The Indian in the Cupboard (Essential Modern Classics, Book 1)

by Lynne Reid Banks

  “Not friend. Enemy,” muttered Little Bull. But the anger had gone out of him.

  “Whatever he is, you’ve got a job to do. Where are those pills? You’re to see that he gets them. We can’t – we can’t even see them. So it’s up to you! And when Boone is better, do you know what you’re going to do? You’re going to make him your blood-brother!”

  Little Bull shot him a quick, startled look. “Blood-brother?”

  “I know all about it,” Omri went on. “You both make little cuts on your wrists and tie them together so the blood mingles, and after that you can’t be enemies ever again. It’s an old Indian custom.”

  Little Bull looked baffled. “Not Indian custom.”

  “I’m sure it is! It was in a film I saw.”

  “White man idea. Not Indian.”

  “Well, this Indian’s going to do it. And you can smoke a peace-pipe. Don’t tell me that’s not an Indian custom either!”

  “Not Iroquois. Other tribes.”

  “Couldn’t you do it, just this once?”

  Little Bull was silent for a moment, thinking. Then Omri saw that crafty look that he knew of old coming on to the Indian’s face.

  “Good,” he said. “Little Bull give Boone medicine, make him my brother when strong. And Omri put plass-tick in box, make real wife for Little Bull.”

  “Not tonight,” said Omri firmly. “We’ve had enough excitement. Tonight you stand guard over Boone, give him his pills when he needs them, drinks of water and all that. Tomorrow, if everything’s all right, I’ll bring your woman to life. That’s a promise.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  BROTHERS

  OMRI HAD FULLY intended to go to sleep – Patrick did, almost immediately – but he couldn’t, tired though he was.

  Instead, he lay in the candle-light, his head turned towards the table where Boone lay, and Little Bull sat cross-legged next to him, erect and watchful. Sometimes Omri would close his eyes, but he did no more than doze; each time he opened them, he would meet Little Bull’s unblinking stare.

  It was partly the rat which kept him awake. It pattered around under the floor for hours, making Omri nervous, but it never came anywhere near the men. No, that wasn’t the main thing. The main thing was Omri’s thoughts.

  What was he going to do?

  He would bring Little Bull’s woman to life as he had promised. But then what?

  It had been hard enough with only one little being to feed, protect and keep secret. Much harder after Boone came. Now, with the woman, there’d be three. Young as he was, Omri knew that one woman and two men spelt trouble.

  For all Little Bull’s unpredictable moods, his demands, his occasional cruelties, Omri liked him. He wanted to keep him. But he knew, now, that that was impossible. Whichever way he thought about it, the end was the same – disaster of some kind. Whatever magic had brought this strange adventure about must be put to use again, to send the little people back to their own place and time.

  Having decided this, however sadly and reluctantly, Omri’s stressful thoughts let go their hold on him. He drifted off to sleep. When he opened his eyes again, dawn was breaking; the morning chorus of birds was just beginning. The candle had burnt itself out. The rat had gone to sleep. So had Little Bull, nodding over his bow… Omri peered closely at Boone. The yellow field-dressing on his wound moved steadily up and down; his skin had lost the grey look. He was better… Of course Little Bull shouldn’t have gone to sleep, but just the same, he had done his best. Omri slipped out of bed.

  His blazer was hanging from a hook at the back of his door. He took the paper-bag with the woman in it out of the pocket. Moving on tiptoe, he went to the cupboard, took out the plastic soldier, put in the plastic Indian girl, and locked the cupboard door again.

  When he heard little movements, he unlocked the cupboard and opened the door a crack, so she wouldn’t be frightened in the dark. Then he got back into bed, covered himself up all except his eyes, and stayed perfectly still to watch what would happen.

  At first nothing did. Then, slowly, stealthily, the door was pushed a little further open. Out crept a beautiful Indian girl. There was enough light in the room now for Omri to see the black of her hair, the chestnut brown of her skin, the bright red of her dress. He couldn’t see her expression, but he guessed she was bewildered. She glanced all round, and at once spotted Boone lying on the ground and Little Bull dozing beside him.

  She approached them cautiously. For a few moments she lingered behind Little Bull, clearly not sure whether she should touch and wake him or not. She decided against it, and, circling Boone’s feet, sat herself cross-legged on his other side, facing Little Bull.

  She sat staring at him. The three of them were so utterly still that they might have been plastic again. Then a blackbird outside gave a particularly loud chirrup and Little Bull sat up sharply.

  At once he saw her. His whole body gave a jolt. Omri felt a prickling up the back of his neck. The way they looked at each other! It went on a long time. Then, slowly and both together, they rose to their feet.

  Little Bull spoke to her quietly in his strange, rustling language which did not move his lips. She answered. He smiled. Standing there on either side of Boone, not touching, they talked for some minutes in low voices. Then he put out his hand and she put hers into it.

  They stood silently. Then their hands dropped. Little Bull pointed at Boone, and began talking again. The girl crouched down, touched Boone gently and expertly. She looked up at Little Bull and nodded. Then Little Bull looked around the room. He saw Omri.

  Omri put his finger to his lips and shook his head, as if to say, “Don’t tell her about me.”

  Little Bull nodded. He took the girl by the hand and led her to the seed-tray, up the ramp and into the longhouse. After a moment or two, he came out again. He ran the length of the table till he stood on its edge, as near to Omri as he could get. Omri leant forward so they could talk quietly.

  “Do you like her?”

  “Fit wife for Chief.” Omri realized this was as near to a word of thanks as he was likely to get, but he didn’t mind. “Now Omri hear Little Bull. Woman say, Boone good. Not die. Little Bull pleased. Omri take Boone, put in longhouse. Woman take care, give little medicines—” He held up the pill boxes. “Omri get food. Make wedding feast.”

  “How can you have a wedding feast with only two Indians?”

  “Yes… not good. Omri make more Indian, come to feast?” he asked hopefully. When Omri shook his head, Little Bull’s face fell.

  “Little Bull, wouldn’t you rather have your wedding feast at home with your own tribe?”

  Little Bull was no fool. He understood at once. He stood still, staring at Omri.

  “Omri put in box. Send back,” he said. His voice was very flat – Omri couldn’t tell if he liked the idea or not.

  “What do you think? Wouldn’t it be better?”

  Very slowly, the Indian nodded his head. “And Boone?”

  “Boone too.”

  “Make him my brother first.”

  “Yes. Then I’ll send you all back.”

  “When?”

  “When Boone’s well enough.”

  Now that Omri had decided, every day that passed was important because it was one day nearer to the last.

  Patrick was as sad as he was, but he didn’t argue against Omri’s decision.

  “It’s the only way, really,” Patrick said. After that he didn’t talk about it any more, he just tried to be at Omri’s house as much as possible.

  He couldn’t do things with Boone much, of course, even though, in a day or two, Boone was sitting up in the longhouse and demanding to talk to his horse (which was brought to the entrance for the purpose) and whining for all sorts of special food. And drink.

  “Ah cain’t be expected t’git muh strength back if ya won’t gimme some o’ the hard stuff,” he nagged. He even pretended to have a relapse. Omri pinched a nose-dropperful of whisky from his parents’ drinks cupbo
ard and squeezed two large drops down Boone’s throat before the Indian girl (whose name was Twin Stars, a reference to her bright eyes, Omri supposed) succeeded in conveying the fact that Boone was perfectly all right and that his faint was faked.

  Still, after he’d had his drink Boone seemed so much better that Omri and Patrick decided it wouldn’t do him any harm (“He’s used to it, after all!”) and thereafter Boone got a liquor ration three times a day. And did very well on it.

  “He’ll be ready to go back tomorrow,” said Omri on the fourth day, when Boone, having had a leg up from Little Bull, managed to ride his horse round the seedbox at a steady walk. “They’ll probably look after him better than we can, in his own time.”

  A thought struck him, and he fished out of his pocket the drawing Boone had done.

  “Boone, is this your home town?”

  “Shore is!”

  Omri studied it closely under the magnifying glass. Away up the street he saw a little sign reading ‘Doctor’.

  “Is he a good doctor?”

  “’Bout as good as any out West, Ah reckon. Fish a bullet out of a man’s arm or cut his foot off fer snake-bite as neat as kin be. I seen him bring a pal o’ mine back from the dead, near enough, by puttin’ a hot coal in his belly-button. He never operates till a man’s dead drunk, and he don’t charge extry for the likker neither!”

  Omri and Patrick looked at each other. “You’d feel that you were in good hands, with this – er – doctor looking after you?” Patrick asked worriedly.

  “Shore would! Anyhow, don’t need no sawbones now, m’wound’s healin’ up fine. S’long as Ah git mah whisky, Ah’ll be as good as new.”

  Boone bore not the slightest ill-will towards Little Bull for having shot him.

  “That there’s a Injun’s natural nature. Pore simple critter c’d no more help himself than Ah kin keep away from muh horse and muh bottle!”

  The night before Omri had decided to send them back, they held the blood-brotherhood ceremony.

  “I wish we could ask our brothers!” said Patrick to Omri at school that day. “Supposing we tell them one day about this – they’ll never believe us.”

  “Sending them back,” said Omri slowly, “doesn’t mean the magic won’t work any more. I’m going to put the key away somewhere so I won’t be tempted; but it will always be there.”

  Patrick looked at him wonderingly. “I never thought of that,” he said slowly. “So there’d be nothing to stop us – months or even years from now – from bringing Boone and Little Bull back again. To visit.”

  “I don’t know,” said Omri. “Maybe their time is different from ours. It would be awful if they were old, or—” But he couldn’t say “or dead”. Both Boone and Little Bull came from such dangerous times. Omri shivered and changed the subject.

  “As for our brothers coming,” he said, “all I want of my brothers is to keep that rat in its cage.” The rat had been caught by Omri after a long, patient wait with cheese and a fishing-net, and Omri had threatened Gillon with the worst fate imaginable if he let it get away again.

  The two boys went to Yapp’s after school and bought feast-food for the ceremony – salted nuts, crisps, Hula Hoops and chocolate. Omri bought a quarter of a pound of best mince at the butcher’s for tiny hamburgers (a teaspoonful would have been enough, but the butcher wasn’t interested in that). They got bread, biscuits, cake and Coke from Omri’s mother, and Omri sneaked another dropperful of ‘the hard stuff’, without which Boone would certainly not consider it a festive occasion at all.

  Omri was rather surprised Boone had agreed to be blood-brother to a ‘stinkin’ redskin’ at all, but he actually seemed rather to fancy the idea.

  “T’ain’t jest anyone gits ter be blood-brother to an Injun chief, y’know,” he said proudly, as he rolled up his sleeve and Twin Stars carefully swabbed his arm with soap and water. But when he saw Little Bull sharpening his knife on a pebble he turned pale.

  “Hell! It’ll hurt!” he muttered, but Patrick told him not to be a coward.

  “It’s only a nick, it’s nothing at all!”

  “Easy fer you!” retorted Boone. “I ain’t sure this is sich a nice idee, after all…”

  But he cheered up when he saw the campfire being kindled, and smelt the meat Twin Stars was cooking on a pointed stick; and when Omri gave him a good swig from the dropper he swaggered up to Little Bull and offered his arm with a drunken flourish.

  “Chop away, brother!” he said loudly.

  Little Bull went through a whole routine first, cleaning himself, offering up loud chanting prayers to the spirits and performing a marvellous stamping dance round the fire. Then he nicked his own wrist with the point of his knife. The blood welled up. Boone took one look and burst into tears.

  “Ah don’t wanna! Ah changed m’mind!” he bawled. But it was too late for that. Little Bull seized his arm, and before Boone knew what was happening the deed was done.

  Twin Stars bound their wrists together with a strip of hide torn from the hem of her red dress. Boone looked at it in a bemused way and said, “Gee whiz. We done it! I’m part-Injun! Wal… Ah guess Ah cain’t say nothin’ ’gainst ’em in the future.”

  Then the two ‘brothers’ sat on the ground. Little Bull took out a short-stemmed pipe and some rather evil-smelling tobacco, and he and Boone took it in turns to puff at it. Twin Stars served them the cooked meat, and all the rest of the feast. Patrick and Omri offered their congratulations and tucked into their own food. They kept the campfire going with tiny bits of broken matchsticks and a bit of coal-dust Omri had collected from the outside bunker, which, when sprinkled on the flame, made it spit minute sparks. Looking at it, and the three little figures round it, the boys gradually lost their sense of size altogether.

  “I feel as if I were the same as them,” murmured Patrick.

  “Me too,” said Omri.

  “I wish we were all the same size, then there’d be no problem.”

  “Don’t be funny! No problems, with two full-grown Indians and a crying cowboy?”

  “I meant, if we were small. If we could enter their world – sleep in the longhouse – ride the ponies—”

  “I wouldn’t mind eating one of those hamburgers,” said Omri.

  Twin Stars was now crouched by the fire, tending it, singing softly. One of the horses whinnied. Boone seemed to have dropped off to sleep, leaning on Little Bull’s shoulder. Little Bull alone was aware of the boys, watching them. He beckoned to Omri with his free hand.

  When Omri bent to hear him, he said, “Now!”

  “Now? You mean, to go back?”

  “Good time. All happy. Not wait for morning.”

  Omri looked at Patrick. He nodded slowly.

  “When you go into the cupboard,” Omri said, “you must hold Twin Stars. Or she may not go back with you.”

  “Woman go back with Little Bull. Little Bull hold, not let go. And horse! Little Bull only Iroquois with horse!”

  “But Boone must go separately. Don’t drag him back to your time, your people would kill him even if you are his new brother.”

  Little Bull looked at Boone, asleep at his side, and at their joined wrists. Then he took his knife and cut the thong that bound them together. Patrick gently lifted Boone up.

  “Don’t forget his hat! He’d never forgive us if we let him leave that behind.”

  To be safe, they sat Boone on his horse. Cowboys often ride in their sleep, and he didn’t stir as Little Bull led him down the ramp, across the table and up another ramp that Omri stood against the rim of the cupboard. Then Little Bull went back to the seed-tray. Carefully he and Twin Stars put out the fire with earth. Little Bull took a last look at his longhouse. Then he put Twin Stars on to his pony’s back, and led them after Boone.

  They stood all together in the bottom of the cupboard. Nobody spoke. Omri had his hand on the door when Patrick suddenly said, “I’m going to wake Boone up. I don’t care, I’ve got to say goodbye to him!”


  Hearing his name, Boone woke up by himself, so suddenly he nearly fell off his horse and had to clutch the high pommel of his saddle.

  “Watcha want, kid?” he asked Patrick, whose face was close to him.

  “You’re going home, Boone. I wanted to say goodbye.”

  Boone stared at him and then his face slowly crumpled.

  “Ah cain’t stand sayin’ goodbye,” he choked out as tears began to stream. He pulled a huge grubby handkerchief from his pocket. “Ah jest re-fuse t’say it, that’s all! Ah’ll only bust out cryin’ if Ah do.” And he blew a trumpet-blast on his nose.

  Omri and Little Bull were staring at each other. Something else was needed – some special farewell. It was Little Bull who thought of it.

  “Omri give hand!”

  Omri put his hand forward. The pony braced his legs but Little Bull held him steady. He took hold of Omri’s little finger, drew his knife and pricked it in the soft part. A drop of blood appeared. Then Little Bull solemnly pressed his own right wrist against the place and held it there.

  “Brother,” he said, looking up at Omri with his fierce black eyes for the last time.

  Omri withdrew his hand. Little Bull jumped on to the back of his pony behind Twin Stars, holding her round the waist so that he, she and the pony made one unit which could not be separated during whatever kind of unearthly journey they had to make together through the unknown regions of time, space – proportion.

  Little Bull raised his arm in the Indian salute.

  Omri put his hand on the door. He could hardly bear to do it. He had to set his teeth. Boone and his horse stood patiently, but the Indian’s pony started to prance and sidle. It put up its head and gave a long challenging neigh.

  “Now!” cried Little Bull.

  Omri drew in his breath, closed the door and turned the key.

  He and Patrick stood frozen with the sadness, the strangeness of it. The magic was working at this moment… Both of them silently counted ten. Then, very slowly, Omri, whose hand had not left the key, turned it back again and swung open the door.