I count one hundred cereal and waterfall the milk that’s nearly the same white

as the bowls, no splashing, we thank Baby Jesus. I choose Meltedy Spoon

with the white all blobby on his handle when he leaned on the pan of boiling

pasta by accident. Ma doesn’t like Meltedy Spoon but he’s my favorite

because he’s not the same.

I stroke Table’s scratches to make them better, she’s a circle all white

except gray in the scratches from chopping foods. While we’re eating we play

Hum because that doesn’t need mouths. I guess “Macarena” and “She’ll Be

Coming ’Round the Mountain” and “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” but that’s

actually “Stormy Weather.” So my score is two, I get two kisses.

I hum “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” Ma guesses that right away. Then I do

“Tubthumping,” she makes a face and says, “Argh, I know it, it’s the one

about getting knocked down and getting up again, what’s it called?” In the

very end she remembers right. For my third turn I do “Can’t Get You out of

My Head,” Ma has no idea. “You’ve chosen such a tricky one… . Did you

hear it on TV?”

“No, on you.” I burst out singing the chorus, Ma says she’s a dumbo.

“Numbskull.” I give her her two kisses.

I move my chair to Sink to wash up, with bowls I have to do gently but

spoons I can cling clang clong. I stick out my tongue in Mirror. Ma’s behind

me, I can see my face stuck over hers like a mask we made when Halloween

happened. “I wish the drawing was better,” she says, “but at least it shows

what you’re like.”

“What am I like?”

She taps Mirror where’s my forehead, her finger leaves a circle. “The dead

spit of me.”

“Why I’m your dead spit?” The circle’s disappearing.

“It just means you look like me. I guess because you’re made of me, like

my spit is. Same brown eyes, same big mouth, same pointy chin …”

I’m staring at us at the same time and the us in Mirror are staring back.

“Not same nose.”

“Well, you’ve got a kid nose right now.”

I hold it. “Will it fall off and an adult nose grow?”

“No, no, it’ll just get bigger. Same brown hair—”

“But mine goes all the way down to my middle and yours just goes on your

shoulders.”

“That’s true,” says Ma, reaching for Toothpaste. “All your cells are twice as

alive as mine.”

I didn’t know things could be just half alive. I look again in Mirror. Our

sleep T-shirts are different as well and our underwear, hers has no bears.

When she spits the second time it’s my go with Toothbrush, I scrub each

my teeth all the way around. Ma’s spit in Sink doesn’t look a bit like me,

mine doesn’t either. I wash them away and make a vampire smile.

“Argh.” Ma covers her eyes. “Your teeth are so clean, they’re dazzling

me.”

Her ones are pretty rotted because she forgetted to brush them, she’s sorry

and she doesn’t forget anymore but they’re still rotted.

I flat the chairs and put them beside Door against Clothes Horse. He always

grumbles and says there’s no room but there’s plenty if he stands up really

straight. I can fold up flat too but not quite as flat because of my muscles,

from being alive. Door’s made of shiny magic metal, he goes beep beep after

nine when I’m meant to be switched off in Wardrobe.

God’s yellow face isn’t coming in today, Ma says he’s having trouble

squeezing through the snow.

“What snow?”

“See,” she says, pointing up.

There’s a little bit of light at Skylight’s top, the rest of her is all dark. TV

snow’s white but the real isn’t, that’s weird. “Why it doesn’t fall on us?”

“Because it’s on the outside.”

“In Outer Space? I wish it was inside so I can play with it.”

“Ah, but then it would melt, because it’s nice and warm in here.” She starts

humming, I guess right away it’s “Let It Snow.” I sing the second verse. Then

I do “Winter Wonderland” and Ma joins in higher.

We have thousands of things to do every morning, like give Plant a cup of

water in Sink for no spilling, then put her back on her saucer on Dresser. Plant

used to live on Table but God’s face burned a leaf of her off. She has nine left,

they’re the wide of my hand with furriness all over, like Ma says dogs are.

But dogs are only TV. I don’t like nine. I find a tiny leaf coming, that counts

as ten.

Spider’s real. I’ve seen her two times. I look for her now but there’s only a

web between Table’s leg and her flat. Table balances good, that’s pretty tricky,

when I go on one leg I can do it for ages but then I always fall over. I don’t

tell Ma about Spider. She brushes webs away, she says they’re dirty but they

look like extra-thin silver to me. Ma likes the animals that run around eating

each other on the wildlife planet, but not real ones. When I was four I was

watching ants walking up Stove and she ran and splatted them all so they

wouldn’t eat our food. One minute they were alive and the next minute they

were dirt. I cried so my eyes nearly melted off. Also another time there was a

thing in the night nnnnng nnnnng nnnnng biting me and Ma banged him

against Door Wall below Shelf, he was a mosquito. The mark is still there on

the cork even though she scrubbed, it was my blood the mosquito was

stealing, like a teeny vampire. That’s the only time my blood ever came out of

me.

Ma takes her pill from the silver pack that has twenty-eight little spaceships

and I take a vitamin from the bottle with the boy doing a handstand and she

takes one from the big bottle with a picture of a woman doing Tennis.

Vitamins are medicine for not getting sick and going back to Heaven yet. I

never want to go, I don’t like dying but Ma says it might be OK when we’re a

hundred and tired of playing. Also she takes a killer. Sometimes she takes

two, never more than two, because some things are good for us but too much

is suddenly bad.

“Is it Bad Tooth?” I ask. He’s on the top near the back of her mouth, he’s

the worst.

Ma nods.

“Why you don’t take two killers all the bits of every day?”

She makes a face. “Then I’d be hooked.”

“What’s—?”

“Like stuck on a hook, because I’d need them all the time. Actually I might

need more and more.”

“What’s wrong with needing?”

“It’s hard to explain.”

Ma knows everything except the things she doesn’t remember right, or

sometimes she says I’m too young for her to explain a thing.

“My teeth feel a bit better if I stop thinking about them,” she tells me.

“How come?”

“It’s called mind over matter. If we don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

When a bit of me hurts, I always mind. Ma’s rubbing my shoulder but my

shoulder’s not hurting, I like it anyway.

I still don’t tell her about the web. It’s weird to have something that’s minenot-Ma’s. Everything else is both of ours. I guess my body is mine and the

ideas that happen in my head. But my cells are made out of her cells so I’m

kind of hers. Also when I tell her what I’m thinking and she tells me what

she’s thinking, our each ideas jump into our other’s head, like coloring blue

crayon on top of yellow that makes green.

At 08:30 I press the button on TV and try between the three. I find Dora

the Explorer, yippee. Ma moves Bunny around real slow to better the picture

with his ears and head. One day when I was four TV died and I cried, but in

the night Old Nick brung a magic converter box to make TV back to life. The

other channels after the three are totally fuzzy so we don’t watch them

because of hurting our eyes, only if there’s music we put Blanket over and

just listen through the gray of her and shake our booties.

Today I put my fingers on Dora’s head for a hug and tell her about my

superpowers now I’m five, she smiles. She has the most huge hair that’s like a

really brown helmet with pointy bits cutted out, it’s as big as the rest of her. I

sit back on Bed in Ma’s lap to watch, I wriggle till I’m not on her pointy

bones. She doesn’t have many soft bits but they’re super soft.

Dora says bits that aren’t in real language, they’re Spanish, like lo hicimos.

She always wears Backpack who’s more inside than out, with everything

Dora needs like ladders and space suits, for her dancing and playing soccer

and flute and having adventures with Boots her best friend monkey. Dora

always says she’s going to need my help, like can I find a magic thing, she

waits for me to say, “Yeah.” I shout out, “Behind the palm tree,” and the blue

arrow clicks right behind the palm tree, she says, “Thank you.” Every TV

person else doesn’t listen. The Map shows three places every time, we have to

go to the first to get to the second to get to the third. I walk with Dora and

Boots, holding their hands, I join in all the songs especially with somersaults

or high-fives or the Silly Chicken Dance. We have to watch out for that

sneaky Swiper, we shout, “Swiper, no swiping,” three times so he gets all mad

and says, “Oh man!” and runs away. One time Swiper made a remotecontrolled robot butterfly, but it went wrong, it swiped his mask and gloves

instead, that was hilarious. Sometimes we catch the stars and put them in

Backpack’s pocket, I’d choose the Noisy Star that wakes up anything and the

Switchy Star that can transform to all shapes.

On the other planets it’s mostly persons that hundreds can fit into the

screen, except often one gets all big and near. They have clothes instead of

skin, their faces are pink or yellow or brown or patchy or hairy, with very red

mouths and big eyes with black edges. They laugh and shout a lot. I’d love to

watch TV all the time, but it rots our brains. Before I came down from

Heaven Ma left it on all day long and got turned into a zombie that’s like a

ghost but walks thump thump. So now she always switches off after one show,

then the cells multiply again in the day and we can watch another show after

dinner and grow more brains in our sleep.

“Just one more, because it’s my birthday? Please?”

Ma opens her mouth, then shuts it. Then she says, “Why not?” She mutes

the commercials because they mush our brains even faster so they’d drip out

our ears.

I watch the toys, there’s an excellent truck and a trampoline and Bionicles.

Two boys are fighting with Transformers in their hands but they’re friendly

not like bad guys.

Then the show comes, it’s SpongeBob SquarePants. I run over to touch him

and Patrick the starfish, but not Squidward, he’s creepy. It’s a spooky story

about a giant pencil, I watch through Ma’s fingers that are all twice longer

than mine.

Nothing makes Ma scared. Except Old Nick maybe. Mostly she calls him

just him, I didn’t even know the name for him till I saw a cartoon about a guy

that comes in the night called Old Nick. I call the real one that because he

comes in the night, but he doesn’t look like the TV guy with a beard and

horns and stuff. I asked Ma once is he old, and she said he’s nearly double her

which is pretty old.

She gets up to switch TV off as soon as it’s the credits.

My pee’s yellow from the vitamins. I sit to poo, I tell it, “Bye-bye, off to

the sea.” After I flush I watch the tank filling up going bubble gurgle wurble.

Then I scrub my hands till it feels like my skin’s going to come off, that’s how

to know I’ve washed enough.

“There’s a web under Table,” I say, I didn’t know I was going to. “It’s of

Spider, she’s real. I’ve seen her two times.”

Ma smiles but not really.

“Will you not brush it away, please? Because she isn’t even there even, but

she might come back.”

Ma’s down on her knees looking under Table. I can’t see her face till she

pushes her hair behind her ear. “Tell you what, I’ll leave it till we clean, OK?”

That’s Tuesday, that’s three days. “OK.”

“You know what?” She stands up. “We’ve got to mark how tall you are,

now you’re five.”

I jump way in the air.

Usually I’m not allowed draw on any bits of Room or furnitures. When I

was two I scribbled on the leg of Bed, her one near Wardrobe, so whenever

we’re cleaning Ma taps the scribble and says, “Look, we have to live with that

forever.” But my birthday tall is different, it’s tiny numbers beside Door, a

black 4, and a black 3 underneath, and a red 2 that was the color our old Pen

was till he ran out, and at the bottom a red 1.

“Stand up straight,” says Ma. Pen tickles the top of my head.

When I step away there’s a black 5 a little bit over the 4. I love five the best

of every number, I have five fingers each hand and the same of toes and so

does Ma, we’re our dead spits. Nine is my worst favorite number. “What’s my

tall?”

“Your height. Well, I don’t know exactly,” she says. “Maybe we could ask

for a measuring tape sometime, for Sunday treat.”

I thought measuring tapes were just TV. “Nah, let’s ask for chocolates.” I

put my finger on the 4 and stand with my face against it, my finger’s on my

hair. “I didn’t get taller much this time.”

“That’s normal.”

“What’s normal?”

“It’s—” Ma chews her mouth. “It means it’s OK. No hay problema.”

“Look how big my muscles, though.” I bounce on Bed, I’m Jack the Giant

Killer in his seven-league boots.

“Vast,” says Ma.

“Gigantic.”

“Massive.”

“Huge.”

“Enormous,” says Ma.

“Hugeormous.” That’s word sandwich when we squish two together.

“Good one.”

“You know what?” I tell her. “When I’m ten I’ll be growed up.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I’ll get bigger and bigger and bigger till I turn into a human.”

“Actually, you’re human already,” says Ma. “Human’s what we both are.”

I thought the word for us was real. The persons in TV are made just of

colors.

“Did you mean a woman, with a w?”

“Yeah,” I say, “a woman with a boy in an egg in my tummy and he’ll be a

real one too. Or I’m going to grow to a giant, but a nice one, up to here.” I

jump to touch Bed Wall way high, nearly where Roof starts slanting up.

“Sounds great,” says Ma.

Her face is gone flat, that means I said a wrong thing but I don’t know

which.

“I’ll burst through Skylight into Outer Space and go boing boing between

each the planets,” I tell her. “I’ll visit Dora and SpongeBob and all my

friends, I’ll have a dog called Lucky.”

Ma’s put a smile on. 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.