Room: A Novel

She does a little laugh, she says she’d probably break something.

“Why you’d—?”

“Oh, not on purpose, just because I’m heavy.”

I go up some steps, standing like a boy not like a monkey, they’re metal with rough orange bits called rust and the holding-on bars make my hands frozen. At the end there’s a tiny house like for elves, I sit at the table and the roof’s right over my head, it’s red and the table is blue.

“Yoo-hoo.”

I jump, it’s Grandma waving through the window. Then she goes around the other side and waves again. I wave back, she likes that.

At the corner of the table I see something move, it’s a tiny spider. I wonder if Spider is still in Room, if her web is getting bigger and bigger. I tap tunes, like Hum but only tapping and Ma in my head has to guess, she guesses most of them right. When I do them on the floor with my shoe it’s different-sounding because it’s metal. The wall says something I can’t read, all scribbled and there’s a drawing that I think is a penis but it’s as big as the person.

“Try the slide, Jack, it looks like a fun one.”

That’s Grandma calling at me. I go out of the little house and look down, the slide is silver with some little stones on.

“Whee! Come on, I’ll catch you at the bottom.”

“No, thanks.”

There’s a ladder of rope like the hammock but flopping down, it’s too sore for my fingers. There’s lots of bars to hang from if I had more stronger arms or I really was a monkey. There’s a bit I show Grandma where robbers must have took the steps away.

“No, look, there’s a fireman’s pole there instead,” she says.

“Oh, yeah, I saw that in TV. But why they live up here?”

“Who?”

“The firemen.”

“Oh, it isn’t one of their real poles, just a play one.”

When I was four I thought everything in TV was just TV, then I was five and Ma unlied about lots of it being pictures of real and Outside being totally real. Now I’m in Outside but it turns out lots of it isn’t real at all.

I go back in the elf house. The spider’s gone somewhere. I take off my shoes under the table and stretch my feet.

Grandma’s at the swings. Two are flat but the third has a rubbery bucket with holes for legs. “You couldn’t fall out of this one,” she says. “Want a go?” She has to lift me, it feels strange with her hands squeezing in my armpits. She pushes me at the back of the bucket but I don’t like that, I keep twisting around to see, so she pushes me from in front instead. I’m swinging faster faster higher higher, it’s the strangest thing I ever.

“Put your head back.”

“Why?”

“Trust me.”

I put my head back and everything flips upside down, the sky and trees and houses and Grandma and all, it’s unbelievable.

There’s a girl on the other swing, I didn’t even see her coming in. She’s swinging not at the same time as me, she’s back when I’m forward. “What’s your name?” she asks.

I pretend I don’t hear.

“This is Ja — Jason,” says Grandma.

Why she’s calling me that?

“I’m Cora and I’m four and a half,” says the girl. “Is she a baby?”

“He’s a boy and he’s five, actually,” says Grandma.

“Then why is she in the baby swing?”

I want to get out now but my legs are stuck in the rubber, I kick, I pull at the chains.

“Easy, easy,” says Grandma.

“Is she having a fit?” asks the girl Cora.

My foot kicks Grandma by accident.

“Stop that.”

“My friend’s little brother has fits.”

Grandma yanks me under my arms, my foot goes twisty then I’m out.

She stops at the gate and says, “Shoes, Jack.”

I try hard and remember. “They’re in the little house.”

“Scoot back and get them, then.” She waits. “The little girl won’t bother you.”

But I can’t climb when she might be watching.

So Grandma does it and her bum gets stuck in the elf house, she’s mad. She Velcros my left shoe up way too tight so I pull it off again and the other one as well. I go in my socks to the white car. She says I’ll get glass in my foot but I don’t.

My pants are wet from the dew and my socks as well. Steppa’s in his recliner with a huge mug, he says, “How did it go?” “Little by little,” says Grandma, going upstairs.

He lets me try his coffee, it makes me shudder.

“Why are places to eat called coffee shops?” I ask him.

“Well, coffee’s the most important thing they sell because most of us need it to keep us going, like gas in the car.” Ma only drinks water and milk and juice like me, I wonder what keeps her going. “What do kids have?” “Ah, kids are just full of beans.”

Baked beans keep me going all right but green beans are my enemy food. Grandma made them a few dinners ago and I just pretended I didn’t see them on my plate. Now I’m in the world, I’m never going to eat green beans again.

• • •

I’m sitting on the stairs listening to the ladies.

“Mmm. Knows more math than me but can’t go down a slide,” says Grandma.

That’s me, I think.