CLEANUP CREW - Episode 1

Written by Iron-K, 2010

"I'm home! It's all over," Heather called as she flung the front door open, already wriggling her heavy backpack off her shoulder as she stepped into the hallway. She leaned over to dump it into the nook below the coat rack, then looked up again. "Dad?"

"In the kitchen!" she heard him call from the back of the house. Quickly taking her jacket off, she loosened the striped tie around her neck and flung it up to hang on the coat racks along with it before stretching her arms out and walking through to the back of the house, grinning as she basked in the feeling of freedom.

Approaching the kitchen entrance, she saw her dad Mathis - a tall, black-furred mouse - bent slightly over the sink, making headway into the washing-up that always accumulated on the counter. On days with no recordings when he didn't need to be at the studio, he usually worked from home, and took the time to catch up on the household tasks as well if he wanted to surprise her mother.

As she came in he turned around, drying his hands with the dishtowel and displaying a grin as wide as her own as he looked at the enthusiastic pink hedgehog girl in front of him. "Welcome to the summer! So that's the last day you have to set foot in Bartford High?"

"Yep," she nodded. "Well, apart from the stupid graduation ceremony next week..."

"I'm not looking forward to that either," her dad smiled. "But don't tell your mother I said that!"

"I won't," she nodded. Normally she'd tease him about anything he wanted kept from her mom, but she was too excited about having her last ever school day behind her to make the effort. "She's not in late today, is she?"

"No, she'll be home soon. We'll go down to Antonio's or something to celebrate - wherever you like!"

"Sounds great!" Heather moved around the kitchen table to the fridge and opened it, searching for a stray can of Jix.

"By the way..." she heard her dad say from behind her. "Do you have any plans for tomorrow?"

The hedgehog girl stood up with a juice can in her hand, closing the fridge door behind her as she spun round and leaned on the counter. She fiddled with the tab, opened it and took a gulp of it before answering, shaking her head. "Not any more. Silvie was going to give us a ride into the city, but she pulled out, she's got to take care of her little cousin. Why?"

"There's a pilot being recorded in the afternoon and I got a call saying that one of the contestants can't make it - I said I'd ask if you were interested in going instead, 'cause they're going to need someone..."

"Maybe..." Heather fiddled with the tab on the can distractedly. She had been to the studio where her father worked a few times and had watched some shows being recorded before - many of them had been daytime TV quizzes, some of which had made it past the pilot stage and were now on afternoon TV. "What kind of thing is it?"

Mathis turned back to the sink. "Remember the gunge shows you used to like?"

"Whuh?" Heather almost spat out her soda. She couldn't see his face but could tell he was smiling at her reaction.

"Yeah, it's like those," he continued without pausing. "They said to me it was like a new Fun House - I thought you might enjoy it."

"What, so you thought I'd want to spend my first day out of school getting covered in..." She shuddered and tailed off as he turned to face her, shaking her head as she looked up at his unchanging smile.

"Come on! I remember you used to tell me how much you wanted to go down the slide on Beat Your Neighbors..."

Heather cringed with embarrassment at the memory of watching that game with her dad when she was growing up, and even pretending that she was being dropped in the show's vat of slime during bathtime. "Yeah, but I was... eight! Aren't they looking for someone younger?"

Mathis shook his head. "No, they're all your age for the pilot. I've met the other contestants already, you'd get on really well with them..."

The hedgehog girl shook her head again and tried to laugh off his encouragement, holding her hand up in front of her. "No, I don't care how you do it - find someone else. There's no way I'm going!"

---

Heather sat with her arms folded as the car turned on to the driveway of the studios, her eyes on the main entrance as it drew closer. She glanced for a moment at the black mouse next to her, who was looking as happily innocent as ever.

"Here we go..." he said as he drew up outside. "Remember, Jenna's going to be there - say hi to her!"

"That's supposed to make me feel better?" Heather budged grumpily over a little as she tugged at the passenger side door - her dad had mentioned Jenna's name when attempting to convince her to do this, but she was the daughter of a family friend that she had only met once at a house party somewhere. "Just remember your promise!" she said as she stretched her feet over to the pavement.

"Absolutely. You get full use of the car every evening this week, no excuses," her dad recited back to her, his left hand placed dramatically over his heart. "I'm going around to my space at the back, just tell them you're here for Cleanup Crew - I'll see you in the studio?"

"Yeah," she said simply, and pushed the door shut in front of him. She couldn't help but wave back as he pulled away around the corner of the building, though - she never seemed to faze him even when she was annoyed at him, so the feeling never lasted long. Sighing, she turned, paused for a moment and then strode in to the reception area as the doors slid open automatically in front of her.

"Hey, Sandy," she said as she approached, trying to brighten her mood as she recognized the shorter, tan mouse on the front desk.

"Hi, Heather!" he answered, standing up as he turned away from one of his monitors. "So did Mathis get you to come for Cleanup Crew after all?"

"Yeah..." She looked down and tapped her fingers on the desk as she reached it. "Took him a while, though... I still don't know what I'm in for."

"I think you'll enjoy it - I watched the rehearsals, it looks like fun to me," he said back.

"So didn't you volunteer to be the replacement?" she grinned accusingly.

"Well... no," he said quickly, with a smile, then ducked under the desk. "They gave me this to hand over to you..." He straightened up again and pulled out a clear plastic bag. Heather took it as he offered it, turning it over to see that it contained a green swimsuit with the show's logo in a clashing orange on the front.

"You're meeting them in shower room B, just off the second studio - want me to walk you?"

"No, I know the way," she answered as she looked back up at him, then turned away. "Thanks," she remembered, calling it over her shoulder as she headed down the corridor. She was used to walking this way to watch shows her dad was working on, but this was the first time that she was about to take part in one.

After walking past the offices dotted around the edge of one of the building's main studios, she reached the small changing room, and hesitantly pushed the door open to find that nobody else had arrived. She hovered at the entrance for a moment as the door flapped closed behind her, wondering if she should hang around outside, but decided to get changed in private.

Taking off her watch and stooping down to undo her shoes, she put them in one of the lockers behind the bench on the left, then strode into one of the two changing cubicles opposite them, fiddling with the belt on her denim skirt and undoing it from the loops before turning to lock the door behind her. She turned to the mirror mounted on the back wall as she took the rest of her clothing off, suddenly worried about how she would look on television - she straightened up and sucked her tummy a little inwards, wondering if she could hold it like that for the entire show, turning a little left and right. Trying to forget her nerves for the moment, she shook out the swimsuit in front of her before bending down and picking up her feet, pointing her toes to slip them through it.

She jumped as she heard the door squeak open behind her, and an excited voice chattering as a couple of shadows became visible underneath the cubicle door. Unconsciously shuffling back from the door a little, she pulled the swimsuit the rest of the way on quickly, straightening up and looking at herself in the mirror on the back wall. The swimsuit was a decent fit for something that she hadn't chosen herself, but it wasn't exactly something that she'd normally choose to wear, and not just for the bright green color - she looked down particularly at the orange double-C logo across her chest, a reminder of what was about to happen.

She heard the cubicle next to hers lock closed as one of the other girls went into it, and the sound took her out of her thoughts. Looking back towards the locked door, she decided not to delay it any longer, took a breath, then unlocked the door and peeked out. A young spotted feline with strawberry blonde hair down to her shoulders was getting changed at the bench with her back to the cubicles, quickly wriggling her T-shirt off over her arms.

"Hi!" the leopardess said enthusiastically over her shoulder, continuing to get undressed. Heather averted her eyes as the feline stooped down to slide her underwear off, then she picked up the green swimsuit lying next to her on the bench and sat down to tug it on over her legs. "You must be my new team mate - I'm Vicky, and Jenna's in there." She waved a finger towards the cubicle next to the one that Heather had been in, and looked up at her, getting her to make eye contact again.

"I'm Heather." Swallowing, still nervous, she sat down next to Vicky, looking down and picking at the front of her own swimsuit a little to adjust it. The feline wriggled the straps of the costume over her shoulders, then looked down at her chest, running her thumbs underneath the straps and shaking a little to get comfortable in it, then dropped down on to the bench, still stroking at her spotted fur.

"Looks like we match!" she said brightly, looking Heather up and down. "They're not the best-looking things, are they? But they said we're definitely going to need swimwear for the show..."

"Heh, yeah..." Heather laughed awkwardly, searching for something to say. "Vicky, was it?" The feline nodded. "Sorry, I still don't know what I'm doing... are they going to come and explain it to us, or what?"

"It's okay, it's new to us, too. We've been here since nine, they sent us off here 'cause they're nearly ready to start..."

She stopped as the cubicle door swung open, and a curvy, green-skinned lizard girl shuffled out. She was wearing a swimsuit like the others' but colored orange with a green logo instead, and was clutching her clothes in a bundle to her chest as she walked over to the lockers behind the bench.

"Hi - Jenna?" Heather spoke up, remembering what her dad had mentioned as the lizard girl turned wordlessly to face her. "My dad said we'd met before, once, at your aunt's house a few months ago?"

"Oh. Hi, yeah," the lizardette said distractedly. It was clear that she didn't remember, and Heather was gladder than ever of Vicky to fill in the awkward silence.

"You two know each other?" she asked, then quickly carried on without waiting for an answer, practically bouncing as Jenna stuffed her clothes into a locker and sat down next to her, shifting nervously and looking at the floor. "Maybe you should have been together and it would have been felines against..." she looked between the two contestants on either side of her as she searched for a word.

"Who am I replacing?" Heather asked during the pause.

"Oh, my big brother was going to be my team-mate," she said. "He phoned up yesterday to say that he couldn't come after all, but I think he was just chickening out. Each team's meant to have a boy and a girl, but you're standing in for him..."

"So I'm going to be one of the boys for the day? This is getting better and better..."

"It's okay. He was useless at the practice," Vicky reached around and patted her on the back. "With someone else on my team I think I might have a chance of beating you now, Jenna!"

She turned her head around to face her, and the lizard girl cracked a smile, still looking down at her feet and tapping them on the tiled floor.

"So you two have done this before?" Heather asked, and the excited feline spun round again.

"Yeah, they ran through some games with us last week," she said. "But we haven't done it with the... gunge." She giggled, squirming at the sound of the word.

"What's the show like?" Heather ran her hand over her hair, then brought it down as she realized that it was obvious what she was thinking of. "Do we have to sit in those... phone box things and answer questions to stop them going off?"

"Don't know, they were still getting the props ready - I hope so!" Vicky exclaimed, a grin spreading across her face. "Did you used to watch Sat-AM Live where they did that?"

"Yeah..." Heather felt her cheeks heat up - she used to watch the game sections of that Saturday morning show with the volume turned down so that her mom didn't know she had them on, but her dad had always been happy to watch them with her.

"Remember the round gunge booth they had? I phoned in to be on that every week, but they never picked me... and I never got either of my parents to agree to do the swamp game..."

Heather smiled back, hoping her nerves didn't show - she remembered secretly wanting to be gunged too when she was in early school, but she'd never dared apply because of the thought of being on television. She was searching for something to say back to the feline when she was saved by a knock at the far door.

Vicky spun round to face it. "C'mon in, we're all naked!" she shouted towards the door, and Heather saw Jenna's shoulders shake in a forced laugh at the sudden outburst. The door clicked open, and an orange-red squirrel's face appeared around it, his hand theatrically clasped over his eyes.

"Should I even be in here?" he asked, and Vicky tittered as he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. Heather's ears pricked as she was sure she recognized the voice, but it wasn't until he took his hand away and turned around that she gasped a little as she realized who it was.

"R... I mean... Mr. Armine?" she asked, then cringed at making her surprise so obvious.

"Just 'Rish'! None of this 'Mr. Armine' stuff," he grinned back, stepping over to offer his hand. Heather took it, swallowed to get over her nerves and looked him in the eye. "You must be Heather - thanks so much for stepping in at the last minute! Your dad said you were very keen..."

"Oh, did he?" Heather grimaced at the thought of what her dad had said, but was too distracted to think about it for long. The squirrel shaking her hand was one of a trio of presenters of a popular science show that went out on Friday nights, and as he was the youngest and most energetic of the three of them, she had begun to see him appear in other shows for younger audiences as well. "Yeah... no problem," she managed as he flashed a grin at her again, then he hopped backwards a couple of steps to address them all.

"How are you all feeling - ready to go?" he asked, smiling at Vicky's enthusiastic nod and then looking from left to right at the slightly more hesitant reactions from the other two. "Heather, sorry we haven't really explained what's going on at all, but it's easy to pick up - we're just going to go out there, play some games... I'll explain everything as we go. Sound good?"

"I... guess," she smiled up at him, still curling her toes against the tiled floor.

"Great. We've got a couple of hundred people being seated in the audience just now," - Heather's stomach gave a lurch at the news - "and Jenna and Vicky haven't done the show with them there either, but I promise, once you're out there, most people find that having the audience there to engage with makes things easier. Do you believe me?"

"No," Heather answered quickly, at exactly the same time as both of the others. Relaxing a little as she laughed with them, she looked up to see Rish nodding and smiling.

"Yeah, nobody does. But I promise, after a few minutes you'll relax - everyone's going to be as nervous as you, even if they're not showing it. We'll start you off with a physical game or two, then there are a couple of questions rounds as well... there's nothing to worry about at all. Ready to get out there and have some fun?"

"Yeah!" Vicky leapt up from the bench, springing on her heels excitedly. Feeling much more like the nervous-looking lizard girl, Heather glanced sideways at her, and they both got up and followed the squirrel and leopardess to the door to the studio. She took the door held open for her by the host, and blinked as she walked out into the darkened space.

As they walked across the studio floor, Heather looked up at the outside frame of the set in front of them, about ten feet high and looking like it enclosed the area of a large room. She could hear the sound of talking from the audience stands away to their left, almost drowned out by a loud rattling hum.

"What's that noise?" she asked out loud as they were shown to the side, next to a short set of steps that led to an opening that was covered by a flap. The host quickly disappeared around the outside corner of the set with Jenna.

"Oh, it's the... air compressor... thing," the leopardess said as she looked over her shoulder, waving her hand vaguely towards the bottom of the giant structure. "I forgot you hadn't seen the set! It's like a giant bouncy castle in there."

"Really?" Heather asked. She tiptoed up the three steps that led up to the sheet that covered the entrance to the set and put her hand on it, twitching the flap aside a fraction to peek into the set with one eye.

She blinked in the glare of the harsh lights from the ceiling, and raised her hand to her forehead to shield her eyes - beyond a solid platform that the steps led out on to, the entire floor and lower walls of the set were made up of wide yellow ribs of air-filled material. As Vicky had described, they reminded her of the inflatable play structures she remembered from when she was younger. What was different about this one was that in the middle of the set lengthways and across it near the front, the material dipped down to form a T-shaped pair of channels filled with a murky dark and light mixture of thick green slime. Heather shuddered as she looked along it, seeing the channels converge at a slightly larger pool of gunk in the front center, where a couple of stagehands were still stirring the stuff around with long wooden poles.

"How's it look?" the leopard girl's voice came from behind her, and as she turned around Vicky wriggled underneath her to look through the same side of the flap. "Wow..." she gasped as she looked at the bright green stuff. "We're going in that?"

Heather looked at the far side of the channel in the middle of the set, looking at the clinging film of gunge on the side, and shuddered at the thought. She let go of the heavy curtain, straightening up as she moved back down the steps, and nearly bumped into the host as he came back round.

"Okay, we're ready when you are!" he started, dodging back as the two of them stepped to the studio floor. "Feeling okay, Heather? Not too nervous?"

"Yeah," she responded quickly, nodding her head.

"Good, I'll explain how it works when I'm up there - there's nothing to worry about at all! Vicky, can you just guide her to the place for the first game?"

"Sure," her feline partner answered.

"Thanks - I'll see you in there!" As he dashed away down towards the corner of the set next to the audience stands, Vicky pointed back up towards the steps, practically bouncing as she took her arm to lead the way.

Heather stumbled a little after her, and wriggled out of her grasp as Vicky climbed the steps first. Batting at the curtain to get it aside, the leopardess slipped around it out on to the set. Heather took a deep breath and followed her through.

There was a smattering of applause from the open front of the set as Heather stepped out into view of the audience, but she couldn't see anything past the glow of the studio lights from the ceiling. Wobbling a little on the soft blowup surface as she followed Vicky out on to it, she tried to ignore the thought she was being watched and glanced up to the ceiling, quickly distracted by spotting an array of cylindrical canisters mounted among the lights on the rack dangling from the roof.

She jerked her head back down as she nearly bumped into the leopard girl, who had stopped in front of her and was looking fascinatedly up at the tanks on the ceiling as well. As the unseen audience reacted to their host emerging at the front of the set, Heather took in more of their surroundings - they were on one of the two largest areas of the yellow surface, with one channel of slime between them and the audience, and the middle one separating them from the other team's side. From the far opening, Jenna stepped on to the set, followed by a male spotted feline wearing a pair of swimming trunks matching the color of her swimsuit.

"That's Jenna's team-mate," Vicky pointed as he enthusiastically bounced on to the inflatable surface, turning back to extend a hand to the lizard girl.

"Who, Dragonball Z over there?" Heather said back as she nodded at the cheetah's massive spiked hairstyle.

Vicky giggled at her comment, batting the back of her hand against Heather's thigh. "Yeah, he didn't have it gelled up as much as that before - he must have done it specially!"

Breathing out, Heather looked around the set again as the spiky-haired cheetah put his arm around his more nervous-looking team mate, saying something to her that Heather couldn't hear as they walked out on to the set together. Two large screens were mounted on the back wall above head height, both showing still images of the show's logo. At the opposite end, just over the channel at the front of the inflatable area on each side, were wide plastic containers that were painted in the team colors to look like small dumpsters, open at the top. Two more inflatable props were placed on either side of the middle channel - ramps, about five feet tall at the high end, that led down into the gunge. Heather shuddered as her eyes followed the slope towards the thick green surface.

"Okay, we're going to jump straight into the first game..." The host's voice came up from the speakers at the back of the set, crackling at first as they were turned on, and Heather spun around to look at him as he placed one foot on the ramp up to the main set, checking his balance before stepping up. "I think they can hear me now! We're to go into this right after the titles, so we'll do the introductions afterwards."

One hand on the wall for balance, he moved quickly over a thin plank at the side that bridged the gunge going across the breadth of the set, and picked up a long pole that was leaning against the wall. Heather looked at it as he came over to where the two of them were standing and brandished it in front of him - it looked almost like a fishing rod, about seven feet long with a plastic hook dangling off one end. Unsure of what they were doing, Heather hesitantly reached out to take it.

"Here's how our first game works - the channel here is full of all kinds of junk, and it's up to our teams to clear it out," he announced as he stepped away, one hand holding the microphone up to his chest and the other out to his side as he moved carefully across the inflatable surface. "And I can tell you right now it's not easy walking on this!" Crouching down next to the five foot wide green river, he hooked his fingers around an exposed loop of string on the surface and dragged it upwards.

Heather shivered, glancing sideways at the fascinated-looking feline, and a theatrical groan came up from the stands behind them as the host stood up with a prop hubcap dangling from the loop in his outstretched hand, a sheet of green slime pouring stickily off it back into the channel. After turning it round a couple of times, he dropped it back in, where it glooped quickly underneath the surface.

"They're going to take it in turns to get into... this stuff by going down these slides," he gestured, patting the side of the inflatable ramp heading down towards the gunge from Heather and Vicky's side. "The waders will have to find the junk piece shown on the big screen on their side..." Heather stepped aside as he came forward and took the pole from her. "And then they're going to hook it on to this rod, held by their team mate," he said, holding it out and poking it back towards the slime between the two teams. "They then have to swing it over and deposit it... in their dumpster here, to get twenty points." He swung it in an arc over towards the channel running across the breadth of the set between them and the audience, and tapped the end of the rod on to the side of the green container. "Then they hand the rod over to their team mate... and it's their turn to go in!"

Heather grimaced as she looked at the mixture of dark and light glop, distractedly accepting the rod back from the host.

"So let's see the first junk pieces that our teams have to find - there are two of each of these somewhere under there, and our first objects are..." The squirrel pointed up to the screens as they turned on and rapidly flashed between a set of pictures, eventually stopping one after the other.

"The oranges have to find the... portable TV, it looks like, and the greens over here need a road cone - so if I can have a volunteer to take a dip first from each side..." He stepped in front of Heather and offered his hand to Vicky, who bit her lip to hold back a grin and grabbed his wrist, eagerly bouncing over to the ramp. Heather glanced over to the other side of the set as the cheetah boy moved forwards to climb to the top of the ramp with a pat on the back from the equally nervous-looking lizard girl.

The squirrel kept holding Vicky's hand to help her up the steps of the ramp, and she carefully folded her legs out from underneath her to get into a sitting position, grasping the slightly raised sides and flexing her toes as her feet pointed down towards the gunge.

"Ready?"

Heather stood on her tiptoes to look once again at the pool of slime that her team-mate and the cheetah boy opposite her were about to plunge into, as Vicky nodded eagerly over her shoulder.

"Then let's... clean up! Go!"

The squirrel bounced off towards the side of the set and Heather jumped as a loud klaxon sounded from the ceiling. Simultaneously, the two felines let themselves drop forwards and bounce down the inflatable slides, and wringing her hands around the pole, Heather watched as they splashed down into the gunge next to each other, a couple of squeaks and yelps going up from the thick wave of green stuff that splurged up from the middle of the channel.

She quickly looked up to the ceiling as she saw movement, and her eyes followed a column of green slime down as it fell into the channel after them, crashing into the gunge with a thick splattering noise right between the cheetah and leopard as they struggled to turn and get up. As the last drops of the downpour feel in thick dollops from the ceiling, she leaned over a little to see Vicky picking herself up from all fours to wobble to her feet, her mouth hanging open in a smile, the gunge coming up to halfway up her legs and the fur all across her back completely coated in a layer of dripping green.

"Looks like it wasn't a gentle start for either of them, both our dippers are already completely covered..." Rish announced from the side as the two of them wallowed forwards in opposite directions, bent over with their hands underneath the thigh-deep gunge. Heather watched the cheetah boy's expression as he came forward, dark green stuff dripping off one side of his face as he felt about beneath the surface. He checked back over his shoulder as he tried to feel for anything resembling the item on screen, then suddenly hauled a small near-cubical prop out of the slime.

"Snap's got the first junk piece for the oranges! Jenna, haul it out for him... and I think Vicky's not far behind!"

Heather anxiously tiptoed forwards as Vicky bounced back into view from behind the ramps holding the conical prop above her head. Following the lizard girl's lead, she stretched the pole over to dangle the hook in front of her team mate, sliding one foot back to balance the weight as the messy leopard girl tugged on it to put the loop of string on her item around the hook. At the same time as the oranges, Heather carefully tilted the pole up a little and shuffled her feet to swing it around towards the container.

With her eyes on the dangling cone as it dripped slime in an arc shape across the set, she carefully took a couple of steps forward towards the other gunge stream and balanced the pole on the edge of the container on the other side, shaking it to let the cone clunk into the box.

She pulled it back towards her and raised it up so it was vertical as Vicky approached behind her. She was panting and plastered with gunge, but had a smile on her face, her arms outstretched and looking like she had long dripping green gloves on. As Heather hesitantly reached forwards to hand the pole to her, she looked over to the inflatable slide as she realized it was her turn.

Trying to ignore her nerves, she bounced forwards on the unsteady surface and flopped against the steps of the slide, scrambling to climb up it as she saw the lizard girl opposite her bouncing just as nervously down towards the gunge. A visible splash and startled yelp came up as she fell in.

Heather looked up as she struggled to the top of her slide, and gasped as she saw the cap fall open on another of the cylinders on the studio ceiling a few meters above, a column of dull yellow liquid spewing out of its nozzle. Tensing up, her eyes followed it down as it broke into a thick blobby rain, eventually splattering down into the channel and over the still struggling lizard girl's back.

Jenna screeched over the wet smacking noise as the stuff spattered over her and into the channel of gunge around her, shuffling forwards on her knees toward the back of the set to get out of the downpour. As the last of it drizzled on to the surface behind her she breathed out, laughing a little after the shock, and picked herself up again, flicking off the gunge dripping from her hands as she waded to the side, kicking under the surface.

Heather looked back up at the ceiling again, then down at the green-spattered bottom of the ramp, before swallowing and tentatively letting go of the handles to allow herself to shuffle the few feet down towards the mucky surface in front of her. She braced herself, holding her breath as she watched her toes dangle off the end of the slide and then suddenly gloop under the surface. She yelped at the cool, clammy feeling, jerking her legs instinctively up and twisting around on the slide, but couldn't stop herself sliding downwards as she put her weight on the slippery lower section. Flailing, she plunged into the channel, her feet hitting the soft surface underneath briefly before she collapsed on to her knees, the slime billowing outwards in a thick wave away from her.

With a squeak, Heather launched back to her feet, keeping her hands in the air and shuddering as she felt the cool, thick slime drizzling from the fur on her tummy downwards. She looked down at herself, the watching audience completely out of her mind as she saw her lower half coated in a layer of the clinging green glop, dollops of it falling back on to the surface as the channel of glutinous liquid rippled lazily around her legs. Remembering the timer was still going, she breathed out heavily and put her arms out to her sides for balance as she waded unsteadily forwards in the thigh-deep slime.

Her slow wading became another jump as she heard the thick splattering noise of another load of gunge coming down from the ceiling, and she jerked forwards as she felt a couple of thick drops on her back. Glancing over her shoulder at the green splatter mark that had formed at base of the slide, she clasped her hands to her chest, then stopped as her foot dunted into something.

She looked down at the opaque green surface and squeamishly bent forwards to stretch her fingers down. Grabbing the thing she had felt with her foot, she struggled to pull it up out of the swampy mixture and held it up as the thick stuff poured off it.

"Heather's got something, but I don't think it's what they're looking for..." she heard the host call. Remembering about the screen behind her, she whipped her head round to see a tire tube, and dropped the messy square object back into the gunk behind her.

Bending down squeamishly as she turned back the way she had been going, Heather pushed her hands under the surface of the gunge, squeaking and grimacing as the glop seemed to suck at her fingers. Feeling around underneath, she brushed against the side of another lump in the slime and flailed both hands towards it as it slithered through her slimy fingers. Getting hold of it again, she felt something round this time, and hauled it out of the muck to chest height.

"Yes!" she heard the host's voice again. "The oranges have got their second junk piece, and the greens aren't far behind - hand it up to Vicky and get out of there!"

Heather glanced over her shoulder to see the lizard girl clawing her way out of the gunge channel, leaving a green streak across the set as she slithered herself on to the surface. As something flashed above her, she looked above her head to where Vicky was dangling the white hook. Turning the tire prop around in her hands, she found the little string loop on it and flailed her other hand for the hook, catching it and looping it on.

As Vicky lifted the prop away towards the box, Heather looked down at herself again, flicking the slime on her hands back into the channel and holding them away from her as she tried to get out on to the dry surface again without touching anything with them. Pulling one leg then the other out of the gunk, she wriggled on to her knees and breathlessly got to her feet. She stood up straight and lifted one foot to step towards Vicky, then her gungy foot slipped out from under her and she bounced on to her rear before collapsing sideways on to the slimy surface.

Lying in shock for a moment, she cringed as she waited for the wave of laughter from the audience, but none came - instead she only heard a chant for their team color starting up from somewhere in the back. Beginning to laugh it off herself as she realized the absurdity of what she was doing, she picked herself up more carefully this time, sliding out of the puddle of gunge and running in slow, bouncing steps over to the cheering leopard girl.

Vicky grinned at her as she handed over the rod, and ducked as she darted around her toward the slide, glancing up at the screen at the back as she took hold of the sides of the slide. Snap was already wading around and pulling things out of the channel as she struggled to get up the steps on her slippery feet, and halfway up she bent over the chute, waggling her legs behind her to push herself down the way as she slithered face first into the gunge.

Heather watched, beginning to forget her nerves more as the orange team got their third item and Snap jumped out of the gunge, leaving the leopard girl still wading around. "Come on, Vicky!" she heard herself call, watching her duck down and feel around underneath the surface with both hands as Heather bounced on her heels anxiously. Finally, as Jenna slithered down the orange slide into the gunge behind her, Vicky raised their next item above her head and hooked it on to the offered pole.

Heather spun round more quickly this time and turned around to hand the rod to the leopardess as she crawled out of the slime, then moved quickly in a bouncing run towards the increasingly slippery slide as she saw a small metal frame shown on their screen. She took hold of the top at neck height and tried to get a foothold on the slimy steps, propping her foot up against the side as she clung to the top surface with her arms.

Suddenly a shadow fell across her, and she barely had time to close her eyes before another payload of yellow slop spewed down on to the slide right in front of her. She quickly turned her head to the side and leaned away, spluttering as she felt drops of it clinging to her face as the heavy torrent soaked her arms. After a couple of seconds the downpour subsided and she struggled upwards, turning around as she hauled herself over the top and let herself fall down the ramp feet first

She went much faster this time, slithering down on the slime instead of bouncing like the first time, and held her breath as she tucked her legs up as she fell into the gunge. The surface seemed to bend almost elastically for a split-second before glooping around her.

Heather couldn't help squeaking out loud again even though she thought she'd been prepared for it as the gunk slithered around her to neck height, and quickly got up again, the ooze trickling down through all her fur with drizzles of slime pouring off her fingers as she hauled her hands out from under the surface. Looking up at the ramp opposite, she saw the cheetah boy swinging his legs over to sit on the top of the ramp, just as the tank placed above the top of the orange slide opened and he was hidden by a dome of green gunge splurging off his head. She caught a glimpse of his shocked mouth underneath it as his hands jerked from the sides of the slide up to bat above his head, and as he let go he began to slide forwards.

Heather dodged to the side as fast as she could in the thick liquid, turning away and hearing the yelp and splash as the cheetah slid down into the gunge behind her. She eeped as the ripple of slop from his landing lapped at the back of her legs, and quickly bounced forwards.

She waved her hands underneath the gloop as she walked forwards, her head turned to one side as she ran her fingers along the few items in the channel for anything that felt like a cube, dimly aware of Rish speaking again.

"That's a fifth one for the oranges, but I think the greens might still be able to make it to four..."

Looking over her shoulder, she saw the cheetah fumbling with the hook offered by Jenna and then crawling out of the gunge, his hair now painted green and flopping around his chin, while the lizard girl distractedly looked over at the top of the dripping ramp.

At the end of the gunge channel Heather finally grabbed on to something that felt like the item on the screen and pulled it up out of the muck. Suddenly she heard the crowd's cheering and encouragement turn into counting down from ten, and looked up at the screens as the last few seconds went past. Turning around and struggling forwards back between the ramps as quickly as she could, she held the cube up by its loop and hooked it on to the rod that Vicky was dangling in front of her, and she swung it away as time ran out and the klaxon sounded again.

Heather breathed out heavily, looking down at herself and turning her slimy palms up as she laughed hesitantly at the sight of her gunge-plastered top half. She looked up to the other team's side, seeing the slimy lizard girl leaning against their ramp for support, not having even started trying to climb it when her team mate got back.

"Okay! Your time's up - greens, I'll give you that one, 'cause you got it out before the klaxon went..." Heather watched breathlessly, walking forwards in the gunge past the slides as Vicky moved the long pole around to hover over the box, shaking it to dislodge the frame. As it clunked into their container, Heather looked to her sides at the slop-coated ramps, the slimy liquid dripping from the bases into the channel, then waded past them and looked for a relatively dry patch to haul herself out on to.

"So the greens fished out one, two, three, four bits of scrap..." the squirrel announced, then moved across the set to the other side where the lizard girl and feline were standing side by side, sharing the pole for support. And the oranges got five, so they're the winners of the first game - come on down here, all four of you!"

As a couple of crew members came up and laid stiff sheets of plastic over the front gunge channels to bridge them, he bounced down to the front of the set. Vicky stepped forwards to help Heather up, giving her a brief slimy hug before holding her hand as they carefully walked over the gunge and down towards the audience.

Heather let go of the leopardess's hand and sat down as they reached the edge of the inflatable surface, pushing herself with her hands to slither on to an area of matting that had been laid on the studio floor. As Vicky stepped down as well, Heather looked over at the arrangement at the front of the set - there were three linked podiums in a row, one of each team color on the sides with a dome-shaped buzzer on the top of each, and a longer one with two barstool-like seats placed next to it in the middle. A frame of heavy-looking girders painted yellow was set up just in front of the team podiums, holding a big barrel held sideways just above head height in front of each one. As they reached their podium, she saw a blowup chair was sitting in front of it, right underneath a spout jutting down from the barrel overhead.

Their host was standing waiting for them in the middle between the two seats, and turned to face the front as the other team also came over to stand next to him. Heather could now see the audience faintly without the glow of the lights on the main set, and briefly looked out to see where her dad might be seated, but then decided to try to ignore them, instead keeping her eyes on Rish as he spoke up above the applause.

"Welcome to Cleanup Crew, it's good to see such an audience for the pilot - if you didn't know what you were in for when you came in, then I think we're set the tone now..." He glanced back at the messy set behind him. "I want to introduce you to the contestants who are braving our first ever recording - on the orange team, we've got Snap and Jenna, and they were in the same year at Davis high school, until yesterday when the year ended and they both escaped! Enjoying your freedom so far, Jenna?" he asked, tilting a handheld microphone in her direction.

The lizardette swallowed as she caught her breath, nodding. "Yeah, definitely," she answered, and Rish quickly turned to the feline to allow her to recover a little more.

"A little less relaxing than most first days of summer, though, Snap? But at least you got the chance to cool down..."

"You could say that," he said back, smiling over at his teammate, still bouncing on his heels energetically. Heather twitched a little as she watched him reach a hand up to the green slop coating his hair, brushing it out a little and flicking the collected gunk to the floor.

"We'll keep it coming, don't you worry..." The orange squirrel turned around as he spoke. "And our green team are Vicky and Heather!"

Heather straightened up a little, glancing out in the direction of the audience again then back to Rish as he approached. "Now, Heather's already saved us today by stepping in at the last minute to stand in for Vicky's brother - did you have any idea what you were getting into when you arrived?" he asked, thrusting the microphone towards her.

"Nope," she said simply as she looked back up at the gunge-spattered game area, to a smattering of laughter.

"It might have been just as well - we've got a lot more where that came from! But Vicky's looking keen to help you through - you've been wanting to do something like this for a while, haven't you?" he asked as he turned to her.

"Yeah, ever since I was a kid," she answered excitedly, Rish drawing the microphone slightly away as she spoke.

"Okay, well, you have our word that we'll try to get you as covered as possible! And Heather, I promise I'll try not to call you and Snap 'the boys' too much," he smiled.

Heather smiled with a nod, and watched Vicky shift from foot to foot excitedly as Rish returned to the middle and faced the audience. "For the real thing we're going to be pitting teams from two schools against each other, and they're going to be competing for a chance to drop their chosen teacher into this..." He gestured up behind him, and Heather twisted to look as a pole-mounted camera swung over to the pool of gunge where the channels met, its glistening green surface being shown in close-up on the large screens at the back of the set.

"That's what we call the Gunge Plunge, and it's a five foot deep vat of icky stuff that I think everyone wants to stay well away from! So let's meet the 'volunteers' who our teams are trying to send in today... for the orange team, we have a genuine high school teacher - please welcome Kari, everyone!"

He threw his right hand out to the side as the audience cheered, and Heather leaned back to watch as a light gray lioness emerged from the flap on the far side of the set. Trying her best to walk upright on the inflatable surface and avoiding the collected gunge where the team had been running around, she stepped on to the bridge over the green-filled channel with a bit of a shudder and carefully sat down to reach the ground next to the orange team.

Rish offered a hand to help her up and came back to the middle as he introduced her, showing her into the seat next to him on the orange team's side. "Kari here was Jenna's teacher all the way back in her first year of school - are there any stories you want to share with us as to why she deserves to be here?" he asked as he stepped around her to hold the microphone to Jenna.

"Er..." she paused, her eyes darting from him to the nervously smiling lioness. She opened her mouth but couldn't seem to think of anything to say.

Rich saved her by walking back to the middle. "Well, no offence, Kari, but for a lot of people, I think just being a teacher is enough to want to gunge you..."

The lioness twitched at the sound of the word but covered it up with a smile, looking over her shoulder at Jenna as the lizard girl wrung her hands in front of her.

"Who's ours?" Heather whispered to Vicky as the squirrel turned to them.

"Some guy from the studio," she said back quickly as Rish stepped towards them.

"And our nominee for the greens isn't a teacher, but he's someone who's been working at the studio for a long time and who we thought deserved to take part - Mathis!"

"What?!" Heather said out loud as she whipped her head around to the set entrance behind them, just in time to see her dad burst through it, hands raised in the air as he bounced towards the front. Slowly she turned back to face the front, hearing a few extra cheers coming up from the crew just behind the cameras.

Stepping down off the end, Mathis gave Heather a nod and smile, putting his arm around her. Still shocked, she turned to see the host chuckling at her expression.

"Did nobody tell you?" he grinned.

She shook her head, glancing back over her shoulder at him again. "No..." she confirmed.

The host looked up at her dad. "Well, Matt, we know you set your daughter up for this at the last minute, so maybe she'll get the chance to get you back for that later... think he deserves it, Heather?"

"Yeah," Heather nodded without hesitation, but she was still unsure whether this made things better or worse.

"Well, I hope that you get that chance... come here and sit down!" As the black mouse moved to seat himself next to Kari, Rish turned towards the audience. "But to send their adult into the slop, both our teams are going to have to be prepared to get a little messy themselves - you ready for that, Vicky?" he leaned over as he saw the leopardess grinning to herself.

"Yep," she responded, nodding enthusiastically.

"She's keen, I like that! How about you two?" Rish spun around towards the other team's side, where Snap nodded as he put his hands on the shoulders of the more nervous-looking lizard girl.

"Okay, we're going to go straight into our next game, and two of you might be getting messy again whether you're ready or not - who do you want to risk it first, the girls or the guys?"

As he looked to the sides at the two teams, Heather turned to her teammate, who pointed at herself and nodded. "Girls," Vicky quickly called over to the host.

"We've got a vote for the girls over here - are you all right with that, Jenna?" he asked, turning around.

"Yeah, okay," the lizardess nodded.

"All right, everyone follow me..." The squirrel flung his arm over his head in a beckoning motion as he turned around and jogged away to the right side of the set. "...To nowhere in particular, 'cause we need to get it set up," he finished as he stopped and turned around. "You're doing great so far - ready for another game?"

Heather jumped at the excited whoop from her leopardess teammate, and glanced back over her shoulder at Jenna's more hesitant nod. They were being led around to a shallow tub with a pair of plastic screens at right-angles that formed a sort of shower cubicle, with a sprayer hooked around the top of the panels.

"We're going to give you a chance to clean up a little first," he said as he picked up the showerhead and pressed the switch on the end, making a quick burst spray over his hand into the bottom of the cubicle. "Oh, they've warmed it - that's good of them! Jenna, let's get some of that stuff off..."

He handed the sprayer to the lizard girl, who stepped into the cubicle and quickly ran the water over herself, turning away from the rest of them as the green and yellow mixture of slime on her skin thinned and slithered away. After a few seconds, she looked out and shook her head as droplets of water ran down it, handing the hose to Snap, who took her place and sprayed the top of his head, shaking his hair out as the water ran down it and then fluffing it back up again with his free hand. After a few seconds of moving the sprayer over the rest of himself, he turned the water off and moved to join Jenna.

Heather stepped into the box and took the sprayer as Snap handed it to her, quickly washing down her legs and shaking them a little as the green gunge broke away quickly under the shower of warm water. Grimacing a little at the thick splatting noise it made as it broke away from her fur and clothing and smacked into the basin, she hung the sprayer up again and stepped out of the box.

Vicky went in after her and bent down to spray herself, but kept her eyes all the time on the prop that was being set up on the solid section of the set behind them - two six foot high booths next to each other with a covered section on the top.

"Those look like the things they used to gunge people on the Saturday morning kids' shows," she said as she pointed towards them. "I always wanted to go in one of those!"

"Well, this looks like it's going to be your chance," Rish smiled from the side as the feline quickly ran the water spray over herself, then shook her legs as she stepped out of the box, still bouncing as she looked up at the tanks. "Ready? Want to get up there the easy way?"

He pointed and led the four contestants around the side wall of the set, where a stagehand beckoned them up a set of stairs and back to where Heather and Vicky had first entered. Heather stepped through the flap after her teammate and leaned on the back wall to look at the back of the tanks in front of them.

The top section that was hidden from the audience was open at the back, revealing five tanks in a row on top of the booths - two small ones on each end filled with thick, paint-like liquid in the team colors, then a larger tank in the middle which was a murky brown. With a little shudder, Heather stepped around the two cubicles as she watched Vicky and Jenna being shown inside by a couple of other crew members.

In front of the booths, two sets of tracks had been laid out on plywood sheets that stretched down the several yards between the back of the set and the channel of gunge at the front, marked with numbers from one to one hundred. At the near end of each one was a box on wheels spray-painted to look like some sort of rusty mine cart, with a lever protruding up from the center and an arrow stencilled on its side that pointed down at the number line. She wandered over to the nearer one, looking over the three foot high edge of it to look down at the inside.

"Do you need a hand getting in?" Rish's voice came from behind her, and she looked from him back to the inside of the cart.

"Sure..." she nodded, still unsure of what was going to happen but putting one hand on its side. As he took her other hand, she pulled herself upwards onto its side and then shuffled herself around to put her feet down, curling her toes as she felt the cold surface.

"The others got to see this before - you can move yourself by pulling or pushing this," the squirrel gestured towards the lever. "Just make sure that you don't go too far down that way..." he pointed towards the gunge channel - "that's not meant to happen in this game!"

Heather forced a small laugh, and nodded as she looked down at the control stick. She looked across to Snap in the other cart, then back at the gunge booths, where Jenna and Vicky were now seated side by side with a perspex wall between them. She shuddered a little as she looked at them, remembering watching people getting slimed spectacularly in the game shows she used to watch on TV.

"All right, everyone ready - cameras ready?" the host asked as he bounced in front of the cubicles, between the two tracks. "Can I have some noise from the audience, please, for us cutting in..."

He pointed out to them, and Heather swallowed, remembering she was being watched as a chorus of applause and whoops started up. She concentrated on looking back at her partner in the gunge cubicle, glad she wasn't going to be the complete center of attention just yet.

"Okay!" the host called as the cheer died down. "For our second game we're using the gunge tanks, and the girls are looking just a little bit nervous as they try to get comfortable..." He hovered between them and then moved to the left hand side. "Jenna, how's it looking in there?" he asked, crouching down.

"A bit scary..." The lizard girl looked up into the nozzle looming over her as she spoke, and Heather leaned down to look at it too - in the top center of the booth, a curved funnel protruded downwards from the covered reservoir above her head.

"You got a bit of a taster in the first game - not looking forward to getting covered in that stuff a second time?"

"Nope." She shook her head, but there was a hint of an uncomfortable smile on her face as she glanced upward again.

"All right, Snap's going to try his best to keep you clean - here's how we're going to play it!" He jumped up away from the tanks and walked down between the middle of the two rails. "I'm going to ask our distressed damsels' partners a set of questions from my cards. After each question they've got to roll their cart over to the number that they think is the answer. The team that's closest to the correct answer gets to pull one of their switches, which earns them twenty points - and empties one of the tanks of gunge above the other booth!"

A camera operator came in close to the tank next to Heather, looking up past Vicky as she glanced at the nozzle like Jenna had. Wriggling in the seat, she looked at the three switches mounted in a row on the outside wall of her booth, then faced the front again and mouthed "Good luck" to Heather as she pointed up at the spout.

"The first to empty all three tanks on to their opponent wins - are you both ready?"

Heather nodded, and followed Snap's lead as he put a hand on top of his lever.

"You two ready?" she heard the host call to the girls in the cubicles. She turned around to see Vicky nodding, while Jenna shook her head.

"All right, roll yourselves over to your answer to this! According to the most recent estimate, what percentage of household waste can be recycled?"

Heather leaned over the front of the cart as Snap immediately started moving, and looked down the number line, tentatively pushing on the stick protruding from its center and nearly stumbling as it trundled slowly down the board. Trying to guess the answer as she thought more about controlling the cart, she pulled the lever back again as she passed the figure six. She shifted her weight as the machine came to a halt and then glanced back to see Vicky craning her neck up to look at where she'd stopped.

"So we've got a guess of... looks like 65 percent from the greens, and the oranges have guessed much higher at eighty..." Rish looked down at his card, and stepped aside. "The actual answer is that about 70 percent of it can be recycled, so Heather was closer - sorry, Jenna, but Vicky gets to pull the switch...!"

He gestured toward the side of Vicky's booth, and the leopardess twisted to look. The nervous-looking lizard girl clasped her hands over her eyes, squirming to sit upright as Vicky took hold of one of the levers and tugged it downwards.

A couple of whoops and groans were audible from the stands as a grinding noise played from the tanks, and Jenna squealed as a translucent column of orange goo splattered down on to her from the ceiling. She drew her elbows in a little tighter as the gunk slithered over her head and hands, globs of it sputtering on to her shoulders and sliding down her skin as she wriggled underneath the downpour.

She dipped forwards as the gloop eased off, taking her hands off her face and revealing an uncomfortable grin. With her shoulders hunched as the last of the downpour sputtered on to her back, she gradually sat back upright, wiping her hands on her knees.

"Urgh... the first gunge is on you, Jenna!" Rish called as he stepped back to the tanks. "Feeling all right?"

The lizard girl just nodded, eyes raised upwards. Blobs of the goo slithered off the sides of her head as she moved, dripping on to her shoulders.

"Well, you could even it up here or it could be about to get worse - second question: multiplied by a hundred this time, how many gallons of gunge did we make up for recording this show today?"

Heather glanced over at the cheetah boy as he confidently pulled the lever to guide his cart down further towards the far end of the board. She followed him as he slowed down, and stopped just a little before him once again, looking over her shoulder at the host and the two girls watching nervously from the booths.

"Final choices?" he asked. "Well, I've got to tell you that the board just doesn't go high enough to have the answer on it!" Heather peered over at the end of the board, twitching as a mild laugh came up from the stands.

"That means Snap was closer this time, Jenna, so get Vicky back for that - go on, gunge her!"

The slimy reptilian quickly reached up to the switch as the host spoke, tugging it a little down then hesitating before pushing it all the way, turning around to the other tank.

Heather wrung her hands behind her back uncomfortably as her partner looked up into the nozzle above her for a moment, her mouth hanging open in a smile. As the grinding noise sounded again she faced the audience, and squeaked, hunching up instinctively as a downpour of light green gunge slapped against her hair. As it domed outwards she grinned out from behind the slop fanning out over her head, shoulders twitching both from laughter and the feeling of the slime flowing over her.

The flow gradually began to ease back as the feline wriggled her shoulders, the bright green slop dripping in fingers over and down her chest. As the last drizzle slopped across her, the gungy leopard girl looked through the plastic wall separating her and the other team's player, playfully threatening her with an outstretched finger. Jenna dragged her hand over her own head again as she watched the slippery stuff drip in thick dollops from Vicky's fur and down the walls of the tank around her.

"Question three..." Rish spoke up again, and the two messy girls turned to look, both twitching a little as the slime slithered down them. "On average, what percentage of the body is made up of water?"

This time, Heather pulled her lever the other way, beginning to get the hang of keeping her balance as the cart moved back towards the tanks - she looked between the two watching girls inside the tanks, shuddering a little as another few thick green drips slopped down on to her teammate. She stopped the cart when she reached about forty, looking over her shoulder and following Snap as he moved just a small distance past her.

"Very close guesses there..." Rish looked down at his cards again as Snap stopped, leaning on the back of the cart as he waited for the answer. "You've both actually guessed very low - the answer's about sixty percent. Heather was closer, so it's your turn again, Vicky - throw that second switch!" The feline had put her hand on it as soon as the host announced the result, and with her eyes on the squirming reptilian next to her, tugged the lever down.

Jenna bit her lip nervously, closing her eyes and flinching as a klaxon sounded from the ceiling of the set. A smooth column of bright orange slime dropped from the nozzle above her, and as it splurged on to her head Heather saw her gasp just before the glop splattered out to hide her behind an upturned bowl shape.

The dome twitched a little as Jenna wriggled underneath it, the gunge licking a little against the walls and over the door of the tank. As the slime began to run out it came gradually inwards, revealing the sloppy reptilian again as it splattered over her lap and then her shoulders. With a sickly grin, she leaned forwards as the downpour slowed to a drizzle, hunching her shoulders up as the gunk dribbled down her chest from them.

"Getting a bit messy in there, Jenna!" the host called as the gungy lizard girl brought her hands up to wipe at her face again, the slop dripping from her skin making a thick splatting noise as it slapped on to the tank's floor. The once-clear walls surrounding her had been painted in bright orange arc shapes where the gunge had splashed from her head. "One more of those and you're out, but hopefully you'll get a chance to turn the tables again..."

Heather watched as the lizard girl ran both hands over her head, breathing out heavily as a wave of the orange slop smacked into the bottom of the messy gunge-streaked tank behind her. "Snap's got to get this one or Jenna gets the big gunging - what percentage of people, worldwide, own a mobile phone?"

Snap pulled back on his lever, moving the cart he was in away down the line. Heather moved hers in the same direction as well, with her heart pounding and unsure whether she wanted to win or to give Jenna a chance to escape. Letting go of the switch, she stopped a little short of her actual guess, halfway along the line.

The two of them turned to the host. "Well, you two..." he started, and paused a little as Jenna nervously craned her neck up in an attempt to see the cards. "Heather's on 50 percent and Snap's on 75 - my card here says that the current guess is that half of the worldwide population own cellphones, so Heather was dead on..." The lizard girl sagged at the result, bowing her head and shaking her shoulders in a defeated giggle. She brought one hand up and ran it over her already messy head again, glancing up for a second at the gunge nozzle above her.

"So I'm really sorry, Jenna, but the greens have won - Vicky, start up the gunge tank!" As the lizard cringed down a little further, Vicky eagerly turned around and pulled the last lever.

Jenna clasped her hands over her eyes again as the siren rose up, but jumped and took them away as there was a hissing noise from the base of the tank. She yelped and flailed her legs as a cascade of colorful foam jets began spurting up from below the floor, up to just below knee height before beginning to fall and splat back on to the tank's floor. Lifting her feet up and away from the jets, she eeped at the ticklish feeling against them before she quickly dipped them both back in to the rapidly rising foam bath, wriggling them down against the floor.

Heather glanced to Vicky, who was watching fascinatedly from the other tank, gaping as she watched her opponent squirm. As the foam reached her knees, a dirty-sounding hooter blared, and Vicky instinctively leaned away, putting her arm up as a downpour of brown and orange gunge glopped out of the nozzle above the lizardess and spewed outwards off her head.

Heather gasped as the slime sprayed outwards to splatter on the walls of the tank, and watched as the mucky lizard girl slithered forwards slightly so that her head was out of the downpour. As the stuff splashed on to her neck and slithered down her chest, she took her hands off her eyes and spread her arms out in front of her just above the waist-deep foam, revealing her gunge-streaked face. Hesitantly, she blinked her eyes open and bit her lip in an embarrassed laugh as she looked out at her partner, and Heather twitched as the siren rang again, watching the top of the wave of mixed gloop that was visible splashing out heavily over Jenna's back.

As the noise of the alarm died down, the flow from above began to ease off, and Jenna hunched her shoulders as she leaned back slowly to sit upright underneath it. As the last blobs of the colorful slop splotted on to the gungy lizard girl's head, Rish stepped towards the tanks, waving a hand to beckon the others over as well. With her eyes still on Jenna as she squirmed in the foam bath, shaking her head and spraying the thick gunge outwards as even more of the glop drizzled down on to her from the edges of the nozzle, Heather clambered carefully over the near side of the cart and walked back along the board.

The squirrel crouched down a little, holding the microphone up to the leopardess, and she took her eyes off the tank beside her and faced him. "So you're the winner of the first game, Vicky - how are you feeling?" he asked her.

"Kinda yucky," she giggled, running a hand over her wet hair and holding it up, letting the bright green slop drizzle from the tips of her fingers.

"Well, I don't think that's anything compared to how Jenna must feel just now - are you all right in there?" he smiled as he skipped to the other side.

The lizardess straightened her head up, making the fingers of orange and brown glop coating her head and face slither over and around each other and drip from her chin. Slowly, she brought her hands back up to her eyes and wiped across them, blinking a couple of times as she carefully opened them again, panting to get her breath back.

"You're seriously going to be using this thing on the kids?" she asked, her shoulders shaking as the audience laughed with her.

"I'm told they'll love it..." the host replied, watching the sloppy lizardess shaking her hands above the surface of the foam bath and dragging them over her head repeatedly, trying to clear it off but just smearing the slimy foam around.

"Can I gunge her again, then?" she asked, pointing blindly with her thumb over at the watching feline. Vicky's eyebrows raised for a moment, then she looked up at the host and nodded enthusiastically, straightening up underneath her gunge nozzle.

"Yeah, why not - it's the pilot, we've got to test everything!" Rish gestured towards the row of levers on the side of Jenna's booth, and she felt around for them with her right hand before blinking her eyes open and tugging the middle switch.

The leopardess looked up into the nozzle as the alarm sounded, then hunched her shoulders up with a grin as she closed her eyes. A column of gunge fell from the nozzle, dark green this time, and Heather just saw her mouth open in a yelp before it domed out over her head.

Vicky shook her head and squirmed to the side, her messy hair flying out behind her and spraying gunge around the back walls of the cubicle as her smile became visible again behind the green slop running down her face. Giggling as the stuff smacked on to her shoulder and slithered down her chest and back, she wriggled sideways so that it coated her other side as well, holding one arm out in front of her and watching the gloop run down her fur.

As the green downpour eased off, the gunge-covered feline ducked under the subsiding flow again, and raised her hands in the air to acknowledge the noise from the audience as it slithered down her hair and back, a mixture of dark and light green slime falling from her arms. Rish smiled down at her and then turned back to the watchers.

"All right, that's the end of the gunge tank round, and I think our girls must be pleased to hear that 'cause they're totally covered in sludge and gloop from up there..." He looked up at the covered top of the tanks as drips and blobs of the glutinous green liquid continued to rain down on to the giggling feline. "Come on, let's get you out of there and back to safety for a while!"

He stepped forward to open Jenna's booth, swinging the door aside and moving back as some of the sticky foam was dragged out the front. Unsteadily, she got up, putting a tentative foot on to the surface that the carts ran on, and Heather smiled to herself as the gungy lizard girl extended her arms to hug Snap, making sure to wipe her gungy arms around on his back.

"We won! You did great," Vicky's voice came from beside her, and she turned to look at the feline as she stepped out of the gunge tank, drops of the dark and light green slime dripping from her soaked hair as she held her hands up in front of her.

Heather put her own hands up to accept the hand-slap. "Yeah, I didn't keep you clean, though..."

"It's fine, that was fun!" the leopardess replied, dragging one of her hands down through her slick hair. "And I think they might be going to do it to you next..."

They both turned to the front, and Heather shivered as she saw the coating of colorful slime splattered across Jenna's back as she plodded across the inflatable surface away from them, hand held with her team mate to steady herself on her slippery feet. The host bounded down in front of them back to the podiums where Mathis and Kari had been watching. Heather kept her eye on them, shivering as she remembered the blowup seat underneath the nozzle, as she carefully crossed the plank over the gunge channel near the front of the set.

"Okay, you've already seen the setup for our questions round," the host started from his position between the two teams as she and Vicky slithered back to the studio floor. "Girls, you can stay safe behind the buzzers, but Snap and Heather, it's time to take your seats..."

Heather leaned over the buzzer podium and looked nervously down at the seat again, then felt a pat on her back from Vicky.

"Good luck," she grinned.

Heather nodded, and glanced over to the other team, watching Snap walk around to the seat in front. Avoiding looking back at her dad, she nervously tiptoed around the podium and upright girder next to it, noticing as she tried to keep her eyes on anything but the audience that the girder was open at the front. Tucked inside was a clear column with marks on it like a giant thin measuring cup, filled a few notches high with green slime.

Feeling very exposed to the audience without the safe feeling of the podium in the way, she sat down and tried not to think about everyone watching as she shuffled backwards in the inflatable seat. Instead, she looked up into the nozzle attached to the barrel-like tank above her - a square protrusion was screwed into the tank right overhead, with a dark circular opening a few inches across. Glancing to the side, she noticed there was a similar one coming off the barrel's end and pointing down into the clear cylinder next to her.

"Okay, these two look like they're as settled as they're going to get - girls, listen up, this is how the questions round is going to work!" The squirrel grabbed a set of cards from the top of his podium and straightened them against it. "The columns here represent your points so far - greens, you got sixty points in the last game and the oranges got twenty, so let's fill them up a little more..."

Heather flinched away a little bit as a smooth stream of gunge fell from the nozzle at the top of the cylinder, forming a little well in the surface as it glooped into it and filled it up three more notches. As the nozzle turned off, she leaned forward as she glanced over to the other team's slightly emptier cylinder.

"So you've both got quite a lot of gunge in there already - but the greens are ahead, and that's bad news for Mathis here! Kari, glad that your team's behind?"

"Yeah, a little," the gray lioness nodded.

"Well, it's early yet, it could all change... and this is how you can earn more points, girls - I'm going to be asking a set of questions over the next minute. If you think you know the answer, buzz in, and if you get it right, then the nozzle to the cylinder on the big tank of slime up here opens up and we add ten more points worth of gunge to your total. But if you get it wrong, then it's the nozzle above your team mate that opens instead..."

Heather had guessed that was how it was going to work, and looked up into the dark spout above her again, tapping her fingers anxiously on the arm of the blowup seat as she looked at the cap over the nozzle.

"There's one more thing - you've also got a lever in front of you, and you can use that once in this round. If you think that your opponent doesn't have a clue, then you can pull that to nominate them to answer the question - if they get it wrong then you'll earn twenty points and gunge their partner as a bonus. But if they get it right, then they earn the double points instead, and it's your own partner that gets the gunge."

Heather twisted around in the seat and glanced back to Vicky, watching her nodding at the explanation. Wanting them to finally start, she tried to relax as she returned to facing the front.

"Okay, everyone ready?"

She shook her head a little, and smiled as she heard a murmur of laughter coming from a corner of the audience.

"All right, one minute - let's go!" Heather heard a ticking noise from somewhere above her as the host rapidly read out the question. "What's the more common name for water when it turns into a gas?" She jumped at the sound of the buzzer behind her.

"Steam," Vicky answered.

"Absolutely right - ten more points!" The glooping sound started up again from Heather's left, and she looked towards the cylinder as it filled some more, trying to imagine what having gunge poured on her head would feel like, but pricked her ears as another question came from behind her.

"What's the lightest element?"

A higher pitched buzzer sounded - this time it was Jenna from the other side.

"Helium," she called out.

Heather saw Snap flinch at the answer just before a klaxon sounded from above them. "No!" Rish said above it as the nozzle above the cheetah opened, pouring a flood of orange slime down on to his head and enveloping him in a gloopy dome.

The feline shook his head, turning his palms up to catch the slime as the flow shut off quickly, leaving his head, shoulders and the tops of his arms covered in bright orange gunge. He flicked his head up again, spraying the stuff off his hair, and making Jenna dodge back a little as Heather tentatively looked up into the spout above her head again.

"Where are you going, Jenna?" the host chuckled as the lizard girl stepped back towards the buzzer with a nervous smile. "Sorry, the answer I was looking for was hydrogen..." He faced the front again as Jenna hunched back over the buzzer. "Okay, next question - what travels faster in air, sound or light?" Heather heard another buzz from behind her head immediately as her team-mate spoke up.

"Sound. No, light! Li..."

Heather's hands shot to her mouth as the alarm blared from above, and she shrieked as she felt the cool downpour flood down on to her, billowing out from her head. She closed her mouth quickly as it settled into a smooth flow, listening to the glooping it made as it dripped around her ears, falling heavily on to her shoulders.

Hunching up as the stuff slithered around her neck and down her back, she felt the gunge shut off, a couple more heavy blobs of it splatting down on to her. Grimacing, she reached her hands up squeamishly to the mass of glutinous liquid spilling down off the fringe of her heavy hair, then straightened up again as she flicked her hair behind her head, eeping as the gloop slid down the back of her neck. Trying to ignore the thought of the watching audience, she twisted around to look at her sheepishly grinning teammate.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Vicky, but Heather might not be happy with you for that slip of the tongue!" The squirrel flipped his cards over as the feline mouthed a "Sorry" through her smile.

Heather relaxed again and faced the front, running her hand over her head as the edges of the nozzle continued to slowly drip on to her. She curled her toes as Jenna buzzed in to get two more right in a row, watching the cheetah boy across from her tensing up and then relaxing each time she answered.

"The word 'laser' is an abbreviation - what does it stand for?"

This time, there was a pause for a few seconds. Heather tapped her slippery hand on the arm of the seat, jiggling one leg as she waited, then jumped as a mechanical switch noise played from behind her. She looked around to see her feline team mate with her hand on the lever.

"I'm nominating Jenna," she pointed as the host looked over.

"All right!" The squirrel turned around to the orange team, and the lizard girl looked down nervously at her buzzer as it began to flash. "Jenna, the greens are forcing you to answer - any idea?"

"I don't know," Jenna shook her head. The cheetah boy looked up into the spout above him, orange slime still dripping from the back of his hair.

"No guesses?" the host encouraged her, then shrugged. "Well, Vicky, you've earned your team twenty points and you've earned Snap another gunging - start it up!"

As he called up to the barrel, the alarm went off again, and the cheetah straightened himself up on the seat, a smile on his face as he closed his eyes. Heather watched as the round nozzle above him spewed out another downpour of orange gunge, and he shook his head from side to side as it smacked on to his hair, sending blobs of the slime flying outwards.

Heather smiled despite her nerves as she watched the laughing cheetah boy drumming his feet on the ground as the gunge eased off, sputtering and pouring down into his lap then up across his head again as it became a drizzle from the valve above him. He slithered his hands off the arms of the seat and ran them down through his messy dripping hair, turning around to look at his team mate and playfully throwing a handful of the slop in her direction.

"Okay, quickly, we've got time for one more..." Heather glanced over at the dark green gunge still dripping into the column next to her as the squirrel read out the last question.

"Name one of the three scientists credited with the invention of the modern telescope." As soon as he'd said it, the lever noise played from the other side of the podiums.

"Vicky," the lizard girl pointed as the host looked over to her, then jumped as the time-up buzzer for the round blared. The cheetah boy looked up, shaking more slime off his dripping fringe, to look over as well.

"All right, Vicky - it's all down to this now. Jenna's forcing you to answer, so if you get this wrong, Heather's going to get it..." The host repeated the question to her, and Heather watched with her heart pounding as the leopardess held her hands behind her back, breathing out as she looked up in thought.

"Albert Johnson?" she asked uncertainly, a small smile on her face as she wriggled with her hands behind her back.

Heather bounced a little, looking up at the gunge nozzle then facing the front as the host dragged the moment out. "Was that a guess?" he asked back.

"Yep," the cheetah girl answered.

"Well, it was totally wrong - gunge Heather!"

Heather squeezed her eyes shut but couldn't help giving a small laugh as the siren went off, and she flattened her ears and squeaked as the green gloop splashed on to her head again, flowing down the back of her hair and around her shoulders as she hunched them up against the cool liquid. This time she kept her hands on the seat's arms, twitching as she felt the gunge splash across them and bowing her head a little to let the stuff slide off the front of her hair. She gasped again as the slop poured down into her lap, jerking her head back and feeling the stuff splatter over her face and chest for a second before the flow from above shut off.

She brought her hands up to wipe her forefingers across her eyes, then blinked them open, squirming aside to dodge the strings of gunge dripping down from the nozzle above her. She raised her arms to the sides as she looked down at herself, her fur and swimwear plastered in a bright green slimy layer. Looking to her side, she saw the slippery cheetah boy leading the applause, and managed a smile over at him, raising one hand in the air.

"Okay, time's up..." the host called above the applause, and Heather slithered around to face him. "That successful nomination brought the orange team up to forty points for the round, and the green team got thirty, so the oranges have clawed their way back a little and there are only ten points in it - Kari, you're not in the clear yet! Want to play another physical game, you two?" he asked, turning back and forth between the two girls who had been answering the questions. He dropped his cards on the desk as they both nodded, Jenna slightly more hesitantly than Vicky.

"Okay - I think you could do with some more water before we carry on, though, so follow me over here..."

Heather slid off the front of the seat, grimacing as she hauled herself up and felt the goo trickling down the back of her legs. Curling her toes in the puddle of gunge that had formed on the floor, she stepped out of it quickly, glancing back at the slimy seat she had been in before looking up at her dad seated behind the host's podium.

"I'm totally getting you for this," she said above the applause, though through a smile this time as she waved her finger up at the gunge vat. He nodded back and smiled as she brushed a drop of slime off her fringe, then headed with the others over to the shower at the side.

Snap stepped in first, quickly moving the sprayer over his head, then he stooped down to pick up a small tub from behind the basin he was standing in. He opened it, scooped out a handful of the stuff inside and slapped it on to his hair, then slipped his hands down towards the back of his head and back up again.

"You're not floofing it up again?" Vicky giggled, gesticulating with her hands around her own head. "How long do you think that's going to last?"

The cheetah grinned back at her and stepped out to let Jenna in, his spiky hairstyle restored. "Why, do you think I'm going to lose?" he teased, his thumb pointed dramatically towards himself.

"Yep - we're going to make sure that gets covered in gunge again!" Vicky suddenly clapped her arm around Heather, who jumped then nodded along, a little less confident than her leopardess partner as she thought about what could be about to happen to the two of them.

After their turn in the shower, Heather patted the back of her damp hair with one hand as she clambered back up on to the blowup surface. She gulped as she looked to the back of the set, seeing two tall cylinders big enough for a person to stand inside mounted on box-shaped podiums on the solid surface, both directly underneath one of the looming tanks mounted on the lighting rack. A tangle of pipes connected from the bottom half of the sides of each cylinder down into their boxes, which each had an opening on the front where it looked like something was supposed to connect into them, and a large lever attached to their sides. Further forward, two curved sections of pipes had been fixed so that they poked down into the set's main gunge vat, and many more straight pipe sections had been scattered throughout the pool and channels.

As she straightened up she accepted the hand of the waiting host, who guided her over the channel towards the cylinder on the orange team's half of the set, while Snap was led by another stagehand over to the green one next to where Vicky was standing.

"You okay after that?" he smiled as they walked unsteadily over the inflatable surface, gesturing towards his own dry headfur.

"Yeah," she managed a smile back. "Just as long as it helps get my dad in this stuff too..."

Rish chuckled, and nodded. "Well, we'll do our best - good luck with that!"

They had reached the back wall of the set, and he kept her hand in his as he walked her up a couple of steps towards an opening in the side of the cylinder. With a little hesitation, she ducked inside and then straightened as she heard the hatch being closed behind her, finding herself looking up at the gunge canister over her. She stared at the cap-covered nozzle on its base for a second before shuddering and glancing over to see the feline on the opposite side doing the same, bouncing on his heels with his hands clasped behind his back, before facing out to the audience. In front of her, the host was bouncing over to take the hand of the lizard girl.

"Okay, for our third physical round..." The squirrel cleared his throat and held the microphone up again. "Our girls here are going to be doing the legwork for the game this time. A load of sections of pipes have been dumped in here..." he said as he crouched down next to the round pool, fishing one of the foot-long round pieces of plastic out from where it was floating on the surface of the slime and shaking it a little as he held it up, thick drops of green stuff falling back on to the surface. "And they used to be connected to the pumps that stopped the channels from flooding. Of course, they're not in working order just now..."

He flung the pipe back into the gunge vat, a thick bubble coming up from its side as it glooped halfway under the surface. "So, girls, you're both going to try to get your team's pump running again. You're going to have to collect the sections of your own colored pipe from the gunge and stick them together, starting from the ends here..." he kicked the section of pipe that curved down into the vat, "and going up towards the back, ending at the valve on the pumping tank here." Heather watched as he bounced on the inflatable surface towards her, pointing down at the round opening that she'd seen on the box she was standing on, and she pressed her hands against the clear surface to try to look as he crouched down in front of the tank.

"Once you've completed your pipe, all you've got to do is turn the handle to turn the pump on, and it's going to suck a load of gunk from the vat into its tank up here," he said, straightening up and slapping the cylinder as Heather wrung her fingers behind her back nervously, looking down at the set of nozzles connecting into the tank around her feet and knees. "Of course, your opponent's team mate is still going to be stuck inside there so that means they're going to get totally covered in gunge, but... that's their own problem!"

Heather glanced over at her cheetah opponent, whose mouth was open in a grin as he turned his eyes up towards the nozzle looming over his cylinder, his hand going up to fluff his hair up all the way again. He bounced on his heels a little as the squirrel moved away towards the front of the set, an arm out to balance himself as he approached Jenna.

"And for this game, girls, we're going to be nice to you - the gunge on the ceiling isn't going to be turned on..." He pointed upwards, but as a disappointed groan came up from the audience, he rotated his arm out to point to them, continuing, "...which is something that we'll have to reconsider for the real show, if it gets that reaction!" The lizard girl smiled a little at the news, glancing up at the cylinders above them.

"No, we're saving those for the last game... all you've got to worry about is fishing those pipes out. You've got the poles to help you if you need them," he said as he pointed towards the sides of the set, where the poles from the first game were leaning on the walls. "And you've each got ten pipe sections to find - go!"

As the set lights swung around to darken the set for the game, he leapt forwards and scampered over the plastic bridge before pulling it away after him. Heather watched as the lizard girl stumbled a little in her attempt to dash over to the wall, and she grabbed the pole for support, heading carefully back towards the gunge pool.

Tapping her feet nervously, she pressed her hands on the inside walls of the cylinder and watched as Vicky jumped eagerly down into the stretch of gunge at the front of her side, stumbling a little in the thigh-deep green slime as it splashed out around her, then dragged two sections of pipe out along with her as she shuffled back up on to the surface on her knees. She slithered forwards to the start of the pipe leading down into the vat, sticking the first of the two pieces into it.

Heather's eyes moved to her own side of the set. Jenna, who had been standing well back from the vat as she used the pole to fish out the three orange pipes out of it, bent down to gather them all up in her arms, grimacing a little as she hugged the slime-covered pieces against her chest. Dumping them down next to the curved pipe section that led down into the pool, she immediately turned around again, grabbed the pole and headed in a bouncing run to the gunge stream at the front.

Heather looked around at the pipe pieces floating in the slop as the two girls fished the sections one by one out of the gunge, seeing three of each color in the stream between the halves of the set, three of each from the vat - with all the ones that Vicky was meant to get still bobbing on its surface - and four of each from the streams at the front. Vicky was carrying the last of her four from the front towards the pipes, and Jenna was already quickly hooking the rod into each of hers in turn and dropping them on the bouncy surface beside her.

"Both of our girls are moving fast, but they've still got a long way to go getting those pipes connected up..." the host's voice came over the speakers behind her. Tuning out his commentary, she realized with a pang of nerves that Jenna's approach to the game was a lot faster even though she was more hesitant about the slime, and she called out to Vicky to cheer her on. Grinning back up at her, the leopardess dropped to all fours next to the vat, and Heather wriggled as she watched her stretch slowly out over its surface, her fingertips just touching one of the pipe pieces. She lunged forwards to grab it, her fingers slipping off as it spun round, and Heather gasped as her teammate gave a surprised yelp as she toppled forwards face first into the gunge.

"Oh, Vicky's gone in!" The host interrupted his commentary with a shout, and Jenna slowed down as she bounced back along the surface, looking over just in time to see Vicky's feet gloop under the surface at the end of her accidental forward plunge. The lizardess looked unsure whether she should stop, but continued to add the pipes she was carrying to the pile next to the vat. "She's fallen in!" Rish repeated, barely able to get it out through his laughter as he clambered on to the bouncy surface and hurried over the narrow dry section at the side.

As he crouched down a safe distance away from the edge with microphone in hand, the gungy outline of Vicky's head bobbed up on the surface of the slime vat, the stuff rippling lazily as the surface was broken. Green waves came up as her hands broke through as well, paddling on the surface a little as she struggled upright, a grin just visible through the coating of slime on her dripping face.

Rish offered a hand as she bobbed towards the side of the chest-deep vat, putting her arms out to stretch over the side but quickly slipping back down into the glop as her gungy hands failed to grip the surface. Heather shuddered as she watched the mixed dark and light green gunge drip down her partner's hair and back, as a crew member came up to join Rish and they crouched down to haul her out of the pool together.

"Are you all right?" Rish's voice came over the microphone.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she heard the gunge-covered leopardess pant, slithering up on all fours and collapsing again. She rolled a little to the side, and held up the pipe section that she had been stretching to reach before she fell in, to a cheer from the watching audience.

The host straightened up again as she bounced away to the end of the pipe she had been building. "At least you got what you were reaching for! But it looks like your dip's given Jenna the chance to nearly finish..."

Heather jumped and looked down in front of her. The lizard girl had taken the chance to connect up the sections that she had fished out, forming a gungy pipe that nearly stretched to the box that Heather was standing on. As Jenna bounced towards the end with the final three sections of the pipe she needed dripping in her hands, she whimpered, looking up at the dark tank of gunge above her head again.

Glancing over at the other side of the set, she saw her teammate grabbing two nearby sections from the dividing slime channel, but knew that the other team were easily going to finish first. Snap had already turned to watch her intently from the other cylinder. Feeling his eyes on her, she curled her toes as she looked down beneath her again, just in time to see the lizard girl thumping the end of the completed pipe into the opening just below her feet.

"You've done it, Jenna, now get round there and throw the switch!" Heather could feel her heart pounding as Jenna stumbled again, her feet slippery with slime, but managed to straighten herself up on the solid surface next to her. Looking down at her, she caught her eye, and saw the reptilian smile a little apologetically as she eagerly tugged on the lever.

Heather looked down the way and hunched her shoulders in preparation for the downpour as she heard the gunge tank alarm go off, but screeched as the pipes at her feet burst into life first, pouring a flood of murky orange glop on to her lower legs. She twitched her feet, pressing her hands on to the sides of the cylinder for balance, as the cool gunge glooped quickly up her calves and swallowed her knees.

Involuntarily she screamed again, but it turned into a laugh at the cold, ticklish feeling of the surface of the paintlike stuff kept rising around her. She stretched up and squeaked as it reached her waist and bubbled over her hips, feeling the slime soaking heavily into the fur on her legs underneath the surface.

Looking up to see Jenna had stepped back from the tank, her hands clasped in front of her, she gave her a smile and then yelped again as the gunge from above finally splattered down on to her, spewing out from her head and painting the walls of the cylinder in bright orange. She closed her eyes as she felt the flow slump down over her face, holding her breath as it splashed over her back, head and shoulders and listening to the thick glooping noise that it made as it poured into the gunge surrounding her.

Breathing out heavily as she felt the flood from the ceiling shut off, she wriggled her head out of the way of the last drizzle and squeamishly dropped her hands back to her sides to dip them into the chest-deep gunge bath, feeling the sloppy liquid squishing around her with every movement. Pricking up her soaking ears, she listened to the cheering from the audience, realizing that it was as much for her as it was for the winners of the game, and with a weak smile, raised her gungy arms back out of the slime in a victory pose. Her expression quickly became a grimace again as she felt the goo slither down her arms, and she lowered them, wiping tentatively at her face and blinking her eyes open. The gunge was dripping in gooey strings down over her face, and she shook her head a little to shake more of it off.

She slowly leaned to the side again to see out of the gunge-splattered cylinder, eeping at the movement of the cold stuff glooping around her as the lights came up. Jenna was still staring up at her from the front, giggling a little embarrassedly with her hands clasped near her mouth. Vicky had sat down breathlessly on the incomplete pipe on the other side of the set, still dripping with thick green slime but cheering with her hands above her head. As she watched, Rish came over and raised his feet over the pipe to sit down next to the gungy feline.

"Vicky, you really took one for the team there but unfortunately Heather still got gunged in the end - how are you feeling under all that?" He hovered an arm around her shoulder but didn't touch her.

"Great," she panted, raising one hand from the pipe and running it over her messy hair, pushing it back behind her head and sending a wave of goo splattering on to the floor. The host hastily retracted his arm.

"I think you got it just as bad as her - are you all right in there, Heather?" he called over at the gunge-filled cylinder. Still breathless and with the gloop pressing against her, Heather just managed a smile and a wave, standing on her tiptoes to lift her chest out of the slime.

"Good, we'll get you out of there somehow... congratulations, Jenna, you completed your pipe and got a hundred points for your team, and the greens over here get seventy for the parts they fished out. And that brings us to..." He looked up at the screens at the back of the stage, and Heather twisted round to look but couldn't see them. "240 for the greens, and 260 for the oranges - they've taken the lead!

The cheetah boy threw his arms up, and called an encouragement to Jenna that Heather couldn't hear over the applause from the stands. As it died down, Rish turned back to the leopard girl. "Before we go back down there, Vicky, as we gave Jenna a free shot at you in the last game, I think it's only fair that you get to go over there and pull the lever on Snap anyway - what do we think?"

Heather joined in the renewed cheer from the audience as the spiky-haired cheetah boy laughed a little, a defeated smile spreading on his face as he glanced upwards at the tank above him. Rish gestured his slimy feline opponent over to the switch beside him, and without any hesitation she bounced over to it with a grin, bracing one foot on the surface next to it as she gave it a hard tug.

Heather looked up to the canister mounted above the cylinder, just in time to see the red cap on its base swing open and a flood of green gunge spew down from its uncovered nozzle. There was a yelp as the downpour splashed on to the cheetah boy's head, the slippery liquid painting the walls of the cylinder around him as it domed outwards before slithering down his chest and back. He pressed his hands on the front of the slimy cylinder, wiping the gunge off and looking out to the audience as the slop splattered on to the back of his hair, sagging it down again as it poured off down into the bottom of the tank.

As the slimy flood subsided to a drizzle, Heather jumped and gasped as the gunk she was standing in suddenly bubbled around her. Looking down and still blinking away drops of gunge from her eyes as the surface of the gloop began slithering down her again, she twisted to the side to see one of the stagehands crouching on the outside of the cylinder, his hand on some sort of valve to drain it back under the set.

Shivering a little and shaking her hands at her sides, she looked down at her gunge-streaked fur and swimwear as the stuff glooped out of the cylinder - she was covered in a smooth coating of cold orange slime from her chest downwards, beads of the stuff slithering over each other and slowly dripping into the remains of the gunge bath. As the last of it drained away, the stagehand reached up to open the hatch for her, and splashing her feet in the inch of slime left at the bottom of the tank, she gratefully ducked down to get out.

As she was helped down the few steps to the set's surface again, she looked to the front to see Vicky and Jenna already making their way back to the podiums. Still breathless, she took a step forward on to the blowup surface, then her slimy foot slipped out from under her and she crashed to her hands and knees. Panting, she wriggled a little as she prepared to get up.

"Hey, are you OK?" she heard a voice from above her, and turned her head upwards, grimacing as she felt blobs of slime flying out from her hair, to see the cheetah boy standing next to her and offering his hand.

"Yeah, I think so..." Heather tried to push herself off the plastic surface with both hands but slipped again, leaving streaks of orange gunge behind as she flailed her arms to stay upright. Gratefully, she grasped Snap's outstretched hand and got unsteadily to her feet.

"You look like you really got it there," he smiled as they slowly began walking towards the front of the set. He moved his other hand up to his forehead, pushing his dangling hair up and over the back of his head.

Heather nodded, shuddering at the memory of the cool, clammy feeling of the gunge bath glooping around her. She gasped as Snap playfully tugged her down into the slime channel at the front of the set, then crawled up the other side with him and flung a handful of the slop in his direction as they slipped down off the front of the inflatable surface together. The host and their teammates were already waiting for them at the podiums.

Rish turned to the green team as Heather joined her partner. "Vicky, you were meant to be safe in that last game and instead you're down here even messier than last time - are you feeling okay under all that?"

"Yeah," the gunge-soaked feline nodded, still panting for breath.

"Well, you might be happy that we're giving you the seat this time - go around and make yourself comfortable!"

The leopardess flashed a smile at Heather before scampering around to the front and bouncing into the seat underneath the gunge nozzle. Turning her head towards the orange team, she saw Snap clap an encouraging hand on to Jenna's shoulder, patting her on the back as she tiptoed around more nervously and looked up into the spout above her as she shuffled herself backwards on the blowup seat.

"Jenna, good luck under there - you were staying nice and clean in the last game but now it's up to Snap to keep you that way!" The curvy lizard girl looked over at the host and nodded, wriggling anxiously as he picked up his question cards. "You two, you know how it works - a right answer gives you ten points, a wrong one gives your partner some gunge... and you've got one nomination each that you can use by pulling the lever next to you. Hands on buzzers and here we go..."

Heather leaned forwards on the podium, clasping her messy hands over the dome-shaped button as the first question was read out.

"What do the initials 'DVD' stand for?" She pressed down, but was a fraction of a second later than the cheetah boy opposite her.

"Digital video disc", he replied, and Heather sagged as he gave the answer that she was going to say.

"I'm sorry, that's wrong!" Heather looked up again, surprised, and looked out to the front as the lizardess closed her eyes, hunching her shoulders in preparation. The alarm hooted and a flood of orange gunge poured out of the tank, doming off her head and splattering over the plastic seat around her. She bounced in the seat, craning her head to the side and bringing her hands up in front of her face as the slime covered her, eventually sagging and brushing the collected gunk off her lap with her hands as the last drizzle poured on to the back of her neck.

"Sorry, Snap, the middle word's 'versatile' and not 'video'... and Jenna doesn't look like she wants you to do that too much!" Rish chuckled as he watched the messy lizard girl squirm in the slippery chair, her hands dragging gunge off the top of her head. "Next question..."

Despite her nerves, Heather got the next three questions right in a row, seeing her feline teammate look up into the nozzle looming above her every time she buzzed in, and then breathing out again once Rish announced that the answer was right, grinning as the slop instead filled the cylinder beside her. Bouncing nervously on her feet, Heather hunched over the buzzer again as he read another question out.

"What year - last century - was the international currency introduced?"

At the silence from both sides, she began to straighten and shook her head, knowing she had no clue, then suddenly remembered about the lever. Lunging to the side for it, she tugged on it and heard the switch noise just before the cheetah boy got to his.

"It was a race for the switches there!" Rish turned from side to side as he checked who had got there first. "But Heather just made it - so Snap, I'm afraid I'm going to have to push you for an answer..."

The lizardette hunched down and clasped her hands over her head as her cheetah teammate thought, tapping his hands in rhythm on the podium behind her.

"Seventy... six?" he eventually spoke up uncertainly.

"Yes! You're absolutely right - Jenna's safe and that means it's gunge time for Vicky!"

He raised his voice above the siren as the lizard girl turned her happily surprised face to the other seat. Heather gasped as she whipped her head to the front, too, just in time to see the feline's ears prick then flatten as a flood of green gunge spewed down on to her.

Heather twitched back a little from the dark green column right in front of her hands, listening to the thick glooping noise that the sloppy liquid made as it poured off her partner's head. She watched the faint outline of her head wriggle from side to side under the messy dome, thick splashes of the stuff pouring down to her shoulders and trickling down her back as she leaned forwards against it.

After a few seconds the messy downpour shut off, and Heather put her hands back on to the buzzer, her eyes on the back of Vicky's head as the fresh gunge dripped from the tips of her soaking ears. She raised both her arms up and clapped her hands together, spraying globs of slime outwards, then returned them to the slippery arms of the seat, drumming them up and down in turn.

Rish smiled over as dollops of green gunge continued to rain down on the messy leopardess from the edges of the nozzle. "I didn't think that she could get any messier, but..." He cleared his throat and flipped another card over. "What's the full name of the element with the abbreviation 'Ca'?"

Heather pressed the buzzer almost automatically, but instantly got less sure of her answer as Rish turned to her.

"Er..." She shook her head. "Carbon...?"

"No, it's calcium - I'm really sorry about this, Vicky...!"

Grimacing, Heather stepped back again as the valve clicked open and even more green slime poured down on to the drenched, giggling leopard girl. She stretched forwards, her shoulders shaking as the gloop flowed down her back, splashing out to the sides a little as it covered her in another smooth and slippery layer.

"One more, quickly!" Rish called above the continuing splattering noise as the smooth flow broke into a blobby drizzle. "In filament light bulbs, what's the filament made out of?"

Heather hesitated this time - she thought she knew but was unsure whether to risk it. Suddenly, her thoughts were interrupted by a buzz from the other side instead.

"Carbon?" Snap answered with a smile as the host turned to him.

"No, I'm afraid it's not the answer to this question either - Jenna's turn!" The lizard girl had clasped her hands over her mouth as soon as he'd announced the wrong answer, and she ducked down just before the downpour of orange slop splashed on to the top of her head. She squeezed her eyes closed as the stuff slithered down to her shoulders, squirming and hunching them but keeping her head under as she was coated in the gloop. As it began to ease off, the time-up buzzer rang, and she wriggled her head out of the slimy drizzle, running her hands over the top of her head as she looked down at her dripping skin and swimwear.

Rish chuckled a little as he watched the lizardette squirm away from the last drips of orange slime raining down from the nozzle, eventually slithering forwards out of the seat to stand up. "Okay, our girls didn't stay clean, but the oranges still got twenty points and the greens got thirty. So as we head into the last game before we decide which of these two goes in the gunge vat..." He looked to his sides at Kari and Mathis, the mouse's smile not wavering but Kari giving a little shudder, "it's still almost neck and neck, with the greens on 270 and the oranges on 280. Let's give them all a chance to de-gunk again before we get back up there... the greens look like they need it!"

As Jenna moved back around to join Snap as he followed the host to the side of the set, Heather padded around and squeamishly stepped into the large puddle of slime in front of the podiums, watching her teammate raising her sloppy arms up, flicking her hair behind her head. The gunge-soaked feline grinned as she looked up at Heather, her teeth showing up brightly against the coating of thick green slime that was oozing from all over her, none of her orange fur visible under the mess.

Heather couldn't help giving a small laugh as she looked down at her. "Are you okay?" she smiled.

"Yeah, how about you?" Accepting Heather's outstretched hand, she squirmed forwards in the slippery chair, wobbling as she stood upright. Heather looked down at herself to see that she was just about as covered in slop as Vicky was, and put her arm around her team mate's shoulders as she did the same to her, holding each other up as they went towards the shower box again.

Snap was helping Jenna to wash the splatters of gunge off her, with one hand aiming the shower head into the cubicle at her and the other running through his hair to spike it up yet again as the two of them approached. "You look like you need more time in here!" he grinned, looking them up and down as the two slimy girls approached. He turned and offered a hand to help the lizardette out of the shower box, aiming one last squirt of water at the plastic panels at the back of it.

"Sure..." Heather twitched as Vicky's slimy arm slipped across her as she stepped up into the box. Heather tentatively lifted her feet as well, taking care not to slip and glad of the gripped surface underneath her feet as the leopardess hugged her close.

Wriggling her face up from in her shoulder, Heather closed her eyes, wrinkling her nose as the spray of water played over the two of them, feeling the slop thinning as it mixed with the water and hearing it smack thickly to the bottom of the shower box as it dripped off their fur. After a few seconds, Vicky broke off the hug to turn around underneath the water spray, and Heather did the same, batting at the front of her slime-soaked swimsuit as it gradually became visible again.

"Okay, can you cope with just one more game?" Rish smiled as Snap turned the water off, beckoning the four of them over towards the front of the set again. Heather ran her hand through her wet hair, feeling a lot lighter as she walked back with the three others, and looked at the new contraption that had replaced the podiums at the front of the inflatable area.

The new addition to the set was a wide clear box, about the size of the two tanks that Jenna and Vicky had been in put together, with a half-height door that looked like it was hinged at the bottom and a simple shelf-like seat running along its width. At the back, a bright yellow painted pair of struts at either side stretched up and slightly over the open top of the tank, supporting a trough of gunge between them. Heather's eyes followed the struts back up to the top of the tank again, realizing that the trough could be hoisted up and tipped into the booth once it reached the top. On either side of it, there were two graduated score cylinders again, but wider and shorter than the other ones had been, only coming up to chest height.

The host padded to the front of the booth, in between Mathis and Kari, as the teams joined them at their sides. "We've got one last game before we decide which of these two takes the plunge," he started, looking between the lioness and mouse and grinning at their nervous expressions. "And it's been a close game all the way through, so it could happen to either of them! Teams, you're going to be racing against each other to push your score up just that final bit to get your victim into that vat..."

He turned up to the back of the set, turning his fingers in the air as they all looked up with him. "At the back there, we've given you each a pile of gunge containers," he went on as the screens showed a close-up view of a pile of little barrel-like objects, about the size and shape of gallon milk bottles with little open spouts on the top. "Your task's going to be to get as many of them as possible back down to here in the next minute and a half, and to empty them into your cylinder to add to the gunge you've already collected."

He stepped over and crouched down next to the orange team's score cylinder, looking at the scale on the side of it. "Now, the oranges are ten points ahead at the moment, which gives them a little advantage - but each full container's worth ten points, so the greens could easily overtake them if they're quick. Of course, they've both got to be careful not to spill too much of the slop on the way back down here..."

Heather looked back up at the set as he turned towards it - the ramps from the first game had been brought out again, this time placed facing outwards towards them and a couple of feet away from the gunge that ran across the width of the set. Two ropes had been fastened to the tops of them so that they could be climbed. "And that's not going to be easy, 'cause you've got to get up on to the game zone, take a dip into the channel of gunge at the front, then climb up and over the ramp to get to your pile. Then, carrying as many as you can, you've got to get over the ramp again, where you'll slide back down towards the gunge, then down to here - where your opponent's nominee will help you out by taking charge of filling the cylinder." He spun round to take the lioness's hand, and Mathis moved to the other side of the set to take up his position next to the orange team, slapping them both on the back in encouragement.

"Yes, they're eager to help, because if the cylinder they're filling has less in it than the other side's when time runs out, then they're going on the Gunge Plunge," Rish continued, grinning as he caught the nervous Kari's eye. "And it also means that the team they were supporting goes in here!"

He stepped around to the front of the set, and Heather shifted nervously on her feet as he knocked on the front of the wide booth. "Yes, our losing team don't go away empty-handed - they get to experience our dump tank, where the nominee they were trying to send into the slop instead gets to pull the lever to tip a vat of slime down on to them instead!"

Dashing around to stand between the teams again, he looked to the sides at both of them. "So everyone's competing here to avoid the gunge - want to see these two go in the dump tank, Jenna?" he asked, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder at the other team.

"Yeah," she nodded, as Snap put his arm on her shoulder in encouragement. Heather exchanged a nervous, smiling glance with her teammate.

"How about you two - feeling confident about staying nice and clean?" he called to Mathis and Kari.

"Yeah, they can do it," Heather's dad called back, as Kari shook her head. Vicky turned to flash a grin up at her.

"All right, there's only one way to find out - for the last time this show... let's start the cleanup!" Rish shouted above the noise of the klaxon, and all four contestants sprang forwards to clamber on to the inflatable surface.

Heather stumbled as she climbed up, watching Vicky jump into the gunge stream and out the other side in front of her. Getting to her feet, she bounced forwards and held her breath as she looked down at the gunge, then forced herself to jump forwards. Feeling the stuff ripple thickly outwards as her legs broke through the surface, she quickly waded a step forward then scooted up the other side, feeling the slop drip down her shins and off her toes. Glancing to the other team's side as she picked herself up, she saw Jenna hesitating at the edge of the slimy channel, only for Snap to come up behind her and take her hand, making her yelp as he tugged her down into it after her.

Heather faced the front again - Vicky was already near the top of the ramp, wriggling up on her tummy as she hoisted herself up with the rope. Heather took hold of the second rope dangling down the length of the ramp, walking up the surface as she went hand over hand, then stopped suddenly as there was a burst of bright green from the ceiling and a downpour of gunge splattered down over the leopard girl's back. Twitching, she yelped as she slithered against the slimy surface, then hauled herself up and over the end of the ramp.

Heather looked across at the other team's side, just in time to see a curtain of orange gunge splurge across the reptilian and cheetah trying to climb their ramp. She looked quickly back down as her foot slipped against the gunge dripping down their own slope, and collapsed to her knees, shuffling up the rest of the way and then stepping awkwardly down a staircase of three blocks that had been set up on the other side, trying to avoid the streaks of gunge left by Vicky's feet.

Her leopardess teammate rushed past her with a canister in hand as she stumbled forwards from the steps, and she ducked down to pick another one off the pile, turning immediately back to follow Vicky up the steps. She copied the leopardess's scrambling motion, using her free hand to help herself up, but sat down more carefully as Vicky threw herself forwards and bounced down the ramp. Heather pushed herself off, grimacing as she slid down, feeling the cold slime on the ramp soaking into her swimwear, then bounced forwards to dip her legs into the gunge and propel herself off the inflatable surface.

Quickly, she put her still nearly full canister down next to the lioness, who was pouring the one that Vicky had handed her into the big cylinder, grimacing as the noise the stuff made as it glopped out of the spout. Turning around, she looked over to the other side to see Snap sliding down the messy ramp with a canister clutched to his chest, then bouncing forwards the couple of feet on the flat surface to dip back into the gunge channel, yelping as his feet slithered out from under him and he glooped up to his neck in the rippling slime. As Jenna got ready to descend the ramp behind him, the cylinder suspended above the stream opened, and splurged a flood of gunge down on to the struggling cheetah boy. With a yelp, he squirmed to the side, shaking his head as he began to get up again, the slop pouring off his soaking hair as the last drips spattered down around him.

Determinedly, Heather bounced forwards again after Vicky, clambering up back on to the inflatable surface and swinging her legs around to stand up in the gunge. Suddenly a shadow fell across her and she closed her eyes as she felt a flood of thick slime splattering on to her head and shoulders, the gunge stream rippling as the gunk splurged into it. With her eyes closed, she fell forwards, flopping against the other bank and struggling to get out of the gunge as she felt the stuff slither down her hair.

Already short of breath, she threw herself at the ramp, going hand over hand on the rope and wriggling against the slippery surface, flopping to her tummy as Vicky bounced back down with a canister hugged to her chest. Heather reached the top and struggled to haul herself over the crest of it and on to the flat section at the top, levering herself over and bouncing breathlessly down the three steps.

She wobbled unsteadily forwards on the slimy blowup surface, crouching down to lift another of the heavy gunge-filled canisters up, then determinedly moved back to the steps. Vicky was already nearly at the top of the ramp again, and stood up as she got on to the top step. She took a step forwards and then squeaked as she was hit by a flood of yellow gunge from the ceiling, practically jumping forwards out of the sloppy downpour as it splattered wildly against the inflatable steps.

Hesitating a little as the slop from above slowed to a drizzle, Heather looked at the coating of thick yellow gunge dripping around the edges of the steps as she came forwards, and grimaced as she struggled up the slimy surface on her knees, putting the cylinder down after each step and turning to haul it up with her. Eventually she got to the top of the ramp and rolled over to face down it. She squeaked as she slithered down the much more slippery ramp, going much faster than the first time and scooting right across the flat surface and into the river of gunge.

Eeping as the slime rippled around her, she stood up, then jumped again as she was splashed by the leopardess slipping down into the slime beside her. Together, they scrambled forwards, slithering their way down the front inflatable step and handing their cylinders to Kari. They turned and were about to head back up again when the time up klaxon blared - Heather sagged gratefully, and turned to accept the enthusiastic hug from her feline team-mate.

"It's over!" Rish announced as he bounded to the front of the set. "Mathias and Kari, I'll give you the ones that you're pouring in just now..." Heather looked over to the orange team's side - she couldn't tell how well they'd done, but Jenna was standing at the front with Mathis, and Snap had just picked up a canister at the back of the set. He looked over his shoulder, then put it down again and made his way more slowly around the ramp to get back to the rest of them, holding his hands out to the sides and flicking the gunge on his arms to the floor.

"It looked to me like the greens got five tanks and the oranges got four, so it could be very close here and come down to just how much gunge got spilled on the way back..."

Heather shuffled a little closer to Vicky tensely, feeling Kari put her hand on her shoulder as they watched the squirrel looking down at the orange-filled cylinder, a measuring stick in hand. As Snap came over to take Jenna's hand as well, she looked up at her dad's expression, happy to see a bit of nervousness behind his calm smile.

"Well, the oranges did well - they collected enough to get themselves to 310 points," Rish announced, and Heather bounced on her heels, running her hands along her arms, as he approached their cylinder. She stooped down as well, trying to quickly count the marks on its side as he put the stick up against it.

"Oh, but the greens..." he started, and Heather's heart jumped as he turned around to face the audience. "The greens just got up to 315 - Vicky and Heather are our winners!"

Heather gasped and turned to the grinning leopardess beside her - as Vicky caught her eye she bounced forward and wrapped her arms around her in a triumphant hug, making Heather stumble back a little then spin around with her. Over the excited feline's shoulder, she looked across to the other side as Snap turned to the lizard girl and shrugged, putting his arms around her as she sagged, shoulders shaking in a nervous laugh.

"Oh, you both did really well, Snap and Jenna, but I'm afraid rules are rules, and the rules say you're going in here," Rish continued, grasping the handle in the middle of the front panel of the booth, and he pulled it down and outwards to form a ramp. The cheetah boy broke off the hug, and with Jenna giggling to herself helplessly, she allowed herself to be led by him over to the tank by the hand. As the host gestured them inside, they both stepped over the panel to sit down next to each other on the bench, both looking at the gunge behind them. As Snap caught Jenna's eye again and gave her an encouraging grin, Rish stooped down to shut the door on them.

"Hey, Rish!" Heather glanced at her teammate as Vicky stepped forwards, pointing into the tank. The squirrel turned as she approached, but instantly guessed what she was going to say.

"You want to go in, too? All right..." Rish smiled as he put the door down again, and the leopardess eagerly scampered around him to join the two contestants in the tank. She turned around and squeezed in to sit down between them, putting her arms around both of them and patting the lizard girl on the shoulder a little as she looked nervously behind her at the large trough of gunge.

"How about you, Heather?"

"No," Heather said quickly, shaking her head despite Vicky encouraging and beckoning her from inside. She grinned as Rish picked the door up and shut it again, stepping around and pointing to the lever on the left side of the tank.

"Okay, Mathis - go and join your daughter and we'll deal with you in a minute! Kari, do you want to come over here and give the team that was trying to gunge you what they deserve?"

The lioness laughed slightly, visibly more relaxed than she'd been during the game. "Sure," she answered, passing Heather's dad as they crossed to the opposite sides of the tank, and looking in to smile in at Jenna.

Heather looked up at her dad, unable to disguise a wide grin as she caught his eye. He nodded silently, patting her on the shoulder as the host showed Kari to the lever. The three contestants in the tank glanced from her to the trough behind them as she paused before tugging the lever down.

A couple of special effect sparks shot from behind the tank as the gear props on the back ground into life, and Heather watched as the three of them looked at the gunge container as it began to rise behind them. A cheer rose up from the audience as it neared the top, and Vicky squeezed Snap and Jenna a little more tightly, closing her eyes with a smile on her face as she turned to face the front. As the trough reached the top of the tank, it began to tip forwards, and the clanking noise from the tank was replaced by a loud siren as the slop spilled down in a wide curtain on to all three of them.

Squeaks and yelps went up from behind the curtain of slop as it bulged out a little over all of them, with Jenna poking her head out of the slime, wriggling out of Vicky's grasp as she clasped her hands to her forehead to shield her eyes. Snap tossed his head to the side, half of his grin visible for a moment before the gloop oozed over his sagging hair, and Vicky raised her arms up into the falling gunge, the mixed colors of the thick liquid splatting on to her arms and breaking off in sticky streaks.

Kari stood back from the gunge tank, her eyes wide as she watched Snap and the girls squirming as the gunge poured down on to them. As the curtain began to break into slimy strings, the alarm sounded again, and she jumped a little as two jets of white foam burst into life from the top sides, making all three of them duck as they sprayed back and forth, painting them in a white layer that was stained green as the foam rolled and spilled off their heads and shoulders.

The sprays finally sputtered and died, leaving the three messy contestants exchanging grins with each other from underneath the clinging mass of foam and gunge. Jenna rubbed her hands across her eyes, leaving streaks of her green skin visible as she leaned over to playfully smush the collected murky foam across Vicky's head.

"So, Kari..." The gray lioness glanced to the host, still grinning as she watched the last gooey strings of slop continue to rain down from the edge of the trough on to the contestants in the tank. "You're sitting pretty just now - you got to turn the tables on your nominators, we're giving you this... blank bit of paper which in the real show will be a big copy of the voucher for your school..." - he handed it to her and she glanced down at it amusedly before turning to the audience and over-ceremoniously holding it up - "and maybe most important, you don't have to go on the Gunge Plunge. Feeling good?"

"Oh, yes," she smiled.

"But as for you..." Rish scooted across the front of the booth to the side where Mathis and Heather were standing, a cheer going up from the audience. The black mouse scratched the back of his neck as he smiled down the way. "You're going to be sitting somewhere a lot less safe - you got your daughter to come on today, you've been watching her getting messy... and now she's going to get you back for it!"

Heather looked up at her dad's sheepishly grinning face, then back at the host.

"Shall we get him up there, Heather?"

"Yeah," she grinned eagerly.

"Come on!" Rish beckoned as he dashed over to the inflatable step and bounced up to the game area again. Glancing up to catch her dad's eye, Heather took his hand, tugging him forwards, and together they made their way up to follow him.

While they had been down at the front, a frame had been set up over the middle gunge channel, with a small metal chair mounted in the middle, facing the round pool of gunge at the join of the two streams. A large lever stood attached to the frame beside it. As a stagehand came forward to start helping Mathis up on to the seat, Heather turned to the side to see one of the barrel props that had been over the seats from before, but this time mounted above a wider booth like the one at the front of the set, with both nozzles pointed down at the seat inside.

"What, another one?" she spoke up, turning to the squirrel.

"I'm afraid so..." Rish laughed. "Don't worry, though, it probably won't go off... and we're going to get him either way!"

Heather turned as the surface bucked a little underfoot, and looked behind her to see her slippery leopardess teammate scrambling up to join them, with the orange team making their way more slowly over to the other side of the set. Vicky straightened up, her eyes wide despite the slime still dripping from her hair.

"Come on!" The leopardess, as excited as ever, took Heather's hands and bounced her towards the gunge machine. As they were shown inside, Heather kept her eyes on her dad as he hoisted himself into the dunk seat, swinging his legs around and dipping them slightly under the gungy surface with a slightly squeamish smile.

"Oh, this is going to be good!" Vicky grinned as she leaned on the door of the tank, putting her chin on her folded arms. Heather nodded, still a little nervous at her own situation but eager to see her dad getting a taste of what he'd put her through.

"Okay..." Rish began as he looked around the set as the preparations for the game finished, the stagehands retreating back down to their positions at the front. "If we could have the lights down..." - he looked up as the studio lights dimmed a little, leaving the area around the vat and the gunge machine to its side spotlit - "...and some noise, please, for seeing Mathis gunged!"

Heather and Vicky joined in as the audience cheered on the cue from Rish, some especially loud whoops audible from the camera crew at the front. As the noise died down, the squirrel turned to the black mouse poised above the vat.

"It's the moment the green team's been waiting for... Mathis, welcome to the Gunge Plunge," Rish started.

"Thanks," Heather's dad nodded during the slight pause, glancing down at the gloopy surface just below and swishing his feet forwards a little as the host continued.

"For their efforts, Heather and Vicky have earned you a well-deserved messy dunking, but if you think they just haven't taken enough punishment already, you might have a chance to turn the tables once again."

The squirrel stretched as he pointed to the ceiling, and Mathis blinked against the light as he stared upwards. "Up there we've got three full tanks of our sloppiest gunge aimed down at you and ready to open, so what you want to do is turn off as many of those as possible. And to do that, we're going to test your memory - depending on how many junk pieces you can name from a list we're about to show you, a certain number of those tanks will be turned off."

The mouse nodded along with Rish's description. "And if you deactivate all three of the tanks up there, then you get the added bonus of opening up the big barrel of gunge above your daughter and her friend..."

Trying not to show her nerves, Heather glanced up into the nozzle again as a camera operator came in to get a closeup of it. Vicky wriggled beside her and clasped her hand over Heather's, waving a little to the slimy cheetah and lizard girl watching from the other side of the set.

"Okay, here comes the list - are you ready, Mathis?"

"Kind of," he answered with a nervous smile. Heather wriggled in her seat, anxious to see how he did, and twitched as she felt Vicky putting her slippery arm around her shoulders.

"All right, you can watch this behind you, or on the camera monitor over there..." - he pointed out towards the front - "...here they come!"

Heather twisted around to see as the screens behind them displayed a series of items like the pictures that had been shown during the first game, leaving each up for about half a second before moving on to the next one. After only a few seconds, the display was replaced by a set of ten boxes in a row, with icons of the ceiling-mounted gunge canisters above the sixth and eighth ones, and a much bigger barrel above the tenth.

"Got them all?" Rish asked Mathis with a grin as he faced him again.

"Think so," he answered confidently, but unable to keep a straight face.

"All right, you've got thirty seconds to name all ten - go for it!" A timer started counting down on screen, with a clock sound from the speakers counting each second that ticked past.

"Er," the mouse started, looking down at the gunge as he thought. "Road cone, tyre, bike wheel..." Heather tapped her toes anxiously, stretching forward as three boxes on the screen filled up quickly, but she returned to sitting upright as he paused in thought. "Circuit board... thing..." he said uncertainly, looking over at Rish, who nodded.

Mathis glanced behind him at the rapidly decreasing timer, then back down at the slime, pressing his hands together. He lifted his feet out of the pool and gave a grimacing laugh as the thick slime ran off them. "A pipe piece," he remembered, "and... TV set. Or monitor..."

"Yes! That's one tank turned off," the squirrel announced, looking up at the screen as the first tank was crossed out. Vicky squeezed Heather's hand a little, holding it up as they both stared at the concentrating mouse.

"A tyre...?" he asked uncertainly.

"No, you've said that one..." Mathis went silent again as he thought. A countdown drifted up from the audience as the last few seconds ticked past, and he shook his head, his nervous smile eventually breaking into a grin as the time out buzzer went off.

"Time's up, Mathis!" Rish announced above the audience's cheering. Vicky whooped and Heather joined in, grinning as her dad glanced towards the two of them with an anxious smile.. "So you two are staying clean - come on out of there and get ready to pull the lever..."

A stagehand stretched his hand around the door of the tank to open it, and Heather squeezed out of the tank followed by her team-mate, heading straight for the switch next to where her dad was seated. She turned to face the audience, and shuffled to the side to make room for Vicky, who shook her head.

"This is all yours!" she said with a wide grin, standing back to lean against the tank they had just been let out of.

"Just before it happens, Mathis..." the squirrel said, pacing over the plastic bridge at the back of the vat and coming around to join Heather, "you earned yourself one tank turned off - which one do you want to avoid, the front, back or middle?"

"Um..." The mouse looked up again at the three tanks poised in a row above him and the vat. "Middle, I think...?" he said uncertainly.

"Yes, there's not much to choose between them! Okay, Heather, he's avoiding one of the tanks, but now it's your moment - he put you here in the first place, so pull that lever and stand well back!"

Heather took a deep breath. Looking up to watch her dad's face as he hunched down a little, closing his eyes, she slammed the lever towards her, then bounced backwards as a heavy mechanical noise played, seeing a burst of green gunge spray from the ceiling.

The industrial klaxon blared again as she watched the green stuff spew down on to her dad's head and shoulders, splashing outwards in a sticky dome shape and making a thick splattering noise as it hit the surface of the vat in front of him. She dodged towards Vicky as Mathis shook his head rapidly, sending streaks of it flying towards her.

As she watched the slippery ooze splash across him, a click suddenly sounded and the chair tipped forwards, sending the black mouse toppling forwards out of the curtain of slime. He hit the gunge face on and glooped completely underneath, waves of slime splashing wildly out on to the surface to the sides and then coming back inward in a slow ripple. As the glop from above continued to drizzle on to the back of the tipped-forward chair, Heather took a sideways glance at her teammate as she gaped down into the gunge vat.

The surface swelled up and then parted as her dad stood up, bobbing a little with the gloop as it rippled thickly in slow waves from where he'd been plunged in. As he unsteadily stood up in the chest-deep gunge, the vague outline of his ears and head became gradually more visible again as the mixture of green and orange gunk oozed and trickled down through his fur, his soaked and clinging shirt stained in the murky colors.

Heather giggled as he turned around to face towards her, his eyes still firmly closed but with one gungy arm stretched outwards with thick slime dripping all along its length. He reached up to wipe at his face, when a shadow fell across him, and Heather and a couple of the others squeaked as another payload of dark green ooze from the ceiling crashed down into the vat.

Mathis caught the brunt of the slop on one side of his head, and it splurged out wildly on to his shoulder and across the vat as he dodged to the side, stumbling and almost dunking his head underneath the surface again before catching the side of the vat. The thick glooping sound of the gunge pouring and splattering on to the surface drowned out the noise of the siren for a moment, before the downpour eased off, becoming a gloopy drizzle as he reached his free hand into it, the thick slime dripping through his fingers.

Vicky jumped in the air, cheering delightedly along with the audience as Heather watched the ooze-coated mouse, silent but with her shoulders shaking in giggles. Shaking his head again as he wallowed blindly towards the center of the vat, he pulled his other hand out of the gunge, shaking the thick clinging slime off before running his hands over his face and ears, leaving streaks of his black fur visible amongst the layer of slop he was coated in. He twitched his head as blobs of the stuff continued to drip in heavy strings from his nose and ear tips, and wiped at his eyes once more before catching Heather's eye, smiling defeatedly as she grinned down at him.

"Mathis..." The gunge-covered mouse turned around in the vat as Rish spoke, the slime making a thick sloshing noise and rippling around as he moved against it, holding his hands out of the slime in front of him. "You got your daughter on to this show - would you agree you deserved to end up like this?"

The mouse chuckled, looking down at himself and shaking his dripping hands above the surface. "Yeah, it's fair enough," he answered. He twitched as another few blobs of slime came down from the ceiling, splatting into the vat around him.

"How about you, Heather," the squirrel asked, and she took her eyes off the slop-covered mouse to look up at him, "does this make up for all you went through?"

"Definitely," she answered with a nod. She breathed out, beginning to relax now that she was out of the spotlight, and looked up at the drizzles of gunge still coming down from the ceiling.

"Well, Mathis," the host turned again, pacing around the back of the vat to the other side again, "if you were a teacher I'd be saying just now that you've also earned a school voucher, which we'd give to you as soon as someone had hauled you out of there..."

He moved over to where the orange team and Kari were watching him, the females still shuddering a little at the sight. "And if this were a real show, this is where I would say that that was all from Cleanup Crew and to join us next time... but it's the pilot and we've gunged everyone else so far, so..."

"Oh, no..." The gray lioness turned to him as he took her hand, and her team exchanged excited glances then looked up at her.

"Do we want to see Kari taking the plunge as well?" Rish called above the noise of the audience, renewing their cheer as he turned and led the lioness around towards the chair.

"Can't I just... dip in from here?" Heather heard her say, waving her hand towards the gungy surface and glancing down at Mathis as he clapped his hands above his head.

"No, you're going on the seat - we've still got one full tank up there!" Rish let go of her as a couple of the stagehands righted the dunk seat and guided her into it as she squeamishly stretched her foot over the vat to sit down, her face in a slight grimace as she settled on to the slimy chair. She eeped as her feet dipped into the vat, and she raised her knees up awkwardly to keep them out, wriggling her toes as the gunk dripped from her soles.

"I think it's your turn, Jenna - want to come over here?"

"Yeah," the lizard girl grinned as she moved awkwardly across the blowup surface, holding Rish's hand to steady herself. Heather smiled as she saw Jenna's own enthusiasm replace her nerves.

"I'll catch you, Kari," Mathis offered, the gunge heaving around him as he turned to face the chair, arms spread wide. The lioness looked down at him and nodded, shifting her weight forwards and giggling through her gritted teeth.

As she came round to the side, Jenna put both hands on the lever and glanced to Rish.

"Go on, pull it - have a good landing, Kari!"

As a cheer swelled from the stands, Kari nodded hesitantly, and she cringed as she heard the sound of the lever being pulled. She raised her eyes to the ceiling and shrieked as a column of dark green slime spewed down into the vat between her and Mathis with a thick glooping noise, and she drew her legs back as some of the slime splattered into her lap. Suddenly the seat tipped forwards, and with a squeak she slithered off it, her head going under the downpour and splashing it out to the sides as she plunged feet first into the vat.

Mathis stepped forwards and put his hands on her waist, stumbling and turning his face to the side away from the spray of gunge as he caught her. He grinned, one eye closed, as he held her underneath the sloppy downpour, her hands flailing above her head as she shrieked and tried to bat it away, the gunk around her waist rippling heavily up and down.

The green downpour subsided to a drizzle, and Heather stepped around the vat a little to see the lioness's face underneath the dripping green splatter across her head. Her mouth was wide with shock, her shoulders twitching a little in squeamish laughter. She gave a prolonged shriek and wriggled again as the mouse gently lowered her down the rest of the way into the chest-deep gunge, and she drew her hands in to hug herself as she bounced awkwardly away in the thick liquid.

Rish looked down at the rippling vat of ooze, his hands on Jenna's shoulders. "Feeling good?" he asked her, and she nodded silently, a smile on her face as Kari ran her mucky hands over her head and blinked up at her. "Yeah, we wouldn't have wanted you to go through all that and not see her gunged in the end..."

He straightened up and faced the audience, taking a couple of steps forward and beckoning the rest of the contestants to join him. "That really is all from Cleanup Crew this time - we'll get them out eventually, but join us again soon for more games, and to see who else ends up in here! Goodbye!"

Heather joined in the applause, sagging as relief came over her that it was over. She looked over at the green-soaked mouse and lioness bobbing in the gunge vat, then made eye contact with Vicky, who put her arms around her in a brief hug before moving on to Snap and Jenna.

"That's it! You all did really well," Rish announced, his voice unamplified again. "Especially you two - how are you feeling in there?"

"I'm okay," Kari nodded breathlessly, thick drips of the green stuff slipping down the sides of her head as she nodded. Behind her, Mathis raised his arm out of the gunk and gave a thumbs up gesture, the slop pouring away thickly from his hand.

Heather smiled down at her dad, but turned as she felt movement on the surface behind her. A vixen dressed in stage crew clothes was making her way up, a compact camera clasped in front of her as she unsteadily moved forward on the inflatable surface.

"Just a couple of photos for the site?" she asked.

"Sure," Rish answered, and gestured as she moved her way around, making sure to lean on her back foot as she approached the slime vat and pointed the camera down at the two figures in it. Heather watched as the two of them posed for the camera.

The vixen straightened up and spoke to Rish again. "Do you think the kids would be OK going in as well?"

"'Kids'?" Vicky repeated. The vixen turned, and the others smiled at her mock indignation. "I turned eighteen last month, you know... c'mon, Snap, let's show her!"

"Huh?" Snap turned to her as his name was mentioned, then yelped as the leopardess stepped past him, catching his arm. He looked over his shoulder as he stumbled backwards with a squeak, his other arm flailing to the side as Vicky jumped, tucking her legs up in mid-air. Mathis and Kari both sloshed back a little as the two felines splashed down into the gunge vat, Snap just having time to close his eyes and screw up his face as he tumbled backwards and went right under the gloopy surface. Vicky plunged down on top of him, the green paint-like liquid splashing outwards wildly and then rippling slowly up and down with a thick sloshing noise.

After a moment, two dripping shapes emerged from the vat, the green gunge gradually trickling away from them to reveal Snap and Vicky's heads and shoulders, the two felines bobbing up and down with the movement of the heavy slime. Snap brought his arms up out of the gunk, the slop pouring away from his fur as he held them up for a moment before dragging his hands down over his face, then shook his messy hanging hair away and blinked his eyes open. Turning around unsteadily against the heavy liquid, he smiled over at the grinning, giggling leopardess, and playfully splashed an armful of the gloop in her direction.

Heather looked over at the lizard girl as the gunge fight continued, stepping around the vat towards her and watching her laugh a little as the mouse and lioness tried to stay out of the way. Vicky turned and waved at the two of them, twitching as a wave of gunge from Snap sloshed over the side of her face.

"C'mon in!" she beckoned, then yelped as another splash caught her, and bounced forward to tackle the cheetah boy.

"Ready?" Heather asked Jenna, who was staring down at the gloopy surface as Kari shuffled around to make room for them.

"Yeah, I guess..." Jenna giggled nervously, and accepted Heather's hand as they both carefully sat down on the vat's edge.

Heather took a breath and slowly crawled her feet forwards to dip them into the slop, eeping at the coldness of the liquid as it sucked at her toes. She glanced at Jenna beside her, who was up to her calves, sweeping her legs from side to side under the gunk. After a moment she pulled her feet out again, stretching them out in front of her, and gave a sickly grin as she watched the slime dripping from all along her legs.

Letting go of Heather's hand, the lizard girl turned around and lowered herself into the slime pool, giving a prolonged whimper as she sank up to her waist. Kari, laughing at her reaction, stepped forward and put her arms around her sides. Jenna squeaked as her cold slimy hands wrapped around her, the lioness pulling her gently down a little more and eventually wading backwards to get her off the side of the vat. Heather grimaced as Jenna dipped up to her neck as she tried to get her balance, then her shoulders came out of the slime again, the ooze trickling off them and down her chest as she stood back up.

With the others encouraging her, Heather finally leaned forwards, and squeaked as she felt herself sliding off the surface, losing her stomach a little before she dropped into the cool gunge, the stuff surrounding her with a glooping noise. Staying upright, she hugged her hands across her chest, her teeth gritted at the coldness of the liquid and jumping up and down a little against the bottom of the vat. She squeaked with each movement as the gunge glooped heavily up and down around her, slow waves lapping up against her chest and back.

She looked across to Mathis, who was leaning back against the side of the vat, his arms spread out across the rim behind him. As they made eye contact, her dad smiled over at her, taking his arms off the sides and sinking down a little.

"Not what you'd expected for the first day of summer?" he chuckled.

"No..." Heather shook her head, beginning to get used to the cold but not the thick gloopy feel of the gunge around her as she turned around to face the camera. "It was fun, though," she admitted, glancing to the sides as the others were waved into position, "especially seeing your face when you were dropped in!"

Her dad put his hands on her shoulders, and she twitched as the goop touched some of the last of her clean fur. "Yeah..." he answered. "I'm kind of glad you got to do that, 'cause I didn't want this show giving you any ideas for revenge later!"

"Oh, I might have some of those anyway..." she grinned to herself. Glancing to the side at a whoop from Vicky, she pumped her hands in the air, splashing a wave of gunge up as the last photo was taken.