The chomp traced a boundary around the area they had to slurp through on the jawbreaker gate with some wet chocolate mud he picked up from the street. When they were done, the opening would be big enough for a single chomp to crawl through.

Floof did most of the slurping, covering wide swathes of the rock hard candy with her tongue. The chomp slurped as much as he could, chipping in when Floof got tired, though her rest periods were shorter and bursts of activity longer than his. Mo mostly gave moral support.

"Slurp for your lives, you good for nothings!" Squeaked Mo.

"Slurp like you're being pursued by the Hounds Of Heaven themselves!"

The sweating and exhausted chomp had half a mind to squish the tiny ice-cream mochi or feed it to his patoot. But he thought better of it.

They licked hard and they licked for long. They licked like they'd never licked any lollipop before. The progress showed, but it was gradual. This was a true test of stamina. The sky was getting lighter.

"Hurry up! It's only a couple of hours till dawn!"

The chomp's tongue ached. He didn't think he had it in him to step in when Floof needed a break again.

"It's all you now girl. You got this!"

But as the sky lightened further and the threat of dawn drew nearer, it did not look like Floof had this. Her tongue was so parched it looked like the cracked bed of some long dried up river, but she soldiered on. Eventually though, she did collapse from exhaustion.

The jawbreaker wall still stood solid as a rock, but the area the chomp had outlined now looked translucent, and the faint outlines of objects in the shop could be seen through the candy.