The Indian in the Cupboard. Lynne Banks Reid

to be more exciting.”

      Patrick just stared at him. “Are you being sarcastic?”

      “No.”

      Later, after they’d had the spelling test and Omri had been marked three right out of ten, Patrick joked, “I bet the plastic Indian could have done better.”

      Unwarily, Omri replied, “Oh, I don’t think he can write English, he can only just speak—”

      He stopped himself quickly, but Patrick was giving him a very odd look. “What?”

      “Nothing.”

      “No, what did you say about him speaking?”

      Omri wrestled with himself. He wanted to keep his secret; in any case Patrick wouldn’t believe him. Yet the need to talk about it was very strong. “He can speak,” he said slowly at last.

      “Beard,” said Patrick, which was their school slang for ‘I don’t believe you.’

      Instead of insisting, Omri said nothing more, and that led Patrick to ask, “Why did you say that, about him speaking?”

      “He does.”

      “Itchy beard.” (Which of course means the same only more so.)

      Omri refused to get involved in an argument. He was somehow scared that if he talked about the Indian, something bad would happen. In fact, as the day went on and he longed more and more to get home, he began to feel certain that the whole incredible happening – well, not that it hadn’t happened, but that something would go wrong. All his thoughts, all his dreams were centred on the miraculous, endless possibilities opened up by a real, live miniature Indian of his very own. It would be too terrible if the whole thing turned out to be some sort of mistake.

      After school Patrick wanted him to stay in the school grounds and skateboard. For weeks Omri had longed to do this, but had never had his own skateboard till now. So it was quite beyond Patrick’s understanding when Omri said, “I can’t, I have to get home. Anyway, I didn’t bring it.”

      “Why not? Are you crazy? Why do you have to get home, anyway?”

      “I want to play with the Indian.”

      Patrick’s eyes narrowed in disbelief. “Can I come?”

      Omri hesitated. But no, it wouldn’t do. He must get to know the Indian himself before he thought of introducing him to anyone else, even Patrick.

      Besides, the most awful thought had come to him during the last lesson which had made it almost impossible for him to sit still. If the Indian were real, and not just – well, moving plastic, as Pinocchio had been moving wood, then he would need food, and other things. And Omri had left him shut up in the dark all day with nothing. Perhaps – what if there were not enough air for him in that cupboard? The door fitted very tight … How much air would such a very small creature need? What if – what if the Indian were – what if he’d died, shut up there? What if Omri had killed him?

      At the very best, the Indian must have passed a horrible day in that dark prison. Omri was dismayed at the thought of it. Why had he allowed himself to be drawn into that silly row at breakfast instead of slipping away and making sure the Indian was all right? The mere thought that he might be dead was frightening Omri sick. He ran all the way home, burst through the back door, and raced up the stairs without even saying hello to his mother.

      He shut the door of his bedroom and fell on his knees beside the bedside table. With a hand that shook, he turned the key in the lock and opened the cupboard door.

      The Indian lay there on the floor of the cupboard, stiff and stark. Too stiff! That was not a dead body. Omri picked it up. It was an ‘it’, not a ‘he’, any more.

      The Indian was made of plastic again.

      Omri knelt there, appalled – too appalled to move. He had killed his Indian, or done something awful to him. At the same time he had killed his dream – all the wonderful, exciting, secret games that had filled his imagination all day. But that was not the main horror. His Indian had been real – not a mere toy, but a person. And now here he lay in Omri’s hand – cold, stiff, lifeless. Somehow through Omri’s own fault.

      How had it happened?

      It never occurred to Omri now that he had imagined the whole incredible episode this morning. The Indian was in a completely different position from the one he had been in when Patrick gave him to Omri. Then he had been standing on one leg, as if doing a war-dance – knees bent, one moccasined foot raised, both elbows bent too and with one fist (with the knife in it) in the air. Now he lay flat, legs apart, arms at his sides. His eyes were closed. The knife was no longer a part of him. It lay separately on the floor of the cupboard.

      Omri picked it up. The easiest way to do this, he found, was to wet his finger and press it down on the tiny knife, which stuck to it. It, too, was plastic, and could no more have pierced human skin than a twist of paper. Yet it had pierced Omri’s finger this morning – the little mark was still there. But this morning it had been a real knife.

      Omri stroked the Indian with his finger. He felt a painful thickness in the back of his throat. The pain of sadness, disappointment, and a strange sort of guilt, burnt inside him as if he had swallowed a very hot potato which wouldn’t cool down. He let the tears come, and just knelt there and cried for about ten minutes.

      Then he put the Indian back in the cupboard and locked the door because he couldn’t bear to look at him any longer.

      That night at supper he couldn’t eat anything, and he couldn’t talk. His father touched his face and said it felt very hot. His mother took him upstairs and put him to bed and oddly enough he didn’t object. He didn’t know if he was ill or not, but he felt so bad he was quite glad to be made a fuss of. Not that that improved the basic situation, but it was some comfort.

      “What is it, Omri? Tell me,” coaxed his mother. She stroked his hair and looked at him tenderly and questioningly, and he nearly told her everything, but then he suddenly rolled over on his face.

      “Nothing. Really.”

      She sighed, kissed him, and left the room, closing the door softly after her.

      As soon as she had gone, he heard something. A scratching – a muttering – a definitely alive sound. Coming from the cupboard.

      Omri snapped his bedside light on and stared wide-eyed at his own face in the mirror on the cupboard door. He stared at the key with its twisted ribbon. He listened to the sounds, now perfectly clear.

      Trembling, he turned the key and there was the Indian, on the shelf this time, almost exactly level with Omri’s face. Alive again!

      Again they stared at each other. Then Omri asked falteringly, “What happened to you?”

      “Happen? Good sleep happen. Cold ground. Need blanket. Food. Fire.”

      Omri gaped. Was the little man giving him orders? Undoubtedly he was! Because he waved his knife, now back in his hand, in an unmistakable way.

      Omri was so happy he could scarcely speak.

      “Okay – you stay there – I’ll get food – don’t worry,” he gasped as he scrambled out of bed.

      He hurried downstairs, excited but thoughtful. What could it all mean? It was puzzling, but he didn’t bother worrying about it too much. His main concern was to get downstairs without his parents hearing him, get to the kitchen, find some food that would suit the Indian, and bring it back without anyone asking questions.

      Fortunately his parents were in the living-room watching television, so he was able to tiptoe to the kitchen along the dark passage. Once there, he dared not turn on a light; but there was the fridge light and that was enough.

      He surveyed the inside of the fridge. What did Indians eat? Meat, chiefly, he supposed – buffalo