Room

  “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 the yellow. She says, “Jack,” again. How does she know? “I’m Officer Oh. Can you tell me how old you are?”

  I have to Save Ma, I have to talk to the police to get the Blowtorch, but my mouth isn’t working. She’s got a thing on her belt, it’s a gun, just like a police on TV. What if they’re bad police like locked up Saint Peter, I never thought of that. I look at the belt not the face, it’s a cool belt with a buckle.

  “Do you know your age?”

  Easy-peasy. I hold up five fingers.

  “Five years old, great.” Officer Oh says something I don’t hear. Then about a dress. She says it twice.

  I talk as loud as I can but not looking. “I don’t have a dress.”

  “No? Where do you sleep at night?”

  “In Wardrobe.”

  “In a wardrobe?”

  Try, Ma’s saying in my head, but Old Nick’s beside her, he’s the maddest ever and—

  “Did you say, in a wardrobe?”

  “You’ve got three dresses,” I say. “I mean Ma. One is pink and one is green with stripes and one is brown but you—she prefers jeans.”

  “Your ma, is that what you said?” asks Officer Oh. “Is that who’s got the dresses?”

  Nodding’s easier.

  “Where’s your ma tonight?”

  “In Room.”

  “In a room, OK,” she says. “Which room?”

  “Room.”

  “Can you tell us where it is?”

  I remember something. “Not on any map.”

  She does a breath out, I don’t think my answers are any good.

  The other police is a he maybe, I never saw hair like that for real, it’s nearly see-through. He says, “We’re at Navaho and Alcott, got a disturbed juvenile, possible domestic.” I think he’s talking to his phone. It’s like playing Parrot, I know the words but I don’t know what they mean. He comes closer to Officer Oh. “Any joy?”

  “Slow going.”

  “Same with the witness. Suspect’s white male, maybe five ten, forties, fifties, fled the scene in a maroon or dark brown pickup, possibly an F one-fifty or a Ram, starts K nine three, could be a B or a P, no state . . .”

  “The man you were with, was that your dad?” Officer Oh is talking to me again.

  “I don’t have one.”

  “Your Mom’s boyfriend?”

  “I don’t have one.” I said that before, am I allowed say twice?

  “Do you know his name?”

  I make me remember. “Ajeet.”

  “No, the other guy, the one who went off in the truck.”

  “Old Nick.” I whisper it because he wouldn’t like me saying.

  “What’s that?”

  “Old Nick.”

  “That’s negative,” the man police says at his phone. “Suspect GOA, first name Nick, Nicholas, no second name.”

  “And what’s your ma called?” asks Officer Oh.

  “Ma.”

  “Has she got another name?”

  I hold up two fingers.

  “Two of them? Great. Can you remember what they are?”

  They were in the note that he disappeared. I suddenly remember a bit. “He stole us.”

  Officer Oh sits down beside me on the ground. It’s not like Floor, it’s all hard and shivery. “Jack, would you like a blanket?”

  I don’t know. Blanket’s not here.

  “You’ve got some nasty cuts there. Did this Nick guy hurt you?”

  The man police is back, he holds out a blue thing to me, I don’t touch. “Go ahead,” he says at his phone.

  Officer Oh folds the blue thing around me, it’s not fleecy gray like Blanket, it’s rougher. “How did you get those cuts?”

  “The dog is a vampire.” I look for Raja and his humans but they’re disappeared. “This finger it bit, and my knee was the ground.”

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “The street, it hit me.”

  “Go ahead.” The man police says that, he’s talking at his phone again. Then he looks at Officer Oh and says, “Should I get on to Child Protection?”

  “Give me another couple minutes,” she says. “Jack, I bet you’re good at telling stories.”

  How does she know? The man police looks at his watch that he’s got stuck on his wrist. I remember Ma’s wrist that doesn’t work right. Is Old Nick there now, is he twisting her wrist or her neck, is he ripping her in pieces?

  “Do you think you could tell me what happened tonight?” Officer Oh grins at me. “And maybe you could talk real slow and clear, because my ears don’t work too well.” Maybe she’s deaf, but she doesn’t talk with her fingers like deafs on TV.

  “Copy,” says the man police.

  “You ready?” says Officer Oh.

  It’s me her eyes are on. I shut mine and pretend it’s Ma I’m talking to, that makes me brave. “We did a trick,” I say very slow, “me and Ma, we were pretending I was sick and then I was dead but really I’ll unwrap myself and jump out of the truck, only I was meant to jump at the first slowing down but I didn’t manage.”

  “OK, what happened then?” That’s Officer Oh’s voice right beside my head.

  I still don’t look or I’ll forget the story. “I had a note in my underwear but he disappeared it. I’ve still got Tooth.” I put my fingers in my sock for him. I open my eyes.

  “Can I see that?”

  She tries to take Tooth but I don’t let her. “It’s of Ma.”

  “That’s your ma that you were talking about?”

  I think her brain’s not working like her ears aren’t, how could Ma be a tooth? I shake my head. “Just a bit of her dead spit that fell out.”

  Officer Oh looks at Tooth up close and her face gets all hard. The man police shakes his head and says something I can’t hear.

  “Jack,” she says, “you told me you were supposed to jump out of the truck the first time it slowed down?”

  “Yeah but I was still in Rug, then I unpeeled the banana but I wasn’t scave enough.” I’m looking at Officer Oh and I’m talking at the same time. “But after the third time stopping, the truck went wooooo—”

  “It went what?”

  “Like—” I show her. “All a different way.”

  “It turned.”

  “Yeah, and I got banged and he, Old Nick, he climbed out all mad and that’s when I jumped.”

  “Bingo.” Officer Oh claps her hands.

  “Huh?” says the man police.

  “Three stop signs and a turn. Left or right?” She waits. “Never mind,
great job, Jack.” She’s staring down the street and then she’s got a thing in her hand like a phone, where did that come from? She’s watching the little screen, she says, “Get them to cross-ref the partial plates with . . . try Carlingford Avenue, maybe Washington Drive . . .”

  I don’t see Raja and Ajeet and Naisha anymore at all. “Did the dog go to jail?”

  “No, no,” says Officer Oh, “it was an honest mistake.”

  “Go ahead,” the man police tells his phone. He shakes his head at Officer Oh.

  She stands up. “Hey, maybe Jack can find the house for us. Would you like a ride in a patrol car?”

  I can’t get 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. Ma Ma don’t be dead don’t be dead don’t be dead . . .

  I count to one hundred like Officer Oh said but I’m not any calmer. I do to five hundred, the numbers aren’t working. My back is jumping and shaking, it must be from being cold, where’s the blanket fallen?

  A terrible sound. The police in the front seat is blowing
his nose. He does a tiny smile and pokes the tissue in his nose, I look away.

  I stare out the window at the house with no lights. A bit of it is open now that wasn’t before I don’t think, the garage, a huge dark square. I’m looking for hundreds of hours, my eyes get prickly. Someone comes out of the dark but it’s another police I never saw before. Then a person that’s Officer Oh and beside her—

  I’m thumping banging on the car door but I don’t know how, I have to smash the glass but I can’t, Ma Ma Ma Ma Ma Ma Ma Ma—

  Ma makes the door be open and I fall halfway out. She’s got me, she’s scooped me all up. It’s her for real, she’s one hundred percent alive.

  “We did it,” she says, when we’re both in the back of the car together. “Well, you did it, really.”

  I’m shaking my head. “I kept messing up the plan.”

  “You saved me,” says Ma, she kisses my eye and holds me tight.

  “Was he there?”

  “No, I was all by myself just waiting, it was the longest hour of my life. The next thing I knew was, the door exploded open, I thought I was having a heart attack.”

  “The blowtorch!”

  “No, they used a shotgun.”

  “I want to see the explosion.”

  “It was only for a second. You can see another some time, I promise.” Ma’s grinning. “We can do anything now.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re free.”

  I’m dizzy, my eyes shut without me. I’m so sleepy I think my head’s going to fall off.

  Ma’s talking in my ear, she says we need to go talk to some more police. I snuggle against her, I say, “Want to go to Bed.”

  “They’ll find us somewhere to sleep in a little while.” “No. Bed.”

  “You mean in Room?” Ma’s pulled back, she’s staring in my eyes.

  “Yeah. I’ve seen the world and I’m tired now.”