Chapter 7


Nick and Judy just stared at Clawhauser, as he slurped up what had to be the longest strand of spaghetti ever as it seemed like the whole pile on his plate was just one continuous piece. When he finally got the last of it in his maw, he munched it up and chased it down with his drink. It then looked like it he was going to start speaking again, but he just forked some more spaghetti and slurped that up too.

“Can you please tell us what happened next,” pleaded Judy. “We’re dying to know.”

“Yeah, I mean it’s obvious things work out,” added Nick. “But how’d you do it?”

“Oh, well, I got the message from Bogo and I knew it was up to me to save the day,” continued Clawhauser. “I had to tighten the belt I wasn’t wearing and act quickly. Luckily, I knew just the thing to do in this situation.”


“Come on, come on,” struggled the overweight cop as he tried to squeeze out of the passenger seat of the car. “I gotta get out, then back in, on the other side, and get some backup, fast.”

The police cruiser rocked back and forth as the rotund cheetah attempted to force his way out. “Ugh, did I get even fatter while I was snacking in here?” he wondered as inch by inch he started to get out. With one final lunge forward, he popped out and tumbled onto the ground. Getting back up and dusting himself off, Clawhauser then waddled around to the driver side, only to be faced with the same problem, except in reverse and made even harder with the steering wheel to contend with, now, too.

“Okay, Benjamin,” Clawhauser coached himself. “Think thin thoughts.” Taking in a deep breath, the obese cheetah sucked in his gut, compressing it the best he could manage, as he attempted to fit in the driver’s seat. Slowly, ever so slowly, he lifted one leg into the car and then slid one cheek onto the seat. With only that much of him in there, he managed that quite easily, but after that, he was already wedged in and almost out of room with half his body still outside the car. He carefully began to inch the rest of the way in, desperately trying to hold back his belly fat till he got his other leg inside and shut the door. Growing short of breath, he managed to persevere and succeed as he pulled the handle on the door to close it.

“I did it,” gasped Clawhauser, feeling triumph in just getting into the driver’s seat, but this sense of accomplishment was short-lived as he released his gut, making it spill out onto the steering wheel and pressing down hard enough to make the horn blare out loudly.

“Would somebody find whatever’s making that noise and kill it?” shouted Mad Cow as he covered his ears to quiet the noise. Listening to their boss, the henchmen made their way out of the warehouse and towards Clawhauser.

“Oh, cheese and crackers,” cried Clawhauser as he frantically put the cruiser into reverse to drive away, however, as he tried to reach the pedal, his gut got in the way, keeping his foot just short of touching it. With all his might, he managed to suck his gut in and finally manage to press it, causing the car move backwards. With relief, he exhaled once more, only for his reinflated gut to once more become a hindrance and force his foot to press the pedal to the floor. To make matters worse, as the car accelerated backwards, his gut was pressed up against the steering too tight, preventing the cheetah from being able to turn it. Turning his head to see where he was going, Clawhauser bit his lip as he watched his car fly straight into the stone wall surrounding the warehouse, stopping the car with a loud THUD!

“Ugh, groaned Clawhauser, fortunately unhurt beyond an aching gut. The impact got his foot off the pedal but, it was clear now, he was much too fat to drive the cruiser and he had no other recourse but to abandon it. Opening the door, he tried once more to squeeze out of the vehicle.

“Uh, what just happened?” wondered one of the thugs as they arrived outside and saw one of the police cars crashed into the wall. Then, they spotted the door opened and watched Clawhauser struggle to get out.

“It’s another cop,” another one said as they ran to grab him.

Before the obese officer could even get out of the car, he was already surrounded. With a nervous chuckle, he smiled at them. “H-Hey fellas,” he stuttered. “Uh, you wouldn’t be willing to help me outta here, would ya?”

“Sure, buddy,” a large rhino answered as he took Clawhauser’s paw and pulled his fat frame out of the car with one tug.

“Mmph! Ugh, thanks,” he groaned as he fell flat on his face.

“Heheh, no problem,” snickered a hyena. “it’d be a pain to have to drag you and this cop car into the warehouse. Just dragging a butterball like you in will be slightly easier.”

“Yeah,” snickered a weasel. “Now get off that oversized bubble butt of yours and get a move on inside. The boss has big plans and we don’t need any cops causing trouble, even a ridiculously round one.”

“Oh, come on,” cried Clawhauser. “You got me. You don’t have to rub my weight in my face too.”

“Who’s gonna make us stop, fatty?” asked the hyena. “You? Don’t make me laugh. Heh, actually, too late for that.”

“That does it,” snapped Clawhauser, making his paws into fists. “Chief Bogo is counting on me so I can’t be caught. I’ll just have to fight my way out.”

“Hahah!” laughed the rhino. “I’d love to see you try.” In response to that, Clawhauser threw a punch, hitting him right in the jaw. The rhino barely flinched and Clawhauser was the one hurt as he rubbed his throbbing paw. Despite not being the least bit effective, this angered the rhino for simply being hit. “Ok, now you’re dead meat!”

Angrily, the rhino shoved Clawhauser back against the police car. As he collided with it, his belly bounced and wobbled wildly, forcing Clawhauser to fumble forward, back into the rhino. Caught off guard as the sumo-sized cheetah slammed into him, Clawhauser knocked him to the ground as he trampled over him. “Not quite sure how things worked out this way,” Clawhauser panted. “Not that I wanna question a miracle. I just need to run for it before they catch me.”

“Wow!” cackled the hyena, looking down at their rhino friend rather than the fleeing fatty. “Never thought I’d see the day a cheetah would crush a rhino underfoot.

“He might be heavier than a rhino, but he’s slower than one too,” commented the weasel, watching as Clawhauser waddled along, barely creating any distance between them. If the two had wanted to, they could have caught up with the fat cop effortlessly. When he paused to catch his breath, the two crooks couldn’t contain their laughter.

“Ugh, what’s so funny?” groaned the rhino as he got back. “Where’s that cheetah? I gotta make him pay for that.”

“Just let it go, dude,” the weasel told him, as he calmed down enough to speak without laughing. “Just look at him. He can’t run for more than three seconds without having to stop to catch his breath. A guy like that can’t possibly be a danger for us. Just let him go. He’ll probably be waddling all day and night before he gets anywhere to call for help and by then we’ll have already made off with our big score.”

“I guess you have a point,” conceded the rhino. “I kinda feel sorry for the helpless lumox, but if either of you two utter a word about him body slamming me to the ground I’ll give you both something painful to laugh at.”

“Heheh, wouldn’t dream of it,” replied the hyena as the three villains headed back into the warehouse, no longer interested in trying to capture Clawhauser.


“Huff! Puff!” wheezed Clawhauser, barely making it to the corner of the block before he felt far too fatigued to run without pausing the catch his breath for the twelfth time. Luckily, the goons hadn’t bothered to run after him, allowing Clawhauser all the time he needed to rest. However, it damaged the rookie cop’s already crumbling self-confidence. Sitting his enlarged butt down at a bus stop, he decided to do the only thing he could think to do at a time like this, go home and eat his sorrows away.

“Some cop I’ve turned out to be,” sighed Clawhauser his plump cheeks cradled in his paws as he stared down at his feet, though all he could see was his belly. Occasionally, he turned his head to see if the bus was on its way. “I’ve gone from an arrogant athlete to a worthless heffer. The ZPD would have been so much better with someone, anyone else beside me. They wouldn’t have been told the stay on the sidelines while everyone else took part in the sting. They wouldn’t have been seen as a joke by the criminals either and let go without a second thought. No, they’d end up captured like all the real cops and Zootopia would be without anyone left to stop Mad Cow from holding the entire city hostage.” Saying all this, Clawhauser raised his head up a bit, a slight feeling of gratitude to his husky build as hope started to return to his swollen face.

“Yeah, if I wasn’t like this, they would have captured me like all the others and there’d be nobody left to stop them. But I am free. I can still do something. I can stop Mad Cow and rescue Bogo and all the others. I can… oh, who am I kidding?!?” As quickly as the hope came to the overweight cheetah, it left him again. “So what if I am not captured? I can’t do a thing to stop them. I’m not strong or in shape like I was before and, even then, I couldn’t take on so many, on my own. And now, I don’t have strength or speed anymore. What do I have other than a gut that could double as a wrecking ball?”

Clawhauser didn’t expect to find an answer to that rhetorical question, but one did come, just as the bus pulled up and the driver opened the door. “Hey, yeah, that just might work.”

“Hey, mac,” called the goat behind the wheel. “Are you gonna just sit there talking to yourself or are you gonna get on?”

“Oh, no, but tell me,” replied Clawhauser as he checked his watch for the time. It was ten after eleven, a mere fifty minutes till noon, when Mad Cow would release the disease if his demands weren’t met. “How often does the bus stop here?”

“Every half an hour,” he answered. “Why?”

“That’ll leave twenty minutes,” calculated Clawhauser. “Cutting it close, but it’s our only chance.”

“What are you going on about?” wondered the confused goat. “Are you some kinda nut?”

“I’m perfectly fine,” answered Clawhauser. “I’ve gotta go get myself a dress. Make sure this bus gets back here on time! All of Zootopia is counting on it!” With renewed vigor, the fatty waddled off faster than he ever thought he could ever move again.

The bus driver just stared in awe at him before shaking his head. “Yup, a definite nut.” Shutting the bus door, he continued on his route.


“Hahah!” laughed Clawhauser sounding positively giddy as he continued to go on with his story. “And so I waddled my chubby buns to the nearest dress shop, praying that it had something in my pear-shaped figure. Luckily, there was a Hippo Express in the area where I was able to find one just my size. It had some lovely, sparkling, red sequins on it too and was extra stretchy, so I could wear my uniform under it. Then, getting a matching set of pumps and a few bows, one for each of my ears and another on my tail, I was all set to go undercover as a prostitute.”

Judy and Nick just stared at Clawhauser, unsure how anything he just said made any sense with the rest of his story. While Judy struggled to find some words, Nick just snorted before he burst into laughter, tears running down his eyes while his fist pounded on the table. “W-What? You a pros- hahahah -titute? I- hehehahahahah I don’t even- hahah I can’t even breathe!”

“Uh, I think what Nick is trying to, um, say is,” Judy tried to put it delicately. “What does any of that have to do with stopping Mad Cow?”

“Oh, it’ll all make sense,” Clawhauser promised. “Anyway, fully disguised, I made my way back to the warehouse, a mere half an hour left till noon and everything riding on my shoulders.”

“Actually, I think I was there,” interrupted Nick as he recovered from busting his gut to speak. “Yeah, me and Finnick.”

“What do you mean you were there?” asked Judy.

“By chance, we were rolling by in Fin’s truck and I remember seeing, well, I didn’t know Clawhauser, at the time. Back then, it was just some random cheetah in drag.”


“What do ya think?” asked Finnick, a fennec fox with ears as big as the rest of his body. He had on a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt with a couple red lines going across it, one horizontally on the bottom and another vertically on between his neck and left shoulder. As he spoke, his voice was very deep in spite of his diminutive size. “Think he lost a bet or something?”

“Nah,” replied Nick with a light chuckle as he lifted some sunglasses off his eyes to get a better look at Clawhauser as he took out his cell phone and started to make a call. “He looks far too giddy to be doing this against his will. He could be a crossdresser.”

“Hmm,” said Finnick as he squinted and leaned in to see as best he could. “I think… he’s got something on under it.”

“That’s called underwear,” replied Nick. “Don’t tell me you’ve gone your whole life without using-”

“I wear underwear!” shouted Finnick, bearing his teeth in anger. Nick couldn’t help smirk, seeing his pint-sized friend glare at him, but he was careful not to upset him to the point he’d get violent. “No, he’s got something on under it. I think the guy’s a cop.”

“No way,” stated Nick. “I hear the old, horn-headed chief at the ZPD takes personal initiative when selecting new officers. He’d hire a cheetah or a hippo, but not a cheetah the size of a hippo. He’d have as much chance as, say, a bunny at joining the force.”

“Heh, a bunny cop,” snickered Finnick. “Not in a million years.”


“You two did not say any of that bunny cop stuff,” suspected Judy as she listened to Nick’s side story.

“Just a few creative liberties,” replied Nick as he continued.


“Well, whatever he’s supposed to be, that does give me an idea,” Nick said with a little smirk as he gazed at his deep-voiced, little friend.

“Whatever it is, you can count me out,” retorted a hesitant Finnick. “That look of yours always spells trouble for whatever’s in your sights and currently that’s me.”

“Just trust me,” Nick spoke calmly. “I’ve finally figure out our next big scheme and I guarantee you will only have to suffer minimal embarrassment at best.”

“You’ve yet to say anything about a profit,” mentioned the little fennec fox. “And no way am I doing anything with ‘minimal embarrassment at best’ without a big fat, bottom line. And, just so we’re clear, bigger than that bottom line from that whole Corgi Island disaster.” He dotted the end of that sentence with a poke into the side of Nick’s butt.

“Hey, that ring toss game was a gold mine,” he pointed out. “I was merely seduced by a deep-fried goddess that promised me eternal happiness, but only gave hot-clogging cholesterol. Well, lesson learned and the only fat in my life now is how fat I can get my wallet and with this plan of mine, it’s gonna get huge! So, ready to hear me out?”

“...I’m listening,” said Finnick after the silver-tongued fox finally got him curious enough to inquire further.”

“Three things,” listed Nick as he extended a finger for each one. “Baby elephant… Pawpsicles… Hamster construction… Hahah, it’s genius.”

“I bet it is, but mind connecting the dots?” he asked, not sure how any of those things had to do with one another.

“On the way, to Cubs R’ Us,” Nick told him, prompting Finnick to start his van. “Just one question, what size onesie do you wear?”

“Ugh,” groaned Finnick, shuddering as he took his van out of park and started to drive to the toddler department store. “Why do I go along with these nutty con jobs of yours?”

“What can I say, I’m too adorable to refuse,” he chuckled. “Now, let’s get a move on Mr. Tootoot.”

“Mr. Wha-” Finnick began to say but stopped. “Nevermind. I get the feeling I’ll understand soon enough.” The two drove off as Clawhauser finished his call and began waddling back to the warehouse, the short trek far more difficult in his high heels.


“So, because you saw Clawhauser dressed as a woman, that’s how you came up with that whole pawpsicle scam?” asked Judy, recalling the incident that brought the two of them together in the first place.

“Inspiration comes from all sorts of places,” Nick told her. “That was one of our most lucrative schemes too, plus I’ve got dozens of pics of Mr. Tootoot that I send him every so often. Boy, does he get pissed when I send them.”

“And with that lovely little diversion over, how about we find out how Clawhauser used crossdressing to save Zootopia,” she said steering the conversation back to the actual story.

“Heheh, well, all dolled up,” continued Clawhauser, his plate licked clean during Nick’s story, leaving him with nothing better to do but talk till second dinner arrived. “I returned to the factory, dressed and ready to woo those thugs.”


“A heavyset build and high heels do not mix,” groaned Clawhauser his ankles aching with each step he took. His only salvation came from the fact that his destination was in sight and just a few more steps away. “But gotta keep going. Gotta rescue Bogo and Fangmeyer and all the others. Have to save all of Zootopia.”

Reaching the door, he knocked on it a few times and waited. Clawhauser’s heart pounded, certain his plan has a great chance of working, but he was also very well aware of how much danger he was in too. Spying his watch, it was 11:35. “Five more minutes to go and less than half an hour to save the city.” His stomach let out a gurgle and a rumble. “On top of that, I’m starving, but no time for lunch now. I’ve got a job to do.”

Listening through the door, Clawhauser heard someone approaching. The little peephole slid open and the hyena from earlier peeked through it to see Clawhauser. “Nobody’s ho-” he started to say before seeing Clawhauser in drag and suddenly found himself struggling to keep from falling onto the floor and rolling around in laughter. “Uh, heh, just what are you supposed to be?”

“Just a lil lady hoping to show some nice gentleman a good time,” he answered with a terrible take on a feminine voice. He also gave wink and puckered his lips, but that did nothing to hide the obvious truth that he was in a terrible disguise. “Any fellas in there that might be interested? How about you, tall, dark, and handsome?”

“Um, heheh, sure,” he snickered unlocking the door and opening it. “Come right on in… miss, heheh.”

As Clawhauser was led into the warehouse, straight towards Mad Cow and his crew, the villains were also growing impatient as the deadline for them to make good on their threat was growing ever closer. “It is almost noon and we’ve yet to get our money,” stated Ms. Tuskadero. “Will you really go through with unleashing the disease if we don’t get paid?”

“We can’t,” answered the rhino. “I mean, turning half the city into a quarantine zone isn’t going to help anyone, including us. You think they’re gonna call our bluff that we won’t actually make good on it.”

“We’ll all have to evacuate too,” added the weasel. “Find some other city’s dark underbelly to work in and I’m not much into migrating.”

“Fellas, fellas, you’re all forgetting that I’m in charge around here,” Mad Cow told them. “They won’t dare refuse to pay us knowing I’m the one holding the trigger. That Mayor of ours probably still thinks his decorated chief of police is, right now, in the middle of reading us our rights, but when he gets those photos of Zootopia’s finest sleeping on the job, he’ll be writing that check faster than a cheetah can run a cross country marathon.”

“Hopefully it isn’t that cheetah from before,” joked the weasel. “That guy could probably lose a race to a sloth.”

“Speaking of that cheetah from before,” commented Mad Cow his voice sounding testy. “I don’t seem to recall telling you to let him get away, cause now my perfect plan isn’t so perfect anymore.”

“Ain’t nothing to worry about,” the weasel assured him. “That fat oaf couldn’t even pry that ass of his out of his cop car on his own. There’s no way he can be a problem for us, heh, unless he belly flopped on us as Solomon can attest to.”

“I thought we agreed to never bring that up again,” snorted the rhino. “Or I’d rearrange that face of yours.”

“Um, my point being,” he continued treading with more caution as he spoke. “The plan isn’t in any danger because we let him go. He’s probably about ten feet away from here, trying to catching his breath.”

“Heheh, hey guys,” called the hyena as he brought Clawhauser over. “Look at what we got here. A nice lil lady who wants to show us a good time.”

Snickers and snorts soon filled the room as every last one of them was reduced to tears as they busted a gut at the cheetah’s appearance. It took a full minute before they worked the giggles out of their system to get back up and dry their teary-eyed faces.

“You were saying?” Mad Cow wheezed to the weasel.

“Well, now we can capture him too,” he pointed out. “Nothing has changed.”
“I know you boys were hoping for a good time,” Clawhauser told them before speaking in his normal voice. “But you’re all under arrest!”

There was a moment of silence followed by renewed laughter by all the malcontents. “Under arrest?” they cackled. “You seriously think you can arrest us?”

“I can,” he continued confidently. “For, you see I’m not really a curvy lady of pleasure, but actually…” Clawhauser attempted to remove his dress and reveal the extra, extra, large cop uniform poorly concealed underneath. The criminals could have captured Clawhauser or even tranqed him at any time, but didn’t. They were far too amused watching the fat cheetah make a fool of himself, snickering as he grunted and groaned to get his dress off. When he finally did get it off, he was winded just from the effort it took. “Okay,” he huffed and wheezed. “I’m with the ZPD and you are all under arrest.”

All at once, all the riffraff were busting a gut with laughter again. “And they call me ‘mad’” laughed Mad Cow. “You must completely off your rocker to think you could arrest all of us on your own.”

“Oh, I know I could never do that,” he answered, casually adjusting his pants at the waist. Despite having so many traq guns pointed at him, he wasn’t the least bit intimidated. “Which is why I called in some backup and they should be arriving right about…”

There was a knock on the door to the warehouse. “Benny?” called the unmistakable sound of Ms. Roody’s voice. Hearing the sound of an elderly woman, Mad Cow and all his men were even less certain of the sanity of the officer attempting to arrest them. Looking at the chubby-cheeked officer’s face, he just couldn’t help giggle excitedly. “Benny boy, are you in here? Where are those bullies causing you trouble? I will smack their tuckasses for picking on my dear, sweet marshmallow.”

“This is just getting sad,” sighed Mad Cow as he turned to his weasel henchman. “Ricky, go take care of the fossil, would ya?”

“Sure thing, boss,” he replied and headed for the door.

“Heheh, here it comes,” Clawhauser continued to snicker.


“They’re so dead,” commented Judy, feeling great pity for the ignorant criminals.
“Oh, yeah,” agreed Nick.

---

<<< PREV | FIRST | NEXT >>>