Room: A Novel

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.