[Elizabeth]
Perhaps everyone else is right. Maybe I really am helpless. I'm not naive. I knew I was small before, but now... now it feels like I barely even qualify as existing. In a universe that's so much larger than anyone would have thought possible, what difference could a small speck like me ever hope to make? And yet, somehow I have to. If I'm going to accomplish anything at all in this infinitesimal life of mine, it has to be this. Oh Luke... I wish I shared your confidence in me. I've got to do this. For Luke. And for my son.
One week earlier...
[Nick]
It was hot. Really hot. No I mean like, really, really hot. So much so that I wondered if this was a sign of the end of the world, or something. This heatwave was unprecedented, and yet, here I was standing outside in the middle of it. I love my job.
I breathed heavily as I began to feel like I was standing in a sauna. I pulled an object out of my pocket and opened it with the flick of my wrist. It was a fan I had picked up at Scratch One Dollar earlier that morning after seeing the weather forecast for Savannah Central. Upwards of one-hundred degrees with humidity to boot, clear skies, and not so much as a light breeze.
I had had an idea of what I was in for and, naturally, had come prepared. In addition to the fan, I already had an umbrella out over my head to shield me from the sunlight and was wearing my usual tinted aviators as I stared at the huge masses of animals that had gathered before me.
This was both one of the largest and smallest protests I had ever seen, since the crowd comprised literally hundreds of thousands of individuals that were almost exclusively rodents. Mice, rats, shrews, gerbils, and just about any small fry you could think of were all there that day.
Several officers, including Judy and myself, stood in front of City Hall forming a blockade to guard the entrance to the building by cutting the crowd off below the main staircase.
Out from the crowd poked hundreds of little signs that read things like "When it comes to food, size DOES matter," "Stop upscaling prices for smaller animal goods!" and "Mice have to eat TWICE the amount elephants do for their body weight."
An angry shrew stood on a small stand near my feet speaking to the multitude through a megaphone. "Rodents have been the most marginalized and neglected demographic of Zootopia since its inception. Fewer and fewer dedicated homes to accommodate us smaller animals. Constant fear of being stepped on, squashed, or swallowed. Now, they have the gall to charge us the same price or higher than that of larger mammals for less food. For Pete's sake, a cracker with cheese on it is more expensive for a rodent than a three-footer sandwich is for a giraffe. No more! Today we take a stand by demanding that we be charged what our food is actually worth."
The crowd of rodents cheered, hollering and whistling in agreement as a mouse stepped up to the stand as well, also holding a megaphone.
"Fellow rodents, please, listen to what you're saying!" he cautioned them. "A cracker with cheese is like a large deep-dish pizza for a shrew or a mouse. They charge us the same amount as larger animals because it's the fairest way to do it, not to marginalize or oppress us. Think about it for just one moment. If prices fall significantly for rodent food, prices will inevitably rise significantly for larger-animal food. For every cause, there is an effect. A giraffe, rhino, or elephant shouldn't have to pay five-times the amount a mouse does for their sustenance."
"Let them sort that out for themselves!" a rat cried from the multitude.
"Yeah, that sounds like their problem, not ours!"
