Emma Donoghue - Room - A Novel

“I just mean you’ll be disguised as dead.”

I stare at her.

“Actually it’s more like a play I saw in high school. This girl Juliet, to run away with the boy she loved, she pretended she was dead by drinking medicine, then a few days later she woke up, ta-da.”

“No, that’s Baby Jesus.”

“Ah — not really.” Ma rubs her forehead. “He was actually dead for three days, then he came back to life. You’re not going to be dead at all, just pretending like the girl in the play.”

“I don’t know to pretend I’m a girl.”

“No, pretending you’re dead.” Ma’s voice is a bit cranky.

“We don’t have a shroud.”

“Aha, we’re going to use the rug.”

I stare down at Rug, all her red and black and brown zigzag pattern.

“When Old Nick comes back — tonight, or tomorrow night, or whenever — I’m going to tell him you died, I’m going to show him the rug all rolled up with you inside it.”

That’s the craziest thing I ever heard. “Why?”

“Because your body didn’t have enough water left, and I guess the fever stopped your heart.” “No, why in Rug?”

“Ah,” says Ma, “smart question. It’s your disguise, so he doesn’t guess you’re actually alive. See, you did a super job of pretending to be sick last night, but dead is much harder. If he notices you breathing even one time, he’ll know it’s a trick. Besides, dead people are really cold.” “We could use a bag of cold water . . .”

She shakes her head. “Cold all over, not just your face. Oh, and they go stiff as well, you’ll need to lie like you’re a robot.” “Not floppy?”

“The opposite of floppy.”

But it’s him that’s the robot, Old Nick, I have a heart.

“So I think wrapping you up in the rug is the only way to keep him from guessing you’re actually alive. Then I’ll tell him he has to take you somewhere and bury you, see?”

My mouth’s starting to shake. “Why he has to bury me?”

“Because dead bodies start to get stinky fast.”

Room’s pretty stinky already today from not flushing and the vomity pillow and all. “ ‘The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out . . .’ ” “Exactly.”

“I don’t want to get buried and gooey with the worms crawling.”

Ma strokes my head. “It’s just a trick, remember?”

“Like a game.”

“But no laughing. A serious game.”

I nod. I think I’m going to cry.

“Believe me,” says Ma. “If there was anything else I thought had a chance in hell . . .”

I don’t know what a chance in hell is.

“OK.” Ma gets out of Bed. “Let me tell you how it’s going to be and then you won’t be so scared. Old Nick will tap in the numbers to open the door, then he’ll carry you out of Room all rolled up in the rug.”

“Will you be in Rug too?” I know the answer but I ask just in case.

“I’ll be right here, waiting,” says Ma. “He’ll carry you to his pickup truck, he’ll put you in the back of it, the open bit—” “I want to wait here too.”

She puts her finger on my mouth to shush me. “And that’s your chance.”

“What is?”

“The truck! The first time it slows down at a stop sign, you’re going to wriggle out of the rug, jump down onto the street, run away, and bring the police to rescue me.” I stare at her.

“So this time the plan is Dead, Truck, Run, Police, Save Ma. Say it?”

“Dead, Truck, Run, Police, Save Ma.”

We have our breakfast, 125 cereal each because we need extra strength. I’m not hungry but Ma says I should eat them all up.

Then we get dressed and practice the dead bit. It’s like the strangest Phys Ed we ever played. I lie down on the edge of Rug and Ma wraps her over me and tells me to go on my front, then my back, then my front, then my back again, till I’m all rolled up tight. It smells funny in Rug, dusty and something, different from if I lie just on her.

Ma picks me up, I’m squished. She says I’m like a long, heavy package, but Old Nick will lift me easily because he has more muscles. “He’ll carry you up the backyard, probably into his garage, like this—” I feel us going around Room. I’m scrunched in my neck but I don’t move one bit. “Or maybe over his shoulder like this —” She heaves me, she grunts, I’m being pressed in half.

“Is it a long long ways?”

“What’s that?”

My words are getting lost in Rug.

“Hang on,” says Ma, “I just thought, he might put you down a couple of times, to open doors.” She sets me down, my head end first.

“Ow.”

“But you won’t make a sound, will you?”

“Sorry.” Rug’s on my face, she’s itching my nose but I can’t reach it.

“He’ll drop you into the flatbed of his truck, like this.”

She drops me thump, I bite my mouth to not shout.

“Stay stiff, stiff, stiff, like a robot, OK, no matter what happens?”

“OK.”

“Because if you go soft or move or make a single sound, Jack, if you do any of that by mistake, he’ll know you’re really alive, and he’ll be so mad he—” “What?” I wait. “Ma. What’ll he do?”

“Don’t worry, he’s going to believe you’re dead.”

How does she know for sure?

“Then he’ll get in the front of his truck and start driving.”

“Where?”

“Ah, out of the city, probably. Somewhere there’s no people to see him digging a hole, like a forest or something. But the thing is, as soon as the engine starts — it’ll feel loud and buzzy and shaky like this”—she blows a raspberry on me through Rug, raspberries usually make me laugh but not now—“that’s your signal to start getting out of the rug. Try it?”

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?”