“Yeah it is.”
“No, there’s lots of them.”
“Where?”
Ma looks at me, then back at her dress, she pulls at the hem. “Well, our bottle is right here on Shelf, and the rest are . . .”
“In TV?” I ask.
She’s staring at the threads and winding them around the little cards to fit back in Kit.
“You know what?” I’m bouncing. “You know what that means? He must go in TV.” The medical planet’s come back on but I’m not even watching. “Old Nick,” I say, so she won’t think I mean the man in the yellow helmet. “When he’s not here, in the daytime, you know what? He actually goes in TV. That’s where he got our killers in a store and brung them here.”
“Brought,” says Ma, standing up. “Brought, not brung. It’s time for bed.” She starts singing “Indicate the Way to My Abode” but I don’t join in.
I don’t think she understands how amazing this is. I think about it right through putting on my sleep T-shirt and brushing my teeth and even when I’m having some on Bed. I take my mouth back, I say, “How come we never see him in TV?”
Ma yawns and sits up.
“All the times we’re watching, we never see him, how come?”
“He’s not there.”
“But the bottle, how did he get it?”
“I don’t know.”
The way she says it, it’s strange. I think she’s pretending. “You have to know. You know everything.”
“Look, it really doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter and I do mind.” I’m nearly shouting.
“Jack—”
Jack what? What does Jack mean?
Ma leans back on the pillows. “It’s very hard to explain.”
I think she can explain, she just won’t. “You can, because I’m five now.”
Her face is turned toward Door. “Where our bottle of pills used to be, right, is a store, that’s where he got them, then he brought them here for Sunday treat.”
“A store in TV?” I look up at Shelf to check the bottle’s there. “But the killers are real—”
“It’s a real store.” Ma rubs her eye.
“How—?”
“OK, OK, OK.”
Why is she shouting?
“Listen. What we see on TV is . . . it’s pictures of real things.”
That’s the most astonishing I ever heard.
Ma’s got her hand over her mouth.
“Dora’s real for real?”
She takes her hand away. “No, sorry. Lots of TV is made-up pictures — like, Dora’s just a drawing — but the other people, the ones with faces that look like you and me, they’re real.”
“Actual humans?”
She nods. “And the places are real too, like farms and forests and airplanes and cities . . .”
“Nah.” Why is she tricking me? “Where would they fit?”
“Out there,” says Ma. “Outside.” She jerks her head back.
“Outside Bed Wall?” I stare at it.
“Outside Room.” She points the other way now, at Stove Wall, her finger goes around in a circle.
“The stores and forests zoom around in Outer Space?”
“No. Forget it, Jack, I shouldn’t have—”
“Yes you should.” I shake her knee hard, I say, “Tell me.”
“Not tonight, I can’t think of the right words to explain.”
Alice says she can’t explain herself because she’s not herself, she knows who she was this morning but she’s changed several times since then.
Ma suddenly stands up and gets the killers down off Shelf, I think she’s checking are they the same as the ones in TV but she opens the bottle and eats one then another one.
“Will you find the words tomorrow?”
“It’s eight forty-nine, Jack, would you just go to bed?” She ties the trash bag and puts it beside Door.
I lie down in Wardrobe but I’m wide awake.
Today is one of the days when Ma is Gone.
She won’t wake up properly. She’s here but not really. She stays in Bed with the pillows on her head.
Silly Penis is standing up, I squish him down.
I eat my hundred cereal and I stand on my chair to wash the bowl and Meltedy Spoon. It’s very quiet when I switch off the water. I wonder did Old Nick come in the night. I don’t think he did because the trash bag is still by Door, but maybe he did only he didn’t take the trash? Maybe Ma’s not just Gone. Maybe he squished her neck even harder and now she’s—
I go up really close and listen till I hear breath. I’m just one inch away, my hair touches Ma’s nose and she puts her hand up over her face so I step back.
I don’t have a bath on my own, I just get dressed.
There’s hours and hours, hundreds of them.
Ma gets up to pee but no talking, with her face all blank. I already put a glass of water beside Bed but she just gets back under Duvet.
I hate when she’s Gone, but I like that I get to watch TV all day. I put it on really quiet at first and make it a bit louder at a time. Too much TV might turn me into a zombie but Ma’s like a zombie today and she’s not watching even. There’s Bob the Builder and Wonder Pets! and Barney. For each I go up to touch hello. Barney and his friends do lots of hugs, I run to get in the middle but sometimes I’m too late. Today it’s about a fairy that sneaks in at night and turns old teeth into money. I want Dora but she doesn’t come.
Thursday means laundry, but I can’t do it all myself and Ma’s still lying on the sheets anyway.
When I’m hungry again I check Watch but he only says 09:47. Cartoons are over so I watch football and the planet where people win prizes. The puffy-hair woman is on her red couch talking to a man who used to be a golf star. There’s another planet where women hold up necklaces and say how exquisite they are. “Suckers,” Ma always says when she sees that planet. She doesn’t say anything today, she doesn’t notice I’m watching and watching and my brain is starting to be stinky.
How can TV be pictures of real things?
I think about them all floating around in Outside Space outside the walls, the couch and the necklaces and the bread and the killers and the airplanes and all the shes and hes, the boxers and the man with one leg and the puffy-hair woman, they’re floating past Skylight. I wave to them, but there’s skyscrapers as well and cows and ships and trucks, it’s crammed out there, I count all the stuff that might crash into Room. I can’t breathe right, I have to count my teeth instead, left to right on the top then right to left on the bottom, then backwards, twenty every time but I still think maybe I’m counting wrong.
When it’s 12:04 it can be lunch so I cut a can of baked beans open, I’m careful. I wonder would Ma wake up if I cutted my hand and screamed help? I never had beans cold before. I eat nine, then I’m not hungry. I put the rest in a tub for not waste. Some are stuck to the can at the bottom, I pour water in. Maybe Ma will get up and scrub it later. Maybe she’ll be hungry, she’ll say, “Oh Jack, how thoughtful of you to save me beans in a tub.”
I measure more things with Ruler but it’s hard to add up the numbers on my own. I do him end over end and he’s an acrobat of a circus. I play with Remote, I point him at Ma and whisper, “Wake up,” but she doesn’t. Balloon is all squishy, she goes for a ride on Prune Juice Bottle up near Skylight, they make the light all brownly sparkly. They’re scared of Remote because of his sharp end, so I put him in Wardrobe and fold the doors shut. I tell all the things it’s OK because Ma will be back tomorrow. I read the five books all myself only just bits of Alice. Mostly I just sit.
I don’t do Scream because of disturbing Ma. I think it’s probably OK to skip one day.
Then I switch the TV on again and wiggle Bunny, he makes the planets a bit less fuzzy but only a bit. It’s racing cars, I like to see them go super fast but it’s not very interesting after they do the oval about a hundred times. I want to wake Ma up and ask about Outside with the actual humans and things all zooming around, but she’d be mad. Or maybe she wouldn’t switch on at all even if I shake her. So I don’t. I go up very close, half her face is showing and her neck. The marks are purple now.