Room: A Novel

up, she puts out her hand but I pretend I don’t see. I put one foot under then another and I’m up a bit dizzy. At the car I climb in where the door’s open. Officer Oh sits in the back too and clicks the seat belt on me, I go small so her hand doesn’t touch except the blue blanket.

The car’s moving now, not so rattly like the truck, it’s soft and humming. A bit like that couch in the TV planet with the puffy-hair lady asking questions, only it’s Officer Oh. “This room,” she says, “is it in a bungalow, or are there stairs?”

“It’s not a house.” I’m watching the shiny bit in the middle, it’s like Mirror but tiny. I see the man police’s face in it, he’s the driver. His eyes are looking at me backwards in the little mirror so I look out the window instead. Everything’s slipping past making me giddy. There’s all light that comes out of the car onto the road, it paints over everything. Here comes another car, a white one super fast, it’s going to crash into—“It’s OK,” says Officer Oh.

When I take my hands off my face the other car’s gone, did this one disappear it?

“Anything ringing a bell?”

I don’t hear any bells. It’s all trees and houses and cars dark. Ma, Ma, Ma. I don’t hear her in my head, she’s not talking. His hands are so tight around her, tighter tighter tighter, she can’t talk, she can’t breathe, she can’t anything. Alive things bend but she’s bent and bent and—“Does this look like it might be your street?” asks Officer Oh.

“I haven’t got a street.”

“I mean the street this Nick guy took you from tonight.”

“I never saw it.”

“What’s that?”

I’m tired of saying.

Officer Oh clicks with her tongue.

“No sign of any pickups except that black one back there,” says the man police.

“Might as well pull over.”

The car stops, I’m sorry.

“You figure some kind of cult?” he says. “The long hair, no surnames, the state of that tooth. .” Officer Oh twists her mouth. “Jack, is there daylight in this room of yours?”

“It’s night,” I tell her, didn’t she notice?

“I mean in the daytime. Where does the light come in?”

“Skylight.”

“There’s a skylight, excellent.”

“Go ahead,” the man police says at his phone.

Officer Oh is looking at her shiny screen again. “Sat’s showing a couple houses with attic skylights on Carlingford. .” “Room’s not in a house,” I say again.

“I’m having trouble understanding, Jack. What’s it in, then?”

“Nothing. Room’s inside.”

Ma’s there and Old Nick too, he wants somebody to be dead and it’s not me.

“So what’s outside it?”

“Outside.”

“Tell me more about what’s outside.”

“Got to hand it to you,” the man police says, “you don’t give up.”

Am I the you?

“Go on, Jack,” says Officer Oh, “tell me about what’s just outside this room.”

“Outside,” I shout. I have to explain fast for Ma, wait Ma wait for me. “It’s got stuff for real like ice cream and trees and stores and airplanes and farms and the hammock.”

Officer Oh is nodding.

I have to try harder, I don’t know what. “But it’s locked and we don’t know the code.”

“You wanted to unlock the door and get outside?”

“Like Alice.”

“Is Alice another friend of yours?”

I nod. “She’s in the book.”

“Alice in Wonderland. For crying out loud,” says the man police.

I know that bit. But how did he read our book, he wasn’t ever in Room. I say to him, “Do you know the bit where her crying makes a pond?” “What’s that?” He looks at me backwards in the little mirror.

“Her crying makes a pond, remember?”

“Your ma was crying?” asks Officer Oh.

Outsiders don’t understand anything, I wonder do they watch too much TV. “No, Alice. She’s always wanting to get into the garden, like us.” “You wanted to get into the garden too?”

“It’s a backyard, but we don’t know the secret code.”

“This room’s right by the backyard?” she asks.

I shake my head.

Officer Oh rubs her face. “Work with me here, Jack. Is this room near a backyard?”

“Not near.”

“OK.”

Ma, Ma, Ma. “It’s all around.”

“This room’s in the backyard?”

“Yeah.”

I made Officer Oh happy but I don’t know how. “Here we go, here we go,” she’s looking at her screen and pressing buttons, “freestanding rear structures on Carlingford and Washington. .”

“Skylight,” says the man police.

“Right, with a skylight. .”

“Is that TV?” I ask.

“Hmm? No, it’s a photo of all these streets. The camera’s way up in space.”

“Outer Space?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool.”

Officer Oh’s voice gets all excited. “Three four nine Washington, shed in the rear, lit skylight. . Got to be.” “That’s three four nine Washington,” the man police is saying at his phone. “Go ahead.” He looks back in the mirror. “Owner’s name doesn’t match, but Caucasian male, DOB twelve-ten-sixty-one. .”

“Vehicle?”

“Go ahead,” he says again. He waits. “Two thousand one Silverado, brown, K nine three P seven four two.” “Bingo,” says Officer Oh.

“We’re en route,” he’s saying, “request backup to three four nine Washington.”

The car’s turning right around the other way. Then we’re moving faster, it swirls me.

We’re stopped. Officer Oh’s looking out the window at a house. “No lights on,” she says.

“He’s in Room,” I say, “he’s making her be dead,” but the crying is melting my words so I can’t hear them.

Behind us there’s another car just like this one. More police persons getting out. “Sit tight, Jack.” Officer Oh’s opening the door. “We’re going to go find your ma.”

I jump, but her hand is making me stay in the car. “Me too,” I’m trying to say but all that comes out is tears.

She’s got a big flashlight she switches on. “This officer will stay right here with you—”

A face I never saw before pushes in.

“No!”

“Give him some space,” Officer Oh tells the new police.

“The blowtorch,” I remember, but it’s too late, she’s gone already.

There’s a creak and the back of the car pops up, the trunk, that’s what it’s called.

I put my hands over my head so nothing can get in, not faces not lights not noises not smells.