“Oh, yeah. So as soon as you feel like the truck’s hardly moving anymore, then it’s safe for you to jump over the side.” Into Outer Space. I don’t say it, I know that’s wrong.
“You’ll land on the pavement, it’ll be hard like—” She looks around. “Like ceramic, but rougher. And then you run, run, run, like GingerJack.” “The fox ate GingerJack.”
“OK, bad example,” says Ma. “But this time it’s us who’re the tricksy trickers. ‘Jack be nimble, Jack be quick—’ ” “ ‘Jack jump over the candlestick.’ ”
“You have to run along the street, away from the truck, super fast, like — remember that cartoon we saw once, Road Runner?” “Tom and Jerry, they run as well.”
Ma is nodding. “All that matters is, don’t let Old Nick catch you. Oh, but try and get onto the sidewalk if you can, the bit that’s higher, then a car won’t knock you down. And you need to be screaming as well, so somebody will help you.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know, anybody.”
“Who’s anybody?”
“Just run up to the first person you see. Or — it’ll be pretty late.
Maybe there’ll be nobody out walking.” She’s biting her thumb, the nail of it, I don’t tell her to stop. “If you don’t see anybody, you’ll have to wave at a car to make it stop, and tell the people in it that you and your ma have been kidnapped. Or if there’s no cars — oh, man — I guess you’ll have to run up to a house — any house that’s got lights on — and bang on the door as hard as you can with your fists. But only a house with lights on, not an empty one. It has to be the front door, will you know which that is?”
“The one at the front.”
“Try it now?” Ma waits. “Talk to them just like you talk to me. Pretend I’m them. What do you say?” “Me and you have—”
“No, pretend I’m the people in the house, or in the car, or on the sidewalk, tell them you and your Ma . . .” I try again. “You and your ma—”
“No, you say, ‘My Ma and I . . . ’ ”
“You and me—”
She puffs her breath. “OK, never mind, just give them the note — is the note still safe?”
I look in my underwear. “It’s disappeared!” Then I feel it where it slid around in between my butt. I take it out and show her.
“Keep it at the front. If by any chance you drop it, you can just tell them, ‘I’ve been kidnapped.’ Say it, just like that.” “I’ve been kidnapped.”
“Say it good and loud so they can hear.”
“I’ve been kidnapped,” I shout.
“Fantastic. And they’ll call the police,” says Ma, “and — I guess the police will look in the backyards all around till they find Room.” Her face isn’t very certain.
“With the blowtorch,” I remember her.
We practice and practice. Dead, Truck, Wriggle Out, Jump, Run, Somebody, Note, Police, Blowtorch. That’s nine things. I don’t think I can keep them in my head all at the same time. Ma says of course I can, I’m her superhero, Mr. Five.
I wish I was still four.
For lunch I get to choose because it’s a special day, it’s our last one in Room. That’s what Ma says but I don’t actually believe it. I’m suddenly starving hungry, I choose macaroni and hot dogs and crackers, that’s like three lunches together.
All the time we’re playing Checkers, I’m being scared of our Great Escape, so I lose twice, then I don’t want to play anymore.
We try a nap but we can’t switch off. I have some, the left then the right then the left again till there’s nearly none left.
We don’t want any dinner neither of us. I have to put the vomity T-shirt back on. Ma says I can keep my socks. “Otherwise the street might be sore on your feet.” She wipes her eye, then the other one. “Wear your thickest pair.”
I don’t know why she’s crying about socks. I go in Wardrobe to find Tooth under my pillow. “I’m going to tuck him down my sock.” Ma shakes her head. “What if you stand on it and hurt your foot?”
“I won’t, he’ll stay right here at the side.”
It’s 06:13, that’s getting nearly to be the evening. Ma says I really should be wrapped up in Rug already, Old Nick might possibly come in early because of me being sick.
“Not yet.”
“Well . . .”
“Please not.”
“Sit right here, OK, so I can wrap you up in a rush if we need to.”
We say the plan over and over to practice me of the nine. Dead, Truck, Wriggle Out, Jump, Run, Somebody, Note, Police, Blowtorch.
I keep twitching every time I hear the beep beep but it’s not real, just imagining. I’m staring at Door, he’s all shiny like a dagger. “Ma?” “Yeah?”
“Let’s do it tomorrow night instead.”
She leans over and hugs me tight. That means no.
I’m hating her again a bit.
“If I could do it for you, I would.”
“Why can’t you?”
She’s shaking her head. “I’m so sorry it has to be you and it has to be now. But I’ll be there in your head, remember? I’ll be talking to you every minute.”
We go over Plan B lots more times. “What if he opens Rug?” I ask. “Just to look at me dead?” Ma doesn’t say anything for a minute. “You know how hitting is bad?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, tonight is a special case. I really don’t think he will, he’ll be in a hurry to, to get the whole thing over with, but if by any chance — what you do is, hit him as hard as you can.”
Wow.
“Kick him, bite him, poke him in the eyes—” Her fingers stab the air. “Anything at all so you can get away.” I can’t believe this hardly. “Am I allowed kill him even?”
Ma runs over to Cabinet where the things dry after washing up. She picks up Smooth Knife.
I look at his shine, I think about the story of Ma putting him on Old Nick’s throat.
“Do you think you could hold this tight, inside the rug, and if —” She stares at Smooth Knife. Then she puts him back with the forks on Dish Rack. “What was I thinking?”
How would I know if she doesn’t?
“You’ll stab yourself,” says Ma.
“No I won’t.”
“You will, Jack, how could you not, you’ll cut yourself to ribbons, lashing around inside a rug with a bare blade — I think I’m losing my mind.” I shake my head. “It’s right here.” I tap on her hair.
Ma strokes my back.
I check Tooth is in my sock, the note is in my underwear at the front. We sing to make the time go, but quietly. “Lose Yourself” and “Tubthumping” and “Home on the Range.”
“ ‘Where the deer and the antelope play—,’ ” I sing.
“ ‘Where seldom is heard a discouraging word—’ ”
“ ‘And the skies are not cloudy all day.’ ”
“It’s time,” says Ma, holding Rug open.
I don’t want to. I lie down and put my hands on my shoulders and my elbows sticking out. I wait for Ma to roll me up.
Instead she just looks at me. My feet my legs my arms my head, her eyes keep sliding over my whole me like she’s counting.
“What?” I say.
She doesn’t say a word. She leans over, she doesn’t even kiss me, she just touches her face to mine till I can’t tell whose is whose. My chest is going dangadangadang. I won’t let go of her.
“OK,” says Ma, her voice all scratchy. “We’re scave, aren’t we? We’re totally scave. See you outside.” She puts my arms the special way with my elbows sticking out. She folds Rug over me and the light’s gone.