CLEANUP CREW - SAM RODORIC
Written by Iron-K, 2017

"And that's it from us at Cleanup Crew..." the orange squirrel announced to the studio audience as he stood up next to the vat of green and orange gunge that dominated the centre of the show's inflatable set. "Remember, if you've got the guts to join the crew, next time it could be your teacher that ends up in here! No hard feelings, Marek?"

"I'll decide later, Rish." The cheetah bobbing shoulder-deep in the pool of gloopy liquid shook his head with a defeated smile, his distinctive spots and facial stripes completely obscured by the swirling coating of slime crawling its way in thick droplets down his face. As Rish signed off to the camera, the feline turned back around, hauling an arm through the slime to splash a wave of the stuff out at the grinning black puppy and calico kitten who made up the team that had dropped him in.

As the audience's final applause died down, a couple of members of the stage crew came forward with a rope and handed it to the slime-covered feline in preparation to pull him out. Rish made his way down to the front of the set and hopped off the inflatable boundary down to the floor, then looked up to address the audience again.

"Okay, so normally the show would be over now, but if you haven't had enough yet, we had a special request this week..." he smiled as he scanned the seats. "Can we find Sam, Fran and Katie?"

A whoop went up from one corner of the audience, and he and most of the watchers turned their heads towards the source of the noise. Up against the back wall, a group of five girls were sitting together - the pair of beavers who had been the source of the noise were sitting one on each side of two mice and a pink rabbit. The brown-tinted mouse and the rabbit smiled shyly, with the rabbit's hand going up slowly to give a tentative wave at the sudden attention. Between them, the slim grey mouse in the middle of the group sat bolt upright, her eyes wide in surprise. As a light on the studio's ceiling rack swung around to illuminate their corner of the stands, she blinked in the light then suspiciously flicked her eyes to her friends beside her.

"You three, come and join me down here..." Rish invited, beckoning with an arm over his head. The rabbit girl shared a glance with the brown-tinted mouse as they leaned over their stunned friend in the middle, then she got to her feet, shuffling past the beaver girl in the aisle seat who joined in with the applause as she half-stood to let her through. The grey mouse turned around in her seat, her mouth agape, and started to say something to her other mouse friend that was inaudible under the noise of the audience.

The beaver girl on the opposite end of the group grinned at the grey-furred mouse girl's surprise, and encouraged the two of them to hurry with a friendly push as the bunny waited in the aisle, glancing around awkwardly. As the mice approached, she turned and slowly made her way down the steps with a nervous smile, the two mice following close behind hand in hand.

"Come on, we're looking forward to this!" the squirrel encouraged them. He grabbed a towel from a passing stagehand and turned around to the low border of the giant inflatable set, scrubbing at its surface to wipe off some of the streaks left by slime-coated feet throughout the games and then draping it over to form a dry spot. "Have a seat," he gestured as the group approached, then stepped to the side to address the grey mouse who had been in the middle of the group, who was still looking around like she was trying to catch up. "Not you, Sam - if you go with our reception team, they'll get you sorted..."

The mouse looked up as a stagehand came over. "Oh my god, did you..." she started as she glanced back at her two friends, but tailed off as the crew member directed her away from the main set, heading around to the side. She looked back again, seeing the other mouse's slightly guilty grin, just before stepping out of the light and the audience's view.

"So..." Rish began as the bunny flopped down on the towel, her lop ears flying up behind her for a second as she sank down into the half-inflated material. "Let's get you comfortable - you'll have to make the best of the space, I'm afraid..." The curvy brown=tinted mouse put a hand out on to the edge of the set and sat down as well, squeezing on to the towel beside her friend as Rish dusted off the surface next to them.

"Fran and Katie, welcome to the show..." he said as he leaned with one knee up on the inflatable surface. "Enjoyed what you've seen so far?"

"Yeah, definitely," the pink rabbit said, the mouse nodding along with her. "Kinda glad that we were up out of the splash zone, though..." she said as she waved a hand up at where they had been sitting.

"Hey, I've got to cope with this every show," the squirrel replied. "Well, for this part, you're going to get a much closer view - but not quite as close as your friend is..."

The rabbit and mouse followed his gaze as he glanced up to the stage, where the equipment for the show's finale was being reset. The mouse visibly shuddered as she looked at the imposing contraption - a wide inflatable slide rose up from the sunken pool of gunge in the centre of the set, bordered by large blue cylindrical barriers with the main surface decorated in huge yellow and red chevrons that pointed down towards the slime. A blowup pool chair stood at the top of the slide, and was mounted to a mechanism that had made it tip forward at an angle, its surface spattered with slime and still slowly dripping from when the cheetah had been gunged a few minutes earlier. As they watched, another crew member reached up and tugged it back into place so the seat was upright again.

"You know, we don't normally let people get a free shot at their nominee like this..." Rish continued, drawing their attention back to him. "Usually we get them to take part in some sort of game to earn it first..."

"Uh..." the rabbit stuttered, and Rish smirked as Katie instinctively glanced up at the ceiling rack above them.

"Don't worry," he said, chuckling as the mouse turned back to face him, drumming her feet on the floor as the rabbit put an arm around her. "We're making an exception this time, because I think you've got an especially good reason to do this to Sam..."

A cheer rose from the audience and he broke off, watching as the mouse emerged from one of the entrances at the back sides of the inflatable set, followed by the stagehand who had helped her off. "And here she is now!" he called as the girls beside him twisted around to look.

The slim grey mouse posed with one hand on her hip and a defiant expression, only an eye-roll betraying her thoughts about her situation. She was now wearing only a large white towel tightly rolled at her chest and covering her to just above the knees. Fran and Katie looked up and caught her eye as she curled her lip to blow a strand of her long reddish-brown hair out of her face, then shared a grin between themselves as the stagehand directed her over to the set's centrepiece.

"While we're getting Sam set up, perhaps one of you could tell us why you brought her here today?" Rish asked, drawing the girls' attention back to him.

"Umm..." Fran faltered and glanced back at Katie, who looked at the floor with an embarrassed grin.

"Okay, maybe you can start by telling us the nickname she's picked up?" he encouraged.

"Heh, well... we call her the 'towel ninja'..." the mouse began, looking at her long thin tail as she ran it through her hands, and her shoulders shook in a laugh at the audience's reaction.

"Well, that's put a lot of images into their heads," the squirrel smiled. "Before they get too wild, how did that happen?"

"There's this hot spring we go to all the time with our friends..." the rabbit continued for her, glancing to the mouse as she nodded. "And every single time she's there with us, she sneaks up and steals our towels off us..."

"What?" Rish laughed. "So you'll be coming out of the sauna, find your towel's gone, you've got to walk back dripping to the changing room?"

"No, no..." Fran said, catching the eye of the beaver twins still at the back of the audience and pointing up at them with an anxious giggle as they cheered her on. "We mean... literally off us! You'll be walking to the pool and she'll come out of nowhere and yank it clean off..." she gesticulated with both hands.

Rish's eyes widened a little, staying silent as the mouse spoke up again. "She got us both at once, one time!" she said, prodding Fran with a finger. "Ready to take a dip, and whoosh..."

The squirrel blinked, just letting the audience react to the mental image as he looked up at Sam, who was straightening up after having climbed up the steps on the back of the large slide. She held her hand to her chest, grasping the edge of her towel as she carefully stepped around the seat and sank into it. As she budged herself up to sit upright, she smiled through a cringe, looking down at the pool of slime down the arrow-patterned inflatable slide beneath her. Biting her lip, she pushed her reddish-brown ponytail behind her, then glanced up at the tapered cylindrical canister mounted on the ceiling rack above her head.

"Sam, now you've got yourself comfortable, I think it's time we talked to you..." He scrambled up on to the main inflatable surface past the girls, straightening up then walking carefully in the ribs of the material with a hand out for balance. "Your friends have been telling us why you're here but I want to give you the chance to answer back too - is this true about you stealing towels from people?"

"Yeah!" the mouse said immediately as she looked down from her perch to face him, holding her hands out with her palms up. "I only do it to Fran and Katie, though..."

"Just to them! Let's get your poor victims in front of you..." Rish beckoned to the two girls still sitting at the front of the stage, and they clambered up to join him, the rabbit stumbling once on the unstable surface before picking herself up. The squirrel stepped around so that he was between them, his arms around both their shoulders as they turned to look up at their friend. Sam stared down at them unapologetically, leaning with one hand to her cheek, her arm propped up on the arm of the seat. As their eyes met, Fran looked at her feet, her cheeks reddening.

"Just out of interest, is there anything else you wanted to bring up while we're here?" he asked, turning to face Fran and Katie in turn.

"Yeah, there was the time she goaded me into being a model for her, um, photography project..." the rabbit began, collapsing into an embarrassed laugh at the end of her sentence.

"Oh - and she cheats at poker as well!" Katie interjected. "If she didn't always stash cards I wouldn't lose my bra every time..."

The pink rabbit cringed and shushed the mouse, whose hands flew to her mouth with her eyes wide as she realized what she'd said. As whoops and whistles came up from the audience, she turned her face away from them, her cheeks glowing.

"Strip poker?" Rish grinned. "Wow... I don't know why I never got invited to those sorts of parties..."

He turned his attention back to the mouse perched on the dunk tank seat, who was smiling broadly at the red-cheeked rodent beneath her. "So Sam, your antics end up with these poor young ladies naked a lot - would you say so?"

"Well... yeah, of course!" Sam replied, gesturing down at her friends. "Come on, it's good fun and everyone loves some fanservice..."

"You sure there isn't more?" the squirrel continued. "It seems to happen a lot - do I detect a hint of a crush here...?"

"Pfft..." The mouse raised her eyes again and folded her arms, but the front row of the audience would just have been able to see a hint of a blush burning in her cheeks.

Rish smiled at her reaction, then shrugged. "Well, whatever the reason, I certainly agree that we can't let this go unpunished for any longer," he said, turning as a crew member rushed up to the stage, and accepting the device that was passed to him. Sam craned her neck to see it - a plastic slab made up to look like bare electronics with black and yellow tape around its top and bottom, in the centre of which was a large red domed button. "And I can't think of anyone better to do it!" The squirrel beckoned to the girls standing beside him to come closer, and handed the device to them as he stepped back.

"Oh no..." Sam cringed despite her act as inevitability began to dawn on her. She drummed her hands on the arms of the seat, looking at the pool of gunge below her, then her gaze turned to her friends as the rabbit and mouse held the device between them, grinning back up at her with their hands clasped together over the top of the button.

"Just before it happens, Sam..." Rish interjected, pacing around and leaning on the side of the ramp, looking up at the grey mouse. "We're not unfair here... these two girls have the power to send you into the gunge, but they might consider letting you go home clean depending on how you answer one question..."

"Oh...?" she asked curiously, glancing from him to her friends' hands on the button.

"Sam..." The orange squirrel cleared his throat. "Here's your question - do you apologize for causing these two lovely girls so much embarrassment over the course of your friendship?"

The grey mouse let her breath out in a laugh and tilted her head to the side, looking up at the ceiling. After just a moment, she shook her head, bouncing her dangling feet against the front of the seat. "My only regret is not doing it more often!" she grinned.

"Okay, Fran and Katie - you heard her!" Rish called above the mixed reaction of whoops and jeers from the audience. "She's embarrassed you enough at the spa - now's your chance to give her a full-body makeover. Sam... prepare to be plunged!"

With a nod from the squirrel, the rabbit and mouse glanced at each other and pushed the button down together, their eyes on their friend at the top of the ramp. As the lights on the ceiling rack swung inward to spotlight her, the grey mouse yelped and tensed up, her dangling feet swinging as she took her hands off the arms of the seat and balled them into fists near her face.

As a whooping alarm rang around the stage, a downpour of green gunge burst from the canister on the ceiling rack, the column of slime bulging as it smacked into the mouse's lap. She squeaked and jumped as it splattered across her tummy, turning her face away and reflexively putting her hands in front of her to defend herself as it painted the towel on her chest and tummy green. A moment later, she gave another yelp as she felt the chair tipping down and forwards, and she slithered off it, her head going under the gunge shower for a moment before she burst through it on an uncontrollable slide down the inflatable ramp.

Instinctively throwing a hand to the side to search for a grip, the green-stained mouse shrieked as her movement turned her sideways. Leaving a green streak behind as she slithered faster on the slimy surface, she reached the end of the ramp and belly-flopped into the gunge pool, throwing a spectacular thick splash of orange and green up as she vanished beneath the surface with a gloop.

Awestruck, the bunny and mouse stood hand in hand staring down at the vat as the surface of the gunge heaved forward, the sickly colours shifting as the large slow ripple crested against the front of the vat. After a couple of seconds, a vague shape emerged slowly from the centre of the pool, the mixed slime pouring off to gradually reveal the shape of Sam's head.

The gunge-coated mouse shook her head as she rose slowly from the slime, her soaked hair flying heavily behind her before splatting on to the back of her neck. As she pulled her shoulders free of the ooze, she stood frozen and open-mouthed with her hands in claw shapes in front of her, the gunge trickling in strings from her fingertips and forming fangs as it dripped slowly across her open muzzle. As she brought her hands to her face, a new payload of dark green slime crashed down into the vat from the ceiling, catching her on the front of the head and making her squeak and flail above her as she threw herself forward out of the downpour. Trying to move in the thick liquid made her stumble and she paddled frantically with one hand to keep her head above the surface, the new dark slime crawling down her face and back.

Fran hopped back a little, dragging Katie with her as a lick of gunge smacked on to the blowup surface right in front of her, the column of slime making a rich glooping noise as it kept pouring down into the vat from the ceiling. As it began to ease off, breaking into a trickle then a series of thick drops spattering into the pool, her gaze drifted back to Sam and her hand went to her mouth to disguise her grin as the gunged mouse dragged the backs of her hands across her eyes, her dripping ears flattened heavily behind her head.

Rish stepped forward again as the mouse began to get her footing. "Sam, I know it must feel mucky in there, but take my advice... stay low," he grinned and pointed. The mouse blinked her eyes open and pushed her gungy hair away from her face as she turned around to follow his pointing finger, the streaks of colour in the slime swirling with her movement. As she looked across the vat, she saw the towel she had been wearing on the opposite side, its last visible patch of white sinking beneath the slime. With a yelp, she instinctively glanced down and hunched, forming a new slow ripple in the vat as she glooped in up to her neck, shooting as peevish an expression as she could manage up to her giggling friends.

"I think that's what she calls fanservice," Rish laughed, crouching down as the mouse ran her hands through each other, squeezing the thick green slime out of her fur and then picking her heavy hair out of her face again. He watched carefully as she bobbed through the gunge to the side of the vat, folding her slippery arms on the surface at the edge of the pool and letting her feet drift up behind her.

"Not so bad once you're in, is it?" he smiled. "Your friends absolutely love you - but do you accept you deserved this?"

Sam pursed her lips, tilting her head from side to side. "Maybe," she conceded, raising a finger to wipe across her eyes again.

"But are you going to stop embarrassing your friends?"

"Oh, no way," she smirked. She pulled one hand back and splashed a wave of slime out in the direction of the mouse and rabbit, who both squeaked as it smacked on to the blowup surface at their feet.

"Well, Fran and Katie..." Rish started, hauling himself up and hastily stepping back as the gunged mouse began splashing slime in his direction as well. "You've got the upper hand for now - did you enjoy doing that?"

"Heh, definitely..." Katie said, Fran nodding alongside her. She giggled again as the caught the eye of the mouse in the vat, who tilted her slimy hands up in thumb-up gestures.

"Just watch your backs - I think she's starting her plans for revenge already..."