Room: A Novel

“I was asleep.” Ma’s talking in a squashed tiny voice. “Please — look, look, it was the stupid jeep that rolled off the shelf.” Jeep’s not a stupid.

“I’m sorry,” Ma’s saying, “I’m so sorry, I should have put it somewhere it wouldn’t fall. I’m really really totally—” “OK.”

“Look, let’s turn the light off—”

“Nah,” says Old Nick, “I’m done.”

Nobody says anything, I count one hippopotamus two hippopotamus three hippopotamus—

Beep beep, Door opens and shuts boom. He’s gone.

Lamp clicks off again.

I feel around on the floor of Wardrobe for Remote, I find a terrible thing. His antenna all short and sharp, it must have snapped in the slats.

“Ma,” I whisper.

No answer.

“Remote got broke.”

“Go to sleep.” Her voice is so hoarse and scary I think it’s not her.

I count my teeth five times, I get twenty every time but I still have to do it again. None of them hurt yet but they might when I’m six.

I must be asleep but I don’t know it, because then I wake up.

I’m still in Wardrobe, it’s all dark. Ma didn’t bring me into Bed yet. Why she didn’t bring me in?

I push the doors and listen for her breath. She’s asleep, she can’t be mad in her sleep, can she?

I crawl under Duvet. I lie near Ma not touching, there’s all heat around her.

Unlying

In the morning we’re eating oatmeal and I see marks. “You’re dirty on your neck.” Ma just drinks some water, the skin moves when she swallows.

Actually that’s not dirt, I don’t think.

I have a bit of oatmeal but it’s too hot, I spit it back in Meltedy Spoon. I think Old Nick put those marks on her neck. I try saying but nothing comes out. I try again. “Sorry I made Jeep fall down in the night.”

I get off my chair, Ma lets me onto her lap. “What were you trying to do?” she asks, her voice is still hoarse.

“Show him.”

“What’s that?”

“I was, I was, I was—”

“It’s OK, Jack. Slow down.”

“But Remote got snapped and you’re all mad at me.”

“Listen,” says Ma, “I couldn’t care less about the jeep.”

I blink at her. “He was my present.”

“What I’m mad about”—her voice is getting bigger and scratchier—“is that you woke him up.”

“Jeep?”

“Old Nick.”

It makes me jump that she says him out loud.

“You scared him.”

“He got scared at me?”

“He didn’t know it was you,” says Ma. “He thought I was attacking him, dropping something heavy on his head.”

I hold my mouth and my nose but the giggles fizz out.

“It’s not funny, it’s the opposite of funny.”

I see her neck again, the marks that he put on her, I’m all done giggling.

The oatmeal’s still too hot so we go back to Bed for a cuddle.

This morning it’s Dora, yippee. She’s on a boat that nearly crashes into a ship, we have to wave our arms and shout, “Watch out,” but Ma doesn’t. Ships are just TV and so is the sea except when our poos and letters arrive. Or maybe they actually stop being real the minute they get there? Alice says if she’s in the sea she can go home by the railway, that’s old-fashioned for trains. Forests are TV and also jungles and deserts and streets and skyscrapers and cars. Animals are TV except ants and Spider and Mouse, but he’s gone back now. Germs are real, and blood. Boys are TV but they kind of look like me, the me in Mirror that isn’t real either, just a picture. Sometimes I like to undo my ponytail and put all my hair over and worm my tongue through, then stick my face out to say boo.

It’s Wednesday so we wash hair, we make turbans of bubbles out of Dish Soap. I look all around Ma’s neck but not at it.

She does me a mustache, it’s too tickly so I rub it off. “What about a beard, then?” she says. She puts all bubbles on my chin for a beard.

“Ho ho ho. Is Santa a giant?”

“Ah, I guess he’s pretty big,” says Ma.

I think he must be real because he brung us the million chocolates in the box with the purple ribbon.

“I’m going to be Jack the Giant Giant Killer. I’ll be a good giant,

I’ll find all the evil ones and knock their heads off smush splat.”

We make drums different from filling up the glass jars more or waterfalling some out. I make one into a jumbo megatron transformermarine with an antigravity blaster that’s actually Wooden Spoon.

I twist around to look at the Impression: Sunrise. There’s a black boat with two tiny persons and God’s yellow face above and blurry orange light on the water and blue stuff that’s other boats I think, it’s hard to know because it’s art.

For Phys Ed Ma chooses Islands, that’s I stand on Bed and Ma puts the pillows and Rocker and chairs and Rug all folded up and Table and Trash in surprising places. I have to visit every island not twice. Rocker’s the trickiest, she’s always trying to catapult me down. Ma swims around being the Loch Ness Monster trying to eat my feet.

My go, I choose Pillowfight, but Ma says actually the foam’s starting to come out of my pillow so better do Karate instead. We always bow to respect our opponent. We go Huh and Hi-yah really fierce. One time I chop too hard and hurt Ma’s bad wrist but by accident.

She’s tired so she chooses Eye Stretch because that’s lying down side by side on Rug with arms by sides so we both fit. We look at far things like Skylight then near like noses, we have to see between them quick quick.

While Ma’s hotting up lunch I zoom poor Jeep everywhere because he can’t go on his own anymore. Remote pauses things, he freezes Ma like a robot. “Now on,” I say.

She stirs the pot again, she says, “Grub’s up.”

Vegetable soup, bluhhhhh. I blow bubbles to make it funner.

I’m not tired for nap yet so I get some books down. Ma does the voice, “Heeeeeeeeere’s Dylan!” Then she stops. “I can’t stand Dylan.” I stare at her. “He’s my friend.”

“Oh, Jack — I just can’t stand the book, OK, I don’t — it’s not that I can’t stand Dylan himself.”

“Why you can’t stand Dylan the book?”

“I’ve read it too many times.”

But when I want something I want it always, like chocolates, I never ate a chocolate too many times.

“You could read it yourself,” she says.

That’s silly, I could read all them myself, even Alice with her old-fashioned words. “I prefer when you read them.” Her eyes are all hard and shiny. Then she opens the book again. “