Emma Donoghue - Room - A Novel

The wildlife ends too quick so I switch over to two men only wearing shorts and sneakers and dripping hot. “Uh-oh, hitting’s not allowed,” I tell them. “Baby Jesus is going to be mad.”

The one in yellow shorts bashes the hairy one on the eye.

Ma groans as if she’s hurting. “Do we have to watch this?”

I tell her, “In a minute the police are going to come weee-ahhh weee-ahhh weee-ahhh and lock those bad guys up in jail.”

“Actually, boxing . . . it’s nasty but it’s a game, it’s kind of allowed if they have those special gloves on. Now time’s up.”

“One game of Parrot, that’s good for vocabulary.”

“OK.” She goes over and switches to the red couch planet where the puffy-hair woman that’s the boss asks the other persons questions and hundreds of other persons clap.

I listen extra hard, she’s talking to a man with one leg, I think he lost the other in a war.

“Parrot,” shouts Ma and she mutes them with the button.

“ Most poignant aspect, I think for all our viewers that’s what’s most deeply moving about what you endured —” I run out of words.

“Good pronunciation,” says Ma. “ Poignant means sad.”

“Again.”

“The same show?”

“No, a different.”

She finds a news one that’s even harder. “Parrot.” She mutes it again.

“Ah, with the whole labeling debate coming hard on the heels of health-care reform, and bearing in mind of course the midterms—”

“Any more?” Ma waits. “Good, again. But it was labor law, not labeling.”

“What’s the difference?”

“ Labeling is stickers on tomatoes, say, and labor law —”

I do a huge yawn.

“Never mind.” Ma grins and switches the TV off.

I hate when the pictures disappear and the screen’s just gray again. I always want to cry but just for a second.

I get on Ma’s lap in Rocker with our legs all jumbled up. She’s the wizard transformed into a giant squid and I’m Prince JackerJack and I escape in the end. We do tickles and Bouncy Bouncy and jaggedy shadows on Bed Wall.

Then I ask for JackerJackRabbit, he’s always doing cunning tricks on that Brer Fox. He lies down in the road pretending to be dead and Brer Fox sniffs him and says, “I better not take him home, he’s too stinky . . .” Ma sniffs me all over and makes hideous faces and I try not to laugh so Brer Fox won’t know I’m actually alive but I always do.

For a song I want a funny, she starts, “ ‘The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out—’ ”

“ ‘They eat your guts like sauerkraut—,’ ” I sing.

“ ‘They eat your eyes, they eat your nose—’ ”

“ ‘They eat the dirt between your toes—’ ”

I have lots on Bed but my mouth is sleepy. Ma carries me into Wardrobe, she tucks Blanket around my neck, I pull her looser again. My fingers go choo-choo along her red line.

Beep beep, that’s Door. Ma jumps up and makes a sound, I think she hit her head. She shuts Wardrobe tight.

The air that comes in is freezing, I think it’s a bit of Outer Space, it smells yum. Door makes his thump that means Old Nick’s in now. I’m not sleepy anymore. I get up on my knees and look through the slats, but all I can see is Dresser and Bath and a curve of Table.

“Looks tasty.” Old Nick’s voice is extra deep.

“Oh, it’s just the last of the birthday cake,” says Ma.

“Should have reminded me, I could have brought him something. What’s he now, four?”

I wait for Ma to say, but she doesn’t. “Five.” I whisper it.

But she must hear me, because she comes close to Wardrobe and says “Jack” in a mad voice.

Old Nick laughs, I didn’t know he could. “It speaks.”

Why does he say it not he?

“Want to come out of there and try on your new jeans?”

It’s not Ma he’s saying that to, it’s me. My chest starts to go dung dung dung.

“He’s nearly asleep,” says Ma.

No I’m not. I wish I didn’t whisper five so he heard me, I wish I didn’t anything.

Something else I can’t quite hear—

“OK, OK,” Old Nick is saying. “Can I’ve a slice?”

“It’s getting stale. If you really want—”

“No, forget it, you’re the boss.”

Ma doesn’t say anything.

“I’m just the grocery boy, take out your trash, trek around the kidswear aisles, up the ladder to deice your skylight, at your service ma’am . . .” I think he’s doing sarcasm, when he says the really opposite with a voice that’s all twisty.

“Thanks for that.” Ma doesn’t sound like her. “It makes it much brighter.”

“There, that didn’t hurt, did it?”

“Sorry. Thanks a lot.”

“Like pulling teeth sometimes,” says Old Nick.

“And thanks for the groceries, and the jeans.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Here, I’ll get you a plate, maybe the middle’s not too bad.”

There’s some clinks, I think she’s giving him cake. My cake.

After a minute he talks blurry. “Yup, pretty stale.”

His mouth is full of my cake.

Lamp goes off snap, that makes me jump. I don’t mind dark but I don’t like when it surprises me. I lie down under Blanket and I wait.

When Old Nick creaks Bed, I listen and count fives on my fingers, tonight it’s 217 creaks. I always have to count till he makes that gaspy sound and stops. I don’t know what would happen if I didn’t count, because I always do.

What about the nights I’m asleep?

I don’t know, maybe Ma does the counting.

After the 217 it’s all quiet.

I hear the TV switch on, it’s just the news planet, I see bits with tanks through the slats that’s not very interesting. I put my head under Blanket. Ma and Old Nick are talking a bit but I don’t listen.

I wake up in Bed and it’s raining, that’s when Skylight’s all blurry. Ma gives me some and she’s doing “Singing in the Rain” very quietly.

Right doesn’t taste yummy. I sit up remembering. “Why you didn’t tell him before that it was my birthday?”

Ma stops smiling. “You’re meant to be asleep when he’s here.”

“But if you told him, he’d brung me something.”

“Bring you something,” she says. “So he says.”

“What kind of something?” I wait. “You should have remembered him.”

Ma stretches her arms over her head. “I don’t want him bringing you things.”

“But Sundaytreat—”

“That’s different, Jack, that’s stuff we need that I ask him for.” She points to Dresser, there’s a blue folded up. “There are your new jeans, by the way.”

She goes over to pee.

“You could ask him for a present for me. I never got a present in my life.”

“Your present was from me, remember? It was the drawing.”

“I don’t want the dumbo drawing.” I’m crying.

Ma dries her hands and comes to hold me. “It’s OK.”

“It might—”

“I can’t hear you. Take a big breath.”

“It might—”

“Tell me what’s the matter.”

“It might be a dog.”

“What might?”

I can’t stop, I have to talk through the crying. “The present. It might be a dog turned to real, and we could call it Lucky.” Ma wipes my eyes with the flat of her hands. “You know we don’t have room.”

“Yeah we do.”

“Dogs need walks.”

“We walk.”

“But a dog—”

“We run a long long way on Track, Lucky could go beside us. I bet he’d be faster than you.”

“Jack. A dog would drive us nuts.”

“No he wouldn’t.”