Moving again, vrum vrum.
I get one hand up over my face that’s all snotty, my hand scrapes out the top and I drag my other arm up. My fingers grab the new air, something cold, something metal, a thing else that’s not metal with bumps on it. I grab and pull pull pull and kick and my knee, ow ow ow. No good, no use. Find the corner, is that Ma talking in my head like she said or am I just remembering? I feel all the way around Rug and there’s no corner on her, then I find it and pull, it comes loose just a bit I think. I roll on my back but that’s even tighter and I can’t find the corner anymore.
Stopped, the truck’s stopped again, I’m not out already, I was meant to jump at the first. I pull Rug down until she’s going to break my elbow and I can see a huge dazzling, then it’s gone because the truck’s moving again vrummmmm.
I think that was Outside I saw, Outside is real and so bright but I can’t—
Ma’s not here, no time to cry, I’m Prince JackerJack, I have to be JackerJack or the worms crawl in. I’m on my front again, I bend my knees and stick my butt up, I’m going to burst right through Rug and she’s looser now, she’s coming off my face—
I can breathe all the lovely black air. I’m sitting up and unwrapping Rug like I’m a smushed kind of banana. My ponytail’s come out, there’s all hair in my eyes. I’m finding my legs one and two, I get my whole self out, I did it, I did it, I wish Dora could see me, she’d sing the “We Did It” song.
Another light whizzing by over. Things sliding in the sky that I think they’re trees. And houses and lights on giant poles and some cars everything zooming. It’s like a cartoon I’m inside but messier. I’m holding on to the edge of the truck, it’s all hard and cold. The sky is the most enormous, over there there’s a pink orange bit but the rest is gray. When I look down, the street is black and a long long way. I know to jump good but not when everything’s roaring and bumping and the lights all blurry and the air so strange smells like apple or something. My eyes aren’t working right, I’m too scared to be scave.
The truck’s stopped again. I can’t jump, I just can’t move. I manage to stand up and I look over but — I’m slipping and crashing across the truck, my head hits on something sore, I shout by accident arghhhhhh—Stopped again.
A metal sound. Old Nick’s face. He’s out of the truck with the maddest face I ever saw and—
Jump.
The ground breaks my feet smash my knee hits me in the face but I’m running running running, where’s Somebody, Ma said to scream to a somebody or a car or a lighted house, I see a car but dark inside and anyway nothing comes out of my mouth that’s full of my hair but I keep running GingerJack be nimble be quick. Ma’s not here but she promised she’s in my head going run run run. A roaring behind me that’s him, it’s Old Nick coming to tear me in half fee fie foe fum, I have to find Somebody to shout help help but there isn’t a somebody, there’s no somebody, I’m going to have to keep running forever but my breath is used up and I can’t see and — A bear.
A wolf?
A dog, is a dog a somebody?
Somebody coming behind the dog but it’s a very small person, a baby walking, it’s pushing something that has wheels with a smaller baby inside. I can’t remember what to shout, I’m on mute, I just keep running at them. The baby laughs, it has nearly no hair. The tiny one in the push-thing isn’t a real one, I think, it’s a doll. The dog is small but a real one, it’s doing a poo on the ground, I never saw TV dogs do that. A person comes up behind the baby and picks up the poo in a bag like it’s a treasure, I think it’s a he, the somebody with short hair like Old Nick but curlier and he’s browner than the baby. I go, “Help,” but it doesn’t come out very loud. I’m running till I’m nearly at them and the dog barks and jumps up and eats me—
I open my mouth for the widest scream but no sound comes out.
“Raja!”
Red on my finger all spots.
“Raja, down.” The man person’s got the dog by the neck.
My blood’s falling out of my hand.
Then bam grabbed from behind, it’s Old Nick, his giant hands on my ribs. I messed up, he catched me, sorry sorry sorry Ma. He’s lifting me up. I scream then, I scream no words even. He’s got me under his arm, he’s carrying me back to the truck, Ma said I could hit, I could kill him, I hit and hit but I can’t reach, it’s only me I’m hitting—
“Excuse me,” calls the person holding the poo bag. “Hey, mister?” His voice isn’t deep, it’s softer.
Old Nick turns us around. I’m forgetting to scream.
“I’m so sorry, is your little girl OK?”
What little girl?
Old Nick clears his throat, he’s still carrying me to the truck but walking backwards. “Fine.” “Raja’s usually really gentle, but she came at him out of nowhere . . .”
“Just a tantrum,” says Old Nick.
“Hey. Wait up, I think her hand’s bleeding.”
I look at my eaten finger, the blood’s making drops.
Then he has picked the baby person up now, he’s holding it on his arm and the poo bag in the other hand and he’s looking really confused.
Old Nick stands me down, he’s got his fingers on my shoulders so they’re burning. “It’s under control.” “And her knee too, that looks bad. Raja didn’t do that. Has she had a fall?” asks the man.
“I’m not a her,” I say but only inside my throat.
“Why don’t you mind your own business and I’ll mind mine?” Old Nick’s nearly growling.
Ma, Ma, I need you for talking. She’s not in my head anymore, she’s not anywhere. She wrote the note, I was forgetting, I put my not eaten hand in my underwear and I can’t find the note but then I do, it’s all peed. I can’t talk but I wave it at the somebody man.
Old Nick rips it out of my hand and makes it disappear.
“OK, I don’t — I don’t like this,” says the man. He’s got a little phone in his hand, where did it come from? He’s saying, “Yes, police, please.”
It’s happening just like Ma said, we’re at eight that’s Police already and I haven’t even showed the Note or said about Room, I’m doing it backwards. I’m meant to talk to the somebody just like they’re human. I start to say, “I’ve been kidnapped,” but it only comes out whispery because Old Nick’s picked me up again, he’s heading for the truck, he’s running, I’m all shaking to pieces, I can’t find to hit, he’s going to—“I’ve got your plates, mister!”
That’s the man person screaming, is he shouting at me? What plates?
“K nine three—” He’s shouting numbers, why is he shouting numbers?
Suddenly arghhhhhh the street bangs me in the tummy hands face, Old Nick’s running away but without me. He dropped me. He’s farther off every second. Those must be magic numbers to make him drop me.
I try to get up but I can’t remember how.
A noise like a monster, the truck’s vrummmming and coming at me rrrrrrrrrrr, it’s going to crush me down to smithereens on the pavement, I don’t know how where what — the baby crying, I never heard a real baby cry before—