Dinner Bell
Jenni Polodna
anthropomorphised animals based on songs food humor multiple endings non-human npcs parser robot scientific experimentation silly single room test as premise They Might Be Giants walkthrough Xyzzy Awards 2012
You are the involuntary and very hungry test subject of a semi-anthropomorphized dog in a labcoat who wants you to find all sixteen food items mentioned in They Might Be Giants' song Dinner Bell, which have been hidden in a near-perfect replica of your grandmother's kitchen. If you're very good, you might be allowed to eat.
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They must have moved you here in your sleep again. Right now it looks uncannily like your grandmother's kitchen, which is a new fact and an unnerving one, but you can tell it's the usual test chamber by the anatomically correct ichthyosaur you managed to carve into the linoleum before they got the knife away from you. You miss that knife.

(Man, you're hungry.)

Dr. Beagle taps on the glass to get your attention. When you look at him, he points at a grocery bag on a counter behind you, clears his throat meaningfully, and starts chewing on the hand-held trigger to your shock collar.

You really hate it when he does that.

An Existential Horror/Comedy by Jenni Polodna

It really does look just like your grandmother's kitchen. The oven, fridge, and counter are that same buttery marzipan color, those same seven drawers are next to the cabinet under the sink, even the kitten wallpaper is the same. That motivational poster belongs to the test chamber, though, and has survived its every redecoration including "submarine" and "open grave." The only other difference is a photograph over the oven where your grandmother used to hang the heads of her enemies (mostly crickets).

Oh, and the observation chamber where Dr. Beagle is watching you through two-way glass. Your grandmother didn't have one of those.

On the counter are a grocery bag, a bucket of wax pears and a ship in a bottle.
Inventory
You are carrying:
a shock collar (being worn)
a dinner jacket (being worn)
You open the bag
The distinction between things you can open and things you cannot open is not actually as subtle as you make it out to be. You can open a meat drawer. You can't open a grocery bag. Are we good here?
About yourself
You've been leaving on your things, because they took all your other things and you would rather not be naked. As a result, there's still dinner, as well as every other meal, on your dinner jacket when the dinner bell rings.

You hope it rings soon. You're starving.
You look at the drawers
In your grandmother's kitchen, at least, these were the cutlery drawer, the junk drawer, the meat drawer, the doll drawer, the reptile drawer, the mitten drawer, and the bird drawer, from top to bottom.
You look in the bag
The grocery bag is empty.
You look at the photograph
A smiling blond woman holding a tray of enticing-looking bacon. You can practically smell it.

The sight of food makes your salivary glands kick into overdrive.
You look at the heads
What heads? What are you even talking about?
You examine the Pears
You remember Griswold's Legendary Bucket of Wax Pears from the stories your grandmother used to tell when your incessant appetite for stories had exhausted her supply of more interesting ones about princesses on rockets or whatever.

According to legend, this bucket contains one real pear and 37 enchanted wax ones, all identical in smell, texture, and appearance. Anyone who eats the real pear gets to be king of Reno, Nevada, and anyone who eats a wax pear is cursed to spend eternity making out under the bleachers with their fifth-grade math teacher. Your blood runs cold just thinking about it.

The sight of food makes your mouth fill with saliva and your eyes fill with tears.
You examine the groceries
What groceries? What are you even talking about?
You examine the bag
/

If this grocery bag could talk, it would inform you in no uncertain terms that it was a grocery bag. It's empty, which makes you feel strangely anxious.

*whirrrrrrrr*
You hear the sound of a tiny electric door opening somewhere, and Pat the head-patting robot glides into the room. You'd been wondering where he'd gotten to.
You look at Pat
/

This little robot was created to kick ass and pat heads, and he's all out of heads. I mean, ass. He sees you looking and does a little dance.

(Your stomach makes a noise that, coming from a television, would be indicative of a major poltergeist problem.)
You open meat drawer
/

You open the meat drawer, revealing a bag of space beef.

The sight of food makes you drool all over your dinner jacket.
You examine the jacket
/

A once-natty dinner jacket. You've started keeping your diary on it, written in a secret code of food stains. Honey mustard means "Today I received an electric shock," beef bourguignon means "I want to go home."
You smell the space beef
/

The bag of beef smells delicious. You drool a little.
You eat the beef
/

>>ZAP!<<
Dr. Beagle sees you trying to eat the bag of beef and shocks the crap out of you. You think you smell Vienna sausages.
You look at Beef
/

A foil package labeled "Astronaut Beef (for Space Astronauts)." This must be what you eat if you want beef in space.

You hear some faint squeaking coming from the fridge, and are unsettled.
You examine the fridge
/

This fridge is almost, but not quite, the color of cheap French vanilla ice cream, the kind you get in a bucket with an alarming cartoon character on the lid. It is closed.

You hear some faint squeaking coming from the fridge, and are unsettled.
You remove the collar
/

>>>>ZAP!!!<<<<
Dr. Beagle sees you trying to remove your collar and hits you with maximum voltage. Boy, does that hurt! You flop around for a
few minutes like a fish who has just been cured of any psychological ailments popular in the 1950s, such as homosexuality or feminism.
You open the fridge
/

You open the fridge and the entire kitchen goes dark.
You close the fridge
/

You fumble around until you locate the fridge door, and close it but good. The room fills with light and you can see again.
You examine the ship
/

This bottle contains what appears to be a handsome steamship, churning its way happily through placid waters accompanied by squawking gulls.

Pat gets tired of waiting for you to do something patworthy and pats the doll drawer on its head-analogue instead. You feel oddly jealous.
You open the cabinet
/

You open the cabinet under the sink, revealing a complicated knot of pipes and a can of everybody's favorite household chemical, Shiptogar.
You examine the Shiptogar
/

A bright yellow spray can with an enthusiastic label.
You read the label
/

Got ship? Need vinegar? Shiptogar turns any ship into vinegar, fast! Just spray it on! (WARNING: Use with extreme caution! Messrs. Spikeney & Pithhelmet assume no responsibility for accidental creation of relationvinegar, internvinegar, vinegarping boxes, two vinegars passing in the night, or liver spots. If vinegar-a-dee-doo-dah occurs, please return defective can for a full refund.)

You hear some faint squeaking coming from the fridge, and are unsettled.
You examine the pipes
/

A convoluted tangle of pipes. Corncob pipes, looks like. You spot an intact ear of corn among their ranks.

The sight of food makes your salivary glands kick into overdrive.

Pat gets tired of waiting for you to do something patworthy and pats the meat drawer on its head-analogue instead. You feel oddly jealous.
You spray the ship with the Shiptogar
/

A light spritzing of Shiptogar turns the ship in a bottle into a bottle of vinegar. No wonder they used to market this stuff as the housewife's best friend.
You examine the vinegar
/

You know how the old saying goes, you'd rather have a bottle of vinegar than a family of bears living in your gastrointestinal tract.

(You are so hungry. Maybe you have a useless body part you can eat. Could you locate your appendix? Wait, no, that's a terrible idea.)
You smell the vinegar
/

The bottle of vinegar smells delicious. It makes you want to cry.

(You fantasize about how you would cook George Lucas. Luau-style, probably.)
Locate appendix
/

Dude, I know you don't technically need it for anything, but that's still a terrible idea.
You take Beef
/

You take the bag of beef. Some sort of classical conditioning kicks in and you immediately drop it into the grocery bag.

(Your stomach growls loudly.)
You take the vinegar
/

You take the bottle of vinegar. Some sort of classical conditioning kicks in and you immediately drop it into the grocery bag. That's fine, you probably weren't going to drink it anyway.

(Boy, are you hungry.)
You take the corn
/

You wrest the ear of corn from its home amidst the plumbing. Some sort of classical conditioning kicks in and you immediately toss the thing into the grocery bag.

(You're freaking starving.)
Smell the corn
/

>>ZAP!<<
Dr. Beagle sees you trying to take the ear of corn from the bag and activates your shock collar. It would be sort of pleasant if you found terribly painful things sort of pleasant. You don't.
You open the junk drawer
/

You open the junk drawer, revealing a flashlight.
You get the flashlight
/

Taken.
You turn on the flashlight
/

You flip the switch, but nothing happens. According to your encyclopedic knowledge of flashlights, this is probably some sort of, you know, problem with the, what's it called, innards. Yeah.

This is why no one uses encyclopedias anymore.
You open the flashlight
/

You unscrew the top of the flashlight and peer inside, discovering an egg.

The sight of food makes your mouth fill with saliva and your eyes fill with tears.
You get the egg
/

You shake the egg gently out of the flashlight. Hey, now that the flashlight is empty, you notice it doesn't even take batteries. It'll probably work fine now, once you turn it on. You close it up to be tidy.

Oh, right, you almost forgot. Some sort of classical conditioning kicks in and you chuck the egg into the grocery bag as hard as you can.

(Your stomach growls loudly.)
You put Beef in the bag
/

(the grocery bag)
>>ZAP!<<
Dr. Beagle sees you trying to take the bag of beef from the bag and shocks you lightly. You wish you still owned rubber shoes.
You close flashlight
/

That's already closed.

(Yup, you're still hungry.)
You open the fridge
/

You open the fridge and the entire kitchen goes dark.
Shake flashlight
/

It's too dang dark. You should find a light source or close that fridge.
You turn on the flashlight
/

The flashlight summons the full force of its bountiful self-esteem and lights up like a debutante at a rodeo. Now you can look at anything!
You examine the fridge
/

This fridge is almost, but not quite, the color of cheap French vanilla ice cream, the kind you get in a bucket with an alarming cartoon character on the lid. Scrawled inside of it (the fridge, not the bucket of ice cream) are the ravings of a madman.

In the fridge are a bean, a beer and a basket of garlic bread.
Smell the beer
/

The beer smells delicious. You drool a little.
You smell the garlic bread
/

The basket of garlic bread smells delicious. It makes you want to cry.
You get the beer and the bread
/

beer: You take the beer. Some sort of classical conditioning kicks in and you immediately drop it into the grocery bag. What a waste of liquid bread.
basket of garlic bread: You take the basket of garlic bread. Some sort of classical conditioning kicks in and you immediately drop it into the grocery bag.
You read the ravings
/

The mad scrawl is written in something black; old teriyaki maybe? Not even you the sauce expert can quite tell what. You don't think
the crazed manic handwriting is yours. It says:

I (I) re (RE) heat (HEAT) my (MY) soup (SOUP)
give (GIVE) it (IT) a (A) good (GOOD) look (LOOK)
and (AND) walk (WALK) a (A) way (WAY)

Without taking his eyes off of you, Dr. Beagle starts scribbling frantically on his clipboard.

*whirrrrrrrr*
You hear the sound of a tiny electric door opening somewhere, and Pat's friend Soupbot rolls into the room, bleeping and sloshing. Pat greets her with a Christian side hug.

It's getting kind of crowded up in this test chamber. You certainly hope this won't compromise whatever science might be happening.
You look at the bean
/

It looks up at you with a little dog face. "Ne shitteru?" it asks. "Ostriches are the only animals that kiss during mating. When they're done mating, they suck each others' eyeballs out." You feel the blood drain from your face.
You get it
/

You pick up the bean and chuck it into the grocery bag as hard as you can. "Did you know?" you hear it ask, faintly. "The inside of this grocery bag is really smelly. Know what else is really smelly? A kangaroo's di--" You cover your ears and hum.

(Man, are you ever hungry.)
You examine the bean
/

It looks up at you with a little dog face. "Did you know?" it asks. "If you put your hand inside a cow, there's a 93% chance you'd be touching something pink, and a 100% chance you'd be touching something disgusting." You pretend you didn't just hear that.
You examine beer
/

This beer is big, and brown, and furry, with claws on the ends of its powerful arms and legs. Wait, I'm thinking of a bear. This beer is a bit on the hoppy side, with woodsy undertones. Like a bunny.
You examine the garlic bread
/

Garlic bread is your favourite food. You could honestly eat it for every meal. Or just all the time without even stopping.

Dr. Beagle watches you attentively. You're unsure whether it's scientific interest or he thinks you're about to throw a ball.
You look at Soupbot
/

Soupbot is not exactly the latest in autonomous soup-dispensing technology, and sometimes she gets overexcited and splatters, but you can't fault her enthusiasm, and she gets the job done. The buttons above her three nozzles are currently labeled "chowder," "creamed cauliflower," and "cup."
You look at the bean
/

It looks up at you with a little dog face. "Ne shitteru?" it asks. "If you've ever had a headache, you're at risk for gelatinosis, a rare disease that turns your bones into skin and your skin into jelly." Your stomach turns, and you look away.
You press the cup button
/

Soupbot stops you from pressing her cup button and presses it herself. A terrible clattering noise emanates from the vicinity of her cup nozzle, and she begins to vibrate ominously. You frantically look around for somewhere to hide from the imminent explosion. Just when you've decided there is no safe place and you are going to die here, Soupbot stops rattling, opens a convenient drawer in her chassis, and hands you a cup.

Pat gets tired of waiting for you to do something patworthy and pats the doll drawer on its head-analogue instead. You feel oddly jealous.
You examine the cup
/

(the cup)
You study the cup from all angles, trying to find something remarkable about it, but the cup refuses to be at all interesting.
You examine the bean
/

It looks up at you with a little dog face. "Did you know?" it asks. "If you scrape your face off, it'll take you almost a thousand years to grow a new one, cell by painful cell. Fortunately, it'll keep growing long after you die, although not necessarily on your skull." You feel the blood drain from your face.
You open the doll drawer
/

With some trepidation (your grandmother owned some terrifying dolls), you open the doll drawer. Fortunately, all you find is Dr. Bagel. What's up, Dr. Bagel?

The sight of food makes you drool all over your dinner jacket.
You examine Bagel
/

You think he might be a real doctor, because he's wearing a little round labcoat, but he doesn't have a tiny clipboard or stethoscope or anything. He's definitely a real bagel, though, unless you're one of those jerks that insists a real bagel has to be made in New York with Jerusalem tap water or whatever.
You take Bagel
You pick up Dr Bagel. Some sort of classical conditioning kicks in and you immediately drop him into the grocery bag, tiny labcoat and all.

(Boy, are you hungry.)
You open the reptile drawer
You open the reptile drawer, revealing a can of snakes. Oh, wow! A can of snakes!

The bean clears its throat conspicuously from inside the grocery bag.
You take the snakes
Taken.

You feel like the bean is staring at you from inside the grocery bag.
You look at the can
(the can of snakes)
The label on this can is written in some weird foreign language, but based on the pictures, you deduce that this can is full of deadly snakes that are going to spring out and frighten you when you open the can. What fun!
You open can
(the can of snakes)
The lid comes off the can with a satisfying pop, and a colorful medley of poisonous snakes completely fails to come shooting out of the can and bite you on the face. Hey, there's no snakes in here at all, just this piece of peanut brittle! What the heck.
You eat the peanut brittle
>>ZAP!<<
Dr. Beagle sees you trying to eat the piece of peanut brittle and shocks the crap out of you. You spontaneously remember your piano lessons.
You take brittle
You take the piece of peanut brittle. Some sort of classical conditioning kicks in and you immediately drop it into the grocery bag. Good riddance, lousy not-snake peanut brittle.

(You're probably going to die if you don't eat something soon.)
You take the bag
(the grocery bag)
The very thought of picking up a less-than-full grocery bag makes you want to throw up for some reason.
You take the Pears
You pick up the bucket of pears.
You search the Pears
You spend some time sorting through the pears in an attempt to identify the real one, but your search proves...

(narrator puts on sunglasses)

...fruitless.

(YEAAAAAAAH!)
You examine the pear
Thirty-eight pears are in this bucket. One is real, the other thirty-seven are wax. You can't tell them apart by looking, smelling, or touching. How will you proceed, player, how will you proceed?

You sense that the bean is trying to get your attention from inside the grocery bag.
You ask bean about the Pears
You can only do that to something animate.
You examine the bean
It looks up at you with a little dog face. "Ne shitteru?" it asks. "In order to make a baby, a woman has to lick a leather saddle while a man dressed as a clown spanks her and calls her "Norman." Your parents did this to make you, and knowing them, they liked it." You pretend you didn't just hear that.
Taste bears
What bears? What are you even talking about?
Taste pears
You don't even try it. Your fifth-grade math teacher was a creepy pervert who wore tight purple pants.
You examine the sink
Closer examination reveals this to be merely a child's drawing of a sink. The drain has been hastily rendered in blue crayon, and near it a posse of scrubbing bubbles is fighting a dinosaur.
You open the oven
You swing the oven door open, interrupting what appears to be a fight to the death between a cherry pie and a pepperoni pizza. A minuscule tumbleweed falls through a gap in the bottom rack and bursts into flame.

The sight of food makes your salivary glands kick into overdrive.

Pat gets tired of waiting for you to do something patworthy and pats the mitten drawer on its head-analogue instead. You feel oddly jealous.
You look at the pepperoni pizza
What pepperoni pizza? What are you even talking about?
You put the Pears in the oven
You're afraid to put the bucket of wax pears in the oven with those other violent foodstuffs. It's very delicate emotionally.
You take pie
It's like four hundred degrees inside that oven. You should find a hot mitt or something before you try to take anything out of it.
You open the glove drawer
What glove drawer? What are you even talking about?
You open the mitten drawer
You open the mitten drawer, revealing an exoskeletal heat absorption glove. Sure, why not.
You take the glove
Taken.
Wear glove
You stick your hand in the glove and its component nanosentients alter its parameters to conform perfectly with the contours of your digits. Ace!
You examine the glove
You love this glove. It's so bad.

An intern enters the observation chamber to deliver some correspondence. Dr. Beagle barks at the poor kid furiously until he flees the room.
You take the pie
You take the pie. Some sort of classical conditioning kicks in and you immediately drop it into the grocery bag, which it explodes all over the inside of.

(Your stomach growls loudly.)
You look at the oven
This oven's designer got tired of trying to remember if they'd left the oven on, so they invented an oven you can't turn off. Its internal temperature is a constant 400 degrees Fahrenheit. You know this because you are omniscient all of a sudden, but only as regards this oven and the names of everyone in New Jersey.

In the oven is a pizza.
You take the pizza
You take the pizza. Some sort of classical conditioning kicks in and you immediately fold the whole pepperoni mess up and plop it into the grocery bag.

(Boy, are you hungry.)
You put the Pears in the oven
You put Griswold's Legendary Bucket of Wax Pears into the hot oven. The wax pears melt and run together, there is a really confusing couple of seconds where everything goes all swirly and Price-is-Right-looking, and you are left with a single, presumably real, magical, and very hot pear in a bucket. Well done you!
You take the pear
You take the pear. Some sort of classical conditioning kicks in and you immediately drop it into the grocery bag. Oh well, being king of Reno, Nevada probably isn't all it's cracked up to be anyway.

(Man, are you ever hungry.)
You look at the drawers
In your grandmother's kitchen, at least, these were the cutlery drawer, the junk drawer, the meat drawer, the doll drawer, the reptile drawer, the mitten drawer, and the bird drawer, from top to bottom.
You open the bird drawer
You open the bird drawer, revealing a broken vinyl record.
You look at the record
Useless pieces of a vinyl record labeled "101 Different Varieties of Morning Birdsong as performed by Henry Boyd." This must have been what they would play over the loudspeaker to make you think it was morning.

Dr. Beagle watches you attentively. You're unsure whether it's scientific interest or he thinks you're about to throw a ball.
You get the record
It's worthless. Forget about it.
You open the meat drawer
That's already open.
You open the cutlery drawer
You open the cutlery drawer, expecting the shining spoons of this town all to point in your direction. Sadly, though, the drawer is empty. This is not at all surprising, given what happened the last time they were dumb enough to let you have silverware.

Pat gets tired of waiting for you to do something patworthy and pats the photograph on its head-analogue instead. You feel oddly jealous.
Pat pat
You pat the head-patting robot on his little robot head. He seems confused by this bizarre shift in circumstances.
Look around
It really does look just like your grandmother's kitchen. The oven, fridge, and counter are that same buttery marzipan color, those same seven drawers are next to the cabinet under the sink, even the kitten wallpaper is the same. That motivational poster belongs to the test chamber, though, and has survived its every redecoration including "submarine" and "open grave." The only other difference is a photograph over the oven where your grandmother used to hang the heads of her enemies (mostly crickets).

Oh, and the observation chamber where Dr. Beagle is watching you through two-way glass. Your grandmother didn't have one of those.

On the counter is a grocery bag.

Soupbot is here to keep Pat company.

Pat the head-patting robot is here waiting for you to do something worthy of a head-pat.

You smell bacon.
You take the bacon
Hunger Level: Starving  |  Turns: 100  |  Score:
15

You reach out towards the delicious-looking bacon and discover it is actual bacon, taped to the photo. That will certainly make taking it a lot easier!

You untape the bacon from the photo. Some sort of classical conditioning kicks in and you immediately drop it greasily into the grocery bag.
You take the bag
Hunger Level: Starving  |  Turns: 100  |  Score:
15

Which do you mean, the grocery bag or the bag of beef?
Grocery
The lights, even the flashlight, suddenly flicker and go out...
Then they come back on.
Then they go out again.
Hunger Level: Starving  |  Turns: 101  |  Score:
15

A small flame cuts through the darkness. As it draws closer you see it's composed of several even smaller flames, attached to a cake. The air around you is suddenly thick with the sounds of noisemakers and Perry Como singing "Happy Birthday to You."

Is... is it your birthday?

The lights come back on, and you see that Dr. Beagle and the robots are wearing party hats. In front of you, on Cakebot's head platter, is an elaborately frosted cake with sixteen lit candles and the words "HAPPY BITRHDAY CONTROL 15" in blue icing. Everyone seems to be waiting for you to blow out the candles.
You examine the cake
Hunger Level: Starving  |  Turns: 102  |  Score:
15

It's a beautiful cake. They really went all out, what with the icing and the flowers and the almost spelling "BIRTHDAY" right. The candles flicker cheerfully.

The sight of food makes you salivate uncontrollably.
You eat the cake
Hunger Level: Starving  |  Turns: 103  |  Score:
15

You'll need to pick it up first. Go ahead. Pick up your cake. Happy birthday, by the way.
You take the cake
Hunger Level: Starving  |  Turns: 104  |  Score:
15

You pick up the elaborately frosted birthday cake, knowing full well you're just going to chuck it into the grocery bag when your classical conditioning kicks in, because your entire life is a sad farce. Yup. Any second now, you're going to throw the cake into the bag.

Any second now?

Okay. Don't freak out, but by some miracle, you are still holding on to the cake. I repeat, you are still holding on to the cake.

So... now what do you do?
You eat cake
Hunger Level: Starving  |  Turns: 104  |  Score:
15

You shove the cake at your face, taking minimal care not to set your hair on fire. Your tongue almost touches icing when --

>>%>#>ZAP!!!!!<*<&<<
Dr. Beagle shocks you so hard that the wiring in your brain scrambles and you have to really quickly reform all of your neural connections, which is totally a thing that can happen. (Later, in your room, you will have to test whether or not this has given you superpowers, which is also totally a thing that can happen.)  As you lie twitching on the linoleum, you feel a familiar cold metal hug around your left calf, and barely have time to whisper hello to Sedatebot before everything goes white and fuzzy.

You are just conscious enough as they wheel you past the kitchen to see that it's burritos in your IV tube again tonight. "Oh good, burritos," you think, passing out.
You look at what you're carrying with you
Hunger Level: Starving  |  Turns: 105  |  Score:
15

You are carrying:
a cake
an exoskeletal heat absorption glove (being worn)
a can of snakes (open but empty)
a flashlight (providing light and closed)
a shock collar (being worn)
a dinner jacket (being worn)
You look at the grocery bag
Hunger Level: Starving  |  Turns: 106  |  Score:
15

If this grocery bag could talk, it would inform you in no uncertain terms that it was a grocery bag.

In the grocery bag are an order of bacon, a pear, a pizza, a pie, a piece of peanut brittle, Dr Bagel, a cup of creamed cauliflower, a cup of chowder, a bean, a basket of garlic bread, a beer, an egg, an ear of corn, a bottle of vinegar and a bag of beef.
You examine the bean
Hunger Level: Starving  |  Turns: 107  |  Score:
15

It looks up at you with a little dog face. "Did you know?" it asks. "If you scrape your face off, it'll take you almost a thousand years to grow a new one, cell by painful cell. Fortunately, it'll keep growing long after you die, although not necessarily on your skull." You feel the blood drain from your face.
You put the cake in the bag
Hunger Level: Starving  |  Turns: 107  |  Score:
16

(the grocery bag)
You drop the lit birthday cake into the grocery bag, which surprises you by going whoosh up in flames, as though it were made out
of 1970s kids' Halloween costumes. You can feel your eyebrows sizzle as you instinctively leap back from the column of fire. The countertop begins to melt, and the scrubbing bubbles flee down the drain before the sink catches. The dinosaur remains behind fighting fire with fire, which doesn't actually work very well. Soupbot pulls a hose attachment out of somewhere and starts spraying chicken broth everywhere in a twenty-foot radius. To her firefighting credit, she even gets some on the flames.

"Did you know?" you hear a faint voice say from the inferno. "I'm on fire!"

Pat pats your head quickly, then beats a strategic retreat through the robot flap. You think your score went up by one point, although you could barely feel it through the heat of the blaze, or hear it over the slow clapping of Slowclapbot. The ceiling crashes down around you as you stand perfectly still in the center of the burning kitchen, staring at your own reflection in Dr. Beagle's mirrored sunglasses. (Wait, where'd he get those?)

Dr. Beagle's tail is wagging. Who's a good test subject? You are. You're a good test subject. Now he's reaching for the Bell...