Room: A Novel

Ma keeps yawning because she was awake in the night.

I’ve got a tummy ache, she says maybe it was all the raw vegetables. I want a killer from the bottle, she gives me just a half. I wait and wait but my tummy doesn’t feel different.

Skylight’s getting brighter.

“I’m glad he didn’t come last night,” I tell Ma. “I bet he never comes back, that would be super cool.”

“Jack.” She kind of frowns. “Think about it.”

“I am.”

“I mean, what would happen. Where does our food come from?”

I know this one. “From Baby Jesus in the fields in Outside.”

“No, but — who’s the bringer?”

Oh.

Ma gets up, she says it’s a good sign the faucets are still working. “He could have turned the water off too, but he hasn’t.” I don’t know what that’s a sign for.

There’s bagel for breakfast but it’s cold and mushy.

“What happens if he doesn’t switch the power on again?” I ask.

“I’m sure he will. Maybe later today.”

I try the buttons on TV sometimes. Just a dumb gray box, I can see my face but not as good like in Mirror.

We do all the Phys Eds we can think to warm up. Karate and Islands and Simon Says and Trampoline. Hopscotch, where we have to hop from one cork tile to another one and never go on the lines or fall over. Ma picks Blindman’s Buff, she ties my camouflage pants around her eyes. I hide in Under Bed beside Eggsnake not breathing even, flat like a page in a book, and it takes her hundreds of hours to find me. Next I choose Rappelling, Ma holds my hands and I walk up her legs till my feet are higher than my head, then I dangle upside down, my braids go in my face and make me laugh. I do a flip and I’m right side up again. I want it lots times more but her bad wrist is hurting.

Then we’re tired.

We make a mobile from a long spaghetti and threads tied with things pasted on, tiny pictures of me all orange and Ma all green and twisty foil and tufts of toilet paper. Ma fixes the top thread on Roof with the last pin from Kit, and the spaghetti dangles with all the little things flying from it when we stand under and blow hard.

I’m hungry so Ma says I can have the last apple.

What if Old Nick doesn’t bring more apples?

“Why he’s still punishing us?” I ask.

Ma twists her mouth. “He thinks we’re things that belong to him, because Room does.”

“How come?”

“Well, he made it.”

That’s weird, I thought Room just is. “Didn’t God make everything?”

Ma doesn’t say anything for a minute and then she rubs my neck. “All the good stuff, anyway.”

We play Noah’s Ark on Table, all the things like Comb and Little Plate and Spatula and the books and Jeep have to line up and get into Box quick quick before there’s the giant flood. Ma’s not really playing anymore, she’s got her face in her hands like it’s heavy.

I crunch the apple. “Are your other teeth hurting?”

She looks through her fingers at me, her eyes are huger.

“Which ones?”

Ma stands up so sudden I’m nearly scared. She sits into Rocker and holds out her hands. “Come here. I have a story for you.” “A new one?”

“Yeah.”

“Excellent.”

She waits till I’m all folded into her arms. I’m nibbling the second side of the apple to make it last. “You know how Alice wasn’t always in Wonderland?” That was a trick, I know this one already. “Yeah, she goes in White Rabbit’s house and grows so big she has to put her arm out the window and her foot up the chimney and she kicks Bill the Lizard out kaboom, that bit’s funny.”

“No, but before. Remember she was lying in the grass?”

“Then she fell down the hole four thousand miles but she didn’t hurt herself.”

“Well, I’m like Alice,” says Ma.

I laugh. “Nah. She’s a little girl with a huge head, bigger than Dora’s even.”

Ma’s chewing her lip, there’s a dark bit. “Yeah, but I’m from somewhere else, like her. A long time ago, I was—”

“Up in Heaven.”

She puts her finger on my mouth to hush me. “I came down and I was a kid like you, I lived with my mother and father.” I shake my head. “You’re the mother.”

“But I had one of my own I called Mom,” she says. “I still have.”

Why she’s pretending like this, is it a game I don’t know?

“She’s. . I guess you’d call her Grandma.”

Like Dora’s abuela. St. Anne in the picture that the Virgin Mary’s sitting in her lap. I’m eating the core, it’s nearly nothing now. I put it on Table. “You grew in her tummy?”

“Well — actually no, I was adopted. She and my dad — you’d call him Grandpa. And also I had — I have — a big brother called Paul.” I shake my head. “He’s a saint.”

“No, a different Paul.”

How can there be two Pauls?

“You’d call him Uncle Paul.”

That’s too many names, my head’s full. My tummy’s still empty like the apple isn’t there. “What’s for lunch?”

Ma’s not smiling. “I’m telling you about your family.”

I shake my head.

“Just because you’ve never met them doesn’t mean they’re not real. There’s more things on earth than you ever dreamed about.” “Is there any cheese left that’s not sweaty?”

“Jack, this is important. I lived in a house with my mom and dad and Paul.”

I have to play the game so she won’t be mad. “A house in TV?”

“No, outside.”