the eye but it’s not a kiss I want. “You were saying. .”
I wasn’t saying anything.
“About your wrist, yes,” says Dr. Kendrick, “it’ll probably need to be broken again at some point.”
“No!”
“Shh, it’s OK,” Ma tells me.
“She’ll be asleep when it happens,” says Dr. Kendrick, looking at me. “The surgeon will put a metal pin in to help the joint work better.” “Like a cyborg?”
“What’s that?”
“Yeah, a bit like a cyborg,” says Ma, grinning at me.
“But in the short term I’d say dentistry is the top priority,” says Dr. Kendrick, “so I’m going to put you on a course of antibiotics right away, as well as extra-strength analgesics. .” I do a huge yawn.
“I know,” says Ma, “it’s hours past bedtime.”
Dr. Kendrick says, “If I could just give Jack a quick checkup?”
“I said no already.”
What does she want to give me? “Is it a toy?” I whisper to Ma.
“It’s unnecessary,” she says to Dr. Kendrick. “Take my word for it.”
“We’re just following the protocol for cases like this,” says Dr. Clay.
“Oh, you see lots of cases like this here, do you?” Ma’s mad, I can hear it.
He shakes his head. “Other trauma situations, yes, but I’ll be honest with you, nothing like yours. Which is why we need to get it right and give you both the best possible treatment from the start.”
“Jack doesn’t need
The doctors look at each other. Dr. Kendrick says, “I didn’t mean—”
“All these years, I kept him safe.”
“Sounds like you did,” says Dr. Clay.
“Yes, I did.” There’s tears all down Ma’s face, now, there’s one all dark on the edge of her mask. Why are they making her cry? “And tonight, what he’s had to — he’s asleep on his feet—”
I’m not asleep.
“I understand completely,” says Dr. Clay. “Height and weight and she’ll deal with his cuts, how about that?”
After a second Ma nods.
I don’t want Dr. Kendrick to touch me, but I don’t mind standing on the machine that shows my heavy, when I lean on the wall by accident Ma straightens me up. Then I stand against the numbers, just like we did beside Door but there’s more of them and the lines are straighter. “You’re doing great,” says Dr. Clay.
Dr. Kendrick writes things down a lot. She points machines in my eyes and my ears and my mouth, she says, “Everything seems to be sparkling.” “We brush all the times we eat.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“Slow down and speak up,” Ma tells me.
“We brush after we eat.”
Dr. Kendrick says, “I wish all my patients took such care of themselves.”
Ma helps me pull my T-shirt over my head. It makes the mask fall off and I put it back on. Dr. Kendrick gets me to move all my pieces. She says my hips are excellent but I could do with a bone density scan at some point, that’s a kind of X-ray. There’s scratchy marks on my inside hands and my legs that’s from when I jumped out of the truck. The right knee has all dried blood. I jump when Dr. Kendrick touches it.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
I’m against Ma’s tummy, the paper’s in creases. “Germs are going to jump in the hole and I’ll be dead.”
“Don’t worry,” says Dr. Kendrick, “I’ve got a special wipe that takes them all away.”
It stings. She does my bitten finger too, on the left hand where the dog drank my blood. Then she puts something on my knee, it’s like a sticky tape but with faces on it, they’re Dora and Boots waving at me. “Oh, oh —”
“Does that hurt?”
“You’ve made his day,” Ma says to Dr. Kendrick.
“You’re a Dora fan?” says Dr. Clay. “My niece and nephew too.” His teeth are smiling like snow.
Dr. Kendrick puts another Dora and Boots on my finger, it’s tight.
Tooth is still safe down the side of my right sock. When I have my T-shirt and blanket back on, the doctors are talking all quiet, then Dr. Clay asks, “Do you know what a needle is, Jack?”
Ma groans. “Oh, come on.”
“This way the lab can do a full blood count first thing in the morning. Markers of infection, nutritional deficiencies. . It’s all admissible evidence, and more importantly, it’ll help us figure out what Jack needs right away.”
Ma looks at me. “Can you be a superhero for one more minute and let Dr. Kendrick prick your arm?”
“No.” I hide both under the blanket.
“Please.”
But no, I used all my brave up.
“I just need this much,” says Dr. Kendrick, holding up a tube.
That’s way more than the dog or the mosquito, I won’t have hardly any left.
“And then you’ll get. . What would he like?” she asks Ma.
“I’d like to go to Bed.”
“She means a treat,” Ma tells me. “Like cake or something.”
“Hmm, I don’t think we’ve got any cake right now, the kitchens are shut,” says Dr. Clay. “What about a sucker?”
Pilar brings in a jar that’s full of lollipops, that’s what suckers are.
Ma says, “Go on, choose one.”
But there’s too many, they’re yellow and green and red and blue and orange. They’re all flat like circles not balls like the one from Old Nick that Ma threw in Trash and I ate anyway. Ma chooses for me, it’s a red but I shake my head because the one from him was red and I think I’m going to cry again. Ma chooses a green. Pilar gets the plastic off. Dr. Clay stabs the needle inside my elbow and I scream and try to get away but Ma’s holding me, she puts the lollipop in my mouth and I suck but it doesn’t stop the hurting at all. “Nearly done,” she says.
“I don’t like it.”
“Look, the needle’s out.”
“Good work,” says Dr. Clay.
“No, the lollipop.”
“You’ve got your lollipop,” says Ma.
“I don’t like it, I don’t like the green.”
“No problem, spit it out.”
Pilar takes it. “Try an orange instead, I like the orange ones best,” she says.
I didn’t know I was allowed two. Pilar opens an orange for me and it’s good.
First it’s warm, then it gets cold. The warm was nice but the cold is a wet cold. Ma and me are in Bed but it’s shrunk and it’s getting chilly, the sheet under us and the sheet on us too and the Duvet’s lost her white, she’s all blue—
This isn’t Room.
Silly Penis is standing up. “We’re in Outside,” I whisper to him.
“Ma—”
She jumps like an electric shock.
“I peed.”
“That’s OK.”
“No, but it’s all wetted. My T-shirt on the tummy bit as well.”
“Forget about it.”
I try forgetting. I’m looking past her head. The floor is like Rug but fuzzy with no pattern and no edges, sort
