“Oh, okay, I won’t then. But there’s no need to get angry. I don’t want to hurt you.” Then, as the Indian looked baffled, he said, in what he supposed was Indian-English, “Me – no – hurt – you.”
“You come near, I hurt you,” said the Indian swiftly.
Omri had been half lying in bed all this time. Now, cautiously and slowly, he got up. His heart was thundering in his chest. He couldn’t be sure why he was being cautious. Was it so as not to frighten the Indian, or because he was frightened himself? He wished one of his brothers would come in, or better still, his father … But no one came.
Standing in his bare feet he took the cupboard by its top corners and turned it till it faced the window. He did this very carefully but nevertheless the Indian was jolted, and, having nothing to hold on to, he fell down. But he was on his feet again in a second, and he had not let go of his knife.
“Sorry,” said Omri.
The Indian responded with a noise like a snarl.
There was no more conversation for the next few minutes. Omri looked at the Indian in the early sunlight. He was a splendid sight. He was about seven centimetres tall. His blue-black hair, done in a plait and pressed to his head by a coloured headband, gleamed in the sun. So did the minuscule muscles of his tiny naked torso, and the reddish skin of his arms. His legs were covered with buckskin trousers which had some decoration on them too small to see properly, and his belt was a thick hide thong twisted into a knot in front. Best of all, somehow, were his moccasins. Omri found himself wondering (not for the first time recently) where his magnifying glass was. It was the only way he would ever be able to see and appreciate the intricate embroidery, or beadwork, or whatever it was which encrusted the Indian’s shoes and clothes.
Omri looked as closely as he dared at the Indian’s face. He expected to see paint on it, war-paint, but there was none. The turkey-feather which had been stuck in the headband had come out when the Indian fell and was now lying on the floor of the cupboard. It was about as big as the spike on a conker, but it was a real feather. Omri suddenly asked:
“Were you always this small?”
“I no small! You, big!” the Indian shouted angrily.
“No—” began Omri, but then he stopped.
He heard his mother beginning to move about next door.
The Indian heard it too. He froze. The door of the next room opened. Omri knew that at any moment his mother would come in to wake him for school. In a flash he had bent down and whispered, “Don’t worry! I’ll be back.” And he closed and locked the cupboard door and jumped back into bed.
“Come on, Omri. Time to get up.”
She bent down and kissed him, paying no attention to the cupboard, and went out again, leaving the door wide open.
Omri got dressed in a state of such high excitement that he could scarcely control his fumbling fingers enough to do up buttons and tie his shoe-laces. He’d thought he was excited yesterday, on his birthday, but it was nothing compared to how he felt now.
He was dying to open the cupboard door and have another look, but the landing outside his bedroom door was like a railway station at this hour of the morning – parents and brothers passing continually, and if he were to close his door for a moment’s privacy somebody would be sure to burst in. He’d nip up after breakfast and have a quick look when he was supposed to be cleaning his teeth …
However, it didn’t work out. There was a stupid row at the breakfast table because Adiel took the last of the Rice Krispies, and although there were plenty of cornflakes, not to mention Weetabix, the other two fairly set upon Adiel and made such an awful fuss that their mother lost her temper, and the end of it was nobody got to clean their teeth at all.
They were all bundled out of the house at the last minute – Omri even forgot to take his swimming things although it was Thursday, the day his class went to the pool. He was an excellent swimmer and he was so annoyed when he remembered (halfway to school, too late to go back) that he turned on Adiel and shouted, “You made me forget my swimming stuff!” and bashed him. That naturally led to them all being late for school, and furthermore, arriving in a very grubby condition.
All this actually pushed the Indian right out of Omri’s mind. But the minute he set eyes on Patrick, he remembered. And not for one single second for the rest of the day was that Indian out of Omri’s thoughts.
You may imagine the temptation to tell Patrick what had happened. Several times Omri very nearly did tell him, and he couldn’t help dropping a number of tantalizing hints.
“Your present was the best thing I got.”
Patrick looked rather astonished. “I thought you got a skateboard!”
“Ye-es … But I like yours better.”
“Better than a skateboard? Are you having me on?”
“Yours turned out to be more exciting.”
Patrick just stared at him. “Are you being sarcastic?”
“No.”
Later, after they’d had the spelling test and Omri had been marked three right out of ten, Patrick joked, “I bet the plastic Indian could have done better.”
Unwarily, Omri replied, “Oh, I don’t think he can write English, he can only just speak—”
He stopped himself quickly, but Patrick was giving him a very odd look. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“No, what did you say about him speaking?”
Omri wrestled with himself. He wanted to keep his secret; in any case Patrick wouldn’t believe him. Yet the need to talk about it was very strong. “He can speak,” he said slowly at last.
“Beard,” said Patrick, which was their school slang for ‘I don’t believe you.’
Instead of insisting, Omri said nothing more, and that led Patrick to ask, “Why did you say that, about him speaking?”
“He does.”
“Itchy beard.” (Which of course means the same only more so.)
Omri refused to get involved in an argument. He was somehow scared that if he talked about the Indian, something bad would happen. In fact, as the day went on and he longed more and more to get home, he began to feel certain that the whole incredible happening – well, not that it hadn’t happened, but that something would go wrong. All his thoughts, all his dreams were centred on the miraculous, endless possibilities opened up by a real, live miniature Indian of his very own. It would be too terrible if the whole thing turned out to be some sort of mistake.
After school Patrick wanted him to stay in the school grounds and skateboard. For weeks Omri had longed to do this, but had never had his own skateboard till now. So it was quite beyond Patrick’s understanding when Omri said, “I can’t, I have to get home. Anyway, I didn’t bring it.”
“Why not? Are you crazy? Why do you have to get home, anyway?”
“I want to play with the Indian.”