The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks

“And this is my magnifying glass, you know,” echoed Gillon, but he was obviously too overcome with admiration to be angry with Omri for pinching it. He was using it now to examine the fine details of the building. “I knew you were good at making things,” he said, “but this is uncanny. You must have fingers like a fairy to tie those witchy little knots. What’s that?” he asked suddenly.

  They’d all heard it—a high, faint whinny coming from under the bed.

  Omri was galvanized into action. At all costs he must prevent their finding out now! He flung himself on his knees and pretended to grope under the bed. “It’s nothing, only that little clockwork dolphin I got in my Christmas stocking,” he burbled. “I must have wound it up and it suddenly started clicking, you know how they do, it’s quite creepy sometimes when they suddenly start—clicking—”

  By this time he’d leaped up again and was almost pushing the two older boys out of the room.

  “Why are you in such a hurry to get rid of us?” asked Gillon suspiciously.

  “Just go, you know you have to get out of my room when I ask you—” He could hear the little horse whinnying again and it didn’t sound a bit like the dolphin.

  “That sounds just like a pony,” said Adiel.

  “Oh beard it’s a pony, a tiny witchy pony under my bed!” said Omri mockingly. At last they went, not without glancing back suspiciously several times, and Omri slammed the door, bolted it, and leaned against it with closed eyes.

  “Is it a pony?” whispered Patrick, agog.

  Omri nodded. Then he opened his eyes, lay down again, and peered under the bed.

  “Give me that flashlight from the chest of drawers.”

  Patrick gave it to him and lay beside him. They peered together as the beam probed the darkness.

  “Crumbs!” breathed Patrick reverently. “It’s true!”

  The horse was standing, seemingly alone, whinnying. When the light hit him he stopped and turned his head. Omri could see a pair of leggings behind him.

  “It’s all right, Little Bear, it’s me!” said Omri.

  Slowly a crest of feathers, then a pair of eyes appeared over the top of the horse’s back.

  “Who others?” he asked.

  “My brothers. It’s okay, they didn’t see you.”

  “Little Bear hear coming. Take horse, run, hide.”

  “Good. Come on out and meet my friend Patrick.”

  Little Bear jumped astride the horse and rode proudly out, wearing his new cloak and headdress. He gazed up imperiously at Patrick, who gazed back in wonder.

  Then he nodded to Patrick who tried several times to say something, but his voice just came out as a squeak.

  “Omri’s friend, Little Bear’s friend,” said Little Bear magnanimously.

  Patrick swallowed. His eyes seemed in danger of popping right out of his head.

  Little Bear waited politely, but when Patrick didn’t speak he rode over to the seed tray. The brothers had brought it out from behind the crate; they’d been careful, but the ramp had got moved. Omri hurried to put it back, and Little Bear rode the horse up it, dismounted, and tied it by its halter to the post he had driven into the compost. Then he went calmly on with his work on his longhouse.

  Patrick licked his lips, swallowed twice more, and croaked out, “He’s real. He’s a real live Indian.”

  “I told you.”

  “How did it happen?”

  “Don’t ask me. Something to do with this cupboard, or maybe it’s the key—it’s very old. You lock plastic people inside, and they come alive.”

  Patrick goggled at him. “You mean—it’s not only him? You can do it with any toy?”

  “Only plastic ones.”

  An incredulous grin spread over Patrick’s face.

  “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s bring loads of things to life! Whole armies—”

  And he sprang toward the biscuit tins. Omri grabbed him.

  “No, wait! It’s not so simple.”

  Patrick, his hands already full of soldiers, was making for the cupboard. “Why not?”

  “Because they’d all—don’t you see—they’d be real”

  “Real? What do you mean?”

  “Little Bear isn’t a toy. He’s a real man. He really lived. Maybe he’s still—I don’t know—he’s in the middle of his life—somewhere in America in seventeen-something-or-other. He’s from the past.” Omri struggled to explain as Patrick looked blank.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Listen. Little Bear has told me about his life. He’s fought in wars, and scalped people, and grown stuff to eat like marrows and stuff, and had a wife. She died. He doesn’t know how he got here but he thinks it’s magic and he accepts magic, he believes in it, he thinks I’m some kind of spirit or something. What I mean,” Omri persisted, as Patrick’s eyes strayed longingly to the cupboard, “is that if you put all those men in there, when they came to life they’d be real men with real lives of their own, from their own times and countries, talking their own languages. You couldn’t just—set them up and make them do what you wanted them to. They’d do what they wanted to, or they might get terrified and run away or—well, one I tried it with, an old Indian, actually died of—of fright when he saw me. Look, if you don’t believe me!” And Omri opened the cupboard.

  There lay the body of the old chief, now made of plastic, but still unmistakably dead, and not dead the way some plastic soldiers are made to look dead but the way real people look—crumpled up, empty.

  Patrick picked it up, turning it in his hand. He’d put the soldiers down by now.

  “This isn’t the one you bought at lunchtime?”

  “Yes.”

  “Crumbs.”

  “You see?”

  “Where’s his headdress?”

  “Little Bear took it. He says he’s a chief now. It’s made him even more bossy and—and difficult than before,” said Omri, using a word his mother often used when he was insisting on having his own way.

  Patrick put the dead Indian down hurriedly and wiped his hand on the seat of his jeans.

  “Maybe this isn’t such fun as I thought.”

  Omri considered for a moment.

  “No,” he agreed soberly, “it’s not fun.”

  They stared at Little Bear. He had finished the shell of the longhouse now. Taking off his headdress he tucked it under his arm, stooped, and entered through the low doorway at one end. After a moment he came out and looked up at Omri.

  “Little Bear hungry,” he said. “You get deer? Bear? Moose?”

  “No.”

  He scowled. “I say get. Why you not get?”

  “The shops are shut. Besides,” added Omri, thinking he sounded rather feeble, especially in front of Patrick, “I’m not sure I like the idea of having bears shambling about my room, or of having them killed. I’ll give you meat and a fire and you can cook it and that’ll have to do.”

  Little Bear looked baffled for a moment. Then he swiftly put on the headdress, and drew himself to his full height of almost three inches (three and a quarter with the feathers). He folded his arms and glared at Omri.

  “Little Bear chief now. Chief hunts. Kills own meat. Not take meat others kill. If not hunt, lose skill with bow. For today, you give meat. Tomorrow, go shop, get bear, plasstick. Make real. I hunt. Not here,” he added, looking up scornfully at the distant ceiling. “Out. Under sky. Now fire.”

  Patrick, who had been crouching, stood up. He, too, seemed to be under Little Bear’s spell.

  “I’ll run and get the tar,” he said.

  “No, wait a minute,” said Omri. “I’ve got another idea.”

  He ran downstairs. Fortunately the living room was empty. In the coal scuttle beside the open fireplace was a packet of firelighters. He broke a fairly large bit off one and wrapped it in a scrap of newspaper. Then he went to the kitchen. His mother was standing at the sink peeling apples.

  Omri hesitated, then went to the refrigerator.

  “Don’
t eat now, Omri, it’s nearly suppertime.”

  “Just a tiny bit,” he said.

  There was a lovely chunk of raw meat on a plate. Omri sniffed his fingers, wiped them hard on his sweater to get the stink of the firelighter off them, then took a big carving knife from the drawer, and, with an anxious glance at his mother’s back, began sawing a corner off the meat.

  Luckily it was steak and cut easily. Even so he nearly had the whole plate off the shelf and onto the floor before he’d got his corner off.

  His mother swung around just as he closed the refrigerator door.

  “A tiny bit of what?” she asked. She often reacted late to things he said.

  “Nothing,” he said, hiding the raw bit of meat in his hand. “Mum, could I borrow a tin plate?”

  “I haven’t got such a thing.”

  “Yes you have, the one you bought Adiel to go camping.”

  “That’s in Adiel’s room somewhere, I haven’t got it. A tiny bit of what?”

  But Omri was already on his way upstairs. Adiel was in his room (he would be!) doing his homework.

  “What do you want?” he asked the second Omri crept in.

  “That plate—you know—your camping one.”

  “Oh that!” said Adiel, going back to his French.

  “Well, can I have it?”

  “Yeah, I suppose so. It’s over there somewhere.”

  Omri found it eventually in an old knapsack, covered with disgusting bits of baked beans, dry and hard as cement. He hurried across to his own room. Whenever he’d been away from it for even a few minutes, he felt his heart beating in panic as he opened the door for fear of what he might find (or not find). The burden of constant worry was beginning to wear him out.

  But all was as he had left it this time. Patrick was crouching near the seed tray. Little Bear was directing him to take the tops off several of the jars of poster paint while he himself fashioned something almost too small to see.

  “It’s a paintbrush,” whispered Patrick. “He cut a bit off his own hair and he’s tying it to a tiny scrap of wood he found, about the size of a big splinter.”

  “Pour a bit of paint into the lids so he can reach to dip,” said Omri.

  Meanwhile he was scraping the dry beans off the plate with his nails. He took the fragment of firelighter and the twigs out of his pocket and arranged them in the center of the plate. He washed the bit of meat in his bedside water glass. He’d had a wonderful idea for a spit to cook it on. From a flat box in which his first Erector set had once been neatly laid out, but which was now in chaos, he took a rod, ready bent into a handle shape, and pushed this through the meat. Then, from small bits of the set, he quickly made a sort of stand for it to rest on, with legs each side of the fire so that the meat hung over the middle of it.

  “Let’s light it now!” said Patrick, who was getting very excited again.

  “Little Bear—come and see your fire,” said Omri.

  Little Bear looked up from his paints and then ran down the ramp, across the carpet, and vaulted onto the edge of the plate. Omri struck a match and lit the firelighter, which flared up at once with a bluish flame, engulfing the twigs and the meat at once. The twigs gave off a gratifying crackle while they lasted, but the firelighter gave off a very ungratifying stench, which made Little Bear wrinkle up his nose.

  “Stink,” he cried. “Spoil meat!”

  “No it won’t!” Omri said. “Turn the handle of the spit, Little Bear.”

  Evidently he wasn’t much used to spits, but he soon got the hang of it. The chunk of steak turned and turned in the flame, and soon lost its raw red look and began to go gray and then brown. The good juicy smell of roasting beef began to compete with the spirituous reek of the firelighter.

  “Mmm!” said Little Bear appreciatively, turning till the sweat ran off his face. “Meat!” He had thrown off his chief’s cloak and his chest shone red. Patrick couldn’t take his eyes off him.

  “Please, Omri,” he whispered, “couldn’t I have one? Couldn’t I choose just one—a soldier, or anything I liked—and make him come to life in your cupboard?”

  Cowboy!

  Omri gaped at him. He hadn’t thought of this, but of course now that he did it was obvious—no boy who knew the secret could possibly rest until he had a little live person of his own.

  “Patrick—it’s not like you think—just something to play with—”

  “Of course not, you’ve explained all about it, now just let me put—”

  “But you have to think about it first. No, no, stop, you can’t yet! And anyway I don’t agree to you using one of mine!” Omri didn’t know why he was so reluctant. It wasn’t that he was mean. He just knew, somehow, that something awful would happen if he let Patrick have his own way. But it wasn’t easy to stop him. Omri had grabbed him, but he wrenched free.

  “I’ve got to—” he panted. “I’ve got to—!”

  He stretched out his hand toward the pile of soldiers again. They struggled. Patrick seemed to have gone a bit crazy. Suddenly Omri felt the rim of the tin plate under his shifting feet.

  He shoved Patrick out of the way and they both stared downward. The plate had tipped, the fire slipped off onto the carpet. Little Bear, with a yell, had leaped clear, and was now waving his arms and shouting horrible things at them. His roast meat had disappeared under Omri’s foot, which instinctively stamped down on the fire to put it out. He felt a squishy feeling under his shoe.

  “Now look! We’ve spoiled the meat!” he shouted at Patrick. “If all you can do is fight, I wish I’d never brought you!”

  Patrick looked mulish. “It was your fault. You should have let me put something in the cupboard.”

  Omri lifted his shoe. Underneath was a nasty mess of burned stuff, squashed meat, and bent Erector set. Little Bear let put a wail.

  “You no Great Spirit! Only stupid boy! Fight, spoil good meal! You feel shame!”

  “Maybe we can rescue it—”

  He crouched down and disentangled the meat from the mess, burning his fingers. He tried to brush it clean but it was no use—it was all mixed up with the smelly stuff of the firelighter, and stuck with bits of carpet hairs.

  “I’m terribly sorry, Little Bear,” he mumbled.

  “No good sorry! Little Bear hungry, work all day, cook meat—now what eat? I chop you down like tree!” And to Omri’s horror he saw Little Bear run to where the battle-ax was lying, pick it up, and advance toward his leg, swinging it in great circles as he came.

  Patrick fairly danced with excitement. “Isn’t he fantastically brave, though! Much more than David with Goliath!”

  Omri felt the whole thing was going too far. He removed his leg from harm’s way. “Little Bear! Calm down,” he said. “I’ve said I’m sorry.”

  Little Bear looked at him, blazing-eyed. Then he rushed over to the chair Omri used at his table and began chopping wedges out of the leg of it.

  “Stop! Stop! Or I’ll put you back in the cupboard!”

  Little Bear stopped abruptly and dropped the ax. He stood with his back to them, his shoulders heaving.

  “I’ll get you something to eat—right now—something delicious. Go and paint. It’ll make you feel better. I won’t be long.” To Patrick he said, “Hang on. I can smell supper cooking, I’ll go and get a bit of whatever we’re having,” and he rushed downstairs without stopping to think.

  His mother was dishing up a nice hot stew.

  “Can I have a tiny bit of that, Mum? Just a little bit, in a spoon. It’s for a game we’re playing.”

  His mother obligingly gave him a big spoonful. “Don’t let it drip,” she said. “Does Patrick want to stay for supper?”

  “I don’t know—I’ll ask,” said Omri.

  “Were you two fighting up there? I heard thumps.”

  “No-o—not really. It was just that he wanted to do something that I—”

  Omri stopped dead, as if frozen to the ground. He might have been frozen, his face went so cold
. Patrick was up there—with the cupboard—and two biscuit tinsful of little plastic figures—alone!

  Omri ran. He usually won the egg-and-spoon race at the school sports, which was just as well—it’s hard enough to carry an egg in a spoon running along a flat field; it’s a great deal harder to carry a tablespoonful of boiling hot stew steady while you rush up a flight of stairs. If most of it was still there when he got to the top it was more by good luck than skill because he was hardly noticing the spoon at all—all he could think of was what might be—no, must be happening in his room, and how much more of it would happen if he didn’t hurry.

  He burst in through the door and saw exactly what he’d dreaded—Patrick, bent over the cupboard, just turning the key to open it.

  “What—” Omri gasped out between panting breaths, but he had no need to go on. Patrick, without turning around, opened the cupboard and reached in. Then he did turn. He was gazing into his cupped hands with eyes like huge marbles. He slowly extended his hands toward Omri and whispered, “Look!”

  Omri, stepping forward, had just time to feel intensely glad that at least Patrick had not put a whole handful of figures in but had only changed one. But which? He leaned over, then drew back with a gasp.

  It was the cowboy. And his horse.

  The horse was in an absolute panic. It was scrambling about wildly in the cup of Patrick’s hands, snorting and pawing, up one minute and down on its side the next, stirrups and reins flying. It was a beautiful horse, snow-white with a long mane and tail, and the sight of it acting so frightened gave Omri heart pains.

  As for the cowboy, he was too busy dodging the horse’s flying feet and jumping out of the way when it fell to notice much about his surroundings. He probably thought he was caught in an earthquake. Omri and Patrick watched, spellbound, as the little man in his plaid shirt, buckskin trousers, high-heeled leather boots, and big hat, scrambled frantically up the side of Patrick’s right hand and, dodging through the space between his index finger and thumb, swung himself clear of the horse—only to look down and find he was dangling over empty space.

  His hat came off and fell, slowly like a leaf, down, down, down to the floor so infinitely far below. The cowboy gave a yell, and scrabbled with his feet against the back of Patrick’s hand, hanging on for dear life to the ridge beside his thumbnail.