When Climbing Up, the Main Thing Is Not to Fall Down “High…” Judy whispered, looking at the hole in the ceiling.
“Are you really going to do this?” Sam asked.
Judy tore her gaze away from the hole in the ceiling and shifted it to the little mouse.
Looking at him, Judy nodded several times, barely perceptibly.
“Right,” she began boldly and cheerfully, “I’m going to need help.” “What do you need?” Sam inquired again.
Only now did Judy notice that everyone had started treating her differently.
They were listening to her, and even the old sneering horse Oscar, who had laughed so loudly at her, now stood silently and listened attentively.
And the trio of ram accountants, whose “refuge” under the tables she had wrecked, were looking at her completely differently.
“Uh…” she said and, gathering her thoughts, continued.
“So, here’s the plan.
I’ll need David.
Right?” Judy looked at the young horse David, confirming she had gotten his name right.
David nodded in response and then added: “I won’t fit in there.” “And that’s not required,” Hopps replied, struggling to move the table and clear some space.
“You need to toss us up to the ventilation.” A pair of rams rushed to help her.
“Sorry, did you say ‘us’?” the bewildered Sam asked again.
“Yes, unfortunately, us,” Hopps confirmed, simultaneously pointing her paw to where David should stand.
“And who’s going with you?” Sam asked nervously.
He immediately looked around, glanced at the three rams, David, and Oscar, and realized that only he or his assistant Gren could go with Judy.
“I see,” Sam said, “I’d go with you myself, but I’m responsible for the bank’s money, but Gren, my assistant, will be useful to you; he knows the bank perfectly and will help you in every way.” Sam grabbed his assistant, the mouse Gren, by the shoulders and pushed him forward, toward the doe rabbit.
“Excellent,” Hopps agreed.
She carefully took the mouse, trembling with fear, in her paw.
“Don’t worry,” she whispered softly to him and placed him on her head.
“And hold on tight.” Gren grabbed the gray fur on the top of Judy’s head so hard that she involuntarily winced.
“You shouldn’t have started this,” Oscar said, breaking his silence.
Judy looked at him, running the whole situation through her head again.
Maybe the old horse was right; she should have stayed here in safety.
No one would dare accuse her of cowardice or dereliction of duty.
She could protect these animals if the crocodile broke in here.
But she also understood that there was a chance to help those in trouble, whose lives hung by a thread.
And, remembering Nick’s words about Chief Bogo’s temperament and how things could turn out, she couldn’t pass up this chance.
“Maybe you’re right,” Judy said, “but I have to do this.” Judy stepped onto David’s hooves, which were obligingly cupped together.
“Just don’t miss,” Hopps said, looking down at David’s face from above.
“Delivered in the best possible way,” he replied.
A powerful throw from David, from the very floor to the maximum height of his stature, forced poor Gren to experience incredible G-forces.
He had watched high-speed races before and often heard about the heavy G-forces the drivers experienced.
At that moment, he understood what race car drivers went through and what happened to their bodies.
He was simply pinned to the top of the doe rabbit’s head; he couldn’t move; everything before his eyes turned into blurred streaks.
By nature, Gren was very responsible and always did everything he was told.
And right now, under immense G-forces, he clung to the doe rabbit’s fur so tightly that it seemed another moment and his paws would fuse with it.
The hole in the ceiling, which had been so high and unreachable, grew in size in a second.
And now, when the speed had peaked, Gren found himself in complete weightlessness.
Without letting go of the fur on her head, he flew upward and prayed that the police doe rabbit would manage to grab the edge of the air duct.
He absolutely did not want to fall down.
Hopps didn’t want that either.
Gren saw, as if in slow motion, how the two huge fluffy paws of the doe rabbit grabbed the edge of the ledge with their fingers.
“Oof,” Gren squeaked barely audibly and fell back onto the top of Judy’s head.
A joyful exclamation and praise for David came from below.
“Good throw, kid,” Oscar exclaimed.
“How are you up there, Miss Police Officer?” Sam shouted.
“Fine,” Judy responded, and rolling her eyes upward, addressing her own head, she added, speaking to Gren: “How are you doing?” “Alive,” Gren forced out, holding one paw to his heart, the other not letting go of Judy’s fur.
Judy was hanging on a vertical surface, holding on only with her fingertips to the edge of the air duct ledge.
Her hind legs were raised and bent at the knees, and the soles of her paws were pressed against the metal structure, thus helping her front paws’ fingers hold on.
They didn’t stay in this position for long.
Judy’s body tensed up as if on command, and with one powerful jerk, she jumped into the air duct.
By inertia, the mouse’s body flew forward, and now, without letting go of the tuft of fur, he was hanging on Judy’s muzzle.
“Sorry,” he apologized and quickly climbed back onto the top of her head.
At the last moment, Judy turned and looked down into the room.
From below, three rams were looking up at her, bewildered.
Probably wondering why she was doing all this.
Sam was already busy with his own work.
He was giving orders to Oscar and David about reinforcing the “barricade.” One fleeting glance — and Judy disappeared into the darkness.
In the complete darkness, a small click sounded, and the bright light of a flashlight illuminated the gloomy and dusty, cobweb-covered metal air duct, going forward and branching off in different directions.
Judy’s eyes and the mouse Gren, sitting on her head almost flush with the top of the ventilation pipe, peered into it all.
“Well, where to?” Judy asked.
“Uh…” “Gren,” the mouse from above replied.
“Yes, right, Gren.
And where do we go now?” “I don’t know.” Judy had absolutely no desire to crawl through all these dusty labyrinths and waste precious time.
She moved forward slowly, brushing away cobwebs with her paw.
Reaching the first fork, she stopped.
Looking right, then left, Judy couldn’t decide which way to go; doubts tormented her.
The doe rabbit stood indecisively.
“Maybe right?” the mouse suggested.
“Maybe left?” Judy suggested simultaneously with Gren.
“We need to go up,” Gren clarified, “as far as I understand.” “Yes,” Judy replied.
“You know, I once worked with installers; they were setting up ventilation blowers…” Gren began.
“Those are the propellers in the ventilation shafts for forcing the air flow,” Hopps clarified.
“Yes, yes,” Gren confirmed.
“The thing is, they are only installed in vertical ventilation shafts that connect different levels of the shafts.
So, they put a special light near each blower.
And if we turn off…” Judy, without listening to Gren, turned off the flashlight.
“The light,” Gren finished slowly.
Complete darkness fell again.
“Right, you look right, and I’ll look left,” Judy ordered.
When you have to strain your eyes in complete darkness for a long time, they get used to it.
What seemed like utter darkness becomes a dull gray.
Judy and Gren peered into the gloom.
They even held their breath, as if that helped them see better.
“Miss Hopps…” Gren whispered hesitantly.
“I think it’s this way.” “Are you sure?” Judy asked without taking her eyes off her own side.
“Uh…
probably, yes,” Gren replied, already less convincingly.
“I think I saw a glint.” Judy rolled her pupils upward, trying to make out her uncertain assistant.
“Alright, let’s go,” Judy said and turned the flashlight on her phone back on.
The bright beam of the flashlight, dispelling the darkness, scared a spider, and it slid into a hole a second before its web was swept away by Judy’s paw.
The web stuck to her paw and stubbornly refused to come off.
And the further Judy crawled, the more dust and cobwebs stuck to her.
Gren was even less lucky.
The poor mouse was completely tangled in it.
A little more and he would have resembled a large cocoon.
Gren kept snorting and grumbling barely audibly.
Finally, their suffering came to an end, and reaching a corner, Judy and the mouse turned and saw another ventilation shaft.
It also went forward and branched.
Judy sighed involuntarily at the inevitability of exploring every corner of this labyrinth.
“Sorry,” Gren said, “I really thought I saw a reflection.
I apologize, it’s because of me we went the wrong way.
I should have listened to you, and then…” Gren fell silent the very second the light in Judy’s flashlight went out.
“Oh, no!” he whispered in a panic.
“We’re lost and left without light; we’ll die here.
And it’s all because of me.
Just don’t tell Mr.
Sam anything; he’ll kill me.” “No panic,” Judy stopped him confidently, “I turned off the flashlight.
Be quiet and feel.” “Feel wha…” Gren didn’t have time to finish again before a breeze ran through the hairs on his paw.
Ahead, about five meters away, from above, where apparently the vertical shaft was located, a very dim light was falling.
“You were right, Gren,” Judy said cheerfully.
“Good job, little mouse.” If Judy could have seen her assistant, she would have appreciated his reaction.
A huge smile bloomed on Gren’s muzzle.
“Quick!” Judy said and dashed forward.
Gren had to duck and hold on tighter so as not to fly off when Judy picked up speed.
Collecting all the cobwebs along the way, they reached the coveted shaft.
Now standing at full height in the shaft, Judy couldn’t figure out where the light was coming from.
All she and Gren could see was a dark tunnel going upward.
“Where was the light coming from?” Judy wondered, and even the flashlight’s beam couldn’t penetrate the darkness of the ventilation.
“Maybe we’re hallucinating?” Gren suggested.
“No, Gren, there’s clearly a trick here; we definitely saw the light from the fan’s illumination.” “Yes, Miss Hopps, I saw it too.
And the wind was there too.” “Then let’s climb.” “Back?” “No.
Up.” “Oh…” Gren said.
And after his words, Judy felt a slight vibration on the top of her head.
“Don’t be afraid, Gren.
Rabbits are excellent climbers.” “Like squirrels?” “Well, not like squirrels, but pretty good too.” A grimace of distrust towards Judy’s words appeared on the mouse’s muzzle.
Judy carefully examined the ventilation she would have to climb.
It was square in shape.
In terms of its area, it easily accommodated Judy.
The metal the shaft was made of was polished to a shine, but it had joints where two sections of pipe connected.
This was a small protrusion, literally three centimeters.
The seam was located every meter and a half.
That was more than Judy’s height.
“I’m going to climb up,” Judy prepared herself, “and you hold on tight; it’s going to shake.” “Uh-huh,” Gren replied, looking at his two paws, which had been firmly dug into the doe rabbit’s fur even before the flight into the ventilation.
Gren didn’t even think of letting go.
Judy put her police badge into one of the pockets on her belt, and in its place, she attached her phone with the flashlight on.
This way, it lit her path in the dark tunnel.
Judy jumped upward with her hind legs, sliding along the smooth surface of the ventilation casing.
This gave her the necessary impulse for the ascent.
With her front paws, she grabbed the barely visible edges of the seam.
The flashlight beam slid across the metal casing.
Judy froze in this position, holding on with her front paws to the edge of the seam, and her hind legs braced against the metal frame of the ventilation.
She raised her head to spot the next protrusion.
At that moment, poor Gren hung vertically, holding on only to Judy’s fur.
Spotting the next protrusion, Judy took a deep breath and, pushing off with all her paws, jumped upward.
The mouse also flew upward and fell onto the top of Judy’s head.
“Ow,” Judy said involuntarily.
“Sorry.” Judy’s jump.
“Ow!” Gren’s cry again.
“Sorry.” Another jump.
“Sorry.
I’m so sorry.” Another jump upward.
Judy’s fingers hooked like claws onto the small ledge.
The flashlight beam wandered chaotically along the pipe during the jumps.
A grimace of slight pain from poor Gren, who was getting it no less than she was, appeared on Judy’s muzzle again.
“I didn’t mean to,” he apologized again.
It was time for the next jump.
And just as Judy raised her head to look around, a bright light hit her face, illuminating everything around.
And right behind it, a fan, located a couple of meters from Judy, turned on.
A powerful stream of air hit Judy in the muzzle.
Blinded, Judy lowered her head.
Below, a huge abyss was visible, illuminated by the ventilation’s backlight.
The air stream, ruffling her fur, pressed down on her from above.
It was getting harder and harder to hold on.
Gren was also pinned to the top of Judy’s head by the powerful air stream.
“Aaaaah!” Gren’s scream rang out.
Judy clenched her teeth with all her might, trying not to slide into the abyss.
Her fingers stiffened, and her claws dug into the metal, causing her severe pain.
She began to breathe heavily, trying to find a foothold for her hind legs, but it was all in vain.
Judy was holding on with her last strength.
Another second, which seemed like an eternity to her, and the air stream weakened slightly and soon stopped blowing altogether.
The fan slowed down and stopped, and its backlight also dimmed and now shone barely, but enough to see the powerful fan blades.
“Miss Hopps, how are you?” Gren asked fearfully.
Now that the air stream had stopped pressing down on Judy, it became easier for her.
However, her strength was leaving her.
It was hard for her to stay in this position, clinging to a three-centimeter ledge.
She couldn’t hesitate; Judy understood that perfectly.
She had to crawl up, or she would have to fall down.
And while a fall might not be fatal for Judy, for Gren it was a serious danger.
She understood that she was responsible for this eternally apologizing mouse.
“I believe in you, Miss Hopps,” Gren encouraged her.
“You’re in a hurry, let’s go forward.
Remember — up.
You said we need to go up.” “Up…” Judy forced out.
Gathering all her strength, she jumped upward, catching onto the fan mount.
Squeezing between the blades, without stopping, she pulled herself up and jumped again, pushing off from the motor that spun the fan blades.
Three gray-white fingers of Judy appeared on the dusty metal surface of the air duct; a second later, three more joined them.
This was the very top of the pipe Judy and Gren were climbing.
It led directly to the upper level of the air duct.
Then the doe rabbit’s elbow appeared, and her head half rose to the edge.
It all resembled a tired athlete trying with all his might to do a pull-up on a bar.
As soon as the top of Judy’s head appeared, Gren immediately jumped from Judy’s head onto the metal surface and, without letting go of the fur on her head, began to pull her towards him, trying to drag Judy into the ventilation.
Not knowing how effective his help was, but slowly but surely, Judy finally climbed up and collapsed, exhausted.
Gren only had time to jump aside when the exhausted body of the doe rabbit fell down onto the dusty ventilation casing.