but he hasn’t.” I don’t know what that’s a sign for.
There’s bagel for breakfast but it’s cold and mushy.
“What happens if he doesn’t switch the power on again?” I ask.
“I’m sure he will. Maybe later today.”
I try the buttons on TV sometimes. Just a dumb gray box, I can see my face but not as good like in Mirror.
We do all the Phys Eds we can think to warm up. Karate and Islands and Simon Says and Trampoline. Hopscotch, where we have to hop from one cork tile to another one and never go on the lines or fall over. Ma picks Blindman’s Buff, she ties my camouflage pants around her eyes. I hide in Under Bed beside Eggsnake not breathing even, flat like a page in a book, and it takes her hundreds of hours to find me. Next I choose Rappelling, Ma holds my hands and I walk up her legs till my feet are higher than my head, then I dangle upside down, my braids go in my face and make me laugh. I do a flip and I’m right side up again. I want it lots times more but her bad wrist is hurting.
Then we’re tired.
We make a mobile from a long spaghetti and threads tied with things pasted on, tiny pictures of me all orange and Ma all green and twisty foil and tufts of toilet paper. Ma fixes the top thread on Roof with the last pin from Kit, and the spaghetti dangles with all the little things flying from it when we stand under and blow hard.
I’m hungry so Ma says I can have the last apple.
What if Old Nick doesn’t bring more apples?
“Why he’s still punishing us?” I ask.
Ma twists her mouth. “He thinks we’re things that belong to him, because Room does.”
“How come?”
“Well, he made it.”
That’s weird, I thought Room just is. “Didn’t God make everything?”
Ma doesn’t say anything for a minute and then she rubs my neck. “All the good stuff, anyway.”
We play Noah’s Ark on Table, all the things like Comb and Little Plate and Spatula and the books and Jeep have to line up and get into Box quick quick before there’s the giant flood. Ma’s not really playing anymore, she’s got her face in her hands like it’s heavy.
I crunch the apple. “Are your other teeth hurting?”
She looks through her fingers at me, her eyes are huger.
“Which ones?”
Ma stands up so sudden I’m nearly scared. She sits into Rocker and holds out her hands. “Come here. I have a story for you.” “A new one?”
“Yeah.”
“Excellent.”
She waits till I’m all folded into her arms. I’m nibbling the second side of the apple to make it last. “You know how Alice wasn’t always in Wonderland?” That was a trick, I know this one already. “Yeah, she goes in White Rabbit’s house and grows so big she has to put her arm out the window and her foot up the chimney and she kicks Bill the Lizard out
“No, but before. Remember she was lying in the grass?”
“Then she fell down the hole four thousand miles but she didn’t hurt herself.”
“Well, I’m like Alice,” says Ma.
I laugh. “Nah. She’s a little girl with a huge head, bigger than Dora’s even.”
Ma’s chewing her lip, there’s a dark bit. “Yeah, but I’m from somewhere else, like her. A long time ago, I was—”
“Up in Heaven.”
She puts her finger on my mouth to hush me. “I came down and I was a kid like you, I lived with my mother and father.” I shake my head. “
“But I had one of my own I called Mom,” she says. “I still have.”
Why she’s pretending like this, is it a game I don’t know?
“She’s. . I guess you’d call her Grandma.”
Like Dora’s
“Well — actually no, I was adopted. She and my dad — you’d call him Grandpa. And also I had — I have — a big brother called Paul.” I shake my head. “He’s a saint.”
“No, a different Paul.”
How can there be two Pauls?
“You’d call him Uncle Paul.”
That’s too many names, my head’s full. My tummy’s still empty like the apple isn’t there. “What’s for lunch?”
Ma’s not smiling. “I’m telling you about your family.”
I shake my head.
“Just because you’ve never met them doesn’t mean they’re not real. There’s more things on earth than you ever dreamed about.” “Is there any cheese left that’s not sweaty?”
“Jack, this is important. I lived in a house with my mom and dad and Paul.”
I have to play the game so she won’t be mad. “A house in TV?”
“No, outside.”
That’s ridiculous, Ma was never in Outside.
“But it looked like a house you’d see on TV, yeah. A house on the edge of a city, with a yard behind it, and a hammock.” “What’s a hammock?”
Ma gets the pencil from Shelf and does a drawing of two trees, there’s ropes between them all knotted together with a person lying on the ropes.
“Is that a pirate?”
“That’s me, swinging in the hammock.” She does the paper side to side, she’s all excited. “And I used to go to the playground with Paul and swing on the swings as well, and eat ice cream. Your grandma and grandpa took us on trips in the car, to the zoo and to the beach. I was their little girl.” “Nah.”
Ma scrunches up the picture. There’s wet on Table, it makes her white all shiny.
“Don’t be crying,” I say.
“I can’t help it.” She rubs the tears over her face.
“Why you can’t help it?”
“I wish I could describe it better. I miss it.”
“You miss the hammock?”
“All of it. Being outside.”
I hold on to her hand. She wants me to believe so I’m trying to but it hurts my head. “You actually lived in TV one time?” “I told you, it’s not TV. It’s the real world, you wouldn’t believe how big it is.” Her arms shoot out, she’s pointing at all the walls. “Room’s only a tiny stinky piece of it.”
“Room’s not stinky.” I’m nearly growling. “It’s only stinky sometimes when you do a fart.”
Ma wipes her eyes again.
“Your farts are much stinkier than mine. You’re just trying to trick me and you better stop right this minute.”
“OK,” she says, all her breath hisses out like a balloon. “Let’s have a sandwich.”
“Why?”
“You said you were hungry.”
“No I’m not.”
Her face is fierce again. “I’ll make a sandwich,” she says, “and you’ll eat it. OK?”
It’s peanut butter just, because the cheese is all gooey. When I’m eating it, Ma sits beside me, but she doesn’t have one. She says, “I know it’s a lot to take in.”
The sandwich?
For dessert we have a tub of mandarins between us, I get the big bits because she prefers the little
