Room

  I beggar her twice and she beggars me once, I hate losing. Then Gin Rummy and Go Fish, I win mostly. Then we just play with the cards, dancing and fighting and stuff. Jack of Diamonds is my favorite and his friends the other Jacks.

  “Look.” I point to Watch. “05:01, we can have dinner.”

  It’s a hot dog each, yum.

  For TV I go in Rocker but Ma sits on Bed with Kit, she’s putting the hem back up on her brown dress with pink bits. We watch the medical planet where doctors and nurses cut holes in persons to pull the germs out. The persons are asleep not dead. The doctors don’t bite the thread like Ma, they use super sharp daggers and after, they sew the persons up like Frankenstein.

  When the commercials come on Ma asks me to go over and press mute. There’s a man in a yellow helmet drilling a hole in a street, he holds his forehead and makes a face. “Is he hurting?” I ask.

  She looks up from sewing. “He must have a headache from that noisy drill.”

  We can’t hear the drill because it’s on mute. The TV man’s at a sink taking a pill from a bottle, next he’s smiling and throwing a ball on a boy. “Ma, Ma.”

  “What?” She’s doing a knot.

  “That’s our bottle. Were you looking? Were you looking at the man with the headache?”

  “No.”

  “The bottle where he took the pill, that’s the exact one we’ve got, the killers.”

  Ma stares at the TV, but it’s showing a car speeding around a mountain now.

  “No, before,” I say. “He actually had our bottle of killers.”

  “Well, maybe it was the same kind as ours, but it’s not our one.”

  “Yeah it is.”

  “No, there’s lots of them.”

  “Where?”

  Ma looks at me, then back at her dress, she pulls at the hem. “Well, our bottle is right here on Shelf, and the rest are . . .”

  “In TV?” I ask.

  She’s staring at the threads and winding them around the little cards to fit back in Kit.

  “You know what?” I’m bouncing. “You know what that means? He must go in TV.” The medical planet’s come back on but I’m not even watching. “Old Nick,” I say, so she won’t think I mean the man in the yellow helmet. “When he’s not here, in the daytime, you know what? He actually goes in TV. That’s where he got our killers in a store and brung them here.”

  “Brought,” says Ma, standing up. “Brought, not brung. It’s time for bed.” She starts singing “Indicate the Way to My Abode” but I don’t join in.

  I don’t think she understands how amazing this is. I think about it right through putting on my sleep T-shirt and brushing my teeth and even when I’m having some on Bed. I take my mouth back, I say, “How come we never see him in TV?”

  Ma yawns and sits up.

  “All the times we’re watching, we never see him, how come?”

  “He’s not there.”

  “But the bottle, how did he get it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The way she says it, it’s strange. I think she’s pretending. “You have to know. You know everything.”

  “Look, it really doesn’t matter.”

  “It does matter and I do mind.” I’m nearly shouting.

  “Jack—”

  Jack what? What does Jack mean?

  Ma leans back on the pillows. “It’s very hard to explain.”

  I think she can explain, she just won’t. “You can, because I’m five now.”

  Her face is turned toward Door. “Where our bottle of pills used to be, right, is a store, that’s where he got them, then he brought them here for Sunday treat.”

  “A store in TV?” I look up at Shelf to check the bottle’s there. “But the killers are real—”

  “It’s a real store.” Ma rubs her eye.

  “How—?”

  “OK, OK, OK.”

  Why is she shouting?

  “Listen. What we see on TV is . . . it’s pictures of real things.”

  That’s the most astonishing I ever heard.

  Ma’s got her hand over her mouth.

  “Dora’s real for real?”

  She takes her hand away. “No, sorry. Lots of TV is made-up pictures—like, Dora’s just a drawing—but the other people, the ones with faces that look like you and me, they’re real.”

  “Actual humans?”

  She nods. “And the places are real too, like farms and forests and airplanes and cities . . .”

  “Nah.” Why is she tricking me? “Where would they fit?”

  “Out there,” says Ma. “Outside.” She jerks her head back.

  “Outside Bed Wall?” I stare at it.

  “Outside Room.” She points the other way now, at Stove Wall, her finger goes around in a circle.

  “The stores and forests zoom around in Outer Space?”

  “No. Forget it, Jack, I shouldn’t have—”

  “Yes you should.” I shake her knee hard, I say, “Tell me.”

  “Not tonight, I can’t think of the right words to explain.”

  Alice says she can’t explain herself because she’s not herself, she knows who she was this morning but she’s changed several times since then.

  Ma suddenly stands up and gets the killers down off Shelf, I think she’s checking are they the same as the ones in TV but she opens the bottle and eats one then another one.

  “Will you find the words tomorrow?”

  “It’s eight forty-nine, Jack, would you just go to bed?” She ties the trash bag and puts it beside Door.

  I lie down in Wardrobe but I’m wide awake.

  • • •

  Today is one of the days when Ma is Gone.

  She won’t wake up properly. She’s here but not really. She stays in Bed with the pillows on her head.

  Silly Penis is standing up, I squish him down.

  I eat my hundred cereal and I stand on my chair to wash the bowl and Meltedy Spoon. It’s very quiet when I switch off the water. I wonder did Old Nick come in the night. I don’t think he did because the trash bag is still by Door, but maybe he did only he didn’t take the trash? Maybe Ma’s not just Gone. Maybe he squished her neck even harder and now she’s—

  I go up really close and listen till I hear breath. I’m just one inch away, my hair touches Ma’s nose and she puts her hand up over her face so I step back.

  I don’t have a bath on my own, I just get dressed.

  There’s hours and hours, hundreds of them.

  Ma gets up to pee but no talking, with her face all blank. I already put a glass of water beside Bed but she just gets back under Duvet.

  I hate when she’s Gone, but I like that I get to watch TV all day. I put it on really quiet at first and make it a bit louder at a time. Too much TV might turn me into a zombie but Ma’s like a zombie today and she’s not watching even. There’s Bob the Builder and Wonder Pets! and Barney. For each I go up to touch hello. Barney and his friends do lots of hugs, I run to get in the middle but sometimes I’m too late. Today it’s about a fairy that sneaks in at night and turns old teeth into money. I want Dora but she doesn’t come.

  Thursday means laundry, but I can’t do it all myself and Ma’s still lying on the sheets anyway.

  When I’m hungry again I check Watch but he only says 09:47. Cartoons are over so I watch football and the planet where people win prizes. The puffy-hair woman is on her red couch talking to a man who used to be a golf star. There’s another planet where women hold up necklaces and say how exquisite they are. “Suckers,” Ma always says when she sees that planet. She doesn’t say anything today, she doesn’t notice I’m watching and watching and my brain is starting to be stinky.

  How can TV be pictures of real things?

  I think about them all floating around in Outside Space outside the walls, the couch and the necklaces and the bread and the killers and the airplanes and all the shes and hes, the boxers and the man with one leg and the puffy-hair woman, they’re floating past Skylig
ht. I wave to them, but there’s skyscrapers as well and cows and ships and trucks, it’s crammed out there, I count all the stuff that might crash into Room. I can’t breathe right, I have to count my teeth instead, left to right on the top then right to left on the bottom, then backwards, twenty every time but I still think maybe I’m counting wrong.

  When it’s 12:04 it can be lunch so I cut a can of baked beans open, I’m careful. I wonder would Ma wake up if I cutted my hand and screamed help? I never had beans cold before. I eat nine, then I’m not hungry. I put the rest in a tub for not waste. Some are stuck to the can at the bottom, I pour water in. Maybe Ma will get up and scrub it later. Maybe she’ll be hungry, she’ll say, “Oh Jack, how thoughtful of you to save me beans in a tub.”

  I measure more things with Ruler but it’s hard to add up the numbers on my own. I do him end over end and he’s an acrobat of a circus. I play with Remote, I point him at Ma and whisper, “Wake up,” but she doesn’t. Balloon is all squishy, she goes for a ride on Prune Juice Bottle up near Skylight, they make the light all brownly sparkly. They’re scared of Remote because of his sharp end, so I put him in Wardrobe and fold the doors shut. I tell all the things it’s OK because Ma will be back tomorrow. I read the five books all myself only just bits of Alice. Mostly I just sit.

  I don’t do Scream because of disturbing Ma. I think it’s probably OK to skip one day.

  Then I switch the TV on again and wiggle Bunny, he makes the planets a bit less fuzzy but only a bit. It’s racing cars, I like to see them go super fast but it’s not very interesting after they do the oval about a hundred times. I want to wake Ma up and ask about Outside with the actual humans and things all zooming around, but she’d be mad. Or maybe she wouldn’t switch on at all even if I shake her. So I don’t. I go up very close, half her face is showing and her neck. The marks are purple now.

  I’m going to kick Old Nick till I break his butt. I’ll zap Door open with Remote and whiz into Outside Space and get everything at the real stores and bring it back to Ma.

  I cry a bit but no noise.

  I watch a show of weather and one of enemies are besieging a castle, the good guys are building a barricade so the door won’t open. I nibble my finger, Ma can’t tell me to stop. I wonder how much of my brain is gooey yet and how much is still OK. I think I might throw up like when I was three and had diarrhea too. What if I throw up all over Rug, how will I wash her on my own?

  I look at her stain from when I got born. I kneel down and stroke, it feels sort of warm and scratchy like the rest of Rug, no different.

  Ma’s never Gone more than one day. I don’t know what I do if I wake up tomorrow and she’s still Gone.

  Then I’m hungry, I have a banana even though it’s a bit green.

  Dora is a drawing in TV but she’s my real friend, that’s confusing. Jeep is actually real, I can feel him with my fingers. Superman is just TV. Trees are TV but Plant is real, oh, I forgot to water her. I carry her from Dresser to Sink and do that right away. I wonder did she eat Ma’s bit of fish.

  Skateboards are TV and so are girls and boys except Ma says they’re actual, how can they be when they’re so flat? Ma and me could make a barricade, we could shove Bed against Door so it doesn’t open, won’t he get a shock, ha ha. Let me in, he’s shouting, or I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down. Grass is TV and so is fire, but it could come in Room for real if I hot the beans and the red jumps onto my sleeve and burns me up. I’d like to see that but not it happen. Air’s real and water only in Bath and Sink, rivers and lakes are TV, I don’t know about the sea because if it whizzed around Outside it would make everything wet. I want to shake Ma and ask her if the sea is real. Room is real for real, but maybe Outside is too only it’s got a cloak of invisibility on like Prince JackerJack in the story? Baby Jesus is TV I think except in the painting with his Ma and his cousin and his Grandma, but God is real looking in Skylight with his yellow face, only not today, there’s only gray.

  I want to be in Bed with Ma. Instead I sit on Rug with my hand just on the bump of her foot under Duvet. My arm gets tired so I drop it down for a while then put it back. I roll up the end of Rug and let her flop open again, I do that hundreds of times.

  When it gets dark I try and eat more baked beans but they’re disgusting. I have some bread and peanut butter instead. I open Freezer and put my face in beside the bags of peas and spinach and horrible green beans, I keep it there till I’m numb even my eyelids. Then I jump out and shut the door and rub my cheeks to warm them up. I can feel them with my hands but I can’t feel them feeling my hands on them, it’s weird.

  It’s dark in Skylight now, I hope God will put his silver face in.

  I get into my sleep T-shirt. I wonder am I dirty because I didn’t have a bath, I try to smell myself. In Wardrobe I lie down in Blanket but I’m cold. I forgot to put up Thermostat today, that’s why, I only just remembered, but I can’t do it now it’s night.

  I want some very much, I didn’t have any all day. The right even, but I’d rather the left. If I could get in with Ma and have some—but she might push me away and that would be worse.

  What if I’m in Bed with her and Old Nick comes? I don’t know if it’s nine yet, it’s too dark for seeing Watch.

  I sneak into Bed, extra slow so Ma won’t notice. I just lie near. If I hear the beep beep I can jump back in Wardrobe quick quick.

  What if he comes and Ma won’t wake up, will he be even more madder? Will he make worse marks on her?

  I stay awake so I can hear him come.

  He doesn’t come but I stay awake.

  • • •

  The trash bag is still beside Door. Ma got up before me this morning and unknotted it and put in the beans she scraped out of the can. If the bag’s still here, I guess that means he didn’t come, that’s two nights he didn’t, yippee.

  Friday means Mattress time. We flip her over front to back and sideways as well so she doesn’t get bumpy, she’s so heavy I have to use all my muscles and when she flomps down she knocks me onto Rug. I see the brown mark on Mattress from when I came out of Ma’s tummy the first time. Next we have a dusting race, dust is tiny invisible pieces of our skins that we don’t need anymore because we grow new ones like snakes. Ma sneezes really high like an opera star we heard one time in TV.

  We do our grocery list, we can’t decide about Sundaytreat. “Let’s ask for candy,” I say. “Not even chocolate. Some kind of candy we never had before.”

  “Some really sticky kind, so you’ll end up with teeth like mine?”

  I don’t like when Ma does sarcasm.

  Now we’re reading sentences out of no-pictures books, this one’s The Shack with a spooky house and all white snow. “ ‘Since then,’ ” I read, “ ‘he and I have been, as the kids say these days, hangin’ out, sharing a coffee—or for me a chai tea, extra hot with soy.’ ”

  “Excellent,” says Ma, “only soy should rhyme with boy.”

  Persons in books and TV are always thirsty, they have beer and juice and champagne and lattes and all sorts of liquids, sometimes they click their glasses on each other’s glasses when they’re happy but they don’t break them. I read the line again, it’s still confusing. “Who’s the he and the I, are they the kids?”

  “Hmm,” says Ma, reading over my shoulder, “I think the kids means kids in general.”

  “What’s in general?”

  “Lots of kids.”

  I try and see them, the lots, all playing together. “Actual human ones?”

  Ma doesn’t say anything for a minute, and then, “Yeah,” very quiet. So it was true, everything she said.

  The marks are still there on her neck, I wonder if they’ll ever go away.

  • • •

  In the night she’s flashing, it wakes me in Bed. Lamp on, I count five. Lamp off, I count one. Lamp on, I count two. Lamp off, I count two. I do a groan.

  “Just a bit more.” She’s still staring up at Skylight that’s all black.


  There’s no trash bag beside Door, that means he must have been here when I was asleep. “Please, Ma.”

  “In a minute.”

  “It hurts my eyes.”

  She leans over Bed and kisses me beside my mouth, she puts Duvet over my face. The light’s still flashing but darker.

  After a while she comes back into Bed and gives me some for getting back to sleep.

  • • •

  On Saturday Ma makes me three braids for a change, they feel funny. I wave my face to whack myself with them.

  I don’t watch the cartoon planet this morning, I choose a bit of a gardening and a fitness and a news, and everything I see I say, “Ma, is that real?” and she says yeah, except one bit about a movie with werewolves and a woman bursting like a balloon is just special effects, that’s drawing on computers.

  Lunch is a can of chickpea curry and rice as well.

  I’d like to do an extra big Scream but we can’t on weekends.

  Most of the afternoon we play Cat’s Cradle, we can do the Candles and the Diamonds and the Manger and the Knitting Needles and we keep practicing the Scorpion except Ma’s fingers always end up stuck.

  Dinner is mini pizzas, one each plus one to share. Then we watch a planet where persons are wearing lots of frilly clothes and huge white hair. Ma says they’re real but they’re pretending to be people who died hundreds of years ago. It’s a sort of game but it doesn’t sound much fun.

  She switches the TV off and sniffs. “I can still smell that curry from lunch.”

  “Me too.”

  “It tasted good but it’s nasty the way it lingers.”

  “Mine tasted nasty too,” I tell her.

  She laughs. The marks on her neck are getting less, they’re greenish and yellowish.

  “Can I have a story?”

  “Which one?”

  “One you never told me before.”

  Ma smiles at me. “I think at this point you know everything I know. The Count of Monte Cristo?”

  “I’ve heard that millions of times.”

  “GulliJack in Lilliput?”

  “Zillions.”

  “Nelson on Robben Island?”

  “Then he got out after twenty-seven years and became the government.”