The Sweet Suite Life

Chapter 41. Under Pressure

꧁༺ 𝓢𝓸𝓷𝓰 𝓯𝓸𝓻 𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓽𝓮𝓻 ༻꧂

•┈┈┈••✦ ♡ ✦••┈┈┈•

"Esme, I need help with my shoes," London said as she came up to me, Zack, Woody.

"London, how many times do I have to go over tying your shoes?" I asked, "You twist the laces together. Make one side a loop, then the other side a loop, and then you make bunny ears. It's really not that hard."

"Hey, to be fair, the bunny ears are difficult," Zack defended London.

"No, no," London sighed, "I need you to take my summer shoes out of the storage, and put my winter ones in."

"London, this is my first day off in weeks," I said, "Why would I help with that?"

London pulled out a wad of money. I started counting it which was $2,000 in $50 bills. "Okay, I'm willing to help," I said with a smile.

"If I help, are you gonna give us some of that money?" Zack asked.

"I was gonna use some of the money to spoil you," I answered. I leaned toward Zack, "I was only gonna give Woody $300, and then we split the rest."

Zack nodded and smiled. "Sounds like a plan, beautiful." 

Zack, Woody, and I started to go to London's shoe storage. Well, I say shoe storage, but it's really a shoe submarine. I'm just thankful London didn't ask for me to go into her clothing blimp.

London eventually came down to help with the shoes. I gasped when I saw the ruby-red slippers.

"London, are those real rubies on those heels?" I asked as I picked them up.

"Yup, they're real," London said plainly.

"These are gorgeous," I said.

"They'd look beautiful with that red dress you wore for the Miss Tipton pageant," Zack pointed out.

London grabbed the shoes from me before handing them back and looking through her storage once again. "Here, I forgot I had another pair. I normally don't have 2, but the first set didn't fit me. Try these on," London suggested as she put a set on the ground.

I was really surprised by London doing this. 1, this was coming from London Tipton, and 2. this was coming from the girl that had only one of everything. I put the ones I was holding, back into their original box. I carefully took my shoes off before slipping my feet into the ruby kitten-heel shoes that London was having me try. "London, these fit like a glove," I said in awe.

"You can have them," London said, making me, Zack, and Woody gasp.

"You mean it?" I asked, double-checking.

London nodded, "You've helped me a lot, Esme. I want you to have them."

"I would hug you, London, but I know you don't like hugs," I said, "Thank you so much, London. I really really love them."

"Ah!" Zack shouted as he fell over.

"Oh my goodness, Zack, honey," I said while walking to him, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm okay," Zack said as he got up, "Just lost my footing there for a hot sec."

I hummed, noticing that the water around the submarine was a lot darker.

"It's stuffy in here. I'm gonna open the hatch to get some fresh air," Woody said. And just as he did, water started to flow in.

"Shut it! Shut it!" I shouted, "We're underwater!"

I started to panic and hyperventilate. "Ho-How are we gonna get back up? Nobody in here knows how to direct this damn this!" I panicked.

Then to add to my panic, a red light started to go off and so did an alarm.

"Oh, oh!" Woody got excited, "This a good thing!"

"When has a red light and alarm ever been a good thing?" I shouted.

"At Bert's Burger Buddy. It means you win one of those little dancing buddies," Woody said before he started to explain while doing a dance.

"Wait, it says something here, but whoever did this is a worse speller than I am," London said as she and I looked at the controls.

"London, you can't read it because whoever wrote it was Russian," I explained.

"I don't care how fast they were writing," London said, "It makes no sense!"

"Uh, guys? I don't mean to alarm anybody, however, I think that alarm means we only have 30 minutes of air left," Zack said, reading one of the gauges.

It got more and more difficult to breathe because of the lessening amounts of oxygen. Of course, Woody didn't seem to have any issues while he was eating his turkey leg on a rotator. How 15 minutes flew past all 4 of us, was beyond me.

Zack got up to look at the gauge. He sighed, "We only have 12 minutes of air left."

Woody went on to say how he felt like he'd never get to tell his crush how he felt. Only to find out it was Ethel, the lunch lady that was disfigured.

Then we heard batteries fall to the ground. "Double A batteries!" I exclaimed in excitement. I looked back at the radio. I grabbed the batteries off of the ground and put them into the radio.

Zack grabbed the radio speaker. "SOS! SOS!" Zack started shouting, trying to get somebody's attention through the radio.

"We don't have time for spelling. Besides, we need help, not sauce!" London started yelling at Zack. Woody, Zack, and I all looked at her, completely dumbfounded.

"Zack? London? What are you doing on this radio frequency?" Mr. Moseby's voice came through the radio.

"Stop messing around, Zack. We're in the middle of something important," Cody said.

"Yeah, well, this is important too," I said, "We're trapped in London's shoe submarine!"

"We're running out of air, too," Zack shouted as well.

"Look for a button marked surface control," Cody ordered, brushing us off.

"We can't," I shouted, "It's all in Russian. If it was English, we wouldn't be in this situation!"

We could hear arguing back and forth. This was not helping my anxiety any bit. "Hello? We're all slowly dying here! Unless somebody wants murder charges against them, somebody help us!" I screamed.

"If you're running out of air, the emergency override should have automatically surfaced the sub," Cody said, "So something must be jamming the ballast pumps."

"Eeeee," London whined, "I may have put my pumps in the pumps."

"Scratch that plan. Pumps are in pumps," I said.

"In that case, the only way to surface the sub is to get rid of any unnecessary weight," Cody said, "Look for the torpedo tubes and jettison whatever you can find."

All of us looked at the shoes. "London, you better pick out your all-time favorites. Otherwise, kiss these babies goodbye," I said as I ran over to some shoes. I grabbed shoes and handed them to Zack, and he would put them in the torpedo tubes.

"Mommy's sorry!" London cried out as she kept a few of her extreme favorites.

Zack was looking through the scope. "We made it to the surface!" Zack cheered. I cheered and jumped into Zack's arms, wrapping my arms and legs around him. I tried to ignore London's wailing.

"Oh, hello, sweet sweet S.S. Tipton," I said as Zack and I got onto the boat. "I'm never stepping on another submarine in my life. And yes, that also means the yellow submarine."