The Indian in the Cupboard Complete Collection. Lynne Banks Reid

Bull was no actor. Omri swallowed hard. Thirty scalps… phew! Of course things were different in those days. Those tribes were always making war on each other, and come to that the English and French (whatever they thought they were doing, fighting in America) were probably no better, killing each other like mad as often as they could…

      Come to that, weren’t soldiers of today doing the same thing? Weren’t there wars and battles and terrorism going on all over the place? You couldn’t switch on television without seeing news about people killing and being killed… Was thirty scalps, even including some French ones, taken hundreds of years ago, so very bad after all?

      Still, when he tried to imagine Little Bull, full size, bent over some French soldier, holding his hair in one hand and running the point of his scalping-knife… Yuk!

      Omri pushed away from the door and walked rather unsteadily downstairs. No wonder he had felt, from the first, slightly afraid of his Indian. He asked himself, swallowing repeatedly and feeling that just the same he might be sick, whether he wouldn’t do better to put Little Bull back in the cupboard, lock the door and turn him back into plastic, knife and all.

      Down in the kitchen he ransacked his mother’s store-cupboard for a tin of meat. He found some corned beef at last and opened it with the tin-opener on the wall. He dug a chunk out with a teaspoon, put it absently into his own mouth and stood there chewing it.

      The Indian hadn’t seemed very surprised about being in a giant house in England. He had shown that he was very superstitious, believing in magic and good and evil spirits. Perhaps he thought of Omri as – well, some kind of genie, or whatever Indians believed in instead. The wonder was that he wasn’t more frightened of him then, for genies, or giants, or Great Spirits, or whatever, were always supposed to be very powerful and often wicked. Omri supposed that if one happened to be the son of an Indian Chief, one simply didn’t get scared as easily as ordinary people. Especially, perhaps, if one had taken thirty scalps…

      Maybe Omri ought to tell someone about Little Bull.

      The trouble was that although grown-ups usually knew what to do, what they did was very seldom what children wanted to be done. What if he took the Indian to – say, some scientists, or – whoever knew about strange things like that, to question him and examine him and probably keep him in a laboratory or something of that sort? They would certainly want to take the cupboard away too, and then Omri wouldn’t be able to have any more fun with it at all.

      Just when his mind was seething with ideas, such as putting in plastic bows and arrows, and horses, and maybe even other little people – well, no, probably that was too risky, who knew what sort you might land up with? They might start fighting each other! But still, he knew for certain he didn’t want to give up his secret, not yet, no matter how many Frenchmen had been scalped.

      Having made his decision, for the moment anyway, Omri turned to go upstairs, discovering only halfway up that the tin of corned beef was practically empty. Still, there was a fair-sized bit left in the bottom. It ought to do.

      Little Bull was nowhere to be seen, but when Omri called him softly he ran out from under the bed, and stood waving both arms up at Omri.

      “Bring meat?”

      “Yes.” Omri put it on the miniature plate he’d cut the night before and placed it before the Indian, who seized it in both hands and began to gnaw on it.

      “Very good! Soft! Your wife cook this?”

      Omri laughed. “I haven’t got a wife.”

      The Indian stopped and looked at him. “Omri not got wife? Who grow corn, grind, cook, make clothes, keep arrows sharp?”

      “My mother,” said Omri, grinning at the idea of her sharpening arrows. “Have you got a wife then?”

      The Indian looked away. After a moment he said, “No.”

      “Why not?”

      “Dead,” said Little Bull shortly.

      “Oh.”

      The Indian finished eating in silence and then stood up, wiping his greasy hands on his hair. “Now. Do magic. Make things for Little Bull.”

      “What do you want?”

      “Gun,” he answered promptly. “White man’s gun. Like English soldier.”

      Omri’s brain raced. If a tiny knife could stab, a tiny gun could shoot. Maybe it couldn’t do much harm, but then again, maybe it could.

      “No, no gun. But I can make you a bow and arrows. I’ll have to buy plastic ones, though. What else? A horse?”

      “Horse!” Little Bull seemed surprised.

      “Don’t you ride? I thought all Indians rode.”

      Little Bull shook his head.

      “English ride. Indians walk.”

      “But wouldn’t you like to ride, like the English soldiers?”

      Little Bull stood quite still, frowning, wrestling with this novel idea. At last he said, “Maybe. Yes. Maybe. Show horse. Then I see.”

      “Okay.”

      Again Omri rummaged in the biscuit tin. There were a number of horses here. Big heavy ones for carrying armoured knights. Smaller ones for pulling gun-carriages in the Napoleonic wars. Several cavalry horses – those might be the best. Omri ranged five or six of various sizes and colours before Little Bull, whose black eyes began to shine.

      “I have,” he said promptly.

      “You mean all of them?”

      Little Bull nodded hungrily.

      “No, that’s too much. I can’t have herds of horses galloping all over my room. You can choose one.”

      “One?” said Little Bull sadly.

      “One.”

      Little Bull then made a very thorough examination of every horse, feeling their legs, running his hands over their rumps, looking straight into their plastic faces. At last he selected a smallish, brown horse with two white feet which had originally (as far as Omri could remember) carried an Arab, brandishing a curved sword at a platoon of French Foreign Legionnaires.

      “Like English horse,” grunted Little Bull.

      “And he’s got a saddle and bridle, which will become real too,” gloated Omri.

      “Little Bull not want. Ride with rope, bare-back. Not like white soldier,” he added contemptuously, having another spit. “When?”

      “I still don’t know how long it takes. We can start now.”

      Omri lifted the cupboard onto the floor, shut the horse in and turned the key. Almost at once they could hear the clatter of tiny hooves on metal. They looked at each other with joyful faces.

      “Open! Open door!” commanded Little Bull.

      Omri lost no time in doing so. There, prancing and pawing the white paint, was a lovely, shiny-coated little brown Arab pony. As the door swung open he shied nervously, turning his face and pricking his ears so far forward they almost met over his forelock. His tiny nostrils flared, and his black tail plumed over his haunches as he gave a high, shrill neigh.

      Little Bull cried out in delight.

      In a moment he had vaulted over the bottom edge of the cupboard and, as the pony reared in fright, jumped into the air under its flying hooves and grasped the leather reins. The pony fought to free its head, but Little Bull hung on with both hands. Even as the pony plunged and bucked, the Indian had moved from the front to the side. Grasping the high pommel of the saddle he swung himself into it. He ignored the swinging stirrups, holding on by gripping with his knees.

      The pony flung himself back on his haunches, then threw himself