The Prize Machine -???-

Nobody in town seemed to know where the machine had come from.  It just appeared one morning in Toon Town's park, with no sign of whoever or whatever had brought it there.  It looked just like one of the little trinket/candy dispensers in grocery stores where you put a quarter in and get something, but this one was huge.  The whole thing was about a story and a half tall, and loaded with various toys and knickknacks, each one sealed inside a half-red-half-clear plastic capsule about the size of a sports ball.

A crowd surrounded the machine all morning.  People were gawking at the machine, taking pictures of it, speculating about why it was there, and trying in vain to get it to dispense something.

Then Lizzie and Abbe arrived on the scene.

"C'mon, Sis!" Lizzie exclaimed, literally dragging Abbe through the crowd.  "Everyone's talking about it!  We've got to see it!"

Abbe said nothing.  The blue wolf was also anxious to see the prize machine; she just wasn't quite as outwardly enthusiastic about it as her twin sister was.

Finally, the two of them stood in front of the machine, admiring it.  The prizes were housed in a huge glass globe, and the main lower body of the machine was painted ruby red.  The coin slot and the handle one turned to deposit the coin were both a polished silver, and "15p" was engraved just above the slot.

Lizzie wouldn't hold still.  "What are you waiting for, Sis?  Buy something from it!  I want to know what we'll get!  The suspense is killing me!"

Tuning the green wolf out, Abbe reached into her hip, creating a pocket that hadn't been there before, and drew out a coin.  She was about to put it in the machine when she realized the obvious difference in size between the coin and the slot.

"...Oh.  We're going to need a bigger coin."

But where are we going to get a coin that size?  It'd have to be as big as...

An idea clicked into Abbe's mind.  Glancing back, she spotted Tom among the crowd, and beckoned him forwards.

"Hi, girls," Tom said as he finally pushed his way to the front.  "What do you need?"

Abbe leaned in and whispered something into Tom's ear.  The orange wolf nodded, then stepped back, ignoring Lizzie who was still too excited to notice anything that had happened in the past few minutes.

Reaching behind himself, Tom drew out his huge mallet, not even staggering with its weight.  He counted to three, then brought the mallet down on Lizzie's head, squashing her on the spot.  Then he drew the mallet back to reveal the green disk now stuck to it.

"Perfect!" Abbe declared, peeling Lizzie off and examining her.  "Thanks a lot, Tom!"

"Anytime," Tom replied, disappearing into the crowd once more.

The newly flattened Lizzie let out a laugh.  "I know what you're going to do!  You're going to use me as your coin!"

"Yep.  Get ready!"

"I already am ready, Sis!  Go on, put me in the slot!"

Climbing up, Abbe placed her disk-shaped sister into the coin slot; she was a perfect fit.  Then the blue wolf grasped the handle in both hands and gave it a firm clockwise turn.  It made a full rotation, and Lizzie disappeared, laughing as she rolled into the machine's interior.

At the same time, a single plastic capsule landed in the chute at the bottom of the machine.  Abbe bent down and picked it up before prying it open with her claws.  It contained a cute little vacuum cleaner made to look like a pink elephant, complete with an extendable rubber hose for a trunk.  It had a reverse switch, too-- a relatively useless feature for vacuums in the real world, but indispensable for toons.

Grinning from ear to ear, Abbe put away the vacuum cleaner somewhere behind herself, as well as the empty capsule (it looked useful as a sphere mold).

"We got our prize!  C'mon, Lizzie, let's head back to the sports center and... oh..."

Abbe's heart nearly dropped out of her chest as she remembered where Lizzie was now.  She stared at the machine, realizing her error, tears welling up in her eyes.  After a moment, she collapsed on the ground, crying profusely.

She had spent her own sister on a prize.  And that wasn't a fair trade.