Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"I think most musicians go through that at some point. That longing for inclusion, the feeling that maybe two heads – or more – are better than one."

"A phase?"

Bobby Catmull frowns, leaning up in his chair and laying his paws against his knees. "Well… no, not exactly. Sometimes it's a good thing, y'know? Different strokes. Some folks, they gotta find their place, see where their puzzle piece fits, rather than going it alone. And look, not everyone wants to hear some elephant who can play the bass better than any of those session guys who used to sit in with Jerry Vole but can't sing or dance a lick himself – nah, he's gotta slide into a troupe, figure out where he fits in someone else's blueprint, contribute to that, be part of something bigger than himself. Right?"

"But that wasn't for you," concedes Manny Armine, folding his arms while giving the cougar a knowing grin.

"Let's just say," Bobby says, smirking, "I haven't found where my piece fits yet." He reclines again, propping up one foot against his other leg. "But here's where I first tried."

Bunnyburrow High School's homecoming dance was traditionally a DJ-soundtracked affair. Out of the ordinary? No, far from it; except for a brief period a few decades before, when rock 'n' roll first exploded into clubs and bars from Zootopia into the outer regions of the country, arising in its wake a flurry of less-than-stellar local acts whose notoriety never quite escaped their hometown, these dances were generally helmed by a disc jockey whose setup grew less and less primitive as time went on, as did his or her skills – from simply pressing a button every so often to someone with a bona fide mix in mind.

For the previous four years, Atticus Olson, a sheep, lugged his rig into the BHS gymnasium and, save for a few breaks in order to shake his own rump (there were ewes he wanted to woo too, after all), dispensed a blend of tracks old and new. The Talking Hares, Fur Fighters, Kanine West, he tied it all together with a deft hoof – which, he had discovered, was actually a fairly useful appendage for record scratching, much more so than a claw, chiefly due to the sound it exuded once he touched hoof to vinyl.

Except Atticus had graduated the year before and had set off to Zootopia with dreams of one day playing more than mere high school dances, knowing full well that the city's warehouse club scene was becoming all the more vibrant – though, too, dangerous – with each passing year. They had not heard from him since.

It would've been simple to let one of the chaperones push play and let the night unfold as it might, but ever since the previous dance, a certain sophomore cougar named Bobby Catmull had had an entirely different plan in mind.

First things first: he didn't fancy himself a singer. Yeah, he felt that maybe he could hold a tune well enough to provide backing vocals, but Bobby had zero experience singing in front of crowds, not even his parents. A small part of him insisted, in the back of his mind, "hey, champ, you got this, you're the star," but he hardly paid it any mind, gulping down the urge to vomit everywhere when it came close to surfacing.

He resigned himself to keyboards instead, but his Catsio was far from worthwhile dance music for dozens of energetic teenagers.

So he called in some help, and together, through two months of practice from the end of summer to early fall, a band was formed.

And now it was in jeopardy of imploding.

"Look, it was a weird collection of mammals," Judy Hopps begins, sitting down to a warm cup of coffee that heightened her senses after what had been a deplorably hapless day at the precinct. She briefly considered blowing off the shoot entirely, cramming her interview into another day of shooting instead, but the studio is on the way home, and Nick is caught on an evening patrol for once anyway – what else was she going to do besides binge watch a few episodes of The Real Horsewives of Sahara Square and order in?

She continues, "You hear about bands formed by groups of friends or something – they all know each other beforehand, already gel personality-wise."

"And they weren't."

"Hell no! Bobby and Gareth were friends, but Gareth, he was a year younger, just a freshman – and I don't know if you remember high school, Mr. Armine, but there could be a world of difference between freshmen and sophomores. Maturity, mostly," she adds. "Then you had Travis, this ferret – bad news when he was younger, hung around Gideon Grey, but he had kinda mellowed out by then. Travis was going through this stupid punk rock phase."

"Did she call it stupid? I bet she called it stupid," Travis growls. "Like she was the only kid in the whole school allowed to go through a phase." The ferret glances down at his paws, wringing them methodically. "Y'know, Miss Hopps there spent an entire year in high school pretendin' she didn't wanna do nothin' more than bale hay for the rest of her wakin' life. Started wearin' overalls and this big ol' straw hat to school every day. It was the only time she ever shut up about bein' a cop."

He closes his eyes and smiles wistfully, like he was recalling a far-off, fond memory. "It was bliss."

Manny has had his pen in his mouth for the last minute-and-a-half, gnawing at its end as though it would expedite time in such a way that he would never have to hear a mammal complain about Judy Hopps' decidedly uncharismatic younger days ever again. Realizing the ferret, who sits before him with a clean-cut fur trim, white dress shirt and slacks, has finished speaking, he asks the first thing on his mind, judging by immediate appearance.

"It was a phase, though, right?"

Gesturing to himself – his whole body – Travis shrugs. "I dunno, you tell me, Mr. Journalist."

"Fair point, fair point," Manny concedes dryly. "Tax prep doesn't exactly scream 'punk rock' to me anyway."

"Neither does living in Bunnyburrow. Plus all my heroes, some of 'em are writing country records now, Armine. Country records. And y'know what the worst part is?" He swallows, his eyes holding the look of a mammal about to reveal his deepest, darkest secret, at least in his mind. "I don't hate 'em."

"I guess this is growing up. But we don't have to talk about that, Travis – in fact, I'd prefer not to. You know who I wanna talk to?" He snaps a finger, and a small mouse named Clara, presently Manny's assistant, squeaks and rushes forth with a small photograph, which the stoat takes and, after studying it for a moment, shows it to the ferret. "This guy." He points a paw at Travis. "Think we can talk to him about his band?"

Travis squints contemplatively at the scene, which was undoubtedly provided by his mother, who never threw away a darn thing. He is on his bedroom floor, patchy jackets and jeans strewn around him like a garment-laden moat, wielding an electric guitar littered with so many stickers that the original paint job is inaccessible. He could never manage much of a mohawk, but tufts of fur atop his head are fashioned that way anyway, and dyed a sickly green.

"Hm," he grunts with a smile. "Yeah, let's."

Bobby's fur was still soaked with sweat from the gym class that ended each school day in the fall, but he did not have time for even the quickest of showers – mostly because the football team had the school showers commandeered for the next half hour. But he also had places to be, and time that day was quite of the essence.

Despite its lousy acoustics, his meeting place had been set as Mr. Ingrisano's social studies classroom, since the teacher was always quick to leave right at the seventh period bell and had an affinity in his heart for anarcho-punk that Bobby never quite understood but accepted nonetheless. Catsio setup underarm, he shuffled down the long, tiled, locker-lined hallway, edging past fellow students on their way home, until he found the classroom door, which was cracked open but only slightly.

"There you are. Thought I'd have to check the cross country trail for a body."

Bobby shrugged at Travis' words, unshouldering his pack of equipment delicately onto the ground. "I've only just now caught my breath. Came as quick as I could; we don't all just wear the same clothes to gym class we wear the rest of the day."

The ferret grunted, his back turned to the cougar as he tuned his guitar. "Not takin' off these jeans, man," he insisted with a dismissive flip of his paw. "Coach and I 'bout came to blows about it my freshman year. He backed down, of course. Dude's scared of me. You know that?"

"I'm sure," Bobby played along, setting up his keyboard on its stand. "Gareth, how's it hanging?"

"My snare's about to bust, I just know it," the sheep said glumly from behind his drum kit, where he already sat at the ready; he had a free period before then. "I told my dad, but the nearest store's practically halfway to Zootopia." He folded his arms, frowning. "I'll be lucky if I make it there before the holiday."

"Borrow one from the band room," quipped Travis.

"Have you heard our concert band? The sound those drums make? I'm better off with a kick drum and a cymbal."

"It'd be a nice look for you."

"All right, quit it, you two," Bobby announced, looking up from his keyboard. "Anyone seen Sally?"

Gareth rolled his eyes and sighed. "Ain't that always the million dollar question?"

"Sally was our lead singer," Bobby explains. "And bassist, though she couldn't play a lick. But we needed bass, y'know?"

"So," Manny pronounces, glancing up from his notepad, "let me get this straight: it's a band featuring a ferret, a cougar and a sheep, fronted by a squirrel who could barely play her instrument?"

"And was never on time. Be as aware of that as feasibly possible."

The stoat folds his arms and shakes his head. "I have to say, Mr. Catmull, I'm impressed. That's quite the ragtag bunch."

Bobby lifts his sunglasses, squinting at the small mammal. "Well, yeah," he admits. "But that's not necessarily a good thing."

"Of course not. It's just a great visual, that's all."

"It was. But by then we'd been practicing for a few months, so it… I dunno, it sort of clicked. I mean, we were all at least proficient enough to understand how to play both by ourselves and with each other. I don't think it was gonna suck."

"Except it did."

"Maybe it would have. But these are all hypotheticals, because first I get this call from Sally…"

"So I just… don't think I'm gonna play tonight."

"…you're joking."

"Ha! Ha. Oh, Bobby. Always with the deadpan."

The cougar ran his paw through the fur on his forehead, inhaling deeply before again consulting the voice on the other line on his cellphone.

"You realize that tonight's the whole reason we've been practicing, right? As in, it's the reason this band exists?"

"I'm sure there's next year. None of us'll be graduated yet." The squirrel's voice was decidedly blithe in that moment, despite what Bobby saw as quite the negative repercussions.

"Sally, why can't you play tonight, anyway? Give me one reason," said the cougar in the lowest, most non-confrontational tone he could muster.

He heard a sigh on the other line. "Well, look, I didn't have a date for tonight, because I was performing and all, but Gary Bushbaum, he and his girlfriend Emily, well, they broke up yesterday, and –"

"Gary Bushbaum? On the market?" Gareth exclaimed, listening in on the phone call, which Bobby had thrown onto speaker mode. "Shoot, I can't blame you, Sally, it's not every day th—" He could practically feel the glare Bobby shot his way burning onto the back of his neck and stopped in his tracks.

"See? Gareth gets it!"

"Good ol' Gareth also once dated his cousin for two weeks in middle school without realizing it," murmured Bobby.

"You said you would never—"

Bobby cut him off: "Look, Sally, Gary will still be there for you at the end of tonight. One school dance isn't gonna change that."

"Like hell it ain't! If I don't keep him all to myself all night long, some undeserving piece of work is gonna come swipe him out from under my paws, like Janet Moffitt and her stupid bucktoothed face. It's a dance, Bobby. Have you ever seen, like, one movie set in high school?"

"Uh, does School of Rock count?"

"No, that doesn't count, they're not even in high school, what the heck is wrong with you, Bobby Catmull?"

Ignoring Travis' snickering from the other side of the room, the cougar throws up his arms disgustedly. "OK, Sally, fine. But answer me this: a dance needs music, right? What are they going to do for music if the literal source of said music quits hours beforehand?"

"They would have pulled out someone's computer and plugged it into the sound system," Judy says. "I told Bobby that the day before, when he was losing his mind in third period about how he didn't think they were ready. But Bobby, he insisted the school wouldn't do that. Something about the power of raw, live music."

"How involved were you in all this?" Manny asks, stifling a laugh.

The bunny smiles proudly. "I was the sophomore class representative," she declares. "They picked one person from the three younger classes while the senior class ran the thing, with adult supervision of course."

"Oh, I know that look!" a voice calls from beyond the shoot; Judy cannot tell its exact location immediately due to the bright lights somewhat blinding her vision. "She just told ya about how she was the sophomore class representative at the homecoming dance, didn't she?"

Judy leaps to her feet atop the couch. "Nicholas Piberius Wilde," she announces with a slight snarl on the end of the fox's last name. "Officer, you're supposed to be on duty—"

"She looks that way when she talks about the time she did the same thing her freshman year."

"Nick, don't make me come over there." She has determined he is near catering, because of course he is.

"And senior year, ask her about balloons, it still triggers her to this day—"

Judy is beet red beneath her gray fur by the time Nick recalls solemnly, "But not junior year. That was hay balin' year, wasn't it, Carrots?"

"I already covered that in my interview," Travis remarks from beside him in between bites of muffin. The two bump fists.

"Welp, looks like it's time for someone to die."

Manny Armine is left with his crew, still rolling film, as Judy Hopps bounds off the couch and gives chase to two larger mammals who, despite her diminutive size compared to the pair, are suddenly quite frightened.

A microphone had been haphazardly hooked to the snare drum of Gareth's kit, and he was eying it with the utmost distrust.

"I guess I just don't see why I gotta be the singer—"

Bobby grimaced from in front of the drum kit as he continued to mess around with the placement of the microphone, attempting to move it as far from a percussion instrument as possible, even though he feared the device was not of a great-enough technical quality to not pick up any and all drum kicks, hits and crashes anyway.

"Because Travis is right," the cougar explained, grunting as he pulled the microphone farther from its original resting place. "You're our next best singer."

"Bobby, standing Travis and I in front of ya five minutes ago and asking us to sing the first verse of 'Heartbreaker' with zero practice doesn't count, especially because I've never actually listened to what Cat Benatar was singing, plus Travis wasn't even trying!" He pointed a drumstick accusingly.

"It's because my voice ain't right for that kind of song, or this kind of gig," the ferret argued coolly, absentmindedly picking at his still-unplugged electric guitar. "Gimme some 'Judy Is a Punk' and…" His eyes lit up. "Hey, y'think Hopps would come onstage and dance to that?"

"Doesn't Judy probably die at the end of that song?" Bobby remarked.

Travis leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms behind his head. "Yeah," he admitted with a grin. "She probably wouldn't be into that."

"Well, what about you, Bobby?" demanded Gareth, whipping around his drumstick to set it toward Bobby, who flinched ever so slightly. "Didn't hear you trying."

The cougar felt his cheeks flush as he continued to handle the thin wire connecting the microphone to the rest of the drum set. "I-I, uh…" he began, stuttering, "nah, that ain't me, man."

Folding his arms across his chest, the sheep frowned. "You sure? You've been Sally's backing vocalist when we've needed one. The sound was low, but it seemed like you could hold a tune."

"Little drummer boy's right," Travis chimed in. "You don't sound awful."

"I said that ain't me, man."

The ferret rolled his eyes, going back to his guitar. "Aye, captain."

Gareth said something else, more timidly this time, but Bobby did not make out his next words, the noises around him obscured by the sudden sound of his heartbeat pulsing in his head. The very concept of singing alone in front of a crowd had always terrified the cougar, so much so that he had never once done it, not even a solo at church or in a school play. It was what drove him to the sidelines in the first place, content to be relegated to a supporting role rather than the starring attraction.

Because even though he was confident in his skills as a musician, at least from a technical standpoint for his age, Bobby truly had no idea how his voice would be perceived. Occasionally he thought of recording himself on a computer or home video recorder, just to see what it sounded like outside of his own head, but then came the incessant worry that he would either be unable to or forget to delete the recording once completed and that someone else would find it.

Backing vocals he didn't mind, as long as he was so far down in the mix that it was barely more than hardly registerable melody or harmony that wafted in and out of the brain like innocuous elevator music. Even if he had less of a predilection for Sally's vocals than the squirrel herself most certainly did, she at least brimmed with a surety that far exceeded whatever he felt he could bring to the table.

So when he snapped back to reality, Gareth waving a drumstick in front of his face to break his trance, the cougar shook his head definitively and stated, "No. I'm not, I mean I can't… I won't. It's gotta be you, Gareth."

The sheep exhaled soundly. "OK, Bobby, whatever. But you know I don't know probably 25 percent of the lyrics, right? I mean, I've got most of the classics down pat, but some of that stuff hasn't stuck with me, even after practicing it 20 times with Sally."

Bobby waltzed over to a computer, where he typed a lyrics website into the URL space. "Then let's get cracking," he announced, plugging the device into a printer. "Show's in four hours."

There was a peculiar way in which Travis played guitar, a herky-jerky motion that seemed equal parts wild, rambunctious, unhinged and seizure-like.

Oftentimes, the ferret got so engulfed in this stance – or lack thereof – that it would take multiple attempts of Bobby trying to get his attention to stop before he finally did so, giving little more than a curt, succinct apology before gruffly asking from where to pick it back up.

Judy Hopps was not familiar with this, and despite Bobby and Gareth's attempts to dissuade her from trying it, the rabbit walked right up to the flailing ferret from whom a pocket of raucous guitar distortion was emanating and narrowly missed being clocked by the neck of his guitar as she endeavored to halt him in his tracks.

"Ah! Jeez, watch it, Travis!" she proclaimed, aiming a swift punch against his side as the mammal finally wound down. "You're gonna kill someone."

"Hopps!" exclaimed the ferret, coming to a halt and sliding his guitar over his back, adjusting the strap. "Hey, so, are you familiar with the song 'Judy Is a—"

"Sweet cheese and crackers, I can hear again," the bunny said, cutting Travis off without quite realizing it, reaching a paw up to her right ear and massaging it gently. "Everyone in the gymnasium wanted to know if you guys could keep it down a bit. Like, just a little?"

She looked around the room. "And where's Sally?"

"Our Mustang Sally didn't slow her mustang down and rode off into the distance," lamented Bobby.

"…I'm not going to pretend I even remotely understand that reference, Bobby."

"She quit," Gareth said, groaning. "I'm singing now, Judy."

Judy could not hide the tick of anxiety that crept across her muzzle for a brief moment. "Oh, that's… that's really nice, Gareth. Yeah."

"Who's complainin' about the sound?" demanded Travis, cracking his paws against one another. "Because they're gonna have to get used to it. These speakers go to 11."

The bunny turned on her heel, paws on her hips. "You play that loud and no one's gonna be able to hear each other by the end of the night."

"I'll consider that a job well done."

"We'll… turn it down a notch," persuaded Bobby, shaking his head at Travis' protest and nodding to Judy. "Sorry. How're things going with setup?"

The rabbit groaned. "You know how Gideon Grey decided a couple months ago he wanted to take up baking?"

"Home ec class, I'll tell ya," Travis jibed.

"…well, let's just say we've got a fox on our hands who won't budge about one little thing food-wise." She slapped a paw to her face and shook her head despondently. "So now there's an argument about cherry cheesecake. Gideon's leading it, but the mole rats doing most of the catering aren't super thrilled. I think one's gonna get thrown before long."

"A cheesecake or one of the mole rats?"

"I'd pay to see either," admitted Gareth.

Rolling her eyes, the bunny backed away toward the door. "Just… try not to go too crazy in here, all right? I'll leave you be."

Before she rounded the corner out of the classroom, she paused and stuck her head back inside. "Oh, and I almost forgot," Judy said with a snap of her fingers, "they wanted to know what the band's name is."

"I think that's how out of whack we were with each other," Travis recalls with a couple of quick laughs. "We forgot to name the band."

Manny's mouth is wide open. "It never came up," he says, more as a flabbergasted statement of fact rather than a question.

The ferret shrugs, propping one elbow against the back of the couch. "We were so intent on making the whole arrangement work that, yeah, we just didn't even consider it."

"And… how did that go once you did?"

"Oh, as terribly as it possibly could, naturally."

"We're not calling the band Panic Purrs, Travis, and I take slight offense to that," Bobby countered, rolling his eyes. "It's not a good name."

"Whatever, bud. I'm out of ideas."

"That was your only idea."

"Heart wants what it wants."

Gareth stood, hooves balled, stammering, "Y-you guys, come on! We can figure this out later – we need to practice."

"Yeah," Travis conceded, reaching behind his back to grab his guitar. "That's right, we can. And if nothing else, we can always call ourselves Bobby Catmull and the Oh No We Didn't Think of a Name I Should Have Listened to Travis…es." He pointed a paw at the cougar. "Because that absolves Gareth and I from blame. Your fault. In case you didn't realize."

"Whatever, Travis." Bobby set his paws against the keys of his Catsio and stared over at Gareth. "Think you wanna try 'Ballroom Blitz' again?"

The sheep grimaces, sitting back down behind his kit and flexing his hooves. "Ugh. You sure, Bobby? I really gotta wail on that one. You sure we can't get Sally back?"

"You said it yourself: Gary Bushbaum."

Gareth did not argue the point.

After confirming Travis was ready to go, the sheep began to pound out the song's opening drum beat, and after hearing the opening guitar chords, Bobby started to settle into a rhythm on his keyboard – that is, until…

THWACK!

"His snare broke after all," laments Bobby with an rueful grin. "All that practicing beforehand didn't help, especially with Gareth's mind not totally on his rhythm, with the extra singing and all. But look, I maintain that it's better it happened then than during the dance itself, y'know?"

Bobby stood in the doorway, paws braced against the frame. "I should go after him, shouldn't I?"

Setting down his guitar into its case, Travis sighed, his ears pricking at the increasingly far-off sounds of Gareth's fleeing figure. He reached into his pocket. "You want a smoke?" he asked.

"We're in school, man." Bobby did not turn around.

"School's out for today."

"That… that doesn't mean… cripes, your shtick is annoying."

"Oh, my shtick?" The ferret lights a cigarette anyway. "This oughta be good."

The cougar's face was contortioned in frustration when he turned back around to face Travis, but he didn't care too much for how silly he may or may not have looked in that moment. "Our drummer's kit just broke, dude. He's not happy – you know he doesn't take this stuff well, he's younger than us."

"Always drums in the band room."

"You and I both know those are in rough shape."

The ferret wrenched open one of the classroom windows, tapping his cigarette outside it before returning inside. "No, no, let's talk more about my shtick, though."

"Oh, come on, man, the green fur, the jacket… that?!" he pointed accusingly at the lit cigarette.

"Keeps me calm when I'm dealing with your type. And most types, really. But definitely yours."

"You're kidding, right?" the cougar had reached up to his head and held clumps of fur in both of his paws, tightly, as though peculiar pattern baldness was on his to-do list. "You, the mammal who can barely listen to a note of what anyone else in the band is playing except to at least stay on tempo, the one who scoffs every time we're not playing Lady and the Tramps – who are not that good, by the way, I mean, who even listens to surf punk – and the guy who can't take a moment out of his day to take this stuff seriously for once, because uh oh, can't mess up the brand, right?"

Grasping his cigarette, which had nearly reaches the butt, in one paw, the ferret, saying not a word, quietly used his other paw to close his guitar case, lock it and pick it up. Still silent, he walked up to the trembling Bobby, who had really only hit the tip of the iceberg with his discontent, but had held off, since Travis was, for all his faults, the only kid at Bunnyburrow High who could play the guitar worth a lick.

Except that hardly mattered anymore. "Then how's this for my brand?" he asked, dousing the last remnants of the cigarette against his jacket sleeve. "I quit too." And he tapped the remaining ashes down the front of the cougar's shirt before pushing his way out of the door.

"I was scared for what happened next," Judy says, first to Manny but then repeating her words directly into one of the cameras. "Make that known. I was terrified."

Manny smirks. "The great Commissioner Hopps, afraid?"

"I was 16, first of all, and one of my friends was about to do something incredibly stupid. Of course I was afraid. I'd never done anything stupid in my whole life up to that point. It was a foreign concept."

And before he can even provide the briefest of quips: "Nicholas, if I hear one word…"

"So I see him come on stage," recalls Gideon Grey, happy to finally add something to the conversation that did not involve an unpleasant aspect of his own past in any way. "Holdin' that keyboard thing. Starts settin' up." He feigns his head movements that day, or at least what he can remember. "I look around. No one else. Not one."

"You didn't know the situation?" Manny asks.

Gideon stares at the ceiling thoughtfully. "Well… no, I kinda knew," he says after a moment. "Me and Travis, we still talked a good amount, even though he was in that ph—I mean, even though he was dressin' fu—aw, shoot, whatever, point is, we were still friends, and he told me in the hallway one day, he says, 'Gid, man, make sure you come out to homecoming this year, 'cause this could be a real trainwreck."

"Right, OK. But you didn't know the entire band had quit."

"No, sir, I didn't realize Bobby was ridin' a speedin' bullet train right for a brick wall, no, I did not."

"Bobby."

"Judy."

The rabbit had joined the cougar onstage, watching from a short distance away as he untangled a few cords and plugged others into their respective sockets.

"So, you're alone."

"Hm," Bobby responded with barely even that much of an assent.

Judy clasped her paws and trilled in a singsong voice, "Please tell me the rest of the band didn't—"

"It's just me," the cougar said shortly, standing up and facing her. "Makes our name search easier, eh?"

"…Bobby, you realize that…"

He cut her off. "That I haven't sang in public before, yes. That all I've got is my Catsio, yes. That I'm about to play a school dance and be on the hook for at least an hour and a half of material, yes. Yes, yes, yes. I am aware of all these things, Judy."

The rabbit inhaled and exhaled, closing her eyes in the process and slowing her breathing. "We should get a playlist up and ready. We've still got 15 minutes to show time. It wouldn't be hard."

"Of course it wouldn't." Bobby pulled his suit jacket on over his white dress shirt and blue tie into which he had changed after a quick, much-needed shower in the locker room. "Toss half of Gazelle's discography in there, and boom, you're at least a third of the way there."

Judy's eyes lit up. "Oh, I get it – you wanna handle the playlist; the keyboard is just for show."

"No, no, I'm playing it."

"Ah."

"And singing, once I head back and grab the microphone. Unless you already have some in here?" He glanced around and spotted two toward the back of the stage. "Aha. Perfect."

He moved to grab one of them, but Judy's paw grasping his wrist stopped him in his tracks.

"Bobby, it's really OK, you can—"

"You remember what you said to me at the Carrot Days Festival a few years ago?"

Judy had seen Bobby at that festival every year since they were practically old enough to even remember any passing face, let alone one another's, so she had to search her memory momentarily to discern his meaning. A lightbulb finally went off a few moments later. "When you changed the music for the play?"

"You told me you'd never doubt me again when it came to music."

The rabbit said nothing, so Bobby continued: "And Judy, to be frank, there's enough doubt in here," he pointed to his chest, "to last five more of these dances, so I don't need your own."

He wrestled his arm away from her but did not turn back away just yet. "Just… give me a chance, how's that?" he said softly. "One song, maybe two. If I bomb, we'll get the playlist out."

"By yourself." She cocked her head. "Why? Why's this so important?"

"Because I put way too much time and effort into this for the last two months to just give up," replied Bobby firmly. "And… and if don't prove to myself now that I can do something like this in front of a crowd, especially my classmates, I dunno if I ever will."

The cougar glanced back at Judy. "And that wouldn't be very rock 'n' roll of me, would it?"

"Bobby, you're about to sing and play keyboards, not open for the Fur Fighters."

"Oh, so you did listen to the mix I sent you!" he said, eyes twinkling. "What did you think of—"

The rabbit pressed her paw to her lips, and Bobby took the message. "One song," she said finally, holding out the same paw for a fist bump. "Knock 'em dead."

"I hope you don't mean literally."

"Don't leave me hanging, Robert."

Bobby returned the sentiment and, pen in paw, began to plot out a setlist. He removed a few songs from the original plan, realizing that he either would be unable to replicate Travis' guitar parts on his keyboard or that it simply wouldn't work in general, opting to add a few other tracks into the mix. Turning the volume down low, he fiddled with the different drum loops, even though he practically knew all of them by heart – each tempo, each beat, every little ministration that made each recording stand out against the others.

And before he knew it, a crowd had formed in the gymnasium, an ever-growing din rising from the accumulated high schoolers. Bunnyburrow High wasn't humongous; truth be told, a good chunk of the families in the surrounding area homeschooled, so giant contingents of rabbits were not as plentiful as one might expect. But it was a formidable crowd regardless, spurred further by the chaperones – mostly teachers – who were in their midst.

He wasn't sure how to introduce himself – should he say his name? Thank everyone for coming? – but by the time the clock struck 7 p.m., the cougar abandoned all pretense and, willing himself to do so though certain parts of his mind protested, pressed the combination of buttons on his Catsio that would play the loop he wanted.

A cheer rose from the crowd once the sounds of a quick, syncopated drum beat – not quite like the original, but it would do – reverberated through the gymnasium, which in that moment, with décor strung through the rafters, across the walls and even around the basketball hoops, looked quite like a dazzling, high-class ballroom. Well, if you pretended hard enough.

And then he knew his choice for an opener was quite all right.

"Are you ready, BHS?" Bobby Catmull called, clapping his paws over his head, beckoning his classmates to follow suit before launching into the opening notes of "Ballroom Blitz." "All right, fellas, let's go!"

Judy laughs as she's played a recording of the event, provided by none other than Mrs. Catmull. "Oh! Look! There I am. Front of the stage. Ah, shoot, you could see me for a second, I swear."

"The crowd seems to be enjoying themselves," Manny notes with a smile.

"I mean…" Judy glances up for a moment, grinning wildly, "maybe our expectations were low, but it wasn't half bad."

"I didn't go back that night," says Travis steadfastly. "Felt like I needed to prove a point or something. But I saw video when we got back to school, and jeez, the kid could wail."

The ferret, too, watches the home video recording Bobby's mother sent in, with Manny expecting to play it during the episode at different points when the opportunity presents itself. He bops his head to the rhythm, laughing at a missed note or two and mostly remarking about how good the sound quality was even to that day. "It's kind of amazing how much work he was able to get out of that keyboard, how much sound."

"It almost sounds fuller than the original's guitar," chimes in Manny.

"In a weird way, yeah. But that's always been the thing with Bobby: he gets the most out of whatever he's playing. 110 percent. And this was before he was even using amps super creatively, though you can tell he's workin' some magic there. Wonder if he made it up on the spot."

"I didn't make it up on the spot exactly," Bobby admits, "but it was the first time I'd tried it on that scale."

Sensing the stoat's expectant look, the cougar takes off his sunglasses, lays them out onto the coffee table in front of them and taps a paw against its surface. "It's all in the pedals and amps, really. I had quite a few lying around by that point, and Travis accidentally left behind his own. I was able to split certain signals and feed them into two different amps, which ended up creating this much fuller sound." He leans back in his seat, setting his glasses back onto his face. "Mind you, it was a very crude job and I'd never use those specific amps and pedals to do the same thing ever again because if you're an audiophile it sounds awful, that video does, but yeah, long and short of it, that's a quick version of what I did."

"I don't really understand a sentence of it, but I'll trust you." Manny leads his pen down his pad of paper, searching for another point of interest. "So, you didn't play for the whole dance, though, right?"

The cougar shakes his head. "Heck no. Too tiring. I also didn't know as many of the modern songs like Sally did. We ended up using a playlist for about half of it. But for the last half hour, they brought me back on. I was shocked, man, I'll tell ya."

"So it went that well."

"That or there were diminished expectations, because look, I was a teenager – we all were. But the cool part was that Sally, she ends up leaving the arm of that Gary Bushbaum – by the way, nice guy, actually moved to Zootopia too, owns an Elkswagen dealership in Little Rodentia – and does a few Cat Benatar tracks, even some Ram Jam. Crowd ate it up. That squirrel was a primadonna, but whew, she knew her stuff."

Manny purses his lips. "How about Gareth?"

"Got over it, came back halfway through the dance. Tossed him a tambourine and covered some Gazelle tune with Sally. So, you know, band almost got back together." He flashes a smile.

"The band with no name."

"I'm gonna say it was called Panic Purrs after all, just to spite Travis."

"And it was far from your last band, yeah?"

"A certain wedding, among other gigs, saw to that, yeah. But…" he scratches his head, "I guess it goes back to what we were saying when I sat down, y'know? I figured out I didn't need a band – even though, yeah, I could play nice with one."

Motioning to Marcy to prepare to wind up the shoot, Manny nods. "Because you could sing after all."

"I can hold a tune," he corrects him.

"I think you're a little more—"

"I hold a tune," Bobby repeats, a little more forcefully this time, but follows it with a sweet, toothy smile. "And sometimes, man, that's all you need in this biz." He looks thoughtful for a moment, pensive. "Oh, and sometimes a shtick ain't half bad, too. Travis got one thing right, I'll give him that."

He calls from around the set and its cameras and many lights, off toward catering. "That hairdo, though!"

Never before had one of Manny Armine's set played host to a catered food fight, but, he decided, there was a first time for everything.