Toadette's Story: Book 1

Chapter 33 - The Tight Squeeze

Going to the mansion with no eyesight made my body spasm on more than one occasion. It didn’t help that a Boo kept yelling at me to shut up as if I was supposed to act calm when being taken hostage. And we didn’t receive the honour of meeting Lady Bow like Her Highness ordered. Instead, they tossed us into an underground chamber. All they gave us was a flickering ceiling lantern and a single apple. Minh T’s bag, which contained my flip-flops, was nowhere to be seen.

“Toadette,” she mumbled, “please stop kicking the door.”

“I don’t see YOU lifting a finger to help us.” I jabbed my foot into the knobless door again. A shock travelled up my body, but the hinges could only hold this thing for so long.

“It’s been 40 minutes. Save a bit of your energy.”

“Fine,” I groaned. “Keep laying there. Should’ve expected that from you.”

Just as I returned to break this door down, I instantly spun around. This Toad’s fingers dug into my shoulders as she huffed and puffed. Was she trying to intimidate me now? Her lips curled so high that they touched her nose.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.

I smirked. “Don’t tell me you can’t put two and two together. Ms “we should head back, even if you’ll lose your job’.”

“Be quiet!” Now her breathing got louder. “Every time I try to help you, you catch an attitude or dismiss me entirely. Then you wonder why you end up in the situations you do, dragging me along for the ride!”

“Well forgive me,” I said, shoving her. “But your love of giving up has almost never helped anybody, let alone me!”

“Fight, fight, fight…”

We snapped our focus to Penelope, lying on a heavy sack of powder in the corner. Before, all we heard from her was occasional coughing. Now she wanted to intervene in adult matters?

“If you two are done bickering over stupid stuff, maybe you could combine your brains and come up with some escape plan.”

Give me a break. Teamwork wouldn’t have solved anything in this situation. The Boos locked us in a room with no door handle on our side, and none of us had tools hiding in our clothes. I glared at the brown door, gritting my teeth so hard that they could shatter.

“I’m sorry.” Minh T. stared at the wooden floor. “If we somehow get to Toad Town without anything, I’ll tell Her Highness it’s all my fault.”

Penelope piped up. “No need. I’ll tell her I followed you guys, and you got lost trying to get me back home.”

“Won’t change anything,” I said. “I know she’s gonna find one reason to tear into me.”

“A short beating is probably better than an eternal death, don’t you think?” Minh T. brushed the walls, observing the dust burnt into her fingertips. “This mansion’s older than my ancestors, but I’m betting we can find a weak point. Maybe one of these wooden boards is loose?”

I nodded. My toes pushed on every floorboard. More warm dust trapped between my toes and under my nails, and sometimes I’d scratch the wood with my big toe’s nail. It reminded me that I needed a serious trimming, but neither of us found a structural flaw. Prison cells could only dream of security like this.

The walls were so faded that they resembled dirty blankets. However, touching them was like touching a brick. No way could we kick a hole in them.

Eventually, Minh T. plopped against the door. “At least we can say we tried.”

Even when locked in the mansion of beasts that terrified her, she lost all motivation to escape. But I refused to go down so easily. If we could chase some Shy Guys throughout the kingdom, we could leave this mansion to see another day. I rescanned the area several times until I realised I had forgotten something.

“Penelope, off the sack.”

“It’s the only comfy thing in here,” she wined, rolling off it like a boulder.

I crouched and readied my muscles. Pulling the sack just a few inches took the wind out of my sails. But in that little pocket of space, a scorching breeze grazed my skin. Never had I smiled so widely at a dark hole in the wall.

“Our exit awaits,” I remarked, continuing to tug on the bag.

Minh T. raised an eyebrow. “Do we know where that goes?”

“If we’re screwed either way, I’d rather go down fighting, wouldn’t you?” I fanned myself. “Just tag behind me, both of you.”

Before entering the shaft, Minh T. took a few deep breaths. But the squeaking of the metal prison signified that she crawled in. Well, it was less a crawl and more an awkward shimmy. No shoulder room existed in this tube. Thank goodness I was not claustrophobic.

Not two minutes passed before my skin began to melt. Slime oozed out my armpits, my hair clung to my forehead, and my feet sizzled like roasted chicken.

BONK!

My elbow nearly shattered against this rigid wall. “Please don’t rub your face on my feet!”

Minh T. coughed. “Sorry! There’s no light whatsoever!”

“SSH! If we wanna avoid the ghosts, yelling is not gonna help,” Penelope whispered.

A bit rude, but she had a point. I slithered in silence, save for the occasional panting. If I thought the Dry Dry Ruins were an inferno, this tube was 1000 times worse. The walls constricted us more as we progressed, and we couldn’t wipe the sweat off our faces. It was like being baked in an oven.

“Toadette,” Minh T. squeaked. “I can’t breathe.”

“Lemme guess. My feet stink?”

“It’s…suffocating…” Her head collapsed into my soles, leading to her groaning and moaning.

I’d celebrate that my feet were finally disgusting her, except for the fact that she was dying in this place. From behind, Penelope encouraged her to keep going, and I moved forward until I could spot some exit. Sure enough, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. I squinted, making out a faint violet hue. No, brown!

Outside? Or just another part of the mansion? Only one way to find out.

Worming onward, the surface began to slope downwards. Thankfully, its steepness wasn’t extreme enough to cause us problems. No, the problem stemmed from the hole itself. It was large enough to fit Penelope, but neither Minh T. nor I would fit through it. We had large caps, and this thing was no bigger than a human child.

“Toadette… Are we stuck?” Minh T. asked.

“Don’t say that,” I said. “We’re getting out.”

Hmm… If I could stick one arm out, perhaps I could yank myself out this vent thingy. All it’d take was some brute forcing. Gritting my teeth, I wriggled against the tight space. My insides folded in on themselves from the deep pressure. After silently screaming for 30 painful seconds, the long squeeeaak noise was followed by a gasp. At last, colour returned to my world!

Bad news? Only the tips of my shoulders peeked out the hole. Amazing.

“You gotta be kidding me,” I panted, wishing I could dry my face.

“Y’know, I saw a video like this one time…” Minh T. said, almost slurring her words. “Big girl was halfway in a vent, t-then they got her out as she was laughing.”

“Laughing?”

“Yeah, one tugged on her from the outside while another tickled her feet. I gotta find that video again…”

I sighed. “If this weren’t pushing our arms down, you might’ve had a shot at tickling me.”

Suddenly, something stuck to my heel. Once it swirled, my jaw dropped. Then I felt the teeth. As soon as that happened, my mouth reacted faster than my brain. It scrunched, smiled, and finally sent me into a giggling fit. Eventually, those giggles grew into chuckles.

It was like a fish nibbling at my feet. The Toad slid her tongue between my toes, and her reward was the loudest laugh I’d given all day. With all the noise I made, I crossed my fingers that a Boo wouldn’t find us. But she kept darting her tongue across my feet like a figure skater.

“Wait, it’s working!” I laughed, noticing my shoulders slowly sliding out the tube. And so, I wiggled in conjunction with Minh T. licking my feet.

“They smell noxious, but they taste scrumptious,” she said, panting loudly as she bit at my wrinkled soles.

That did it for me. The squirming and kicking allowed my arms to pop out the chute completely. First, my righty, then my lefty. Without a second to spare, I hoisted myself out the shaft, dropping three feet onto the floor with a thud.

“Whoa!” Minh T. chuckled. “It actually worked…”

I wiped my forehead. “Come on. At least I can get you both out quicker.”

“Big problem, Miss Toadette,” Penelope said from a distance. “Your friend’s flip-flops are in my way.”

“Fine. Guess I’ll just have to yank her out, then.”

This time, my hands gripped Minh T.’s shoulders. While tugging, my eyes scanned the room every second. Because the moment a Boo entered, I’d have to be prepared to deal with it somehow.

THUD!

Out she came, falling right on top of me. Our sticky bodies became one for a second.

“Ooh…” Minh T. pulled her head out my chest. “I kinda like it when you’re completely sweaty.”

“What is this place?” Penelope asked, already pulling herself out the shaft.

We stared at the incredible barrels that lined the room. Like the last area, the wooden floor was rough to the touch. But we were still surrounded by warmth, not the frigid airs of the forest. So, we were still inside the mansion.

“Reminds me of the cellar in the castle,” the little girl said, squeezing sweat out her hair. “All these barrels and whatnot.”

Minh T. stretched her back. “We didn’t change floors at all, so we’re still underground.”

That meant we had to find a way up. So we split up and scoured the vast floor for minutes. Worse than the feeling of isolation was the absence of noise. Outside of the highly muffled thunder outside, we couldn’t even hear each other’s footsteps. Walking on our tippy-toes was all we knew how to do in this situation. How well could Boos hear, after all?

“Miss Toad—”

I slapped Penelope on instinct, immediately apologising and wiping her cheek. But she proved to be the mature one, shutting me up and guiding me to the floor’s centre. Once I saw our escape method, my nerves calmed.

“An elevator, huh?” I poked the wooden device. “Didn’t know you could find these in ye olden days. Does it still work?”

“We worked a little bit of magic on it,” Minh T. said. “But it only goes as high as the sixth basement level. We’re on the 40th.”

40 underground floors!? Did these idiots aim to penetrate the planet’s core when building this mansion? Even though the elevator’s limit set us back, ascending 34 floors automatically beat walking. Heck, each step inside the elevator was its own journey, thanks to my sore soles.

We three girls squeezed into the boxy device. A filthy rope hoisted it, yet the device used modernish buttons. It was by far the most modern feature we’d seen so far. Penelope grinned as she hit the highest button.

A moment to breathe and relax… I set my feet on Minh T.’s lap, likely dirtying her pyjamas more. She just admired them as we passed each floor.

Once we passed Sublevel 27, Penelope poked the Toad’s arm. “So, why exactly are you scared of Boos?”

“You are, too. Remember the desert? Neither of us went in for a reason.”

“But I’m ten. You’re… 20?”

Minh T’s eyes widened. “19. And imagine you’re trick-or-treating one Halloween night. Then your friends dare you to hang around Forever Forest. And when you’re alone with nothing to defend yourself with but a flashlight, you suddenly see a devil shrieking— AAAH!”

She immediately pushed my feet off her lap, hyperventilating. Before us, a purple Boo chuckled while the elevator remained in motion. Two little pricks of white light shone from the centres of its eyes, and its mouth again resembled a carved pumpkin.

“Yeah, we got out,” I said, standing up with my hands on my hips. “What’cha gonna do about it, you purple bitch?”

“She said the ‘B’ word,” Penelope whispered.

“Toadette, please, just d-do not provoke it.”

My fists were clenched, and I was ready to open my mouth again. But instead, I was in a stare-off contest with this ghost. It just kept laughing… No, it wasn’t laughing. It was cackling as if it had defeated us. I knew I could resist the urge. I was going to ignore it…

“Is that supposed to scare me, fungus?” the Boo asked, snickering.

I bit my lip. But then all air left my lungs as I stepped forward and roared, “Get out of my face, you bitch!!”

“Aw. That’s not very polite.”

Wait. The Boo’s mouth didn’t move at all, and the voice felt like it was right in my ear. I swerved around, shrieking upon seeing another Boo. A beige one stuck its tongue out and licked my face. Then I looked down to see a white one slobbering on the tops of my feet!

“AAH!” I threw myself into the room on the 19th sublevel. “No, no, no, no!”

What did I do!? No matter what, I couldn’t stop the rising rope. I had to find a staircase to get me to the higher floors. Minh T.’s and Penelope’s lives depended on it!

I sprinted to a side of the room, making all the noise in the world. Damn it! All I found on this side were some records. Getting to the room’s opposite corner was like crossing half a soccer field. Only this time, I found endless dust stuck to my feet like glue. Yuck!

Wait, ew! EW! My feet were all wet! Now that I realised that, every step sickened me. Just feeling the oozy spit spilling between my toes… Oh, this was the worst day ever.

But in my whining, it hit me. I leapt out the elevator from the wall closest to the room’s centre. And sure enough, this whole floor was built like a long rectangle with a square middle. That’s where the stairs would be, right? After skipping a corner, four doors awaited me. Though, they’d seen better days.

As my hand gripped one knob, the freezing metal halted my movements. What if a Boo was in there, ready to violate me again?

That horrifying face flashed in my eyes again. It shot my nerves so badly that I failed to pick up how I was in a foetal position now. I was like a little girl longing for her dear mommy. Why did this battle have to be so unfair? Boos could do everything to me, but I couldn’t hurt them no matter what.

“We’ve got her scared stiff, boys,” a voice said.

SLURP!

Not even a giant tongue on my feet could get a reaction other than a mild whimper. It happened again and again. Multiple Boos assaulted my feet, slobbering on them like dirty animals. Meanwhile, I simply shuddered.

“She tasted meh before. Now that she’s 100% frightened, I think this is the best Toad we’ve ever licked,” a higher-pitched voice remarked before a tongue flopped on my sweaty heel.

“Her friend, we gotta try out her friend. She’s plump AND seems like a baby.” This time, the Boo talked while sucking my toes.

If I were in front of Minh T., I’d be apologising for mocking her all these years. Now I understood why she feared Boos so much. The invincible ghosts made our fight with the Shy Guys seem like a picnic.

“Forget the feet. I’m going even higher.”

As soon as I felt this slimy muscle lick up my legs, my body kicked into action.

BAM!!

The Boo flew a few feet back, letting out a howl of pain as it covered its mouth. Once I stumbled onto my feet, I paused. I couldn’t believe it… I damaged the ghost. But how?