Ezra presented this idea a while back, and here we are with it now! The newsies in an escape room! Or... three of them!
And happy birthday again to Veronica!
Escape Room
A few weeks back, an Escape Room company opened a new building with three whole new levels.
After being informed about this, the newsies have no choice but to go and try them out.
They're 21 people there, which is the perfect number for seven people to go in each room.
Jack decides that they will randomize the groups with a spinning wheel.
No one else liked the idea, but when Jack's decided something, he's decided something.
The first randomized group is Mike, Romeo, Sniper, Smalls, Buttons, Blink and Katherine.
"YES! FUCK YES! SNIPES, YES!" - Smalls' reaction to being in the same group as Sniper.
Mush isn't as excited about Blink being in this group.
He's gonna feel lonely in his group.
The next group was going to be Crutchie, Ike, Specs, Albert, Henry, Jack and Elmer.
Everyone immediately noticed that these were all of the Duane Street boys except for Race.
Race and Ike quickly switched groups, despite Jack's protests.
Therefore the final group ends up being Ike, Mush, Finch, Tommy Boy, Davey, Les and JoJo.
Because of all the Duane Street boys ending up in the same group, Jack wants to re-randomize.
Smalls and Sniper say no, very adamantly.
The three rooms are on different levels of difficulty.
The Murder Hut is the easiest level, and it's the one the Duane Street group goes into.
Robbery is a medium level room, and Smalls' group goes in there.
The hardest room is the one called NanoVirus. Without the group's consent, group 3 was sent in there, all because of Davey being in that group.
Of course they're making it a competition.
Whichever group completes their room the fastest are the winners.
They also decide that every clue adds ten minutes to their time.
Jack starts a dramatic count down.
3...
2...
1...
"INTO THE ESCAPE ROOMS!"
The point of the robbery room is to break out of a building you robbed.
The group has to get past several obstacles and find kind of easy clues to unlock some coded locks.
The final challenge is to unlock a five-numbered code lock.
The five numbers are hidden very well throughout the entire level, so it's pretty hard to find them.
In the group of robbers, Blink jokingly says that Smalls was definitely the leader of their criminal gang.
Smalls agrees, and threatens everyone into actually making her the team leader.
Only Sniper isn't threatened, but he agrees that she's the mastermind anyway.
"Yeah, you're the fierce leader," he says while patting her head.
Their first obstacle after "robbing" this building is laser beams.
Romeo sucks at avoiding them, even though he's so small.
It's his balance screwing him up.
The problem is he has none.
Sniper and Smalls are basically ninjas while avoiding the lasers.
Smalls has the balance, plus the tiny body, and Sniper has his years of practice of being sneaky.
They get past the laser part in less than a minute, and then watch the others fail and struggle.
While they wait, Smalls starts wanting a group name for their team of robbers.
She wastes a lot of time coming up with one.
They face a lock when the rest of the group is done with the lasers.
Mike somehow correctly just guesses the right code.
He tried a few combinations, and it suddenly just happened!
They were supposed to look at the pointers where the lasers come from, because the numbers were written there, but they didn't even see that instruction.
Buttons applauds him.
Sniper started spotting the numbers for the final lock immediately.
In each room, it takes him no more than ten seconds to find the numbers written on the walls, or on pieces of furniture.
Katherine goes full journalist mode.
She writes down everything instead of helping them.
All the numbers Sniper spots, she writes down in case he forgets them, which he assures her he won't.
Buttons takes things way too seriously.
He looks at every small detail.
Even the serial numbers on the paper money he reads.
"You're wastin' time!" Smalls tells him.
After Mike randomly guesses the combination to another lock, Smalls finally comes up with a name for the group.
Smallsper and Other Useless Folks.
20 minutes to come up with that.
So worth it.
They get quite stuck at the last small lock.
Mike's run of luck is over.
Katherine decides that they need a clue.
Instead, she gets asked on a date by the guy who's supposed to give them clues.
He's been able to watch them through cameras to see their progress, so now he's taking his chance.
Katherine's pissed.
Jack's also mad later when he finds out.
She tells the guy he's disgusting, and so they get their clue instead.
"Look at the paper money."
Buttons feels like a king for having done that already.
Smalls promotes him to Deputy Gang Leader.
"Whaddaya mean I toldja ta stop? I said ta keep goin' and lookin' at the money!"
Since Katherine's still pissed at the guy who gives them clues, she passes that task onto Blink in case they need any more clues.
In the end, they don't.
There's only one room left, and it's the room with the final lock.
Sniper looks around, but he can't see any more numbers.
They have around two minutes left, so it's a bit panicky.
He puts in the first four, but has no clue what the last one is.
They only have three tries before they lose, so this is life or death.
That's when Blink finds the final number.
It was on the ceiling.
Everyone else had ignored it, but he found it in a random movement of looking up.
Sniper immediately goes "FUCK, how didn't I see that?!"
He's then worked up about not seeing that final number for about an hour.
Smallsper and Other Useless Folks' final time is 58:31. Because of the newsies' competition aspect, ten minutes are added for the clue.
In the murder hut, the meaning of the room is to escape before a murderer kills you.
The Duane Street group calls themselves Group Duane, and they're ready to go in!
Elmer is convinced they're actually going to be murdered if they don't get out in time.
He knows that they're obviously not going to die, since this place would be shut down if that was the case.
But he still somehow convinces himself that there will be death if they don't make it.
As soon as they get in, Race and Albert go the old middle school gym class try-hard mode.
Especially Al.
These two don't end up helping at all.
Especially Al.
Henry was done with all of this as soon as he heard the group he was in.
Specs also knows that they're gonna lose, but he keeps a positive attitude.
Another thing that bothers Henry is how dark it is.
Henry ain't a fan of the dark at all.
There are also jump scares.
Albert laughs at them.
Race laughs too, but his laugh is the nervous kind that is used to cover fear or nervousity.
The entire thing is just one big room.
Right opposite of the entry door, there's another door, and this one's covered in chains and locks.
All this door is is a big herring to waste their time.
Jack and Crutchie don't like the jump scares.
They're really cautious about flipping a switch in the room, because it might, just might set off a jump scare.
"You flip it."
"No, you flip it!"
"No you!"
"No you!"
Finally, Crutchie flips it.
His eyes are closed and he's a foot and a half away from the wall, but he flips the switch.
It was just a light switch.
Suddenly it's not dark anymore.
Now that this place looks like a completely normal room, Henry goes and sits down in an armchair in the corner to observe the chaos.
As the others start exploring the room, Crutchie stays by the fake fireplace.
Then BAM!
It falls right over.
Crutchie screams.
Everyone is concerned.
They make their way over there, and now there's a water puddle on the floor.
Race, getting one of his genius ideas, wants to drink it.
"That's too unsanitary," Crutchie says.
But we all know what really happened.
When the fireplace fell over a secret room was revealed.
This room contains... human limbs...
Fake ones of course.
Still freaky.
There's a dresser in the room, and in one of the drawers there are chess pieces.
Specs had already noticed the faint chess markings on a table, so they figure that they should put the pieces on there.
But how?
In what way?
They ask for a clue about that, and are told to look closely at the chess squares.
Race notices that some of them are actually buttons.
They place them all, but one piece is missing...
They use another clue, and are told to inspect the limbs in the secret room.
"Y'know each clue adds ten minutes, right?"
That's all Henry's doing.
Leaving remarks from his armchair.
"We ain't gonna win anyway, why'm I botherin'?" he asks himself.
They find the final chess piece inside one of the hands in the severed limbs room.
When they put that one on the table, Elmer being the definition of speed becomes a problem.
He's doing everything in 2x speed because he convinced himself that death is a thing that can happen here.
He's concerned about why no one else is nervous.
They put the final piece on the table, and things were about to happen in the house when there was a jump scare in the form of a "murder noise" (Elmer's words).
Elmer whips around and knocks a chess piece off the table.
No one sees where it went.
They spend half an hour trying to figure out where it is, and also seeing if there's anything they can do in the room to make progress.
They're crawling on the floor, desperately trying to find this piece.
Except for Albert.
He's being very unhelpful by sitting on the chess table (knocking down more pieces) and yelling instructions at the others.
Specs yells at him for yelling at the others.
"DON'T TELL ME WHO TA YELL AT!"
There's a yell fest.
Crutchie is angry at Albert for knocking more pieces down.
By default, Jack is also angry.
Albert is told to get off the table.
He lies down on it instead, knocking down the remaining pieces.
Henry is the only one who's not arguing.
He's actually looking for the pieces.
Race joins him, and they manage to find them all, even the first lost one.
Elmer's panic-crying because they're not gonna make it.
This means certain death.
Henry goes straight back to the armchair.
Elmer tries to insert himself into it.
"I'm gonna die soon, at least let me sit."
"No, geroff me!"
It turns out this armchair was important.
When Elmer was denied permission to sit in it, he dramatically slid down from it and onto the floor.
Whining about everything, he lied on his back.
That's when he saw a key under the armchair.
He and Elmer begin fighting over the key.
Specs takes it.
While Henry and Elmer were busy fighting, the others finished the chess.
A secret compartment opened in the wall.
There was a locked drawer.
Now they have the key!
Inside the drawer there's a styrofoam rock.
Albert tries to also use the key to unlock all the locks on the red herring door.
This obviously doesn't work.
So he tries to use the rock to break the locks and chains.
This doesn't work either.
Elmer's crying.
He feels like they're way over the time limit, and death is awaiting.
Something's off about one of the windows, Jack notices.
It's fake!
Everything makes sense now.
Albert throws the rock at the window, very dramatically from all the way across the room.
The fake window shatters.
The room was on the first floor, so this was the perfect way to have them finish and exit.
Allie-boy jumps out first, once again in a very dramatic manner.
He was just an inch away from landing on Smalls and Sniper, who were making out behind the building.
Why that was happening was a long story to explain.
But before the explanation for that happens, the whole of Group Duane has to get out.
Jack goes out last.
Crutchie insisted he could get out by himself, so Jack went ahead and hopped out.
Crutchie cannot climb down himself.
He was wrong.
The employees have to unlock the entry door so Crutchie can get out.
Elmer's in shock.
"Youse coulda done that the whole damn time, but ya just left us in there ta die!?"
"This is the point of an escape room."
Albert tells everyone that he was the sole reason they got out.
He was not.
Everyone knows he wasn't.
He was lying on a table half of the time, and yelling at others 100% of the time.
Then the group finds out their time.
75:14, and the newsies add 60 minutes for six clues.
The group is quick to question why they weren't failed and led out after the one hour limit.
There's a simple reason for this.
Henry and Specs weren't the only ones who knew they would fail.
Everyone did.
Smalls and Sniper managed to convince and bribe the employees into letting the Duane Street group play until they were finished.
This is why they were making out behind the building.
They take any kissing opportunity they get.
The Duane Street group are informed that this room was supposed to be really easy, and that earlier, a group of fourth graders did it in 45 minutes.
They're a bit ashamed...
In the NanoVirus level, there's a deadly disease taking over the world, and the group has to save it.
The room is divided into several sections, and each section is a country.
Each "country" has a specific task that needs to be completed, and then that coutnry will be saved.
Most of the tasks are codes that need to be found or figured out.
After putting in each of the codes, the country is saved, and the group is given part of a "cure", and sometimes also something else.
The thing is, not every country has to be saved.
But they don't know which countries have to be saved.
Luckily, they kick ass.
They're gonna be done in less than 40 minutes.
When they're asked for a group name, Finch says "Can we just fuckin' start?"
He has no time for group names.
Can we fuckin' start ended up being the name.
The first three things they notice are a lab coat, a map of the spread, and a calendar on the wall.
Les puts on the lab coat.
He thinks there might be something in his pocket, but he doesn't act on the thought, nor does he tell anyone.
Later when they get a clue about checking the lab coat pockets, he tells them.
"YA JUST ADDED TEN MINUTES FOR NO REASON!"
There's a slip of papers with numbers on it in the pocket.
6.62607004.
Davey recognizes this number.
It's Planck's constant.
He instantly knows what country they can save with this code.
Germany, because Planck was from there.
They get their first part of the cure, but also a black light flashlight.
Using this, they find writing on the wall.
Every country that actually needs saving is written on the walls in black light script.
Mush doesn't read these, and saves India even though it was in no need of saving.
He's too busy being sad about the lack of Blink to pay real attention.
Ike spends a lot of time studying the map.
It's a news broadcast with headlines and stuff.
The same headline of the total number of infected people keeps appearing.
Definitely a clue or a code.
He uses it on every lock in the room until it's finally the correct one, and he saves Uganda.
The calendar plays an important part when Tommy Boy gets bored.
He has no country saving to do, so he's randomly swinging the black light flashlight around.
That's when it lights up something on the calendar.
They had noticed that there was a big number 6 written on the eighth of June.
They thought that the 6 was important, but now the flashlight informs them otherwise.
"The date is what counts and the number on it is bullshit."
The six digit code just so happens to be Blink's birthday.
Mush is even sadder.
The others are happy, because they saved China with this code!
On this day, JoJo is wearing a beautiful dress with nifty pockets.
They found a key, which they put in one of the pockets.
Problem was, the pocket was broken.
The key is now missing.
Only one thing needed an actual key: a cabinet.
Luckily, Tommy Boy and Les manage to get inside anyway.
Tommy Boy pried it open just enough for Les to stick his hand in there.
He got the cure, but there was also a ladder in there.
This ladder was meant to be used to save Switzerland, for which you had to climb up and push a button on the ceiling.
Finch, being tired of trying to find codes and shit, shoots a pebble at the button, and the final part of the cure falls down on them.
You were supposed to use the key JoJo found to unlock the cabinet in the Australia section, get the cure and the ladder, and then save Switzerland.
Their own version of doing it saved them a lot of time.
They put the cure together, and escape by saving the world!
Their final time ends up being 37:45, with an added 10 minutes in the newsies' competition.
Davey is quite disappointed that they finished so fast.
He thought it was fun, and it was over so quickly.
The employees are in shock.
No one's ever completed this room before, and this group did it with over 20 minutes to spare.
Among themselves, they ask if the group cheated.
A plaque for the group is put up on the record wall.
Room NanoVirus
Team: Can We Fuckin' Start
Previous Time: N/A
New Time: 37:45
The members of the group get bumper stickers.
They poes for an epic photo with said stickers.
Les gloats.
Finch gloats even more.
JoJo is quite worried when group 2 doesn't come out of their escape room.
Finch thinks it would be better if they stayed locked up in there.
Then you know the rest of the story...
After headcanoning and writing this, I feel a strong need to go to an escape room. Too bad Sweden barely has any!