"Crystal"
Nick rubbed a damp finger on the rim of the crystal wine glass, the second of the four he was washing after Stu and Bonnie had stopped over earlier with a bottle of their new carrot wine. The small smudge he had noticed easily disappeared, but with a little water already inside the glass and the way Nick moved his finger, it produced a sound that was almost musical and oddly familiar.
Nick ran his finger over the rim three more times and then smiled. He set the glass, still with the bit of water in it, on the counter and picked up another glass. He filled this glass with some water, moistened his finger, and ran it over the rim. The pitch was not quite right, so he poured out a bit of water and tried again. Perfect.
"What are you doing, Nick?" Judy asked as he set the second glass down.
"What Gazelle told me to do," Nick replied as he picked up a third glass. He added some water and tested the pitch and then handed the glass to Judy. "Here. You'll know your part when it comes."
Judy stared at the piece of crystal stemware. "Uhh ..."
Nick moistened his finger and ran it over the rim of the first glass on the counter four times and then ran it over the second glass once, producing the notes G-G-G-G-A, sounding like a simple take on the "Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh" part of Gazelle's most famous song.
"Try everything," Nick sang. He repeated the G-G-G-G notes.
Judy rubbed her moistened finger over the rim of her glass, producing an E.
"Try everything!" Nick and Judy sang together.
Another sample from the very short Zootopia stories I wrote for Twitter based on Inktober prompts. "Crystal" was the prompt for October 1, 2021. All fifteen of my Zootopia Inktober stories (plus any future ones) can be found by searching on Twitter for my username (SJF_Penguin) along with both "Zootopia" and "Inktober" as hashtags. Published in Zootopia Scenes and Shorts on March 4, 2023, to celebrate the seventh anniversary of Zootopia's release.