Room at the Top door John Braine

The story begins when Jack is having his 5^th birthday. He has given every item in his house a name, with uppercase and everything: Lamp, Room, TV, Closet, Sky light. His days consist of a daily routine: breakfast, one hour of Dora the explorer (because his mom says that watching TV makes you dumb), bathing, eating, playing games, diner and at night they come as close as possible to the sky light (a window) where they play the game “scream”. Where they yell, screech; scream as loud as they possibly can. When it’s bedtime, mom tells Jack a story and puts Jack into the Closet. This is where he sleeps. If Old Nick doesn’t come he gets to sleep with Ma.

On his birthday he gets a birthday cake with 5 pieces of chocolate that they put on the cake to appear as candles, because Jack wanted candles. After the cake he goes to bed instantly, Old Nick doesn’t come so he sleeps with Ma.

The next day is the same routine. But when the beep starts (signaling that Old Nick is coming) mom puts Jack in the closet. Old Nick asks Jack why he’s never allowed to see him. Jack hears Old Nick get in bed with Ma and counts the amount of time the bed screeches: 217.

The next day they play Scream.

The next morning Old Nick comes and he got a late present gift for Jack: a remote-control Jeep. Jack gets brought in the Closet and asks Ma if he gets to thank Old Nick. Ma responds with “no way, José”. That night, Old Nick comes. Jack starts the Jeep in the closet and it crashes. Old Nick awakens scared and thinks Ma was trying to hurt him. Old Nick hurts Ma badly and he leaves.

Ma tells Jack that Old Nick goes inside the TV to get the groceries. Jack believes her but Ma takes it back and restores herself by saying that the things on TV are actually real, except for Dora and SpongeBob. Jack is completely exited and starts to think about everything.

The next day “ma is gone”, well. She doesn’t come out of bed so Jack had an entire day for himself. In the upcoming few days she becomes better.

Old Nick comes again and is mad at Ma that the house smells like curry because the neighbors could smell it. At night Jack gets woken up because he hears Old Nick’s voice. He and Ma are fighting because he can’t avoid the vitamins Ma is asking for. Old Nick also lost his job and is angry because he can’t afford the groceries Ma is asking for.

Later in the night Jack wakes up and goes out of the closet while Old Nick is still there. Everyone loses their mind and Old Nick leaves the house in a fight. He cuts of the power. They’ve no power for 3 days and Ma explains Jack how he was kidnapped 7 years ago when she was 19 when. Old Nick tricked her by saying that his dog was dying, blindfolded her and took her away. Ma already tried a few times to escape, like digging a hole, holding a knife to his throat and smashing the upper half of the toilet onto his head. Nothing worked. She’s scared that Old Nick will eventually let them starve to death so they need to come up with a plan.

Ma comes up with a plan to fake that Jack is ill and when Jack gets to the hospital he’ll tell the doctors and the cops that he has been kidnapped. Jack is very scared but also brave. Scardybrave or ‘scave’. Ma lays a very wet/warm towel on Jack’s forehead. When Old Nick arrives and touches his cheek he flips out but doesn’t take him to the hospital. He says he’ll get some meds from the drugstore.

Ma goes into plan B: roll Jack up like a burrito and fake his death. Jack is given a little note with information. And when he stops at a traffic light he needs to jump out of the car and run up to people.

Old Nick comes and ma cries and stuff. Ma tells Old Nick to bury him far away because he’d hear him cry in the backyard. Jack gets put in the back of his truck, this hurts (which he later tells to the doctor when they ask “did Old Nick ever hurt you?”. After 3 traffic lights and 1 turn Jack finally manages to wrap himself out of the burrito and climbs out of the truck. He runs into a forest and Old Nick chases him. In the forest he runs to a man walking with his dog and daughter but is unable to say a word. Old Nick catches up to him and grabs Jack and walks back to his car. The man walking the dog doesn’t trust the situation and asks why Jack has a wound on his knee. The man walks with him to the car and tells that he’s writing down the number plate of his car. Old Nick drops Jack and drives off.

The police arrive shortly after and a woman is trying to get information out of Jack. Jack tells the cop that he passed 3 traffic lights, turned street ones and that his mom doesn’t actually live in a house but in a smaller house in the backyard. The police figure out where the mom lives and they get reunited. Old Nick gets caught too.

A lot of paparazzi come into play and they become famous. The mom explains in an interview what has happened. Jack’s vision isn’t developed as good yet so that’s why he’s constantly bumping into things. He gets a lot of vaccinations because he hasn’t had those yet. They go to a restaurant but Jack doesn’t like multiple tables so they go upstairs and eat chocolate and pancakes. Jack isn’t used to the sunlight yet so they give him some shades. They’re hoping that Old Nick will be given 25 years of prison. “I hope that Cell will be worse than Room”.

Ma is going to give an interview to get rid of all the rumors. The interview doesn’t go the way as planned and the interview is asking a little tense questions and Ma says “don’t treat me like I’m the only person with shit in his life”. She starts to cry and Jack walks up to her to wrap her up in a blanket.

The next day Ma is gone and she stays in bed. Jack goes with Uncle Paul, Deana and Bronwyn to a history museum to watch dinosaurs. But they’ve to go to the mall first. Jack gets the Dora the Explorer backpack, can’t go to the bathroom on his own, touches Bronwyn’s private parts, he sees the book Dylan the digger in the bookstore and he takes it because he thinks it’s his (the mother of Ma, and his grandmother gave him this book when he was in the hospital shortly after the release from Room). When he comes back home he realizes that Ma has overdosed on sleeping pills (a suicide attempt).

Ma is brought to the clinic and Jack stays with his grandmother. His grandfather doesn’t approve him because he thinks Ma should’ve never gotten him. Jack is unable to play with other kids and doesn’t know a lot of standard things: like that bees can sting. His math on the other hand is very good, which he overhears when her grandmother talks about him during her book club.

From time to time Jack gets a phone call that his mother is doing better and better and after a while Jack reunites with his mom ones again. Jack wants to see room for a final last time. Ma doesn’t want to go and is a little scared but still decides to go in. The woman that helped Jack on the night of the escape brings them to their Room. It’s covered with police linings. Jack finds it a lot smaller than that he remembered and a lot of things have changed. Jack stands near to the lines that measured his length for the past 5 years and his mom raises him up to the ceiling so he can say goodbye to room. Ma cries and Jack says “good bye” for the last time as they leave the room.