“The Elevator” by William Sleator
It was an old building with an old elevator—a very small elevator, with a maximum capacity of three people.
Martin, a thin twelve-year-old, felt nervous in it from the first day he and his father moved into the apartment.
Of course, he was always uncomfortable in elevators, afraid they would fall, but there was something especially
unpleasant about this one. Perhaps it was its baleful atmosphere due to the light from the single fluorescent
ceiling strip, bleak and dim on the dirty walls. Perhaps the problem was the door, which never stayed open quite
long enough, and slammed shut with such ominous, clanging finality. Perhaps it was the way the mechanism
shuddered in a kind of exhaustion each time it left a floor, as though it might never reach the next one. Maybe it
was simply the dimensions of the contraption that bothered him, so small that it felt uncomfortably crowded,
even when there was only one other person in it.
Coming home from school the day after they moved in, Martin tried the stairs. But they were almost as bad,
windowless, shadowy, with several dark landings where the light bulbs had burned out. His footsteps echoed
behind him like slaps on the cement, as though there was another person climbing, getting closer. By the time
he reached the seventeenth floor, which seemed to take forever, he was winded and gasping.
His father, who worked at home, wanted to know why he was so out of breath. “But why didn’t you take the
elevator?” he asked, frowning at Martin when he explained the stairs. Not only are you skinny and weak, his
expression seemed to say, but you’re also a coward. After that, Martin forced himself to take the elevator. He
would have to get used to it, he told himself, just the way he got used to be being bullied at school, and always
picked last when they chose teams. The elevator was an undeniable fact of life.
He didn’t get used to it. He remained tense in the trembling little box, his eyes fixed on the numbers over the
door that blinked on and off so haltingly, as if any moment they might simply give up. Sometimes, he forced
himself to look away from them, to the Emergency Stop button or the red Alarm button. What would happen if
he pushed one of them? Would a bell ring? Would the elevator stop between floors? And if it did, how would
they get him out?
That was what he hated about being alone in the thing—the fear of being trapped in there for hours by himself.
But it wasn’t much better when there were other passengers. He felt too close to any rider, too intimate. And he
was always very conscious of the effort people make not to look at one another, staring fixatedly at nothing.
Being short, in this situation, was an advantage, since his face was below eye level of adults, and after a brief
glance, they ignored him.
Until the morning, the elevator stopped at the fourteenth floor, and the fat lady got on. She wore a threadbare
green coat that ballooned around her; her ankles bulged above dirty sneakers. As she waddled in the elevator,
Martin was sure he felt it sink under her weight. She was so big that she filled the cubicle; her coat brushed
against him, and he had to squeeze into the corner to make room for her—there certainly wouldn’t have been
room for another passenger. The door slammed quickly behind her. And then, unlike everyone else, she did not
stand facing the door. She stood with her back to the door, wheezing, staring directly at Martin.
For a moment, he met her gaze. Her features seemed very small, squashed together by the loose fleshy mounds
of her cheeks. She had no chin, only a great swollen mass of neck, barely contained by the collar of her coat.
Her sparse red hair was pinned in the back by a plastic barrette. And her blue eyes, though tiny, were sharp and
penetrating, boring into Martin’s face.
Abruptly, he looked away to the numbers over the door. She didn’t turn around. Was she still looking at him?
His eyes slipped back to hers, then quickly away. She was still watching him. He wanted to close his eyes; he
wanted to turn around and stare into the corner, but how could he? The elevator creaked down to twelve, down
to eleven. Martin looked at his watched; he looked at the numbers again. They weren’t even down to nine yet.
