Room Page #4

Jack, tempted, reaches for the door...

Desperate to distract Old Nick, Ma touches his arm.

MA:

Let's go to bed.

Old Nick chuckles at this unaccustomed seductiveness.

MA (CONT’D)

Now.

OLD NICK:

Didn't your Momma ever teach you

manners?

MA:

Please.

(CONTINUED)

19 CONTINUED:
(3) 19

Pocketing the candy, he wraps himself round her.

They edge backwards out of view.

The lamp snaps off.

20 INT. ROOM - WARDROBE - NIGHT 20

A little later, everything is quiet. Moonlight.

Jack, asleep in a crooked position, wakes with a jump. He

sits up and rubs his neck. Finds his truck. He opens the door

and peeks out. Where's the candy?

21 INT. ROOM - NIGHT 21

Stepping out, holding his truck for moral support, Jack

stumbles into something and gasps. He picks it up: a thick

leather belt, like a cobra.

(CONTINUED)

21

CONTINUED:
21

He takes another few steps and stubs his toe on a huge boot.

Jack stares at Old Nick, asleep in the middle of the bed.

Ma is sleeping too, clinging to the far side.

Now he's come this far, Jack forgets the candy, fascinated by

Old Nick, whom he's seeing up close for the first time.

Jack puts his finger out, almost touching Old Nick's face.

Old Nick's eyes open, startled. Then he grins.

OLD NICK:

Hey sonny.

Ma leaps up screaming and flailing at Old Nick.

MA:

Get away from him! Get away!

Jack drops his truck and races to the wardrobe.

He jumps in and pulls the door, banging his head.

22

INT. ROOM - WARDROBE - NIGHT 22

Jack clutches his head, curled up in the corner of the

wardrobe, because it hurts, and to shut out Ma's screeching.

OLD NICK (O.S.)

Stop that noise.

Ma is suddenly muted. The thump of Old Nick throwing her down

on the bed. The lamp snaps on. Jack flinches and turns his

face away from the light.

OLD NICK (O.S.) (CONT'D)

Of all the crazy...

Sound of him pulling his clothes on, kicking the truck away.

MA (O.S.)

(hoarsely)

Just leave him alone.

The door makes the three beeps.

OLD NICK (O.S.)

Just don't forget where you got

him.

(CONTINUED)

22 CONTINUED:
22

Sound of the door opening, then shutting with a boom. Jack

waits to hear what Ma will do or say to him.

The lamp clicks off again: darkness. Jack dives out of the

wardrobe.

23 INT. ROOM - NIGHT - CONTINUOUS 23

JACK:

Sorry I - sorry - sorry -

He sobs and hyperventilates by the side of the bed.

JACK (CONT’D)

Sorry I came out of Wardrobe.

Ma takes him into bed with her.

MA:

It's OK.

She soothes him.

24 INT. ROOM - DAY 24

Shot of ice-crystals on the skylight. Silence: no

refrigerator hum.

Jack wakes first, shivering, though he doesn't know why. He

is astonished by purple bruises around Ma's throat. As if she

feels his gaze, Ma wakes and musters a smile. Jack notices

the white clouds of their breath in the air.

JACK:

Ma, we’re dragons.

Ma sits up. Registers the chill. Getting out of bed, she

turns on the lamp: no light. Jack is crushed to finds his

Jeep, one wheel snapped off.

Ma opens the refrigerator: dark inside. She's appalled.

MA:

He's cut the power.

She glances at the keypad: its little red light is out.

With a wild, illogical hope, she hurls herself at the door

and claws at its edges - but it's still locked. Jack watches,

bewildered:
he's never seen her try to open it.

25 INT. ROOM - DAY 25

Jack is at the table reading to his injured truck from ALICE.

Both are dressed in all their clothes in an effort to keep

warm.

JACK:

For, you see, so many out-of-the

way things had happened lat-ely -

MA:

Lately.

JACK:

-lately, that Alice had begun to

think that very few things indeed

were really impossible.

Ma comes to the table and doles out half-thawed green beans.

MA:

Lunch!

JACK:

No thanks.

MA:

We have to use them up before they

rot. Once we eat we'll feel warmer.

Jack makes himself chew a limp bean. Ma nibbles a few, with a

show of enthusiasm. Jack looks at his three-wheeled truck.

JACK:

When's Old Nick going to put the

power back?

MA:

Soon.

JACK:

When's soon?

(CONTINUED)

25 CONTINUED:
25

MA:

Once he's not mad with me anymore.

Jack watches the bruises on her throat move.

JACK:

I hope he never comes back not

ever.

MA:

Jack. Think about it.

He does, with difficulty.

JACK:

No Sunday Treat?

MA:

No anything.

Jack tries the bean again - then spits it out quietly. Ma

watches him, kisses him, forces herself to begin telling him

the truth.

MA (CONT’D)

Hey Jack. Remember the mouse?

JACK:

My friend Mouse?

MA:

You know where he is right now?

Jack looks all around Room.

MA (CONT’D)

On the other side of this wall.

Jack stares hard at the wall.

JACK:

What other side?

MA:

Oh Jack, everything has two sides.

JACK:

Not an octagon.

MA:

No, that's -

(CONTINUED)

25 CONTINUED:
(2) 25

JACK (OVERLAPPING)

An octagon has eight.

Ma holds up her hand flat.

MA:

But a wall's like this. And we're

on the inside, in Room, and Mouse

is on the outside, see?

JACK:

In Outer Space?

MA:

No, in the world. It's much closer

than Outer Space.

She shows him the distance with her hands.

JACK (OVERLAPPING)

I don't see any outside side.

MA:

But if we were outside in the

world, we would, we'd be looking at

the other side of this wall, and

Mouse lying in the grass with his

Ma. We'd see trees and cars and -

JACK (OVERLAPPING)

Grass is just TV.

MA:

Is it, though? You know when Door

opens and the air comes in, the air

that smells fresher - that's grass.

Jack tries to laugh.

JACK:

You can't smell TV.

MA:

But it's not TV. It's the real

world we smell. You're so smart, I

know you've started wondering.

(CONTINUED)

25 CONTINUED:
(3) 25

Jack shakes his head.

MA (CONT’D)

Where do you think Old Nick gets

our food?

JACK:

From TV by magic.

MA:

There's no magic! Everything we see

on TV - it's pictures of real stuff

and real people in the world.

JACK:

Dora's real for real?

MA:

No, sorry, not Dora, she's just a

picture, but the other ones, with

faces like ours - and there's real

streets and oceans, dogs, cats

JACK (OVERLAPPING)

No way. Where would they all fit?

MA:

Just out there, in the world.

Jack, tired of this, changes the subject.

JACK:

Can I have a sandwich?

Controlling her exasperation, Ma gets out a half slice of

bread and adds a rationed scraping of peanut butter. She sets

down his food and he comes to the table to eat it.

(CONTINUED)

25 CONTINUED:
(4) 25

Ma stands with her hands in her armpits to warm them. She

stares around as if for proof. Cranes up at the skylight.

MA:

Look! A leaf!

JACK:

Where?

MA:

On skylight.

She climbs up on a chair and lifts Jack onto her shoulders so

he can see. His head is close to the recessed skylight. He

looks at a brown, sodden half-rotted leaf.

JACK:

Dumbo Ma. That’s not a leaf. Leaves

are green.

MA:

On the trees they are but when they

fall they rot, like salad, in the

fridge, they -.

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