Room: A Novel

to the second to get to the third. I walk with Dora and Boots, holding their hands, I join in all the songs especially with somersaults or high-fives or the Silly Chicken Dance. We have to watch out for that sneaky Swiper, we shout, “Swiper, no swiping,” three times so he gets all mad and says, “Oh man!” and runs away. One time Swiper made a remote-controlled robot butterfly, but it went wrong, it swiped his mask and gloves instead, that was hilarious. Sometimes we catch the stars and put them in Backpack’s pocket, I’d choose the Noisy Star that wakes up anything and the Switchy Star that can transform to all shapes.

On the other planets it’s mostly persons that hundreds can fit into the screen, except often one gets all big and near. They have clothes instead of skin, their faces are pink or yellow or brown or patchy or hairy, with very red mouths and big eyes with black edges. They laugh and shout a lot. I’d love to watch TV all the time, but it rots our brains. Before I came down from Heaven Ma left it on all day long and got turned into a zombie that’s like a ghost but walks thump thump. So now she always switches off after one show, then the cells multiply again in the day and we can watch another show after dinner and grow more brains in our sleep.

“Just one more, because it’s my birthday? Please?”

Ma opens her mouth, then shuts it. Then she says, “Why not?” She mutes the commercials because they mush our brains even faster so they’d drip out our ears.

I watch the toys, there’s an excellent truck and a trampoline and Bionicles. Two boys are fighting with Transformers in their hands but they’re friendly not like bad guys.

Then the show comes, it’s SpongeBob SquarePants. I run over to touch him and Patrick the starfish, but not Squidward, he’s creepy. It’s a spooky story about a giant pencil, I watch through Ma’s fingers that are all twice longer than mine.

Nothing makes Ma scared. Except Old Nick maybe. Mostly she calls him just him, I didn’t even know the name for him till I saw a cartoon about a guy that comes in the night called Old Nick. I call the real one that because he comes in the night, but he doesn’t look like the TV guy with a beard and horns and stuff. I asked Ma once is he old, and she said he’s nearly double her which is pretty old.

She gets up to switch TV off as soon as it’s the credits.

My pee’s yellow from the vitamins. I sit to poo, I tell it, “Bye-bye, off to the sea.” After I flush I watch the tank filling up going bubble gurgle wurble. Then I scrub my hands till it feels like my skin’s going to come off, that’s how to know I’ve washed enough.

“There’s a web under Table,” I say, I didn’t know I was going to. “It’s of Spider, she’s real. I’ve seen her two times.” Ma smiles but not really.

“Will you not brush it away, please? Because she isn’t even there even, but she might come back.”

Ma’s down on her knees looking under Table. I can’t see her face till she pushes her hair behind her ear. “Tell you what, I’ll leave it till we clean, OK?” That’s Tuesday, that’s three days. “OK.”

“You know what?” She stands up. “We’ve got to mark how tall you are, now you’re five.”

I jump way in the air.

Usually I’m not allowed draw on any bits of Room or furnitures. When I was two I scribbled on the leg of Bed, her one near Wardrobe, so whenever we’re cleaning Ma taps the scribble and says, “Look, we have to live with that forever.” But my birthday tall is different, it’s tiny numbers beside Door, a black 4, and a black 3 underneath, and a red 2 that was the color our old Pen was till he ran out, and at the bottom a red 1.

“Stand up straight,” says Ma. Pen tickles the top of my head.

When I step away there’s a black 5 a little bit over the 4. I love five the best of every number, I have five fingers each hand and the same of toes and so does Ma, we’re our dead spits. Nine is my worst favorite number. “What’s my tall?”

“Your height. Well, I don’t know exactly,” she says. “Maybe we could ask for a measuring tape sometime, for Sunday treat.” I thought measuring tapes were just TV. “Nah, let’s ask for chocolates.” I put my finger on the 4 and stand with my face against it, my finger’s on my hair. “I didn’t get taller much this time.”

“That’s normal.”

“What’s normal?”

“It’s—” Ma chews her mouth. “It means it’s OK. No hay problema.”

“Look how big my muscles, though.” I bounce on Bed, I’m Jack the Giant Killer in his seven-league boots.

“Vast,” says Ma.

“Gigantic.”

“Massive.”

“Huge.”

“Enormous,” says Ma.

“Hugeormous.” That’s word sandwich when we squish two together.

“Good one.”

“You know what?” I tell her. “When I’m ten I’ll be growed up.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I’ll get bigger and bigger and bigger till I turn into a human.”

“Actually, you’re human already,” says Ma. “Human’s what we both are.”

I thought the word for us was real. The persons in TV are made just of colors.

“Did you mean a woman, with a w?”

“Yeah,” I say, “a woman with a boy in an egg in my tummy and he’ll be a real one too. Or I’m going to grow to a giant, but a nice one, up to here.” I jump to touch Bed Wall way high, nearly where Roof starts slanting up.

“Sounds great,” says Ma.

Her face is gone flat, that means I said a wrong thing but I don’t know which.

“I’ll burst through Skylight into Outer Space and go boing boing between each the planets,” I tell her. “I’ll visit Dora and SpongeBob and all my friends, I’ll have a dog called Lucky.”

Ma’s put a smile on. She’s tidying Pen back on Shelf.

I ask her, “How old are you going to be on your birthday?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“Wow.”

I don’t think that cheered her up.

While Bath is running, Ma gets Labyrinth and Fort down from on top of Wardrobe. We’ve been making Labyrinth since I was two, she’s all toilet roll insides taped together in tunnels that twist lots of ways. Bouncy Ball loves to get lost in Labyrinth and hide, I have to call out to him and shake her and turn her sideways and upside down before he rolls out, whew. Then I send other things into Labyrinth like a peanut and a broken bit of Blue Crayon and a short spaghetti not cooked. They chase each other in the tunnels and sneak up and shout Boo, I can’t see them but I listen against the cardboard and I can figure out where they are. Toothbrush wants a turn but I tell him sorry, he’s too long. He jumps in Fort instead to guard a tower. Fort’s made of cans and vitamin bottles, we build him bigger every time we have an empty. Fort can see all ways, he squirts out boiling oil at the enemies, they don’t know about his secret knife-slits, ha ha. I’d like to bring him into Bath to be an island but Ma says the water would make his tape unsticky.

We undo our ponytails and let our hair swim. I lie on Ma not even talking, I like the bang of her heart. When she breathes we go up and down a little bit. Penis floats.

Because of my birthday I get to choose what we wear both. Ma’s live in the higher drawer of Dresser and mine in the lower. I choose her favorite blue jeans with the red stitches that she only puts on for special occasions because they’re getting strings at the knees. For me I choose my yellow hoody, I’m careful of the drawer but the right edge still comes out and Ma has to bang it back in. We pull down on my hoody together and it chews my face but then pop it’s on.

“What if I cut it just a little in the middle of the V?” says Ma.

“No way Jose.”

For Phys Ed we leave our socks off because bare feet are grippier. Today I choose Track first, we lift Table upside down onto Bed and Rocker on her with Rug over the both. Track goes around Bed from Wardrobe to Lamp, the shape on Floor is a black C. “Hey, look, I can do a there-and-back in sixteen steps.” “Wow. When you were four it was eighteen steps, wasn’t it?” says Ma. “How many there-and-backs do you think