My favorite bit of Outside is the window. It’s different every time. A bird goes right by zoom, I don’t know what it was. The shadows are all long again now, mine waves right across our room on the green wall. I watch God’s face falling slow slow, even orangier and the clouds are all colors, then after there’s streaks and dark coming up so bit-at-a-time I don’t see it till it’s done.
• • •
Ma and me keep knocking into each other in the night. The third time I wake up I’m wanting Jeep and Remote but they’re not here.
No one’s in Room now, just things, everything lying extra still with dust falling, because Ma and me are at the Clinic and Old Nick is in the jail. He has to stay forever locked in.
I remember I’m in the pajamas with the astronauts. I touch my leg through the cloth, it doesn’t feel like mine. All our stuff that was ours is locked in Room except my T-shirt that Ma threw in the trash here and it’s gone now, I looked at bedtime, a cleaner must have took it away. I thought that meant a person cleaner than everybody else, but Ma says it’s one who does the cleaning. I think they’re invisible like elves. I wish the cleaner would bring back my old T-shirt but Ma would only get cranky again.
We have to be in the world, we’re not ever going back to Room, Ma says that’s how it is and I should be glad. I don’t know why we can’t go back just to sleep even. I wonder do we have to stay always in the Clinic bit or can we go in others of Outside like the house with the hammock, except the real Grandpa’s in Australia that’s too far away. “Ma?”
She groans. “Jack, I was finally dropping off . . .”
“How long are we here?”
“It’s only been twenty-four hours. It just feels longer.”
“No, but—how long do we still be here after now? How many days and nights?”
“I don’t actually know.”
But Ma always knows things. “Tell me.”
“Shh.”
“But how long?”
“Just a while,” she says. “Now shush, there’s other people next door, remember, and you’re disturbing them.”
I don’t see the persons but they’re there anyway, they’re the ones from the dining room. In Room I was never disturbing anybody only sometimes Ma if Tooth was really bad. She says the persons are here at the Cumberland because they’re a bit sick in the head, but not very. They can’t sleep maybe from worrying, or they can’t eat, or they wash their hands too much, I didn’t know washing could be too much. Some of them have hit their heads and don’t know themselves anymore, and some are sad all the time or scratch their arms with knives even, I don’t know why. The doctors and nurses and Pilar and the invisible cleaners aren’t sick, they’re here to help. Ma and me aren’t sick either, we’re just here for a rest, also we don’t want to be bugged by the paparazzi which is the vultures with their cameras and microphones, because we’re famous now, like rap stars but we didn’t do it on purpose. Ma says basically we just need a bit of help while we sort things out. I don’t know which things.
I reach under the pillow now to feel has Tooth turned into money but no. I think the Fairy doesn’t know where the Clinic is.
“Ma?”
“What?”
“Are we locked in?”
“No.” She nearly barks it. “Of course not. Why, are you not liking it here?”
“I mean but do we have to stay?”
“No, no, we’re free as a bird.”
• • •
I thought all the weird things happened yesterday but there’s lots more today.
My poo is hard to push out because my tummy’s not used to so much food.
We don’t have to wash our sheets in the shower because the invisible cleaners do that too.
Ma writes in a notebook Dr. Clay gave her for homework. I thought just kids going to school do that, it means work for doing at home but Ma says the Clinic’s not anybody’s actual home, everyone goes home in the end.
I hate my mask, I can’t breathe through it but Ma says I can really.
We have our breakfast in the dining room that’s for eating just, persons in the world like to go in different rooms for each thing. I remember manners, that’s when persons are scared to make other persons mad. I say, “Please may you have me more pancakes?”
The she with the apron says, “He’s a doll.”
I’m not a doll, but Ma whispers it means the woman likes me so I should let her call me one.
I try the syrup, it’s super extra sweet, I drink a whole little tub before Ma stops me. She says it’s only for putting on pancakes but I think that’s yucky.
People keep coming at her with jugs of coffee, she says no. I eat so many bacon I lose count, when I say, “Thank you, Baby Jesus,” people stare because I think they don’t know him in Outside.
Ma says when a person acts funny like that long boy with the metal bits in his face called Hugo doing the humming or Mrs. Garber scratching her neck all the time, we don’t laugh except inside behind our faces if we have to.
I never know when sounds are going to happen and make me jump. Lots of times I can’t see what makes them, some are tiny like little bugs whining but some hurt my head. Even though everything’s always so loud, Ma keeps telling me not to shout so I don’t disturb persons. But often when I talk they don’t hear me.
Ma says, “Where are your shoes?”
We go back and find them in the dining room under the table, one has a piece of bacon on it that I eat.
“Germs,” says Ma.
I carry my shoes by the Velcro straps. She tells me to put them on.
“They make my feet sore.”
“Aren’t they the right size?”
“They’re too heavy.”
“I know you’re not used to them, but you just can’t go around in your socks, you might step on something sharp.”
“I won’t, I promise.”
She waits till I put them on. We’re in a corridor but not the one on top of the stairs, the Clinic has all different bits. I don’t think we went here before, are we lost?
Ma’s looking out a new window. “Today we could go outside and see the trees and the flowers, maybe.”
“No.”
“Jack—”
“I mean no, thanks.”
“Fresh air!”
I like the air in Room Number Seven, Noreen brings us back there. Out our window we can see cars parking and unparking and pigeons and sometimes that cat.
Later we go play with Dr. Clay in another new room that has a rug with long hair, not like Rug who’s all flat with her zigzag pattern. I wonder if Rug misses us, is she still in the back of the pickup truck in jail?
Ma shows Dr. Clay her homework, they talk more about not very interesting stuff like depersonalization and jamais vu. Then I help Dr. Clay unpack his toy trunk, it’s the coolest. He talks into a cell phone that’s not a real one, “Great to hear from you, Jack. I’m at the clinic right now. Where are you?”
There’s a plastic banana, I say, “Me too,” into it.
“What a coincidence. Are you enjoying it here?”
“I’m enjoying the bacon.”
He laughs, I didn’t know I made a joke again. “I enjoy bacon too. Too much.”
How can enjoying be too much?
In the bottom of the trunk I find tiny puppets like a spotty dog and a pirate and a moon and a boy with his tongue stuck out, my favorite is the dog.
“Jack, he’s asking you a question.”
I blink at Ma.
“So what do you not like so much here?” says Dr. Clay.
“Persons looking.”
“Mmm?”
He says that a lot instead of words.
“Also sudden things.”
“Certain things? Which ones?”
“Sudden things,” I tell him. “That come quick quick.”
“Ah, yes. ‘World is suddener than we fancy it.’ ”
“Huh?”
“Sorry, just a line from a poem.” D
He never went to Room, so I tell him all about all the bits of it, what we did every day and stuff, Ma says anything I forget to say. He’s got goo I saw in TV in all colors, he makes it into balls and worms while we’re talking. I stick my finger into a yellow bit, then there’s some in my nail and I don’t like it to be yellow.
“You never got Play-Doh for one of your Sunday treats?” he asks.
“It dries out.” That’s Ma butting in. “Ever think of that? Even if you put it back in the tub, like, religiously, after a while it starts going leathery.”
“I guess it would,” says Dr. Clay.
“That’s the same reason I asked for crayons and pencils, not markers, and cloth diapers, and—whatever would last, so I wouldn’t have to ask again a week later.”
He keeps nodding.
“We made flour dough, but it was always white.” Ma’s sounding mad. “You think I wouldn’t have given Jack a different color of Play-Doh every day if I could have?”
Dr. Clay says Ma’s other name. “Nobody’s expressing any judgment about your choices and strategies.”
“Noreen says it works better if you add as much salt as flour, did you know that? I didn’t know that, how would I? I never thought to ask for food coloring, even. If I’d only had the first freakin’ clue—”
She keeps telling Dr. Clay she’s fine but she doesn’t sound fine. She and him talk about cognitive distortions, they do a breathing exercise, I play with the puppets. Then our time’s up because he has to go play with Hugo.
“Was he in a shed too?” I ask.
Dr. Clay shakes his head.
“What happened to him?”
“Everyone’s got a different story.”
When we go back to our room Ma and I get into the bed and I have lots. She still smells wrong from the conditioner, too silky.
• • •
Even after the nap I’m still tired. My nose keeps dripping and my eyes too, like they’re melting inside. Ma says I’ve picked up my first cold, that’s all.
“But I wore my mask.”
“Still, germs just sneak in. I’ll probably catch it from you by tomorrow.”
I’m crying. “We’re not done playing.”
She’s holding me.
“I don’t want to go to Heaven yet.”
“Sweetie—” Ma never called me that before. “It’s OK, if we get sick the doctors will make us better.”
“I want it.”
“You want what?”
“I want Dr. Clay making me better now.”
“Well, actually, he can’t cure a cold.” Ma chews her mouth. “But it’ll be all gone in a few days, I promise. Hey, would you like to learn to blow your nose?”
It takes me just four tries, when I get all the snot out in the tissue, she claps.
Noreen brings up lunch that’s soups and kebabs and a rice that’s not real called quinoa. For after there’s a salad of fruits and I guess all them, apple and orange and the ones I don’t know are pineapple and mango and blueberry and kiwi and watermelon, that’s two right and five wrong, that’s minus three. There’s no banana.
I want to see the fish again so we go down in the bit called Reception. They’ve got stripes. “Are they sick?”
“They look lively enough to me,” says Ma. “Especially that big, bossy one in the seaweed.”
“No, but in the head? Are they crazy fish?”
She laughs. “I don’t think so.”
“Are they just resting for a little while because they’re famous?”
“These ones were born here, actually, right in this tank.” It’s the Pilar woman.
I jump, I didn’t see her coming out of her desk. “Why?”
She stares at me still smiling. “Ah—”
“Why are they here?”
“For us all to look at, I guess. Aren’t they pretty?”
“Come on, Jack,” says Ma, “I’m sure she’s got work to do.”
In Outside the time’s all mixed up. Ma keeps saying, “Slow down, Jack,” and “Hang on,” and “Finish up now,” and “Hurry up, Jack,” she says Jack a lot so I’ll know it’s me she’s talking to not persons else. I can hardly ever guess what time it is, there’s clocks but they have pointy hands, I don’t know the secret and Watch isn’t here with her numbers so I have to ask Ma and she gets tired of me asking. “You know what time it is, it’s time to go outside.”
I don’t want to but she keeps saying, “Let’s try, just try. Right now, why not?”
I have to put my shoes back on first. Also we have to have jackets and hats and sticky stuff on faces under our masks and on our hands, the sun might burn our skin off because we’re from Room. Dr. Clay and Noreen are coming with us, they don’t have any cool shades or anything.
The way to out isn’t a door, it’s like an airlock on a spaceship. Ma can’t remember the word, Dr. Clay says, “Revolving door.”
“Oh yeah,” I say, “I know it in TV.” I like the going around bit but then we’re outside and the light hurts my shades all dark, the wind smacks my face and I have to get back in.
“It’s OK,” Ma keeps saying.
“I don’t like it.” The revolving’s stuck, it won’t revolve, it’s squeezing me out.
“Hold my hand.”
“The wind’s going to rip us.”
“It’s only a breeze,” says Ma.
The light’s not like in a window, it’s coming all ways around the sides of my cool shades, it wasn’t like this on our Great Escape. Too much horrible shine and air freshing. “My skin’s burning off.”
“You’re grand,” says Noreen. “Big, slow breaths, that’s a boy.”
Why is that a boy? There aren’t any breaths out here. There’s spots on my shades, my chest’s going bang bang bang and the wind’s so loud I can’t hear anything.
Noreen’s doing something strange, she’s pulling off my mask and putting a different paper on my face. I push it away with my sticky hands.
Dr. Clay says, “I’m not sure this is such a—”
“Breathe in the bag,” Noreen tells me.
I do, it’s warm, all I do is suck it in and suck it in.
Ma’s holding my shoulders, she says, “Let’s go back in.”
Back in Room Number Seven I have some on the bed, still with my shoes on and the stickiness.
Later Grandma comes, I know her face this time. She’s brung books from her hammock house, three for Ma with no pictures that she gets all excited and five for me with pictures, Grandma didn’t even know five was my best best number. She says these ones were Ma’s and my Uncle Paul’s when they were kids, I don’t think she’s lying but it’s hard for it to be true that Ma was ever a kid. “Would you like to sit in Grandma’s lap and I’ll read you one?”
“No, thanks.”
There’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Giving Tree and Go, Dog, Go and The Lorax and The Tale of Peter Rabbit, I look at all the pictures.
“I mean it, every detail,” Grandma’s saying to Ma really quiet, “I can take it.”
“I doubt that.”
“I’m ready.”
Ma keeps shaking her head. “What’s the point, Mom? It’s over now, I’m out the other side.”
“But, honey—”
“I’d actually rather not have you thinking about that stuff every time you look at me, OK?”
There’s more tears rolling down Grandma. “Sweetie,” she says, “all I think when I look at you is hallelujah.”
When she’s gone Ma reads me the rabbit one, he’s a Peter but not the Saint. He wears old-fashioned clothes and gets chased by a gardener, I don’t know why he bothers swiping vegetables. Swiping’s bad but if I was a swiper I’d swipe good stuff like cars and chocolates. It’s not a very excellent book but it’s excellent to have so many new ones. In Room I had five but now it’s plus five, that equals ten. Actually I don’t have the old five books now so I guess I just have the new five. The ones in Room, maybe they don’t belong to anyone anymore.
Grandma only stays a little while because we have another visitor, that’s our lawyer Morris. I didn’t know we had one, like the courtroom planet where people shout and the judge bangs the hammer. We meet him in a room in the not upstairs, there’s a table and a smell like sweet. His hair is extra curly. While he and Ma talk I practice blowing my nose.
“This paper that’s printed your fifth-grade photo, for instance,” he’s saying, “we’d have a strong case for breach of privacy there.”
The you means Ma, not me, I’m getting good at telling.
“You mean like suing? That’s the last thing on my mind,” she tells him. I show her my tissue with my blowing in it, she does a thumbs-up.
Morris nods a lot. “I’m just saying, you have to consider your future, yours and the boy’s.” That’s me, the boy. “Yeah, the Cumberland’s waiving its fees in the short term, and I’ve set up a fund for your fans, but I have to tell you, sooner or later there’s going to be bills like you wouldn’t believe. Rehab, fancy therapies, housing, educational costs for both of you . . .”
Ma rubs her eyes.
“I don’t want to rush you.”
“You said—my fans?”
“Sure,” says Morris. “Donations are pouring in, about a sack a day.”
“A sack of what?”
“You name it. I grabbed some things at random—” He lifts up a big plastic bag from behind his chair and takes parcels out.
“You opened them,” says Ma, looking in the envelopes.
“Believe me, you need this stuff filtered. F-E-C-E-S, and that’s just for starters.”
“Why somebody sent us poo?” I ask Ma.
Morris is staring.
“He’s a good speller,” she tells him.
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