Boone!
Omri had, in the panic of sending Matron and the injured Indians back, totally forgotten about Boone.
His brain was working thickly. Boone! Boone had been here. Where? Where had he put him? Had he been on the seed tray? No. He had been in the Lego house, in his matchbox bed. Omri’d put him somewhere, at his own request—somewhere … out of sight. Out of sight, out of mind.
Omri tried to get up. It was a struggle. Every part of him ached and protested when he moved. He put his hand to the ground and dropped the sharp thing that had hit him, the last remains of his seaman’s chest—an angle of the lid with an oblong brass plate bearing the inscription, “L.”
As it struck the floor, he thought he heard a small extra sound, but before he could register it, it was drowned by a banging on the door, and terrified voices.
“Omri! Emma! Patrick! Are you all right? What was it, what happened?”
The three of them froze, gazing at each other. It was Emma who acted first. She scrambled stiffly to her feet and went to the door.
“We’re all right! Patrick’s here, we’re all here, the roof’s blown off, but we’re okay, and—”
“All right?!” yelled Omri’s mother. “You can’t be! Open the door!”
“I can’t,” said Emma. “The bolt’s bent.”
Omri’s eyes raced to the bolt. There was nothing wrong with it. Brilliant, he thought admiringly. She’s brilliant. That gives us a few minutes, anyhow.
“Omri!” called his father in a shocked voice. “What was it? What was that terrible noise? The house shook—like an earthquake—”
“I—I think it’s some kind of a freak wind, Dad!” Omri managed to croak. “Did you hear the tree come down? It’s gone, I can’t see the top branches anymore!”
Mr. Johnson could be heard to give a cry of anguish.
“Tree? Down? My God! My Porsche … !” And they heard him rush down the stairs.
“Patrick! Speak to me, speak to me!” cried Patrick’s mother hysterically.
“I’m here, Mum, calm down,” said Patrick shortly. He was white in the face.
“Listen, Dad,” said Omri quickly. “We’re okay, I’ll take the bolt off the door. You go and see how much damage there is. We’ll be down as soon as we get the door open.”
“Right,” said his father. “He’s right. Come on, let’s go down. Bloody roof’s off—my conservatory must be wrecked—” And he shepherded the women down the stairs, Patrick’s mother still fussing shrilly.
A silence fell. It was almost too much of a relief to bear, after all the terrifying uproar of the last few interminable minutes. The three of them stood still, trying to get to grips with things. And in that abrupt and welcome lull, they finally heard something that must have been going on for some time.
“Help! HELP! HE-E-E-LP!”
The voice—a very tiny one—seemed to come from above their heads.
They craned their necks. “I don’t believe it! Look up there!” shouted Omri, pointing.
Impaled on one of the broken roof beams was a familiar object. Its mirror was no more, its door hung from one hinge, and most of its remaining white paint had been battered off. But there it was, still there, what was left of it.
The cupboard!
And that wasn’t all. clinging precariously to the bottom rim by both hands, his spurred boots kicking over an infinity of empty air, was Boone.
18
Red Satin
HELP! GIT ME DOWN! Save me! Ah’m gonna fall! HE-E-E-LP!”
“How did he—Never mind! Quick, we must do something!”
“Boone! Hang on, we’re coming!”
“How?” he squawked. “Y ain’t got wings! An’ Ah cain’t hold on much longer! It’s no use!” His voice swooped into a despairing dirge. “Don’t bother none, fellas. It’s too late t’ save me … Ah’m doomed. Ah accept m’ fate. Ah jest wish Ah hadn’t lived such a rotten no-good hard-drinkin’ poker-playin’ life … !”
Once again Emma was the first to react sensibly—the boys were running around in circles under the dangling cupboard, bumping into each other in their hopeless search for something to climb on. Emma tore off her parka and thrust one sleeve into Omri’s hand and one into Patrick’s. Then, grasping the bottom edge herself and pulling it taut like a fireman’s blanket, she shouted up, “Let go! We’ll catch you!”
Boone let go and dropped what must have seemed to him a thousand feet, screaming all the way.
“Aaaaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeoooooow!”
He hit the quilting with a tiny plop and lay there, momentarily stunned. Emma and the boys laid the parka gently on the floor.
“Boone? Are you okay?” asked Patrick anxiously.
After a moment Boone slowly sat up.
“That’s all Ah needed,” he remarked bitterly, wincing as he felt himself all over. “As if it wasn’t enough t’ lose mah hat, an’ git crushed half to death by m’ best buddy”—he gave Patrick a dirty look—“I git blown almost up to the pearly gates, and instead o’ findin’ m’self on a nice soft pink cloud, I’m hangin’ out there in space yellin’ my haid off with not a livin’ soul takin’ a danged bit o’ notice till it’s nearly Too Late!” And he wiped away a tear. He scowled around darkly and then changed his tone. “Say, whut hit this place, anyhow? Musta bin some dynamitin’ that went wrong.”
“It was a cyclone from your town, from your time, Boone. It came back with me through the magic,” Patrick explained.
Boone looked appalled. “Say … Ah hope it didn’t wreck the saloon!”
“If the cyclone came here, it couldn’t be there at the same time, so I guess your town’s safe. And by the way—so is your hat.”
Boone’s whole manner changed. He jumped to his feet excitedly. “Ya found m’ hat? I sure miss it!”
“It’s okay, Boone. It’s back there, waiting for you. Ruby Lou made sure to pick it up safely. She knows you love it.”
Boone stared at him. “You—you run into Ruby?”
Patrick nodded. Boone’s eyes began to glow.
“Ya don’t say! Now ain’t she a great gal?”
“Yes, she is.”
“She ain’t one o’ your prissy, stuck-up kind, neither—she’s a real pal, and purty as paint too!” He heaved a wistful sigh. “Ah wisht she was here now! Y’ know,” he confided, “when Ah’m with Ruby, Ah never feels sad nor nuthin’, an’ Ah only cry ’cause she kinda likes me to tell her sad stories. And I kin do without drinkin’. That li’l Ruby gal is as good as likker to a man any day. Better.”
“That’s the nicest thing a man ever said to me, Billy Boone!”
The sound of this other tiny voice was so totally unexpected they all goggled at each other before turning toward it.
They stared unbelievingly. Standing up on the edge of the bit of the chest lid that Omri had dropped was a tiny figure in a red satin dress and high-polished red boots, with blond hair piled on her head and her hands on her hips.
Patrick let out a yell of delight. “RUBY! What are you doing here?”
“Search me! But the tables are turned now, eh, Pat? Now you’re the big ’un, but I don’t care so long as Billy’s my size. Who’s gonna bring me over to him so he can give me a hug?”
The boys dived, but Emma got there first. She took the tiny figure of Ruby Lou in her hand wonderingly and gazed at her. Then she lifted a shining face to Omri.
“She’s mine! It’s my red girl! I sneaked her onto the seed tray just before you put it into the chest! Isn’t she—just—beautiful!”
“Ain’t she, though!” echoed Boone adoringly as Emma gently set her down on the parka at his side and they fell into each other’s arms.
The freak storm was an absolute disaster for nearly everyone it touched. But for Omri, Patrick, and Emma, and for the little people, it was a godsend. In one way.
The destruction it wreaked on Omri’s home and the neighborhood was so extensive that what had gone just before was simply dislodged from the minds of
the grown-ups.
To begin with, Mr. Johnson’s precious car was a total write-off. To make matters worse—or better—just as he was jumping up and down beside it, ranting and raving at its destruction, a sizable branch from the dead elm broke off and descended on his head. After that, of course, though he recovered later, nobody was about to believe any tales he had to tell about little live men. (Incidentally, the insurance company refused to pay up for the Porsche because cyclones were excluded in the small print. He would have to come to school on a bicycle, a sadder and a humbler man.)
As for Omri’s and Patrick’s parents, they’d never exactly believed what Mr. Johnson tried to tell them just before they came rushing up the stairs. And afterward they simply never remembered it. The conservatory had been blown to pieces, the tree was blocking the road, their chimney had fallen through the roof next door: The whole place looked as if—well, as if a cyclone had struck it. There was no time even to think about anything else, once they had made sure their children were really all right.
The storm had severely damaged the school, which was closed for several weeks. This naturally caused all those who should have been learning there profound unhappiness. But they managed to make the best of things.
Patrick’s cottage in Kent was okay, but his mother’s orchard (she had taken to cider-making for a living since her divorce) had been devastated. The problems this caused meant she was only too glad to leave Patrick up in London for a time, while she dealt with them. She never did get around to asking him where he had been during that fateful twenty-four hours when he was missing.
So all that was on the plus side, at least from the point of view of the secret.
On the minus side were the condition of Omri’s house, his parents’ distress, and one other thing that loomed larger for him and the other two—not to mention Boone and Ruby—than anything else.
As soon as possible, Omri got a ladder and unhooked the cupboard impaled through its back on the broken roof joist. He took a hammer and carefully flattened the bent bits of metal back into place until the hole was almost concealed. He measured the space for the mirror and went out and bought another to match and fitted it in. He fixed the hinges and gave the whole thing a rubdown with sandpaper and repainted it, after which it looked a good deal better than it ever had before.
But all the time he was working on it, his heart was leaden, and Patrick and Emma—when they could be there—said very little. Each knew all too well what was in the minds of the others.
What Omri was so diligently, so devotedly working on was merely a memorial, a museum piece. The cupboard was of no practical use without the key.
And the key was gone.
Emma had taken over Ruby Lou, and—since Ruby refused to be parted from him—Boone stayed with Patrick, who was living in Emma’s house with his aunt. Omri was utterly opposed to this, but he couldn’t say much—the little people had hardly been proved safe in his place. But he lived in abject terror of Tamsin, or someone else, finding out.
Omri was having to share Gillon’s room. So in a way he was glad not to have the responsibility of the little people. But there was cold terror in his heart nearly every waking moment—even though Emma and Patrick assured him they were taking every precaution.
It was evident to Omri that, despite the dangers, or perhaps because of them, the other two were having the greatest fun of their lives. Ruby and Boone were living in an old dolls’ house of Emma’s, which, if not quite small enough for them (they had to really climb up the stairs and come down backward) contained plenty of things they could use—tables, chairs, beds, and kitchen gadgets galore.
What the dolls’ house didn’t provide, Patrick and Emma did. Patrick had fixed them up with a little wood stove (complete with stovepipe) made of a tea tin that had a hole on top of the right size for a real, tiny frying pan, and with this Ruby Lou could do some cooking. They used a special little loo, like a camping one, which Emma had arranged, and every day she brought them hot water for baths, and tiny towels (Boone got almost to like washing). Every day there were new things to make and add. They even rigged up real electric lights that were a wondrous novelty for Boone and Ruby, though the switch was too stiff for them to work alone and they really preferred a miniature, but real, oil lamp twice as tall as themselves.
All this was fine, for everyone but Omri. He felt very much alone and left out. Visiting occasionally and seeing for himself only made him sadder. He longed for Little Bear and Bright Stars to keep him company. Or even Matron … But there was no way. There would never be any way again. It made his heart very heavy. And very frightened when he thought of Boone and Ruby, with them forever, unable to get home, and in constant danger of discovery.
One day, two weeks after the storm, Patrick and Emma went over to Omri’s house.
“Boone and Ruby Lou asked us to bring them here,” Emma explained. “They want to talk about the future.”
The conference was held in Gillon’s room, which, even though he was not around, was nerve-racking. He might walk in at any moment—there was no bolt on this door. Besides, the roofers had at last arrived and were banging and crashing about, throwing down tiles into the front garden where they smashed on the stump of the tree, and beginning to remove the broken beams preparatory to putting on a whole new roof. Every few seconds something hurtled past the window and landed with a crash below. This meant they might not hear Gillon if he approached.
Omri closed the window and the curtains, though it was broad daylight, to help keep out the noise. Then he switched Gillon’s desk lamp on, and they all sat around Ruby Lou and Boone, who were seated on a pouffe made of a large eraser.
“Listen, folks,” Ruby began, as they all leaned forward to hear her. “I wouldn’t want to hurt your feelin’s none—I mean you kids’ve made us feel real welcome, givin’ us that special house and all—but we jest can’t settle here. It ain’t safe. Every time a door opens, I git me a heart attack, and besides, I keep havin’ nightmares about them big blowin’-up-the-world things Pat told me about. Now, we wanna git back home, but Billy, here, explained me the whole thing, about the key gittin’ blowed away, and it’s real bad news. What’re we gonna do?”
Nobody knew what to answer. The silence stretched.
As always when things were really desperate, Boone was dry-eyed and steady as a rock. “Couldn’t we try some other key?”
Omri said, “I have.”
The others looked at him.
“With the cupboard. I’ve tried every key in the house, just on the off chance, but none of them even fit.”
“Sure is a pity, with the cupboard lookin’ so new and fine—makes me wanna jump right in,” said Boone sadly. Ruby put her arm around his shoulders.
“Doncha start now, Billy, or you’ll have me bawlin’ too!”
“I ain’t bawlin’,” said Boone. “But Ah sure am gittin’ mighty homesick. It could make a man cry to think o’ never ridin’ the prairies or the deserts agin … or even set-tlin’ his favorite hat back on his ears….” This did cause him to give a deep sniff. “And another thing. How’s me an’ Ruby gonna git hitched if’n we cain’t git us a preacher? T’ain’t right, us livin’ in that house together, even in separate rooms, when the knot ain’t tied!”
Ruby gave him a look that suggested she might not have worried too much about that, but she glanced at Emma and said nothing.
“It looks to me,” said Emma, “as if what we’ll have to do is just keep trying keys. Old keys. Just keep trying and trying until we find one that works.”
Again they were silent. None of them believed that would ever happen. This business was a one off, and they all knew it.
“And meanwhile—what?” said Boone.
“Just keep on as you are—I’m afraid,” said Omri with a deep, miserable sigh.
They had something to eat, and Omri—who had a special tea prepared—tried to turn it into a bit of a party, but it was no use. They were all just too upset and scared a
bout the future to enjoy it. At last Emma put Ruby into her pocket, and Boone, with some assistance, clambered to his favorite perch with a leg each side of Patrick’s ear, facing out and well-masked by hair. He said it was the nearest thing to riding.
Omri went out with them to the gate.
The roofers had gone home for the day, leaving the front garden in chaos. There were tiles and broken bits of wood everywhere. The front lawn and the hedge dividing the garden from Hovel Road were all chopped up and smothered with debris.
“Dad’ll go ape when he sees this,” said Omri—and then he stopped.
He’d seen something. Something that in the first second he didn’t comprehend, because it didn’t belong. Not that bright color. He paused to look closer. The others were ahead of him, starting down the road toward the station. Omri reached up his hand to the top of the hedge.
And then he saw what it was.
He didn’t shout and jump and cheer. It was too important for that. He simply stood there with his hand raised, touching it, not pulling yet, just feeling, deep inside him, what it meant.
That narrow bit of red satin ribbon, sticking out between the twigs.
Epilogue
At a Wedding
IT WAS A MARVELOUS, unforgettable occasion. They all came. Matron—they had to send her back briefly, when they’d explained why they’d brought her, to change out of her uniform. (“Not remotely suitable!”) She reappeared in a smart navy-blue suit, a snow-white blouse with lots of unexpected frills down the front, and a funny little hat like a crooked flowerpot, with a dotted veil. She was even wearing a trace of lipstick!
Fickits emerged with his sergeant’s stripes, which his newly confident manner, after the Battle of the Skinheads, had earned him almost as soon as he returned to his company. When he understood the occasion, he wanted to go back to recruit a Royal Marine guard of honor, but he was dissuaded by Boone, who modestly said he wanted things quiet with “jest m’ best friends present.”
The Secret of the Indian (The Indian in the Cupboard) Page 10
