Room (15 page)

I wriggle, but I can’t, it’s too tight. “I’m stuck. I’m stuck, Ma.”

She unrolls me right away. I breathe lots of air.

“OK?”

“OK.”

She smiles at me but it’s a weird smile like she’s pretending. Then she rolls me up again a bit looser.

“Still squishes.”

“Sorry, I didn’t think it would be so stiff. Hang on—” Ma undoes me again. “Hey, try folding your arms with your elbows stuck out a bit to make some
room.”

This time after she rolls me up with folded arms, I can get them over my head, I wave my fingers out the end of Rug.

“Great. Try wriggling up now, like it’s a tunnel.”

“It’s too tight.” I don’t know how the Count did it while he was drowning. “Let me out.”

“Hang on a minute.”

“Let me out now!”

“If you keep panicking,” says Ma, “our plan’s not going to work.”

I’m crying again, Rug’s wet on my face. “Out!”

Rug unrolls, I’m breathing again.

Ma puts her hand on my face but I throw it off.

“Jack—”

“No.”

“Listen.”

“Numbskull Plan B.”

“I know it’s scary. You think I don’t know? But we have to try it.”

“No we don’t. Not till I’m six.”

“There’s a thing called foreclosure.”

“What?” I’m staring at Ma.

“It’s hard to explain.” She lets out her breath. “Old Nick doesn’t really own his house, the bank does. And if he’s lost his job and he doesn’t have any
money left and he stops paying them, the bank—they’ll get mad and they might try and take his house away.”

I wonder how a bank would do it. Maybe with a giant digger? “With Old Nick inside it,” I ask, “like Dorothy when the tornado picked her house up?”

“Listen to me.” Ma holds my elbows hard so they nearly hurt. “What I’m trying to tell you is that he’d never let anybody come in his house or his backyard because
then they’d find Room, wouldn’t they?”

“And rescue us!”

“No, he’d never let that happen.”

“What would he do?”

Ma’s sucking in her lips so she doesn’t have any. “The point is, we need to escape before that. You’re going to get back in the rug now and practice some more till you
get the knack of the wriggling out.”

“No.”

“Jack, please—”

“I’m too scared,” I shout. “I won’t do it not ever and I hate you.”

Ma’s breathing funny, she sits down on Floor. “That’s all right.”

How is it all right if I hate her?

Her hands are on her tummy. “I brought you into Room, I didn’t mean to but I did it and I’ve never once been sorry.”

I stare at her and she stares back.

“I brought you here, and tonight I’m going to get you out.”

“OK.”

I say it very small but she hears. She nods.

“And you, with the blowtorch. One at a time but both.”

Ma’s still nodding. “You’re the one who matters, though. Just you.”

I shake my head till it’s wobbling because there’s no just me.

We look at each other not smiling.

“Ready to get back in the rug?”

I nod. I lie down, Ma rolls me up extra tight. “I can’t—”

“Sure you can.” I feel her patting me through Rug.

“I can’t, I can’t.”

“Could you count to one hundred for me?”

I do, easy, very fast.

“You sound calmer already. We’re going to figure this out in a minute,” says Ma. “Hmm. I wonder—if the wriggling’s not working, could you sort of . . . unwrap
yourself instead?”

“But I’m on the inside.”

“I know, but you can reach out the top with your hands and find the corner. Let’s try that.”

I feel around till I get something that’s pointy.

“That’s it,” says Ma. “Great, now pull. Not that way, the other way, so you feel it coming loose. Like peeling a banana.”

I do just a bit.

“You’re lying on the edge, you’re weighing it down.”

“Sorry.” The tears are coming back.

“You don’t have to be sorry, you’re doing great. What if you rolled?”

“Which way?”

“Whichever way feels looser. On your tummy, maybe, then find the edge of the rug again and pull it.”

“I can’t.”

I do it. I get one elbow out.

“Excellent,” says Ma. “You’ve really loosened it at the top. Hey, what about sitting up, do you think you could sit up?”

It hurts and it’s impossible.

I get sitting up and both my elbows are out and Rug’s coming undone around my face. I can pull her all off. “I did it,” I shout, “I’m the banana.”

“You’re the banana,” says Ma. She kisses me on my face that’s all wet. “Now let’s try that again.”

When I’m so tired I have to stop, Ma tells me how it’ll be in Outside. “Old Nick will be driving down the street. You’re in the back, the open bit of the truck, so he
can’t see you, OK? Grab hold of the edge of the truck so you don’t fall over, because it’ll be moving fast, like this.” She pulls me and wobbles me side to side. “Then
when he puts the brakes on, you’ll feel sort of—yanked the other way, as the truck slows down. That means a stop sign, where drivers have to stop for a second.”

“Even him?”

“Oh, yeah. So as soon as you feel like the truck’s hardly moving anymore, then it’s safe for you to jump over the side.”

Into Outer Space. I don’t say it, I know that’s wrong.

“You’ll land on the pavement, it’ll be hard like—” She looks around. “Like ceramic, but rougher. And then you run, run, run, like GingerJack.”

“The fox ate GingerJack.”

“OK, bad example,” says Ma. “But this time it’s us who’re the tricksy trickers. ‘Jack be nimble, Jack be quick—’ ”

“ ‘Jack jump over the candlestick.’ ”

“You have to run along the street, away from the truck, super fast, like—remember that cartoon we saw once,
Road Runner
?”

“Tom and Jerry, they run as well.”

Ma is nodding. “All that matters is, don’t let Old Nick catch you. Oh, but try and get onto the sidewalk if you can, the bit that’s higher, then a car won’t knock you
down. And you need to be screaming as well, so somebody will help you.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know, anybody.”

“Who’s anybody?”

“Just run up to the first person you see. Or—it’ll be pretty late.

Maybe there’ll be nobody out walking.” She’s biting her thumb, the nail of it, I don’t tell her to stop. “If you don’t see anybody, you’ll have to wave
at a car to make it stop, and tell the people in it that you and your ma have been kidnapped. Or if there’s no cars—oh, man—I guess you’ll have to run up to a
house—any house that’s got lights on—and bang on the door as hard as you can with your fists. But only a house with lights on, not an empty one. It has to be the front door, will
you know which that is?”

“The one at the front.”

“Try it now?” Ma waits. “Talk to them just like you talk to me. Pretend I’m them. What do you say?”

“Me and you have—”

“No, pretend I’m the people in the house, or in the car, or on the sidewalk, tell them you and your Ma . . .”

I try again. “You and your ma—”

“No, you say, ‘My Ma and I . . . ’ ”

“You and me—”

She puffs her breath. “OK, never mind, just give them the note —is the note still safe?”

I look in my underwear. “It’s disappeared!” Then I feel it where it slid around in between my butt. I take it out and show her.

“Keep it at the front. If by any chance you drop it, you can just tell them, ‘I’ve been kidnapped.’ Say it, just like that.”

“I’ve been kidnapped.”

“Say it good and loud so they can hear.”

“I’ve been kidnapped,” I shout.

“Fantastic. And they’ll call the police,” says Ma, “and—I guess the police will look in the backyards all around till they find Room.” Her face isn’t
very certain.

“With the blowtorch,” I remember her.

We practice and practice.
Dead, Truck, Wriggle Out, Jump, Run, Somebody, Note, Police, Blowtorch
. That’s nine things. I don’t think I can keep them in my head all at the same
time. Ma says of course I can, I’m her superhero, Mr. Five.

I wish I was still four.

For lunch I get to choose because it’s a special day, it’s our last one in Room. That’s what Ma says but I don’t actually believe it. I’m suddenly starving hungry,
I choose macaroni and hot dogs and crackers, that’s like three lunches together.

All the time we’re playing Checkers, I’m being scared of our Great Escape, so I lose twice, then I don’t want to play anymore.

We try a nap but we can’t switch off. I have some, the left then the right then the left again till there’s nearly none left.

We don’t want any dinner neither of us. I have to put the vomity T-shirt back on. Ma says I can keep my socks. “Otherwise the street might be sore on your feet.” She wipes her
eye, then the other one. “Wear your thickest pair.”

I don’t know why she’s crying about socks. I go in Wardrobe to find Tooth under my pillow. “I’m going to tuck him down my sock.”

Ma shakes her head. “What if you stand on it and hurt your foot?”

“I won’t, he’ll stay right here at the side.”

It’s 06:13, that’s getting nearly to be the evening. Ma says I really should be wrapped up in Rug already, Old Nick might possibly come in early because of me being sick.

“Not yet.”

“Well . . .”

“Please not.”

“Sit right here, OK, so I can wrap you up in a rush if we need to.”

We say the plan over and over to practice me of the nine.
Dead, Truck, Wriggle Out, Jump, Run, Somebody, Note, Police, Blowtorch
.

I keep twitching every time I hear the
beep beep
but it’s not real, just imagining. I’m staring at Door, he’s all shiny like a dagger. “Ma?”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s do it tomorrow night instead.”

She leans over and hugs me tight. That means no.

I’m hating her again a bit.

“If I could do it for you, I would.”

“Why can’t you?”

She’s shaking her head. “I’m so sorry it has to be you and it has to be now. But I’ll be there in your head, remember? I’ll be talking to you every
minute.”

We go over Plan B lots more times. “What if he opens Rug?” I ask. “Just to look at me dead?”

Ma doesn’t say anything for a minute. “You know how hitting is bad?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, tonight is a special case. I really don’t think he will, he’ll be in a hurry to, to get the whole thing over with, but if by any chance—what you do is, hit him as
hard as you can.”

Wow.

“Kick him, bite him, poke him in the eyes—” Her fingers stab the air. “Anything at all so you can get away.”

I can’t believe this hardly. “Am I allowed kill him even?”

Ma runs over to Cabinet where the things dry after washing up. She picks up Smooth Knife.

I look at his shine, I think about the story of Ma putting him on Old Nick’s throat.

“Do you think you could hold this tight, inside the rug, and if —” She stares at Smooth Knife. Then she puts him back with the forks on Dish Rack. “What was I
thinking?”

How would I know if she doesn’t?

“You’ll stab yourself,” says Ma.

“No I won’t.”

“You will, Jack, how could you not, you’ll cut yourself to ribbons, lashing around inside a rug with a bare blade—I think I’m losing my mind.”

I shake my head. “It’s right here.” I tap on her hair.

Ma strokes my back.

I check Tooth is in my sock, the note is in my underwear at the front. We sing to make the time go, but quietly. “Lose Yourself” and “Tubthumping” and “Home on the
Range.”

“ ‘Where the deer and the antelope play—,’ ” I sing.

“ ‘Where seldom is heard a discouraging word—’ ”

“ ‘And the skies are not cloudy all day.’ ”

“It’s time,” says Ma, holding Rug open.

I don’t want to. I lie down and put my hands on my shoulders and my elbows sticking out. I wait for Ma to roll me up.

Instead she just looks at me. My feet my legs my arms my head, her eyes keep sliding over my whole me like she’s counting.

“What?” I say.

She doesn’t say a word. She leans over, she doesn’t even kiss me, she just touches her face to mine till I can’t tell whose is whose. My chest is going
dangadangadang.
I
won’t let go of her.

“OK,” says Ma, her voice all scratchy. “We’re scave, aren’t we? We’re totally scave. See you outside.” She puts my arms the special way with my elbows
sticking out. She folds Rug over me and the light’s gone.

I’m rolled up in the itchy dark.

“Not too tight?”

I try if I can get my arms up above my head and back, scraping a bit.

“OK?”

“OK,” I say.

Then we just wait. Something comes in the top of Rug and rubs my hair, it’s her hand, I know without seeing even. I can hear my breathing that’s noisy. I think about the Count in the
bag with the worms crawling in. The fall down down down crash into the sea. Can worms swim?

Dead, Truck, Run, Somebody
—no,
Wriggle Out
, then
Jump,
Run, Somebody, Note, Blowtorch
. I forgot
Police
before
Blowtorch,
it’s too
complicated, I’m going to mess it all up and Old Nick will bury me for real and Ma will be waiting always.

After a long while I whisper, “Is he coming or no?”

“I don’t know,” says Ma. “How could he not? If he’s the least bit human . . .”

I thought humans were or weren’t, I didn’t know someone could be a bit human. Then what are his other bits?

I wait and wait. I can’t feel my arms. Rug’s lying against my nose, I want to scratch. I try and try and I reach it. “Ma?”

“Right here.”

“Me too.”

Beep beep.

I jump, I’m supposed to be dead but I can’t help it, I want to get out of Rug right now but I’m stuck and I can’t even try or he’ll see—

Something pressing on me, that must be Ma’s hand. She needs me to be Super Prince JackerJack, so I stay extra still. No more moving, I’m Corpse, I’m the Count, no, I’m
his friend even deader, I’m all stiff like a broken robot with a power cut.

“Here you go.” That’s Old Nick’s voice. He sounds like always. He doesn’t even know what’s happened about me dying. “Antibiotics, only just past the
sell-by. For a kid you break them in half, the guy said.”