"Yes Queenie!" Leah yelled jumping on my back after I had scored yet another goal.
"Okay, I vote for never putting them in the same team again unless I'm in their team." Katie mumbled.
I ran past Katie and stopped to pat her back. "There, there." I said with a laugh.
Katie just glared at me. "Are you quoting Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory?"
"Yes. Yes I am." I smiled smugly at her.
"Okay McCabe, let's break it up so we can kick your ass some more." Daan laughed at Katie.
During the rest of our scrimmage our team continued to trash the other side. Much to the dismay of a certain Irish girl. This just made it even more fun.
"Alright girls! That's it for today." Joe ended the training.
"Remind me that I never want to play against you again." Viv and I were gathering our stuff together.
"Ha same with you goat, but unfortunately we're gonna have to at the world cup next summer." I smirked at the forward, who glared at the nickname. "What? It's a fitting nickname."
"Well, I don't like it."
"Too bad." I stuck my tongue out. While we were talking amongst the two of us the others of our little group joined us.
Lisa swung her arm around my shoulders. "So how are you and the traitor doing?"
I chuckled at her nickname for Mason. To be honest Mason and I were doing quite good. It was now half of December and we had been dating for two months. Even my friends liked him, kind of.
"Were doing good."
"I haven't seen him at a game. Is he coming to the game against City? He's in Manchester that weekend with his team anyway." Daan told me.
"I don't know, I haven't asked him yet."
"Perfect, just the 8 players I was looking for." Joe walked up to us.
"What's up coach?" Daan was the first to speak.
"The management and mediateam want the 8 of you to do some media duties this afternoon."
"All 8 of us? All at once?"
"Yes Leah, all 8 of you. Apparently they want you to do some sort of challenge."
"Cool. Sounds fun enough." I shrugged my shoulders. The others agreed and with that we went to the locker room to get ready. After we had showered and cetera we were escorted to a small minivan that would bring us to our destination with a small camera crew to accompany us.
"They're not gonna kill us are they?" Jordan started to wonder.
"Nah, don't worry about it, our group is too big for that so they probably gonna pick just one of us to kill." I simply said. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at me in shock, definitely Jordan who seemed to be working out whether or not I was serious.
"It's me isn't it? It's gonna be me?" She looked at me.
"Hey Jord?"
"Yeah?"
"I was kidding." She narrowed her eyes at me, again trying to see if I was lying.
"I knew that." Shen then mumbled when everyone started to laugh.
"We're here." The driver stopped the bus and waited for us to get off.
"And where is here exactly?" I raised my eyebrows in confusion.
"There is someone waiting for you right inside that building."
"Alright, thank you." We all got off the bus and went inside the building where someone was indeed waiting for us.
"Good afternoon ladies. Welcome to 'The Golden Cage'.
"Oh I know this place. We're gonna do an escape room!" Beth yelled.
"Nice." Viv and I high-fived each other.
"Your task for today is to indeed escape one of our rooms. Is there anyone who hasn't done an escape room before?"
"No, we've all done one before." Leah answered for all of us.
Once the lady explained to us the basic rules of an escape room and had us divided into two groups, we were finally ready to start the game. I was in a group with Leah, Daan and Viv. The other group consisted of Beth, Jordan, Lisa and Katie. So basically both teams would play in the same escape room. The team that gets out the fastest, wins the challenge.
And that's what is happening now. I was standing with my group outside of the room where we would be locked up in for the next hour.
"So I have a nice surprise for you guys because you're going on a trip." The woman starts to explain.
"Really, where are we going?!" Daan askes excitedly.
"You do know it's not real right?" I raised my eyebrows at her.
"Well, you're going to New York!"
"Oh nice!" Leah yelled.
"Meh, it's not LA." I shrugged my shoulders.
"But you're not there yet. Your journey starts here so all there is left for me to do is to give you your blindfolds." She gave us our blindfolds which we put on.
"Your tickets. Hold on to them tightly because you're gonna need them and now I wish you a safe journey." The woman guided us one by one into what I assumed was the room where we had to escape from.
"3, 2, 1, you can take off your blindfold. Good luck." I heard a voice say through a speaker. We did what we were told and I immediately started looking around.
It looked like we were in an old elevator. On one side there was a poster with some text on. It said:'water will always keep you alive? The water of the ocean.' On the other side there was a box with a lock and behind me there was a ticket scanner.
"Okay so now what?" Viv asked the group.
"Let's look around for clues like Ellie is doing." Daan joined me in looking around.
"You know I have a feeling we're gonna get wet or something." Leah mumbled.
"How's that even possible?" Daan looked at the blonde.
"White star line? Why does that sound so familiar?" Viv wondered, making me realize where we are.
"Uh oh, I know where we are." I checked out my ticket, confirming my suspicion.
"What how? Where?" Viv asked.
"What's on your ticket?" The 3 girls started looking at their ticket.
"Ticket Jack. What's on yours?" Daan asked.
"Mine, says Molly Brown. What does yours say?" Leah looked at me.
"Rose"
Viv looked at me still confused. "Okay and how does this explain to us where we are?"
I looked at Viv like she was crazy. "You're kidding right? Have you lived under a rock?" The other girls look as confused as Viv did.
"Ooh my God, you guys are unbelievable." I threw my head back. "We are going on a trip to New York. We're on the 'White Star Line' and we have tickets with the names: Jack Dawson, Rose DeWitt, Caledon Hockley and Molly Brown." I looked at the girls expectedly but they still didn't seem to catch on.
"The famous door, the iceberg!" I threw my hands in the air.
"We're on the Titanic?" Daan asked confused. "Oh God we're on the Titanic!" She yelled right after, finally realizingwhere we were.
"See, I told you were gonna get wet." Leah said, still clearly convinced we were gonna get wet.
"We're not gonna get wet." I told her sternly. "Now let's get this started because I wanna get outta here and I don't wanna lose in the process."
"How do you know? The boat sinks at the end of the movie." Leah mumbled. I gave her a pointed look to tell her to shut up and hurry along.
We were looking for clues until we realized that we had to scan our tickets into the ticket scanner. When we swiped our ticket across the scanner it created a code on the ticket. We had to enter that code on the panel next to the door where the numbers for the floor were. Once we did that the elevator started moving until it stopped very roughly.
Suddenly an alarm was heard which said that we had hit an iceberg. Water started pouring down in the elevator and out of the box that was situated on one of the sides.
"See, I told you we were gonna get wet!" Leah yelled out.
"Shut up and look for the code!" I glared at her.
Eventually we were able to find the code to open the box. Inside the box was a crowbar that we could use to open the door. That door led us to the captain's deck.
"Oh look, life jackets." I said cheerfully. "Okay I said that way to cheerfully." I deadpanned.
"We should put them on." Daan suggested.
"Great idea." Daan, Leah and I were putting on our life jackets, while Viv was looking at us like we were crazy.
"Why?"
"Because Viv, we are in a sinking boat and there is probably a reason they're here. So just wear them!" Leah told the forward sternly.
"Fine."
After some more puzzles we were able to open yet another door.
"Really?! Another one?!" Daan looked around desperately. Her competitive side was clearly showing by now.
"Alright let's hurry up. Here's a boat with a lock."
"We're probably gonna need that boat to save ourselves. But how do we unlock it?" Leah asked.
I started looking around. In the room was a boat and what seemed to be a piece of deck that was leaning up against a wall, making it very hard to climb up it. At the top of that thing was a rope and a box. We probably had to climb up that deck to get the key inside the box so we could unlock the boat.
Leah saw what I was looking at and didn't seem impressed with the idea at all. "Nope. Uh uh. Not gonna happen. How on earth, are we supposed to get up there?!"
"Teamwork." Daan shrugged. "Let's go."
"We need to reach that robe. Okay, Viv lay down. I'm gonna stand on your shoulders. Daan or Leah, one of you uses us to climb to the top and try to reach the robe."
"That's actually not a bad idea."
I glared at Viv. "Of course it's not a bad idea. Now lay down so I can climb over you. Wait, how jealous is Lisa?"
"Just climb!"
"Ha they will never pass this obstacle with their height." Daan high fived Leah.
"Before we start to make fun of the others we should get that key first."
Many failed attempts and laughter later, we finally managed to get to the box and the key. We unlocked the boat and now we had to throw something around an object so we could pull ourselves to the iceberg on the other side of the room.
Daan was the first to try but she missed. "Uhm what if we just walk to it? It's not like it's real water." All the girls stopped with what they were doing and looked at me.
"Never mind. Keep throwing." I raised my hands in the air.
After a few attempts we reached the iceberg and entered yet another room.
"Alright, this must be the last room. Right?" Leah looked around. "Seems like we need to send a rescue message."
"What if I don't want to be rescued?" I wondered. "I can make a life here for myself. Just me, myself and some cute penguins. I could do that."
Again the three girls looked at me like I was crazy. Viv was the first to speak up. "Yeah, no. You annoy the shit out of me sometimes but I'm not leaving you here."
"Ooh Viv. I love you too." I hugged the forward.
"Yeah, get off me now." She tried to push me off but I was not letting go.
"Schattig hoor, maar kunnen jullie kappen en verder doen zodat we uit deze ijsberg geraken?!" Daan was the one pulling me off of Viv. ("Cute but let's stop and hurry up so we can get out of this.")
We focused again on the task at hand and managed to find the code to open a small locker. Inside the locker was a notebook with a pencil and a sheet with Morse code on it.
On the table somewhere in the room stood a little device to send and receive Morse code. We had to send a sos signal and then we had to translate the code they would send us.
"Enter SOS for rescue." Daan read on a piece of paper.
"So we have to send an SOS and then what? Isn't that a bit simple?" Viv looked at us.
Leah stepped closer to the table. "Let's find out. Do any of you know the code for SOS?"
"3 short ones, 3 long ones and then again 3 short ones."
"Why am I not surprised that you knew that? How do you even know that?" Leah looked at me.
I shrugged my shoulders. "Basic knowledge."
Leah did like I had told and suddenly the machine started sending a signal back.
"Ooh that must be the code. Hurry grab the notebook and pencil! Write it down." Viv was looking around for the little black book but we were already too late so we had to repeat the process.
"Okay the first one is one short one and three long ones. That stands for the number…"
"One." I said without looking at the piece of paper with the translations on it. Daan, who was looking at the paper, looked up at me. "That's correct."
Viv was already listening to the second one. "Three long ones and one short one that means it is the number 9." Suddenly it clicked. I knew the code. I walked over to the phone where we had to enter the code.
"1912."
"What?!" Leah looked at me confused. "What are you talking about?"
"The code. It's 1912."
"How do you even know?" Daan looked as equally confused as Leah. The only one who seemed to understand what I was getting at was Viv.
"Because that's the year the ship sank. Genius!" Viv grabbed my face and kissed me on the head. We entered the code into the phone and what do you know the door opened! We had successfully escaped!
We ran out the door and started jumping around. Ecstatic that we had gotten out on time. We were led to a little seating room and told to wait until our hour was up.
"Alright ladies, follow me." We followed the lady back to the main hall where we saw the other group arrive at the same time. We took places beside each other.
"Who do you think won this challenge?" One of the women in front of us asked, causing all of us to speak up at the same time.
"Owkay, let's not keep you guys waiting any longer. Team Jordan you guys escaped in 54 minutes and 33 seconds."
Their team started cheering and jumping up and down like they've won already.
"You do realize that she just told you your time right? She had yet to tell you if it was fast enough." Daan told her girlfriend.
"Whatever. I know that we have beaten you. Don't worry, love at least you go home with a winner." She smiled at the brunette. I just burst out laughing at her comment.
"That's a bit cocky, Meado." I laughed.
"The team of Eleanore di-"
"Wait! Why are we Eleanore's team?" Daan whined
"Daan!" Everyone yelled at once, hating the suspense.
"As I was saying. Eleanore's team did it in… 48 minutes and 54 seconds!"
We won! We did it! It was Daan who jumped on my back while I got sandwiched between Viv and Leah. We jumped around, cheering and celebrating our win.
"Seems to me that you'll be going home with a winner, Bethy." I hugged the blonde.
"Yeah yeah, whatever. They had you so that's not fair."
"Cheer up buttercup. I'll help you score a goal tomorrow." I smirked at her.
"Deal."
Marc, the one in charge of the media department and who was in charge of the making of this video, told us that we were done for today and that we were allowed to go home. We all got on the bus and went back to the Arsenal grounds where our cars were still parked.
From there we all went our own ways and went home to rest for the game tomorrow. Tomorrow we had our first real challenge for winning the cup. We faced Manchester City, a must win. Mason was also in Manchester with his team so I secretly hoped that he would come to the game seeing that he hadn't seen a game yet.
But whether he would be there or not I was gonna give it my all to succeed and make the team proud.