Room_ A Novel - Emma Donoghue [46]
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?”
“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