Room_ A Novel - Emma Donoghue [4]
Ma smiles but not really.
“Will you not brush it away, please? Because she isn’t even there even, but she might come back.”
Ma’s down on her knees looking under Table. I can’t see her face till she pushes her hair behind her ear. “Tell you what, I’ll leave it till we clean, OK?”
That’s Tuesday, that’s three days. “OK.”
“You know what?” She stands up. “We’ve got to mark how tall you are, now you’re five.”
I jump way in the air.
Usually I’m not allowed draw on any bits of Room or furnitures. When I was two I scribbled on the leg of Bed, her one near Wardrobe, so whenever we’re cleaning Ma taps the scribble and says, “Look, we have to live with that forever.” But my birthday tall is different, it’s tiny numbers beside Door, a black 4, and a black 3 underneath, and a red 2 that was the color our old Pen was till he ran out, and at the bottom a red 1.
“Stand up straight,” says Ma. Pen tickles the top of my head.
When I step away there’s a black 5 a little bit over the 4. I love five the best of every number, I have five fingers each hand and the same of toes and so does Ma, we’re our dead spits. Nine is my worst favorite number. “What’s my tall?”
“Your height. Well, I don’t know exactly,” she says. “Maybe we could ask for a measuring tape sometime, for Sunday treat.”
I thought measuring tapes were just TV. “Nah, let’s ask for chocolates.” I put my finger on the 4 and stand with my face against it, my finger’s on my hair. “I didn’t get taller much this time.”
“That’s normal.”
“What’s normal?”
“It’s—” Ma chews her mouth. “It means it’s OK. No hay problema.”
“Look how big my muscles, though.” I bounce on Bed, I’m Jack the Giant Killer in his seven-league boots.
“Vast,” says Ma.
“Gigantic.”
“Massive.”
“Huge.”
“Enormous,” says Ma.
“Hugeormous.” That’s word sandwich when we squish two together.
“Good one.”
“You know what?” I tell her. “When I’m ten I’ll be growed up.”
“Oh yeah?”
“I’ll get bigger and bigger and bigger till I turn into a human.”
“Actually, you’re human already,” says Ma. “Human’s what we both are.”
I thought the word for us was real. The persons in TV are made just of colors.
“Did you mean a woman, with a w?”
“Yeah,” I say, “a woman with a boy in an egg in my tummy and he’ll be a real one too. Or I’m going to grow to a giant, but a nice one, up to here.” I jump to touch Bed Wall way high, nearly where Roof starts slanting up.
“Sounds great,” says Ma.
Her face is gone flat, that means I said a wrong thing but I don’t know which.
“I’ll burst through Skylight into Outer Space and go boing boing between each the planets,” I tell her. “I’ll visit Dora and SpongeBob and all my friends, I’ll have a dog called Lucky.”
Ma’s put a smile on. She’s tidying Pen back on Shelf.
I ask her, “How old are you going to be on your birthday?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“Wow.”
I don’t think that cheered her up.
While Bath is running, Ma gets Labyrinth and Fort down from on top of Wardrobe. We’ve been making Labyrinth since I was two, she’s all toilet roll insides taped together in tunnels that twist lots of ways. Bouncy Ball loves to get lost in Labyrinth and hide, I have to call out to him and shake her and turn her sideways and upside down before he rolls out, whew. Then I send other things into Labyrinth like a peanut and a broken bit of Blue Crayon and a short spaghetti not cooked. They chase each other in the tunnels and sneak up and shout Boo, I can’t see them but I listen against the cardboard and I can figure out where they are. Toothbrush wants a turn but I tell him sorry, he’s too long. He jumps in Fort instead to guard a tower. Fort’s made of cans and vitamin bottles, we build him bigger every time we have an empty. Fort can see all ways, he squirts out boiling oil at the enemies, they don’t know about his secret knife-slits, ha ha. I’d like to bring him into Bath to be an island but Ma says the water would make his tape unsticky.
We undo our ponytails and let our hair swim. I lie on Ma not even talking,