RETURN OF THE INDIAN

Lynne Reid Banks

ILLUSTRATED BY PIERS SANFORD

To all those who wrote to me, giving me ideas!

And to Omri, my darling son.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

1 A Defeat

2 A Victory

3 The Way it Began

4 The Sweet Taste of Triumph

5 From Dangerous Times

6 Going for Help

7 Matron

8 The Operation

9 A Good Luck Piece

10 Boone’s Brainwave

11 Target Omri!

12 The Troops

13 A Death and a Healing

14 Red Men, Red Coats

15 Corporal Fickits

16 If’n Ya Wanna Go Back…

17 As Far as You Can Go

18 Algonquin

19 The Terror of the Battle

20 Invasion

21 Rout of the Skinheads

Epilogue by the Fire

Also by the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

1 A Defeat

Omri emerged from the station into Hove Road.

Someone with a sense of humour and a black spray-can had recently added an ‘l’ to the word ‘Hove’ on the street sign on the corner, making it ‘Hovel Road’. Omri thought grimly that this was much more appropriate than ‘Hove’ which sounded pleasantly like somewhere by the sea. Omri would have liked to live by the sea, or indeed almost anywhere in the world rather than Hovel Road. He had done his best to understand why his parents had decided to move here from the other house in the other, much nicer, district. True, the new house was larger, and so was the garden. But the area was a slum.

Omri’s father objected strongly to Omri calling it a slum. But then he had a car. He didn’t have to walk half a mile along Hovel Road to the station every day, as Omri did to get to school, and again – as now – to get home in the gloomy afternoon. It was October, and the clocks had gone back. That meant that when he came out of the station it was practically dark.

Omri was only one of many children walking, playing or hanging around in Hovel Road at this hour, but he was the only one who wore school uniform. Of course he took his blazer and tie off in the train and stuffed them into his schoolbag, but that still left his white shirt, black trousers and grey pullover. However he mussed them up, he still stood out among the others he had to pass through.

These others all went to a local school where uniform was not required. Under other circumstances, Omri would have begged his parents to let him change schools. At least, then, he wouldn’t have been an obvious outsider. Or maybe he would. He couldn’t imagine going to school with these kids. After a term and a half of running the gauntlet of their mindless antagonism every working day, he regarded them as little better than a pack of wolves.

That group waiting for him on the corner by the amusement arcade… He knew them by now, and they knew him. They waited for him, if they had nothing better to do. His passing seemed to be one of the highlights of their day. Their faces positively lit up as they saw him approach. It took all his courage to keep walking towards them.

At moments like this, he would remember Little Bull. Little Bull had been only a fraction of Omri’s size, and yet he had stood up to him. If he had felt scared, as Omri did now, he never showed it. Omri was not that much smaller than these boys. There were just so many of them, and only one of him. But imagine if they’d been giants, as he was to Little Bull! They were nothing but kids like himself, although several years older. Except that they weren’t like him. They’re rats, he thought, to rouse himself for battle. Pigs. Toads. Mad dogs. It would be shameful to let them see he was afraid of them. He gripped his schoolbag tightly by both handles and walked on.

If only he had had Boone’s revolver, or Little Bull’s knife, or his bow and arrows, or his axe. If only he could fight like a cowboy or an Indian brave! How he would show that crew then!

The boy he had to pass first was a skinhead, like several of the others. The cropped head made him look somehow animal-like. He had a flat, whitish face and about five gold rings in one ear. Omri should perhaps have detoured a bit to be out of range, but he would not swerve from his path. The skinhead’s boot shot out, but Omri was expecting that and skipped over it. Then a concerted movement by the others jerked Omri into evasive action. Speed was his only hope. He broke into a run, hampered by his heavy bag.

Several hands reached out to grab him as he passed. One caught and held fast. He swung the bag and it hit home. The boy released his hold, doubled over and said, “Uuoogh!” It reminded Omri of the time Little Bull had fought Boone, the cowboy, and got kicked in the stomach. He’d made the same noise.

Someone else clutched Omri’s flying shirt-tail and he jerked away hard and heard it rip. He swung round with his bag again, missed, and found himself turning in a circle after the bag. There was the sound of jeering laughter. He felt hot rage flood under his skin. He was roused now; he wanted to stop, to fight, but he saw their sneering, idiot faces. That was all they were waiting for. They would beat him up. They’d done it once before and he had stumbled home with a bloody nose and a shoulder bruised from the pavement, and one shoe missing. His schoolbag, too. He’d had to go back (Adiel, his eldest brother, had gone with him), and found all his books scattered, and the bag torn and half-full of filthy rubbish.

An experience like that taught you something. He fled, hating himself, but hating his enemies more. They didn’t pursue him. That would have been too much trouble. But their shouts and jeers followed him all the way to his gate.

As he turned into it, he slowed down. He was on safe ground here. It was a different world. The property had a high hedge which shut it off from the street. The house was a nice house. Omri didn’t deny that. He could see in to the warm, well-lit living room with its familiar furniture and lamps and ornaments and pictures.

His mother was in there, just putting a match to the open fire. Omri paused in the twilight to watch. He loved to see the flames. These, too, reminded him of Little Bull and the tiny fires he had made outside his tepee, the love-dance he had done around his fire before he married Twin Stars… Omri sighed. It was over a year since that time. But not a single day had passed without him thinking about his Indian and all the astonishing adventures they had had together.

Omri had grown up quite a bit in the meantime. There had been moments when he would almost have liked to believe that he’d made the whole thing up. A plastic Red Indian coming alive – absurd! He had tried to push it to the back of his mind, but it wouldn’t be pushed. It was as vividly real to him as if it had happened this morning.

The little bathroom cupboard. His special key that his mother had given him. And magic. The magic that brought plastic people to life… It had happened, all of it. And yet, three days ago, Patrick had behaved in that peculiar way. It had shaken Omri; shaken his belief in his own memory.

Patrick, too, had moved house. When his parents divorced, he and his mother and brother had gone right away. This had happened months ago. At first the boys had written to each other, but somehow the letters had petered out. There’d been no more contact between them, until three days ago. Omri had been walking out of the school gate (their old school – Omri was now in his final year before high school) and found Patrick waiting for him.

Patrick had grown. His face looked different as well. They just stood in front of each other, grinning, not knowing what to say.

“How’ve you been?” said Patrick at last.

“All right,” said Omri. “Have you moved back?”

“No. We’re visiting. I thought I’d come and look at the old school.”

They had begun walking toward the station.

“Do you like where you live now?” Omri had asked.

“Oh yeah, the country’s all right. Once you get used to it. I’ve made a few friends. And the cottage is nice. Seems funny with just the three of us.” Omri didn’t press this point. He could hardly imagine life without his dad, but then, his dad didn’t hit him, or hit his mother.

They chatted on rather awkwardly, with some silences, but it got better. By the time they’d reached the station it was almost as if Patrick had never gone away, as if they were still as close as they used to be. That was why Omri didn’t hesitate to say, “Where do you keep Boone and his horse?”

Patrick seemed to stumble as he walked, like a hiccup with his feet.

“Who?”

A little cold shiver passed down Omri’s back. He stopped.

“Boone.”

Patrick stopped too. He stared across Omri’s shoulder at the station.

“What are you on about? Who’s Boone?”

Omri narrowed his eyes. Could Patrick be serious, or was he teasing? But Patrick wasn’t a tease.

“You know perfectly well. Your cowboy.” There was a silence. Patrick was rubbing his thumb against the side of his fìnger, a quick, dry, nervous sound. “Like Little Bull was my Indian,” said Omri. He couldn’t quite believe what seemed to be happening, so he rattled on, “I’ve still got him, of course. The plastic figure of him, I mean. Remember? How he sat on his pony with Twin Stars in front of him, and raised his hand to say goodbye just as we shut the cupboard door, when we sent them back?”

The silence went on for what seemed like eternity. Then Patrick snapped his head round and looked into Omri’s face.

“You’re talking a load of rubbish,” he said loudly. “I gave you a plastic Indian for your birthday. That’s all I remember.” He looked at his watch. “My mum’s waiting,” he said shortly. “Bye.” And he ran off.

Now as Omri stood outside his new house in the gathering dark, a possible solution to this troubling and incredible episode came to him.

Maybe Patrick didn’t want to remember, he thought. Because a thing like that, well… it makes you different from other people. It’s a secret you can never tell, not if you don’t want everyone to think you’re crazy. It’s lonely having a secret like that. If Patrick hadn’t moved away, if they could have kept talking about it and remembering together, then he’d never have denied it, or started trying to pretend it never happened.

2 A Victory

Omri entered the house by the side door, which opened into the kitchen. His black-and-white cat, Kitsa, was sitting on the draining-board. She watched him out of her knowing green eyes as he came to get a drink of water.

“You’re not supposed to be up there, Kits,” he said. “You know that.” She continued to stare at him. He flicked some water on her but she ignored it. He laughed and stroked her head. He was crazy about her. He loved her independence and disobedience.

He helped himself to a hunk of bread, butter and Primula, and walked through into the breakfast room. It was their every-meal room actually. Omri sat down and opened the paper to the cartoon. Kitsa came in, and jumped, not on to his knee but on to the table, where she lay down on the newspaper right over the bit he was looking at. She was always doing this – she couldn’t bear to see people reading.

It had been a long day. Omri laid his head on his arm, bringing it level with Kitsa’s face, and communed with her, eyeball to eyeball. He felt sleepy and cat-like. When his mother came bursting in, it gave him a fright.

“Oh, Mum… I wish you wouldn’t bash about like that!”

“Omri!”

He looked at her. She had a strange look on her face. Her eyes and mouth were wide open and she was staring at him as if she’d never seen him before.

He sat up straight, his heart beating. “What’s up?”

“A letter came for you,” she said in an odd voice to match her goggle-eyed expression.

“A letter? For me? Who from?”

“I – I’m afraid I opened it.”

She came over to him and gave him a long envelope, torn open at the top. It had printing on it as well as his name and address in typing. Omri stared at it. It said, ‘Telecom – Your Communications Service’. He felt numb inside. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be. He didn’t touch the letter, which lay on the table beside Kitsa. (For once his mother didn’t even seem to notice that she was there – normally she chased her off.)

“Why did you open it?” Omri asked at last in a croaky voice.

“Darling, because I didn’t look at the name. You boys don’t get many letters.” She gave a short, rather hysterical laugh. Omri quite saw how it could happen. He just wished… he wished he could have been the first to know.

“Well, go on – read it!”

He picked up the envelope and took out the letter.

Dear Omri,

We are delighted to inform you that your story, The Plastic Indian, has won first prize for your age group in our Telecom Creative Writing Competition.

We think it is a superb story showing extraordinary powers of imagination and invention. Our judges consider it worthy of publication.

Your prize, £300.00, will be presented to you at a party we are giving for all prize-winners on November 25th in the Savoy Hotel.

A special invitation card will be sent to you. May we congratulate you on your success.

Yours sincerely,

Squiggle Squiggle, Competition Director for Telecom.

Omri kept his eyes on this letter long after he had finished reading it. Inside, he was jumping up from his chair, running round and round the room, hugging his mother, shouting with triumph. But in reality he just sat there staring at the letter, a deep glow like hot coals in his chest, too happy and astonished to move or speak. He didn’t even notice that his free hand was stroking Kitsa from nose tip to tail tip again and again while she lay on the newspaper, purring with bliss.

His mother woke him from his trance.

“Darling? Do you realize? Isn’t it fantastic? And you never said a single word!”

At this moment his father came in from outdoors. He’d been working in the garden, as he often did, until it was actually too dark to see. Now he stamped the mud off his shoes in the open doorway, but for once his mother didn’t care about the mud, and almost dragged him into the room.

“Oh, do come and hear the news! I’ve been bursting to tell you all day. Omri – tell him. Tell him!”

Wordlessly, Omri handed his father the letter. There was a silence, then his father whispered reverently, “God in Heaven. Three hundred pounds!”

“It’s not the money!” cried his mother. “Look, look what they say about his story! He must be brilliant, and we never even knew he had writing talent.” She came to Omri and smothered him with hugs. “When can we read it? Oh, just wait till the boys hear about this…”

His brothers! Yes. That would be almost the sweetest thing of all. They always behaved as if he were too thick to do anything. And telling them at school. His English teacher simply wouldn’t believe her senses. Perhaps Mr Johnson, the headmaster, would get him up at Assembly and announce the news, and they would all applaud, and he would be asked to read the story aloud… Omri’s head began to spin with the incredible excitement of it. He jumped up.

“I’ll go and get my copy and you can read it,” he said.

“Oh, did you keep a copy?”

“Yes, that was in the rules.” He stopped in the doorway and turned. “I typed it on your typewriter when you were out,” he confessed.

“Did you, indeed! That must have been the time I found all the keys jumbled together.” But she wasn’t really annoyed.

“And I borrowed paper and carbon paper from Dad’s desk. And a big envelope to send it in.”

His mother and father looked at each other. They were both absolutely beaming with pride, as they had when Gillon had come home and announced he’d broken a swimming record at school, and when Adiel had got ten O-levels. Omri, looking at them, knew suddenly that he had never expected them to have that look because of him.

“Well,” said his father, very solemnly, “now you can pay me back. You owe me the price of the stamp.” His face broke into a great, soppy grin.

Omri raced upstairs. His heart was pounding. He’d won. He’d actually won! He’d never dared to hope he would. Of course, he’d dreamt a little. After all, he had tried his very best, and it was a great story to begin with. Imagination and invention, eh? That was all they knew. The real work was in the way he’d written it, and re-written it, and checked the spelling until just for once he could be confident that every word was right. He’d persuaded Adiel to help with that part – without telling him, of course, what it was actually for.

“Stirrup? Maize? Iroquois?”

“Iroquois!” Adiel had exclaimed.

“It’s the name of an Indian tribe,” said Omri. Fancy not knowing that! Omri had now read so many books about American Indians that he’d forgotten that not everyone was as knowledgeable on the subject as himself.

“Well, I haven’t a clue how to spell it. I-R-O-K-W-”

“No it’s not, it’s like French. Never mind, I know that one, I just wanted to see if you did. Whisky?”

Adiel spelt it, and then asked, “What on earth is this you’re writing? What a weird bunch of words!”

“It’s a story. I’ve got to make it as perfect as I can.”

“But what’s it about? Let me see it,” said Adiel, making a grab at the notebook.

Omri dodged. “Leave off! I’ll show you when it’s finished. Now. Bandage?” Adiel spelt this (actually Omri had spelled it correctly) and then Omri hesitated before saying, “Cupboard?”

Adiel’s eyes narrowed.

“You’re not telling about the time I hid your so-called secret cupboard after you’d nicked my football shorts?”

“I didn’t…”

“The time the key got lost and you made such an idiotic uproar? You’re not going to put me into any stupid school story.”

“I’m changing the names,” said Omri.

“You’d better. Any more words?”

Omri read on silently to the next longish word. “Magnanimous.”

“Cor,” said Adiel with heavy sarcasm. “Bet you don’t even know what it means.”

“Yes I do. Generous.”

“Where’d you get it from?”

“‘The Iroquois were a tribe ferocious in war, stalwart in alliance, magnanimous in victory’,” quoted Omri.

“You sound like Winston Churchill,” said Adiel, but there was a trace of admiration in his voice this time. “Don’t make it too show-offy, will you? You’ll only lose marks if your teacher thinks you’ve copied it.”

“I haven’t written that, you berk,” said Omri. “I’m just remembering what I’ve read in a book.” He was beginning to relish long words, though. Later he went through his story yet again to make sure he hadn’t used too many. His teacher was forever saying, “Keep it simple. Stick to what you know.” Little would anyone guess how closely he had stuck to the truth this time!

And now… Imagination and invention…

He paused on the stairs. Had he cheated? It was supposed to be a made-up story. It said so in the rules. Or had it? ‘Creative writing’ meant that, didn’t it? You couldn’t create something that had really happened… All you could do was find the best way of writing it down. Of course he had had to make up bits of it. Vivid as his memories of Little Bull and Boone were, he couldn’t remember every word they ever spoke. Omri frowned and went on up the stairs. He didn’t feel entirely easy in his mind, but on the other hand… Nobody had helped him. The way he’d written the story was all his own. Maybe it was okay. There wasn’t much he could do about it, anyhow.

He continued more slowly up the stairs to his room, at the very top of the house.

3 The Way it Began

Omri was rather a private person. At least he needed to be alone quite a bit of the time. So his room, which was right up under the eaves of the house, was perfect for him.

In the old house, his bedroom had been just one of several opening off the upstairs landing, and at certain times of the day had been like a railway station. His new room was right off the beaten track. No one (in his opinion) had any reason to come up here, or even pass the door. There were times, now he had got it all arranged to suit himself, when he forgot about how awful it was living in Hovel Road, when it seemed worth everything to have a room like this.

It wasn’t a very large room, so his father had built a shelf high up under the skylight for him to sleep on. This was great, because he could look up at the night sky. Under this bed-shelf was his desk, and more shelves for his collections of old bottles, key-rings and wooden animals. The wall opposite the window was covered with his posters – a mixture of old and new, from Snoopy and an early Beatles, to the Police and a funny, rude one about a flasher who gets caught in a lift. In pride of place were two large photographs of Iroquois chieftains that he’d found in magazines. Neither of these Indians looked remotely like Little Bull, but they appealed to Omri just the same.

His clothes were stored on the landing, so his room wasn’t cluttered up with those. That left quite a lot of space for his beanbag seats, a low table (he’d sawed its legs half off after seeing a photo of a Japanese room), his cassette radio, and his most recent acquisition – an old chest.

He’d found this in the local market, coated with dirt and grease, bought it for two pounds after bargaining, and borrowed a marketeer’s barrow to drag it round the corner to Hovel Road. He’d cleaned it with a scraper and some sandpaper in the back garden, before hauling it up to his room.

It had ‘come up a treat’, just as the man in the market had promised. The wood was oak, the hinges iron, and it had a brass plate on it with the name of its first owner. Omri had hardly been able to believe it when he had cleaned the layers of dirt off this plate and read the name for the first time. It was L. Buller. L. Buller… Little Bull! Of course it was pure coincidence, but, as Omri thought, If I were superstitious… He rubbed up the brass every week. Somehow it, too, made him feel closer to Little Bull.

The chest was not only interesting and beautiful, but useful. Omri used it for storage. There was only one thing wrong with it. It had a lock, but no key. So he piled cushions and other objects on it and pretended it was a bench. That way nobody who happened to be prying about in his room (it still happened occasionally, mothers cleaning and brothers poking about ‘borrowing’) would realize that it contained a number of interesting and private objects.

Omri knelt by the chest now and shifted to the floor a pile of cassettes, a bullworker (he was bent on developing his muscles), some cushions and three copies of Mad magazine, among other bits of junk. Then he opened the top of the chest. It, too, was untidy, but Omri knew where to burrow. On their way down the left-hand side in search of the folder containing his prize-winning story, Omri’s fingers touched metal, and paused. Then, carefully, he moved some other things which were in the way, and eased this metal object out.

It was a small white cabinet with a mirror in its door and a keyhole – an old-fashioned bathroom medicine cupboard, in fact. He stood it on the Japanese table. The door swung open. Apart from a single shelf, it was quite empty – as empty as it had been when he was first given it, a rather odd birthday present from Gillon, just over a year ago.

Omri sat back on his heels staring at it.

How clearly it all came back. The cupboard. The strange little key which had been his great-grandmother’s, and which had mysteriously fitted the commonplace lock and turned this ordinary little metal box into a time-machine with a difference. Put any plastic object – an axe, an Indian tepee, a quiver of arrows – into it, close the door, turn the key – and those things became real. Miniature, but real. Real leather, real cloth, real steel. Put the plastic figure of a human being or an animal inside, and, in the time it took to lock them in, they, too, became real. Real and alive. And not just ‘living toys’, but people from another time, with their own lives, their own personalities, needs and demands…

Oh, it hadn’t been all fun and games, as Omri had naively expected at first. Little Bull was no toy, to submit tamely to being played with. He was, for all his tiny stature, a ferocious savage, war-like and domineering.

Omri had soon realized that if any grown-ups found out about the cupboard’s magic properties they would take it, and the Indian, and everything else, away. So Omri had had to keep it secret, and look after, feed and protect his Indian as best he could. And when Patrick had found out the secret, and sneaked a Texas cowboy into the cupboard so that he, too, could have a ‘little person’, the trouble really started.

Little Bull and Boone were natural enemies. They came close to killing each other several times. Even their respective ponies had caused endless difficulties. And then Adiel had taken the cupboard one day, the key had fallen out of the lock and been lost, and Omri, Patrick and the two little men had been faced with the dire possibility that the magic was dead, that these minute and helpless people would have to remain in Omri’s time, his ‘giant’ world, and in his care, for ever…

It was this, the terrible fright they had all had from this notion, that had finally proved to Omri that he would have to give up his Indian friend (for friends they were by then, of a sort), and send the little people ‘back’ – back to their own time, through the magic of the cupboard. When the key was found, that’s what they all agreed on. But it was so hard to part, that Boone (who was shamefully soft-hearted for a cowboy) had cried openly, and even the boys’ eyes were wet… Omri seldom let himself think of those last moments, they upset him so much.

When they’d reopened the cupboard door, there were the two groups: Little Bull and the wife Omri had found him, Twin Stars, sitting on Little Bull’s pony, and ‘Boo-Hoo’ Boone on his white horse – only now they were plastic again. Patrick had taken Boone and put him in his pocket. And Omri had kept the Indians. He had them still. He had packed them in a little wooden box which he kept safely at the very bottom of the chest. Actually it was a box-within-a-box-within-a-box. Each was tied tightly with string. There was a reason for all this. Omri had wanted to make them difficult to get at.

He had always known that he would be tempted to put Little Bull and Twin Stars in the cupboard again and bring them back to life. He was curious about how they were getting on – that alone tormented him every day. They had lived in dangerous times, times of war between tribes, wars aided and encouraged by Frenchmen and Englishmen who were fighting on American soil in those far-off days. Boone’s time, the time of the pioneering of Texas, a hundred years after Little Bull’s era, was dangerous, too.

And there’d been another little man, Tommy, the medical orderly, from the trenches of France in the First World War. They’d magicked him to life to help when Little Bull was kicked by his horse, when Boone was apparently dying of an arrow-wound… Tommy might, just might still be alive in Omri’s world, but he would be terribly old, about ninety by now.

By putting their plastic figures into the magic cupboard, by turning the magic key, Omri had the power to recall them to life – to youth. He could snatch them from the past. The whole business nearly blew Omri’s mind every time he thought at all deeply about it. So he tried not to think about it too much. And to prevent his yielding to temptation, he had given his mother the key. She wore it round her neck on a chain (it was quite decorative). People often asked her about it, and she would say, “It’s Omri’s really, but he lends it to me.”

That wasn’t the whole truth. Omri had pressed it on her and begged her to keep it safe for him. Safe… not just from getting lost again, but safe from him, from his longing to use it again, to reactivate the magic, to bring back his friends. To bring back the time when he had been – not happiest, but most intensely, dangerously alive himself.

4 The Sweet Taste of Triumph

When Omri came downstairs again with the copy of his story, his brothers were both back from school.

Noticing that their parents were fairly gibbering with excitement, they were both pestering loudly to be told what had happened, but, being decent, Omri’s mother and father were refusing to spoil his surprise. However, the moment he entered the room his father turned and pointed to him.

“It’s Omri’s news,” he said. “Ask him to tell you.”

“Well?” asked Gillon.

“Go on,” said Adiel. “Don’t drive us mad.”

“It’s just that I’ve won a prize,” said Omri with the utmost carelessness. “Here, Mum.” He handed her the folder, and she rushed out of the room with it clutched to her bosom, saying that she couldn’t wait another minute to read it.

“Prize for what?” asked Adiel cynically.

“For winning a donkey-race?” inquired Gillon.

“Nothing much, it was only a story,” said Omri. It was such a long time since he had felt this good, he needed to spin it out.

“What story?” asked Adiel.

“What’s the prize?” asked Gillon at the same time.

“You know, that Telecom competition. There was an ad on TV. You had to write in for a leaflet.”

“Oh, that,” said Adiel, and went into the kitchen to get himself something to eat.

But Gillon was gazing at him. He paid more attention to ads, and he had remembered a detail that Adiel had forgotten.

“The prizes were money,” he said slowly. “Big money.”

Omri grunted non-committally, sat down at the table and shifted Kitsa, who was still there, on to his lap.

“How much?” pressed Gillon.

“Hm?”

“How much did you win? You didn’t get first prize!”

“Yeah.”

Gillon got up.

“Not… you haven’t won three hundred quid?”

Adiel’s face appeared round the kitchen door, wearing a look of comical amazement.

“WHAT! What did you say?”

“That was the first prize in each category. I thought about entering myself.” Excitement and envy were in Gillon’s voice now, making it wobble up and down in register. He turned back to Omri. “Come on! Tell us.”

“Yeah,” said Omri again.

He felt their eyes on him and a great gleeful laugh rising in him, like the time Boone had done a tiny, brilliant drawing during Omri’s art lesson and the teacher had seen it and couldn’t believe her eyes. She’d thought Omri had done it somehow. This time was even more fun, though, because this time he had.

He was sitting watching television some time later, when Adiel came in quietly and sat down beside him.

“I’ve read it,” he said after a while. His tone had changed completely.

“What? Oh, my Indian story.”

“Yes. Your Indian story.” There was a pause, and then Adiel – his ten-O-level brother – said very sincerely, almost humbly, “It’s one of the best stories I’ve ever read.”

Omri turned to look at him.

“Do you really like it?” he asked eagerly. Whatever rows he might have with his brothers, and he had them daily, their good opinion mattered. Adiel’s especially.

“You know perfectly well it’s brilliant. How on earth did you dream all that up? Coming from another time and all that? It’s so well worked-out, so… I dunno. You actually had me believing in it. And working in all those real parts, about the family. Blimey. I mean it was terrific. I… now don’t take this the wrong way, but I can’t quite credit that you made it all up.”

After a pause, Omri said, “What do you mean? That you think I nicked it from a book? Because I didn’t.”

“It’s entirely original?”

Omri glanced at him. “Original? Yes. That’s what it is. It’s original.”

“Well, congratulations anyway. I think it’s fabulous.” They stared at the screen for a while and then he added, “You’d better go and talk to Mum. She’s sobbing her eyes out.”

Omri reluctantly went in search of his mother, and found her in the conservatory at the back of the house watering her plants. Not with tears – to his great relief she was not crying now – but she gave him a rather misty smile and said, “I read the story, Omri. It’s utterly amazing. No wonder it won. You’re the darkest little horse I ever knew, and I love you.” She hugged him. He submitted briefly, then politely extricated himself.

“When’s supper?”

“Usual time.”

He was just turning to go when he stopped and looked at her again. Something was missing from her general appearance. Then he saw what it was, and his heart missed a beat.

“Mum! Where’s the key?”

Her hand went to her neck.

“Oh… I took it off this morning when I washed my hair. It’s in the upstairs bathroom.”

Omri didn’t mean to run, but he couldn’t help it. He had to see the key, to be sure it wasn’t lost. He pelted up the stairs and into his parents’ bathroom. The key was there. He saw it as soon as he went in, lying on the ledge beside the basin with its silver chain coiled around it.

He picked it up. It was the first time he’d held it for a year. It felt colder and lighter than he remembered. Its twisted top and complicated lock-part clicked into place in some memory-pattern. And something else clicked at the same time, something which had been hovering in his mind, undefined, since he’d read the letter.

His story was original. Adiel had relieved his mind when he’d used that word. Even if you didn’t make a story up, if you had the experience, and you wrote about it, it was original. So he hadn’t cheated. But the story wasn’t only his. It also belonged to the little men – to Little Bull, and Boone, and even to Tommy, the World War One soldier. (It belonged to Patrick, too, but if Patrick had decided to deny it ever happened, then he’d given up his rights in it.)

And suddenly Omri realized, as he looked at the key, that his triumph wouldn’t really be complete until he’d shared it. Not just with his parents and brothers, or with the kids at school. No prize, no party, could be as good as what he was thinking about now. This was his reason – his excuse – to do what he’d been yearning to do ever since that moment when the cupboard door closed and transformed his friends back into plastic. Only with Little Bull and Boone could he share the secret behind his story, the most exciting part of all – that it was true.

He turned, went out of the bathroom and up the remaining stairs to his attic room.

Not for long, he was thinking. I won’t bring them back for long. Not long enough to cause problems. Just long enough to have a good talk. To find out how they are.

Maybe Twin Stars had had a baby by now – a papoose! What fun if she brought it with her, though it would be almost too tiny to see. Little Bull had made himself a chief while he was with Omri, but when he returned to his own place, his father might still be alive. Little Bull wouldn’t like being an ordinary brave again! And Boone – the ‘crying cowboy’ with a talent for art, a deep dislike of washing, and a heavy thirst… It made Omri grin to think of him. Writing about the little men and their adventures had made them so clear in his mind that it hardly seemed necessary to do what he was going to do.

5 From Dangerous Times

With hands that shook, Omri probed into the depths of the chest till he found the box-within-a-box-within-a-box. He eased it out and closed the lid of the chest and put the boxes on top. Reverently he untied the string on the largest box, opened it, took out the next, and repeated the operation.

In the last box, carefully wrapped in cotton-wool, was the plastic group consisting of a brown pony, an Indian brave, and an Indian girl in a red dress. The brave’s left hand was upraised in farewell, his other arm circled the girl’s waist and held the rope-rein. The girl, her long brown legs hanging on each side of the pony’s withers, had her hands buried in its mane. The pony’s head was alertly raised, its ears almost meeting above its forelock, its feet braced. Omri felt himself quivering all over as he stood the tiny figures on his hand and stared at them.

“You’re coming back,” he whispered – as if plastic could hear. But they wouldn’t be plastic long!

The cupboard was ready. Omri stood the figures, not on its shelf but on its metal floor. Then he took a deep, deep breath as if he were going to dive into a cold, uncertain sea. He fitted the key into the lock, closed the door, and turned it.

Let it still work. Let it…

He barely had time to think his thought before he heard the tiny, familiar sound – minute, unshod hooves drumming and pawing on the metal!

Omri let his breath out in a rush. His heart was thumping and his right hand shook.

His fingers were still round the key. In a second he had turned it back and opened the mirrored door. And there they were…

No. No!

Omri’s fists clenched. There was something terribly wrong. The three figures were there, all right. The details of life, which the dull-surfaced plastic blurred, were there again. The shine on the pony’s coat, the brilliance of the red dress, the warm sheen of brown, living skin. But…

The pony was right enough. He was prancing and stamping his hooves, fretting his head against the rope. As Omri opened the door and the light fell on him, he pricked his ears again and whickered nervously. On his back sat Twin Stars. But she was no longer in front. She sat back, almost on the pony’s haunches. And before her, but lying face-down across the pony’s back, was a limp, motionless form.

It was Little Bull. Omri knew it, although he couldn’t see his face. His head and arms hung down on one side of the horse and his legs on the other. His buckskin leggings were caked with earth and blood. Omri, against his will, forced himself to peer closer, and saw to his utter horror where the blood had come from. There were two bullet-holes, almost too small to see, high up on his back.

Omri’s mouth was wide open with shock. He looked at Twin Stars. She was holding the pony’s rein-rope now. Her other hand rested on Little Bull’s broad shoulders as if to steady him and stop him sliding off the pony’s back. Her face was frenzied. She had no tears in her eyes but they were so round Omri could see the sparks of light in the whites. Her tiny teeth were clenched in a desperate grimace.

When she saw Omri, she started like a fawn with fear, but then the fear faded from her face. Her hand left Little Bull’s back for a moment and reached out toward Omri. It was a gesture of frantic appeal. It said Help us! clearer than words. But Omri couldn’t move or speak. He had no notion how to help. He only knew that if he didn’t, if someone didn’t, Little Bull would die. Perhaps – perhaps he was dead already! What could he do?

Tommy.

Tommy’s medical knowledge was not exactly up to date. How could it be, when he had only been a medical orderly in the First World War? But he was the best idea Omri could come up with, shocked and numbed as he was.

He beckoned Twin Stars forward with one hand, and while she was guiding the pony over the bottom edge of the cupboard, Omri reached back into the smallest box. The plastic figure of the uniformed soldier was at the bottom, complete with his bag with the red cross on it.

As soon as the cupboard was empty, the horse and riders clear of the door, Omri slipped Tommy in and closed it again, turning the key forward and back in a second. That was all the magic took.

“It’ll be all right,” he said to Twin Stars, as she sat on the pony on top of the chest near his face. “Tommy will fix him.” Then he opened the door again eagerly, and reached his hand in.

The bag was there. And the uniform, neatly folded, with the orderly’s cap upside down on the top of the pile. And the boots. And the puttees, the khaki bandages they wore round their legs in that war, neatly rolled, inside the cap. Nothing else.

Omri let out a cry. He slammed the cupboard door to shut out the sight of that neat little pile of clothes, empty of their owner who no longer needed them. He knew, instantly. He knew that Tommy didn’t live to be an old man. That one of those big German shells he had talked about, those ‘Minnies’, or perhaps some other weapon, had got him. His snubby, cheerful face, his bravery and his gentle hands were gone, with so many thousands of others, into the mud of the trenches.

Omri had never experienced death at close hand. No one he knew well had ever died. An uncle had jumped the twig’, as his father called it, last year, but in Australia. A boy at school had been killed in a car crash, but he wasn’t in Omri’s class.

The realization of Tommy’s death – even a whole year after he had last seen him – came as a ghastly shock. He had no one to share this with – and in any case there was no time. Standing at his elbow was the pony, tossing his head as if in impatience, heedless of anything which delayed attention to his master. Twin Stars’ bright, staring eyes were fixed on him. Waiting. Trusting.

Later. He would think about Tommy, and mourn for him. Later. Who would understand better than Tommy that you have to look after the wounded before mourning the dead? Rubbing his hand across his mouth, Omri looked around helplessly, and then he faced Twin Stars.

How much English did she know? During her brief time with him, before, he had never spoken directly to her – she had only spoken to Little Bull, in their own language. Now he must make her understand.

“No good,” he said slowly. “No help.”

She looked blank, although the shining hope faded a little from her face. To make matters plain, Omri opened the cupboard again, and took Tommy’s plastic figure – which had come back, replacing the pitiful little pile of his uniform – and stood it before the Indian girl. She slipped from the pony’s back and, holding the rope, touched the figure.

She seemed to realize at once that there was no help to be looked for there. She turned swiftly back toward Omri.

“Help. You,” she said in a clear, silvery voice.

Omri felt sheer desperation clamp down on his heart, already heavy with sadness. He followed Twin Stars’ pointing finger at the lifeless-looking body across the pony.

“We must lay him flat,” he said at last. It was all he could think of. But it could not be all he could do. He must think. He must think!

He watched Twin Stars struggling to lift Little Bull’s heavy body off the horse. He helped as much as he dared, terrified his big, clumsy fingers would damage him, but at least he could make his hand into a kind of platform to lower Little Bull to the ground. With his other hand he pulled his box of tissues towards him and made a makeshift mattress out of several of them. At least they were soft and clean. Soon Little Bull was lying stretched on his stomach.

Omri had been through something like this before – when Little Bull had shot the cowboy, Boone. That time, Tommy had been brought in to help. He had had some tiny instruments, dressings and medicine. Crude as his old-fashioned methods were, they had worked. Omri felt poignantly the absence of an old friend, as one does – not just missing the person, but missing his skills, his role in one’s life. For a moment, he felt almost angry with Tommy for being dead when he was so badly needed.

Twin Stars, who was kneeling beside Little Bull, looked up. She said something. It was some Indian word. Omri shook his head. Twin Stars wrung her hands. She pointed to the two bullet-wounds, and said the word again, louder. It must be some special Indian remedy she wanted. And for the first time, Omri thought, She might be better off where she came from. She’d know what to do there.

But at least he could clean the wounds. He knew how to do that much. He had some mouthwash, horrible stuff his mother made him gargle with when he had a cold. The bottle was on his shelf. He jumped up and fetched it. His head was spinning. He was beginning to realize how insane it had been to start this business again. He was remembering the awful sense of responsibility, the anxiety, the unending succession of problems to be solved… and this time he didn’t even have Patrick to give him occasional support or good ideas.

Patrick… But Patrick was useless. He didn’t even believe any more.

Omri flooded a bit of the cotton-wool from the box with the disinfectant and handed it to Twin Stars, making swabbing gestures to show her what it was for. She caught on quickly. With light, delicate strokes she cleaned the blood off Little Bull’s back. No more seemed to be coming from the holes. Omri, remembering that injured people have to be kept warm, and noticing that Twin Stars was shivering, snatched up one of the gloves he’d worn to school and recklessly cut the little finger off it with some scissors. The Indian was soon inside the woollen finger, which was like a sleeping-bag. Omri and Twin Stars looked at each other.

“How?” Omri asked. “How did it happen?”

Twin Stars’ face grew hard.

“Soldier,” she said. “Fight. Gun.”

“In the back?” Omri couldn’t help asking. It was hard to imagine anyone as brave as Little Bull getting shot in the back.

“Horse fall,” she said. “Little Bull lie. Ground. Soldiers shoot.” She pointed an imaginary weapon, a rifle, or a musket, gestured one, two, then waved her hand sharply to show the soldiers had run on, leaving Little Bull to die.

“You saw this?”

She nodded fiercely. “Woman see. Soldier come village. Braves fight. Soldier make fire in house. Kill many. Take prisoner. Braves chase. Out, out – far! Twin Stars hide. See Little Bull fall. See soldier…” She mimed shooting again. “Twin Stars run, catch pony, bring Little Bull home to village. All fire! Dead brave. Woman cry. I shut eyes, not see. Whoosh!” She made a strange noise like a rush of wind. Opened her eyes – and pointed at Omri with a look of acted surprise.

“And suddenly you were here.”

She nodded. “Spirits bring. You save.”

Omri gazed at her. He had not the very faintest idea of what to do, and here she was, trusting him.

“Don’t you think you’d be better at home – in the village?” he suggested helplessly.

She shook her head violently.

“Village all fire. Dead – dead!” She pointed everywhere on the ground. “No help. Omri only help Little Bull brother.”

Brother! Yes. Little Bull had swopped drops of blood with him in that last moment, making them blood-brothers. He must, he must find a way to help! But how?

At that moment, Little Bull stirred and groaned.

Instantly, Twin Stars crouched beside him. Omri, whose eyes had begun to get used to focusing on minute detail once again, noticed suddenly that she had grown fat. Could it be that…? But Little Bull was groaning and muttering. His legs were twitching. Omri forgot about Twin Stars’ new shape for the moment.

“What’s he saying?”

“Say, Omri, Omri’,” reported Twin Stars. There was more muttering, and then she said, “Now say, ‘brother’.” She looked up at him with a look he couldn’t bear.

He stood up.

“Listen,” he said hoarsely. “I have to bring help. I need something…” He looked at her. “Lend me your moccasins.” He pointed to her feet. Bewildered but obedient, she bent and took off the soft shoes made of bead-embroidered animal hide, and gave them to him. He wrapped them carefully in a twist of paper and put them in his pocket.

“Take care of him,” he said. “I’ll be back.”

6 Going for Help

Omri locked his bedroom door behind him and went downstairs.

It was Friday night (luckily, or he’d have had homework, which he wouldn’t have been able to do). His parents and Gillon were watching television. Adiel had gone out with friends.

“Mum, d’you remember Patrick?” He spoke very casually.

“Of course I remember Patrick.”

“He moved to the country.”

“I know.”

“I saw him last week.”

“Where?”

“Outside school. He said his mother had come back for a visit.”

“To her sister, I expect.” His mother turned back to the set.

“Her sister? I didn’t know Patrick had an aunt!”

“Don’t be silly, of course you did. She lived three doors down from our old house.”

Omri frowned, remembering. “With those two revolting little girls?”

“Tamsin and Emma. Bonkins or something. Donkins. They’re Patrick’s cousins.”

“D’you think Patrick might be there?”

“You can soon find out. I’ve still got her phone number in my book. It’s on the hall table.”

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