Room (32 page)

Ma only drinks water and milk and juice like me, I wonder what keeps her going. “What do kids have?”

“Ah, kids are just full of beans.”

Baked beans keep me going all right but green beans are my enemy food. Grandma made them a few dinners ago and I just pretended I didn’t see them on my plate. Now I’m in the world,
I’m never going to eat green beans again.

•   •   •

I’m sitting on the stairs listening to the ladies.

“Mmm. Knows more math than me but can’t go down a slide,” says Grandma.

That’s me, I think.

They’re her book club but I don’t know why because they’re not reading books. She forgot to cancel them so they all came at 03:30 with plates of cakes and stuff. I have three
cakes on a little plate but I have to stay out of the way. Also Grandma gave me five keys on a key ring that says
POZZO’S HOUSE OF PIZZA,
I wonder how a house is made of pizza,
wouldn’t it flop? They’re not actually keys to anywhere but they jingle, I got them for promising not to take the key out of the liquor cabinet anymore. The first cake is called
coconut, it’s yucky. The second is lemon and the third is I don’t know but I like it the best.

“You must be worn to the bone,” says one of the ladies with the highest voice.

“Heroic,” says another.

Also I have the camera on borrow, not Steppa’s fancy-schmancy one with the giant circle but the one hidden in the eye of Grandma’s cell phone, if it rings I have to shout to her and
not answer it. So far I have ten pictures, one of my softy shoes, two of the light in the ceiling in the fitness suite, three of the dark in the basement (only the picture came out too bright),
four of my hand inside with its lines, five of a hole beside the refrigerator I was hoping it might be a mouse hole, six of my knee in pants, seven of the carpet in the living room up close, eight
was meant to be Dora when she was in TV this morning but it’s all zigzaggy, nine is Steppa not smiling, ten is out the bedroom window with a gull going by only the gull’s not in the
photo. I was going to take one of me in the mirror but then I’d be a paparazzi.

“Well, he looks like a little angel from the photos,” one of the ladies is saying.

How did she see my ten photos? And I don’t look a bit like an angel, they’re massive with wings.

“You mean that bit of grainy footage outside the police station?” says Grandma.

“Oh, no, the close-ups, from when they were doing the interview with . . .”

“My daughter, yes. But close-ups of
Jack?
” She sounds furious.

“Oh, honey, they’re all over the Internet,” says another voice.

Then lots are talking all at once. “Didn’t you know?”

“Everything gets leaked, these days.”

“The world’s one big oyster.”

“Terrible.”

“Such horrors, in the news every day, sometimes I just feel like staying in bed with the drapes closed.”

“I still can’t believe it,” says the deep voice. “I remember saying to Bill, seven years back, how could something like this happen to a girl we
know?
”

“We all thought she was dead. Of course we never liked to say —”

“And you had such faith.”

“Who could have imagined—?”

“Any more tea for anyone?” That’s Grandma.

“Well, I don’t know. I spent a week in a monastery in Scotland once,” says another voice, “it was so peaceful.”

My cakes are gone except the coconut. I leave the plate on the step and go up to the bedroom and look at my treasures. I put Tooth back in my mouth for a suck. He doesn’t taste like
Ma.

•   •   •

Grandma’s finded a big box of LEGOs in the basement that belongs to Paul and Ma. “What would you like to make?” she asks me. “A house? A skyscraper?
Maybe a town?”

“Might want to lower your sights a little,” says Steppa behind his newspaper.

There’s so many tiny pieces all colors, it’s like a soup. “Well,” says Grandma, “go wild. I’ve got ironing to do.”

I look at the LEGOs but I don’t touch in case I break them.

After a minute Steppa puts his paper down. “I haven’t done this in too long.” He starts grabbing pieces just anyhow and squishing them together so they stick.

“Why you haven’t—?”

“Good question, Jack.”

“Did you play LEGO with your kids?”

“I don’t have any kids.”

“How come?”

Steppa shrugs. “Just never happened.”

I watch his hands, they’re lumpy but clever. “Is there a word for adults when they aren’t parents?”

Steppa laughs. “Folks with other things to do?”

“Like what things?”

“Jobs, I guess. Friends. Trips. Hobbies.”

“What’s hobbies?”

“Ways of spending the weekend. Like, I used to collect coins, old ones from all over the world, I stored them in velvet cases.”

“Why?”

“Well, they were easier than kids, no stinky diapers.”

That makes me laugh.

He holds out the LEGO bits, they’ve magically turned into a car. It’s got one two three four wheels that turn and a roof and a driver and all.

“How you did that?”

“One piece at a time. You pick one now,” he says.

“Which?”

“Anything at all.”

I choose a big red square.

Steppa gives me a small bit with a wheel. “Stick that on.”

I put it so the bump is under the other bump’s hole and I press hard.

He hands me another wheel bit, I push that on.

“Nice bike.
Vroom!
”

He says it so loud I drop the LEGO on the floor and a wheel comes off. “Sorry.”

“No need for sorry. Let me show you something.” He puts his car on the floor and steps on it,
crunch
. It’s in all pieces. “See?” says Steppa. “No
problemo. Let’s start again.”

•   •   •

Grandma says I smell.

“I wash with the cloth.”

“Yeah, but dirt hides in the cracks. So I’m going to run a bath, and you’re going to get in it.”

She makes the water very high and steamy and she pours in bubble stuff for sparkly hills. The green of the bath is nearly hidden but I know it’s still there. “Clothes off,
sweetie.” She stands with her hands on her hips. “You don’t want me to see? You’d rather I was outside the door?”

“No!”

“What’s the matter?” She waits. “Do you think without your ma in the bath you’ll drown or something?”

I didn’t know persons could drown in baths.

“I’ll sit right here all the time,” she says, patting the lid of the toilet.

I shake my head. “You be in the bath too.”

“Me? Oh, Jack, I have my shower every morning. What if I sit right on the edge of the bath like this?”

“In it.”

Grandma stares at me. Then she groans, she says, “OK, if that’s what it takes, just this once. . . . But I’m wearing my swimsuit.”

“I don’t know to swim.”

“No, we won’t actually be swimming, I just, I’d rather not be naked if that’s all right with you.”

“Does it make you scared?”

“No,” she says, “I just—I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.”

“Can I be naked?”

“Of course, you’re a kid.”

In Room we were sometimes naked and sometimes dressed, we never minded.

“Jack, can we just get in this bath before it’s cold?”

It’s not nearly cold, there’s still steam flying off it. I start taking off my clothes. Grandma says she’ll be back in a sec.

Statues can be naked even if they’re adults, or maybe they have to be. Steppa says that’s because they’re trying to look like old statues that were always naked because the old
Romans thought bodies are the most beautiful thing. I lean against the bath but the hard outside is cold on my tummy. There’s that bit in
Alice,

My fingers are scuba divers. The soap falls in the water and I play it’s a shark. Grandma comes in with a stripey thing on like underwear and T-shirt stuck together with beads, also a
plastic bag on her head she says is called a shower cap even though we’re having a bath. I don’t laugh at her, only inside.

When she climbs in the bath the water gets higher, I get in too and it’s nearly spilling. She’s at the smooth end, Ma always sat at the faucet end. I make sure I don’t touch
Grandma’s legs with my legs. I bang my head on a faucet.

“Careful.”

Why do persons only say that after the hurt?

Grandma doesn’t remember any bath games except “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” when we try that it makes a slosh on the floor.

She doesn’t have any toys. I play the nailbrush is a submarine that brushes the seabed, it finds the soap that’s a gooey jellyfish.

After we dry ourselves, I’m scratching my nose and a bit comes off in my nail. In the mirror there’s little scaly circles where some of me is peeling off.

Steppa’s come in for his slippers. “I used to love this . . .” He touches my shoulder and suddenly there’s a strip of all thin and white, I didn’t feel it go. He
holds it out for me to take. “That’s a goody.”

“Stop that,” says Grandma.

I rub the white thing and it rolls up, a tiny dried ball of me. “Again,” I say.

“Hang on, let me find a long bit on your back . . .”

“Men,” says Grandma, making a face.

•   •   •

This morning the kitchen’s empty. I get the scissors from the drawer and cut my ponytail all off.

Grandma comes in and stares. “Well, I’m going to just tidy you up, if I may,” she says, “and then you can get the brush and pan. Really we should keep a piece, as
it’s your first haircut . . .”

Most goes in the trash but she takes three long bits and makes a braid that’s a bracelet for me with green thread on the end.

She says go look in a mirror but first I check my muscles, I still have my strong.

•   •   •

The newspaper at the top says
Saturday April 17,
that means I’ve been at Grandma and Steppa’s house one whole week. I was one week in the Clinic before, that
equals two weeks I’ve been in the world. I keep adding it up to check, because it feels like a million years and Ma’s still not coming for me.

Grandma says we have to get out of this house. Nobody would know me now my hair’s all short and going curly. She tells me to take my shades off because my eyes must be used to Outside now
and besides the shades will only attract attention.

We cross lots of roads holding hands and not letting the cars squish us. I don’t like the holding hands, I pretend they’re some boy else’s she’s holding. Then Grandma has
a good idea, I can hold on to the chain of her purse instead.

There’s lots of every kind of thing in the world but it all costs money, even stuff to throw away, like the man in the line ahead of us in the convenience store buys a something in a box
and rips the box and puts it in the trash right away. The little cards with numbers all over are called a lottery, idiots buy them hoping to get magicked into millionaires.

In the post office we buy stamps, we send Ma a picture I did of me in a rocket ship.

We go in a skyscraper that’s Paul’s office, he says he’s crazy busy but he makes a Xerox of my hands and buys me a candy bar out of the vending machine. Going down in the
elevator pressing the buttons, I play I’m actually inside a vending machine.

We go in a bit of the government to get Grandma a new Social Security card because she lost the old one, we have to wait for years and years. Afterwards she takes me in a coffee shop where
there’s no green beans, I choose a cookie bigger than my face.

There’s a baby having some, I never saw that. “I like the left,” I say, pointing. “Do you like the left best?” But the baby’s not listening.

Grandma’s pulling me away. “Sorry about that.”

The woman puts her scarf over so I can’t see the baby’s face.

“She wanted to be private,” Grandma whispers.

I didn’t know persons could be private out in the world.

We go in a Laundromat just to see. I want to climb in a spinny machine but Grandma says it would kill me.

We walk to the park to feed the ducks with Deana and Bronwyn. Bronwyn throws all her breads in at one go and the plastic bag too and Grandma has to get it out with a stick. Bronwyn wants my
breads, Grandma says I have to give her half because she’s little. Deana says she’s sorry about the dinosaurs, we’ll definitely make it to the Natural History Museum one of these
days.

There’s a store that’s only shoes outside, bright spongy ones with holes all over them and Grandma lets me try on a pair, I choose yellow. There’s no laces or Velcro even, I
just put my foot in. They’re so light it’s like not having any on. We go in and Grandma pays five dollar papers for the shoes, that’s the same as twenty quarters, I tell her I
love them.

When we come out there’s a woman sitting on the ground with her hat off. Grandma gives me two quarters and points to the hat.

I put one in the hat and I run after Grandma.

When she’s doing my seat belt she says, “What’s that in your hand?”

I hold up the second coin, “It’s NEBRASKA
,
I’m keeping it for my treasures.”

She clicks her tongue and takes it back. “You should have given it to the street person like I told you to.”

“OK, I’ll—”

“Too late now.”

She starts the car. All I can see is the back of her yellowy hair. “Why she’s a street person?”

“That’s where she lives, on the street. No bed even.”

Now I feel bad I didn’t give her the second quarter.

Grandma says that’s called having a conscience.

In a store window I see squares that are like Room, cork tiles, Grandma lets me go in to stroke one and smell it but she won’t buy it.

We go in a car wash, the brushes swish us all over but the water doesn’t come in our tight windows, it’s hilarious.

In the world I notice persons are nearly always stressed and have no time. Even Grandma often says that, but she and Steppa don’t have jobs, so I don’t know how persons with jobs do
the jobs and all the living as well. In Room me and Ma had time for everything. I guess the time gets spread very thin like butter over all the world, the roads and houses and playgrounds and
stores, so there’s only a little smear of time on each place, then everyone has to hurry on to the next bit.