Room (17 page)

“Can you tell me what you’re called?”

Ma said to talk to the somebody, that’s my job. I try and nothing comes out. I lick my mouth. “Jack.”

“What’s that?” He bends nearer, I curl up with my head in my arms. “It’s OK, no one’s going to hurt you. Tell me your name a little louder?”

It’s easier to say if I don’t look at him. “Jack.”

“Jackie?”

“Jack.”

“Oh. Right, sorry. Your dad’s gone now, Jack.”

What’s he saying about?

The baby starts pulling at his, the thing over his shirt, it’s a jacket. “I’m Ajeet, by the way,” the man person says, “and this is my daughter—hang on,
Naisha. Jack needs a Band-Aid for that ouchy on his knee, let’s see if . . .” He’s feeling in all the bits of his bag. “Raja’s really sorry he bit you.”

The dog doesn’t look sorry, he’s got all pointy dirty teeth. Did he drink my blood like a vampire?

“You don’t look too good, Jack, have you been sick lately?”

I shake my head. “Ma.”

“What’s that?”

“Ma throwed up on my T-shirt.”

The baby’s talking more but not in language. She’s grabbing the Raja dog’s ears, why isn’t she scared of him?

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that,” says the Ajeet man.

I don’t say anything else.

“The police should be here any minute, OK?” He’s turned to look up the street, the Naisha baby’s crying a bit now. He bounces her on his knee. “Home to Ammi in a
minute, home to bed.”

I think about Bed. The warm.

He’s pressing the little buttons on his phone and talking more but I don’t listen.

I want to get away. But I think if I move, the Raja dog will bite me and drink more of my blood. I’m sitting on a line so there’s some of me in one square and some in another. My
eaten finger hurts and hurts and so does my knee, the right one, there’s blood coming out of it where the skin broke, it was red but it’s going black. There’s a pointy oval beside
my foot, I try to pick it up but it’s stuck, then it comes in my fingers, it’s a leaf. It’s a leaf from a real tree like the one that was on Skylight that day. I look up,
there’s a tree over me that must have dropped the leaf. The huge light pole is blinding me. The whole bigness of the sky behind it is black now, the pink and orange bits are gone where? The
air’s moving in my face, I’m shaking by accident.

“You must be cold. Are you cold?”

I think it’s the baby Naisha that the Ajeet man is asking but it’s me, I know because he’s taking off his jacket and holding it out to me.

“Here.”

I shake my head because it’s a person jacket, I never had a jacket.

“How did you lose your shoes?”

What shoes?

The Ajeet man stops talking after that.

A car stops, I know what kind it is, it’s a cop car from TV. Persons get out, two of them, short hair, one black hair one yellowy hair, and all moving quick. Ajeet talks to them. The baby
Naisha is trying to get away but he keeps her in his arms, not hurting I don’t think. Raja is lying down on some brownish stuff, it’s grass, I thought it would be green, there’s
some squares of it all along the sidewalk. I wish I had the note still but Old Nick disappeared it. I don’t know the words, they got bumped out of my head.

Ma’s in Room still, I want her here so much much much. Old Nick ran off driving fast in his truck but where’s he going, not the lake or the trees anymore because he saw me not be
dead, I was allowed kill him but I didn’t manage it.

I have a suddenly terrible idea. Maybe he went back to Room, maybe he’s there right now making Door
beep beep
open and he’s mad, it’s my fault for not being
dead—

“Jack?”

I look for the mouth moving. It’s the police, the one that’s a she I think but it’s hard to tell, the black hair not the yellow. She says, “Jack,” again. How does
she know? “I’m Officer Oh. Can you tell me how old you are?”

I have to
Save Ma,
I have to talk to the police to get the
Blowtorch,
but my mouth isn’t working. She’s got a thing on her belt, it’s a gun, just like a police on
TV. What if they’re bad police like locked up Saint Peter, I never thought of that. I look at the belt not the face, it’s a cool belt with a buckle.

“Do you know your age?”

Easy-peasy. I hold up five fingers.

“Five years old, great.” Officer Oh says something I don’t hear. Then about a dress. She says it twice.

I talk as loud as I can but not looking. “I don’t have a dress.”

“No? Where do you sleep at night?”

“In Wardrobe.”

“In a wardrobe?”

Try,
Ma’s saying in my head, but Old Nick’s beside her, he’s the maddest ever and—

“Did you say, in a wardrobe?”

“You’ve got three dresses,” I say. “I mean Ma. One is pink and one is green with stripes and one is brown but you—she prefers jeans.”

“Your ma, is that what you said?” asks Officer Oh. “Is that who’s got the dresses?”

Nodding’s easier.

“Where’s your ma tonight?”

“In Room.”

“In a room, OK,” she says. “Which room?”

“Room.”

“Can you tell us where it is?”

I remember something. “Not on any map.”

She does a breath out, I don’t think my answers are any good.

The other police is a he maybe, I never saw hair like that for real, it’s nearly see-through. He says, “We’re at Navaho and Alcott, got a disturbed juvenile, possible
domestic.” I think he’s talking to his phone. It’s like playing Parrot, I know the words but I don’t know what they mean. He comes closer to Officer Oh. “Any
joy?”

“Slow going.”

“Same with the witness. Suspect’s white male, maybe five ten, forties, fifties, fled the scene in a maroon or dark brown pickup, possibly an F one-fifty or a Ram, starts K nine
three, could be a
B
or a
P,
no state . . .”

“The man you were with, was that your dad?” Officer Oh is talking to me again.

“I don’t have one.”

“Your Mom’s boyfriend?”

“I don’t have one.” I said that before, am I allowed say twice?

“Do you know his name?”

I make me remember. “Ajeet.”

“No, the other guy, the one who went off in the truck.”

“Old Nick.” I whisper it because he wouldn’t like me saying.

“What’s that?”

“Old Nick.”

“That’s negative,” the man police says at his phone. “Suspect GOA, first name Nick, Nicholas, no second name.”

“And what’s your ma called?” asks Officer Oh.

“Ma.”

“Has she got another name?”

I hold up two fingers.

“Two of them? Great. Can you remember what they are?”

They were in the note that he disappeared. I suddenly remember a bit. “He stole us.”

Officer Oh sits down beside me on the ground. It’s not like Floor, it’s all hard and shivery. “Jack, would you like a blanket?”

I don’t know. Blanket’s not here.

“You’ve got some nasty cuts there. Did this Nick guy hurt you?”

The man police is back, he holds out a blue thing to me, I don’t touch. “Go ahead,” he says at his phone.

Officer Oh folds the blue thing around me, it’s not fleecy gray like Blanket, it’s rougher. “How did you get those cuts?”

“The dog is a vampire.” I look for Raja and his humans but they’re disappeared. “This finger it bit, and my knee was the ground.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“The street, it hit me.”

“Go ahead.” The man police says that, he’s talking at his phone again. Then he looks at Officer Oh and says, “Should I get on to Child Protection?”

“Give me another couple minutes,” she says. “Jack, I bet you’re good at telling stories.”

How does she know? The man police looks at his watch that he’s got stuck on his wrist. I remember Ma’s wrist that doesn’t work right. Is Old Nick there now, is he twisting her
wrist or her neck, is he ripping her in pieces?

“Do you think you could tell me what happened tonight?” Officer Oh grins at me. “And maybe you could talk real slow and clear, because my ears don’t work too well.”
Maybe she’s deaf, but she doesn’t talk with her fingers like deafs on TV.

“Copy,” says the man police.

“You ready?” says Officer Oh.

It’s me her eyes are on. I shut mine and pretend it’s Ma I’m talking to, that makes me brave. “We did a trick,” I say very slow, “me and Ma, we were
pretending I was sick and then I was dead but really I’ll unwrap myself and jump out of the truck, only I was meant to jump at the first slowing down but I didn’t manage.”

“OK, what happened then?” That’s Officer Oh’s voice right beside my head.

I still don’t look or I’ll forget the story. “I had a note in my underwear but he disappeared it. I’ve still got Tooth.” I put my fingers in my sock for him. I open
my eyes.

“Can I see that?”

She tries to take Tooth but I don’t let her. “It’s of Ma.”

“That’s your ma that you were talking about?”

I think her brain’s not working like her ears aren’t, how could Ma be a tooth? I shake my head. “Just a bit of her dead spit that fell out.”

Officer Oh looks at Tooth up close and her face gets all hard. The man police shakes his head and says something I can’t hear.

“Jack,” she says, “you told me you were supposed to jump out of the truck the first time it slowed down?”

“Yeah but I was still in Rug, then I unpeeled the banana but I wasn’t scave enough.” I’m looking at Officer Oh and I’m talking at the same time. “But after
the third time stopping, the truck went
wooooo
—”

“It went what?”

“Like—” I show her. “All a different way.”

“It turned.”

“Yeah, and I got banged and he, Old Nick, he climbed out all mad and that’s when I jumped.”

“Bingo.” Officer Oh claps her hands.

“Huh?” says the man police.

“Three stop signs and a turn. Left or right?” She waits. “Never mind, great job, Jack.” She’s staring down the street and then she’s got a thing in her hand
like a phone, where did that come from? She’s watching the little screen, she says, “Get them to cross-ref the partial plates with . . . try Carlingford Avenue, maybe Washington Drive .
. .”

I don’t see Raja and Ajeet and Naisha anymore at all. “Did the dog go to jail?”

“No, no,” says Officer Oh, “it was an honest mistake.”

“Go ahead,” the man police tells his phone. He shakes his head at Officer Oh.

She stands up. “Hey, maybe Jack can find the house for us. Would you like a ride in a patrol car?”

I can’t get up, she puts out her hand but I pretend I don’t see. I put one foot under then another and I’m up a bit dizzy. At the car I climb in where the door’s open.
Officer Oh sits in the back too and clicks the seat belt on me, I go small so her hand doesn’t touch except the blue blanket.

The car’s moving now, not so rattly like the truck, it’s soft and humming. A bit like that couch in the TV planet with the puffy-hair lady asking questions, only it’s Officer
Oh. “This room,” she says, “is it in a bungalow, or are there stairs?”

“It’s not a house.” I’m watching the shiny bit in the middle, it’s like Mirror but tiny. I see the man police’s face in it, he’s the driver. His eyes
are looking at me backwards in the little mirror so I look out the window instead. Everything’s slipping past making me giddy. There’s all light that comes out of the car onto the road,
it paints over everything. Here comes another car, a white one super fast, it’s going to crash into—

“It’s OK,” says Officer Oh.

When I take my hands off my face the other car’s gone, did this one disappear it?

“Anything ringing a bell?”

I don’t hear any bells. It’s all trees and houses and cars dark.
Ma, Ma, Ma
. I don’t hear her in my head, she’s not talking. His hands are so tight around her,
tighter tighter tighter, she can’t talk, she can’t breathe, she can’t anything. Alive things bend but she’s bent and bent and—

“Does this look like it might be your street?” asks Officer Oh.

“I haven’t got a street.”

“I mean the street this Nick guy took you from tonight.”

“I never saw it.”

“What’s that?”

I’m tired of saying.

Officer Oh clicks with her tongue.

“No sign of any pickups except that black one back there,” says the man police.

“Might as well pull over.”

The car stops, I’m sorry.

“You figure some kind of cult?” he says. “The long hair, no surnames, the state of that tooth . . .”

Officer Oh twists her mouth. “Jack, is there daylight in this room of yours?”

“It’s night,” I tell her, didn’t she notice?

“I mean in the daytime. Where does the light come in?”

“Skylight.”

“There’s a skylight, excellent.”

“Go ahead,” the man police says at his phone.

Officer Oh is looking at her shiny screen again. “Sat’s showing a couple houses with attic skylights on Carlingford . . .”

“Room’s not in a house,” I say again.

“I’m having trouble understanding, Jack. What’s it in, then?”

“Nothing. Room’s inside.”

Ma’s there and Old Nick too, he wants somebody to be dead and it’s not me.

“So what’s outside it?”

“Outside.”

“Tell me more about what’s outside.”

“Got to hand it to you,” the man police says, “you don’t give up.”

Am I the
you?

“Go on, Jack,” says Officer Oh, “tell me about what’s just outside this room.”

“Outside,” I shout. I have to explain fast for Ma,
wait Ma wait for me
. “It’s got stuff for real like ice cream and trees and stores and airplanes and farms and
the hammock.”

Officer Oh is nodding.

I have to try harder, I don’t know what. “But it’s locked and we don’t know the code.”

“You wanted to unlock the door and get outside?”

“Like Alice.”

“Is Alice another friend of yours?”

I nod. “She’s in the book.”

“
Alice in Wonderland
. For crying out loud,” says the man police.

I know that bit. But how did he read our book, he wasn’t ever in Room. I say to him, “Do you know the bit where her crying makes a pond?”

“What’s that?” He looks at me backwards in the little mirror.