The Indian in the Cupboard

  “Tomorrow talk. You give Little Bear meat—fire—color—much things.” He scowled fiercely up at Omri. “Good?”

  “Good,” said Omri, and indeed nothing in his life had ever promised better.

  Thirty Scalps

  Within a few minutes, loud snores—well, not loud, but loud for the Indian—began to come out of the tepee, but Omri, sleepy as he was himself, was not quite ready for bed. He had an experiment to do.

  As he had figured it out so far, the cupboard, or the key, or both together, brought plastic things to life, or if they were already alive, turned them into plastic. There were a lot of questions to be answered, though. Did it only work with plastic? Would, say, wooden or metal figures also come to life if shut up in the cupboard? How long did they have to stay in there for the magic to work? Overnight? Or did it happen right away?

  And another thing: What about objects? The Indian’s clothes, his feather, his knife, all had become real. Was this just because they were part of the original plastic figure? If he put—well, anything you like, the despised plastic tepee, for instance—into the cupboard and locked the door, would that be real in the morning? And what would happen to a real object if he put that in?

  He decided to make a double trial.

  He stood the plastic Indian tent on the shelf of the cupboard. Beside it he put a Matchbox car. Then he closed the cupboard door. He didn’t lock it. He counted slowly to ten.

  Then he opened the door.

  Nothing had happened.

  He closed the door again, and this time locked it with his great-grandmother’s key. He decided to give it a bit longer this time, and while he was waiting he lay down in bed. He began counting to ten slowly. He got roughly as far as five before he fell asleep.

  He was awakened at dawn by Little Bear bawling at him.

  The Indian was standing outside the felt tepee, on the edge of the table, his hands cupped to his mouth as if shouting across a measureless canyon. As soon as Omri’s eyes opened, the Indian shouted:

  “Day come! Why you still sleep? Time eat—hunt—fight—make pictures!”

  Omri leaped up. He cried, “Wait—” and almost wrenched the cupboard open.

  There on the shelf stood a small tepee made of real leather. Even the stitches on it were real. The poles were twigs, tied together with a strip of hide. The designs were real Indian symbols, put on with bright dyes.

  The car was still a toy car made of metal, no more real than it had ever been.

  “It works,” breathed Omri. And then he caught his breath. “Little Bear!” he shouted. “It works, it works! I can make any plastic toy I like come alive, come real! It’s real magic, don’t you understand? Magic!”

  The Indian stood calmly with folded arms, evidently disapproving of this display of excitement.

  “So? Magic. The spirits work much magic. No need wake dead with howls.”

  Omri hastily pulled himself together. Never mind the dead, it was his parents he must take care not to wake. He picked up the new tepee and set it down beside the one he had made the night before.

  “Here’s the good one I promised you,” he said.

  Little Bear examined it carefully. “No good,” he said at last.

  “What? Why not?”

  “Good tepee, but no good Iroquois brave. See?” He pointed to the painted symbols. “Not Iroquois signs. Algonquin. Little Bear sleep there, Iroquois spirits angry.”

  “Oh,” said Omri, disappointed.

  “Little Bear like Omri tepee. Need paint. Make strong pictures—Iroquois signs. Please spirits.”

  Omri’s disappointment melted into intense pride. He had made a tepee that satisfied his Indian! “It’s not finished,” he said. “I’ll take it to school and finish it in handicrafts lesson. I’ll take out the pins and sew it up properly. Then when I come home I’ll give you poster paints and you can paint your signs.”

  “I paint. But must have longhouse. Tepee no good for Iroquois.”

  “Just for now?”

  Little Bear scowled. “Yes. But very short. Now eat.”

  “Er … Yes. What do you like to eat in the mornings?”

  “Meat,” said the Indian immediately.

  “Wouldn’t you like some bread and cheese?”

  “Meat.”

  “Or corn? Or some egg?”

  The Indian folded his arms uncompromisingly across his chest.

  “Meat,” said Omri with a sigh. “Yes. Well, I’ll have to see what I can do. In the meantime, I think I’d better put you down on the ground.”

  “Not on ground now?”

  “No. You’re high above the ground. Go to the edge and look-but don’t fall!”

  The Indian took no chances. Lying on his stomach he crawled, commando fashion, to the edge of the chest of drawers and peered over.

  “Big mountain,” he commented at last.

  “Well …” But it seemed too difficult to explain. “May I lift you down?”

  Little Bear stood up and looked at Omri measuringly. “Not hold tight?” he asked.

  “No. I won’t hold you at all. You can ride in my hand.”

  He laid his hand palm up next to Little Bear, who, after only a moment’s hesitation, stepped onto it and, for greater stability, sat down cross-legged. Omri gently transported him to the floor. The Indian rose lithely to his feet and jumped off onto the gray carpet.

  At once he began looking about with suspicion. He dropped to his knees, felt the carpet, and smelled it.

  “Not ground,” he said. “Blanket.”

  “Little Bear, look up.”

  He obeyed, narrowing his eyes and peering.

  “Do you see the sky? Or the sun?”

  The Indian shook his head, puzzled.

  “That’s because we’re not outdoors. We’re in a room, in a house. A house big enough for people my size. You’re not even in America. You’re in England.”

  The Indian’s face lit up. “English good! Iroquois fight with English against French!”

  “Really?” asked Omri, wishing he had read more. “Did you fight?”

  “Fight? Little Bear fight like mountain lion! Take many scalps!”

  Scalps? Omri swallowed. “How many?”

  Little Bear proudly held up all ten fingers. Then he closed his fists, opening them again with another lot of ten, and another.

  “I don’t believe you killed so many people!” said Omri, shocked.

  “Little Bear not lie. Great hunter. Great fighter.”

  “Any white scalps?” Omri ventured to ask.

  “Some. French. Not take English scalps. Englishmen friends to Iroquois. Help Indian fight Algonquin enemy.”

  Omri stared at him. He suddenly wanted to get away. “I’ll go and get you some—meat,” he said in a choking voice.

  He went out of his room, closing the bedroom door behind him.

  For a moment he did not move on, but leaned back against the door. He was sweating slightly. This was a bit more than he had bargained for!

  Not only was his Indian no mere toy come to life, he was a real person, somehow magicked out of the past of over two hundred years ago. It occurred to Omri for the first time that his idea of Indians, taken entirely from Western films, had been somehow false. After all, those had all been actors playing Indians, and afterward wiping their war paint off and going home for their dinners, not in tepees but in houses like his.

  Little Bear 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 when you came to think of it, 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. …

  Even now, weren’t soldiers 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. Were thirty scalps, even including some
French ones, taken hundreds of years ago, so very bad after all?

  Still, when he tried to imagine Little Bear, 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 Bear 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 in 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 spirits, or whatever, were always supposed to be very powerful. 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 Bear.

  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 they took the Indian to—say, some scientist, or—whoever knew about strange things like that, who would 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 Bear 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 started to laugh. “I haven’t got a wife!”

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

  “My mother,” said Omri, still grinning. “Have you got a wife then?”

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

  “Why not?”

  “Dead,” said Little Bear shortly.

  “Oh.”

  The Indian finished eating in silence and then stood up, wiping his greasy hands on the sides of his trousers. “Now. Do magic. Make things for Little Bear.”

  “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 Bear seemed surprised.

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

  Little Bear shook his head. “Iroquois walk.”

  “But wouldn’t you like to ride?”

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

  Again Omri rummaged in the biscuit tin. There were a number of horses here. Big heavy ones for carrying armored 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 colors before Little Bear, whose black eyes began to shine.

  “I have,” he said promptly.

  “You mean all of them?”

  Little Bear 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 Bear sadly.

  “One.”

  Little Bear 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 that had originally (as far as Omri could remember) carried an Arab, brandishing a curved sword at a platoon of French Foreign Legionnaires.

  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 Bear.

  Omri lost no time in doing so. There, prancing and pawing the white paint, was a lovely, shiny-coated little brown Arab horse. 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 above his haunches as he gave a high, shrill neigh.

  “Aaiii!” cried Little Bear.

  In a moment he had vaulted over the bottom edge of the cupboard and, as the horse reared in fright, jumped into the air under its flying hooves and grasped the leather reins. The horse fought to free its head, but Little Bear hung on with both hands. Even as the horse 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 horse flung himself back on his haunches, then threw himself forward in a mighty buck, head low, heels flying. To Omri’s dismay, Little Bear, instead of clinging on somehow, came loose and flew through the air in a curve, landing on the carpet just beyond the edge of the cupboard.

  Omri thought his neck must be broken, but he had landed in a sort of somersault, and was instantly on his feet again. The face he turned to Omri was shining with happiness.

  “Crazy-horse!” he cried with fierce delight.

  The crazy-horse was meanwhile standing quite still, reins hanging loose, looking watchfully at the Indian through wild, wide-apart eyes.

  Little Bear made no sudden moves. He stood quite still for a long time, just looking back at the horse. Then, so slowly you could scarcely notice, he edged toward him, making strange hissing sounds between his clenched teeth that almost seemed to hypnotize the horse. Inch by inch he moved, softly, cautiously, until he and the horse stood almost nose to nose. Then, quite calmly, Little Bear reached up and laid his hand on the horse’s neck.

  That was all. He did not hold the reins. The horse could have jumped away, but he didn’t. He raised his nose a little, so that he and the Indian seemed to be breathing into each other’s nostrils. Then, in a quiet voice, Little Bear said, “Now horse mine. Crazy-horse mine.”

  Still moving slowly, though not as slowly as before, he took the reins and moved alongside the horse. After a certain amount of fiddling he found out how to unbuckle the straps that held the Arabian saddle, and lifted it off, laying it on the floor. The horse snorted and tossed his head, but did not move. Hissing gently now, the Indian first leaned his weight against the horse’s side, then lifted himself up by his arms until he was astride. Letting the reins hang loose on the horse’s
neck, he squeezed with his legs. The horse moved forward, as tame and obedient as you please, and the pair rode once around the inside of the cupboard as if it had been a circus arena.

  Suddenly Little Bear caught up the reins and pulled them to one side, turning the horse’s head, at the same time kicking him sharply. The horse wheeled, and bounded forward toward the edge of the cupboard.

  This metal rim was up to the small horse’s chest—like a five-barred gate to a full-sized horse. There was no room to ride straight at it, from the back of the cupboard to the front, so Little Bear rode diagonally—a very difficult angle, yet the horse cleared it in a flying leap.

  Omri realized at once that the carpet was too soft for him—his feet simply sank into it like soft sand.

  “Need ground. Not blanket,” said Little Bear sternly. “Blanket not good for ride.”

  Omri looked at his clock. It was still only a little after six in the morning—at least another hour before anyone else would be up.

  “I could take you outside,” he said hesitantly.

  “Good!” said Little Bear. “But not touch horse. You touch, much fear.”

  Omri quickly found a small cardboard box that had held a Matchbox lorry. It even had a sort of window through which he could see what was happening inside. He laid that on the carpet with the end flaps open.

  Little Bear rode the horse into the box, and Omri carefully shut the end up and even more carefully lifted it. Then, in his bare feet, he carried the box slowly down the stairs and let himself out through the back door.

  It was a lovely fresh spring morning. Omri stood on the back steps with the box in his hands, looking round for a suitable spot. The lawn wasn’t much good—the grass would be over the Indian’s head in most places. The terrace at the foot of the steps was no use at all, with its hard, uneven bricks and the cracks between them. But the path was beaten earth and small stones—real riding ground if they were careful. Omri walked to the path and laid the Matchbox carton down.

  For a moment he hesitated. Could the Indian run away? How fast could such a small horse run? As fast as, say, a mouse? If so, and they wanted to escape, Omri wouldn’t be able to catch them. A cat, on the other hand, would. Omri knelt on the path in his pajamas and put his face to the cellophane “window.” The Indian stood inside holding the horse’s head.