Room Read Free Page A

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, I like the bang of her heart. When she breathes we go up and down a little bit. Penis floats.
    Because of my birthday I get to choose what we wear both. Ma’s live in the higher drawer of Dresser and mine in the lower. I choose her favorite blue jeans with the red stitches that she
only puts on for special occasions because they’re getting strings at the knees. For me I choose my yellow hoody, I’m careful of the drawer but the right edge still comes out and Ma has
to bang it back in. We pull down on my hoody together and it chews my face but then pop it’s on.
    “What if I cut it just a little in the middle of the V ?” says Ma.
    “No way Jose.”
    For Phys Ed we leave our socks off because bare feet are grippier. Today I choose Track first, we lift Table upside down onto Bed and Rocker on her with Rug over the both. Track goes around Bed
from Wardrobe to Lamp, the shape on Floor is a black C. “Hey, look, I can do a there-and-back in sixteen steps.”
    “Wow. When you were four it was eighteen steps, wasn’t it?” says Ma. “How many there-and-backs do you think you can run today?”
    “Five.”
    “What about five times five? That would be your favorite squared.”
    We times it on our fingers, I get twenty-six but Ma says twenty-five so I do it again and get twenty-five too. She counts me on Watch. “Twelve,” she shouts out. “Seventeen.
You’re doing great.”
    I’m breathing whoo whoo whoo.
    “Faster—”
    I go even fasterer like Superman flying.
    When it’s Ma’s turn to run, I have to write down on the College Ruled Pad the number at the start and the number when she’s finished, then we take them apart to see how fast
she went. Today hers is nine seconds bigger than mine, that means I winned, so I jump up and down and blow raspberries. “Let’s do a race at the same time.”
    “Sounds like fun, doesn’t it,” she says, “but remember once we tried it and I banged my shoulder on the dresser?”
    Sometimes when I forget things, Ma tells me and I remember them after that.
    We take down all the furnitures from Bed and put Rug back where she was to cover Track so Old Nick won’t see the dirty C .
    Ma chooses Trampoline, it’s just me that bounces on Bed because Ma might break her. She does the commentary: “A daring midair twist from the young U.S. champion . . .”
    My next pick is Simon Says, then Ma says to put our socks back on for Corpse, that’s lying like starfish with floppy toenails, floppy belly button, floppy tongue, floppy brain even. Ma
gets an itch behind her knee and moves, I win again.
    It’s 12:13, so it can be lunch. My favorite bit of the prayer is the daily bread. I’m