FRIDAY NIGHT PARTY - Sally Acorn
Written by Iron-K, 2017

"And that's it for this week's Party..." Rossi announced, straightening his jacket as he stood up from the desk that dominated the right side of the set. "I'd like to say thanks to all our watchers for coming tonight, and especially the guests who've come up here to entertain us..."

He paced to the centre of the stage as he spoke, passing in front of one of the set's main fixtures - an old-fashioned telephone box with ornate wooden styling around the outside, coming to an arch at the top with a large covered section above the main booth. Its interior was unusually clean for this point in the night, and as he passed by, Rossi ran a duster along the top of its waist-high door.

"It's just a shame we didn't get to use this thing tonight, isn't it..."

He smiled as there was an immediate shout of one of the names of the night's guests, and pointed up with a smirk at the section of the audience where it had come from. As more names were called from down at the front, he raised both hands and tried to wave the noise down.

"No, really - all the guests tonight had it written into their contract and everything, that they were staying out of this! They're getting too wise for us..."

"Then go in yourself!" a deep voice cut through the rest of the audience noise, prompting cheers and raucuous encouragement from everyone else.

"I..." Rossi paused, shook his head as if relenting, and turned away from them as he took a step towards the tank.

"You're really not going to let us go one night without gunging someone?" he called back, rolling his eyes as their noise just got even more intense. Just as he turned around again, the sound of an old-fashioned doorbell cut across the audience's cheers.

"Ah!" Ignoring the disappointed groan from the audience, the avian dashed across the stage and took hold of the handle on the large arched wooden doorway in the set's left wall. He looked up at the jeering crowd again, then laughed to himself as he saw they weren't giving up.

"Wait. Wait. Wait!" he shouted above their noise, eventually quieting them with a sweep of his free hand. He paused and looked the length of the stands, nodded, then stepped aside as he pulled the door open.

The audience erupted into cheers again as a gorgeous red-headed squirrel girl was revealed against the dark background, flashes of blue erupting from behind her to simulate lightning outside. She was wearing a long raincoat that covered most of her honey-brown fur, and shook it out despite its dryness as she stepped up on to the set.

"Sally, what a lovely surprise - you arrived at just the right time..." the avian welcomed her. The squirrel ran her hands through her puff of red hair and turned to face him. "What are you doing here?" he asked, closing the door behind her.

"Sorry, Rossi - I'm on my way back from a party in the next town over, and got a flat just around the corner," the squirrel replied. "Do you mind if I call for someone?"

"We're pretending that cellphones don't exist for the purposes of the show?" the avian asked back, then smirked as she nodded.

"Could you just get my coat?" She turned around and shrugged the heavy plastic of the raincoat off her shoulders. Rossi stepped behind her and she stepped out of it, revealing she was wearing only her knee-high blue boots and a two-piece matching swimsuit.

"Wow, what kind of party was that?!" he remarked as a chorus of whistles came from the stands, and turned briefly to throw the bundled coat to the side of the set. "Don't answer that - let me show you to the phone..."

He took her hand, and the whistles of the audience turned to cheers of encouragement as he dashed back across the stage with her to reach the gunge booth. He took hold of the door, which was still hanging open, and motioned for her to go inside. The squirrel hesitated on the threshold of the booth, a little twitch visible in her tail, then she tentatively stepped into the gunge tank and shuffled around to face out at the audience. She dipped down to seat herself on the plastic chair inside, her red hair bouncing as she straightened herself up.

"You sure you want to keep your boots on?" Rossi asked, indicating down at her blue knee-high footwear.

"Yeah, why wouldn't I?" she asked, but breaking her act a little as her shoulders shook in a helpless laugh. As she nodded, he swung the door closed and clicked it shut in front of her. Sally turned her head to look around the booth she was trapped inside and lifted the receiver from the antique phone mounted on the side wall.

"Just dial zero for the operator," Rossi prompted, putting a hand out in front of him as he stepped back away from the booth.

"Right." The squirrel girl looked at the rotary dial and took a breath, biting her lip nervously. She reached out with her index finger, whimpering through a helpless giggle as she stuck it in the dial and turned it around. A murmur grew from the audience as the stage speakers played the exaggerated mechanical sound of it clicking back into position, ending with a heavy thunk. Suddenly, an industrial siren blared over the audience, and they erupted into cheers as a column of mixed blue and yellow slime dropped from the ceiling of the booth and smacked on to the top of the squirrel's head.

The avian took another step back as the heavy gunge spewed crazily outwards, Sally's mouth opening in a shriek just before the opaque slop formed a smooth umbrella shape that hid her face, some of the slime licking forwards over the door of the tank and spilling messily on to the floor in front of it. After a moment it settled and the dome came inwards as the squirrel hunched forwards, splattering down on to her shoulders and mixing into a murky green color as it crept around her neck to slither in fingers down her chest. The top of the dome dipped down slightly as she hunched a little further down in the seat, the crest of a slow wave of gunge visible behind her as it spewed out from her back. She looked out at the audience through her messy hair hanging in front of her eyes, half of it painted blue and the other bright yellow, a little grin acknowledging their cheers.

A lick of slime twitched forward and poured smoothly over her face, making Sally yelp and close her eyes. Thick drops of slime sprayed outwards as she shook her head and squirmed a little to the side, clasping her hand to her ear as brightly colored gunge rained down on to her arm and shoulder. The thick, slippery ooze painted her fur, dripping in glutinous strings around her arm and dripping off its underside. As she wriggled further out of the downpour from above, blinking her eyes open hesitantly as globs of the stuff rained down across her face from her dripping fringe, her mouth opened in a gasp once again as the booth began filling with green foam from the bottom up.

As the glop splashed outwards from her hunched shoulder, painting the side and back wall of the gunge tank in a thick messy layer of blue and yellow, Sally watched the surface of the thick foam quickly bubble upwards against the slime raining down into it. Gripping the arm of the chair tightly with her right hand, she squeaked again as the stuff reached the top of her boots, picking her feet up a little before hesitantly dipping them back in to the rising mixture.

Keeping her head bowed but moving her eyes up to look out at the cheering audience, she smiled resignedly and removed her hand from her head, flicking the collected slime on it away before clasping the arm of the chair. As the foam rose further up to spill into her lap, she relaxed and slithered back into the downpour as it began to thin out. She leaned forwards so that it splashed on to the back of her neck, tilting her head a little from side to side as the dome of gunge twitched and splattered over her.

As soon as she had straightened up underneath the drizzling remains of the gunge from the ceiling, four spurts of purple slime started up from the top corners of the tank. Sally gasped and quickly flinched down as the front two splashed into her face, spitting the stuff off her lips. She wriggled underneath the deluge as the heavy paintlike liquid poured off her hair, taking care not to dip her face into the still rising green foam as the streams parted and rotated slightly over her shoulders and back.

As the hooter sounded again, the four sprays eased off, the gunk splashing over Sally's arms as the streams slowly parted. Raising her gunge-coated head up, smiling a little but with her eyes still closed, she raised her arms from the seat and turned her palms up to catch the thick gloop as it poured across them, then shook her head, spraying the mixed colors of slime outwards, and moved her arms to her face to wipe her eyes with the back of her hands. As she smeared the gunge on her face aside, wriggling out from underneath the last heavy drips of slime raining down from the ceiling of the tank, the green foam reached chest height and began slowly spilling over the door of the booth, breaking off as it fell and splatted on the platform in front of it.

The klaxon gave one last long blare to signal the end of the gunging as the soaked and messy squirrel girl slowly opened her eyes, taking her hands away from her face but keeping them up in the air above the chest-height foam bath. Her hair was drenched and clinging to her head and face, blobs of the smooth purple ooze slithering down and dripping from her muzzle and flattened ears, and as she looked down at the mass of foam she was sitting in she tilted her head in an attempt to shake some of the clinging slop off. The walls of the tank around her had been painted in messy arc shapes where the slime had domed off her head, with the once-clear front completely smeared with a mixture of foam and gunge.

Rossi joined in with the applause from the stands, smiling as the gungy squirrel girl looked out at him, running her hands one by one over her heavy soaked hair and shuddering as the mixed colors of slime poured down her back. She put her arms out in front of her and stuck her tongue out in mock disgust, mixed colours of slime oozing and trickling in glutinous strings from everywhere on her fur.

"Did the boots help?" he stepped forward and leaned slightly closer to ask, making the squirrel girl burst into an embarrassed laugh. She shook her head.

"I think they're filling up..." she said with a grimace. As a titter of laughter came up from the onlookers, she looked uselessly down at the bubbling green foam, then tried to push it down a little with her messy hands, squeaking as the surface closed over them.

"Sorry about that - I remember now, it's 'nine' for the operator. 'Zero' does that..." the avian said, rubbing his chin as he looked the calamitous mess in front of him up and down. "Want to try again?"

Sally fumbled around under the foam and picked the phone receiver up from where it had fallen, holding it by the wire as the gungy foam mixture slid off it. "Er, no," she laughed, and wriggled aside to dodge another spurt of drips from the nozzle on the ceiling.

"All right - we'll run you a bath and try again later..." the avian agreed, then turned away from the slime-filled booth. "Like I was saying, thanks again to all our guests - and especially to Sally for turning up at the last minute..." He glanced back at her as she ran both her hands up and over her head again. "Have a good weekend!"