Room

  “We don’t have a shroud.”

  “Aha, we’re going to use the rug.”

  I stare down at Rug, all her red and black and brown zigzag pattern.

  “When Old Nick comes back—tonight, or tomorrow night, or whenever—I’m going to tell him you died, I’m going to show him the rug all rolled up with you inside it.”

  That’s the craziest thing I ever heard. “Why?”

  “Because your body didn’t have enough water left, and I guess the fever stopped your heart.”

  “No, why in Rug?”

  “Ah,” says Ma, “smart question. It’s your disguise, so he doesn’t guess you’re actually alive. See, you did a super job of pretending to be sick last night, but dead is much harder. If he notices you breathing even one time, he’ll know it’s a trick. Besides, dead people are really cold.”

  “We could use a bag of cold water . . .”

  She shakes her head. “Cold all over, not just your face. Oh, and they go stiff as well, you’ll need to lie like you’re a robot.”

  “Not floppy?”

  “The opposite of floppy.”

  But it’s him that’s the robot, Old Nick, I have a heart.

  “So I think wrapping you up in the rug is the only way to keep him from guessing you’re actually alive. Then I’ll tell him he has to take you somewhere and bury you, see?”

  My mouth’s starting to shake. “Why he has to bury me?”

  “Because dead bodies start to get stinky fast.”

  Room’s pretty stinky already today from not flushing and the vomity pillow and all. “ ‘The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out . . .’ ”

  “Exactly.”

  “I don’t want to get buried and gooey with the worms crawling.”

  Ma strokes my head. “It’s just a trick, remember?”

  “Like a game.”

  “But no laughing. A serious game.”

  I nod. I think I’m going to cry.

  “Believe me,” says Ma. “If there was anything else I thought had a chance in hell . . .”

  I don’t know what a chance in hell is.

  “OK.” Ma gets out of Bed. “Let me tell you how it’s going to be and then you won’t be so scared. Old Nick will tap in the numbers to open the door, then he’ll carry you out of Room all rolled up in the rug.”

  “Will you be in Rug too?” I know the answer but I ask just in case.

  “I’ll be right here, waiting,” says Ma. “He’ll carry you to his pickup truck, he’ll put you in the back of it, the open bit—”

  “I want to wait here too.”

  She puts her finger on my mouth to shush me. “And that’s your chance.”

  “What is?”

  “The truck! The first time it slows down at a stop sign, you’re going to wriggle out of the rug, jump down onto the street, run away, and bring the police to rescue me.”

  I stare at her.

  “So this time the plan is Dead, Truck, Run, Police, Save Ma. Say it?”

  “Dead, Truck, Run, Police, Save Ma.”

  We have our breakfast, 125 cereal each because we need extra strength. I’m not hungry but Ma says I should eat them all up.

  Then we get dressed and practice the dead bit. It’s like the strangest Phys Ed we ever played. I lie down on the edge of Rug and Ma wraps her over me and tells me to go on my front, then my back, then my front, then my back again, till I’m all rolled up tight. It smells funny in Rug, dusty and something, different from if I lie just on her.

  Ma picks me up, I’m squished. She says I’m like a long, heavy package, but Old Nick will lift me easily because he has more muscles. “He’ll carry you up the backyard, probably into his garage, like this—” I feel us going around Room. I’m scrunched in my neck but I don’t move one bit. “Or maybe over his shoulder like this —” She heaves me, she grunts, I’m being pressed in half.

  “Is it a long long ways?”

  “What’s that?”

  My words are getting lost in Rug.

  “Hang on,” says Ma, “I just thought, he might put you down a couple of times, to open doors.” She sets me down, my head end first.

  “Ow.”

  “But you won’t make a sound, will you?”

  “Sorry.” Rug’s on my face, she’s itching my nose but I can’t reach it.

  “He’ll drop you into the flatbed of his truck, like this.”

  She drops me thump, I bite my mouth to not shout.

  “Stay stiff, stiff, stiff, like a robot, OK, no matter what happens?”

  “OK.”

  “Because if you go soft or move or make a single sound, Jack, if you do any of that by mistake, he’ll know you’re really alive, and he’ll be so mad he—”

  “What?” I wait. “Ma. What’ll he do?”

  “Don’t worry, he’s going to believe you’re dead.”

  How does she know for sure?

  “Then he’ll get in the front of his truck and start driving.”

  “Where?”

  “Ah, out of the city, probably. Somewhere there’s no people to see him digging a hole, like a forest or something. But the thing is, as soon as the engine starts—it’ll feel loud and buzzy and shaky like this”—she blows a raspberry on me through Rug, raspberries usually make me laugh but not now—“that’s your signal to start getting out of the rug. Try it?”

  I wriggle, but I can’t, it’s too tight. “I’m stuck. I’m stuck, Ma.”

  She unrolls me right away. I breathe lots of air.

  “OK?”

  “OK.”

  She smiles at me but it’s a weird smile like she’s pretending. Then she rolls me up again a bit looser.

  “Still squishes.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t think it would be so stiff. Hang on—” Ma undoes me again. “Hey, try folding your arms with your elbows stuck out a bit to make some room.”

  This time after she rolls me up with folded arms, I can get them over my head, I wave my fingers out the end of Rug.

  “Great. Try wriggling up now, like it’s a tunnel.”

  “It’s too tight.” I don’t know how the Count did it while he was drowning. “Let me out.”

  “Hang on a minute.”

  “Let me out now!”

  “If you keep panicking,” says Ma, “our plan’s not going to work.”

  I’m crying again, Rug’s wet on my face. “Out!”

  Rug unrolls, I’m breathing again.

  Ma puts her hand on my face but I throw it off.

  “Jack—”

  “No.”

  “Listen.”

  “Numbskull Plan B.”

  “I know it’s scary. You think I don’t know? But we have to try it.”

  “No we don’t. Not till I’m six.”

  “There’s a thing called foreclosure.”

  “What?” I’m staring at Ma.

  “It’s hard to explain.” She lets out her breath. “Old Nick doesn’t really own his house, the bank does. And if he’s lost his job and he doesn’t have any money left and he stops paying them, the bank—they’ll get mad and they might try and take his house away.”

  I wonder how a bank would do it. Maybe with a giant digger? “With Old Nick inside it,” I ask, “like Dorothy when the tornado picked her house up?”

  “Listen to me.” Ma holds my elbows hard so they nearly hurt. “What I’m trying to tell you is that he’d never let anybody come in his house or his backyard because then they’d find Room, wouldn’t they?”

  “And rescue us!”

  “No, he’d never let that happen.”

  “What would he do?”

  Ma’s sucking in her lips so she doesn’t have any. “The point is, we need to escape before that. You’re going to get back in the rug now and practice some more till you get the knack of the wriggling out.”

  “No.”

  “Jack, please—”

  “I’m too scared,” I shout. “I won’t do it not ever and I hate you.”

  Ma
’s breathing funny, she sits down on Floor. “That’s all right.”

  How is it all right if I hate her?

  Her hands are on her tummy. “I brought you into Room, I didn’t mean to but I did it and I’ve never once been sorry.”

  I stare at her and she stares back.

  “I brought you here, and tonight I’m going to get you out.”

  “OK.”

  I say it very small but she hears. She nods.

  “And you, with the blowtorch. One at a time but both.”

  Ma’s still nodding. “You’re the one who matters, though. Just you.”

  I shake my head till it’s wobbling because there’s no just me.

  We look at each other not smiling.

  “Ready to get back in the rug?”

  I nod. I lie down, Ma rolls me up extra tight. “I can’t—”

  “Sure you can.” I feel her patting me through Rug.

  “I can’t, I can’t.”

  “Could you count to one hundred for me?”

  I do, easy, very fast.

  “You sound calmer already. We’re going to figure this out in a minute,” says Ma. “Hmm. I wonder—if the wriggling’s not working, could you sort of . . . unwrap yourself instead?”

  “But I’m on the inside.”

  “I know, but you can reach out the top with your hands and find the corner. Let’s try that.”

  I feel around till I get something that’s pointy.

  “That’s it,” says Ma. “Great, now pull. Not that way, the other way, so you feel it coming loose. Like peeling a banana.”

  I do just a bit.

  “You’re lying on the edge, you’re weighing it down.”

  “Sorry.” The tears are coming back.

  “You don’t have to be sorry, you’re doing great. What if you rolled?”

  “Which way?”

  “Whichever way feels looser. On your tummy, maybe, then find the edge of the rug again and pull it.”

  “I can’t.”

  I do it. I get one elbow out.

  “Excellent,” says Ma. “You’ve really loosened it at the top. Hey, what about sitting up, do you think you could sit up?”

  It hurts and it’s impossible.

  I get sitting up and both my elbows are out and Rug’s coming undone around my face. I can pull her all off. “I did it,” I shout, “I’m the banana.”

  “You’re the banana,” says Ma. She kisses me on my face that’s all wet. “Now let’s try that again.”

  When I’m so tired I have to stop, Ma tells me how it’ll be in Outside. “Old Nick will be driving down the street. You’re in the back, the open bit of the truck, so he can’t see you, OK? Grab hold of the edge of the truck so you don’t fall over, because it’ll be moving fast, like this.” She pulls me and wobbles me side to side. “Then when he puts the brakes on, you’ll feel sort of—yanked the other way, as the truck slows down. That means a stop sign, where drivers have to stop for a second.”

  “Even him?”

  “Oh, yeah. So as soon as you feel like the truck’s hardly moving anymore, then it’s safe for you to jump over the side.”

  Into Outer Space. I don’t say it, I know that’s wrong.

  “You’ll land on the pavement, it’ll be hard like—” She looks around. “Like ceramic, but rougher. And then you run, run, run, like GingerJack.”

  “The fox ate GingerJack.”

  “OK, bad example,” says Ma. “But this time it’s us who’re the tricksy trickers. ‘Jack be nimble, Jack be quick—’ ”

  “ ‘Jack jump over the candlestick.’ ”

  “You have to run along the street, away from the truck, super fast, like—remember that cartoon we saw once, Road Runner?”

  “Tom and Jerry, they run as well.”

  Ma is nodding. “All that matters is, don’t let Old Nick catch you. Oh, but try and get onto the sidewalk if you can, the bit that’s higher, then a car won’t knock you down. And you need to be screaming as well, so somebody will help you.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know, anybody.”

  “Who’s anybody?”

  “Just run up to the first person you see. Or—it’ll be pretty late.

  Maybe there’ll be nobody out walking.” She’s biting her thumb, the nail of it, I don’t tell her to stop. “If you don’t see anybody, you’ll have to wave at a car to make it stop, and tell the people in it that you and your ma have been kidnapped. Or if there’s no cars—oh, man—I guess you’ll have to run up to a house—any house that’s got lights on—and bang on the door as hard as you can with your fists. But only a house with lights on, not an empty one. It has to be the front door, will you know which that is?”

  “The one at the front.”

  “Try it now?” Ma waits. “Talk to them just like you talk to me. Pretend I’m them. What do you say?”

  “Me and you have—”

  “No, pretend I’m the people in the house, or in the car, or on the sidewalk, tell them you and your Ma . . .”

  I try again. “You and your ma—”

  “No, you say, ‘My Ma and I . . . ’ ”

  “You and me—”

  She puffs her breath. “OK, never mind, just give them the note —is the note still safe?”

  I look in my underwear. “It’s disappeared!” Then I feel it where it slid around in between my butt. I take it out and show her.

  “Keep it at the front. If by any chance you drop it, you can just tell them, ‘I’ve been kidnapped.’ Say it, just like that.”

  “I’ve been kidnapped.”

  “Say it good and loud so they can hear.”

  “I’ve been kidnapped,” I shout.

  “Fantastic. And they’ll call the police,” says Ma, “and—I guess the police will look in the backyards all around till they find Room.” Her face isn’t very certain.

  “With the blowtorch,” I remember her.

  We practice and practice. Dead, Truck, Wriggle Out, Jump, Run, Somebody, Note, Police, Blowtorch. That’s nine things. I don’t think I can keep them in my head all at the same time. Ma says of course I can, I’m her superhero, Mr. Five.

  I wish I was still four.

  For lunch I get to choose because it’s a special day, it’s our last one in Room. That’s what Ma says but I don’t actually believe it. I’m suddenly starving hungry, I choose macaroni and hot dogs and crackers, that’s like three lunches together.

  All the time we’re playing Checkers, I’m being scared of our Great Escape, so I lose twice, then I don’t want to play anymore.

  We try a nap but we can’t switch off. I have some, the left then the right then the left again till there’s nearly none left.

  We don’t want any dinner neither of us. I have to put the vomity T-shirt back on. Ma says I can keep my socks. “Otherwise the street might be sore on your feet.” She wipes her eye, then the other one. “Wear your thickest pair.”

  I don’t know why she’s crying about socks. I go in Wardrobe to find Tooth under my pillow. “I’m going to tuck him down my sock.”

  Ma shakes her head. “What if you stand on it and hurt your foot?”

  “I won’t, he’ll stay right here at the side.”

  It’s 06:13, that’s getting nearly to be the evening. Ma says I really should be wrapped up in Rug already, Old Nick might possibly come in early because of me being sick.

  “Not yet.”

  “Well . . .”

  “Please not.”

  “Sit right here, OK, so I can wrap you up in a rush if we need to.”

  We say the plan over and over to practice me of the nine. Dead, Truck, Wriggle Out, Jump, Run, Somebody, Note, Police, Blowtorch.

  I keep twitching every time I hear the beep beep but it’s not real, just imagining. I’m staring at Door, he’s all shiny like a dagger. “Ma?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Let’s do it tomorrow night instead.”

  She leans over and hugs me tight. That means no. r />
  I’m hating her again a bit.

  “If I could do it for you, I would.”

  “Why can’t you?”

  She’s shaking her head. “I’m so sorry it has to be you and it has to be now. But I’ll be there in your head, remember? I’ll be talking to you every minute.”

  We go over Plan B lots more times. “What if he opens Rug?” I ask. “Just to look at me dead?”

  Ma doesn’t say anything for a minute. “You know how hitting is bad?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, tonight is a special case. I really don’t think he will, he’ll be in a hurry to, to get the whole thing over with, but if by any chance—what you do is, hit him as hard as you can.”

  Wow.

  “Kick him, bite him, poke him in the eyes—” Her fingers stab the air. “Anything at all so you can get away.”

  I can’t believe this hardly. “Am I allowed kill him even?”

  Ma runs over to Cabinet where the things dry after washing up. She picks up Smooth Knife.

  I look at his shine, I think about the story of Ma putting him on Old Nick’s throat.

  “Do you think you could hold this tight, inside the rug, and if —” She stares at Smooth Knife. Then she puts him back with the forks on Dish Rack. “What was I thinking?”

  How would I know if she doesn’t?

  “You’ll stab yourself,” says Ma.

  “No I won’t.”

  “You will, Jack, how could you not, you’ll cut yourself to ribbons, lashing around inside a rug with a bare blade—I think I’m losing my mind.”

  I shake my head. “It’s right here.” I tap on her hair.

  Ma strokes my back.

  I check Tooth is in my sock, the note is in my underwear at the front. We sing to make the time go, but quietly. “Lose Yourself” and “Tubthumping” and “Home on the Range.”

  “ ‘Where the deer and the antelope play—,’ ” I sing.

  “ ‘Where seldom is heard a discouraging word—’ ”

  “ ‘And the skies are not cloudy all day.’ ”

  “It’s time,” says Ma, holding Rug open.

  I don’t want to. I lie down and put my hands on my shoulders and my elbows sticking out. I wait for Ma to roll me up.

  Instead she just looks at me. My feet my legs my arms my head, her eyes keep sliding over my whole me like she’s counting.

  “What?” I say.

  She doesn’t say a word. She leans over, she doesn’t even kiss me, she just touches her face to mine till I can’t tell whose is whose. My chest is going dangadangadang. I won’t let go of her.