Emma Donoghue - Room - A Novel

“Good night, Room,” I say very quiet. “Good night, Lamp and Balloon.”

“Good night, stove,” says Ma, “and good night, table.”

I’m grinning. “Good night, Wordy Ball. Good night, Fort. Good night, Rug.”

“Good night, air,” says Ma.

“Good night, noises everywhere.”

“Good night, Jack.”

“Good night, Ma. And Bugs, don’t forget the Bugs.”

“Night-night,” she says, “sleep tight, don’t let the bugs bite.”

When I wake up, Skylight’s all blue in her glass, there’s no snow left even in the corners. Ma’s sitting in her chair holding her face, that means hurting. She’s looking at something on Table, two things.

I jump up and grab. “It’s a jeep. A remote-control jeep!” I’m zooming it in the air, it’s red, as big as my hand. The remote is silver and a rectangle, when I wiggle one of the switches with my thumb the jeep’s wheels spin zhhhhung.

“It’s a late birthday present.”

I know who brung it, it’s Old Nick but she won’t say.

I don’t want to eat my cereal but Ma says I can play with the jeep again right after. I eat twenty-nine of them, then I’m not hungry anymore. Ma says that’s waste, so she eats the rest.

I figure out to move Jeep just with Remote. The thin silver antenna, I can make it really long or really short. One switch makes Jeep go forward and backward, the other does side to side. If I flip both the same time, Jeep gets paralyzed like by a poison dart, he says argbbbbbb.

Ma says she’d better start cleaning because it’s Tuesday. “Gently,” she says, “remember it’s breakable.”

I know that already, everything’s breakable.

“And if you keep it turned on for a long time the batteries will get used up, and we don’t have any spares.”

I can make Jeep go all around Room, it’s easy except at the edge of Rug, she gets curled up under his wheels. Remote is the boss, he says, “Off you go now, you slowcoach Jeep. Twice around that Table leg, lickety-split. Keep those wheels turning.” Sometimes Jeep is tired, Remote turns his wheels grrrrrrrrr. That naughty Jeep hides in Wardrobe but Remote finds him by magic and makes him zoom back and forward crashing into the slats.

Tuesdays and Fridays always smell of vinegar. Ma’s scrubbing under Table with the rag that used to be one of my diapers I wore till I was one. I bet she’s wiping Spider’s web away but I don’t care much. Then she picks up Vacuum who makes it all noisy dusty wab wab wab.

Jeep sneaks way off in Under Bed. “Come back, my little baby Jeepy,” says Remote. “If you become a fish in the river, I will be a fisherman and catch you in my net.” But that tricksy Jeep stays quiet till Remote is having a nap with his antenna all the way down, then Jeep sneaks up behind him and takes out his batteries ha ha ha.

I play with Jeep and Remote all day except when I’m in Bath they have to park on Table not to get rusty. When we do Scream I push them up really near Skylight and Jeep vrums his wheels as loud as he can.

Ma lies down again holding her teeth. Sometimes she does a big breath out out out.

“Why are you hissing so long?”

“Trying to get on top of it.”

I go sit by her head and stroke her hair out of her eyes, her forehead is slippy. She grabs my hand and holds it tight. “It’s OK.” It doesn’t look OK. “You want to play with Jeep and Remote and me?”

“Maybe later.”

“If you play you won’t mind and you won’t matter.”

She smiles a bit but the next breath comes out louder like a moan.

At 05:57 I say, “Ma, it’s nearly six,” so she gets up to make dinner but she doesn’t eat any. Jeep and Remote wait in Bath because it’s dry now, it’s their secret cave. “Actually Jeep died and went to Heaven,” I say, eating my chicken slices really fast.

“Oh, yeah?”

“But then in the night when God was asleep, Jeep snuck out and slid down the Beanstalk to Room to visit me.”

“That was cunning of him.”

I eat three green beans and have a big drink of milk and another three, they go down a bit faster in threes. Five would be fasterer but I can’t manage that, my throat would shut. One time I was four, Ma wrote Green beans other froz green vegi> on the shopping list and I scribbled out Green beans with the orange pencil, she thought it was funny. At the end I have the soft bread because I like to keep it in my mouth like a cushion. “Thanks, Baby Jesus, especially for the chicken slices,” I say, “and please no more green beans for a long time. Hey, why do we thank Baby Jesus and not him?”

“Him?”

I nod at Door.

Her face gets flat even though I didn’t say his name. “Why should we thank him?”

“You did the other night, for the groceries and the snow offing and the pants.”

“You shouldn’t listen.” Sometimes when she’s really mad her mouth doesn’t really open. “It was a fake thank.”

“Why it—?”

She butts in. “He’s only the bringer. He doesn’t actually make the wheat grow in the field.”

“Which field?”

“He can’t make the sun shine on it, or the rain fall, or anything.”

“But Ma, bread doesn’t come out of fields.”

She presses on her mouth.

“Why you said—?”

“It must be time for TV,” she says fast.

It’s videos, I love them. Ma does the moves with me most times but not tonight. I jump on Bed and teach Jeep and Remote to shake their booties. It’s Rihanna and T.I. and Lady Gaga and Kanye West.

“Why do rappers wear shades even in the night,” I ask Ma, “are their eyeballs sore?”

“No, they just want to look cool. And not have fans staring into their faces all the time because they’re so famous.” I’m confused. “Why the fans are famous?”

“No, the stars are.”

“And they don’t want to be?”

“Well, I guess they do,” says Ma, getting up to switch off the TV, “but they want to stay a bit private as well.”

When I’m having some, Ma won’t let me bring Jeep and Remote into Bed even though they’re my friends. And then she says they have to go up on Shelf while I’m sleeping. “Otherwise they’ll poke you in the night.”

“No they won’t, they promise.”

“Listen, let’s put your jeep away, then you can sleep with the remote because it’s smaller, as long as the antenna’s right down. Deal?”

“Deal.”

When I’m in Wardrobe, we talk through the slats. “God bless Jack,” she says.

“God bless Ma and magic her teeth better. God bless Jeep and Remote.”

“God bless books.”

“God bless everything here and Outer Space and Jeep as well. Ma?”

“Yeah.”

“Where are we when we’re asleep?”

I can hear her yawn. “Right here.”

“But dreams.” I wait. “Are they TV?” She still doesn’t answer. “Do we go into TV for dreaming?”

“No. We’re never anywhere but here.” Her voice sounds a long way away.

I lie curled up touching the switches with my fingers. I whisper,

“Can’t you sleep, little switches? It’s OK, have some.” I put them at my nipples, they take turns. I’m sort of asleep but only nearly.

Beep beep. That’s Door.

I listen very hard. In comes the cold air. If I had my head out of Wardrobe, there’d be Door opening, I bet I could see right into the stars and the spaceships and the planets and the aliens zooming around in UFOs. I wish I wish I wish I could see it.

Boom, that’s Door shutting and Old Nick is telling Ma how there wasn’t any of something and something else was a ridiculous price anyway.

I wonder if he looked up on Shelf and saw Jeep. Yeah he brung him for me, but he never played with him I don’t think. He won’t know how Jeep suddenly goes when I switch Remote on, vrummmm.