Secret of the Indian. Lynne Banks Reid

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      Adiel and Gillon came home from their film just as the police were leaving.

      “And who are these young gentlemen?” asked the sergeant.

      “They’re Omri’s older brothers.”

      “What’s going on?” asked Adiel.

      “We’ve had burglars,” said Omri quickly.

      “WHA-AT!” yelled Gillon. “They didn’t get my stereo! – Did they?”

      “They didn’t get a thing,” said their father proudly. “Omri and Patrick chased them off.”

      The older boys gaped at each other.

      “Them and what army?” asked Gillon.

      Patrick stifled a sudden nervous giggle. “Only a little one,” he murmured. Omri nearly felled him with a heavy nudge.

      

      There was a lot more talking to do – Adiel and Gillon had to hear the whole story (except that of course it was nothing like the whole story) all over again. They were absolutely agog, and even Gillon could find nothing sarcastic to say about the way Omri and Patrick had dealt with the situation.

      “You’re a pair of nutters,” was the worst he could think of. “Those thugs could’ve flattened you. How did you know they didn’t have knives?” But there was more than a hint of admiration in his reproof.

      Adiel, the eldest, said, “Right couple of heroes if you ask me. We could’ve been cleaned out.” And he gazed lovingly, not at his little brother, but at the television set.

      It was nearly one o’clock in the morning by the time they’d drained the last of their hot chocolate and been gently shooed off to bed by Omri’s mother. She gave Omri a special hug, being careful of his head, and hugged Patrick too.

      “You’re fantastic kids,” she said.

      Omri and Patrick looked uncomfortable. It simply didn’t seem right to either of them that they were getting all the credit for driving off the intruders single- (or double-) handed, when in fact they’d had a great deal of help.

      As soon as they got up to Omri’s bedroom in the attic, they locked the door and made for the desk.

      They’d had to make a hasty decision, before the return of the parents, to leave things as they were, not to send anybody else back after they’d dispatched Corporal Willy Fickits and his men. As Patrick pointed out, “We don’t know how the wounded would stand the journey. Besides, we can’t send the Indians back to their time without Matron, we can’t send her back to hers, without them – and we certainly can’t send them all anywhere together!”

      And Omri agreed. But they’d both been on tenterhooks all the time the police had been in the house for fear they’d demand to see Omri’s room. The boys had been very careful to say the burglars hadn’t got beyond the first floor of the house.

      Now the boys bent over the desk. They’d left Omri’s bedside light on in case Matron had had to tend to one of the wounded Indians in the night. She herself now sat, upright but clearly dozing, at a small circular table (made of the screwtop of a Timotei shampoo bottle, a good shape because it had a rim she could get her knees under). On it lay a tiny clipboard that she had brought with her from St Thomas’s Hospital. She’d been making up her notes and temperature charts.

      On either side of her on the floor of the longhouse stretched a double row of pallet beds. Each bed was occupied by a wounded Indian. Matron’s ministrations had been so efficient that all were resting peacefully. She had earned her little nap, though she would probably deny hotly, later, that she had nodded off while ‘on duty’.

      Outside the longhouse, beside the burnt-out candle, a blanket was spread on the soil in Omri’s father’s seed-tray. Curled up asleep on the blanket were Little Bull and Twin Stars, his wife. Between them, in the crook of Twin Stars’ arm, lay their newborn baby, Tall Bear.

      All these people, when they were standing up, were no more than seven centimetres tall.

       3

       How It All Started

      It had all started over a year before, with an old tin medicine-cabinet Gillon had found, a key which fitted it, which had belonged to Omri’s great-grandmother, and the little plastic figure of an American Indian which Patrick had given Omri (second-hand) for his birthday.

      On that fateful night, Omri had put the Indian into the small metal cupboard and locked it with the fancy key. There was no particular point to this, really. Thinking back later, Omri didn’t know why he’d done it. He’d had a thing at the time about secret cupboards, drawers, rooms; hiding-places, kept safe from prying eyes, where he could secrete his favourite things and be sure they’d stay exactly as he’d left them, undisturbed by rummaging brothers or anyone else.

      But the Indian didn’t stay as he’d left it. Some combination of key and cupboard, plus the stuff the Indian was made of – plastic – had worked the wonder of bringing the little man to life.

      At first, when this happened, Omri – once past the first shock of astonishment – had thought he was in for the fun-trip of all time. A little, live man of his very own to play with! But it hadn’t turned out like that.

      The Indian, Little Bull, was no mere toy. Omri soon found out that he was a real person, somehow magicked into present-day London, England, from the America of nearly two hundred years ago. The son of a chief of the Iroquois tribe, a fighter, a hunter, with his own history and his own culture. His own beliefs and morals. His own brand of courage.

      Little Bull regarded Omri as a magic being, a giant from the world of spirits, and was, at first, terrified of him. Omri could see he was afraid, but the Indian was incredibly brave and controlled and Omri soon began to admire him. He realized he couldn’t treat him just as a toy – he was a person to be respected, despite his tiny size and relative helplessness.

      And it soon turned out that he was by no means the easiest person in the world to get along with, or satisfy. He had demands, and he made them freely, assuming Omri to be all-powerful.

      He demanded his own kind of food. A longhouse, such as the Iroquois used to sleep in. A horse, although previously he had never ridden. Weapons, and animals to hunt, and a fire to cook on and dance around. Eventually he even demanded that Omri provide him with a wife!

      In addition, Omri had to hide him and protect him. It needed only a little imagination to realize what would happen if any grown-up should find out about the cupboard, the key and their magic properties. Because Omri soon found out that not just Little Bull but any plastic figure or object would become alive or real by being locked in the cupboard.

      But he couldn’t keep the secret entirely to himself. СКАЧАТЬ