Fanfiction for Zootopia
Despite having received a lot of orders to process, no one has actually come in to pick one up. In contrast, Dana quickly ran out of her two bottles of arak, so after tidying up the sampling station and putting it away, she’s just been hanging out with me behind the service desk for the past little bit.
We pass the time while waiting for the next wave of customers to hit. “So that festival you were talking about earlier. You said that Wakefield Place was doing something?”
“Oh, yeah. They’re sponsoring us to run a show on their stage for Zootopia Fringe. It’s happening in a few months. You know about Fringe?”
I shrug slightly. “I’ve seen posters for it, but not much else. Something in Tundratown? To be honest, I don’t go over there too often.”
“Yeah, in the Arts Quarter. A lot of the theaters, and even some bars, are giving super cheap admission for amateur stage and music shows. All the ticket sales go to the performers. Drives a lot of traffic to the district. Me and a couple of friends decided to apply for a stage slot at Wakefield Place, and they selected us by lottery for one of their time slots.”
“Well, fitting for a drama student. You probably already have everything rehearsed.”
“Pff. We got the notice that we were selected last week, and we still don’t know what we’re doing! We kinda, sorta only shot an application for laughs. It— Oh, hi!”
With some secret raccoon sixth sense, Dana swivels around to look into the crowd milling around the path, then greets the hare that emerges from it. The hare’s approach puts our little chat on hold.
“Hello, you two. I was wondering if you could help me with…” The hare rummages around inside her purse and pulls out a small notebook. “Picking up this order I have… here.” She flips some pages over, turns the notebook around, and places it on the table for us to see.
“Number 84391?” I unlock the computer to go look up the order. Time to ask The Question again. “I also need to verify the pickup. Could I see a piece of ID, please?” Yeah, looking at 84391 here, I really need to verify this. This is not the usual kind of order we get in the small division.
“Oh, sure.” She goes through her purse again to find her wallet. Several zippers later, she pulls out her driver’s license.
Abigail Drover. Portraits match.
Age— okay, it’s already obvious.
I look back to the computer screen to see the order details. I give her card and the computer another good look, then return her card.
“Yeah, that really does match.”
The hare laughs. “Unity Day parties have cost efficiencies to optimize!”
I’d imagine family parties for her species are like that.
“We’ll go get your order out in a bit. You, uh, have a way to carry that, right?”
She nods. “Oh, absolutely. You can just bring it up to the door. I can take care of the rest.”
“Excellent! We’ll be right back.” I look over to my right, at the puzzled raccoon. “Come on, Dana. I’ll need your help for this one.”
“Hm. Haven’t done this before.” Dana once again follows me into the warehouse.
“No orders and pickup at 204?”
“Nope. That’s probably why Clarence set you to do that this period and left me on sampling.”
“84391. We’re looking for that order at stash number 6.” I stop one row down. Dana and I look to both sides. “First shelf in, to the left, here. Actually, I think we’ll need the pallet jack for this. I’ll go get it.”
I leave her at that row and head over to the slop room again to get the stupid thing. Thankfully, it’s still unlocked.
Dragging it behind me with one paw, I walk by Dana again and continue down the row. “Miss me?”
I stick the jack into the pallet at stash 6 and give it a good several pumps to jack it up. “Hng!” Unsurprisingly, this thing is actually pretty heavy. I lean back and pull with both paws and still only nudge it out by a small distance.
“Uh, is that… the right stash?” A very reasonable question to ask.
“Oh, ngh! One hundred percent! She ordered this thing!” With a few more strained drags, I manage to pull the pallet out a bit more. “Whew. This 8 liter bottle of Batcardi! Look at this thing!”
Seriously, look at it. It’s taller than both of us. Even on tiptoes, I couldn’t reach the bottle cap.
Dana doesn’t say anything. She looks up and down the bottle, then between it and me. “Uh.”
I look at her through the clear, almost pale teal of the rum. “You didn’t come to Store 100 to not see something like this! Now come on.” I shift my grip to one side of the jack’s handle. “I need your help pulling this out of the store.”