The Time Traveler's Guide to Zootopia

Chapter 25: An Old Bustle

Without that false fluffy tail behind my back, I felt incongruous with my surroundings. In Zootopia, not having a tail was starting to feel like my world's equivalent of not having your battle gear ready.

No gun, no protection. No mask, no breath. No tail, no dignity. There's no fitting in.

Perhaps an animal officer in the room didn't have a tail. Someone I could relate to? As far as I could tell, they all had tails - everyone except me.

Too many staring faces, all of them giving me awkward stage fright. Not good.

Quite frankly, it reminded me of those random dreams everyone experienced growing up where they'd find themselves in a large public setting - all naked, with nothing on - and there was nothing that could be done except wait for the dream to be over.

All the while, the projections within the dream would either stare the naked person down, laugh at them, or attack as a horde of white blood cells. The situation was terrible either way because no escape route revealed itself until after the moment of embarrassment was felt. Sometimes, one would eventually find a pile of clothes on the floor, a paper sign to use as cover, a closet to hide in, or perhaps a loaded pistol as a sure way of waking up.

Dismissing my thoughts, I frantically searched my immediate area while remaining frozen in place. So, where did my tail go? How did I lose it? Now, my cover was partially blown. To them, I must've looked like a freak.

Aside from my current predicament, I couldn't help but admire the main area we were in...

Sometimes, when an audience is staring you down, the only way to remain on stage is to distract yourself with something non-living. In my case, it was interior architecture.

The multi-story lobby had an impressive layout containing multiple tree gardens throughout the main level with a centralized help desk surrounded by a giant sheriff star engraved on the floor. Behind the circular desk, I saw an ironically overweight cheetah holding a large birthday cake reading, 'HAPPY 30TH!' along with a couple of boxes of rainbow-sprinkled donuts next to him. At first, I kind of wanted one until I saw a powdered donut lodged into the fat fold of his neck. Disgusting. I bet my appetite ran away faster than he ever could.

His mouth was completely full, and his cheeks completely puffed up, but he didn't seem to swallow due to being diverted by my unexpected presence. To the left of him, there stood many more ZPD animal officers of different sizes, heights, and species who all wore the same blue uniform.

There were two maned lions, another rhinoceros, four tigers holding mugs, two grey wolves holding a birthday banner on the upper balcony, a blonde-haired pig, a wide-eyed African elephant, a hippopotamus with twitching ears, two polar bears, a black panther, a black bear, a horse, two ugly sheep, and a... good heavens... a minotaur-looking cape buffalo who looked like he wanted to put me in a chokehold.

He was a top-heavy build with dark grey fur, a four-star pinned shirt, and folded muscular arms. His pessimistic and suspicious-looking nature would not go well in these next few moments if I kept staring at him; thus, I avoided eye contact and turned to face the other officers.

While the others weren't quite as intimidating nor authoritative in appearance, they all seemed mildly confused and greatly disappointed by my unexpected arrival, which ruined the surprise party. The entire room transitioned from silence to murmuring among the animal officers, and I began to wonder what they were saying about me. Whatever it might've been, things weren't looking too swell, so I weighed my possible options out. Couldn't think of any at the moment.

"Wilde!" the buffalo bellowed out, pointing at me. "See to it that this mammal gets checked in! Whatever he is." 

"Gladly, sir!" smirked the fox who began to guide me along. "I'll get our little party crasher here tucked away."