Only this time it wasn’t quite so easy.
When he opened the cupboard, the Chief was sitting on the shelf, looking about him in bewilderment, blinking as the light struck his eyes. Omri saw at once that he was a very old man, covered in wrinkles. He took the bow out of his hands quite easily. But the quiverful of arrows was hung round him on a leather thong, and as for actually lifting the feathered headdress off his grey old head, Omri found he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. It seemed so rude.
The old man gazed up at him, blankly at first, and then with dawning terror. But he didn’t get up and he didn’t speak, though Omri saw his lips moving and noticed he had hardly any teeth.
Omri somehow felt he should offer the old Chief some friendly word to reassure him. So he held up one hand, as white men sometimes did in films when they were treating Indian Chiefs with politeness, and said, “How.”
The old Indian lifted a trembling hand, and then suddenly he slumped on to his side.
“Little Bull! Little Bull! Quick, get on to my hand!”
Omri reached down and Little Bull climbed on to his hand from the longhouse roof.
“What?”
“The old Indian – I think he’s fainted!”
He carried Little Bull to the cupboard and Little Bull stepped off on to the shelf. He stooped beside the crumpled figure. Taking the single feather out of the back of his own headband he held it in front of the old man’s mouth. Then he shook his head.
“Dead,” he said. “No breath. Heart stop. Old man. Gone to ancestors, very happy.” Without more ado, he began to strip the body, taking the headdress, the arrows, and the big, richly-decorated cloak for good measure.
Omri was shocked.
“Little Bull, stop. Surely you shouldn’t—”
“Chief dead; I only other Indian here. No one else to be Chief. Little Bull Chief now,” he said, whirling the cloak about his own bare shoulders and clapping the splendid circle of feathers on to his head with a flourish. He picked up the quiver.
“Omri give bow!” he commanded. And it was a command. Omri obeyed it without thinking. “Now! You make magic. Deer for Little Bull hunt. Fire for cook. Good meat!” He folded his arms, scowling up at Omri.
Omri was quite taken aback by all this. While giving Little Bull every respect as a person, he was not about to be turned into his slave. He began to wonder if giving him those weapons, let alone letting him make himself into a Chief, was such a good idea.
“Now look here, Little Bull—” he began, in a teacherish tone.
“OMRI!”
It was his father’s voice, fairly roaring at him from the foot of the stairs. Omri jumped, bumping the cupboard. Little Bull fell over backwards, considerably spoiling his dignity.
“Yes?”
“COME DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT!”
Omri had no time for courtesies. He snatched Little Bull up, set him down near his half-finished longhouse, shut and locked the cupboard and ran downstairs.
His father was waiting for him.
“Omri, have you been in the greenhouse lately?”
“Er—”
“And did you, while you were there, remove a seed-tray planted out with marrow seeds, may I ask?”
“Well, I—”
“Yes or no.”
“Well, yes, but—”
“And is it possible that in addition you have been hacking at the trunk of the birch and torn off strips of bark?”
“But Dad, it was only—”
“Don’t you know trees can die if you strip too much of their bark off? It’s like their skin! As for the seed-tray, that is mine. You’ve no business taking things from the greenhouse and you know it. Now I want it back, and you’d better not have disturbed the seeds or heaven help you!”
Omri swallowed hard. He and his father stared at each other.
“I can’t give it back,” he said at last. “But I’ll buy you another tray and some more seeds. I’ve got enough money. Please.”
Omri’s father had a quick temper, especially about anything concerning the garden, but he was not unreasonable, and above all he was not the sort to pry into his children’s secrets. He realized at once that his seed-tray, as a seed-tray, was lost to him forever and that it was no use hectoring Omri about it.
“All right,” he said. “You can go to the hardware shop and buy them, but I want them today.”
Omri’s face fell.
“Today? But it’s nearly five o’clock now.”
“Precisely. Be off.”
Chapter Seven UNINVITED BROTHERS
OMRI WAS NOT allowed to ride his bicycle in the road, but then he wasn’t supposed to ride it on the pavement either, not fast at any rate, so he compromised. He rode it slowly on the pavement as far as the corner, then bumped down off the curb and went like the wind.
The hardware shop was still open. He bought the seed-tray and the seeds and was just paying for them when he noticed something. On the seed packet, under the word ‘Marrow’ was written another word in brackets: ‘Squash’.
So one of the ‘Three Sisters’ was marrow! On impulse he asked the shopkeeper, “Do you know what maize is?”
“Maize, son? That’s sweetcorn, isn’t it?”
“Have you some seeds of that?”
Outside, standing by Omri’s bike, was Patrick.
“Hi.”
“Hi. I saw you going in. What did you get?”
Omri showed him.
“More presents for the Indian?” Patrick asked sarcastically.
“Well, sort of. If—”
“If what?”
“If I can keep him long enough. Till they grow.”
Patrick stared at him and Omri stared back.
“I’ve been to Yapp’s,” said Patrick. “I bought you something.”
“Yeah? What?” asked Omri, hopefully.
Slowy Patrick took his hand out of his pocket, held it in front of him and opened the fingers. In his palm lay a cowboy on a horse, with a pistol in one hand pointing upward, or what would have been upward if it hadn’t been lying on its side.
Omri looked at it silently. Then he shook his head.
“I’m sorry. I don’t want it.”
“Why not? Now you can play a proper game with the Indian.”
“They’d fight.”
“Isn’t that the whole