As the last of the foam and dented paper plates from the aftermath of the previous game were mopped away by the stagehands, Kass stepped back up on to the stage in front of the grid of small doors set into the back wall, and looked up to address the audience.

"Okay, let's go back to the Wall of Fame and see who's coming down next - give us a number, wall!"

A drumroll played over the stage speakers as a large screen above the wall cycled rapidly through a flurry of numbers, finishing with an industrial klaxon as the number 314 blinked on the screen.

"Row 3, seat 14!" the black squirrel called out above the cheering from the audience. "Jayce, who have you got?"

"Well, Kass, I see a lot of commotion down here..." The spiky-haired blue cat standing among the audience sidled along one of the middle rows towards a group of three zebra girls, two of them cheering wildly as they saw themselves on camera with the middle one sitting stunned. "And in the middle of it, we've got our next contestant! How are you doing, what's your name?" he asked as he put one hand on the zebra's shoulder, leaning around her other side to talk to her.

"Er, Maaike," she replied, twisting round to look up. She was wearing bands of blue fur paint across her natural black and white stripes, extending from her back to her midriff - a traditional marking from one of the nearby island communities - and her two-piece swimsuit had patterning to match.

"Okay, you've seen what happened to our last player in the pie game - you want to come down with us and have some fun?"

"Yeah, sure," she smiled confidently as she got over the initial surprise, and got up from her seat to the sounds of whooping from her companions and applause from the rest of the audience. Jayce followed her as she stepped eagerly down the stairs, joining Kass on stage.

"Maaike, welcome to the show..." Kass greeted her with a hug, stooping down a little due to the young zebra's small height. She took her hand and walked up towards the wall of hatches - they were arranged in a grid three deep by seven wide, each about a foot square and numbered with stencilled paint at random. The one on the middle left already hung open from the last game, the now-deflated foam pie inside dripping down over the wall below. "Go on, pick a number - you could get a prize, could get a penalty, you could get both..."

Maaike glanced over the whole board in indecision, her tail swishing behind her. "Er, fifteen," she chose, pointing to a door in the centre of the middle row.

"Okay, let's get you lined up here..." This time, Jayce took the zebra girl's hand and guided her to stand a couple of feet in front of the chosen door, then stepped over to grab its handle. "Do you want to do this or shall I?"

"Go on," she waved her hand and nodded, bouncing on her feet.

"Okay, you might want to close your eyes for this one," the cat boy grinned, and ducked aside as he tugged the door open.

The zebra girl barely had time to comply before the nozzle behind the door sprayed a jet of thick green foam at her, and she squeaked, raising one foot and turning half aside with her hands up in front of her as the stuff splattered against her chest and tummy, large blobs of it spraying out and floating to the floor. After just a second, the torrent shut off, the hiss of the foam disappearing to reveal the audience's cheering.

Maaike spread her arms and looked down at herself, grinning as dollops of the deep green foam rolled down her tummy. She slowly turned to face the audience, wiping the stuff from her chin and then dragging one hand down the arm that had got the worst of the spray, revealing the blue stripes on her shoulder again.

"Sorry, Maaike - you ran into one of our traps, but hold on -" the black squirrel said quickly, catching the zebra's arm as she moved to step down from the stage. Jayce put his hand into the space beyond the door and pulled a large old-fashioned key prop out from beside the sprayer, holding it up to show the audience before pressing it into Maaike's hand. "You've also found one of the keys, so you get to pick again!"

"Oh! Um..." Maaike spun around again, taking another look at the wall and smiling faintly at the green drips still emerging from the previous door she had chosen. "Let's have seventeen," she pointed up towards the top left of the board.

"Heh, a wise choice going for the top row - making sure you don't get sprayed again?" Jayce grinned. The zebra nodded with a smile, wiping more of the green stuff off her chest with the back of her hand, as the cat jumped up to cling on to the top of the wall, swinging himself over to pull the door open.

"Here we go!" he announced, and Maaike stepped to the side and leaned around to see as he dragged a large clear bag out of the hatch. As he got it fully out, he dangled it down for Kass to take it, and she raised the two foot cylindrical bag above her head as she carried it over to the zebra.

"Behind door seventeen, you've found the giant popcorn gift set!" Kass exclaimed, holding it out to the zebra girl, who hooked her arm around the giant bag awkwardly.

"Hah, thanks..." she began to say under the audience's applause.

"But this prize comes with a penalty as well - do you know how this stuff's made, Maaike?"

"Er, kind of?" she said vaguely, looking between the two presenters.

"Well, you're going to get a personal experience with it - you're going in our popcorn machine!"

The zebra giggled uncertainly as the audience cheered at the sight of a prop being wheeled on to the stage - a six foot tall box covered by a white cloth, mounted on a platform with large bare wheels. As the stagehand whipped the sheet off the cubicle, Maaike gasped as she saw it was made up to look like an old-fashioned popcorn cart with a striped roof and a giant chamber, inside which was a seat.

The encouragement from the audience intensified as the zebra girl walked down towards the booth between the two presenters, trying not to show her nervous grin as she looked at the device. As they stepped towards it, Jayce motioned for her to hand him the large bag and the key, and he walked over to put them on to a free part of the platform as Kass opened the cubicle door and helped Maaike up the steps at the front.

"Okay, Maaike - get yourself comfortable in there..." the black squirrel called as the zebra girl lowered herself slowly into the seat, her eyes flitting around the thin tall cubicle and a cringe visible on her face as she glanced up into its ceiling. "You see this big section up above you - that's where the popping happens, the corn gets heated up in there and once it's burst, it escapes and flows down into the chamber you're sitting in..."

"Uh-huh..." the zebra nodded, unable to stop her shoulders from shaking.

"We'll keep the heat low, so no need to worry about that..." Jayce added from his side of the tank, then pointed to a set of levers sticking up from the platform. "To make it interesting, though, you can add flavors into the mix like warm butter, caramel sauce..." He stopped and grinned as the zebra bit her lip, looking up at him through the wall of the tank with wide eyes. "Oh, look at her - acting all cute now she knows she's getting gunged...!"

Maaike giggled again as she bounced slightly in the seat, looking excitedly around at the cubicle she was shut in.

"Who did you come with today?" Jayce continued as Kass dashed up into the audience, the other two zebras getting up and following her down as she waved to them.

"Uh, my big sisters, Zahra and Mari..." Maaike replied, pointing up and then grinning embarrassedly as she saw them stepping down towards her, Zahra clapping her hands over her head. They wore similar markings to their sister, interspersed with streaks of purple and green.

"Okay, welcome to the show, Mari and Zahra..." Jayce greeted them, offering a hand to help them on to the platform one by one. "Do you think your sister deserves this?"

"Oh, yeah," Zahra replied, turning and getting a nod from Mari.

"Right, that's good enough for me - let's just turn the heat up a tiny bit here..."

As Jayce hopped down from the platform, Kass adjusted a large dial on the side of the booth and a continuous deep bubbling, popping noise began to play from over the stage speakers. Maaike hunched her shoulders, her eyes tilted up towards the nozzles above her, and yipped as a flood poured in from the top corners of the booth - she curled up as the wave poured over her head but relaxed again as she realized they were just beads of packing foam, dyed beige and cut crudely to resemble popcorn. As they continued to pour on to her, tumbling gently off both sides of her head and to the floor, she looked down as she realized the cubicle was beginning to fill up around her, then recoiled as some of the beads began to stick to her foam-streaked shoulders and chest. She glanced to the side at her sisters, both with their hands hovering over the levers.

"Come on, you two - give her some of the sweet stuff!" Kass called above the noise. The two older sisters glanced at each other, then tugged the levers back simultaneously, and Maaike closed her eyes, smiling through her tightly closed lips as more of the beads rolled over her.

An alarm rang over the studio speakers, and the audience cheered as a wide column of yellow gunge poured from the top of the booth. Its shadow fell across Maaike, then it enveloped her as it domed off her head, a shriek coming from underneath the gloopy upturned bowl shape as it smacked against the sides of the cubicle. As she wriggled underneath the twitching downpour, the beads falling from the chutes in the ceiling began to stick to the gunge on her head, being stained bright yellow as even more of the slime poured down across them. Putting her hands up to her forehead, the zebra girl formed a tent over her eyes, revealing her shocked giggling face as she felt the slithery beads creeping down her fur, some pooling in her lap or sliding down her back with clumps of them falling to splat into the still rising pile at the bottom of the booth.

Mari and Zahra watched awestruck as two more streams of brown slime started up from the sides of the gunge tank, aimed at their younger sister's shoulders. At first, they just stained the falling slimy mixture as it ballooned out from Maaike's head, forming a murky color in the two foot deep slime bath, but as the yellow gunge from above began to ease off, the messy zebra squeaked as she felt the ooze splattering on to her from the sides. She rolled her shoulders, the caramel-colored slime tickling at her neck and pouring down her arms, gunking up more of the polystyrene beads and making them stick to her fur.

The two sisters joined in the applause from the audience, nearly doubled over in laughter as the popcorn beads slowed to a crawl and the gunge from above eased off to a set of heavy dollops that splatted on to the slime-stained zebra's head. Maaike slowly raised her arms out of the waist-deep slurry she was sitting in, wrung her hands together to clear off the packing beads and gunge clinging to them, and brought them both over her head, pushing the lumpy gunge mixture back and down her neck. She leaned forward out of the continuing slimy drizzle as the caramel gunge spluttered to a halt as well, then blinked her eyes open and laughed helplessly as she saw her stained fur and the disastrous mess she was sitting in.

"Round of applause for Maaike!" Jayce called, intensifying the audience's cheers once more. Maaike giggled embarrassedly, but waved appreciatively towards the watchers, grinning and hunching up again as another few streaks of gunge slopped out of the overhead nozzle. Clumps of the sludgy mixture crawled slowly down her fur, hiding her stripes under a mixture of brown and yellow, with beads of it dripping down from along the length of her arm and splatting into the bottom of the tank.

"Maaike, I think you've more than earned your prize - will you be sharing it with your sisters?" Kass asked.

"Yeah, if they share in this too," she replied, throwing a clump of the lumpy gunge mixture toward them only for it to splat on the cubicle wall.

"That sounds fair - let's get you out of here and get another game going!"

As the stagehand reappeared, Maaike raised both fists in the air, prompting another cheer from the audience. As the two sisters sat down on the cart's edge, he pushed it back toward the curtain at the side of the stage, the gungy zebra giving one last wave to the audience before she disappeared.