He’d made the same noise.
Someone else clutched Omri’s flying shirt-tail and he jerked away hard and heard it rip. He swung round with his bag again, missed, and found himself turning in a circle after the bag. There was the sound of jeering laughter. He felt hot rage flood under his skin. He was roused now; he wanted to stop, to fight, but he saw their sneering, idiot faces. That was all they were waiting for. They would beat him up. They’d done it once before and he had stumbled home with a bloody nose and a shoulder bruised from the pavement, and one shoe missing. His schoolbag, too. He’d had to go back (Adiel, his eldest brother, had gone with him), and found all his books scattered, and the bag torn and half-full of filthy rubbish.
An experience like that taught you something. He fled, hating himself, but hating his enemies more. They didn’t pursue him. That would have been too much trouble. But their shouts and jeers followed him all the way to his gate.
As he turned into it, he slowed down. He was on safe ground here. It was a different world. The property had a high hedge which shut it off from the street. The house was a nice house. Omri didn’t deny that. He could see in to the warm, well-lit living room with its familiar furniture and lamps and ornaments and pictures.
His mother was in there, just putting a match to the open fire. Omri paused in the twilight to watch. He loved to see the flames. These, too, reminded him of Little Bull and the tiny fires he had made outside his tepee, the love-dance he had done around his fire before he married Twin Stars… Omri sighed. It was over a year since that time. But not a single day had passed without him thinking about his Indian and all the astonishing adventures they had had together.
Omri had grown up quite a bit in the meantime. There had been moments when he would almost have liked to believe that he’d made the whole thing up. A plastic Red Indian coming alive – absurd! He had tried to push it to the back of his mind, but it wouldn’t be pushed. It was as vividly real to him as if it had happened this morning.
The little bathroom cupboard. His special key that his mother had given him. And magic. The magic that brought plastic people to life… It had happened, all of it. And yet, three days ago, Patrick had behaved in that peculiar way. It had shaken Omri; shaken his belief in his own memory.
Patrick, too, had moved house. When his parents divorced, he and his mother and brother had gone right away. This had happened months ago. At first the boys had written to each other, but somehow the letters had petered out. There’d been no more contact between them, until three days ago. Omri had been walking out of the school gate (their old school – Omri was now in his final year before high school) and found Patrick waiting for him.
Patrick had grown. His face looked different as well. They just stood in front of each other, grinning, not knowing what to say.
“How’ve you been?” said Patrick at last.
“All right,” said Omri. “Have you moved back?”
“No. We’re visiting. I thought I’d come and look at the old school.”
They had begun walking toward the station.
“Do you like where you live now?” Omri had asked.
“Oh yeah, the country’s all right. Once you get used to it. I’ve made a few friends. And the cottage is nice. Seems funny with just the three of us.” Omri didn’t press this point. He could hardly imagine life without his dad, but then, his dad didn’t hit him, or hit his mother.
They chatted on rather awkwardly, with some silences, but it got better. By the time they’d reached the station it was almost as if Patrick had never gone away, as if they were still as close as they used to be. That was why Omri didn’t hesitate to say, “Where do you keep Boone and his horse?”
Patrick seemed to stumble as he walked, like a hiccup with his feet.
“Who?”
A little cold shiver passed down Omri’s back. He stopped.
“Boone.”
Patrick stopped too. He stared across Omri’s shoulder at the station.
“What are you on about? Who’s Boone?”
Omri narrowed his eyes. Could Patrick be serious, or was he teasing? But Patrick wasn’t a tease.
“You know perfectly well. Your cowboy.” There was a silence. Patrick was rubbing his thumb against the side of his fìnger, a quick, dry, nervous sound. “Like Little Bull was my Indian,” said Omri. He couldn’t quite believe what seemed to be happening, so he rattled on, “I’ve still got him, of course. The plastic figure of him, I mean. Remember? How he sat on his pony with Twin Stars in front of him, and raised his hand to say goodbye just as we shut the cupboard door, when we sent them back?”
The silence went on for what seemed like eternity. Then Patrick snapped his head round and looked into Omri’s face.
“You’re talking a load of rubbish,” he said loudly. “I gave you a plastic Indian for your birthday. That’s all I remember.” He looked at his watch. “My mum’s waiting,” he said shortly. “Bye.” And he ran off.
Now as Omri stood outside his new house in the gathering dark, a possible solution to this troubling and incredible episode came to him.
Maybe Patrick didn’t want to remember, he thought. Because a thing like that, well… it makes you different from other people. It’s a secret you can never tell, not if you don’t want everyone to think you’re crazy. It’s lonely having a secret like that. If Patrick hadn’t moved away, if they could have kept talking about it and remembering together, then he’d never have denied it, or started trying to pretend it never happened.
Omri entered the house by the side door, which opened into the kitchen. His black-and-white cat, Kitsa, was sitting on the draining-board. She watched him out of her knowing green eyes as he came to get a drink of water.
“You’re not supposed to be up there, Kits,” he said. “You know that.” She continued to stare at him. He flicked some water on her but she ignored it. He laughed and stroked her head. He was crazy about her. He loved her independence and disobedience.
He helped himself to a hunk of bread, butter and Primula, and walked through into the breakfast room. It was their every-meal room actually. Omri sat down and opened the paper to the cartoon. Kitsa came in, and jumped, not on to his knee but on to the table, where she lay down on the newspaper right over the bit he was looking at. She was always doing this – she couldn’t bear to see people reading.
It had been a long day. Omri laid his head on his arm, bringing it level with Kitsa’s face, and communed with her, eyeball to eyeball. He felt sleepy and cat-like. When his mother came bursting in, it gave him a fright.
“Oh, Mum… I wish you wouldn’t bash about like that!”
“Omri!”
He looked at her. She had a strange look on her face. Her eyes and mouth were wide open and she was staring at him as if she’d never seen him before.
He sat up straight, his heart beating. “What’s up?”
“A letter came for you,” she said in an odd voice to match her goggle-eyed expression.
“A letter? For me? Who from?”
“I – I’m afraid I opened it.”
She came over to him and gave him a long envelope, torn open at the top. It had printing on it as well as his name and address in typing. Omri stared at it. It said,