Max inhaled deeply while Zeke finished washing himself off with the hose. The fresh air was phenomenal after the disgustingness of the port-a-potty.

"That's what the doctor ordered," Max said with a contented sigh. "Actually, check that." He pulled out his flask and took several large gulps off of it. "Now that's what the doctor ordered. Actually, check that." He pulled out his packet of cigarettes, lit one, and took a long puff off of it. "Now that's what the doctor ordered. You got yourself presentable yet or what?"

"Almost there," Zeke said. There had been a large bubble soap dispenser right next to the hose and Zeke had applied it liberally, not realizing that it was going to cover him from head to foot in suds. And the more he hosed himself down the more bubbles it seemed to create. It took him quite some time to get the last of the soap bubbles to go away. On the plus side he felt sparkling clean and smelled about a billion times better. On the minus side, he was completely soaking wet. "They got any blow dryers around here? Or even paper towels?"

"There might still be some toilet paper in the port-a-potty," Max said as he took another puff on his cigarette.

"Eh, that's okay. I don't want to go back in that thing. I'll air dry eventually, right?"

"Suit yourself," Max said with a shrug and took another nip off his flask and another puff off his cigarette.

Now that he was finished cleaning up, Zeke took the opportunity to look around. They seemed to be in the middle of a forest made out of enormous tree-sized lollipops. Brightly colored paths wandered off in all directions and there were several benches around that looked like oversized gumdrops. He also couldn't help but notice there were a few creatures around digging frantically with shovels.

"They sure seem to be going for that candyland motif in this park, huh?"

"That's because this place is for babies," Max said as he took a last puff off his cigarette and then threw the butt on the ground. "Candy is boring. I've never really been into sugar. Well, I did have a brief thing for nose sugar when I did that corporate internship the summer after my sophomore year at college. But then they tried to stick me with the charges for that series of missing hookers cases. I'm pretty sure I wasn't responsible for that. Or at least not fully responsible for that. They couldn't prove anything either way, so I walked. Nonetheless, I figured I was better off sticking with my first loves. Booze and smokes. I'll tell you what, say what you will, but they've never broken my heart."

"Aren't we supposed to be looking for a place with lollipops reaching towards the sky? These look like some pretty tall lollipops to me. And didn't you say something about thinking we needed to find a park with lollipops? This is a park, right? Wouldn't you say this fits the bill?"

"By George, I think you're right," Max rubbed his chin. "Looks like some of these other fools got tipped off to the lollipop part of the clue. Hence why these dudes are digging in the dirt. Word travels fast. But maybe they didn't hear about the ballpit."

"Wait, is there a ballpit in this park?" Zeke asked.

"How the hell should I know?" Max shrugged. "Do I look like I'm overly interested in balls? Don't answer that. No, there are more important matters to consider. If I were a pit of balls, where would I be?"

"Well, it's a pit. Maybe it's underground. Maybe these guys do know what they're doing by digging."

"Maybe, but there's got to be a better option than just digging blindly. This is a pretty big park."

A catfish man wearing a park services hat came puttering by on a mini scooter.

"Excuse me, my good sir," Max waved him down. "Do you work here?"

The catfish man let the scooter come to a stop and eyed Max suspiciously. "Why? You got some problem with it? I'll have you know that monitoring the playground is a legitimate career option and provides a positive contribution to society. I'm more or less a member of law enforcement. So you can take your little jokes about the sad little playground man and go somewhere else with them. You hear me, mister? I won't stand for it!"

"Whoa, calm down, buddy. You've got the wrong idea here. I was just wondering if there happened to be a ballpit in this park, and if so, if you would be so kind as to point me to where it is?"

"What the-?" the catfish man sputtered. "First it was that woman with the nasty attitude and now you two grown men want to jump in my ballpit? That's a kiddie attraction for little kids and you, sir, are no little kid. And don't even ask about riding the slide into the ballpit because that's a definite no. I swear! What is the deal with all these adults wanting to play on the playground? You people need to grow up and take some freaking responsibility."

"Wait, there's a slide that goes down into the ballpit?" Max asked.

"Yeah, there's a slide! It's activated by a trap door that's in the middle of the path straight behind you. There's a clearly posted sign. I know because I put it up myself. And don't let me catch you going down the slide because I will break out the foam baton. Don't test me."

"So it's just down this path right here?"

"No, not the blue path. The pink one. Just follow it for like five minutes and you'll see my sign. Can't miss it. But just remember. Stay off the slide and stay out of the ballpit or there will be consequences."

"You got it, pal," Max gave a little salute and watched as the catfish man started his scooter back up and disappeared off down a bright orange path. Then he turned to Zeke. "All right, you heard the man. Let's go down the pink path and find this ballpit."

They had been walking for close to five minutes but didn't see any ballpits or slides.

"Didn't that guy say there was some sort of clearly posted sign around here somewhere?" Zeke asked. "I don't see anything. Do you?"

"I do not. But he also said something about a trap door. You see anything like that?"

Zeke was about to say no, when he heard a click under his feet and the ground sank beneath him and then gave out entirely. The next thing he knew he was racing head first down a long twisty slide that finally dumped him into a pit of brightly colored rubber balls. He barely had time to register where he was before Max came careening off the slide and slammed into him.

"Well, I'll be damned. It looks like we're in the right place. I bet that clue is somewhere underneath all these balls. Should we start diving or should we start tossing balls out of the pit?"

"Uh, diving I guess?" Zeke said as he looked up at the lollipops stretching up to the clear sky overhead.

"You seem distracted by something," Max said.

"It's nothing," Zeke said. "It's just... I thought the ball pit was going to be underground, but we're still out in the open. Is this park like two levels or something?"

"No," Max said looking around. "Looks totally flat to me. "Look, if you squint your eyes down the pink path you can see my port-a-potty. Remind me to lock that thing up later, will you? The last thing I need is vagrants wandering in there."

"It's just how did we go down a slide and end up in a ballpit if we didn't start out higher up than we are now?"

"Didn't you claim you won a Gravity Ball championship? You should know down isn't always 'down,' so to speak. It's probably like a side slide or something. Those things are awesome. I need to install one under my doormat so I can send salesmen away when they ring my doorbell."

"Okay, so basically chalk it up to Quartzwater City weirdness. Got it. I suppose I should be used to this sort of thing by now."

"You really should," Max shook his head. "People are going to think you're a total tourist if you keep asking stupid questions like that. Now are we going to look for this clue or what?"

They dove under the balls and made their way meticulously along the floor and along the walls, but there didn't seem to be any clues anywhere.

"Could there be another ballpit somewhere around here? Or possibly another lollipop park with a ballpit in it? No, that doesn't make sense. This has to be the right place."

"Maybe the clue is written on one of the balls," Zeke said.

"I bet you're right," Max snapped his fingers. "Looks like we're back to my other idea. Start grabbing balls and checking them. If there's nothing there, start chucking them over the side."

"There must be, like, thousands of balls in here," Zeke said. "This could take a while."

"Nobody ever said earning a fortune in floss couldn't be tedious sometimes," Max said. "But we will truly have earned this treasure. I guess that's something. I mean, if someone wants to just hand me a couple million canisters of floss right now, I'd be totally cool with it. But I don't think that's going to happen, so I suppose we've got to do this the hard way." He grabbed a big red ball and examined it before tossing it out of the pit.

They had been throwing out balls for close to half an hour and still had barely made a dent when they heard the sound of a scooter puttering up to the pit.

"Hey what do you guys think you're doing? I thought I told you to stay out of the ballpit! And you'd better tell me you didn't go down the slide!"

Max looked up disinterestedly as he finished examining a big yellow ball. "Oh, it's you. Sorry, sir I didn't catch your name before."

"Nobody ever asks my name," the catfish flung up his hands in anger. "They all think I'm some sort of playground monitoring machine or something. Like this is all I do! Like I don't have a life outside of this! I'll have you know I have a very good imagination and I have a rich inner life. I like to sit down sometimes and get lost in my wild and wonderful imaginings. There's whole worlds going on inside my head the likes of which you can't even conceive of!"

"Yeah, whatever, dork. I've been to other worlds for reals. More than once. Now was there something I could help you with? Because I'm kind of busy here."

"You're darn right there's something you can help me with. You are currently disrespecting my authority and I'm going to need you to vacate that ballpit and this park immediately! Also the name's Francis, by the way."

"Ha ha! Francis! That's awesome. Listen, Francis. As much as I'd like to accommodate your pathetic little power trip, I've got important matters to attend to here, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"You're asking me to leave?" Francis sputtered. "No, sir, that is not what is going on here. It is in fact I that is asking you to leave. Now I believe I already warned you about the foam baton. I'm done handing out warnings, so unless you want a taste of old Betsy, I would advise you to comply with my orders."

"Go away, Francis," Max said and bopped him in the face with a blue rubber ball he had just finished inspecting. "You're starting to bug me."

"That's it!" Francis shouted. "If you're not going to come out, I'm coming in after you!"

"All right, fine," Max shrugged as he discarded another ball. "You can help us look. But if you see a ball with writing on it, don't read it. Just hand it to me or my associate Zeke. Whoever's closer."

Francis pulled out his foam baton and attempted to pull himself over the side of the ballpit, but he was having difficulty doing it one handed so he had to tuck his baton in his pants and made another go at it. He still struggled quite a bit but eventually he managed to crest the top and dropped into the pit. He laid on his back breathing heavily.

"You just going to lay there, Francis, or are you going to help us examine these balls?"

"Give me a moment to catch my breath and then I'm going to thoroughly trounce you with my foam baton. Wait, where is my baton? I swear I stuck it in my pants."

"What, that baton that's lying in the grass over there?" Max asked. "It fell out of your pants while you were feebly pulling yourself over the wall. You didn't need that thing, did you?"

"Son of a gun," Francis said. "You, sir, are starting to seriously tick me off. It goes against the playground monitor code to utilize anything other than the foam baton for enforcement purposes, but I have a good mind to engage with you in fisticuffs with my bare hands."

"Whatever, Francis," Max said. "Say, you mind if I have a smoke? That last one was so nice and refreshing I think I'm in the mood for another one."

"Smoking is absolutely prohibited as per statute JXQ9494949494948L$^1X!" Francis shouted.

"What was that?" Max asked as he took a big puff off a cigarette. "I couldn't hear you over the sound of the lighter. You really need to speak up, Francis, if you want people to hear what you're saying."

"Put that out immediately!" Francis screamed as he tried to pull himself upright, although he was having difficulty gaining his balance due to the pile of rubber balls shifting under his weight.

"What, this? But I just lit it. Do you have any idea how much these things cost, Francis? That would just be downright wasteful. Nah, I've been working hard digging through rubber balls. I've earned this cigarette, don't you think?" He flicked a cinder at Francis's head.

"Hey Max," Zeke called out. "I think I've got something here. There's a gold ball here and it's got writing on it. And is it just me or does it suddenly smell like burnt rubber?"

"Sweet merciful fuck!" Max shouted as he noticed the ballpit was rapidly going up in flames. "We have to get out of here, like, right now! And whatever you do, don't lose track of that ball!"

"Oh crap!" Zeke said as he saw the fire starting to spread. "How did that happen?"

"I told that idiot not to smoke in here!" Francis shouted as he scrambled for the side of the wall.

Max had already leaped out of the pit and landed on the grass. He took a final puff off his cigarette before dropping it on the ground and grinding it out with his foot. "Zeke, how are you doing? You haven't dropped that ball right?"

"I've got it securely in my pocket," he said as he pulled himself up and over the wall.

"Francis, how about you? You had a lot of trouble getting over the wall the first time. You think you can make it this time or do I need to light a fire under you? Because if you hadn't noticed, I kind of already did."

"I noticed!" Francis shouted as he made it over the wall and fell onto the grass. Apparently escaping from a fire really was a good motivator.

A crowd had gathered around the ballpit to gawk at the fire, but soon it started sending off a toxic smoke and people started coughing vigorously.

"Do you have any idea how much trouble you're in, mister?" Francis shouted from where he was still laying on the ground. "You're going to be locked up for a long time for this!"

"It seems to me you're the one who's responsible, Mr. Playground Monitor," Max said. "This is your jurisdiction. You're the boss. So I'm afraid the buck stops with you. If you'd done your job properly you would have prevented unauthorized smoking on the premises. At the very least you're looking at gross negligence. You're definitely losing your job. If I were you I'd hire myself a good attorney because between you and me they're going to chew you up in prison. Now if you'll excuse us, it's getting hard to breathe around here. Come on, Zeke. Let's get clear of this smoke and read the next clue."

"Did he say the next clue?" a chipmunk that was standing nearby shouted. "Hey everybody! These guys found the next clue!"

"Aw, crap," Max muttered as he covered his face with his shirt. "Let's get out of here!"

"You don't have to tell me twice," Zeke said as he took off down a red path surrounded by giant lollipops. Max hurried after as a quickly growing number of creatures followed them.

"Double crap!" Max shouted from behind. "Do you hear that rumbling sound?"

"It's kind of hard to miss it," Zeke said. "Especially since the ground is shaking."

"I should have known this guy would show up," Max said. "I mean, it's not like he hasn't arrived right on time every other time we've found a clue. Speaking of which, what does it say? Read it quick before he gets here and takes it from us."

"Um, it might be too late for that," Zeke said as several giant lollipops got knocked over by the spinning purple vehicle as it plowed straight through them. Zeke had to leap out of the way to avoid being flattened by an enormous pink sucker as it landed on the path with a resounding thud.

The vehicle came to a stop in a puff of steam and the walkway lowered revealing the familiar figure covered in purple robes.

"You will give me the ball," it said in a deep deep menacing voice.

"I think I'd better give it to him," Zeke said as he dug in his pocket and pulled it out.

"Try to read it!" Max shouted.

"I'm trying! It's, like, written backwards or something!"

The figure grabbed the ball out of Zeke's hand and turned around to walk back up the ramp.

"Oh no you don't!" Max said as he leaped after the retreating figure. "You're not going anywhere without us seeing what's on that ball!" He reached forward and managed to grasp the figure's hood which yanked off in his hand.

"Oh, hell no," Max groaned. "Not you."