The key turned smoothly in the lock. The door wouldn’t open.
“Hey! Mum! I’ve found one!”
“Have you, darling? Which one?” His mother came to look. “Oh, that one! How very odd. That was the key to my grandmother’s jewel-box, that she got from Florence. It was made of red leather and it fell to bits at last, but she kept the key and gave it to me. She was most terribly poor when she died, poor old sweetie, and kept crying because she had nothing to leave me, so in the end I said I’d rather have this little key than all the jewels in the world. I threaded it on that bit of ribbon – it was much longer then – and hung it round my neck and told her I’d always wear it and remember her. And I did for a long time. But then the ribbon broke and I nearly lost it.”
“You could have got a chain for it,” said Omri.
She looked at him. “You’re right,” she said. “I should have done just that. But I didn’t. And now it’s your cupboard key. Please don’t lose it, Omri, will you.”
Omri put the cupboard on his bedside table, and opening it, looked inside thoughtfully. What would he put in it?
“It’s supposed to be for medicines,” said Gillon. “You could keep your nose-drops in it.”
“No! That’s just wasting it. Besides, I haven’t any other medicines.”
“Why don’t you pop this in?” his mother suggested, and opened her hand. In it was Patrick’s Red Indian. “I found it when I was putting your trousers in the washing-machine.”
Omri carefully stood the Indian on the shelf.
“Are you going to shut the door?” asked his mother.
“Yes. And lock it.”
He did this and then kissed his mother and she turned the light out and he lay down on his side looking at the cupboard. He felt very content. Just as he was dropping off to sleep his eyes snapped open. He had thought he heard a little noise … but no. All was quiet. His eyes closed again.
In the morning there was no doubt about it. The noise actually woke him.
He lay perfectly still in the dawn light staring at the cupboard, from which was now coming a most extraordinary series of sounds. A pattering; a tapping; a scrabbling; and – surely? – a high-pitched noise like – well, almost like a tiny voice.
To be truthful, Omri was petrified. Who wouldn’t be? Undoubtedly there was something alive in that cupboard. At last, he put out his hand and touched it. He pulled very carefully, the door was tight shut. But as he pulled the cupboard moved, just slightly. The noise from inside instantly stopped.
He lay still for a long time, wondering. Had he imagined it? The noise did not start again. At last he cautiously turned the key and opened the cupboard door.
The Indian was gone.
Omri sat up sharply in bed and peered into the dark corners. Suddenly he saw him. But he wasn’t on the shelf any more, he was in the bottom of the cupboard. And he wasn’t standing upright. He was crouching in the darkest corner, half hidden by the front of the cupboard. And he was alive.
Omri knew that immediately. To begin with, though the Indian was trying to keep perfectly still – as still as Omri had kept, lying in bed a moment ago – he was breathing heavily. His bare, bronze shoulders rose and fell, and were shiny with sweat. The single feather sticking out of the back of his headband quivered, as if the Indian were trembling. And as Omri peered closer, and his breath fell on the tiny huddled figure, he saw it jump to its feet; its minute hand made a sudden, darting movement towards its belt and came to rest clutching the handle of a knife smaller than the shaft of a drawing-pin.
Neither Omri nor the Indian moved for perhaps a minute and a half. They hardly breathed either. They just stared at each other. The Indian’s eyes were black and fierce and frightened. His lower lip was drawn down from shining white teeth, so small you could scarcely see them except when they caught the light. He stood pressed against the inside wall of the cupboard, clutching his knife, rigid with terror, but defiant.
The first coherent thought that came into Omri’s mind as he began to get over the shock was, “I must call the others!” – meaning his parents and brothers. But something (he wasn’t sure what) stopped him. Maybe he was afraid that if he took his eyes off the Indian for even a moment, he would vanish, or become plastic again, and then when the others came running they would all laugh and accuse Omri of making things up. And who could blame anyone for not believing this unless they saw it with their own eyes?
Another reason Omri didn’t call anyone was that, if he was not dreaming and the Indian had really come alive, it was certainly the most marvellous thing that had ever happened to Omri in his life and he wanted to keep it to himself, at least at first.
His next thought was that he must somehow get the Indian in his hand. He didn’t want to frighten him any further, but he had to touch him. He simply had to. He reached his hand slowly into the cupboard.
The Indian gave a fantastic leap into the air. His black pigtail flew and the air ballooned out his loose-fitting leggings. His knife, raised above his head, flashed. He gave a shout which, even though it was a tiny shout to match his body, was nevertheless loud enough to make Omri jump. But not so much as he jumped when the little knife pierced his finger deeply enough to draw a drop of blood.
Omri stuck his finger in his mouth and sucked it and thought how gigantic he must look to the tiny Indian and how fantastically brave he had been to stab him. The Indian stood there, his feet, in moccasins, planted apart on the white-painted metal floor, his chest heaving, his knife held ready and his black eyes wild. Omri thought he was magnificent.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said. “I only want to pick you up.”
The Indian opened his mouth and a stream of words, spoken in that loud-tiny voice, came out, not one of which Omri could understand. But he noticed that the Indian’s strange grimace never changed – he could speak without closing his lips.
“Don’t you speak English?” asked Omri. All the Indians in films spoke a sort of English; it would be terrible if his Indian couldn’t. How would they talk to each other?
The Indian lowered his knife a fraction.
“I speak,” he grunted.
Omri breathed deeply in relief. “Oh, good! Listen, I don’t know how it happened that you came to life, but it must be something to do with this cupboard, or perhaps the key – anyway, here you are, and I think you’re great, I don’t mind that you stabbed me, only please can I pick you up? After all, you are my Indian,” he finished in a very reasonable tone.
He said all this very quickly while the Indian stared at him. The knife-point went down a little further, but he didn’t answer.
“Well? Can I? Say something!” urged Omri impatiently.
“I speak slowly,” grunted the miniature Indian at last.
“Oh.” Omri thought, and then said, very slowly, “Let – me – pick – you – up.”
The knife came up again in an instant, and the Indian’s knees bent into a crouch.
“No.”
“Oh, please.”
“You touch – I kill!” the Indian growled ferociously.
You might have expected Omri to laugh at this absurd threat from a tiny creature scarcely bigger than