Free Room by Emma Donoghue

Ma and me could make a barricade, we could shove Bed against Door so
it doesn’t open, won’t he get a shock, ha ha. Let me in , he’s shouting, or I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down. Grass is TV and
so is fire, but it could come in Room for real if I hot the beans and the red jumps onto my sleeve and burns me up. I’d like to see that but not it happen. Air’s real and water only in
Bath and Sink, rivers and lakes are TV, I don’t know about the sea because if it whizzed around Outside it would make everything wet. I want to shake Ma and ask her if the sea is real. Room
is real for real, but maybe Outside is too only it’s got a cloak of invisibility on like Prince JackerJack in the story? Baby Jesus is TV I think except in the painting with his Ma and his
cousin and his Grandma, but God is real looking in Skylight with his yellow face, only not today, there’s only gray.
    I want to be in Bed with Ma. Instead I sit on Rug with my hand just on the bump of her foot under Duvet. My arm gets tired so I drop it down for a while then put it back. I roll up the end of
Rug and let her flop open again, I do that hundreds of times.
    When it gets dark I try and eat more baked beans but they’re disgusting. I have some bread and peanut butter instead. I open Freezer and put my face in beside the bags of peas and spinach
and horrible green beans, I keep it there till I’m numb even my eyelids. Then I jump out and shut the door and rub my cheeks to warm them up. I can feel them with my hands but I can’t
feel them feeling my hands on them, it’s weird.
    It’s dark in Skylight now, I hope God will put his silver face in.
    I get into my sleep T-shirt. I wonder am I dirty because I didn’t have a bath, I try to smell myself. In Wardrobe I lie down in Blanket but I’m cold. I forgot to put up Thermostat
today, that’s why, I only just remembered, but I can’t do it now it’s night.
    I want some very much, I didn’t have any all day. The right even, but I’d rather the left. If I could get in with Ma and have some—but she might push me away and that would be
worse.
    What if I’m in Bed with her and Old Nick comes? I don’t know if it’s nine yet, it’s too dark for seeing Watch.
    I sneak into Bed, extra slow so Ma won’t notice. I just lie near. If I hear the beep beep I can jump back in Wardrobe quick quick.
    What if he comes and Ma won’t wake up, will he be even more madder? Will he make worse marks on her?
    I stay awake so I can hear him come.
    He doesn’t come but I stay awake.
    •   •   •
    The trash bag is still beside Door. Ma got up before me this morning and unknotted it and put in the beans she scraped out of the can. If the bag’s still here, I guess
that means he didn’t come, that’s two nights he didn’t, yippee.
    Friday means Mattress time. We flip her over front to back and sideways as well so she doesn’t get bumpy, she’s so heavy I have to use all my muscles and when she flomps down she
knocks me onto Rug. I see the brown mark on Mattress from when I came out of Ma’s tummy the first time. Next we have a dusting race, dust is tiny invisible pieces of our skins that we
don’t need anymore because we grow new ones like snakes. Ma sneezes really high like an opera star we heard one time in TV.
    We do our grocery list, we can’t decide about Sundaytreat. “Let’s ask for candy,” I say. “Not even chocolate. Some kind of candy we never had before.”
    “Some really sticky kind, so you’ll end up with teeth like mine?”
    I don’t like when Ma does sarcasm.
    Now we’re reading sentences out of no-pictures books, this one’s The Shack with a spooky house and all white snow. “ ‘Since then,’ ” I read, “
‘he and I have been, as the kids say these days, hangin’ out, sharing a coffee—or for me a chai tea, extra hot with soy.’ ”
    “Excellent,” says Ma, “only soy should rhyme with boy .”
    Persons in books and TV are