Zootopia: The Visitor

Worse than Blueberry Pie

[Nick]

  Groaning, I grabbed my phone off of my side table and checked the time. Past noon. I sat up feeling more well-rested than I had in a while. I hadn't been able to sleep so well for so long all week. It felt pretty good to finally relax a little. Rubbing my eyes and pulling on my shirt from the foot of my bed, I stood up and took a look out my window. The sun was already high in the sky, and the day had passed the halfway mark.

  My stomach grumbled in neglect. The whole ordeal as of late had left me pretty famished. I remembered the leftover pizza I had left in the fridge and designated that as my lunch-slash-breakfast for the day. Walking into the hallway toward the front room, I wondered how my token hobo had slept. "Luke, buddy," I called as I came to the end of the hall. "You awake?"

  I stopped as I saw that he wasn't on the couch, or anywhere else. I checked the bathroom to make sure he wasn't by chance relieving himself there, and a few other places, but he was nowhere to be found. Feeling a tad worried, I came into the front room again and noticed a note posted to the fridge that hadn't been there the night before. I strode over, swiping the note from under the magnet and looking it over.

  "Gone for a walk, eh?" I chuckled, shaking my head. "About time that kid found a new hobby." I put the note back on the fridge and opened it to get to my pizza. I took it and put it on a plate, being sure to put a paper towel over it before setting it in the microwave, and after a minute, I had myself some hot n' ready pizza.

  As I enjoyed my healthy and nutritious starter-meal of the day, I thought about what I was going to do for the remainder of it. I assumed that Judy would be visiting later that evening, so I figured it would be considerate and thoughtful to make a few preparations. Why not make something nice for her? I thought.

  With a mouthful of pizza, I reached for the refrigerator door again, taking an inventory. The first thing I noticed was my pack of blueberries. What about some pie?

  I took my apron out of the drawer near the sink and put it on, tying the straps around my waist. Officially in cooking-mode, I grabbed my little notebook of recipes off of the countertop, wiping some flour from the cover, then flipping through it to see if I had one for blueberry pie. Sure enough, I found a recipe I had written a while back while watching the cooking channel. Excellent. Next item of business was checking my ingredients and seeing if I had enough of each. Looking back and forth between my notebook and the contents in my fridge, I took mental account of each item on the list. Flour, sugar, cornstarch, butter, blueberries.

  It seemed I had all the right ingredients, but the blueberries were a little old, and I didn't have quite enough sugar. It'll be fine, I thought, carefully retrieving each ingredient and setting them on the counter. I followed the steps by first setting the oven to 350 degrees, then commenced in creating my pie by mixing together some dough, rolling it out, and putting it in a tin pan. I then dumped the blueberries, sugar, and melted butter into a bowl, stirring it together thoroughly before pouring the concoction into the pie crust. Next, I took some left-over dough and laid it over the blueberry mixture. Last, I poked holes in the top for ventilation, finalizing it for baking.

  Once the pie was in, and the oven closed up, I leaned back and sighed in satisfaction. The pie would take about half an hour to cook. Till then, I had dishes and things to put away. I took each bowl, plate, utensil and cleaned them carefully one-by-one. It was after I had finished washing my dishes and had begun putting things away that I felt a vibration on my thigh. Confused, I reached under my apron and into my pocket to grab my phone. Thinking it was probably Judy, I looked at the caller ID, surprised to find that it was an unknown number. That should have been my first clue.