“Hurry, Emma! We’re running out of time!” Sharon shrieked at the young girl, no older than six years old. Her light blue dress hung too loosely, and one strap kept slipping off of her shoulder. Sharon shifted one of the shopping bags from her left hand to her right, but she still looked like a clothes rack that was about to collapse. She quickened her pace, watching the packed elevator almost close. “Hold that door!” she shouted, barreling into the elevator.
As soon as she passed through the heavy metal doors, it was as if she deflated, and her entire body sagged, the shopping bags falling to the floor. “Fourth floor, please,” she breathed. Emma hopped into the elevator right before the doors shut, and she sat down on the floor beside her mother’s feet, her blue dress rippling out like a river.
The elevator shifted up and started moving. On the second floor, an elderly couple in matching peach-colored sweaters stepped in and looked at Emma with disdain. The woman pushed the button to close the doors, and the elevator leapt up jerkily, moving its passengers slightly. Then it stopped. The doors stayed shut.
“What just happened?” Sharon shouted. “Why did we stop?” She looked around at her fellow passengers, trying to figure out an answer.
“I always knew I was afraid of elevators!” said a turtle-looking woman, wrinkling her forehead.
“We’re all stuck!” said a man in the opposite corner, nervously fidgeting with his glasses.
“I can’t get a signal,” declared a woman with hair the color of her Victoria’s Secret bag. “Someone try the help button.”
The old man in peach grasped his wife’s hand and stared straight ahead, pressing himself against the wall as if he didn’t want to be the one responsible for the fate of the elevator’s passengers. Sharon reached out and pressed the alarm button.
“Mommy, I want to press the button!” Emma whined.
“Hello, what’s your emergency?” a voice asked through the speakers.
“I wanted to push it! Mommy!” Emma cried shrilly before anyone else could say anything.
“Excuse me?” the speaker voice asked.
“We’re stuck on the elevator!” Sharon shrieked. Emma cried louder. “Mommy, it was my turn! That’s not faaaair!”
“Emma, darling, Mommy’s busy! Stop crying!”
“Ma’am, can you tell me how long you’ve been stuck?”
“About a minute, if even that!” Sharon huffed, angry that anyone would think her idiotic enough to twiddle her thumbs for 20 minutes before making the call in a time like this.
“How many people are stuck in the elevator?” the voice asked.
“I wanted to press it!”
The old woman in the peach sweater glared coldly at Emma, crossing her arms. “There are eight of us, unfortunately,” she replied. There was a pause after her response.
“Does anyone require medical attention?” the deep voice inquired.
“Mental attention,” the woman in peach whispered to her husband, looking around her.
“I think we’re all okay,” said a tall man in jeans and a gray hoodie. He observed the others.
“I wanna go home!” shouted Emma.
“Alright. I’m just gonna need you to stay calm. Help is on the way,” the voice assured. Jazzy elevator music played again through the speakers, and the voice was gone.
“Still no phone signal,” grumbled the pink-haired woman.
“We’re going to be so late!” Sharon screamed.
“Take me home!” Emma screamed back.
“Parents these days have no control!” the woman in peach complained.
The man in peach said nothing.
“We’re all stuck!” repeated the man in the corner.
“I should’ve taken the stairs,” moaned turtle lady.
“Everyone, calm down!” the tall man said, raising his voice. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You and you,” he pointed at the other two men, “are gonna help me open these doors. The rest of you, try to find a way out through the ceiling.” Everyone was silent.
“C’mon!” he urged. The other two men slowly walked to the doors and tried to wedge their fingers in between the thick metal slats. Pink-haired lady went to work directing everyone else to boost her up to the ceiling. “Alright. I’m gonna count to three, and then we’ll all pull at the same time,” said the tall man to his timid helpers. “One, two–”
The elevator lurched upward as if propelled by a stretched rubber band. Pink-haired woman fell out of the arms of Sharon and peach sweater woman, and she narrowly avoided hitting her head on the cold tile floor. The doors opened, and the three men tumbled out. Everyone else rushed out in different directions, not bothering to look back at their former prison cell.
“Never again!” shouted Sharon, and she latched onto her crying daughter’s oversized strap, dragging her in the direction of the hair salon.
Laura Steckbeck is a senior in high school who loves to stay busy. At her school, she is the secretary of the Science National Honor Society, editor of the Creative Arts Magazine, editor of the newspaper, and a member of the National Honor Society. Besides writing, she loves reading, spending time with family and friends, being the varsity men’s coxswain for her local rowing club, and collecting anything with polka dots.