Suddenly Carmen and Kate's stifled giggling is cut short by a loud noise. Something like "ba-boooo-creeeeeee-ee-e-k-k-k-isssshhhhh". And the lift stopped. They stared at each other wide eyed. The lift meter says it's on the fourth floor, but when Carmen pushes the |< >| by her hand, the door opens to reveal only a cement wall, a floor between the levels. Kate hears a girl gasp behind her.
She looks over her shoulder and sees a petite brunette clutching her face in terror. Kate quickly pushes the >||<.
Stunned, she looks around the lift. There were five of them. Kate, Carmen, an old looking man - assumingly a lecturer, a boy with purple headphones around his neck and the frightened girl.
The lecturer sighs and, without looking at anyone, slides to the floor, pulls out a book and begins to read.
Kate and Carmen raise their eyebrows at each other.
"So...." it's the boy. "I guess someone should call the lift service."
He makes his way to the lift control and pushes the emergency help button.
"Dammit," whispers Carmen in Kate's ear, I've always wanted to push one of those!"
There's a ringing noise and then a Zulu-ed voice: "Uh, hello?"
"Ja, we're stuck in the lift."
"Which level?"
"4."
"Ok, just wait there, ne." And then the shuffling sound of a reciever being replaced.
"As if we have a choice." Kate jokes. The girl in the corner begins to cry, collapsing down to the floor.
Carmen sidled up to her and rubbed her back. "It's ok," she mumured quietly.
"Ah great, no signal." the boy moans, jamming buttons on his cellphone. "Anyone go any food?" He sits down too.
"I have some ... but wait, we should ration it, we don't know how long we're going to be here." The boy stared at Kate's practicality. His Volcom t-shirt screamed the need for instant gratification.
"Great, should we ration the air too?"
"Better idea," proposes Carmen, "I have a pack of cards. And food. Let's pool it and gamble it out."
"No we should share!" Kate protests.
"I'm all for survival of the fittest." Offers the boy, and receives the acute type of death stare administered by females.
"What do you think, Milly?" Carmen asks the girl. She still had her arm around her. Kate wondered how Carmen got a name and then sees that it's written on the girl's backpack.
Milly continued to sob quietly.
"Milly, do you have to be somewhere?" tried Kate.
Her face buried deeper into her hands.
"Maybe she's claustrophobic" the boy suggested.
"'She' can hear what you're saying," Carmen throws back.
"Great! Milly, nod if you're claustrophic." Carmen punched the boy on the arm.
"Ow! Fiesty." The boy grinned at Carmen, who promptly punched him again.
Kate glanced at the lecturer. He had not shown any sign that he knew they were there. The novel he was reading was called "Stuck With You".
"I guess now we have no excuse not to learn for the test tomorrow," Kate shrugged at Carmen.
"No! Procrastinate forever! Put those notes away! This is quality time."
"How romantic." Kate rolled her eyes but smiled.
"Let's make it a picnic," the boy urges.
And so into the middle of the circle was piled all the food they had. The plunder includedone packet of Cheddars, two apples, a ham roll, a banana and then...
"I also have some," Milly's voice is soft, punctuated by her sniffing. She keeps her eyes down as she slowly adds to the pile a tupperware filled with cupcakes. They are iced pink with glitter and big bright white marzipan stars shine from the top.
Everyone shouts in delight, the boy high fives her and she is proclaimed Carmen's new favourite person.
"Milly did you make these?"
"Ya..."
"They're too pretty to eat!"
But everyone (except that weird lecturer) eats them anyway. The mood of the lift was suddenly like a rainbow smacking into a unicorn who was rolling about in a green meadow and there was sunlight everywhere and lots of fairies and butterflies bigger than your hand and so much shininess and smiliness...the cupcakes were made with magic.
After everyone returned from their brief visit to heaven, Milly admits she is studying to be a chef.
"So we could basically live here," the boy says happily.
Confused silence met this remark, then the lift rang with girlish laughter.
After a while, Carmen sighed and started pushing random lift buttons above her head. The lift suddenly began to lift itself up and they were sliding their way into freedom.
"Yaaayyy!!"
When the doors opened, the building was entirely empty.
"Wow. We were in the lift so long we missed the end of the world," the boy whispers in awe. the lecturer walks away crisply without a word. Milly gave a nervous giggle. Then someone was running past them to the exit. "Snow ! snow snow!"he was screaming wildly.
The four lift campers look at each other in disbelief and then broke into a run. A crowd had formed outside, surrounded by soft, drifting snow.
Turning their faces to the sky, the snow was black against the bright white of the clouds. It could have been thousands of tiny insects hurrying, flurrying downwards. Swift: it came down and came down, like dry and friendly rain. Every flake whispered joy and the world seemed to reverberate and radiate with the magic of the soft mystery.
Carmen took a breath and sighed, "I love Wednesdays."
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