Room (18 page)

“Her crying makes a pond, remember?”

“Your ma was crying?” asks Officer Oh.

Outsiders don’t understand anything, I wonder do they watch too much TV. “No, Alice. She’s always wanting to get into the garden, like us.”

“You wanted to get into the garden too?”

“It’s a backyard, but we don’t know the secret code.”

“This room’s right by the backyard?” she asks.

I shake my head.

Officer Oh rubs her face. “Work with me here, Jack. Is this room near a backyard?”

“Not near.”

“OK.”

Ma, Ma, Ma
. “It’s all around.”

“This room’s
in
the backyard?”

“Yeah.”

I made Officer Oh happy but I don’t know how. “Here we go, here we go,” she’s looking at her screen and pressing buttons, “freestanding rear structures on
Carlingford and Washington . . .”

“Skylight,” says the man police.

“Right, with a skylight . . .”

“Is that TV?” I ask.

“Hmm? No, it’s a photo of all these streets. The camera’s way up in space.”

“Outer Space?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool.”

Officer Oh’s voice gets all excited. “Three four nine Washington, shed in the rear, lit skylight . . . Got to be.”

“That’s three four nine Washington,” the man police is saying at his phone. “Go ahead.” He looks back in the mirror. “Owner’s name doesn’t match,
but Caucasian male, DOB twelve-ten-sixty-one . . .”

“Vehicle?”

“Go ahead,” he says again. He waits. “Two thousand one Silverado, brown, K nine three P seven four two.”

“Bingo,” says Officer Oh.

“We’re en route,” he’s saying, “request backup to three four nine Washington.”

The car’s turning right around the other way. Then we’re moving faster, it swirls me.

We’re stopped. Officer Oh’s looking out the window at a house. “No lights on,” she says.

“He’s in Room,” I say, “he’s making her be dead,” but the crying is melting my words so I can’t hear them.

Behind us there’s another car just like this one. More police persons getting out. “Sit tight, Jack.” Officer Oh’s opening the door. “We’re going to go find
your ma.”

I jump, but her hand is making me stay in the car. “Me too,” I’m trying to say but all that comes out is tears.

She’s got a big flashlight she switches on. “This officer will stay right here with you—”

A face I never saw before pushes in.

“No!”

“Give him some space,” Officer Oh tells the new police.

“The blowtorch,” I remember, but it’s too late, she’s gone already.

There’s a creak and the back of the car pops up, the trunk, that’s what it’s called.

I put my hands over my head so nothing can get in, not faces not lights not noises not smells.
Ma Ma don’t be dead don’t be dead don’t be dead . . .

I count to one hundred like Officer Oh said but I’m not any calmer. I do to five hundred, the numbers aren’t working. My back is jumping and shaking, it must be from being cold,
where’s the blanket fallen?

A terrible sound. The police in the front seat is blowing his nose. He does a tiny smile and pokes the tissue in his nose, I look away.

I stare out the window at the house with no lights. A bit of it is open now that wasn’t before I don’t think, the garage, a huge dark square. I’m looking for hundreds of hours,
my eyes get prickly. Someone comes out of the dark but it’s another police I never saw before. Then a person that’s Officer Oh and beside her—

I’m thumping banging on the car door but I don’t know how, I have to smash the glass but I can’t,
Ma Ma Ma Ma Ma Ma Ma Ma—

Ma makes the door be open and I fall halfway out. She’s got me, she’s scooped me all up. It’s her for real, she’s one hundred percent alive.

“We did it,” she says, when we’re both in the back of the car together. “Well,
you
did it, really.”

I’m shaking my head. “I kept messing up the plan.”

“You saved me,” says Ma, she kisses my eye and holds me tight.

“Was he there?”

“No, I was all by myself just waiting, it was the longest hour of my life. The next thing I knew was, the door exploded open, I thought I was having a heart attack.”

“The blowtorch!”

“No, they used a shotgun.”

“I want to see the explosion.”

“It was only for a second. You can see another some time, I promise.” Ma’s grinning. “We can do anything now.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re free.”

I’m dizzy, my eyes shut without me. I’m so sleepy I think my head’s going to fall off.

Ma’s talking in my ear, she says we need to go talk to some more police. I snuggle against her, I say, “Want to go to Bed.”

“They’ll find us somewhere to sleep in a little while.” “No.
Bed
.”

“You mean in Room?” Ma’s pulled back, she’s staring in my eyes.

“Yeah. I’ve seen the world and I’m tired now.”

“Oh, Jack,” she says, “we’re never going back.”

The car starts moving and I’m crying so much I can’t stop.

O
fficer Oh is riding in front, she looks different backwards. She turns around and smiles at me, she says,
“Here’s the precinct.”

“Can you climb out?” asks Ma. “I’ll carry you.” She opens the car and cold air jumps in. I go small. She pulls at me, makes me stand up and I bang my ear on the
car. She’s walking with me up on her hip, I cling onto her shoulders. It’s dark but then there’s lights quick quick like fireworks.

“Vultures,” says Officer Oh.

Where?

“No pictures,” shouts the man police.

What pictures? I don’t see any vultures, I only see person faces with machines flashing and black fat sticks. They’re shouting but I can’t understand. Officer Oh tries to put
the blanket over my head, I push it off. Ma’s running, I’m shaking all about, we’re inside a building and it’s a thousand percent bright so I put my hand over my eyes.

The floor’s all shiny hard not like Floor, the walls are blue and more of them, it’s too loud. There’s persons everywhere not friends of mine. A thing like a spaceship all lit
up with things inside all in their little squares like bags of chips and chocolate bars, I go look and try and touch but they’re locked up in the glass. Ma pulls my hand.

“This way,” says Officer Oh. “No, right in here—”

We’re in a room that’s quieter. A huge wide man says, “I do apologize about the media presence, we’ve upgraded to a trunk system but they’ve got these new tracking
scanners . . .” He’s sticking out his hand. Ma puts me down and does his hand up and down like persons in TV.

“And you, sir, I understand you’ve been a remarkably courageous young man.”

That’s me he’s looking at. But he doesn’t know me and why he says I’m a man? Ma sits down in a chair that’s not our chairs and lets me in her lap. I try to rock but
it’s not Rocker. Everything’s wrong.

“Now,” says the wide man, “I appreciate it’s late, and your son’s got some abrasions that need looking at, and they’re on standby for you at the Cumberland
Clinic, it’s a very nice facility.”

“What kind of facility?”

“Ah, psychiatric.”

“We’re not—”

He butts in. “They’ll be able to give you all the appropriate care, it’s very private. But as a matter of priority I do need to go over your statement tonight in more detail as
you’re able.”

Ma’s nodding.

“Now, certain of my lines of questioning may be distressing, would you prefer Officer Oh remain for this interview?”

“Whatever, no,” says Ma, she yawns.

“Your son’s been through a lot tonight, perhaps he should wait outside while we cover, ah . . .”

But we’re in Outside already.

“That’s OK,” says Ma, wrapping the blue blanket around me. “Don’t shut it,” she says very fast to Officer Oh going out.

“Sure,” says Officer Oh, she makes the door stay halfway open.

Ma’s talking to the huge man, he’s calling her by one of her other names. I’m looking on the walls, they’ve turned creamish like no color. There’s frames with lots
of words in, one with an eagle, he says
The Sky’s No Limit
. Somebody goes by the door, I jump. I wish it was shut. I want some so bad.

Ma pulls her T-shirt down to her pants again. “Not right this minute,” she whispers, “I’m talking to the captain.”

“And this took place—any recollection of the date?” he asks.

She shakes her head. “Late January. I’d only been back at school a couple weeks . . .”

I’m still thirsty, I lift her T-shirt again and this time she puffs her breath and lets me, she curls me against her chest.

“Would you, ah, prefer . . . ?” asks the Captain.

“No, let’s just carry on,” says Ma. It’s the right, there’s not much but I don’t want to climb off and switch sides because she might say
that’s
enough
and it’s not enough.

Ma’s talking for ages about Room and Old Nick and all that, I’m too tired for listening. A she person comes in and tells the Captain something.

Ma says, “Is there a problem?”

“No no,” says the Captain.

“Then why is she staring at us?” Her arm goes around me tight. “I’m nursing my son, is that OK with you, lady?”

Maybe in Outside they don’t know about having some, it’s a secret.

Ma and the Captain talk a lot more. I’m nearly asleep but it’s too bright and I can’t get comfy.

“What is it?” she asks.

“We really have to go back to Room,” I tell her. “I need Toilet.”

“That’s OK, they’ve got them here in the precinct.”

The Captain shows us the way past the amazing machine and I touch the glass nearly at the chocolate bars. I wish I knowed the code to let them out.

There’s one two three four toilets, each in a little room inside a bigger room with four sinks and all mirrors. It’s true, toilets in Outside have lids on their tanks, I can’t
look in. When Ma pees and stands up there’s awful roaring, I cry. “It’s OK,” she says, wiping my face with the flat bits of her hands, “it’s just an automatic
flush. Look, the toilet sees with this little eye when we’re all done and it flushes by itself, isn’t that clever?”

I don’t like a clever toilet looking at our butts.

Ma gets me to step out of my underwear. “I pooed a bit by accident when Old Nick carried me,” I tell her.

“Don’t worry about it,” she says and she does something weird, she throws my underwear in a trash.

“But—”

“You don’t need them anymore, we’ll get you new ones.”

“For Sundaytreat?”

“No, any day we like.”

That’s weird. I’d rather on a Sunday.

The faucet’s like the real ones in Room but wrong shaped. Ma turns it on, she wets paper and wipes my legs and my butt. She puts her hands under a machine, then hot air puffs out, like our
vents but hotter and noisy again. “It’s a hand dryer, look, do you want to try?” She’s smiling at me but I’m too tired for smiling. “OK, just wipe your hands on
your T-shirt.” Then she wraps the blue blanket around me and we go out again. I want to look in the machine where all the cans and bags and chocolate bars are in jail. But Ma pulls me along
to the room where the Captain is for more talking.

After hundreds of hours Ma’s standing me up, I’m all wobbly. Sleep not in Room makes me feel sick.

We’re going to a kind of hospital, but wasn’t that the old Plan A,
Sick, Truck, Hospital?
Ma’s got a blue blanket around her now, I think it’s the one that was on
me but that one’s still on me so hers must be a different. The patrol car looks like the same car but I don’t know, things in Outside are tricksy. I trip on the street and nearly fall
but Ma grabs me.

We’re driving along. When I see a car coming I squeeze my eyes every time.

“They’re on the other side, you know,” says Ma.

“What other side?”

“See that line down the middle? They always have to stay on that side of it, and we stay on this side, so we don’t crash.”

Suddenly we’re stopped. The car opens and a person with no face looks in. I’m screaming.

“Jack, Jack,” says Ma.

“It’s a zombie.”

I keep my face on her tummy.

“I’m Dr. Clay, welcome to the Cumberland,” says the no face with the deepest voice ever booming. “The mask is just to keep you safe. Want to see under?” It pulls
the white bit up and a man person smiling, an extra-brown face with the tiniest triangle of black chin. He lets the mask back on, snap. His talk comes through the white. “Here’s one for
each of you.”

Ma takes the masks. “Do we have to?”

“Think of everything floating around that your son’s probably never come in contact with before.”

“OK.” She puts one mask on her and one on me with loops around my ears. I don’t like the way it presses. “I don’t see anything floating around,” I whisper to
Ma.

“Germs,” she says.

I thought they were only in Room, I didn’t know the world was all full of them too.

We’re walking in a big lighted building, I think it’s the Precinct again but then it’s not. There’s a somebody called the Admission Coordinator tapping on a—I know,
it’s a computer, just like in TV. They all look like the persons on the medical planet, I have to keep remembering they’re real.

I see the most coolest thing, it’s a huge glass with corners but instead of cans and chocolate there’s fish alive, swimming and hiding with rocks. I pull Ma’s hand but she
won’t come, she’s still talking to the Admission Coordinator that has a name on her label too, it’s Pilar.

“Listen, Jack,” Dr. Clay says, he bends down his legs so he’s like a giant frog, why is he doing that? His head is nearly beside mine, his hair is just fuzz like a quarter of
an inch long. He doesn’t have his mask anymore, it’s only me and Ma. “We need to take a look at your mom in that room across the hall, OK?”

It’s me he’s saying. But didn’t he look at her already?

Ma’s shaking her head. “Jack stays with me.”

“Dr. Kendrick—she’s our general medical resident on duty—she’s going to have to administer the evidence collection kit right away, I’m afraid. Blood, urine,
hair, fingernail scrapings, oral swabs, vaginal, anal—”