togetherness at the Zootennial gala , where the Lynxley Journal , containing the patented weather-wall plans, will be on public display for the very first time since an incident a century ago,” the reporter said. Judy looked up at the TV. She saw footage of the Lynxley Journal . “Which is why gala security is so tight,” the reporter continued.
By then, Judy had tuned out the news and was now focused on the case file she'd brought home. Inside was a Zootennial pamphlet recovered from the blue crate aboard the catering van. She opened the pamphlet and discovered a photo of the Lynxley Journal , with a circle around it. The file also held a photo of the stolen catering van. Judy noted the logo—it was a match for the catering vans she saw entering the gala on the news.
“Same van,” she said quietly.
Picking up her phone, she zoogled the words Lynxley Journal , which led her to another episode of the podcast Scaly Tales of the Weird . She pressed play.
“As my subscribers know, the one hundredth anniversary of the weather walls is also the one hundredth anniversary of Zootopia's only snake attack,” Nibbles said. “The tragic fanging of Tor-toise Shelldrick, the Lynxley family's nanny. She was fanged while stopping a venomous snake from stealing the Lynxley Journal . No one has seen a snake in Zootopia since, but I am convinced one will return. The only question is whether he'll be wearing half-a-pants or one long sock.”
Judy's brain was now abuzz with thoughts of snakes, her partnership book a distant memory.