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?”
“And rescue us!”
“No, he’d never let that happen.”
“What would he do?”
Ma’s sucking in her lips so she doesn’t have any. “The point is, we need to escape before that. You’re going to get back in the rug now and practice some more till you get the knack of the wriggling out.”
“No.”
“Jack, please—”
“I’m too scared,” I shout. “I won’t do it not ever and I hate you.”
Ma’s breathing funny, she sits down on Floor. “That’s all right.”
How is it all right if I hate her?
Her hands are on her tummy. “I brought you into Room, I didn’t mean to but I did it and I’ve never once been sorry.” I stare at her and she stares back.
“I brought you here, and tonight I’m going to get you out.”
“OK.”
I say it very small but she hears. She nods.
“And you, with the blowtorch. One at a time but both.”
Ma’s still nodding. “You’re the one who matters, though. Just you.”
I shake my head till it’s wobbling because there’s no just me.
We look at each other not smiling.
“Ready to get back in the rug?”
I nod. I lie down, Ma rolls me up extra tight. “I can’t—”
“Sure you can.” I feel her patting me through Rug.
“I can’t, I can’t.”
“Could you count to one hundred for me?”
I do, easy, very fast.
“You sound calmer already. We’re going to figure this out in a minute,” says Ma. “Hmm. I wonder — if the wriggling’s not working, could you sort of . . . unwrap yourself instead?”
“But I’m on the inside.”
“I know, but you can reach out the top with your hands and find the corner. Let’s try that.” I feel around till I get something that’s pointy.
“That’s it,” says Ma. “Great, now pull. Not that way, the other way, so you feel it coming loose. Like peeling a banana.” I do just a bit.
“You’re lying on the edge, you’re weighing it down.”
“Sorry.” The tears are coming back.
“You don’t have to be sorry, you’re doing great. What if you rolled?”
“Which way?”
“Whichever way feels looser. On your tummy, maybe, then find the edge of the rug again and pull it.” “I can’t.”
I do it. I get one elbow out.
“Excellent,” says Ma. “You’ve really loosened it at the top. Hey, what about sitting up, do you think you could sit up?” It hurts and it’s impossible.
I get sitting up and both my elbows are out and Rug’s coming undone around my face. I can pull her all off. “I did it,” I shout, “I’m the banana.” “You’re the banana,” says Ma. She kisses me on my face that’s all wet. “Now let’s try that again.” When I’m so tired I have to stop, Ma tells me how it’ll be in Outside. “Old Nick will be driving down the street. You’re in the back, the open bit of the truck, so he can’t see you, OK? Grab hold of the edge of the truck so you don’t fall over, because it’ll be moving fast, like this.” She pulls me and wobbles me side to side. “Then when he puts the brakes on, you’ll feel sort of — yanked the other way, as the truck slows down. That means a stop sign, where drivers have to stop for a second.” “Even him?”