Room: A Novel

“Excuse me,” calls the person holding the poo bag. “Hey, mister?” His voice isn’t deep, it’s softer.

Old Nick turns us around. I’m forgetting to scream.

“I’m so sorry, is your little girl OK?”

What little girl?

Old Nick clears his throat, he’s still carrying me to the truck but walking backwards. “Fine.” “Raja’s usually really gentle, but she came at him out of nowhere. .”

“Just a tantrum,” says Old Nick.

“Hey. Wait up, I think her hand’s bleeding.”

I look at my eaten finger, the blood’s making drops.

Then he has picked the baby person up now, he’s holding it on his arm and the poo bag in the other hand and he’s looking really confused.

Old Nick stands me down, he’s got his fingers on my shoulders so they’re burning. “It’s under control.” “And her knee too, that looks bad. Raja didn’t do that. Has she had a fall?” asks the man.

“I’m not a her,” I say but only inside my throat.

“Why don’t you mind your own business and I’ll mind mine?” Old Nick’s nearly growling.

Ma, Ma, I need you for talking. She’s not in my head anymore, she’s not anywhere. She wrote the note, I was forgetting, I put my not eaten hand in my underwear and I can’t find the note but then I do, it’s all peed. I can’t talk but I wave it at the somebody man.

Old Nick rips it out of my hand and makes it disappear.

“OK, I don’t — I don’t like this,” says the man. He’s got a little phone in his hand, where did it come from? He’s saying, “Yes, police, please.”

It’s happening just like Ma said, we’re at eight that’s Police already and I haven’t even showed the Note or said about Room, I’m doing it backwards. I’m meant to talk to the somebody just like they’re human. I start to say, “I’ve been kidnapped,” but it only comes out whispery because Old Nick’s picked me up again, he’s heading for the truck, he’s running, I’m all shaking to pieces, I can’t find to hit, he’s going to—“I’ve got your plates, mister!”

That’s the man person screaming, is he shouting at me? What plates?

“K nine three—” He’s shouting numbers, why is he shouting numbers?

Suddenly arghhhhhh the street bangs me in the tummy hands face, Old Nick’s running away but without me. He dropped me. He’s farther off every second. Those must be magic numbers to make him drop me.

I try to get up but I can’t remember how.

A noise like a monster, the truck’s vrummmming and coming at me rrrrrrrrrrr, it’s going to crush me down to smithereens on the pavement, I don’t know how where what — the baby crying, I never heard a real baby cry before—

The truck’s gone. It just drove past, around the corner without stopping. I hear it for a bit, then I don’t hear it anymore.

The higher bit, the sidewalk, Ma said to get on the sidewalk. I have to crawl but with my bad knee not putting down. The sidewalk’s all in big squares, scrapy.

A terrible smell. The dog’s nose is right beside me, it’s come back to chew me up, I scream.

“Raja.” The man pulls the dog away. The man’s squatting down, he’s got the baby on one of his knees, it’s wriggling. He doesn’t have the poo bag anymore. Looks like a TV person but nearer and wider and with smells, a bit like Dish Soap and mint and curry all together. His hand that’s not holding the dog tries to get on me but I roll away just in time. “It’s OK, sweetie. It’s OK.”

Who’s sweetie? His eyes are looking at my eyes, it’s me that’s the sweetie. I can’t look, it’s too weird having him seeing me and talking at me.

“What’s your name?”

TV people never ask things except Dora and she knows my name already.

“Can you tell me what you’re called?”

Ma said to talk to the somebody, that’s my job. I try and nothing comes out. I lick my mouth. “Jack.” “What’s that?” He bends nearer, I curl up with my head in my arms. “It’s OK, no one’s going to hurt you. Tell me your name a little louder?” It’s easier to say if I don’t look at him. “Jack.”

“Jackie?”

“Jack.”

“Oh. Right, sorry. Your dad’s gone now, Jack.”

What’s he saying about?

The baby starts pulling at his, the thing over his shirt, it’s a jacket. “I’m Ajeet, by the way,” the man person says, “and this is my daughter — hang on, Naisha. Jack needs a Band-Aid for that ouchy on his knee, let’s see if. .” He’s feeling in all the bits of his bag. “Raja’s really sorry he bit you.” The dog doesn’t look sorry, he’s got all pointy dirty teeth. Did he drink my blood like a vampire?

“You don’t look too good, Jack, have you been sick lately?”

I shake my head. “Ma.”

“What’s that?”

“Ma throwed up on my T-shirt.”

The baby’s talking more but not in language. She’s grabbing the Raja dog’s ears, why isn’t she scared of him?

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that,” says the Ajeet man.

I don’t say anything else.

“The police should be here any minute, OK?” He’s turned to look up the street, the Naisha baby’s crying a bit now. He bounces her on his knee. “Home to Ammi in a minute, home to bed.”

I think about Bed. The warm.

He’s pressing the little buttons on his phone and talking more but I don’t listen.

I want to get away. But I think if I move, the Raja dog will bite me and drink more of my blood. I’m sitting on a line so there’s some of me in one square and some in another. My eaten finger hurts and hurts and so does my knee, the right one, there’s blood coming out of it where the skin broke, it was red but it’s going black. There’s a pointy oval beside my foot, I try to pick it up but it’s stuck, then it comes in my fingers, it’s a leaf. It’s a leaf from a real tree like the one that was on Skylight that day. I look up, there’s a tree over me that must have dropped the leaf. The huge light pole is blinding me. The whole bigness of the sky behind it is black now, the pink and orange bits are gone where? The air’s moving in my face, I’m shaking by accident.

“You must be cold. Are you cold?”

I think it’s the baby Naisha that the Ajeet man is asking but it’s me, I know because he’s taking off his jacket and holding it out to me.

“Here.”

I shake my head because it’s a person jacket, I never had a jacket.

“How did you lose your shoes?”

What shoes?

The Ajeet man stops talking after that.

A car stops, I know what kind it is, it’s a cop car from TV. Persons get out, two of them, short hair, one black hair one yellowy hair, and all moving quick. Ajeet talks to them. The baby Naisha is trying to get away but he keeps her in his arms, not hurting I don’t think. Raja is lying down on some brownish stuff, it’s grass, I thought it would be green, there’s some squares of it all along the sidewalk. I wish I had the note still but Old Nick disappeared it. I don’t know the words, they got bumped out of my head.

Ma’s in Room still, I want her here so much much much. Old Nick ran off driving fast in his truck but where’s he going, not the lake or the trees anymore because he saw me not be dead, I was allowed kill him but I didn’t manage it.

I have a suddenly terrible idea. Maybe he went back to Room, maybe he’s there right now making Door beep beep open and he’s mad, it’s my fault for not being dead—

“Jack?”

I look for the mouth moving. It’s the police, the one that’s a she I think but it’s hard to tell, the black hair not