“Little Bull, what will you do all day while I’m at school?”
“You bring bark of tree. Little Bull make longhouse.”
“What’s that?”
“Iroquois house. Need earth, stick posts in.”
“Earth? Posts?”
“Earth. Posts. Bark. Not forget food. Weapons. Tools. Pots. Water. Fire—”
There were no quarrels at breakfast that morning. Omri gulped down his egg and ran. In the greenhouse he found a seed-tray already full of soil, well pressed down. He carried that secretly upstairs and laid it on the floor behind the dressing-up crate, which he was pretty sure his mother wouldn’t shift even if it was her cleaning day. Then he took his penknife and went out again.
Fortunately one of the trees in the garden had the sort of bark which came off easily – a silvery, flaky kind. He cut off a biggish strip, and then another to make sure (how long was a longhouse?). He pulled some grass for the pony. He cut a bundle of thin, strong, straight twigs and stripped off their leaves. Then he went back to his room and laid all these offerings beside Little Bull, who was seated cross-legged outside his tepee, arms folded, eyes closed, apparently saying his prayers.
“Omri!” came his mother’s call from downstairs. “Time to go!”
Omri took out of his pocket the corner of toast he’d saved from breakfast and cleaned out the last of the corned beef from the tin. There was some corn left as well, though it was getting rather dry by now. He filled up the Action Man’s beaker with water from the bathroom, pouring a little into the pony’s drinking-lid. The pony was munching the fresh grass with every sign of enjoyment. Omri noticed its bridle had been replaced with a halter, cleverly made of a length of thread.
“Omri!”
“Just coming!”
“The others have gone! Hurry up, you’ll be late!”
One last thing! Little Bull couldn’t make a longhouse without some sort of tool beside his knife. He’d need an axe. Frantically Omri rummaged in the biscuit tin. Ah! A knight, wielding a fearsome-looking battle axe. It wasn’t right, but it was better than nothing and would have to do. In a second the knight was locked in the cupboard.
“Omri!”
“One second!”
“What are you doing?”
Crash! The axe was being used on the inside of the cupboard door!
Omri wrenched it open, snatched the axe from the startled hands of the knight, who had just time for one horrified look before he was reduced to plastic again by the slamming of the door. Never mind! He had looked most unpleasant, just as knights must have looked when they were murdering the poor Saracens in Palestine. Omri had very little time for knights.
The axe was a beauty, though. Shining steel, with a sharp edge on both sides of the head, and a long heavy steel handle. Omri laid it at Little Bull’s side.
“Little Bull—”
But he was still in a trance – communicating with his ancestors, Omri supposed. Well, he would find everything when he came to. There was quite a trail of spilt earth leading behind the crate. Omri flashed down the stairs, grabbed his anorak and his lunch-money and was gone.
Chapter Six THE CHIEF IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE CHIEF
HE GOT TO school early by running all the way. The first thing he did was to head for the upper school library shelves. He felt that a Ladybird book on Indian tribes would not meet the situation; he wanted a much more grown-up book. And to his joy, he soon found one, under the section labelled ‘Peoples of the World’ – a book called On the Trail of the Iroquois.
He couldn’t take it out because there was nobody there to write him down for it; but he sat down then and there on a bench and began to read it.
Omri was not what you’d call a great reader. He couldn’t get into books, somehow, unless he knew them already. And how, as his teacher never tired of asking, was he ever going to get to know any more books until he read them for the first time?
And this On the Trail of the Iroquois was not exactly a comic. Tiny print, hardly any pictures, and no fewer than three hundred pages. ‘Getting into’ it was obviously out of the question, so Omri just dipped.
He managed to find out one or two fairly interesting things straight away. Iroquois Indians were sometimes called ‘The Five Nations’. One of the five were the Mohawks, a tribe Omri had heard of. They had indeed lived in longhouses, not wigwams, and their main foods had been maize and squash (whatever they were) and beans. These vegetables had, for some strange reason, been called ‘The Three Sisters’.
There were many mentions of the Algonquins as the Iroquois’ enemies, and Omri confirmed that the Iroquois had fought beside the English while the Algonquins fought for the French some time in the 1700s, and that both sides had scalped like mad.
At this point he began to get really interested. The book, in its terribly grown-up way, was trying to tell him something about why the Indians had done such a lot of scalping. Omri had always thought it was just an Indian custom, but the book seemed to say that it wasn’t at all, at least not till the White Man came. The White Man seemed to have made the Iroquois and the Algonquin keen on scalping each other, not to mention scalping White Men, French or English as the case might be, by offering them money and whisky, and guns… Omri was deep in the book, frowning heavily, several minutes after the bell had rung. Someone had to tap him on the shoulder and tell him to hurry in to Assembly.
The morning lasted forever. Three times his teacher had cause to tell Omri to wake up. At last Patrick leant over and whispered, “You’re even dreamier than usual today. What’s up?”
“I’m thinking about your Indian.”
“Listen,” hissed Patrick. “I think you’re having me on about that Indian. It was nothing so marvellous. You can buy them for a few pence in Yapp’s.” (Yapp’s was their local newsagent and toyshop.)
“I know, and all the equipment for them! I’m going shopping at lunchbreak; are you coming?”
“We’re not allowed out of school at lunch unless we eat at home, you know that!”
“I’m going anyway. I’ve got to.”
“Go after school.”
“No, I’ve got to go home after school.”
“What? Aren’t you staying to skateboard?”
“Omri and Patrick! Will you kindly stop chattering?”
They stopped.
At long last lunchtime came.
“I’m going. Are you coming?”
“No. There’ll only be trouble.”
“I can’t help that.”
“You’re a twit.”
Twit or not, Omri sneaked out, ran across the playground, through a hole in the fence (the front gate was locked to keep the infants from going in the road) and in five minutes, by running all the way, had reached Yapp’s.
The selection of plastic figures there was good. There was one whole box of mixed cowboys and Indians. Omri searched till he found a Chief wearing a cloak and a full feather headdress, with a bow in his hand and a quiverful of arrows slung across his back. Omri bought