Everyone was having fun during the IAC. There were so many different things to do. While Abby and Samson were taking part in their events, the other members of Animalia Ambassadoria had other things to do.
---
"How you managed to talk me into this I'll never know." Said Travis, shortly before the bell rang and he was dumped into a tank of water. This kind of carnival game was called the dunk tank, where kids spend money on three chances to throw a baseball at a target to dunk the person in the tank up to three times, with the target getting smaller with each win.
"It's supposed to be fun." Answered Sarah as Travis reset the seat and got back on it.
"Who came up with this as 'fun'?" Asked Travis, indignantly.
"That's actually a good question, I don't really know." Replied Sarah, honestly.
"I'm just glad that, after three more customers, it will be your turn in here." Said Travis, mischievously. Sarah did a brief, playful 'oh, no!' face at that, but smiled as Travis was ducked again. It was agreed to rotate between the two of them every ten customers.
---
"What's that?" Asked Malice, pointing at something she had never seen before.
"Huh?" Asked Simon, then when he saw what she was pointing at, he answered, "Oh, that. That's a fun game. I'll show you how it works."
It was a test-your-strength kind of game, except that there were several different kinds present. The different kinds of mallets and challenges were segregated into human, lightweight, middleweight, heavyweight, super heavyweight, and ultra heavyweight. Each one had different labels on them rising from one meter above the base to just below the bell. The human one, for example, had labels starting with: cream puff, softie, weakling, little boy, boy, big boy, man, he-man, and superman just below the bell, while the bell itself was labeled Champion!.
Simon picked up the mallet labeled 'middleweight' as he explained, "Now you take this hammer, find the matching challenge, and hit the button on it. The button launches the ball up to the strength rating that you hit the button with, and if you ring the bell, you win a prize. I always wanted to try my hand at this, now watch!" Simon took the mallet and hit the button of the middleweight challenge, but only got up to alpha wolf on all three tries.
"My turn." Said Malice, paying her two dollars and taking the mallet from Simon. The first time she hefted the mallet over her head, she overbalanced and fell backwards, so the guy running the game allowed the overbalanced to not count against her three turns. Afterwards, she managed to make the bell ring with two of her three chances, and she won a ninja flying squirrel toy.
---
"Hey, I used to be pretty good at this." Said Roland when he saw the milk bottle game, "Should I give it a whirl?"
"Go ahead." Answered Sophie.
"Okay, batter up." Said Roland after paying his two dollars. He then took the first baseball and struck the three milk bottles right in the middle, knocking down all three.
"Nice going, kid." Said the game operator, a rat Animalian done up as a stereotypical "greasy game operator" , as he set the bottles back up again, "You knocked down some bottles with a ball. Want a cookie?"
Roland didn't answer as he waited to throw his second ball. In the end, he ended up winning all three ball tosses.
"Well, I still got the old touch." He said, but when he saw that his prize was access to Super Milk Bottles, he decided to take a look, and was surprised to see that there were TEN rows of milk bottles stacked up. "I'll come back to it later.
---
"What is this supposed to be?" Asked Malice as she saw a strange, preserved monkey man in a box with the word 'Gazoo' over it.
"It's supposed to be the Missing Link." Answered Simon, also looking at it.
"The Missing link to what?" Asked Malice, the term going over her head.
"The transitional species that links apes and humans, according to Darwin's theory of evolution." Explained Simon again. "But this is actually a display from the late 19th, early 20th century circus era." He continued, pointing at an information display next to it.
---
"Bummer." Said Travis, as sometime later, he and Sarah, wearing towels over their swimsuits, explored the carnival games and came to the Hoops game. Travis wanted to win Sarah a prize as repayment for her patience after seeing her get dunked 15 times during her time in the dunk tank, but he didn't seem to get the ball in the hoop.
"Hey, man." Said a large, black man as he came over to them. "Let me show you how we pros put some B.E.E.F. in our jumpshots."
"What?" Asked Travis, not familiar with the term, but politely allowing him to demonstrate. The black man proceeded to explain.
"'B' is for Balance; 'E' is for Eyes; 'E' is for Elbow; and 'F' is for Follow through." And with each letter, he demonstrated how to do each step right.
"Uh, thanks." Replied Travis, not sure how to respond, but accepting his help.
---
Sophie and Roland, meanwhile had payed their two dollars to gain access to a funhouse. It was a little amusing to see Animalians stumble a bit through the moving parts. Sophie and Roland had just arrived at the funhouse mirror section and were playing with the mirrors.
"Whoa!" Said Roland at one mirror that made him look like he had an enormous belly. "Look what that last hotdog did to me!"
"This one is certainly... flattering." Said Sophie as she looked in a mirror that gave her greater hourglass curves than she already had.
"I knew I was sharp," said Roland, looking in one mirror that made his head long and pointy, "but this pointed head is too much! Ha ha!"
Near the end of the funhouse mirror section, there was a comic from The Fifth Wave showing three distorted people in a lawyer's office and the lawyer was asking, "So when was it discovered that funhouse mirrors were accidentally installed in the body sculpting rooms.
---
The carnival games were a lot of fun, and a good way to help raise money for future Animalia Colonies.