After being captured by the Snikes and put in the mattress mine, Tink, Bounce and Willi bicker about whose escape plan is the best. Above them, the Bottersnikes hold a pageant to crown the ugliest Snike on Snike Hill.

Bounce is taken captive by a colony of grubs, and soon finds that she enjoys their company, but after Tink trades the gumbles grub supply for Bounce's safe return, she has warmed to the grubs so much that she begins behaving like one, landing herself and her friends in trouble on Snike Hill.

When Tink accidentally gets the twins tangle-spanged, he sets off to find grubs to cure them, unaware that Gubbo has invented a machine to round up all the grubs in order to starve the gumbles out of existence.