Room: A Novel

bitten finger. The knives and forks are wrong too, there’s no white on the handle, just the metal, that must hurt.

The persons are with huge eyes, they have all faces different shapes with some mustaches and dangling jewels and painted bits. “No kids,” I whisper to Ma.

“What’s that?”

“Where are the kids?”

“I don’t think there are any.”

“You said there was millions in Outside.”

“The clinic’s only a little piece of the world,” says Ma. “Drink your juice. Hey, look, there’s a boy over there.”

I peek where she points, but he’s long like a man with nails in his nose and his chin and his over-eyes. Maybe he’s a robot?

Ma drinks a brown steaming stuff, then she makes a face and puts it down. “What would you like?” she asks.

The Noreen nurse is right beside me, I jump. “There’s a buffet,” she says, “you could have, let’s see, waffles, omelet, pancakes. .” I whisper, “No.”

“You say, No, thanks,” says Ma, “that’s good manners.”

Persons not friends of mine watching at me with invisible rays zap, I put my face against Ma.

“What d’you fancy, Jack?” asks Noreen. “Sausage, toast?”

“They’re looking,” I tell Ma.

“Everybody’s just being friendly.”

I wish they’d stop.

Dr. Clay’s here again too, he leans near us. “This must be kind of overwhelming for Jack, for you both. Maybe a little ambitious for day one?” What’s Day One?

Ma puffs her breath. “We wanted to see the garden.”

No, that was Alice.

“There’s no rush,” he says.

“Have a few bites of something,” she tells me. “You’ll feel better if you drink your juice at least.”

I shake my head.

“Why don’t I make up a couple of plates and bring them up to your room?” says Noreen.

Ma snaps her mask back over her nose. “Come on, then.”

She’s mad, I think.

I hold on to the chair. “What about the Easter?”

“What?”

I point.

Dr. Clay swipes the egg and I nearly shout. “There you go,” he says, he drops it into the pocket of my robe.

The stairs are more harder going up so Ma carries me.

Noreen says, “Let me, can I?”

“We’re fine,” says Ma, nearly shouting.

Ma shuts our door Number Seven all tight after Noreen’s gone. We can take the masks off when it’s just us, because we have the same germs. Ma tries to open the window, she bangs it, but it won’t.

“Can I have some now?”

“Don’t you want your breakfast?”

“After.”

So we lie down and I have some, the left, it’s yummy.

Ma says the plates aren’t a problem, the blue doesn’t go on the food, she gets me to rub it with my finger to see. Also the forks and knives, the metal feels weird with no white handles but it doesn’t actually hurt. There’s a syrup that’s to put on the pancakes but I don’t want mine wet. I have a bit of all the foods and everything are good except the sauce on the scrambled eggs. The chocolate one, the Easter, it’s meltedy inside. It’s double more chocolatier than the chocolates we got sometimes for Sundaytreat, it’s the best thing I ever ate.

“Oh! We forgot to say thanks to Baby Jesus,” I tell Ma.

“We’ll say it now, he doesn’t mind if we’re late.”

Then I do a huge burp.

Then we go back to sleep.

• • •

When the door knocks, Ma lets Dr. Clay in, she puts her mask back on and mine. He’s not very scary now. “How’re you doing, Jack?” “OK.”

“Gimme five?”

His plastic hand is up and he’s waggling his fingers, I pretend I don’t see. I’m not going to give him my fingers, I need them for me.

He and Ma talk about stuff like why she can’t get to sleep, tachycardia and re-experiencing. “Try these, just one before bed,” he says, writing something on his pad. “And anti-inflammatories might work better for your toothache. .”

“Can I please hold on to my medications instead of the nurses doling them out like I’m a sick person?”

“Ah, that shouldn’t be a problem, as long as you don’t leave them lying around your room.”

“Jack knows not to mess with pills.”

“Actually I was thinking of a few of our patients who’ve got histories of substance abuse. Now, for you, I’ve got a magic patch.” “Jack, Dr. Clay’s talking to you,” says Ma.

The patch is to put on my arm that makes a bit of it feel not there. Also he’s brought cool shades to wear when it’s too bright in the windows, mine are red and Ma’s are black. “Like rap stars,” I tell her. They go darker if we’ll be in the outside of Outside and lighter if we’ll be in the inside of Outside. Dr. Clay says my eyes are super sharp but they’re not used to looking far away yet, I need to stretch them out the window. I never knowed there were muscles inside my eyes, I put my fingers to press but I can’t feel them.

“How’s that patch,” says Dr. Clay, “are you numb yet?” He peels it off and touches me under, I see his finger on me but I can’t feel it. Then the bad thing, he’s got needles and he says he’s sorry but I need six shots to stop me to get horrible sicknesses, that’s what the patch is for, for making the needles not hurt. Six is not possible, I run in the toilet bit of the room.

“They could kill you,” says Ma, pulling me back to Dr. Clay.

“No!”

“The germs, I mean, not the shots.”

It’s still no.

Dr. Clay says I’m really brave but I’m not, I used my brave all up doing Plan B. I scream and scream. Ma holds me on her lap while he sticks his needles in over and over and they do hurt because he took the patch off, I cry for it and in the end Ma puts it back on me.

“All done for now, I promise.” Dr. Clay puts the needles in a box on the wall called Sharps. He has a lollipop for me in his pocket, an orange, but I’m too full. He says I can keep it for another time.

“. . like a newborn in many ways, despite his remarkably accelerated literacy and numeracy,” he’s saying to Ma. I’m listening hard because it’s me that’s the he. “As well as immune issues, there are likely to be challenges in the areas of, let’s see, social adjustment, obviously, sensory modulation — filtering and sorting all the stimuli barraging him — plus difficulties with spatial perception. .”

Ma asks, “Is that why he keeps banging into things?”

“Exactly. He’s been so familiar with his confined environment that he hasn’t needed to learn to gauge distance.”

Ma’s got her head in her hands. “I thought he was OK. More or less.”

Am I not OK?

“Another way to look at this—”

But he stops because there’s a knock, when he opens it’s Noreen with another tray.